Ever since I finished my high school civics class, I haven’t much thought about the importance of a civics education; after all, the basics of how our government works – the three branches, checks and balances, how a bill becomes a law – seem so obvious that the very subject shouldn’t perk one’s ear.
Not so when it’s coming from Sandra Day O’Connor, a 24-year veteran of the supreme court and the first woman to grace the nation’s highest bench when she was picked for the job by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Fresh from scooping up a Presidential Medal of Freedom in August 2009, O’Connor joined the United States Senate Youth Alumni Association (of which, fair disclosure, I am a member) for its annual gathering this weekend to receive an award for outstanding public service.
O’Connor didn’t sugar-coat the obvious: in recent years, American judges have faced increasing attack from politicians, well beyond what she’d call the “healthy criticism” an independent judiciary should welcome and expect in our free-speech society. She did not provide any examples, but one need only recall the last year’s accusations of racism and elitism leveled on current associate justice Sonia Sotomayor to realize that O’Connor has a point when she laments that politicians far too often choose to score “cheap points” with the public by decrying “elitist judges.”
The points are scored because the public accepts the criticisms as legitimate, even though they risk damaging the independence of the American judiciary. It was the absence of judicial independence in Colonial America, O’Connor said, that made the founding fathers reach for a system where Supreme Court justices were appointed by the President and approved by the Senate: one of the hallmarks of the system of checks-and-balances that protects the citizens from over-reaches of power by the government.
“Americans can’t understand the need for judicial independence,” O’Connor said, “until they understand the checks and balances in our political system.” In other words: basic civics.
And in this regard, she warned, America is sorely lacking: “Do you know what’s missing from public education?” she asked. “No more civics.”
She blamed this deficit on the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, the educational reform legislation championed by President George W. Bush. She didn’t go into details on this point, but the Act’s focus on standardized testing in math and science has frequently been criticized as a disincentive for schools to adopt a broader curriculum that also includes other important subjects, such as civics.
The consequence is almost comically dire. Only one out of seven Americans can identify John Roberts as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, O’Connor said, while “two out of three can name at least two of the Three Stooges”.
To give John Roberts a hand in catching up with the Three Stooges, O’Connor has launched a civics education website – www.OurCourts.org – aimed at middle schoolers. For example: does a right to bear arms mean you can wear a sleeveless t-shirt or own a gun? Kids can find out for themselves by surfing the site.
She said she’s rolled-out the website in 38 states now and has just enlisted the help of recently retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter to introduce it to his fellow residents of New Hampshire.
Supreme Court justices stepping in to fill the civics education gap left by the No Child Left Behind Act? That’s what I call judicial activism - at its fiest.
P.S.: Other highlights from the evening included Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine remarking that it was – in the parlance of today’s youth – an “epic fail” when a law firm O’Connor applied for in the 1952 declined to offer her a job outside of a secretary position. “I certainly never thought I would end up as a Supreme Court Justice,” O’Connor said during her remarks: “A lot of people were surprised,” she added, “and that law firm that was only interested in having me as a secretary was surprised too.”
It is surreal to think that today marks George W. Bush’s last day in office. For most mid-twentysomethings like myself, he is the only U.S. president we’ve gotten to know as we came of age and formed our outlook on life, politics and . . . well, just about everything else.
For good reasons and bad, he became a target of much our (not to mention others’) discontent and it is not without reason that he is leaving office with a 22 percent approval rating.
But as the final appraisals pour in from friends and foes alike, much of the analysis misses the point. The US presidency is still, arguably, the most powerful post in the world. He or she who commands it has enormous potential to change the world.
In that sense, the true measure of a presidency is not what the person in power did accomplish, but rather, what he or she did not accomplish.
In many ways, that is the root of the nation’s disappointment with George W. Bush. He leaves behind so much unifnished business - whether it be finishing the mission in Iraq, stabilizing the economy, fixing social security, revamping U.S. immigration policy, capturing Bin Laden, among others - that there really is very little that the average American can celebrate. The rare exception is seven years without a terrorist attack on US soil, but to families who lost their loved ones in Iraq, even that must feel like a pyrrhic victory.
