Anybody who believes Rush Limbaugh's idiotic gas bag boast that he tilted elections in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and now Indiana to Hillary Clinton deserves the word that Al Franken used a few years ago in the title to his best selling book to describe Limbaugh.
Limbaugh's Operation Chaos is the latest in the endless stream of dime store promotional gimmicks Limbaugh has used to hype his up and down show ratings, maintain his spot as king of the yak radio circuit, and puff up his Grand Canyon size ego.

The facts in the Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, of course, refute Limbaugh's hogwash claim. The polls consistently showed that Clinton would likely score a single to double digit win over Obama in these three states. Her core base of supporters, Latinos, rural and blue collar whites, and Reagan Democrats were solidly behind her. In Ohio she got an eleventh hour boost from an alleged memo that painted Obama as waffling on his opposition to NAFTA. That's a red flag issue to economically strapped Ohio workers.

In Pennsylvania nearly 2 million registered Democrats voted. Exit polls showed that out of that number roughly 100,000 voters or 5 percent of the overall number claimed that they changed their registration from Republican to Democrat. An equally small percentage of the Democratic voters said they were new voters or had no party affiliation before the primary. In any case, exit polls showed that the new voters, suspect Democrats or not, backed Obama, not Clinton, by a wide margin, and those that were openly admitted Republicans and that voted as Democrats split evenly down the middle between Obama and Clinton.

The number of new, and unaffiliated voters, and those that claimed to be ex-Republicans at least for the primary was simply too small to seriously say that they made a difference in Clinton's win, escpecially given the gaping margin that she beat Obama by in the state.

Now there's Indiana. Few paid much attention to Limbaugh's absurd blather about Operation Chaos before Obama lost the state by a narrow 14,000 votes. And even then Limbaugh's stunt might have been laughed off as another of the gas bag's ratings grab, that is until Obama backer, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, and some Team Obama staffers bought into his taunt and cried foul. And since Indiana is an open primary state, Limbaugh's boast seemed plausible.

But as always, facts have an irritating way of spoiling a good yarn, or in this case, a hokey claim. Even if we take the word of the roughly ten percent of the Democratic voters in Indiana who claimed they were Republicans, the percentage that went for Clinton was less than ten percent.

That hardly represents a Republican stampede to Clinton. If there was any rush to a Democrat by Republicans anywhere it was to Obama. He got the greater percentage of alleged cross over Republicans in seven of eight states he won according to exit polls. And he got them before Limbaugh allegedly sat out to make mischief by propping up Clinton.

Clinton eked out her win over Obama in the state not with cross over Republican voters but by beating him with the Democrats that she beat him with in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and even North Carolina and that's blue collar white voters who are Democrats and vote Democratic. In Indiana Obama's anchor voter demographic, blacks and college educated younger voters, made up a smaller percentage of the vote than in North Carolina.

By dignifying anything that comes out of the mouth of talk radio's champion huckster, Kerry and Team Obama do a disservice to the success that Obama's retooled stump tactics had in making the Indiana race closer than it could have been. He barnstormed the state through small towns and rural areas and touted a quasi populist working fellow's pitch and softened his image as a regular guy in photo-op stops. This helped take the spotlight off of the Wright fiasco, and bury for the moment his verbal gaffes about guns and religion that Clinton and the GOP giddily waved in the face of Pennsylvania voters.

Limbaugh declared and says that he's shutting down Operation Chaos. Why not? He worked this latest con job to masterful perfection. He got a legion of talking heads actually giving serious credence to his screwy boast. He got a ratings bump up. He got some Democrats who should know better to pay perverse homage to his supposed political prowess. And he further bolstered his stock as the GOP's main man of the airwaves.

Not bad for the guy that Franken branded a big fat idiot. Kind of makes you wonder just who the idiot really was in all of this.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I've written before, as much as I admire Earl, he can get downright silly when it comes to this campaign. In his latest post, Earl writes:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain feigned fury at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama for voting against the confirmation of Supreme Court justice John Roberts. This was not simply a cheap political shot at Obama, since Hillary Clinton, and 20 other Democrats also opposed Robert's confirmation. He didn't knock any of them. McCain had two reasons for slamming Obama. One, it's part of the openly boasted GOP attack strategy to tar Obama as a far out liberal pro abortion, gay rights, and tax and spend Democrat who's out of step with mainstream voters. The other reason is less transparent but much more crucial to McCain's seeming compelling need to reassure conservatives, especially Christian evangelicals, that they have nothing to worry about from a McCain White House.

How about a third option: McCain didn't hit Clinton or any of the other 20 Senate Democrats because he doesn't think any of them will be his opponent in November. Politicians don't usually waste their time chasing phantoms, and criticizing an opponent's views is hardly a cheap shot.

Then Earl makes two remarkably contradictory claims:

1. "(McCain) has been anything but the maverick, thumb his nose at GOP conservatives sometimes depicted when it comes to the prime evangelical litmus test of abortion."

and ...

2. "Despite McCain's occasional soft peddle of the high court's Roe v. Wade ruling, he once said that he'd let it stand, that never diminished his standing with a wide swatch of evangelical voters."

