(No kittens were harmed in the making of this image)

Today — the second Tuesday in March — is the day in years past that Florida voters would have gone to the polls. And in years past, by today the die would already be cast for one candidate from each party to be the presumptive nominee, making Florida’s vote a non-issue. But the Florida legislature changed our primary date to Jan. 29, and the irony is that in doing so, Florida Democrats became not decision-makers but bystanders in the entire process.

Florida Republicans, on the other hand, did pretty well. John McCain became the frontrunner as a result of the Florida vote, and Rudy Guiliani dropped out of the race, giving the state true input. Florida Republicans will also be represented at the GOP convention this summer, by half of the delegates they would normally have, but it beats none, which is what as of now the Democrats will have at their convention.

On rare occasions I find myself in agreement with the Florida Democratic Party, and whether to hold a re-vote is one of those times.

“It is important that we are clear about one issue. At this time, no suggested alternative process has been able to meet three specific and important requirements: the full participation from both candidates, a guaranteed commitment of the millions of dollars it will cost to conduct the event and a detailed election plan that would enfranchise all Florida Democrats, including our military service members serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“The Florida Democratic Party cannot consider any alternative that does not meet these requirements. Indeed, it is very possible that no satisfactory alternative plan will emerge, in which case Florida Democrats will remain committed to seating the delegates allocated by the January 29th primary.

[…]

Ken Mehlman, the closeted heterosexual former Bush campaign aide who recently headed the Republican National Committee, and Karl Rove, Bush’s unscrupulous former advisor, are helping out with strategy for John McCain, guaranteeing — as if a guarantee were needed — that the 2008 campaign will be the nastiest ever fought:

Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain…

Rove explained that he and McCain “got to know each other during the 2004 campaign.” In a separate interview, Mehlman noted that “McCain was completely loyal to the president in 2004 and worked incredibly hard to help him get elected.”

Flashback — CNN, June 23, 2000:
Bush was critical of Al Gore in the 2000 campaign for being part of “the administration that’s been in charge” while the “price of gasoline has gone steadily upward.”

Gas prices have soared this week to a national average of $1.64 a gallon, and to well over $2 a gallon in the Chicago and Milwaukee area, setting off a frenzy of finger-pointing involving the Clinton administration, Congress, oil companies and refineries, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In 2000, the Republicans used the spike to $1.64 as a campaign issue to bash the Clinton administration and Democratic candidates in the election that year, especially Al Gore:

In June 2000, Republican politicians urged President Bill Clinton to fire his energy secretary, Bill Richardson. Richardson, Michigan Sen. Rod Grams explained, was presiding over an “energy disgrace.” Clinton, many conservative commentators urged, should be raked over hot coals for vetoing congressional measures that would have opened up much of the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling.

Meanwhile anti-tax think tanks such as the rightwing Heritage Foundation, rushed into print with reports advocating massive rollbacks of federal and state gasoline taxes and clean air standards for gasoline. Finally, anti-environmentalists jumped into the fray, lambasting Vice President Al Gore for implicitly condoning an OPEC supply squeeze that would drive up oil prices and thus, the conspiracy theory went, force Americans to drive less — which Gore, with his wacky ideas about global warming, was apparently salivating at the mouth about.

And:

[…]

Obama Campaign First Denied a Similar Story But Then Admitted It Was True – Obama Said His People Acted ‘Naively’

A spokesperson for Stephen Harper, the conservative prime minister of Canada, has denied reports that his administration received back-channel communications from the Hillary Clinton campaign that soft-pedaled Clinton’s statements that, as president, she would re-negotiate NAFTA:
Mr. Harper’s communications director, Sandra Buckler, said yesterday that Ms. Clinton’s campaign did not brief Canadians on its NAFTA stand. “The answer is no, they did not,” she said.

Mr. Harper’s communications director, Sandra Buckler, said yesterday that Ms. Clinton’s campaign did not brief Canadians on its NAFTA stand. “The answer is no, they did not,” she said.

That will likely be a reassuring public response for Ms. Clinton’s campaign, which used the leaks to hobble Mr. Obama with charges that he attacked NAFTA on the hustings but reassured Canada in private.