I think Pres. Bush understands as much. As he acknowledged in his final press conference (see below), the threat of terrorism, the mission in Iraq and the economic crisis are far from solved. Granted, he believes strongly that he made strong progress in all three. Pundits will debate this and historians will ultimately pass judgement on it, he says. But whether right or wrong, he wants us to know that he always acted decisively and with his best intentions in mind. Above all else, he feels he deserves credit for at least this much.
It is an explanation that reminded me a passage from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In the midst of the violence of the war in Iraq, I reached for this book in an effort to understand war better; not this war so much but rather war itself, from the eyes of a man who witnessed it and understood it well.
In chapter three, the protagonist, Lt. Henry, says the following to a priest who is disappointed by his actions - or rather - lack thereof:
That night at the mess I sat next to the priest and he was disappointed and suddenly hurt that I had not gone to the Abruzzi. He had written to his father that I was coming and they had made preparations. I myself felt as badly as he did and could not understand why I had not gone. It was what I had wanted to do and I tried to explain how one thing had led to another and finally he saw it and understood that I had really wanted to go and it was almost all right. I had drunk much wine and afterwards coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.
Note the sincerity and simultaneous inadequacy of Lt. Henry’s plea to the priest. There is no doubt that he earnestly wishes things had turned out differently, but his explanation for his inaction ultimately turns into a hollow plea for sympathy: we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things. The priest is not placated by the explanation; it is, at best, “almost all right.”
So too with Pres. Bush. It would be cruel to doubt the man’s sincerity. But when so many crucial tasks begun remain unfinished, the plea for sympathy in the form of always acting decisively and with conviction that he was doing the right thing is about as satisfying as knowing that we do not do the things we want to do; we never do such things.
The next president will not have the luxury of this explanation. “The question facing the president is not when the problem started, but what did you do about it when you recognized the problem?” asks Pres. Bush (12:40 in video below) in his last press conference. On day one, Pres. Elect Obama will have to deliver solutions to problems Pres. Bush could not solve.
Set aside the things he wants to accomplish; his will be the presidency of the things he needs to accomplish to get this country back on track.
Long after the final soldiers leave Iraq and US housing prices hit a bottom, historians will undoubtedly - with the benefit of hindsight - give George W. Bush higher marks than we do today.
But for the moment, it is easy to understand why his tenure seems, at best, “almost all right.”
By now, the idea that 2008 is a “change” year has become commonplace conventional wisdom for the media and Beltway insiders alike.
But, as countless turnovers of conventional wisdom throughout this election cycle have shown - from Sen. Clinton’s invincibility to Sen. Obama’s supposed inability to win over white voters and Sen. McCain’s campaign being toast last summer - heavy lies the crown of conventional wisdom.
Which is why it is time to rethink the 2008-is-all-about-change paradigm.
It’s not that the change paradigm is unequivocally wrong. After all, it’s for a reason that 82% of Americans said the country is seriously off on the wrong track and 66% disapproved of President Bush’s job performance in May’s ABC News/Washington Post poll. They don’t want more of the same, and any politician with an ounce of tactical skill can see this as an opening for an anti-establishment message that is sure to catch fire.
As the change paradigm has it, first among the Presidential hopefuls to realize this - long before Mr. Romney put out the “Washington is Broken” banner after losing the Iowa caucuses and Sen. Clinton advised the country that she was “running on 35 years of change” - was Sen. Obama.
Now, critics may ponder how big a force for change Sen. Obama has been in his political career or how consistently he has expressed this message to the public. But the fact remains that Sen. Obama embraced an anti-establishment message of change from the outset of his campaign (he mentioned it no fewer than nine times when he announced his candidacy in February 2007) and thus managed to brand himself as an agent of change much more powerfully than his opponents. This helped him achieve his upset victory over de-facto incumbent Sen. Clinton in the Democratic primary and - the change paradigm dictates - if he plays his cards right, can help land him in the White House.
Perhaps. But if it was Sen. Obama’s prescient ability to sense the mood of the country that helped him ride a wave of discontent and desire for change to victory in the primaries, then his trimph in the last leg of the journey may well rest on his ability to navigate the next wave sweeping the country: that of sheer, utter confusion.
Somewhere between January, when the Presidential contests began, and June, when they slowly screeched to a halt, the mood of the country went from being discontent and wanting change to being, well, even more discontent but also much more confused about the source of the discontent and how to fix it.
