Who did Iggy Pop vote for in the U.S. election?

"I've been waiting for someone who could communicate the joys of liberty as compared to the joys of equality", Iggy Pop in Zigzag magazine, on why he supported Ronald Reagan, quoted in Joe Ambrose, Gimme Danger: The Life and Times of Iggy Pop, Omnibus Books, 2004, p. 199.

James Osterhaus (Iggy Pop) may not be history's most unlikely Republican supporter. He gets stiff competition from Eldridge Cleaver, co-founder of the Black Panthers, exiled from the U.S. in Algeria and Cuba during the 1970s, and Republican convert from the late 1970s to his death in 1998.

But its a reminder of not only how powerful the Republican brand of conservatism was in the US, and how far its fallen now, to think that Ronald Reagan's political tent was big enough for both Iggy Pop and Eldridge Clever to get inside it.

A link sent to me by The Running Mule made it clear how Barack Obama's win last Tuesday marks the end point of a 40-year conservative dynasty that began with Nixon, peaked with Reagan, and ended with Bush the Second and the crazy gang of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, "Heck of a job Browny" (who was that guy who managed the Hurricane Katrina events?), and Henry "The Gravedigger" Paulsen. Interestingly, John McCain was always the enemy to these guys, but when he put forward Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential nominee and started going on and on about socialism, Bill Ayres, Joe the Plumber, Obama the Hollywood Celebrity, the Democratic threesome etc. etc. the gig was up.

The Running Mule provides a link to P.J. O'Rourke in The Weekly Standard. Well worth a look, although I feel that, like the Repubs, O'Rourke's humour ain't quite what it used to be back in the day. His line on why Iggy Pop and Eldridge Cleaver were attracted to Reagan-era conservatism is, however, a good one:

Conservatives generally tend to be funnier in their private lives because of the hypocrisy factor. I am of course a big fan of hypocrisy, because hypocrites at least know the difference between right and wrong--at any rate, know enough to lie about what they're doing. Liberals are not nearly as hypocritical as conservatives, because they don't know the difference between right and wrong. In public policy liberals are always much more hilarious. Liberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid.

For O'Rourke's piece "We Blew It", read here.

Late news: apparently P. J. O'Rourke has cancer. It is the end of an era.

Satire and the '08 Campaign

Delighted to see Barack Obama win the US Presidential election. This is an election campaign that will be studied at a lot of levels for a long time. In fact, Barack Obama fought two tough campaigns, with the Democratic Party nomination against the wily and well-organised Clintons preceding the Presidential battle. At a first pinch, some of the lessons I would take form it for any future political campaigns are:

• The use of the Internet and particularly Web 2.0 technologies;
• The opportunity presented by small donation rather than simply trying to woo big corporate fundraisers;
• The rise of Silicon Valley as big backers of the Obama campaign from the word go;
  
• The cleanness and consistency of the Obama campaign throughout: the 'Change' mesage, the look and feel, the focus of the rallies, the get out the vote campaign etc.
• The wholesale shift of conservative intellectuals, libertarians and Republican moderates like Colin Powell from the Republican camp, and the disappearance of the Reagan coalition into a far-right, small town, Sarah Palin-loving anti-intellectual rump;
• What it means for Black politics in America to have as the first Black President who is not from the usual camps.

But not to focus on all of that now, Joe Queenan in The Guardian has raised the issue of the role of satire in the '08 campaign. I think he gives too much to Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression and to SNL (a show that has otherwise been off the pace for a long time), and not enough to Jon Stewart and the brilliant Stephen Colbert. One change from the '04 campaign was that it had become impossible to watch Bill O'Reilly and his ilk with their ridiculous Talking Points after Colbert's "Word", which directly parodies such nonsense.

Anyway, here's Queenan's point. I wonder what some of these folk will do as GW Bush and the other comedy show fodder leave the building once and for all.

In polls conducted immediately after the Republican national convention in September, John McCain finally overtook Barack Obama and seemed poised to win a trip to the White House this month. He had rallied the party base. He had invigorated the independents. He had won the kudos of the Great Unwashed. And he had firmly established himself in the consciousness of his countrymen as that quintessential American icon: the lone wolf, he who marches to the beat of a different drummer, the maverick.

Then, something truly astonishing occurred. Tina Fey, the lantern-jawed alumnus of Saturday Night Live, and creator of the critically esteemed sitcom 30 Rock, made a return visit to Saturday Night Live and began doing a dead-on impersonation of McCain's gee-whiz, aw-shucks running mate, Sarah Palin. Her send-up of the intellectually anaemic Alaskan was seen by countless millions on YouTube and soon became the No1 topic of conversation in America. Almost overnight, McCain's poll numbers began to drop precipitously, as the arrayed forces of electronically transmitted satire rained down on the GOP ticket. Before you knew it, Palin was viewed as a clown, a dolt, a joke, and McCain was condemned as a nitwit for selecting her as his running mate. For the first time in American history, a presidential candidate had seen all his hopes and dreams undone by the sheer emotive power of naked, unalloyed satire.

Obviously, Ms Fey did not accomplish this all by herself. Clearly, the savage nightly attacks by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart played an important role in softening up the target. Surely the satirical tabloid The Onion should get some credit here. Without a doubt, the withering contempt of Bill Maher and Michael Moore played a vital role in causing the Republican colossus to come crashing to earth.

But the truth is, Moore and Maher and Stewart and Colbert had been flaying the Republican party for years without any notable effect. Not until Tina Fey stepped into the ring and began eviscerating the hapless Palin did the tide truly begin to turn. Like Horatius at the bridge, like William Tell versus the Austrian invaders, like George Washington at Valley Forge, Ms Fey had come to the aid of her country at the moment her country needed her most. She serviced it with a smile.