The Clinton campaign suggested Obama’s attacks on NAFTA were merely political rhetoric intended to garner votes in the Ohio rust belt where NAFTA is blamed, in part, for wrecking the economy:

CTV, the well-regarded Canadian news network, reported this week that a top Obama adviser contacted the Canadian government to calm fears that the senator was serious about rewriting pro-corporate deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement to benefit workers, farmers and the environment. According to CTV, the Obama adviser told the Canadians that “when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.”

After that report aired on Wednesday, an Obama campaign spokesperson claimed in an interview with CTV that “no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.”

[…]

Hillary Clinton wants Florida’s Jan. 29 presidential preference primary results to stand, and the delegates counted as they are now. Her position is interesting for two reasons. First, Clinton won 50 percent of Florida’s vote back on Jan. 29. Obama won 33 percent and John Edwards, 14. All the other Democratic candidates won a combined total of 1 percent.

Which leads us to the second interesting thing. Clinton seems to presume, like I do, that Edwards drew votes away from Obama, not her. She must think that everyone who wanted to vote for her already did so, and she has maxed out her support in Florida. Again, I agree.

In my case, given a choice of Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and the others, my first choice was Edwards, my second choice Obama, and my third choice Clinton. Today with only two choices, Obama would resoundingly be my first one. Only if I were forced to pick between Clinton and McCain would Clinton get my vote.

Clinton also seems to suspect, as I do, that her conduct on the stump in the time since the Florida primary might cost her votes if another election were held. I doubt, but will hopefully never know, if she could take 50 percent now.

I say “hopefully never know” because I am against wasting taxpayer dollars on another Florida primary. I so detest Howard Dean that I hate to see him win his battle to keep Florida voting later. I am also against a re-do because the sooner we sink a wooden stake in the Hillary Clinton monster (whoops, hope I won’t be forced to resign now), the better for the party. Keeping things unsettled on our side while John McSame’s messages go out loud, clear, and undiluted by competition is bad for Democrats.

Rolling Stone Magazine’s Jann Wenner makes the case for Obama. He draws distinctions with the former first lady (and to hear her version of it, the former actual president) that make the feeling I get when I imagine her winning even more like my stomach is full of mud.

Throughout the primaries, and during a visit he paid to our offices, we have come to know Barack Obama, his toughness and his grace. He would not be intimidated, and he declined to back down, when Senator Clinton called him “frankly, naive” for his willingness to meet leaders of hostile nations. When one of her top campaign officials tried to smear him for his earlier drug use, he did not equivocate or backtrack. On the matter of experience and capability, he has run an impressive, nearly flawless campaign — one that whupped America’s most hard-boiled political infighters. Indeed, Obama was far more prepared to run a presidential campaign — from Day One — than Senator Clinton. And at no point did he go negative with personal attacks or character assassination; as much as they might have been justified, they didn’t even seem tempting to him.

Obama has emerged by displaying precisely the kind of character and judgment we need in a president: renouncing the politics of fear, speaking frankly on the most pressing issues facing the country and sticking to his principles. He recognizes that running for president is an opportunity to inspire an entire nation.

All this was made clearer by the contrast with Hillary Clinton, a capable and personable senator who has run the kind of campaign that reminds us of what makes us so discouraged about our politics. Her campaign certainly proved her experience didn’t count for much: She was a bad manager and a bad strategist who naturally and easily engaged in the politics of distraction, trivialization and personal attack. She never convinced us that her vote for the war in Iraq was anything other than a strategic political calculation that placed her presidential ambitions above the horrifying consequences of a war. Her calibrated course corrections over the past three years were painful. Like John Kerry, who also voted for the war while planning a presidential run, it helped cost her that goal.

Although Obama declined to attack her personally for her vote for the war in Iraq, he did call it, devastatingly enough, a clear demonstration of her so-called experience and “judgment.” He has also spoken forcefully about the need to break the grip of lobbyists — at a time when Clinton is the largest recipient of drug-company donations of anyone in Congress. Clinton could not address this issue at all, and neither will John McCain, who is equally a player in Washington’s lobbyist culture.