Earl's trying to have it both ways here, but it won't work. Either McCain is a party-line pro-lifer, or he's OK with letting Roe v. Wade stand. But it's simply impossible for someone to be both, when overturning Roe v. Wade has been the preeminent goal of the pro-life movement for the last 35 years.

Earl is right when he notes that McCain has work to do in persuading conservative Christians that they can trust him. But this is precisely because of McCain's record, not in spite of it.

This is pretty funny. At the very time McCain is trying to make up with conservative Christians for his differences with them, Earl and various Democrats are trying to convince liberal secularists these differences don't exist.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barack Obama’s decisive Pennsylvania loss to Hillary Clinton was predictable and inevitable. Obama pretty much confirmed that when he tossed in the towel and spent the crucial countdown hours to the primary vote at a fundraiser in Indiana. But the loss in that state is the least of Obama’s troubles.

But let’s start with Pennsylvania. More than eighty percent of the voters there are white, a significant percent are blue collar, rural, less educated, and less financially well-endowed. Many are gun owners and devoutly religious. The Democrats among them are solid Clinton backers. Pennsylvania voters mirror the voter profile in a majority of states.

One in five Pennsylvania voters made it clear that race was a factor in their vote. Translated; they would not vote for an African-American for president, no matter how fresh, articulate and race neutral his pitch. If Obama hadn’t gotten ninety percent of the black vote mostly in Philadelphia and other urban spots in the state, Clinton would have demolished him.

Obama’s one big and consistent trump card has been the youth vote, those aged 18-29. They are voting.

And the overwhelming majority of them are voting for Obama. But Pennsylvania showed the problem in banking on them to propel a candidate to victory. There simply aren’t enough of them. They make up slightly more than 10 percent of the vote in the state. Their number is dwarfed by older voters over age 45 that make up nearly seventy percent of the vote there. Older, white male, rural voters have been the pathway to the White House for GOP presidents since Nixon. In a head to head contest with McCain, Clinton almost certainly wouldn’t beat him out for their vote, but she’d be competitive. Obama wouldn’t be. The highest percentage of young voters is in solid Democrat or Democratic leaning states. In 2004 the youth voter turnout was highest in Minnesota (69%), Wisconsin (63%), Iowa (62%), Maine (59%), and New Hampshire (58%). In Pennsylvania, there was even an ominous note with the youth vote; race sneaked in. Clinton did surprisingly well with white voters under age 30.

The hard numbers and demographics may be less troubling than voter attitudes and that’s Democratic voter attitudes towards Clinton, and especially Obama. They can be summed up in one word: polarization. That polarization has gotten wider and deeper with every swap of a name call, finger point, and character attack by Clinton and Obama on each other. One quarter of Democrats say they will either cross over and vote for McCain or stay home if Obama is the nominee. Fewer Democrats say they will defect if Clinton’s the nominee. Put bluntly, a general would be hard pressed to win a major battle if one quarter of his troop’s desert before the first shot is fired.

The dominant issue for voters is no longer the Iraq war but the economy. Those that are most likely to stampede the polls in anger over a turned South economy are the voters that Clinton best appeals to. In exit polls, voters said that they thought Obama and Clinton would do better than McCain in handling the economy, but more favored Clinton in handling the economic meltdown.

Pennsylvania was a crowning vindication of Clinton’s win the big state strategy. These are the states that are in play for the Democrats and these are the states that will decide ultimately who will sit in the White House. Obama’s wins in the South and West are side show, feel good wins. These are locked down red states. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, a Democratic presidential candidate has won only one of the eight western states of New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Four of the states with remaining primaries are textbook examples of the meaningless of a Democratic primary win in these states. The last Democrat to win Indiana was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The last Democrat to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Clinton was the last Democrat to win West Virginia. He also broke the Democratic presidential drought in Kentucky with his wins in 1992 and 1996. While it’s true that some of these states have Democratic governors and senators, this means little in a national election. The Democrats that win in these states are independent, self-reliant and conservative. They are the exact opposite of the Obama and even Clinton profile.

There’s one more troubling note for Obama. The majority of voters overall and that includes a significant percentage of Clinton’s backers think that Obama will eventually get the Democratic nomination they aren’t exactly doing handstands at that prospect. More Obama backers say that they will be just as content if Clinton gets the nomination. Fewer Clinton backers say they’ll be content if Obama gets the nomination.
Obama’s Pennsylvania loss does not dampen his chance of eventually getting the Democratic nomination. But the voter demographics that stack up high against him dampen his chance of getting the White House.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So which calamities should Hillary Clinton use in her next commercial, now that she's won Pennsylvania? Some suggestions:

• The Black Death
• The last day of Pompeii
• The shooting of J.R. Ewing (a statement about big oil?)
• Locust plague
• Jonestown
• Morgan Spurlock's latest movie's box office numbers
• A leper colony
• A Stalin pogrom
• Attack of killer bees
• Mongol horde invasion
• The Irish potato famine
• Apocalyptic scenes from "28 Days Later"
• Apocalyptic scenes from "An Inconvenient Truth"
• Hugo Chavez talking

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If this Democratic primary has proven anything it is that pollers and pundits don’t know anything. But since nature and pundits hate a vacuum, let’s try to figure out what will happen on Tuesday. I’ll give you my reasoning and then you put yours in the comments section.