Witness the current debates on everything from rising food, gas, oil and commodity prices and the state of the economy to whether American power and infulence are declining and who is Sen. Obama, anyway? On a typical day, an average American turning on his or her TV might find him or herself bombarded with thousands of tough questions with no simple answers and plenty of experts and talking heads on both sides debating:
Why are food prices rising so drastically? Is it because of ethanol production? Rising foreign demand? Speculators?
Why are we paying more for gas? Would we pay less if we didn’t have ethanol? How much less? Is ethanol good or bad for us, on balance?
Why is the price of oil skyrocketing so fast and furiously? I thought $100/barrel was something, but now it’s approaching $150; when will it stop? And what could stop it? Who do we blame? Speculators? Environmentalists? Our weak currency? Fundamental supply and demand? Would it cost less if oil weren’t denominated in dollars? How much less?
What should Congress do, and how soon could it have an impact? Is more regulation of commodity markets necessary? If so, how much? What about further regulation of the mortgage markets and investment banks? What role did they play in the housing bubble?
How much lower will house prices go? Or have we already seen the bottom? What about the economy as a whole - are we in a recession already, have we emerged from one, or has it not even begun yet? Is the worst yet to come?
Is America in a permanent crisis? Are we doomed to see our power, wealth and prestige inevitably decline as the rest of the world thrives? Could it have been - can it still be - prevented? If so, how?
What can Sen. Obama do to change any of this? Who is he, anyway?
But it’s not just the American public that’s feeling the pinch of confusion from being bombarded with so many difficult questions all at once; more importantly, lawmakers feel it just as well. So much so, in fact, that at a recent Congressional hearing on the future of oil, a feisty Rep. John Larson (D-CT, 1st District) repeatedly asked - sometimes to eerie silence - whether the laws of supply and demand have been suspended and whether “the dark markets have taken over in terms of speculation” so that “we [lawmakers] can’t from a policy perspective get our arms around this?” (see clip below).
From a policy perspective, though, Americans demand action - and quickly. But as an equally-confused Congress stalls and the public grows weary of hearing conflicting policy proposals on topics as esoteric and arcane as CFTC regulation and closing the “Enron” loophole, all eyes inevitably turn to the presidential candidates to ask “what will you do about it?”
Hence, the national mood of confusion will have a huge impact on the Presidential race. For it means that there is no longer just one “c” in play - change - but rather three: a state of confusion, a need for clarity and the opportunity to leverage both for change. And both Sens. McCain and Obama will need a new strategy for successfuly navigating all three if they hope to claim the White House in November.
The first “c” - confusion - presents an opportunity for the candidates to broaden their support by demonstating to the public a multi-faceted understanding of the litany of interrelated problems and potential solutions facing this country. This means going beyond policy proposals targeted at their political bases - something that both Sens. Obama and McCain need to do a better job of doing. Thus far, while Sen. Obama seems to have bet most of his chips on overdue speculation and greater regulation of the commodity markets as the biggest potential cause and solution to rising oil prices, Sen. McCain, at the risk of flip-flopping, has so far has taken the opposite bet: rising demand coupled with shrinking supply, to be eased by lifting the moratorium on offshore oil exploration in America’s water (but not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). To be sure, we should applaud the clear policy differences evident here, but at the same time, each is a direct appeal to a specific group: for Sen. Obama, an appeal for Democratic populists and for Sen. McCain, to pro-business Republicans. To better capitalize on the public’s confusion regarding this and other mutlifaceted, interconnected issues, Sens. Obama and McCain will need to broaden their support by better demonstrating that they are not just trying to pander to the arguments of any one special interest or populist agenda but are instead truly advocating for comprehensive solutions that are genuinely in the public’s best interest. Doing so may mean the difference between winning or losing the independent vote, and in an election where both candidates have strong appeal to independents, this may prove crucial.