Whatever one's political orientation, there can be no denying that 2008 is the year that satire – previously, the weak stepsister of sarcasm – finally came to the fore in American political life, unleashing a tsunami of politically-charged ridicule and invective that has changed the republic forever. This triumph has been a long time in coming.

Satire was notably ineffective when used against Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972, the year he won one of the most lopsided victories in history. Satire did not work against Ronald Reagan, universally dismissed as a dunce by pundits, wits and wiseacres. Nor did it have much effect on George HW Bush when he squared off against the mirthless Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Satire was equally impotent when used against George W Bush in 2000 and 2004, despite his big ears and malapropisms and earthy diction and overall resemblance to Alfred E Neuman and the widespread perception among those who ply their trade in the pith industry that he was a hapless dunce.

Why, then, has satire been so effective in 2008, when it had almost no effect on previous races? Two reasons. One: the material is better crafted, researched and delivered than ever before. Colbert and his ilk are simply funnier than Tom Wolfe and PJ O'Rourke and Woody Allen and Mark Twain and all the other satirists who preceded them.

Two, the viral element has come into play, enabling brilliant pieces like Fey's Sarah Palin shtick to be seen by tens of millions of people who do not want to sit through an entire broadcast of Saturday Night Live. Satire, previously thought of as a harmless derringer or an unreliable fowling weapon, has found a delivery system that renders it lethal. Satire has gone nuclear.

Spoilsports may argue that satire alone could not have wrecked the McCain campaign. Surely, they will argue, the implosion of the housing market, a 40% decline in the value of the Dow wiping out $7tn in shareholder equity, the disappearance of several of the largest banks in the United States, and the loss of millions of jobs have contributed to McCain's slump in the polls. Surely, the debacle in Iraq, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the inability of the Republican party to bring Osama bin Laden to justice have had some effect on the outcome of the race.

Perhaps. But that effect has been negligible. A presidential candidate can sidestep a controversial issue such as the grim spectre of another Great Depression. A candidate can dance around two failed wars, a trillion-dollar deficit, the instantaneous disappearance of several million jobs, or having a bunch of high-level cabinet posts staffed by clowns.

But not even the most gifted candidate can defend himself against the combined, cohesive forces of unilaterally condescending satire. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make ridiculous. A Great Depression is merely the icing on the cake.

Rise of the Obamacons

This from The Economist. This trend was very much apparent when I was in the U.S., and John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate and the nasty (and scatty) nature of the Republica campaign seems to have confirmed the trend of conservatives and libertarians shifting their support to Barack Obama.

IN “W.”, his biopic about his Yale classmate, Oliver Stone details Colin Powell’s agonies during George Bush’s first term. Throughout the film Mr Powell repeatedly raises doubts about the invasion of Iraq—and is repeatedly overruled by the ghoulish trio of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. In one of the final scenes, with his direst warnings proving correct, Mr Powell turns to Mr Cheney and delivers a heartfelt “Fuck you”.

The real Colin Powell used more diplomatic language in endorsing Barack Obama on October 19th, but the impact was much the same. Mr Obama is a “transformational figure”, he mildly said, and his old friend John McCain had erred in choosing a neophyte as a running-mate. But you would have to be naive not to see the endorsement as a verdict on the Bush years.

Mr Powell is now a four-star general in America’s most surprising new army: the Obamacons. The army includes other big names such as Susan Eisenhower, Dwight’s granddaughter, who introduced Mr Obama at the Democratic National Convention and Christopher Buckley, the son of the conservative icon William Buckley, who complains that he has not left the Republican Party: the Republican Party has left him. Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska and one-time bosom buddy of Mr McCain has also flirted heavily with the movement, though he has refrained from issuing an official endorsement.

The biggest brigade in the Obamacon army consists of libertarians, furious with Mr Bush’s big-government conservatism, worried about his commitment to an open-ended “war on terror”, and disgusted by his cavalier way with civil rights. There are two competing “libertarians for Obama” web sites. CaféPress is even offering a “libertarian for Obama” lawn sign for $19.95. Larry Hunter, who helped to devise Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America in 1994, thinks that Mr Obama can free America from the grip of the “zombies” who now run the Republican Party.

But the army has many other brigades, too: repentant neocons such as Francis Fukuyama, legal scholars such as Douglas Kmiec, and conservative talk-show hosts such as Michael Smerconish. And it is picking up unexpected new recruits as the campaign approaches its denouement. Many disillusioned Republicans hoped that Mr McCain would provide a compass for a party that has lost its way, but now feel that the compass has gone haywire. Kenneth Adelman, who once described the invasion of Iraq as a “cakewalk”, decided this week to vote for Mr Obama mainly because he regards Sarah Palin as “not close to being acceptable in high office”.

The rise of the Obamacons is more than a reaction against Mr Bush’s remodelling of the Republican Party and Mr McCain’s desperation: there were plenty of disillusioned Republicans in 2004 who did not warm to John Kerry. It is also a positive verdict on Mr Obama. For many conservatives, Mr Obama embodies qualities that their party has abandoned: pragmatism, competence and respect for the head rather than the heart. Mr Obama’s calm and collected response to the turmoil on Wall Street contrasted sharply with Mr McCain’s grandstanding.