First know that I support Sen. Obama. This could mean that I will be positive, optimistic and irrationally exuberant. Or it could mean that I’ll be trying to protect myself from disappointment by anticipating tragedy. Either could be true, but I will be honest—probably honestly wrong.

I think Obama loses tomorrow by more than 10%. The luster of purity beyond politics is off (and it had to come off) and he is no longer the transcendent candidate beyond both race and politics. While Sen. Clinton loses support by going negative, that hurts Obama too. But it hurts even more when he fights back and goes negative, though he must. He has become a mere mortal. Some of his most idealistic supporters will stay home.

The mud thrown on him late in this race will inevitably appear to stick for a while. The flag pin, the supporter with old far left connections and Rev. Wright. These questions and concerns will let some who were initially excited by the idea and image of Obama to vote for Sen. Clinton.

Finally, many of the so-called “undecideds” are in fact decided and just don’t want to admit that instinctively they can’t vote for a Black man with a Muslim name. They will fall 3 to 1 for Clinton. I see Clinton winning by close to 100,000 votes.

However, to hedge my bet some and explain, if I’m wrong, why I’m wrong: The polls do not reflect the young people, the students who use cell phones and therefore are not polled by most organizations. They are the great unknown. They are as yet uncounted, and I’m not counting on them.

Now it’s your turn.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There’s a good and bad note for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama in the recent exit polls of white voters in Democratic primaries. The good note is that by a lopsided majority of six to one whites said that race was not a factor in considering whether to back Obama or not. That pretty much conforms to virtually every poll that’s been taken since Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring a year ago. His red state Democratic primary and caucus wins and the handful of endorsements he’s gotten from the red state Democratic senators and governors seem to bolster the poll findings as well as his camp’s contention that the majority of whites have bought his race neutral change and unity pitch.

The bad note for him, though, is buried in the racial rose tinged poll numbers. In fact, they were actually buried there even as he rolled up big numbers in his primary victories in Georgia, Mississippi, Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, and South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. Blacks make up a substantial percentage of the vote in those states, and he bagged eighty to ninety percent of their vote. But much less noted was that Clinton got almost sixty five to seventy percent of white votes.

It wasn’t just the reverse racial numbers for Clinton and Obama. Obama does incredibly well in netting the vote of college educated, upscale whites. But Clinton does just as well in bagging support from lower income downscale, and rural white voters. This has huge potential downside implications for Obama in a head to head battle with John McCain in the red states. A significant percent of the voters there are lower income, rural and less educated whites. Obama banks that he can pry one or two of the red states from the GOP. Yet, if he can’t convince Clinton’s white vote supporters, and they are Democrats, to back him, the chances are nil that he’ll have any more success with Republican and independent white voters in these states.

A hint of that came in the Democratic primary in Ohio. Clinton beat out Obama in the primary, and she did it mainly with white votes. But that wasn’t the whole story. Nearly one quarter of whites in Ohio flatly said race did matter in voting. Presumably that meant that they would not vote for a black candidate no matter how politically attractive or competent he was.

An even bigger hint of the race difficulty could come in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary. The voter demographics in the state perfectly match those in Ohio. A huge percent of Pennsylvania voters are blue collar, anti-big government, socially conservative, pro defense, and intently patriotic, and there’s a tormenting history of a racial polarization in the state. Pundit James Carville has even described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. Carville’s characterization is hyperbolic, but devastatingly accurate. Take the state’s two big, racially diverse cities out of the vote equation, and Pennsylvania would be rock solid red state Republican. While polls show some fluctuation in Clinton’s decisive lead over Obama there, she still has a solid lead.

The near unanimous backing that whites give to the notion of voting for a black candidate for president also deserves to be put to a political test to see how much truth there is to it. The question: “Would you vote for a black candidate for president?” is a direct question, and to flatly say no to it makes one sound like a bigot, and in the era of verbal racial correctness (ask Don Imus), it’s simply not fashionable to come off to pollsters sounding like one. That’s hardly the only measure of a respondent’s veracity. In a 2006 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a Yale political economist found that white Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to cross over and vote for a Democratic senatorial candidate against a black Republican foe. The study also found that in the near twenty year stretch from 1982 to 2000, when the GOP candidate was black, the greater majority of white independent voters backed the white candidate.

Republicans and independents weren’t the only ones guilty of dubious Election Day color-blindness. Many Democrats were too. In House races, the study found that Democrats were nearly 40 percent less likely to back a black Democratic candidate than a white Democrat.

Obama’s Democratic primary and caucus wins certainly show that many white voters will vote for him. They obviously feel that he has the right presidential stuff. But a large number of whites aren’t quite ready to strap on their racial blinders even for a candidate who has leaned way over backward to run a race neutral, bipartisan, unity campaign. The big question is just how many whites will refuse to strap on the racial blinders on Election Day. That’s still the X factor for Obama.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Watching this video, I have three thoughts:

1. "Where's Bridget?" (the ultimate "McCain girl")
2. "That's it, I'm voting for Obama!"
3. "This song makes me think of Men on Film..."