This leads directly to the second “c:” clarity. Out of confusion arises a need for clarity, and this means giving the American people a clearer idea of what Sen. Obama’s “change we can believe in” and Sen. McCain’s “change that you deserve” really mean. This, again, is an area in which both candidates need to beef-up their strategy so that the hazy notion of “change” that each espouses doesn’t remain an empty vessel to be filled by pundits and campaign surrogates. Sen. McCain, despite enjoying a three-month lead over Sen. Obama in securing his party’s nomination, has yet to build a consistent message and campaign theme, as well as a strong-enough campaign organization to enfore either in the public’s perception. Meanwhile, Sen. Obama, under constant fire from conservatives over everything from his patriotism to his supposed elitism and Muslim “Manchurian candidate” status, is still in serious danger of losing votes in November because many voters simply do not know enough about him to avoid falling prey to misinformation and swift-boating. Clarity in policy, in order to be meaningful and to stick in the voters’ minds, must be preceded and reinforced by clarity of campaign message, theme and candidate identity. But as evidenced by Mr. McCain’s lack of message and Mr. Obama’s as-yet uncertain identity, neither candidate has yet achieved all three.
The third “c” - change - comes about as a result of successfully leveraging the first two for public support. Faced with widespread confusion and a lack of clarity about the candidates and their messages, voters are unlikely to let Sen. Obama coast through the general election by simply turning public discontent with the status quo into support for an anti-establisment message. In any case, doing so is not so much a way to change the ways of Washington as it is a shallow plan for getting elected. Instead, real change in 2008 means building a broad base of support for a multi-faceted policy platform that doesn’t simply alter the status quo or differ from the other candidate but also clarifies the candidate, the message, and his campaign theme. It is change in this sense that is not only likely to lead to victory but to also allow the victor to have a strong enough public consensus behind him to actually enact any meaningful changes once in office. And it is this kind of change that the voters are likely to demand and reward at the ballot box come November.
November, of course, is still a long way off (four months can be an eternity in politics). And so far, as the 320-218 electoral college count in favor of Sen. Obama (as of July 6) suggests, Sen. Obama may still be riding the prevailing change paradigm to his political advantage. If he wishes to keep this lead, though, he will have to figure out how to turn the widespread confusion of 2008 to his political advantage; otherwise, Sen. McCain may well have the perfect opening from which to launch his promised comeback.
A turnover of this sort would be neither surprising nor unexpected, given that we’ve witnessed just about everything this election season. But it would certainly confuse anyone who has adhered to the conventional wisdom throughout this election - all the more reason why 2008 may be, above all else, the year of confusion.
It is a rare moment when one can remember the passing away of someone one has never met as if he or she were a member of the family. But today’s sudden and unexpected death of Tim Russert is precisely such an occasion.
For any civic-minded American, Tim’s constant presence in our living rooms every Sunday as moderator of Meet the Press made him as familiar a face as if he really were a member of the family, visiting every Sunday to educate us about public affairs and the state of the nation.
It was a presence that I truly admired. For at least the last three years, since my civic conscience has come of age, I don’t think I’ve missed a single episode of Meet the Press, whether DVRing it on Sunday or watching the netcast later in the week or sneaking in a peek on those rare Sunday mornings when I’d wake up early enough to catch the original broadcast.
Though I’m not really sure when exactly MTP became a permanent fixture of my week for me, I’ll never forget why. It was Tim’s refreshing and relentless pursuit of the truth and his willingness to ask the tough questions that others would shy away from. One glowing example of this was his now-famous interview with President Bush from February 2004 - his first network interview since 2000 (see excerpts here). At a time when Pres. Bush had more or less gotten a free ride from the White House pres corps on the difficult questions facing the nation regarding its involvement in Iraq, Tim hit all the big ones: was the Iraq war a war of choice or necessity? How do you respond to critics who say that you brought the nation to war under false pretenses? Did we miscalculate how we would be treated and received in Iraq?
Never once could one watch MTP and think, “I wish he had asked this or that.” He always hit on all the big points, all the big issues, all the past statements and mis-statements. In this sense, Tim stood up for and represented the voice of the average American. He asked the questions that he knew concerned citizens needed to know the answer to and he didn’t give anyone a free pass - whether Democrat, Republican or Independent. And at the heart of his questioning was always a deep concern for the truth and a desire to educate his viewers and leave them more informed than they were before they picked up the remote control.
His was an exceptional life - one filled with outsized impact, success, and meaning. Tim demonstrates the power of what we can achieve when we follow our passions, do what we love and care and think about those around us while we do it.