Despite Clinton’s spin that her two primary victories this week restore her claim to inevitability, Obama is ahead in the delegate count. Superdelegates appear committed to following the voters’ will. Depending on what happens here in Florida — where just like in 2000, Republicans are in a position to twist the process — and in Michigan, Obama’s chances are strong. I am keeping my fingers crossed, and my hopes high.

Barack Obama may yet sail to the Democratic nomination without having to engage in the sort of junkyard dog fighting required of candidates who find themselves — as Hillary Clinton has — in second place in a two-person fight. Ironically, however, if he maintains his momentum after losing Ohio and Texas to Clinton last night and easily wins the rest of the primaries, the result might be that he’s a weaker candidate against John McCain in the general.
To come from behind, Obama would have to resort to the sort of “Art of War” tactics we’ve seen from the Clinton campaign lately that have so outraged his fans.
Finding himself running decidedly behind Clinton would force to demonstrate that he can do more than inspire — that he knows how to fight to win. This would be reassuring to millions of Democrats who agree that Obama might be a great president but find the proposition moot because he lacks a track record of playing the sort of political hardball required to beat Republicans.

It is relatively easy to stay above the fray in the top spot, but if Obama lags into second, he’ll find himself trying to accomplish two opposing objectives: Preserving his image as an inspirational leader while simultaneously trying desperately to draw blood in a knife fight with Hillary Clinton. To come from behind, Obama would have to resort to the sort of “Art of War” tactics we’ve seen from the Clinton campaign lately that have so outraged his fans: attack ads, sharp criticism and negative campaigning (that, by the way, apparently worked).

The Clintons have only lost two elections since Bill’s political career began in 1974, and their path to power is littered with bloodied opponents. If Obama can beat them, he will enter the general as a giant slayer. This would also prove to the hordes of party faithful who are impervious to his charms, considerable as they are, that he can win a contested election. As has been noted in these pages before, Obama lost the only seriously contested election he has ever run, in a primary to unseat Rep. Bobby Rush, the former Black Panther.

Whether the Democratic nominee turns out to be Clinton or Obama, if the national polls remain consistent through the summer, he or she will enter the general running second behind John McCain. The Democratic candidate will face an onslaught of negative attacks would make John Kerry’s Swiftboat adversaries blush. Failure to return fire will result in either Clinton or Obama becoming the third in a series of honorable and decent Democratic nominees to lose on tactics, not merits, to an incredibly flawed GOP candidate.

The Democratic candidate should not expect help from the “liberal media” — they love John McCain as much as they already hate Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, we learned that the media is sharpening its knives for Obama — and he can now expect the same unfair treatment the Beltway guys and gals gave John Kerry over the Swiftboating charges, Al Gore over the bogus claim that he said he invented the Internet and the Clintons over Whitewater et al.

Like her or hate her, there is ample evidence Hillary Clinton is as ready as anyone can be for the Republican smears and lies. As it stands today, no one knows if Barack Obama is ready for this crucial test.

Isn’t it magnanimous of Gov. Charlie Crist to hold another Democratic primary in Florida? I doubt it.

Behind the generosity with taxpayer money, which the electorate recently voted to cut drastically, might be a big, honking ulterior motive. Charlie is widely favored to be selected as John McCain’s running mate. John McCain stands to gain the longer the Democratic side remains unsettled. If Florida holds a new election (an assinine idea, in my view), the ball could very well be bandied about right through the convention. Meanwhile, the McCain message can be broadcast loud, clear, and interference-free.

I already voted in the Florida primary. I had a full slate of candidates from which to choose, even though I had not been allowed an opportunity to hear or see them campaign, meet any of them, or get their views on issues related to my state. But that was Howard Dean’s doing, and it’s over.

If Crist succeeds in holding another election, besides being a huge waste of funds at a time when essential services to the most needy and at-risk residents are being cut, it will be a callous political move. I have no doubt our Republican-led legislature will happily comply once Charlie explains it to them, but it’s the wrong thing to do. Period.