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Writing for public consumption is always interesting. What I intend and what the readers get are often at odds. Usually I take full responsibility for this, since it is my job to communicate. Yet, when readers “get” such wildly different understandings of my message, I put some of it on the readers. Writing is, something of a Rorschach test and what someone sees or understands may say more about them than what is on the paper.

)">">That some people read my piece on Obama (Can Obama win with a third impression? Daily News April 6: as strongly anti-Obama, while others thought I was being overly kind to him, is pretty normal. People can see my observations, criticisms and suggestions as hypercritical or defensive. I think that his actions and inactions raise legitimate questions for all voters—and we will answer them differently.

My piece was very specifically a report on how I saw a portion of the electorate, the Jewish portion, reacting to Obama and the questions raised by Pastor Wright’s repeated clips. It was not about what it was not about; which is to say I was not reporting on all Jews, all Californians or all Democrats. I was not making a judgment on the fitness of the candidate. It was a limited topic, but I believe a valid one, and apparently it was both interesting and controversial. It is somewhat pleasing to have responses from London, England, Johannesburg, South Africa, Washington DC, Dallas and San Antonio, Texas—as well as the more expected Van Nuys, California.

That said, some of the comments both to my personal email and on the discussion page raise troubling questions about how we see each other as citizens of the world, Americans, Christians, Muslims and Jews and how we communicate with each other. Is communication meant to build a bridge, change a mind or to insult and punish? Writers and speakers should know their objective before writing or speaking.

I was disheartened by Chris in Dallas who wrote: “We Americans are getting tired of hearing from Jews about this politician or that politician loosing (sic.) support from Jews. Who cares if a politician is loosing support from Jews.”

Here’s the thing about this kind of unkind locution: Jewish citizens of America are, well, Americans. Those of us who are citizens are fully American and have viewpoints that give us a right to have and share our views and perspectives. Jewish Americans have legitimate interests. Remember that citizens of our nation who live in California are Americans, and Texans can be proud Texans, loyal Americans and Jews—all at the same time. I know this since I have family from Corpus Christi, now in The Woodlands who are patriotic Americans, life-long Texans and Jews.

My neighbors in the San Fernando Valley have particular concerns about services in the Valley and how we are treated or ignored by greater Los Angeles. These are narrow concerns but none-the-less they are real and important.
I believe that Texas, California and the District of Columbia can have special interests and make requests of our national candidates to see how they will serve our interests. We then get to decide for whom—or more often, against whom—to vote.
Gabi wrote from Johannesburg: “As usual, the Jewish community is only concerned about what is best for Israel. Not what is best for America.” This comment, like Chris’, assumes that the Jewish community (or the Muslim community or the San Fernando Valley community) is both monolithic and monomaniacal. Neither is true. Gabi’s comment asserts that American Jews are only concerned with Israel and not patriotically attached to America. This is an unwarranted assertion. We can care about more than one thing at a time. We can care about family, tribe, community, state nation and even foreign nations. I must assume that Gabi in South Africa cares about both South Africa and the larger world—particularly the Middle East. If he can multi-task, so can we.

One single geographic, political, social, international or religious issue might or might not be decisive. There being no perfect candidates, we all have to come to our own best sense of what serves our complex constellations of interests and concerns.

In the American Jewish community, most of us are interested in Israel, in its survival and in peace. This does not imply a rejection of Arab, Muslim or Palestinian needs and desires. Peace will involve their interests, and they too have every right and responsibility to ask questions of the candidates and express their own concerns. It would be un-American for them not to.

I believe we communicate—or try—in order to build bridges. It is simply self-indulgent to burn them. Bridges are difficult because while under construction they are supported by a flimsy scaffolding. As we build bridges with words made of air, ink or vibrating electrons, they are precarious structures. We can only bridge the real and important gaps with an attitude of good will, generosity and respect.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former President Bill Clinton, in what the New York Post describes as "a purple rage" over Richardson's decision to endorse Barack Obama. Apparently Clinton doesn't like being lied to. Go figure.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3. In the Senate you have one of the poorest attendance records, and you often simply vote present on thorny issues, why?

Because when Obama's had a long-held plan to coast to the White House on personality, emotion, and the "audacity of hope" alone, a paper trail of votes that shows his real positions on the issues would counter his wanton image as the great uniter, and give plenty o' ammunition to his opponents.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m disappointed in Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s 10 questions for Obama. Some of them are misleading in their formulations and others in their implication. Here are my responses and they are not those of either Sen Obama or his campaign. Just me.

1. I suppose you could spin Obama’s statement that he was against the war without seeing the secret intelligence as a negative. However, I read it as “You guys saw the intel and you still got it wrong.”

2.This is a disingenuous criticism. His subcommittee is on European Affairs. Despite continental drift, Afghanistan remains outside of Europe.

3. The parts of this compound question mix his Illinois Senate service and his national service where there is no vote of Present.