For all these reasons, I had always hoped to someday meet him personally, either at a book signing or a lecture of some sort, and I regret that I never got a chance to do so before he passed away so abruptly and - at a mere 58 - so early. He is someone I will never forget, always look up to and always cherish as if he were a member of my family; indeed, it very much feels like he was, and Sunday will never feel the same without him.
Rest in peace, Tim - you will be missed dearly.
* * *
Some videos of how others who knew him remembered him today:
It’s no coincidence that Sen. John McCain chose April 15th to give a major economic policy speech.
The Senator’s speech (see the full-length C-SPAN video, read the New York Times transcript), delivered at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, gave voters the clearest indication yet that, come November, a vote for Sen. Obama or Clinton is a vote for higher taxes, whereas a vote for him is a vote for lower taxes.
Among the laundry list of tax cuts that Sen. McCain solidly put his support behind were: reducing corporate taxes from 35% to 25%, making the Bush income tax cuts permanent, eliminating the alternative minimum tax and doubling the exemption for dependents from $3,500 to $7,000. And if that’s not enough, a President McCain would also ban the government from taxing your cell phone and the internet - though he wouldn’t stop short of telling you to read his lips.
Among the tax policy differences that he correctly identified between himself and Senators Obama and Clinton is the fact that both of them favor rolling back the Bush tax cuts once they sunset in 2010, ostensibly to pay for Medicare and Social Security. It is a strategy which he implies would only buy time and leave “the great challenge of entitlement reform for others to deal with.”
(Combine that with the fact that Sen. Obama - the (current) Democratic front-runner - is on the record stating a preference to raise the capital gains tax as high as 28%, and all of a sudden the Republican siren call of supply-side economics begins to sound even louder).
But, sharp as these differences on tax policy may be, history has taught us that it is wiser to look to a Presidential Candidate’s governing principles than his or her promises. And in that sense, the most insightful comment that Sen. McCain made in Pittsburgh was his proposal to suspend the 18.4 cent per gallon Federal gasoline tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year (see excerpt below).
Suspending the gas tax, Sen. McCain argues, would provide “an immediate economic stimulus.” And gas prices would certainly trend lower, he argues, because we would combine the gas tax holiday with a suspension in the government’s buying of petroleum for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
When I heard the Senator say this, I immediately thought of this chart that I saw in a 2006 GAO report on U.S. Highway Trust Fund (statement of Katherine Siggerud, director of physical infrastructure assets, before the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure):
Current Highway Trust Fund Year-End Balance Estimates
Since 2006, this picture hasn’t gotten any less bleak: the U.S. Highway Trust Fund - whose primary source of income (64%) is the paltry $18.4 cent gas tax that no politician has the courage to even tie to inflation - is projected to run out of money as early as next fiscal year. In testimony before the House Committee on the budget on the same topic in October of last year, Congressional Budget Office Deputy Director Robert Sunshine confirmed the bleak realities of the 2006 GAO report and made it clear that we had two options: raise revenues (i.e. raise, not lower, the gas tax) or cut costs (i.e. give less money to states to maintain our nation’s highways). Doing solely the latter, of course, is reckless public policy, given that gridlock on our nation’s highways is only getting worse and our highways are badly in need of maintenance and expansion. But no politician wants to do the former or even some combination of the two, so Congress has chosen to conveniently do neither and leave this challenge - to borrow Sen. McCain’s terms - for others to deal with.
On top of that, Sen. McCain ignores the fact that the other other trends driving oil prices higher - nascent supply pressures in Russia, geopolitical instability in the Middle East, financial speculation, higher demand from developing countries - will likely continue to drive gas prices toward the $4 mark that the Department of Energy predicted some areas in the U.S. might see this summer. Or that a short-term gas tax holiday would likely be offset by a predictable spike in demand. Or that the non-inflation indexed 18.4 cents is now such a paltry percentage of the total cost per gallon that it would really only take “a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up,” as Senator McCain put it, diminishing any multiplier effect we might expect from it.