Much of Mr Obama’s rhetoric is strikingly conservative, even Reaganesque. He preaches the virtues of personal responsibility and family values, and practises them too. He talks in uplifting terms about the promise of American life. His story also appeals to conservatives: it holds the possibility of freeing America from its racial demons, proving that the country is a race-blind meritocracy and, in the process, bankrupting a race-grievance industry that has produced the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Farewell the Reagan Republicans

An interesting feature of the US Presidential election campaign has been the extent to which the 'Reagan coalition' has been falling apart, and how the Republican Party has lurched ever further to the far right. This is despite the fact that John McCain's best hope was to steer the party towards the centre and try and capture the large number of 'Clinton Democrats' who remained wary of Barack Obama until Sarah Palin appeared on the scene. It is also why conservatives are jumping ship en masse, with Colin Powell the most prominent recent example of what is becoming quite a long list.

This analysis from Forbes magazine - a conservative, pro-business media outlet, whose owner, Steve Forbes, twice ran for the Republican Party leadership - points to the longer term problems this is presenting for the Republican Party in the US. In pointing to the growing number of business leaders going the way of Obama and the Democrats, it had me wondering where Rupert Murdoch is politically now, and whether that has implications for the future of FOX News after 2009.

R.I.P. Reagan Revolution
Dan Gerstein 10.22.08, 12:01 AM ET

As a student of politics, I have been watching this campaign with one eye on the historic prospects of Barack Obama and one eye on the tenuous future of his Republican opponents.

I have been particularly fascinated by how the Republicans plan to begin rehabilitating the brand that President Bush and his allies have shredded over the last eight years, reconnect with their sunny Reagan roots and prepare themselves to compete again for the determinative center of the electorate.

Judging from the disturbing developments of the last two months, the verdict seems clear. Forget the self-reckoning and self-repairing--the Republicans seem intent on self-immolation. Indeed, instead of trying to work itself out of the deep electoral hole that Bush and company created, the GOP has apparently opted to apply the drill-baby-drill mantra to its own political fortunes--and, improbably, find ways to narrow the party's appeal to the swing voters they have done so much to alienate during the Bush era.

I'm not talking about what the hateful yahoos who are attending rallies for the Republican ticket are yelling (albeit after being egged on by a flurry of indefensible attacks by the McCain campaign and its surrogates). I'm talking about what Republican leaders and elected officials are actually saying and doing. All of which, taken together, suggests that the GOP of the moment is now far closer to being the party of Joe McCarthy than John McCain, and explains why Colin Powell and many other responsible Republicans are sending increasingly urgent distress signals over the sinking McCain ship.

We have seen the party that gave us Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan nominate a woman for vice president who could not answer an interviewer's relatively gentle question about what news sources she regularly reads. This is not a matter of class or gender, but rather seriousness and credibility, which Sarah Palin lost with many voters who were willing to give her a fair shake the minute she claimed that seeing Russia from her state was a foreign policy credential.

We have seen Palin go on to falsely accuse her Democratic opponent of "palling around with terrorists." The most outrageous thing about this assertion is not the gross exaggeration of Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, but the shameful, purposeful use of the plural: "terrorists." These are the kinds of loony accusations we are used to hearing from members of the ultraconservative John Birch Society, not running mates of John McCain.

We have seen one of McCain's campaign co-chairman, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, use the racially loaded term "guy of the street" to try to paint Obama as extreme to white America. This about a black man who grew up in the suburbs of Hawaii, graduated from Columbia University, was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, taught constitutional law for 12 years and was attacked as an elitist by Republicans for talking about the price of arugula in Iowa? He is about as "street" as the late William F. Buckley, Jr.

Just last Friday, we saw a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, explicitly attack Obama and his wife as "anti-American" and call on the media to investigate members of Congress to "find out if they are pro-America or anti-America." Then Palin repeated this patriotism-questioning line at a rally in North Carolina, saying she was glad to be in a part of the country that was "pro-America." One has to wonder what made these women think that this was acceptable in the United States of 2008?

And most recently, as if the overt hints of McCarthyism were not enough, McCain and his allies are now openly calling Obama a socialist because he wants to raise the top tax brackets back to their Clinton-era levels (when the country enjoyed the greatest peacetime expansion in our history) and provide a cut in the payroll tax to middle class workers.

For more see here.

Patchwork Nation

I'm not usually a reader of the Christian Science Monitor, but they have developed a really interesting angle on the 2008 U.S. election through the 'Patchwork Nation' site. What it does is divide up the various counties and populations of the United States into 11 categories, and have a person blog about how the campaign is being viewed in a city or county that is representative of the whole.

The eleven categories, which have roughly proportionate shares of the U.S. population, are:

1. Minority Central;
2. Service Worker Centre;
3. Monied 'Burbs;
4. Industrial metropolis;
5. Emptying Nests;
6. Boom Towns;
7. Tractor Country;
8. Military Bastions;
9. Immigrant Nation;
10. Campus and Careers;
11. Evangelical Epicentres.

Project director Dante Chinni explains the project here.

Users can check where they sit by entering their own postcode, and can take a survey to see how they match up with others in the community type.

Its the economy what done it

US Presidential election trend polling data from Nate Silver's five-thirty-eight site. The spike in Obama's support coincides with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Unless there is something really hidden in the American voter psyche, this is starting to look like a win to Obama on a significant scale.

Are Christian voters shifting in the U.S.?

When I was in the U.S. in 2008, there was considerable talk about whether the 40-year tendency for Christians to vote Republican in a significant majority was shifting. Barack Obama's campaign had put particular energy into reaching out to faith communities, and there was a sense that younger Christians were less motivated by the traditional 'hot-button' issues of evangelical Christians such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Evidence is starting to come in that such a shift is taking place. This story reports on the recent findings of the Faith in Public Life group:

The Democratic Party’s outreach to young people and to people of faith seems to be paying off.