4. I don’t know anything about this.

5. Do you really want to get into how dirty the money sources on all sides of both parties? Bill’s contributors to his library and his multi-million dollar retainer as a consultant are pretty putrid. There are no winners here. For the most part mega fortunes are not made with pristine cleanliness. They may however be cleaned up by being inherited. (See #6)

6. Penny Pritzker, one of Abraham Pritzker’s 12 grandchildren inherited her fortune and is a billionaire in her own right. She doesn’t need to skim from failed banks. The whole subprime thing ended in a fiasco but originally was supposed to help poor people, people who didn’t qualify to regular loans. It was a way of avoiding the redlining of poor people in poor neighborhoods. Yes it was predicated on a continually rising market and that market, as all markets eventually “correct.”

7. See #5

8. Does this question imply that Obama lied or just didn’t know what all his staff and surrogates were saying? Both are certainly sins, but one is worse than the other.

9. Has anyone asked?

10. Oh come on. Hillary stayed in along with Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel. Obama, Edwards and Biden did the honorable thing and tried to follow the request of the national party.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thankfully someone stepped in and told Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep her mouth shut and butt out of the battle between Obama and Clinton over the superdelegates. That came from a group of top Clinton backers in a letter in which they demanded that Pelosi retract her hector of superdelegates to back Obama. The only thing wrong with their letter is that they took so long to write it. Pelosi popped off a week ago and sternly warned the superdelegates that they risked a palace revolt at the Democratic convention if they defied “the will of the people” and handpicked a nominee.

Pelosi’s silly saber rattle had to rank as one of the most asinine lapses of judgment, common sense, not to mention political ethics by a top Democrat in recent memory. The rationale, if it can be called such, is this. Obama leads Clinton in the number of pledged delegates he’s netted. Therefore, the superdelegates should slavishly fall in line and nominate him.

The checklist of things wrong with this would fill up a thick political primer. Here’s just a few of them. There are still a half dozen primaries left and that includes the big, crucial and must win Pennsylvania primary April 22. The vote there won’t even be close. Polls, surveys, and voter statements show that Obama will go down to a crushing defeat and if Clinton as expected picks up the bulk of the 128 delegate votes from her primary victory there she’ll be in a virtual statistical dead heat with Obama in the number of pledged delegates.

Even without the Pennsylvania win and despite the shrill drum beat calls from the rabid Hillary haters for her to stand down, their empty shout at her that it’s impossible for her to win, and their slander that she’s wrecking the party with her obstinate refusal to bow to Obama, she’s less than five percentage points behind Obama in the number of pledged delegates. That’s hardly a resounding mandate from the majority of delegates for Obama.

Here’s another. Many of the superdelegates had committed or pledged to back Clinton before Obama’s magical appearance on the national political scene. Pelosi almost certainly sans Obama would have been one of them.

Here’s another. The superdelegates have the responsibility not just too blindly cheer lead a candidate because of his fleeting momentary, and always ephemeral popularity but to make a hard headed political assessment of which Democrat has the best chance to beat the GOP guy. Clinton’s vote demographics among core Democrats are rock solid. She’s backed by older women, Latinos, blue collar workers, and party regulars. Recent polls even show that she even has the backing of nearly one fourth of African-American voters.

She has won both the big states and the crucial swing states of Ohio and Florida, and soon Pennsylvania. Without them, no Democrat has a prayer of winning the White House. Polls show that in a head-to head face off with McCain, Clinton is in a statistical dead heat with him while Obama slightly trails him.

Here’s yet another. The superdelegates are supposed to be the firewall to insure electability. Though Pelosi apparently confused that with Obama’s media celebrity and his popular aura, it’s anything but. The superdelegates, even if Pelosi can’t, are supposed to be able to tell the difference between the two.

Then there’s Pelosi herself. She is a superdelegate and she has not publicly committed to back either Obama or Clinton. That’s fine so far. She’s also the House majority leader and that means that she’s supposed to be a neutral and impartial political arbiter and broker for the Democratic Party’s interests in Congress. That also entails working with and unifying the discordant factions among the Democrats. In her naked Obama tilt badger of the super delegates she forgot all of that and became a partisan political hatchet woman for Obama.

The hard headed and strong willed Pelosi will probably do the wrong thing and ignore the demand that she recant her biased admonition to the superdelegates to get on board the Obama train. However, if she’s got any political sense, or sense period, she’ll at least zip it up, stop trying to massage things for Obama and let the superdelegates do their job and that’s to pick the candidate that has the best chance to beat McCain. Right now, neither Pelosi, nor any other top Democrat, can say with certainty which one that is.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 5:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Bush chief political strategist Karl Rove already answered the head-scratching question GOP strategists are pondering of whether Obama or Clinton is the easier mark for McCain. In an open memo which got almost no media play and zilch public attention last December, Rove spit out six things Obama should do to zap Clinton.

Obama has followed the script to the letter. He’s unleashed an all-out no holds barred attack on Clinton’s personality, record, and demeanor, and even tossed in some blatant racial digs at her and hubby Bill for supposedly demeaning Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, and of course himself. He’s made bold, brash, and loud pitches and promises to do everything from end the war to clean up the economy. This fulfills Rove’s admonition to him to stop sounding wishy-washy on the big ticket issues and create an aura and persona of confidence, expertise, and even invincibility about himself.

