Month: February 2008

Obama Campaign Is Right: Delegate Race Is Theirs to Lose

Jon Ponder

There is no doubt that Barack Obama has what the elder George Bush called “Big Mo’.” In a conference call early today, his campaign manager, Pavid Plouffe, told reporters that by their reckoning:
If current trends hold, Clinton needs to win the four remaining big states in order to stay even in the delegate race.

Obama now leads Clinton by 136 pledged delegates. Because Democrats split primary and caucus votes proportionally, Clinton would have to win the remaining contests in “blowout form” to pull even with Obama, Plouffe argued.

That includes the big showdowns on March 4 in Texas and Ohio, where Plouffe said Clinton would have to win by well over 20 points to significantly close the gap.

“We see absolutely no evidence in any of the contests remaining that that would be the case,” he said. “The math is the math.”

Following Obama’s string of victories since the weekend, Plouffe said, “We believe that we couldn’t be in a stronger position.”

A lot of people, notably my colleague Trish and, especially, Air America talkshow host Randi Rhodes, are upset at the prospect that even if Obama wins the regular delegate count, Clinton could take the nomination by having more superdelegates.

But if the trends hold, Obama will continue to win by large margins, roughly 2 to 1, while Clinton’s wins will remain narrower, roughly 55 percent to 45 percent.

Plouffe may be overstating a bit what it would take for Clinton to remain even, however. She could still win with slim majorities in Wisconsin (Feb. 19) and the four remaining big states — Ohio and Texas (March 4), Pennsylvania (April 22) and North Carolina (May 6), which would give her the momentum to win narrowly in a few small rural states like Wyoming (March 8), Guam (May 9) and Montana and South Dakota (May 20).

This would leave Obama with lopsided wins in small states including Hawaii (his home state, Feb. 19), Rhode Island (March 4), Mississippi (March 8), Kentucky and Oregon (May 20) and Puerto Rico (June 7).

Trends suggest otherwise, however. If Clinton does not win both Ohio (161 delegates) and Texas (228 delegates) on March 4, it will be harder for her to win Pennsylvania (158 delegates) and North Carolina (115 delegates).

She has weaknesses in both of the latter. If the Philadelphia suburbs trend with their Delmarva neighbors instead of New Jerseyites, she might not be able to make up the difference in Pittsburgh and the central region. North Carolina could well tally up more like Virginia than Tennessee. Tar Heel Democratic demographics skew toward Obama. African-Americans comprise roughly 30 percent of the state, and college-educated professionals dominate in its two largest metro areas, Charlotte and Raleigh.

For Clinton, it appears that it all comes down to Ohio and and Texas in three weeks. Otherwise, the contest is Obama’s to lose.

Is Clinton the End for the Democratic Party?

Trish

As more and more of us are waking up, thanks in part to Bill Clinton’s performance on the stump, to how much we don’t want to relive the Clinton years anew, the Howard Dean-led Democratic party seems poised to do the inescapable: screw up big.

In a piece titled, “Democrats: Are They Dumber than Concrete?” Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas frames the issue.

Democrats in Florida are fed up with their votes being thrown out, first by the Supreme Court and then by Howard Dean. But the rest of the country will be feeling our pain if that idiot facilitates ramming Clinton, the Candidate of Self-Proclaimed Inevitability, down our throats.

Consider this scenario, which no longer seems so far-fetched:

Barack Obama goes into the convention having won the majority of primaries and delegates. But he doesn’t have enough delegates to win the nomination.

And so the superdelegates — a group of politicians and political insiders — go into their star chamber and pick Hillary Clinton.

The fallout not only would cost Democrats the November election but would haunt them for many elections to come.

Democrats in Florida are fed to the teeth with their votes being thrown out, first by the Supreme Court and then by Howard Dean, who issued a fatwa on us after the Florida legislature changed our primary date. But the rest of the country will be feeling our pain if that idiot facilitates ramming the Candidate of Self-Proclaimed Inevitability down our throats.

Even superdelegate and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who cheered Dean on as he banned Florida from participating in selecting a nominee, has threatened publicly to leave the party if the superdelegates prematurely anoint a candidate contrary to that chosen by the people.

In an email funds solicitation today, Howard Dean said, “I think we’ll have a nominee before the convention.”

What does that mean, Howie?

Right now, Obama is ahead. Going in to Texas and Ohio, the tally stands at Clinton with 1220 delegates and Obama with 1259, out of 2,025 needed to win the nomination on the convention floor. If that’s where it happens.