Suspending the gas tax in the middle of all this is thus, at best, reckless and, at worst, dangerously irresponsible - especially at a time when the U.S. is spending $3 billion dollars a week on a war in Iraq. Where is the money supposed to come from? The fiscal responsibility that Sen. McCain promises once he maybe enters office next year? At best, that’s wishful thinking; at worst, it is doing exactly what he charges the Democrats of doing: putting difficult spending issues off for the future generations to deal with.
But I don’t point this out to say - “aha! here’s a contradiction!” That’s irrelevant because we can find plenty of them on either side of the aisle. Rather, I point it out because it evinces a very unhealthy ideological path in Sen. McCain’s thought: cutting taxes is always good, and I’m sure we’ll pay for things by shrinking the size of the government.
Sens. Obama and Clinton, on the other hand, cognizant of the financial strains that higher entitlement spending under their plans is likely to cause on the Federal Budget, seem to be taking a much more pragmatic, less ideological approach toward tax policy. In fact, Sen. Obama has repeatedly said that the governing principle that he would adhere to as president would be pay-as-you go. Sen. Obama wants to pay as the ship of state sails by raising some taxes (while, he insists, lowering others - most notably, middle-class income taxes); Sen. McCain wants to pay as we sail by hoping that Congress will be able to control pork-barrel spending and that entitlement spending and the Iraq War won’t get in the way of the fiscal responsibility he promises to bring to the White House. While governments under both Republicans and Democrats have proven equally capable of derailing both approaches, the former is admittedly more pragmatic and realistic than the latter.
So while, admittedly, the higher-tax, lower-tax distinction between the Republicans and Democrats during this election couldn’t be more clear, the same could be said about the underlying philosophies that influence it and are likely to influence much of how this country is governed in the next 4-8 years. And in the end - if we have learned anything from the Bush years - that is what really matters.
As the old addage reminds us, in politics, mud thrown is ground lost.
The trouble with this election season for the Democrats is that it’s hard to figure out whose ground is being sacrificed: that of Sen. Clinton or the party’s chances in November?
Increasingly, Democratic Superdelegates are beginning to point the finger at Sen. Clinton. That is why over the past few days Sen. Hillary Clinton has heard increasing calls from party Superdelegates to step out of the race - most poignantly (and bluntly) from Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-VT).
Superdelegates like Leahy have reason to be nervous. Granted, polls in this primary season have been about as prescient as a broken compass , but witness Sen. John McCain’s gradually increasing strength in both an Obama-McCain match-up or a Hillary-McCain match-up. Now, you can make like Cheney and say, “So?” to the wisdom of polls, but chances are that if you’re Democratic Superdelegate, it’s not that easy.
Hence the growing pressure for the Democratic primary to come to a conclusion, with survival of the fittest favoring Sen. Clinton - who is down in the delegate count, popular vote, number of states won and (the real primary?) fundraising - to drop out.
This weekend, Sen. Clinton tried to put an end to all this chatter by insisting that she is in it for the long haul - be it through the last primary in June or the convention in August: “I think I believe that a spirited contest is good for the Democratic Party and will strengthen our eventual nominee,” she said, as quoted by Jeff Zeleny of The Times.
Sprited? It certainly will be. Good for the party? Not in the least.
Under a two-party system, there are two scenarios under which Sen. Clinton’s strategy of staying in it for the long haul while throwing the “kitchen sink” at the frontrunner could indeed be advantageous or at least do no harm to the party and the eventual nominee. First, so long as one party is still squabbling over its nominee, it is ok for the other to do the same without losing the key advantage of time. Secondly, even if one party has already settled on its nominee, a spirited contest for the nomination within the other party can still be a good thing - long as there are vital policy differences between the candidates that need to be settled before the general election planks are put in place.
The trouble for Sen. Clinton is that neither of the above is the case - and hence the danger to Democratic prospects for the White House from her decision to continue her campaign no matter what.
The danger from the absence of the first scenario is self-evident. If it is indeed true that 9 out of the last 10 U.S. presidential contests have been won by the party that selected its nominee first (which may be nothing more than a reflection of incumbents’ advantage - nothing new), then Sen. McCain could be the luckiest man in American politics right now. With his general election campaign de facto beginning on March 4th and Democrats’ primary battle going on until June and possibly until August, Sen. McCain has a crucial 4-6 month head start in spreading his message - as he did last Friday with his first general election campaign ad - coalescing his party’s support, introducing himself to voters and - should the father of McCain-Feingold opt out of public funding in the general election - fundraising.