Rove and his anti-Clinton memo was sloughed off at the time as the blathering of a washed out GOP top gun operative who narrowly escaped an indictment. That’s a fatal mistake. Rove didn’t have an on the road to Damascus epiphany in lecturing Obama on how to beat Hillary. Obama is a moderate and centrist Democrat and that means he’s still very much a sworn GOP political enemy. More importantly, Rove got it right twice about how to beat the Democrats. And his sizing up of Obama as the easiest Democratic mark was based on a hard headed assessment of Obama’s weaknesses.

Rove viewed him as untested, inexperienced, way at the front on the learning curve on foreign policy matters, and with a checkered history. That included the hints, innuendos, and whispers about relations with his one time bankroller, the indicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko to his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Almost certainly, the GOP hit squads had the out of context YouTube tape of Wright’s diatribes wound and ready to be looped endlessly in the fall. And just as certainly the squads are hard at work trying to figure out an angle to try and soil Obama with Rezko dirt. That card would also be played in the fall.

The Wright expose, however, was just too juicy, and media and public tongue wagging scandalous to be put off until the fall. Rezko may not be far behind.

Rove also figures on the X factor of race. Despite the raves Obama gets from many whites (remember his opponent is a woman, and one named Clinton), the X factor remains in how many white centrist and independents will cheer him in a head to head race with any white male GOP presidential candidate, in this case McCain. Rove banks not many.

Obama that is before the pre-Wright fiasco certainly seemed to make an idiot out of Rove’s calculated, and cynical ploy to pump him up as the man the GOP could easily zap. Though Obama has followed his beat Hillary script to the letter, he also has shown enough political skills, stump charisma, and the prodigious ability to pile up a king’s ransom campaign chest to be a bona fide competitive Democratic contender against McCain.

Wright may have changed that. Polls show Obama if not exactly in a free fall, he’s suffered marked slippage against Clinton and McCain. But that hardly tags him as a GOP straw man, yet.

The exact last thing that Rove wants to see is a Democrat in the White House. A bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Obama and Clinton means a potentially bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Democratic Party. That will further fuel dissension, stoke bitter divisions and deflect attacks from Bush’s Iraq war and a meltdown economy and McCain’s back door defense of those policies.

In the Rove scheme, the havoc created by telling one Democratic contender how to beat another Democratic contender would so sour the core supporters and enthusiasts for Clinton and Obama that if their candidate didn’t get the nomination, they’d drag their feet getting to the polls on Election Day. That is if they got there at all. That would be the biggest plus of all for the GOP.

Rove gave Obama seemingly some priceless advice on beating Clinton. But the advice was not given to put Obama in the White House, but to make sure that he or Clinton doesn’t get there. The debate then among some GOP strategists over which is the weaker Democrat is looking more facile even irrelevant by the minute. Neither Obama nor Clinton will get the needed 2,025 delegates to lock up the nomination. The decision will be tossed to the superdelegates. That means more rancor and division. It also probably means not one but two mortally weakened Democratic nominees. That’s Rove and the GOP’s fondest dream.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was so delighted to receive the Pulitzer Prize for my groundbreaking anthology of columns that the nomination for the Noble came as such a surprise that I was beyond shock when I actually won the Noble for my novel Fruitflies in Argentina, written in verse using magical realism.

I was very grateful that I had the funds from the MacArthur Genius Grant to underwrite my writing time. And I assure you all that I value this recognition more than even the two OSCARS ™ and EMMY for the movie version of the novel.

Of course nothing equals the Congressional Medal of Honor, which frankly I didn’t think I deserved. Shooting down 12 enemy planes with a pistol while flying cover for the troops in my Piper Cub while talking the medic on the ground through a brain surgery procedure, well, anyone, I’m sure, would have done the same.

I will now devout all my time to making the table-top cold fusion power system I invented available to all. I must, of course, in good conscience, therefore turn down the generous offers to become Pope, Sultan of Brunei and Secretary General of the UN. But thank you for thinking of me.

What? What? Oh sorry, Honey. Yes, I’ll take out the trash. No, I can’t pay the DWP bill in full. I spent everything on gasoline. What about the MacArthur and Noble money? Oh, well, er, sorry, I uh misspoke, I mean miss-typed.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

She has been able to do what, for nearly two weeks, Barack Obama has not -- change the subject away from Rev. Wright. Bosnia-gate has trumped pastor-gate as the scandal du news cycle. It must be maddening for the Clintons, who have lied so effortlessly and compulsively for so long, to now see their penchant for prevarication suddenly turn against them.

Meanwhile, as the Democrats obliterate one another, John McCain gets to sit pretty and watch his favorability ratings soar. Nobody's taken a swipe at him since the name "Mitt Romney" still meant something.

The difference? While Republicans mostly opted for winner-take-all primaries, Democrats, by and large, chose a proportional-winner system. The GOP race thus wrapped up quickly, with even close popular-vote victories amounting to massive delegate gains. On the Democratic side, though, even defeats yielded delegates, preventing either candidate from ever falling too far behind.