A new survey on faith and American politics shows Democratic nominee Barack Obama making inroads among some believers and moving ahead of Republican John McCain among Roman Catholics, largely because of young Catholics’ support.

In the biggest shift over the past four years, Senator Obama now wins the backing of 60 percent of voters who attend religious services once or twice a month, a jump from the 49 percent the Democratic nominee won in 2004.

Senator McCain holds the advantage only among the highly religious who attend once or more a week. Moreover, more Americans say Obama is more friendly to religion than is McCain (49 to 46 percent), an image booster for a party long seen as not particularly faith-friendly.

The survey titled “The Young and the Faithful” was released Wednesday by Faith in Public Life and was conducted by Public Religion Research (PRR). It involved interviews with a representative sample of 2,000 Americans and an oversample of 1,250 young people ages 18 to 34.

As the first close look at the political views of young people during the 2008 campaign, the survey confirms their focus on a broader agenda and reveals a generation gap on several issues.

“Younger Americans, including young Americans of faith, are not the culture-war generation,” says Robert Jones, president of PRR. “There is a kind of cosmopolitan worldview.”

For instance, young adults are more open to religious diversity and cooperation, they are less likely to say that one has to believe in God to be moral, and they believe good diplomacy rather than military strength is the best way to promote peace, says Dr. Jones.

The generation gap is striking in several areas. Young voters are much more inclined to support a larger government that provides more services (57 percent versus 45 percent of the overall population). That’s true within every faith tradition, but young Catholics stand out as the most pro-government constituency of all (67 percent favor more government services).

Young adults support government involvement most in regard to helping the poor and the environment. But Catholics and Evangelicals also favor a government role in “protecting morality.”

At the same time, young adults show greater support for keeping abortion legal than do Americans overall (58 to 50 percent). Catholics and white Evangelicals differ here, however, with 60 percent of young Catholics backing legal abortion and 67 percent of Evangelicals opposed. Yet two-thirds of young Evangelicals say they’d consider voting for a candidate who disagrees with them on abortion.

On the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage, the generation gap is great and growing. Forty-six percent of young people support the right of gays to marry, and an additional 22 percent back civil unions. Among the overall population the figures are 29 and 28 percent, respectively. Younger white Evangelicals are 2.5 times more likely to support same-sex marriage than are white evanglicals as a whole.

Overall, Americans young and old ranked abortion and same-sex marriage at the bottom of their list of issues most important to their vote, with the economy, energy, and healthcare at the top.

Given these perspectives, there is perhaps little surprise that Obama has a 24-percentage-point advantage among young adults, leading McCain by 59 to 35 percent. Among first-time voters, he holds a commanding lead of 71 percent to 23 percent.

“Younger believers – including Catholics and white evangelicals – are significantly more supportive of bigger government and expanding diplomatic efforts abroad,” says D. Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University in Houston. “It may very well be that in this election, the conventional wisdom about ‘values voters’ – who they are and what they want – gets turned on its head.”

Despite the young Evangelicals’ broader agenda and the fact that only 49 percent call themselves conservative, they remain the one group of young adults not showing strong support for Obama. In fact, McCain leads among young white Evangelicals 65 percent to 29 percent.

No country for old men?

"Late Show" host David Letterman kept up a verbal assault on John McCain Thursday, saying he felt like an "ugly date" because the GOP presidential candidate backed out of a scheduled appearance on his talk show.

The night before, Letterman had said McCain's decision to suspend his campaign to deal with the economic crisis "didn't smell right." Letterman substituted MSNBC's "Countdown" host — and critic of the Arizona senator — Keith Olbermann when McCain called him to say he wouldn't appear Wednesday.

The comic was unhappy when McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead of him Wednesday — and even more perturbed to learn that McCain didn't leave New York until Thursday.

He said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I'm feeling like an ugly date."

"That's what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."

McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said Thursday that the campaign "felt this wasn't a night for comedy."

Not a time for comedy? Then why are John McCain and Sarah Palin providing so much material? I would have thought it was the PERFECT time for comedy.

A swing to Obama is well and truly on

Daily Kos reporting a poll from FOX News (hardly a bastion of Obamanauts):

Bad news for McCain from our friends at Fox

by kos

Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:38:58 PM PDT

Opinion Dynamics for Fox News. 9/22-23. Registered voters. 3% (9/8-9 results)

McCain (R) 39 (45)
Obama (D) 45 (42)

Thirty nine? Really? Thirty-freaking-nine?

And this poll was conducted before McCain cut and run on the debates.

Update: Let's dig a bit into the internals (PDF).

Independents

McCain (R) 31 (46)
Obama (D) 36 (31)

That one's gotta hurt. That's a 20-point swing.

And speaking of swings, compared to the previous poll after the GOP convention, Sarah Palin's net favorability is down 16 points, McCain's down 11. Obama is +3 (eight points higher than McCain) while Biden is down five.

What else? Asked which candidate they'd be most likely to go hear speak, 42 percent said Obama, 24 percent McCain, 14 percent Palin and 3 percent Biden.

And this is before McCain sought to suspend the first Presidential debate, which is apparently playing very badly.

Note also that Sarah Palin is turning into a liability, particularly with the swing voters.

Jay Rosen on the Sarah Palin strategy

NYU professor Jay Rosen on the US Republican party's media strategy arising from the Sarah Palin Vice-Presidential nomination:

PressThink, by Jay Rosen

September 3, 2008

The Palin Convention and the Culture War Option

John McCain's convention gambit calls for culture war around the Sarah Palin pick. And now The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars. An option is forming. This is my attempt to describe it before her big speech in St. Paul.