Moreover, absent strong and clear policy distinctions between Sens. Clinton and Obama, Sen. McCain will not only get the advantages of time but also extra bounce from the personal attacks and negativity that will surely continue to surface on the Democratic side. Let’s face it: the Democratic primary is no longer about the issues or the policy distinctions between the candidates. It was earlier, when the field of candidates was larger. But the final two agree either explicitly or in principle - with minor variations, such as the use of mandates in health care - on so much of their policies that discussing issues and policies doesn’t really help the voters see a sharp contrast between them.
But in absence of that, character and integrity take the lead as the most important distinctions between the candidates that the voters will use to decide in the voting booth. Naturally, then, what is Sen. Clinton to do but throw mud - and lots of it - and hope that some of it sticks and begin to stink? Whether it be charges of plagiarism, childhood presidential ambitions, or insinuations by campaign subordinates that Sen. Obama is a Muslim, if the Democratic primary goes on for two or three more months, this is likely to be only the beginning for the mudslinging. It is going to get very dirty, very fast.
Granted, thus far Sen. Clinton has paid for her mudslinging (kitchen sink throwing?) with increased negative ratings. But her ground isn’t the only thing at play here; as more Democratic Superdelegates will undoubtedly come to realize, the longer she goes on, the less ground they have beneath their feet come November.
If you - like myself - won’t be spending Super Tuesday wining and dining your friends over let’s-watch-the-election-results dinner parties and celebrations but instead grinding away at work for your slice of the GDP, it’s easy to get left behind in all the election excitement. No McCain Straight Talk Espresso Martini for you - just another vente regular and a day at the office.
If that’s the case don’t sigh; instead, get pumped because it’s going to a be a historic day. Across the country, 24* states will hold caucuses and primaries to select their party favorites for the presidential nomination: 3,156 delegates across the Democratic and Republican parties will be decided in what will be decisively this nation’s first de-facto national primary.
For the first time in a long while, there’s no runaway front-runner in either party. For the first time, we as a nation are witnessing a delegate-by-delegate, district by district trench warfare for support, in which your vote in Fargo, MN is just as important as Maria Shriver’s or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in California. And for the first time in nearly 60 years we are facing the possibility of a brokered convention - or maybe even two - in August which, never mind being fun to watch, would be truly historic events.
Add together all those firsts and what you get is that for the first time in a while, a lot of people who have been disenchanted with and disconnected from our nation’s political life actually care. And that’s exactly what makes our Democracy “self-renewing:” every time we’re stuck in a rot and it seems like America is headed for decline, we bring new people into the political process and change direction for the better. High turnout today isn’t just good or great; it is absolutely critical for the continued prosperity of this nation.
So get ready, get pumped, and enjoy a very super, very historic Super Tuesday.
* You may have read 21 or 22 or even 23 in some newspapers; that’s just sloppy reporting. 19 states have both Republican and primary contests; 2 have Republican-only contests, and 3 have Democratic-only contests. Depending on how you add that, you could get a range of numbers but the 19 plus 5 is the total tally either way.
As soon as I got a text message from my girlfriend from New Hampshire at 12:30 yesterday with her one-word exit poll, “Hillary,” I knew I was in the doghouse.
What a night!!!
Hillary Clinton’s narrow upset over Obama in the N.H. primary and John McCain’s victory over Romney are now the third and fourth-straight underdog victories in this election. No one thought Obama could rout the Clinton machine in Iowa, that Huckabee could become a serious candidate, that McCain could bounce back after his campaign stood on the brink of extinction and - just yesterday everyone, myself included - thought Hillary was toast in N.H. So if there’s one thing that’s for sure, its that in this election season, underdogs rule.
What happened? It looks like beyond not liking having the media tell them how they were going to vote and asserting their independence, N.H. voters also saw more depth in Hillary Clinton’s message than the rest of the nation had given her credit for. Female voters in particular - whose vote she had lost in Iowa - turned out for her big-time in this state, and that may have made the difference since they make up 57% of the electorate.