Clinton has recalled Bill from the campaign trail, first not paid and then replaced her campaign manager, loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money, and pissed off Barbara Walters by not settling to just get a pundit suspended for saying Chelsea was being “pimped out” by her mom’s campaign (even as the former first daughter made headlines for handing out doughnuts in a polling place, and then remaining there after the voting started, and for taking a 21-year-old superdelegate to breakfast), but also calling for the guy’s head on a platter. As we suffered through all this, Clinton lost the last ten elections in a row.

Meanwhile, Obama sailed along, embodying the h-word,* as well as the c-word,** and winning, winning, winning.

So if Democrats resort to a superdelegate maneuver to foist Clinton upon us, then I have an answer for columnist Thomas.

“Yes. But maybe dumber.”

* Hope
** Change
*** Duh

Justice Scalia Is Latest Wingnut to Base Legality of ‘So-Called Torture’ on ’24’-Style Ticking Bomb

Jon Ponder

Nothing underscores the fantastical thinking of conservatives more than their propensity to justify torture based entirely on scenarios out of the television action drama, “24.”
If terrorist’s bomb was ticking, “it would be absurd to say you couldn’t, I don’t know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that.”
– Scalia
The show — which is produced by friends of Rush Limbaugh, including Joel Surnow and Howard Gordon, who accompanied him on a Viagra-fueled vacay on a Caribbean island in 2006 — features weekly potboilers with all the dramatic substance of “Perils of Pauline” and similar cliffhanger series from the classic movie era. The plots are beyond far-fetched, of the sort that could never happen in real life in a million years.

And yet the latest wingnut to base a legal interpretation of the legality of torture on the television show — although he never mentions the show by name — is no less an august personage than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in a radio interview broadcast Tuesday that interrogators can inflict pain to obtain critical information, such as the location of a bomb about to explode or the plans or whereabouts of a terrorist group.

“It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn’t, I don’t know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that,” Scalia told the BBC’s “Law in Action” program.

Scalia said that determining when physical coercion could come into play was a difficult question. “How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be? I don’t think these are easy questions at all, in either direction,” he said.

And:

“I suppose it’s the same thing about so-called torture,” he said. “Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution?

“Is it obvious, that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to the society? I think it’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.”

Of course, the Islamic terrorists are in de facto suicide pacts when they launch attacks, so there is nothing that would prevent the tortured prisoner from lying and thus achieving two objectives: blowing up Los Angeles and punching his ticket for entry to heaven and the 90 virgins who await him.

In an unrelated but equally unbelievable statement, Scalia asserted that he is not the bad-tempered jerk he appears to be.

“I’m very tender,” he told an interviewer.

Edwards Said to Be Leaning Toward Clinton Endorsement – Feels She Is Stronger Against GOP, More Prepared for Presidency

Jon Ponder

Apparently, John Edwards is among those in the Democratic Party who fear that Barack Obama’s content-less platitudes are a souffle that will quickly deflate under withering attacks being readied against him by GOP operatives, should he become the Democratic nominee:

As he weighs a possible endorsement in the Democratic race, former Sen. John Edwards is as split as the party he once hoped to lead — and is seriously considering supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite the sharp criticism he leveled at her on the campaign trail, according to former aides and advisers.

In deciding between his one-time rivals, Edwards appears deeply divided. Several former advisers likened his thought process to a heart-versus-head split — with his heart favoring Sen. Barack Obama’s strong message of change, and his head attracted to Clinton’s tested nature and commitment to tough fights.

And:

On Obama, the [unidentified Edwards] aide says, Edwards worries “whether he’s tough enough to be President of the United States. If you look at what Edwards ran on, which is not negotiating with the special interests, taking away their power, that’s pretty different than the Obama model.”

The Edwards aide added that Obama’s lack of a health care plan with a “mandate” is a “tough hurdle for him to get over.” He added, however, that Edwards is much more in line with Obama on other issues.

While there is ceaseless debate about whether Obama’s political experience qualifies him to be president — Abraham Lincoln had less; George Bush had more, so go figure — one thing is not debatable: He has never run in a competitive race against a Republican. He held a safe seat for three terms in the Illinois Senate, and when he attempted to unseat incumbent Rep. Bobby Rush, the former Black Panther, he was defeated in the Democratic primary. His GOP opponent in the 2004 U.S. Senate race was Alan Keyes, a laughingstock African-American pundit who moved to Illinois to take on Obama but ran a shoestring operation and never launched a meaningful, much less aggressive, campaign.