“She’s from a small town, with small-town values — but apparently, that’s not good enough for some of the folks out there attacking her and her family. Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Washington talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.” —Fred Thompson addressing the Republican convention, Sep. 2, 2008.

John McCain’s convention gambit is a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ‘68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.

At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war can be fought to scale, as it were. The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars.

I have no idea if the ignition system will work; nor do I claim that “this is what they were thinking” when they made the decision to nominate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Other interpretations may turn out to be truer than mine. This is my look at the bets McCain and company seem to be placing. I am not recommending the strategy. I am not predicting it will succeed. I think it was improvised, like my description here.

The storm around Sarah Pailn overtakes the story of the Republican convention and merges with it, like a smaller but stronger company taking over a larger but troubled enterprise. Behind the storm a “wave narrative” builds as her appointment generates headlines on multiple fronts. The irresistible force of fact-fed controversy meets the immovable enthusiasm for Palin as cultural object: charismatic everywoman straight from the imaginary of conservative small town America.

* The basic strategy is: don’t fight the “crisis” narrative. Rather, do things that bring it on, and in that crisis re-divide the electorate hoping to grab the bigger half.

The evangelical wing, and other social conservatives are strongly moved by her candidacy. More and more of their commitment to McCain is vested in him through her. As Andrew Sullivan writes: “The emotions involved - especially among the Christianist base who have immediately bonded on purely religious and cultural terms with Palin - are epic.”

* The strategy: sell the epic version of her candidacy. Allow her to become bigger than McCain in narrative terms. And let the two mavericks together overawe the Republican party, a damaged brand.

Continued bad news on the investigation front adds further drama, new fact streams and more protagonists to the Sarah Palin story. As more comes out about the decision to name Sarah Palin to the ticket, it’s harder to see how anyone on the inside thought it McCain’s best choice for president-in-waiting.

* Strategy: Give no ground, pile on the praise for her performance in Alaska, pump up her governor’s experience to death-defying extremes, hope for theatrical confrontation with characters in the mainstream media who can star as the cosmopolitan elites in the sudden politics of resentment the convention has been driven to.

Bloggers and open platforms continue to publish riskier—and risque—material, some of it unfit for family consumption, some of it false, salacious and reckless, some of it true, relevant and damaging, a portion of which is picked up by the traditional press.

* Strategy: confound and collapse all distinctions between closed editorial systems (like the newsroom of the New York Times), open systems (like the blogging community DailyKos.com) and political systems, like the Democratic party and its activist wing. Whenever possible mix these up. Conflate constantly. Attack them all. Jump from one to the other without warning or thread. Sow confusion among streams and let that confusion mix with the resentment in a culture war atmosphere.

As more emerges about how the McCain camp made the decision, the appointment looks more and reckless, the decision rushed, the vetting inadequate. This leads to advanced jeering from the left, intense criticism in the press, damaging leaks from within the Republican party, fueling calls from within and without for Sarah Palin to remove herself.

* Strategy: stick with “she was fully vetted” no matter what comes out. People who don’t believe it are trying to bring down Palin’s historic candidacy; or they don’t accept that a conservative woman can be the one to break the glass ceiling. If some establishment Republicans are skeptical or trying to stop her, that’s good for the crisis narrative, and good for two maverick candidates.

Sarah Palin under intense pressure then gives a charismatic performance on Wednesday of convention week and wows much of America, outdrawing Obama in the ratings and sending a flood of cash to McCain and the GOP.

* Strategy: bingo, that’s your big break. A wave effect is unleashed by a stunning televised performance. It is shock and awe in the theater of the post-modern presidency.

Journalists watching all this keep saying to themselves: wait until she gets out on the campaign trail. Wait until she sits for those interviews with experienced reporters and faces a real press conference.

* Strategy: double down on defiance by never letting her answer questions, except from friendly media figures who have joined your narrative; like Cheney with Fox. No meet the press at all. No interviews of Palin with the DC media elite— at all. De-legitimate the ask. Break with all “access” expectations. Use surrogates and spokesmen, let them get mauled, then whip up resentment at their mistreatment. Answer questions at town halls and call that adequate enough.

Meanwhile, the investigation of her performance in Alaska puts more and more pressure on the Palin appointment as things come out that would ordinarily disqualify a candidate from consideration or cast doubt on her truthfulness in a grave way.

* Strategy: Comes from Bush, the younger. When realities uncovered are directly in conflict with prior claims, consider the option of keeping the claims and breaking with reality. Done the right way, it’s a demonstration of strength. It dismays and weakens the press. And it can be great theatre.

Florida 2000 all over again?

Investigative journalist Greg Palast suspects that some serious pre-emptive voter deregistration is going on in the U.S., particularly in the traditionally Republican western states, that may be a re-run of the Florida 2000 affairs come November in the U.S. Presidential elections.

In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.

In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.

In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.

In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.

For more, see here.

Barack Obama's Convention Speech

On John McCain

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90% of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10% chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on healthcare and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this president. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisers - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners".

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle class as someone making under $5m a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans? How else could he offer a healthcare plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatise social security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the ownership society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No healthcare? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

On foreign policy

If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government, and even the Bush administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79bn surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans - Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As commander-in-chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace and who yearn for a better future.

On the economy

We Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23m new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honours the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

On taxes

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

On fuel

For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies retool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150bn over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5m new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

On education

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

On healthcare

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible healthcare for every single American. If you have healthcare, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

On pensions

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect social security for future generations.

On abortion

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

On gun control

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the second amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

On same-sex marriages

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

On immigration

Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

On individual responsibility

We must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength". Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programmes alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

On equal pay

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

On patriotism

What I will not do is suggest that the senator [McCain] takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

On his background

In the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbour, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mum, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the south side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.