And while, as a matter of principle, there's something commendable about a party that calls itself "Democrat" opting for the more democratic means of selection, as a matter of politics, it's been utterly self-destructive. The ongoing Democratic civil war now makes conceivable, or even likely, the possibility that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago -- that the Republican candidate might actually win in November.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ah, the sacred law of unintended consequences. Since the Reverend Mr. Wright damned America and pretty effectively kneecapped Sen. Obama, the clergy of each candidate has come under scrutiny.

I guess it was inevitable. This whole miserable campaign season started on a low note by examining Mitt Romney’s Mormonism—instead of his words, his record and his policies. Pundits and other Republican candidates wondered: What did the Mormon Church teach about polygamy? What kind of guy was Joseph Smith? When did they stop teaching that people of African origin were not only inferior but that a white marrying one should entail both being put to death?

Some of us hoped that religious questions had been put to bed by the election of John F. Kennedy. We hoped in vain.

The campaign and the subsequent election to congress of Keith Ellison, a Muslim, raised all hell. His loyalty as an American was questioned. His choice to be sworn in on a Quran was attacked—even by relatively mainstream people. Elected officials made dire warnings of what was in store for America now that we had an openly Muslim member of congress.

This led, quite naturally and unhelpfully, to the charge that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Sometimes the charge was that he was a secret Muslim and sometimes that he was an open Muslim. People acted on the presumption that his Muslim names implied his religion. I’m sure there must be moments when Barack may yearn to be just a generic Barry once again.

This Inquisition will end neither soon nor well. Now we are investigating the sermons of John McCain’s pastors. There is the Reverend Hagee who seems less than enthusiastic about the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church. There is the Reverend Parsley who not very sagely advocated prison for adultery. But since they are only endorsers and not the clergy of the congregation where McCain normally worships, it is an unfair comparison.

Fairer would be to look at the Reverend Dan Yeary. He is a traditional conservative Christian, strongly opposed to homosexuality, abortion and electing Democrats. Pastor Yeary has expressed some sympathy for the Reverend Wright and spoken of getting carried away in exuberance while in the pulpit. I’m sure his sermons will now be looked at more closely than he may have wished.

Is this to be the new standard? Candidates are responsible not only for what they do and what they say but what they hear? It is an interesting idea based, in my view, on a faulty premise.

The biblical Book of Ecclesiastes begins, in the normal if highly imperfect translation, with, “Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher.” And what greater vanity would there be than believing that anyone is influenced by the words of a preacher?

What is the influence of clergy from the pulpit? I mean if people actually listened and obeyed, if they were at all influenced by sermons, wouldn’t sermons stop and clergy no longer be needed? If we got the message and acted as our clergy of all our various faiths demanded, (you have to admit, an unlikely event), wouldn’t our ministers, priests, rabbis and imams have to find other work?

As Ecclesiastes further points out, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and we never get the simple message. With all of the sermons throughout our human history, there are really very few topics when you think about it. The main three are Sin, Forgiveness and Peace. The clergy mostly preach against sin. How does this seem to be working out? Have we rid the world of sin yet? They’re for Forgiveness. Apparently this is harder to do than it sounds. Peace? Of course, we are all for peace, and we’ll kill any who don’t understand peace as we do.

When I consider Sen. Obama and the Reverend Mr. Wright, I cannot conclude that Obama was saved or ruined any more than any other creature in a pew. To believe that having heard 20 years worth of sermons, some of which were angry in tone, have left Obama embittered, I would have to believe that 3,000 years of history has taught my people always to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d.” I would have to believe that Christians got the pretty clear memo from Jesus that we cannot love G-d whom we have not seen, if we don’t love our brothers whom we have seen. I’d have to believe that the most repeated words in the Quran, and in daily Muslim prayers, “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” has inscribed mercy and compassion on every Muslim heart.

People go to their religious houses of worship for many reasons. Sometimes it is neighborhood and convenience. Sometimes it is social. Often it is for the esthetic of worship style—the preaching or the music. Sometimes it is tradition. People even go, or so I’m told, for purposes of business and status. There is little that we can predict about a person’s politics, outlook or moral character by their choice of congregations.

Despite this, we can now anticipate that all candidates will henceforth and forevermore be pastorized—blessed and cursed by the preaching they sit through. We seem to be in the absurd position that when clergy exhort us to good they are highly ineffectual, but when they promote bad ideas using terrible rhetoric they sway us like a mighty wind.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

... then what is likening Bill Richardson to Judas? Here's Clinton campaign adviser James Carville's reaction to New Mexico Gov. Richardson's endorsement of Obama:

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Earls' post below reminds me of this cartoon:

Of course McCain won't say an unkind word about his pastor, nor should he. Nor will his pastor's words (if they're no more inflammatory than the ho-hum examples Earl has cited) become a big story, like Wright-gate. When a candidate's pastor preaches plain biblical teaching, it is not news. When he preaches racial intolerance and ant-American hatred, it is. Trying to equate the two represents a rather feeble attempt at moral equivalence.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

... and she should be.

One of the more artful, but deceitful, ploys in Obama's Wednesday speech was conflating Ferraro's utterly innocuous comments about race with the hateful rantings of Obama's own "spiritual adviser." Here's one of the quotes from that speech:

"On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike."