Either way, her stunning victory is great news for the presidential election in general. Each upset, each reversal of expectations only makes it more exciting, more engaging and increases the chances that, for the first time (ever?) voters in bigger states that don’t vote early might be motivated to vote and feel like their votes count.
So buckle-up, folks: we’re all in for a ride to the White House like never before.
It’s a little past midnight and voters in the snowy hamlet of Dixville Notch, NH - all 10 of them - have already cast their first-in-the-nation primary votes for President of the U.S.
It feels a little bit like the night before Christmas, doesn’t it?
It would, except if it weren’t for the fact that there’s little what-am-I-getting-tomorrow surprise here. The voters of Dixville have already chosen Obama and McCain as their standardbearers, and we don’t need polls or pundits to tell us that they’re likely going to win the top spots in the Granite State’s primary contests today, largely thanks to the nearly 45% of the electorate in this state of 1.3 million who register themselves as neither Democrat nor Republican. As Jeff Zeleny of The Times correctly notes, in this race, independents are the prize, and no other candidates in this race have a broader appeal to them than Obama and McCain.
2nd prize will most likely go to big-spender Mitt Romney on the Republican side who, thanks to Mike Huckabee, has found himself to be the Hillary Clinton of his party’s campaign. Huckabee may well ride his minimal (in this decisively non-Evangelical state) momentum to a third-place finish, but if he does it will likely be a razor-thin margin above Giuliani, who enjoys reasonably strong 2nd-tier support in this state thanks to his noun + verb + 9/11 record.
Meanwhile, the real Hillary Clinton will move a notch up from her 3rd place finish in Iowa, ahead of Edwards but still behind the high expectations she set for herself of being the inevitable winner in all the early states.
But if all this comes to pass, what does it mean for the rest of the race?
It means that, try as they might, the I-am-for-change-too (post-Iowa) candidates in either party will have a much harder time catching up to the first mover in this field, Obama, while those who represent anything anti-establishment and non-conventional in the voters’ minds will continue to still have a shot. Read: no third Clinton term, no first Mormon president.
Why no Mitt? In a way, the “Washington is Broken” message that all of a sudden has found its way to the Romney campaign is Mitt’s greatest, and most lethal flip-flop. As Chuck Todd, MSNBC Political Director, rightly points out, Mitt has spent his entire campaign positioning himself as the gold-standard Republican that can carry the flag (i.e., status quo). All of a sudden, he gets the message that - surprise - voters want change and that’s what he stands for and has stood for all his life and his entire campaign. A (rightfully so) skeptical press corps won’t buy it, and neither will voters.
All of which may well mean that as Dixville goes, so will the nation, since Obama and McCain probably stand the best chance of making it to the general elections right now.
And had you told me that last Christmas Day, I would have been surprised.
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(Quick note: yes, I owe you guys a piece on the elephant-in-the-room that is the economy; coming soon).
Looking to find out more about the candidates for President, I decided to check on the one information source that seems to have it all - from credit default swaps & energy futures to - apparently - bios on presidential hopefuls: Bloomberg.
Bloomberg has a standard stub of information on each of the candidates, whether Democrat or Republican, with info such as date of birth, salary, place of birth, affiliation, etc.
So nothing noteworthy here, except when you look at Sen. Hillary Clinton. Sen. Clinton’s profile contains an extra category for hobbies that I didn’t see on any of the other candidates’ pages. And it contains so many diverse, all-American hobbies that it spills over onto another line.
She must have been an extremely fit, extremely busy first lady if she actually pursued all these hobbies in earnest.
Sure, call me sceptical, but when you look at Hillary’s past performances when singing in front of crowds - as she did during her first visit to Iowa as a presidential candidate last year - you can’t help but question how some of these hobbies got up there.
At the risk of not reading too much into this, I think we all have at times listed as hobbies things that we either didn’t do too often or weren’t that good at. But in the context of a presidential race, I think this helps illuminate part of the discomfort that potential voters experience when they hear Sen. Clinton on the stump: trying to be all things to all voters, sometimes dancing delicately around difficult questions (such as her plan on Social Security, or what she thought of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants) so as to not alienate anyone or give ammunition to her opponents. And I think its this atificial veneer that she’ll have to change, more than anything, in order to get voters to finally warm-up to her and see her as a genuine person and a genuine candidate.