On change

I realise that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For 18 long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

On the American spirit

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

Source: The Guardian

Conservatives for Obama #2

In a previous post I drew attention to the interesting phenomenon in U.S. politics of prominent conservatives switching sides this election towards Barack Obama. Whether its due to dislike of John McCain, bitterness at the Bush legacy, or a genuine interest in the Illinois senator as a new type of Democrat, this phenomenon is getting picked up in a few places:

The "Obamacans" that Sen. Barack Obama used to joke about - Republican apostates who whispered their support for his candidacy - have morphed into a new phenomenon, or syndrome, as detractors like to call it: the Obamacons.

These are conservatives who have publicly endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, dissidents from the brain trust of think tanks, ex-officials and policy magazines that have fueled the Republican Party since the 1960s. Scratch the surface of this elite, and one finds a profound dismay that is far more damaging to the GOP than the usual 10 percent of registered Republicans expected to switch sides during a presidential election.

See more here.

Hillary Clinton concedes ... finally

Four days after the speech where she should have conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has finally does so. Let's hope to see less of Team Clinton - Bill, Lanny Davis, Terry McAuliffe, Paul Begala et al. - on the cable news channels. I think that Hillary has positioned herself to be the 'Health czar' in an Obama administration if he wins. There would be long odds on her beig the nomination for Vice-President.

The Economist has a pretty good summary of the Fall of the House of Clinton. Key points:

From the first most of her biggest advantages proved to be booby-trapped. Mrs Clinton stood head and shoulders above Mr Obama when it came to experience—she had been one of the two most influential first ladies in American history and had proved to be a diligent senator, a “work-horse, not a show horse”. But Mrs Clinton's “experience” included her decision to vote in favour of invading Iraq, a decision that was radioactive to many Democrats. And Mr Obama was the first to grasp that this is an election about change, not experience. Americans have had enough of experience in the form of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Seventy per cent of them say America is headed in the wrong direction.

The Clinton machine only exaggerated this problem. Mrs Clinton surrounded herself with familiar faces from her White House years—people like Mark Penn, her chief strategist, Terry McAuliffe, her chief fund-raiser, Howard Wolfson (one of the least helpful spokesmen this newspaper has ever encountered) and, of course, her husband. But these people were all deeply enmeshed in a Washington establishment that most voters despised.

...

The Clinton machine was too stuck in the 1990s to grasp how the internet was revolutionising political fund-raising. Mrs Clinton built the best fund-raising machine of the 20th century—persuading Democratic fat cats to make the maximum contributions allowable and accumulating a vast treasure trove of money. But Mr Obama trumped her by building the best fund-raising machine of the 21st century.

Mr Obama simultaneously lowered the barrier to entry to Obamaworld and raised expectations of what it meant to be a supporter. Mr Obama's supporters not only showered him with small donations. They also volunteered their time and enthusiasm. His website was thus a vast social networking site (one of his chief organisers was a founder of Facebook)—a mechanism not just for translating enthusiasm into cash but also for building a community of fired-up supporters. Mr Obama's small donations proved to be a renewable resource, as supporters could give several times, up to a maximum of $2,300. Mrs Clinton ran out of cash.

...

The Clinton campaign might well reply that this catalogue of failures ignores the fact that it was a very close run result. Mrs Clinton won almost exactly the same number of votes as Mr Obama (and claims to have won slightly more, though on a fair count she won fractionally less). She won most of the big states. She improved hugely as a campaigner after the reverses of February, and pulled off big victories in the final weeks of the campaign.

But given the scale of her advantages a year ago there is no doubt that the Clinton campaign comprehensively blew it. Mr Obama will now go on to fight the general election with his primary strategy vindicated and his campaign staff intact. Mrs Clinton has big debts and a brand that is badly tarnished.

...

And, during the campaign, Mrs Clinton has damaged not only her future but also her past. The Clintons were modernisers who argued that the Democratic Party needed to reinvent itself—embracing free-trade, investing in human capital and reaching out to upwardly mobile voters. During her inept bid Mrs Clinton fell back on all the worst instincts of Democratic politics—denouncing free trade, stirring up the resentments of blue-collar America, and adding a flirtation with racism to the brew. After such an unedifying performance, it is hard to believe that Mrs Clinton's failed campaign represents a missed opportunity for America.

The table accompanying this story indicates that Barack Obama had cemented himself as the preferred Democratic Party candidate in opinion polls by February, and maintained a 5-10% lead over Hillary Clinton from then on. It was really the vacillation of the so-called 'super-delegates', the question of what to do about the votes and delegates from recalcitrant states Florida and Michigan, and the view that Clinton was entitled to see the race out to the end that kept things going as long as they did.

John McCain and the future of the Republicans

Most attention in the U.S. Presidential elections has been given to the Democratic Party, and the wide schism revealed in its support base between supporters of Hillary Clinton (majority of women, Latinos, older voters, lower income, lower average levels of education) and Barack Obama (majority of African-Americans, younger voters, higher income, tertiary educated). It has been cast as “a standoff between the Dukes of Hazzard and the Huxtables” , but its fault lines are pretty clear. This cannot be said for the Republican Party going into the 2008 elections.

John McCain does not bring a strong hand to the election, although the ongoing saga of the Democrat nominee has helped somewhat. There is usually a change in the governing party after eight years of one President holding office. While this was not true in 1988, George Bush gained the presidency with Ronald Reagan having a personal approval rating of about 60%. George W. Bush has a personal approval rating below 30%, and sinking. Even if his approval figures were better, this would be no guarantee against change. Bill Clinton left office with personal approval ratings over 60%, but his Vice-President Al Gore could not defeat the Republicans in 2000.