So there you have it, stating the bleeding obvious -- that many voters favor Obama because he is black -- is conflated with saying the CIA created HIV to wipe out African-Americans. (This is the same CIA, mind you, that was convinced there WMDs in Iraq.)

I love, too, how Obama pretends that Ferraro and Wright are at opposite "ends" of the political spectrum. Um, sorry, Barack -- these are two lefties here. The Democrats' (suddenly cannibalistic) appetite for identity politics is wholly a Democratic problem.

Anyway, back to Ferraro. "To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," she says, and she's right. It's far worse than some overheated Obama aide calling Hillary Clinton a monster (which, for what it's worth, is really no worse than Hillary's calling Dick Cheney "Darth Vader").

And if that weren't enough, Ferraro has also called out Obama, again rightly, for throwing his grandma under the bus. "I could not believe that," she said. "That's my mother's generation."

Really, couldn't Obama have said, "There are even dear people in my own family who have used racist stereotypes" -- and left it at that? Did he really have to brand Grandma as a racist before the whole country?

This flap is going to hurt Obama's chances greatly. Not just because it casts doubt on the sincerity of his "post-racial" appeal, but because it cuts into the very question of his decency. One of the greatest advantages Obama once had is that, unlike Clinton, he didn't seem like the sort of politician who would say or do anything, or sell anyone out, to get elected. That no longer appears to be the case.

A few months ago, I would have told you Obama would rout McCain in a general election. Now, if he wins, I suspect it will be in a squeaker -- and that's assuming he even gets to the general election.

All of which proves, once again, that long-range political predictions are for idiots.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The man who never rests is taking a day off -- without pay!

And it's easy to see why. When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed that Los Angeles city workers take voluntary furloughs (unpaid days off) to help save their jobs, he envisioned the city reaping $20 million worth of savings. But in the end, the plan only brought in a measly $95,000 -- probably because city workers, like the rest of us, like getting a paycheck.

Meanwhile, despite his lofty exhortations, Villaraigosa was notably not among the few self-sacrificial workers to forgo a few days' wages. So now the mayor has decided to lead by example by making today his day off. But being Antonio, he can't really just take a breather:

Regardless of the furlough, the mayor plans to attend five public events today.

In the morning, he will join Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and members of Congress for a helicopter tour of the Los Angeles River.

Then, the mayor will attend the 41st annual Firefighter of the Year Luncheon to honor LAFD Capt. Stephen Norris. Following that event, the mayor will deliver the keynote address at the Southern California Association of Governments' Regional Transit Summit.

In the afternoon, Villaraigosa will head to Wilmington to discuss a landmark vote by the Los Angeles Harbor Commission. To end his day, Villaraigosa will attend the Korean American Chamber of Commerce's 31st annual Gala.

What a guy, he's working for nothing!

But rather than short-change himself, Villaraigosa ought to embrace more straightforward accounting: He should go ahead and charge the city for today's work -- but pay back his wages from all the weeks he spent traveling around the country stumping for Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've posted the toon above because it neatly encapsulates an argument I've heard from various Obama apologists, namely that Barack's association with Pastor Wright is no more odious than John McCain's receiving the endorsement from Rev. John Hagee. It's a nice try at moral equivalence, but it's just not true.

To put it simply: There is a big difference between receiving someone's endorsement and giving someone your own. And it was Hagee who endorsed McCain -- not the other way around.

If Obama had simply received the endorsement of Rev. Wright, this would be a non-issue -- you can't control who likes you, and no cause is so noble that it won't attract bad people. This is why few people much care that Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama, even though Farrakhan's views make Wright's look positively mild.

But because Obama has held Wright out as a spiritual and political mentor, Wright's intemperate views are relevant. They suggest that even though Obama might not share these views, he is all too accommodating and comfortable with them. As I noted earlier, this is not just a friendship, but a religious/ideological connection. Certainly it tells us something about what Obama thinks, even if the meaning of that something is in dispute.

Meanwhile, that some crazy likes McCain tells us very little about McCain -- and it's hardly something for which the Arizona senator need apologize.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just got this e-mail from a very dear friend, with whom I differ on a great many issues:

I was thinking -- just think of the Arabs that I am friends with and the views they hold -- some of them I'm so close with I'm going to Tunisia with them next year to visit their familiies, and I would never disown them, even if I were running for president -- is that comparable to Obama's situation?

She writes of some Arab neighbors who have become her good friends, and who are dear in every way -- except that they hold some truly frightening, ignorant viewpoints about Jews. (My friend strongly rejects these views, and vehemently disagrees with them whenever they are expressed, but still values these neighbors' friendship.) Here's my response:

I don't think the analogy you set forth is appropriate. It's one thing to have friends and loved ones who hold beliefs you find offensive -- I've got them in spades. (Starting with you!) It's another thing, though, to set these people up as your "mentor" or "spiritual adviser."

A friend is someone whose company you enjoy regardless of ideology, politics, or worldview. A political and/or spiritual mentor is just the opposite -- it's someone whose advice you take seriously precisely because of beliefs (regadless of whether you like the person on a personal level or not).

If this were Obama's brother-in-law or golfing buddy, it wouldn't be much of an issue. But it's a man he considers a source of wisdom and inspiration -- and that's what makes it problematic.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)