Despite Edwards’ wavering, the odds favor his endorsing Obama because, for one thing, the party’s momentum is moving that way. But if Edwards did not have grave doubts about Obama’s ability to take on Republicans and his readiness to be president, he surely would have endorsed him by now.

GOP Desperate Even in McCain’s Home State – Plans Anti-Gay Ballot Measure to Lure Rightwingers to Polls

Jon Ponder

Arizona Republican legislators are so worried about depressed turnout among their base in November if their senator, John McCain, is the GOP nominee that they have introduced a bill that would put yet another anti-gay marriage before voters on the general election ballot this fall. Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts documents the absurdity:
The real purpose of this ballot measure, of course, is to throw out red meat to entice voters for Mike Huckabee — who has made homophobia a hallmark of his presidential campaign — to go to the polls.

But wait … Didn’t we already vote on that, you ask?

Well … yes. We did. In 2006, the Protect Marriage Arizona amendment was put to a public vote, and it failed. Not because voters support gay marriage – most don’t – but because the proposal reached too far, outlawing domestic-partner benefits to government employees who decide to take a pass on a trip to the altar.

(Because, you know, anything straight people want to do is just fine.)

But wait. Don’t we already have a state law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, you ask?

Well … yes. We do. But you know how those activist judges can be.

But wait. Hasn’t the state law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman already been upheld by those activist judges, you ask?

Well … yes. The Arizona Court of Appeals in 2003 ruled that the law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is constitutional.

So naturally, legislative leaders on Monday introduced a proposed amendment to the state constitution, decreeing “only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state.”

All but three Republican legislators have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, which would do absolutely nothing to ban gay marriage.

The real purpose of this ballot measure, of course, is to throw out red meat to entice voters for Mike Huckabee — who has made homophobia a hallmark of his presidential campaign — to go to the polls.

Of course, the initiative may be as unnecessary politically as it is legally if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, since rightwing Christians have a propensity for racism as well as homophobia.

Army Quashed Taxpayer Funded Report Criticizing Bush War-Planning Ineptitude

Jon Ponder

A report by the RAND Corp. in 2005, titled “Rebuiding Iraq” that was highly critical of the war planning by George Bush, then-Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and other top officials, was suppressed, according to the New York Times:

The study chided President Bush — and by implication Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security adviser when the war was planned — as having failed to resolve differences among rival agencies. “Throughout the planning process, tensions between the Defense Department and the State Department were never mediated by the president or his staff,” it said.

The Defense Department led by Donald H. Rumsfeld was given the lead in overseeing the postwar period in Iraq despite its “lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution.”

The State Department led by Colin L. Powell produced a voluminous study on the future of Iraq that identified important issues but was of “uneven quality” and “did not constitute an actionable plan.”

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, whose Central Command oversaw the military operation in Iraq, had a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the military needed to do to secure postwar Iraq, the study said.

A key aspect of the report criticized Bush officials for not preparing the public for the costs of the war:

“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” [the report] said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”

Because it was “inherently challenging,” they chose to lie about it, by peddling the idea that the war would be a “cake” walk and that U.S. forces would be greeted with flowers and candy.

RAND released the report in both classified and unclassified versions, both of which were paid for by you, dear reader. The unclassified version should be released before, not after, Bush and his cabal leave office.

Saudi Arabia: Get the Red Out!

Buck Banks

valentine-post2.jpgI can’t stand Valentine’s Day. It’s a fake holiday created with the sole purpose of selling a bunch of crap that ends up in the waste stream and getting people to spend money on things they don’t need. Like dinner and a movie.

Anyway, as much as I think Valentine’s Day is a racket designed to separate fools from their hard-earned, I am not calling for banning the holiday. I’m not calling for the elimination of the color red from the marketplace. I’m not patrolling the streets with legions of jack-booted thugs enforcing strict separation of unmarried males and females.

But Saudi Arabia is. Our ally in the desert, our buds from OPEC, are trying to obliterate the whole notion of Valentine’s Day from their oil wealthy yet backward country.

“As Muslims we shouldn’t celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, ” Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper.

Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love.

This is, of course, the country that, two years ago sentenced a woman who had been raped by seven men to 200 lashes and six months in prison. She was raped by the men because she was seen in public in the company of a man who was not her husband or relative. She was pardoned, but still ….

But as in most places where there are strict rules about behavior, human beings find a way to work around them. In Saudi Arabia, a thriving black market in roses has grown, and florists deliver bouquets in the middle of the night “to avoid suspicion.”

Think about that when you buy your significant other a box of chocolates in broad daylight.