The position of the Republicans as a party is far worse than that of John McCain as its presumptive Presidential nominee. Having lost control of both the Senate and the House in the 2006 mid-term primaries, they have recently experienced three major losses in special Congressional elections. The most recent loss was in a presumed safe seat in Mississippi, where there was a 20% swing to the Democrats. Several Republican analysts have warned that the Republican ‘brand’ is ‘dog food’, and if it were a product it would be taken off the shelf.

Reasons for this are many and varied, and go well beyond commitment to the War in Iraq. Basically, the Republicans in Congress have been sinking with the Bush presidency, and the sense of malaise and policy failure that surrounds it. The question is where John McCain goes in relation to it.

McCain has some distance from Bush, and has accentuated it in recent times with a speech in New Orleans condemning how Hurricane Katrina was handled in 2005, and a recent speech (sort of) acknowledging the threat of global warming. The question, however, is not simply one of personal style and belief, but goes to the heart of where America’s conservative party wants to be over the next decade.

The question revolves around two axes. One is economic. Conservatives view the fiscal profligacy of the Bush years with horror, as it has combined large and regressive tax cuts (which they would otherwise support) with a big increase in government spending, not just on the war in Iraq, but also on a wide range of social programs. They see that as reversing the ‘Reagan doctrine’ and recreating a culture that all social problems are addressed through more government spending, throwing fiscal conservatism out the window, ad denying them any real point of differentiation from the Democrats. Moreover, the groaning fiscal and trade deficits adversely impact on foreign policy. The recent tax cuts to avert economic recession were described a “Borrowing more money from the Chinese to pay for oil bought from the Saudis.”

The other axis is cultural, or what are also termed ‘faith and values’ issues. McCain has recognized the problems that arise from the Republicans being tied to the evangelical Christian right, particularly with younger voters – he has made thirteen appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which conservative pundits such as Bill O’Reilly would dismiss as a show for “stoned slackers”.

A move to the cultural centre would be to follow what might be termed the ‘Arnie strategy’. As Governor of California, the largest state in the U.S. in both population and economic terms, Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the nation’s most politically successful Republicans. Schwarzenegger e governs what is otherwise now a Democrat state – even though it is the home state of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan – by recognizing that the social liberalism of the state and aligning this with economic conservatism and pro-business policies.

The centrist ‘Arnie strategy’ appeals to McCain, and makes a lot of sense in an election where the Republicans now have a real opportunity in capturing the vote of Hillary Clinton supporters if Barack Obama is the Democrat nominee and they can position Obama as ‘too liberal’. The catch is that the support base of the Republicans – from Christian lobby groups to influential donors to the bevy of conservative columnists, radio talk show hosts and TV pundits – have run so long and hard on a conservative ‘culture wars’ position that they will feel let down by a Republican nominee who does not align to these values and positions on their favoured ‘hot button’ issues.

The silence of all sides (McCain, Obama, Clinton) on the California Supreme Court decision to overturn the ban on same-sex marriages indicates how tricky these issues are becoming. They are much more complex for the Republicans than the Democrats, since making a big issue of such decisions in order to mobilise the conservative base has been the sine qua non of Republican politics for decades.

McCain’s dilemma, and how he addresses it, will influence the shape of conservative politics worldwide for some time to come, just as the ‘Reagan revolution’ has been a defining influence globally for the last 30 years.


PS: To get a sense of how hard it may be to retrain Republican supporters from well-established habits, see conservative talk-show host Kevin James’s responses to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on whether talking to political enemies is the same as appeasement, which apparently ‘energized’ Hitler in 1939.

Blowhard alert

If you want to see historical understanding and argument at it most sophisticated, check this interview between Chris Matthews from MSNBC and right-wing talk-show host Kevin James on the meaning of appeasement:



John McCain is facing an interesting question about how much he wants to associate with these people in his run for the U.S. Presidency this year. G.W. Bush and his foreign policy are not all that popular at present, with presidential approval ratings below 30%. Does McCain want the same dogs at his tree?

And for more right-wing blowhards, witness the young Bill O'Reilly and his work with the teleprompter guy.



And a dance remix here:

'The last trip to send the family pet to the vet?' Indiana and North Carolina Democratic Party primaries

The Democratic Party primaries may appear to continue the status quo in the campaign, with Hilary Clinton winning Indiana as expected, and Barack Obama winning North Carolina as expected. But the magnitude of Obama's win in North Carolina (58-42%) and the narrowness of Hilary Clinton's win in Indiana (52-48%) indicate that the long Democrat contest is all but over for Hilary Clinton.

As one Republican strategist unkindly put it on CNN as the early figures came in, "This is the last trip to send the family pet to the vet."

However you slice and dice the figures, it is now apparent that Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, and that the super delegates will now be close to declaring for Obama, killing off the Clinton's hope of a palace coup at the Denver Convention.

On the popular vote through the primaries overall, and including the disputed Florida primary (although not Michigan, where Obama's name did not appear on the ballot paper), Obama has a 49% to 47% margin over Hilary Clinton.

What it means for the Democrats' chances in November depends on how you read three factors. The first is the extent to which the Clinton campaign's bruising campaign against Obama has damaged him as a Presidential candidate, and whether they will put aside differences and work towards trying to see Obama win in 2008, or sit back and snipe with an eye to the 2012 campaign should John McCain beat Obama.

The second point is that the nature of the contest itself has energised the Democrat base significantly, and this may matter in states that would be otherwise solidly Republican, such as Indiana and North Carolina, as they have now had far more exposure to Barack Obama and his policies than they would have had if the primary contest had been settled earlier.

The last point, and the toughest one, is how to now hold together the very different voting blocs that have emerged. Obama's core bloc of the tertiary educated and African-Americans can carry the Democrat nomination but not the U.S. Presidency. They need to bring in Hilary Clinton's core bloc of older, rural, blue collar and high school educated voters. In particular, the big challenge will be to win over the women of Hilary's generation and older who saw this as the great opportunity of their lifetime to see the first U.S. woman president.

Hilary Clinton's campaign was not saved by the cornpoke politics of the last two weeks, with its mix of veiled threats about Obama, its know-nothing populist policies (nuke Iran, put OPEC before the WTO, the 'gas tax holiday' that couldn't be), and the attempt to transform herself into something less than she actually is (a kind of Bush-lite). If the Clintons can finally drop their swords and think about working with Barack Obama, they would be a great asset. Bill Clinton remain the only really successful Democrat U.S. presidential nominee since 1964, and Hilary Clinton would be a very strong contributor to public policy if Obama won.

One big problem was pinned down in Salon by Thomas Schaller, which is that Hilary Clinton should not have done as badly with African-American voter as she has. She would never have got a majority once it was clear that Barack Obama was a real chance, but figures such as 6% and 8% of the African-American vote in Indiana and North Carolina are appalling for a candidate whose husband had a very strong base of support among African-Americans when he was President.

Things you didn't know about voting in Indiana

Continuing my theme on the Indiana Democratic Party primaries, I thought I would share some information about how voting happens here:

1. People vote for delegates individually. You receive a ballot paper with the names of all prospective Democrat nominees to the party convention, and choose 56 of them. The paper is about seven pages long. There is not the option, as the is with the Senate in Australia, of putting a one at the top of the paper allowing your candidate to allocate your preferences.
2. It is an open registration system here, meaning that you can be a registered Republican Party voter and vote in the Democratic Party primaries. This differs from other states, where you have to be a registered Democrat. So a Republican can vote for the delegates representing the Democrat candidate they think is least likely to win the presidency.
3. You need to bring photo ID to the voter registration desk. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the requirement set by the (Republican-dominated) Indiana state legislature that three forms of ID be brought in order to vote, including photo ID, rejecting an appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union.
4. You can't buy alcohol before the polling booths close at 6pm. At the supermarket I as at today (yes, you buy beer and wine at the supermarket), I asked about this, and the woman at the cash register said:

'That's so you can't get inebriated and make the right choice'.

It appears that identity theft may be an issue in the polls. A woman claiming to be Daisy Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard was in fact found to be Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton of New York City, NY.

The U.S. Democratic Primaries - Farewell to Liberal Hillary

Bloomington, Indiana is where I am at the moment, at the University of Indiana. It is best known as the home of Albert Kinsey, John Cougar Mellencamp, and the 'Hoosiers', a basketball team about whom a film was made in 1986 starring Gene Hackman as a coach and Dennis Hopper as a drunk.

Indiana is one of the two states voting tomorrow (Tuesday May 6) in the protracted and increasingly acrimonious Democratic Party primaries. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have worked these two states hard, even though they both typically vote Republican, as the long march to the Democrat nomination continues.

The striking feature at present is just how far to the right Hilary Clinton has turned in the course of this campaign. Having struggled against Obama for most core Democrat constituencies, she has over the last month increasingly pitched her campaign at what are known here as the 'Reagan Democrats' - white voters, foten older or less educated, anxious about change, deeply patriotic, and suspicious of liberal reformers.

Given that the Clinton years in the White house were viewed by most outside of the U.S. as at least notionally progressive, and that Hillary Clinton was for so long the bete noire of American conservatives, this has come as a bit of a surprise, at least to me. She appeared on the FOX News Channel's O'Reilly Factor last week, her defence of religion and guns, and her threats to get tough on China and to 'obliterate' Iran if Israel is attacked seem to be straight out of the Republican campaign book. And the favour seems to have been returned. She is getting endorsements from FOX News, The Weekly Standard and Rush Limbaugh.

This turn to the right came with the claim that Obama is a liberal 'elitist'. Given the respective upbringings of Hilary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the Clinton White House years, and events such as Bill Clinton's 60th birthday party, where people paid $60,000+ to hang out with Bill and friends for three days and hear the Rolling Stones, this seems odd to put it mildly.

Predictions are that Barack Obama will win North Carolina and Hillary Clinton will win Indiana. If this turns out to be the case, the saga continues, and the caravans move to Kentucky, West Virginia and Oregon. The big winners out of this are, of course, the 24 hour cable news channels and, to a lesser extent, the Republican Party.

Two things strike me as weird about this. The first is that Hillary Clinton can't win the Democratic Party nomination. Or at least she can't unless the party superdelegates* overturn the popular vote and anoint Hillary to the candidacy based on concerns about Obama's 'electability'*. If that happens, the Democratic Party will split in two at the Denver convention.

The second thing is whether the Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. George W. Bush's personal approval rating is 28%, lower than that of Jimmy Carter during the American hostage capture in Iran. With so many other things running for them in this campaign, can the Democrats - who have lost seven of the last ten U.S. presidential elections - actually find a way to lose this one.

What is for sure is that when Hillary Clinton downed a whisky with a beer chaser in Pennsylvania, it seems to have washed away many of the progressive, small-l liberal credentials that both her friends and foes used to attribute to her.


* On The Daily Show, Jo Stewart asked Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee Chair, if superdelegates 'had been bitten by radioactive spiders and has powers 10,000 times those of normal voters'. On superdelegates and electability see: