We'll Kill The Campaign AFTER The Checks Clear

Couple thoughts on this George Stephanopoulos story about the Edwards campaign, which may or may not be true, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that it is. George reports that by late December of 2007, many staffers were convinced that Edwards did have the affair, and they devised a strategy to deal with it by denying Edwards the nomination from within. If it looked like he could win the nomination, they prepared themselves to sabotage it.

OK, if this is true, these are horrible, horrible people. You know how you could have sabotaged the campaign? Resigned en masse when you learned about the affair. You didn't have to reveal the reason, but clearly the press would have done the job for you at that point, and even if they learned nothing about that, the narrative of disarray would have set in. Instead, they plotted a "just in case" plan so they could keep collecting their paychecks until the campaign folded. So all those people who sent in money to Edwards' campaign after December were throwing money down the garbage. And these staffers knew it - in fact they had a plan to incinerate that money if Edwards grew too successful. And they were APPEALING to people to make donations, to pay their salaries, without informing anyone that Edwards had no chance of being President and they would ensure that.

What a bunch of weasels. Or, I could say, what a bunch of political consultants. Not much difference.

...Joe Trippi says the report is B.S.

American Scumbag

Women must not listen to Rush Limbaugh:

LIMBAUGH: Well, it's -- I mean, at some point, at some point, you gotta exhibit maturity and restraint. You know, and I do that constantly. But -- well, I don't -- look, let me see if I can run you through this and get you to think what I'm thinking without my actually saying it. That might be a pretty big talent if I could do that -- make you think what I'm going to say without my having to say it, therefore if anybody gets in trouble for saying it, you say it.

We know -- we've been told that Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards. That's part of the puff pieces on them that we've seen. Ergo, if Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards, is it likely that she thinks she knows better than he does what his speeches ought to contain and what kind of things he ought to be doing strategy-wise in the campaign? If she is smarter than he is, could it have been her decision to keep going with the campaign? In other words, could it be that she doesn't shut up? Now, that's as far as I'm going to go [...]

I'm sorry, my friends, I just -- I can't. It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk.

I am just impervious to being offended by pretty much anything, but I don't know how a conservative woman could listen to this guy. The lack of respect is glaring.

Of course, he travels on Dominican sex tours with stolen bottles of Viagra, so "respect" wasn't ever on the menu.

The United States of Puritania

It is hard-wired into the American DNA to look pruriently into other people's sex lives, to gossip and titillate ourselves, to become the world's Gladys Kravitz whenever anyone in a position of power shows a human failing. We have a deep problem with sex in America to an extent that is not replicated worldwide. When an adulterous affair or a dark secret sexual past comes to light we obsess over it. We come descended from a people who thought Eve's original sin extended to all women, and religious doctrine collectively weighed the nation down with near-constant guilt.

This residual Puritanical bent characterizes the reaction to John Edwards' revelation yesterday. It's the reason that no amount of violence in a contemporary film can garner the same rating as a film with any amount of full frontal nudity. We are really dysfunctional when it comes to sex and more so when it comes to judging other people's families. Elizabeth Edwards' statement yesterday shouldn't even have been necessary.

We also are hung up on the idea that a politician's personal life must be a reflection of how he or she would govern. And that's just not the case. Aside from moralistic hypocrisy based on, for example, voting against gay rights while being gay yourself, there's simply no reason to bring these personal peccadillos into the public square. If fidelity was a harbinger of Presidential success, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon would be triumphs while FDR would be a failure.

But more to the point, it's the priority orders we conjure up based on this Puritanical past that become truly maddening. The post I was going to write about this has already been ably penned by clammyc, so I'll just reprint a bit of it and urge you to head over there.

But moving past the issue of sex, which is really only important to people who have so little in their own lives to be proud of that they have to obsess and point fingers at others to feel better about themselves, there are so many other reasons to be absolutely frustrated with the hypocritical moralists and smarmy narcissists that are once again rearing their ugly heads. Over the past week, we found out that the White House not only passed off forged documents to sell the Iraq invasion, but they forged their own documents to sell the Iraq invasion, and there is not a peep about it?

We found out that the US attorney scandal is now focusing on the White House inner circle, yet there is a collective yawn. The much ballyhooed military tribunal of Hamdan resulted in a 5 month sentence even after a kangaroo court trial - basically a repudiation of the entire administration view on military tribunals.

We just passed 500 military deaths in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi Congress adjourned without meeting one benchmark that was supposed to be the main result of the so-called "surge", yet all we hear is the foregone conclusion that the surge worked.

Torture is still on the table. One Attorney General approved of torture memos, while also being part of voter suppression lawsuits while the latest Attorney General approves of waterboarding as long as it isn’t being done to him, and also is a chief obstructor of justice when it comes to the Executive Branch. Iraqi prisoners are being put in small wooden boxes, which of course is most certainly not torture.

Spying on Americans has been given the thumbs up by Congress, criminal defiance of subpoenas by Rove, Miers, Bolton are being allowed to set a dangerous precedent, there is more saber rattling about attacking Iran - with similar lies being trotted out by this administration, and the current republican nominee.

I would add this remarkable story, which received almost no coverage on the blogosphere and in broadcast media after being stuffed into the middle of the Washington Post yesterday:

At least 17 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to a program that moved them repeatedly from cell to cell to cause sleep deprivation and disorientation as punishment and to soften detainees for subsequent interrogation, according to U.S. military documents.

Defense Department investigations of abuse had previously revealed that the program was used in a limited manner and only on high-value detainees, but the documents indicate that the program was far more widespread and that the technique was still used months after it was banned at the facility in March 2004. Detainees were moved dozens of times in just days and sometimes more than a hundred times over a two-week period.

So the techniques were banned by the Defense Department, banned by international convention and federal statute, and yet were still used and authorized, and if you go back you'll see that authorization coming from the highest levels. This rates barely a whisper.

It is of no consequence to those guardians of the discourse to spend weeks discussing the literal hijacking of our government (for which they receive a handsome sum, indirectly) but we, as the descendants of the Puritans, must go hog wild at the mention of an affair. I think John Edwards is a total idiot for thinking he could keep this secret during a high-stakes Presidential campaign, and for risking the loss of the White House by running, knowing the political environment in the US and our Puritanical lizard brains.

I know these appeals to reason, to assess the gravity of competing situations, often fall short. It's hard to compete with human nature, particularly American human nature. I wish we were in a country where we could accurately determine what shocks the conscience, at a human level, free from ideology or politics. That is unlikely. But I'm still going to let that determine what I prioritize to the best of my ability.

The Saddest Part

of this story is that it offers Mickey Kaus an opportunity to gloat.

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

He was at the Beverly Hilton, as the National Enquirer suggested, too.

This has been a really bad year for the personal lives of candidates that I respected and admired. First Eliot Spitzer and now this. But I can't say that it's much of a surprise. Politicians, power, sex; it's always been part of the stew. This is true on the left and true on the right (McCain's first marriage, anyone?). The difference is that only one side consistently attempts to legislate morality.

I really feel bad for Elizabeth Edwards and the family, more than anything.

UPDATE: Reading Edwards' statement about this, the phrase "increasingly egocentric and narcissistic" jumped out at me. If you're a Presidential candidate, you run around the country in limousines and airplanes. You are greeted warmly to cheering thousands wherever you land. You give speeches and people clap and cheer. It's probably not hard to get a full head. I don't understand how someone could be so stupid but I've never been in that position. And in addition, unless you're inside a marriage you have no idea what goes on.

The Problem Is We're Not Morons

Today there was a headline that John McCain wears $520 Ferragamo loafers. If the liberal blogosphere were set up like the conservative blogosphere, everybody would be frantically posting about it and linking to one another's attempts at humor, making really crude Photoshops with McCain in a full-length gown and shoes made of gold, create horrible YouTubes about "Richie John" or some other kind of nonsense pun, and basically cause such a ruckus that the AP and Washington Post would devote 1,600-word stories to the shoes and where they came from and maybe an interview with the shoe salesman.

But sadly, we're not juvenile delinquents. We didn't see the Edwards haircut as a big deal and we don't see McCain's shoes as a big deal, and the most we can muster is a slightly ironic raise of the eyebrow and saying "If McCain were a Democrat he'd be pummeled for this..." Rich people can wear what they can afford and I don't really have much to say about it. But there is a kind of asymmetrical warfare at work here. The pundit media, the chattering class, has virtually no grasp of policy and exists to be fed the kind of pointless stories like what kind of shoes a candidate wears. Republicans are all too willing to do the feeding; but Democrats pretty much aren't, and that's a character flaw. Or rather, it's not a flaw, but it causes the critique of Democrats as weak and effeminate to go unchallenged, often. Meanwhile Republicans are tough and rugged and they live on ranches (even though McCain's is not a ranch, it's called one).

I don't know what to do about this. I'm not going to pounce on every little cool kid snickering statement to prove that McCain is some dandy or whatever. It's just not worth it. He has no understanding of the economy, no principles that he keeps for more than five minutes, and constructs his foreign policy around more wars and using the military to problem-solve. That's enough for me. But at some level, these bullshit ticky-tack things do have to be combated in the media.

America's Worst Op-Ed Page

Beyond David Broder, beyond George Will, beyond Robert Novak, beyond David Ignatius, beyond Richard Cohen, and beyond the straw that stirs the drink Fred Hiatt (I'm sure I'm missing some of the other illustrious luminaries), the Washington Post also publishes Kathleen Parker, who this week pondered whether Barack Obama had the proper "blood equity" to be President, and then decided John Edwards and Obama were gay for each other. Bradrocket had the definitive takedown of that mess.

It’s tough to list all the things that make this column so mind-crushingly stupid, but let’s give it a shot:

• Parker begins the column by calling Edwards and Obama fags.

• Then, not having the courage to stand by this novel and poignant insight, she claims that it wasn’t her idea to call them fags, but was instead the idea of one of Edwards’ advisers. But hey, they’re still gay homo fruits who like to take it up the homobutt.

• Next, she pulls out the oldest trick in the Wingnut Punditry Bible: she lectures us about what Real Americans think! Never mind that she’s spent her entire working life on the Wingnut Welfare circuit - she’s got her hand on the pulse of The People, baby!

• And what do Real Americans think, you ask? Why, they’re apparently super-duper happy about the state of the country! Even though, like, 85% of them are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. And even though Bush’s approval rating stands at a sterling 28%. And even though the Republicans just lost a goddamn seat in freaking Mississippi.

To sum up: the WaPo just published a fact-free op-ed whose only “substantive” points are that Edwards and Obama are TEH GHEY OMG LOL IT IS TOO FUNNY FOREVER.

This is why I don't read op-ed pages, and yet the WaPo's "Makes Me Want To Commit Self-Murder"ers Row is so astonishingly bad that you can't help but hear about it.

Delegate Matters

The unremarked-upon part of Obama's endorsement from John Edwards is that he's likely to get Edwards' 30 or so delegates, and this wipes out the gains in Michigan and Florida that Hillary Clinton would get if and when those states are seated. She has been trying to claim that the new standard for winning the nomination is 2,210 delegates, but never adds the delegates that both candidates would get from Michigan and Florida to the total that they have. That's because if she did, given the new math from the Edwards endorsement, she'd reveal that she's in exactly the same position.

Obama is assured to capture a majority of the pledged delegates on May 20, and at the rate he's picking up superdelegates (my Congressman Henry Waxman endorsed him yesterday), he may have the nomination clinched on June 3. I think Clinton will drop out June 4 after a deal on Michigan and Florida is reached. And as Obama showed today in his blistering rebuke to Bush and McCain on diplomacy, the general election has already begun.

UHC As The Killer App Of The Democratic Nomination

After John Edwards' endorsement and a show of unity inside the Democratic Party, thoughts turn to that "unity ticket" everyone's been buzzing about. I don't think it's such a good idea, though I can definitely see a Vice President who was a Clinton supporter like a Ted Strickland or Ed Rendell. What I do think is that someone who took 49% of the Democratic vote (YMMV) in this primary season is entitled to get something out of the exchange, as a show of her prominence and importance in the party. There are simply too many supporters to say "Sorry, you lost, go home." Clinton's influence will wane the day she gets out of the race, but there is a way to save her from herself and create some space in the next Administration - not for her, but her ideas.

Kitty Seeyle, who I'm not necessarily a fan of, hit on the idea of using universal health care as the bargaining chip that Obama's campaign could take up to ensure her support.

But since then, Mr. Obama has indicated that he would certainly want to be talking with her.

“Obviously, I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” he said on Friday, noting it was too early to do so as long as she was still running.

Translation: Mr. Obama needs her to help him win in the fall. Her devoted contingent of Democrats is nearly as large as his own, a point that will be underscored with her expected big win tonight in West Virginia. After a divisive primary season, he knows that winning over her supporters begins with winning over her.

So how about this: What if Mrs. Clinton asked Mr. Obama to adopt her plan for universal health care? He could put Mrs. Clinton in charge of achieving it, presumably but not necessarily from her perch inside the Senate. And he could begin by putting the goal of universal coverage as a plank in the party’s platform.

Now, this is purely speculative. A Clinton spokesman says no such discussions are underway. But neither does he bat them away.

Ultimately, I think that Clinton supporters will return to the fold in the fall. But Clinton's health care plan is simply more popular than Obama's, and while I'm not the biggest fan of mandates without serious cost controls, I think there's room for an accommodation here. Clinton's bill can be the template for negotiation with stakeholders, which Obama wants to see played out in the open, on C-SPAN. Clinton can be the Senate leader at that table. Her legacy would be assured, just as many Senators are defined by their connection to key legislation, like the Stafford Loan.

This would actually get a lot of Democratic leaders on board with Obama and more comfortable with his campaign. This was the last paragraph of the story on the Edwards endorsement.

Edwards didn't even tell many of his former top advisers of his decision because he wanted to inform Clinton personally, said the person close to him. His wife, Elizabeth, who has said she thinks Clinton has the superior health care plan, did not accompany him and is not part of the endorsement.

One of the key issues, if not the key issue, for voters which have favored Clinton is health care. And that's going to be lanched from the Senate anyway. Wyden-Bennett is the furthest along right now. Clinton's plan could be the starting point from an Obama Administration's perspective, with maybe a shift of emphasis, where cost control is foregrounded. I think this would be a very good unity proposal.

The Edwards Endorsement

Considering that John Edwards got 7% of the vote in the West Virginia primary and he's been out of the race for over three months, his endorsement of Barack Obama should feel more notable. But it doesn't. It feels like the party closing ranks around the nominee. Which is good or bad depending on your perspective.

Former Sen. John Edwards is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy Wednesday evening, in a dramatic attempt by the Obama campaign to answer concerns regarding Obama's appeal to working-class voters, several senior Democratic sources tell ABC News.

The Obama campaign confirms Edwards will endorse Obama at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan Wednesday. The event was originally scheduled to start at 7pmET, but was moved up to 6:20pmET, presumably to have the announcement make the evening news.

Edwards, who ran for president on a platform of eradicating poverty, plans to appear alongside Obama for the announcement. The event comes one day after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Obama by 41 points in the West Virginia primary, and Edwards' endorsement will give Obama a key establishment stamp of approval as he attempts to close out the nominating process.

If Edwards helped Obama so much among white working-class voters, he'd still be in the race. Obama needs to solve that problem on his own and showing the support of his new friend isn't totally going to help.

On the other hand, it doesn't hurt. And I respect Edwards, and I think he made the right decision.

John Edwards: Still Caring About Poverty

One thing I hate about the media generally is that they constantly attribute policy concerns to some political motive. Nobody can have a particular interest in, say, Constitutional issues when it comes to Russ Feingold, or FISA when it comes to Chris Dodd. They always are doing it with some political motive. And I think we all can admit that's SOMETIMES true, but there's actually a way to determine if it's true in each particular case. For example, when the candidate in question is still pushing his signature issue long after any political benefit can be gathered, then I think you can say he means it.

Former Sen. John Edwards ended his Democratic presidential campaign nearly four months ago, but he was back on the stump today in the Tioga section of North Philadelphia, calling poverty "a moral cause facing every single one of us" in the United States.

"What we do for each other says something about who we are," Edwards said, speaking at the Thankful Baptist Church as he kicked off Half in Ten, a new effort to reduce the poverty rate by 50 percent during the next decade. "It says something about what our character is . . . the kind of country we want to live in."

The campaign is a joint project of the Center for American Progress Foundation; ACORN, which organizes activists in low-income communities; the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Coalition on Human Needs. Its aim is to advocate federal and state policies that will help people get out of poverty, including expansion of earned-income tax credits and increases in the minimum wage.

The hard-bitten reporters are keen to suspect ulterior motives, but if they just extended their reporting they could discern the difference between "pander" and "cause." It's not that hard to do. I'm proud to have supported John Edwards through the primary season until he left the race, because he actually believes in causes and is willing to advocate for them whether as a Presidential candidate or just a guy committed to lifting people out of poverty.

Major World Hunger Crisis

We get tunnel vision on superdelegates and stump speeches and credentials committees, all of which have their own level of importance. When I see a headline that millions are in danger of starvation I stop thinking about all that and pay attention.

Meteoric food and fuel prices, a slumping dollar, the demand for biofuels and a string of poor harvests have combined to abruptly multiply WFP's (the UN's World Food Program) operating costs, even as needs increase. In other words, if the number of needy people stayed constant, it would take much more money to feed them. But the number of people needing help is surging dramatically. It is what WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran calls "a perfect storm" hitting the world's hungry.

The agency last month issued an emergency appeal for money to cover a shortfall tallied at more than half a billion dollars and growing. It said it might have to reduce food rations or cut people off altogether.

The most vulnerable are people like those in Sudan, whom Joannes is struggling to feed and who rely heavily, perhaps exclusively, on the aid. But at least as alarming, WFP officials say, is the emerging community of newly needy.

There are weather-related reasons: flooding in Australia and Indonesia which lowered rice harvests. There are problems of increasing demand as the population increases. There are of course problems with rising fuel prices, which impact food production and distribution. Increases in demand for biofuels raise prices for staples like corn, as well. And there are war zones like Afghanistan, where Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to help feed 7.5 million people, up from 5 million, a consequences of wheat prices rising 2/3 in the last year. Add this all up and you have 40 nations at risk of serious hunger out of the 121 that the WFP monitors.

The ability of individuals to feed themselves simply affects everything else. You cannot improve health care, establish a working education system, or increase economic output without food security. This is a far more urgent problem than the American financial crisis, although the plunging dollar contributes to it.

The Financial Times has more.

Governments across the developing world are scrambling to boost farm imports and restrict exports in an attempt to forestall rising food prices and social unrest [...]

Saudi Arabia cut import taxes across a range of food products on Tuesday, slashing its wheat tariff from 25 per cent to zero and reducing tariffs on poultry, dairy produce and vegetable oils.

On Monday, India scrapped tariffs on edible oil and maize and banned exports of all rice except the high-value basmati variety, while Vietnam, the world’s third biggest rice exporter, said it would cut rice exports by 11 per cent this year.

The moves mark a rapid shift away from protecting farmers, who are generally the beneficiaries of food import tariffs, towards cushioning consumers from food shortages and rising prices.

The social unrest potential is great. We have already seen "tortilla riots" in Mexico and "pasta riots" in Italy. Restricting exports is going to decimate countries in the developing world as the richer nations try to cushion the blow in their own countries. Food stocks are as low as at any time in recent memory.

This goes well beyond any political issue. Over the past week we've all received urgent calls for money from candidates for state and federal office. Poor people worldwide don't have a flashy email they can send you. Yet they need your support more than ever.

WFP's Fill the Cup program has for small amounts that can feed the hungry for a week or more. That's probably the best way to get resources into the hands of those who need them.

Global Giving has programs that feed children in Niger and India, for example.

World Hunger Year tackles community-based solutions to hunger and poverty.

CARE has a World Hunger Campaign.

Do the research, see which organization fits with your comfort level, and give. Millions of people are at risk and our financial mess has at least a little to do with it. The other thing you can do is DEMAND that your Congresscritter raise US donations to the World Food Program. Global poverty is an economic and national security issue. It's also, as John Edwards called it, the moral test of our generation.

Progressive Leaders

Elizabeth Edwards is a godsend. Seeing that the Clinton/Obama pie fight has prevented anyone of stature from focusing on John McCain, she came out with a broadside against McCain's useless health care plan, which wouldn't cover anyone with a pre-existing condition - like McCain, or herself:

ARLINGTON, VA. -- Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, said she and John McCain have one thing in common: "Neither one of us would be covered by his health policy."

Edwards lodged her criticism of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's proposal Saturday at the annual meeting of the Assn. of Health Care Journalists.

Under McCain's plan, insurance companies "wouldn't have to cover preexisting conditions like melanoma and breast cancer," she said [...]

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior policy advisor to McCain, said Saturday that Edwards' comments were disappointing and that they revealed she did not understand the comprehensive nature of the senator's proposal.

Holtz-Eakin said McCain's policy would harness "the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans." Because McCain's plan would lower the cost of healthcare through competition, Holtz-Eakin said, it would reduce costs for consumers with or without preexisting conditions.

Which is the biggest non-answer you can get. Responding to "your plan wouldn't cover me," Holtz-Eakin says "but that non-coverage would be cheaper!"

Well, Edwards didn't stop there, she took to the Wonk Room to respond to Holtz-Eakin. It's good and comprehensive and allows Holtz-Eakin with no wiggle room, mocking McCain, who has absolutely no interest in health care or the problems of regular people.

I am not confused about your reputation: you are the straight-talker, you like to say. This is about health care, Senator McCain. Doesn’t the American voter deserve some straight answers to these questions? As one of those with a pre-existing condition, I sure would like some straight talk.

We live in a time where doctors, who ought to know, support a universal health care plan by a wide margin. But without the moral authority from someone who's been through the health care system, a progressive leader smart enough to know the policy inside and out and bold enough to call out the liars, progress will always falter. If Sen. Obama wants to outsource his health care policy, he can do worse than Elizabeth Edwards. But that won't happen. In fact, New York Magazine reports that it was the health care policy that caused a big fight between Elizabeth and Obama and ended up ruining any chance for a John Edwards endorsement. You know I think we'd be better off right now with Sen. Edwards fighting for the nomination. Maybe a progressive leader like Elizabeth can help hold whoever makes it to Denver and the White House accountable.

War Is Over (If You Don't Want The Troops Home)

A novel approach to the question of how long we'll remain in Iraq by John McCain.

“And by the way, that reminds me of this hundred year thing. I was asked in a town hall meeting back in Florida, how long would we have a presence in Iraq? My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis. ... "

Interesting. So the war ends very soon, for everyone except... the groups fighting the war, which he calls "the insurgency." And we can't leave because the insurgency will go on for years and years, even though the Iraqis will be handling it, which would make it... a war between the Iraqis. And we have to stay and babysit that.

I thought this was even more important a quote that McCain's admission yesterday that if he can't sell the war to the public, he'll lose the election, a remark he'd tried to back off of, but one everybody already knew. That's not particularly insightful. His muddled, asinine logic about what constitutes a war "ending," however, is significant.

Democratic groups are already gearing up to make McCain and the Republicans pay on Iraq. Russ Feingold is pushing a vote to cut funding for the war, but also to do something more specific, which I think will be an excellent vote to highlight come November:

Feingold’s second bill – S. 2634:

• Requires the administration to present a report to Congress within 60 days of enactment outlining its global strategy for defeating al Qaeda and its affiliates. The report shall include an analysis of the relative threats in particular countries and regions and recommendations to ensure that U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic assets are best deployed to meet those geographic threats.

• Requires the administration to develop a strategy ensuring that deployments do not undermine military readiness or homeland security, and that reserve units are not deployed more than once every four years and regular units are not redeployed more than once every two years.

This will fail because Republicans have no strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda other than claiming their political opponents are in league with the terrorists. This offers the chance to draw a clear contrast.

Second up, VoteVets.org has an ad up in the DC market, riffing off of McCain's "100 years" comment and tying it to the economy (the opportunity costs of spending trillions in Baghdad).



This must have polled well, as a new group, with the support of John and Elizabeth Edwards, has sprung up with the purpose of tying the war to the looming recession. I still think that the war has been a kind of Works Progress Administration propping up the economy to a degree, but that's only benefiting defense contractors, and clearly our absurdly large defense budget is impacting the greater economy by draining resources and delaying attention to other sectors.

"There's a great concern and anxiety, angst out there among most Americans about their economic security," Edwards said in a teleconference from North Carolina. "All these things are made much worse by concern about what's happening in Iraq ... People don't understand why we're spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq."

Edwards added, "The American people are going to have a very clear choice this fall -- a Democrat who will bring this thing to an end ... and Senator John McCain who will continue the war." [...]

Groups taking part in the new campaign are the Center for American Progress, USAction, MoveOn.org, VoteVets.org, Service Employees International Union and Americans United for Change.

That's a formidable group. Good to know that we'll have some manner of fiscal parity when it comes to the 527s (which I personally don't like, but you can't unilaterally disarm in the face of $250 million from Freedom's Watch).

The Populist Strategy

Rather than argue about who stole from what speech or who has wanted to be President for how long, I think it'd be instructive to take a look at the way both campaigns are presenting themselves and organizing on the ground.

I know there is this creeping idea that Obama is engendering a cult of personality (thanks for that, Hillary partisans in the liberal blogosphere!), but actually he's empowering individuals to take action and build a working majority. The great thing about this is how the campaign is manifesting that vision in Texas, where he's making young voters care about politics, organizing within unions, and using a full-throated message of populism to make his case.

Union officials say that a push from younger members helped persuade the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers to endorse Obama last week. Both unions plan to be active in the campaign, making personal contact with their membership on behalf of Obama.

About 40% of the food union's members are younger than 30 years old, and their enthusiasm helped move the union out of neutrality and toward an endorsement, said union president Joe Hansen. "Barack Obama did something to our members and to our leadership," Hansen said [...]

One of two ads that Obama is airing in Latino radio markets in Texas is pitched explicitly at younger Latino voters. "Obama is talking to me," it says, "about the opportunity to go to college, and about ensuring my parents and grandparents have the healthcare they need. That's why I'm talking to others -- my parents, my uncles, and my friends" about supporting Obama.

Some local Obama backers say they have begun to see the Illinois senator, the son of an African father, as someone who can relate to the Latino experience [...]

Both also say they favor reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Still, Obama's strategy is to try to make NAFTA a central issue of the campaign and to try to draw contrasts on the issue with Clinton.

Many union voters believe that NAFTA was responsible for encouraging companies to send U.S. jobs abroad.

Of course, with Texas close to the border and Ohio shedding manufacturing jobs, it's natural for both candidates to take on an unabashedly populist strategy.

WAUSAU, Wis. — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama intensified their populist appeals on Monday, responding to widespread economic anxiety and pushing the Democratic Party further from the business-friendly posture once championed by Bill Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking on the eve of the Wisconsin primary but looking forward to primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4, issued a 12-page compendium of her economic policies that emphasizes programs aiding families stressed by high oil prices, home foreclosures, costly student loans and soaring health care premiums.

In public appearances here and in her economic booklet, she took aim at hedge fund managers, oil company profits, drug company subsidies and trade agreements that she says encourage companies to export jobs [...]

Campaigning in Ohio before flying to Wisconsin for an election-eve rally, Mr. Obama said the wealthy had “made out like bandits” under the Bush administration and called for an end to tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

“In the last year alone,” Mr. Obama said, “93 plants have closed in this state. And yet, year after year, politicians in Washington sign trade agreements that are riddled with perks for big corporations but have absolutely no protections for American workers. It’s bad for our economy; it’s bad for our country.” [...]

At an event Monday at a union hall in Wausau, Mrs. Clinton said that other countries had taken advantage of the Bush administration’s pro-trade policies.

“I’m tired of being played for a patsy,” Mrs. Clinton said at the hall. “We have the largest market in the world. It’s time we said to the rest of the world, ‘If you want to have anything to do with our market, you have to play by our rules.’ ” [...]

He delivered a blistering critique of corporations that he said had benefited to the detriment of working families across the United States over the last seven years.

“We now have greater income inequality than any time since the Great Depression,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters after touring the titanium plant. “For us to want to reverse that so everyone has a stake in the economy, I think is just common sense and good for everybody, including business.”

I don't think that suddenly, with the election of either of these two, that overnight worker's rights will top the agenda and corporations will lose their personhood. But I do think it's excellent for them both to try on the populist rhetoric and take it out for a test drive. Who knows, they might even like it. And it shows how John Edwards is STILL driving policy in this race. Obama met with him over the weekend, and if Edwards were smart he wouldn't endorse yet. He's getting a lot of mileage out of dangling the endorsement, and the candidates truly are moving to his side.

It's also great that there's still a race going on. That's not a popular view, but you wouldn't be seeing this back and forth on who is more committed to American jobs and reducing inequality without an actual contest. I didn't think I'd EVER see Hillary Clinton say something as forceful as "I'm tired of being played for a patsy." And because the race is extending into so many states, that's just another method in which the new coalition of Democrats can hold whoever makes it to the White House accountable.

Now, I don't expect this to last. Clinton is already scurrying away from her rhetoric by talking about the continuing vital role of the oil and gas industry in remarks to the Houston Chronicle. But for the record, I DO think that both Clinton and Obama are committed to some fairly fundamental changes in our economy, like investing in green jobs, rewarding companies that stay stateside, making trade deals somewhat more fair, and stressing the need to fight climate change. That would be a significant shift from the status quo. And having two candidates who send surrogates to a debate on science is, in a word, refreshing.

Once again, these candidates aren't perfect but their becoming boxed in through this battle to a strikingly new vision for America, and that's a good thing.

History

John Edwards is right.

It's time for me to step aside so that history can -- so that history can blaze its path. We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history.

It's very heartening to have this choice of a black man and a woman. They are both game-changers who bring new voters to the process in a year when apathy is out. It's a very good thing that 1.7 million Floridian Democrats came out to vote in a contest that had absolutely no bearing on the Presidential race due to DNC rules. We are going to have record turnout in November, with more Americans than ever engaged in the process. That's always a good thing for progressives if they manage to capitalize on it.

I think Democrats were simply more excited about making history this year than go with a guy who ran an incredibly noble and forthright campaign. Considering that both Obama and Clinton borrowed liberally from Edwards' platform, there wasn't much distance on policy, and so that excitement and the historic opportunity ruled the day. What's ironic is that the best progressive fighter out of anyone associated with any of the campaigns is John Edwards' wife, who could run for any office and be a history-maker in her own right.

UPDATE: More on that progressive movement and the excitement that this election is engendering: Vote Hope's efforts in support of Barack Obama.

The Legitimate Change Coming Out Of This Election

I have been very dismissive of California's moving up their primary, and I've taken a lot of heat for that at Calitics. But Edwards dropping out and last night's events, I think, prove two things.

CHANGE THE PRIMARY SYSTEM. If 1-2% of all voters can whittle the field down to two candidates, and deliver a nominee on the Republican side, we have a serious problem and everyone knows it. My degradation of California moving up was a focus on the PROCESS, not some animus against California. The process sucks. It needs to be reformed in a big way. The fact that Florida broke the rules, moved up, delivered no delegates on the Dem side, but obviously succeeded since they PICKED THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE, should tell you something. We need a spread-out process and maybe earlier conventions to end this bad front-loaded system. It's terrible for democracy.

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING. So many Democrats threw their vote away by voting early for Edwards, and for other candidates who dropped out before the election in other states. We're moving toward a model not of election day but of election month, and in primaries where candidates drop out, those voters are disenfranchised. To the extent that voters have remorse, their vote should go to their second choice, which would be completely simple if we just used IRV. If they have no second choice they don't have to fill in those bubbles.

Or, if you prefer media-driven candidates foisted on the bulk of the country, then go ahead and keep this wonderful primary train going! Maybe within a few cycles we can vote for the nominee and the nominee four years hence on the same day! It'd make things so much easier.

Edwards, Giuliani Are Out

You take the good with the bad. The good news is that St. Rudy 9iu11iani, the most craven fearmonger in the country, a man who would have bombed any country that looked at him funny, having failed to capitalize on his "lose every race" strategy, decided not to camp out in American Samoa until February 5 and instead will drop out and endorse John McCain. I'm sure he'll say afterwards that it was his plan all along. Seeing a narcissist like this have to admit defeat, have to admit that nobody actually likes him, engenders a great deal of schadenfruede.

The bad news is that John Edwards, my favorite candidate, will leave the race today. His head should be held up high. He drove the policy positions for over a year, and made the 2008 field far more progressive than the 2004 field. He could never break into that media spotlight. Democrats were enthralled by the prospect of the first black candidate or the first female candidate. In another year, Edwards would have been a fantastic nominee. He would have this year, too. It just wasn't to be.

These two events are very different. Democrats like their candidates; Republicans by and large don't. McCain's emergence as the nominee is really because of electability more than anything. Giuliani could have easily cleared that hurdle, but people shuddered at the thought of him being President. Edwards was everybody's second choice.

The end result is that this "Super Tuesday" has ended up becoming a choice between two candidates on the Democratic side, and really one candidate on the Republican side, with Romney and Huckabee as also-rans.

That would be the set of primaries that matter so much.

The primaries are broken, and I really hope that 2012 will be different. It's bad for the country to select a President this way. Here are some good thoughts on how to change that.

(it seems to me that those who voted early for Giuliani or Edwards should be given the oportunity to vote for a separate candidate on Election Day, but that would be a logistical nightmare. Instant Runoff Voting would have been the best option.)

Edwards Steps Up

Apparently this was supposed to be part of his TV appearances tonight, but we do have a statement from John Edwards on tomorrow's FISA fight:

In Washington today, telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press to win retroactive immunity for their illegal eavesdropping on American citizens. Granting retroactive immunity will let corporate law-breakers off the hook and hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program.

"It's time for Senate Democrats to show a little backbone and stand up to George W. Bush and the corporate lobbyists. They should do everything in their power -- including joining Senator Dodd's efforts to filibuster this legislation -- to stop retroactive immunity. The Constitution should not be for sale at any price."

He tailored it to fit his "corporate greed" argument. And this is fine as far as it goes. But, as a former Senator, Edwards does have floor privileges. He could go to Washington tomorrow. All three of the candidates could walk in arm in arm, united against this giveaway to the phone companies.

I'm not hopeful that this will happen, but it's a neat little dream.

UPDATE: Courage Campaign has an action to call Sen. Feinstein. I've gone back and forth on her compromise amendments, but the fact that the plaintiffs would not be able to be represented in a review process in front of the FISA court clinches it for me. The regular court system ought to be sufficient to determine the law in this case. They should not have that taken away from them by Congress.

Of course, Bush would veto any bill with Feinstein's amendment in it, making it a poison pill, so it has the effect of a filibuster and a way to short-circuit the process. Sadly, I'm not sanguine that we're headed into anything but immunity territory. I'm be calling tomorrow and so should you.

Obama Leads In Nairobi; How About Washington

Barack Obama has shown some abilities we didn't otherwise characterize in him before during this election cycle. He's shown that he has the capacity to fight back (we'll see how successful he is), the capacity to, scare Republicans shitless and the capacity to lead in a way many Presidents haven't on a global stage. At a time of continuing election violence in Kenya, Obama published an op-ed in a Kenyan newspaper, calling for calm.

While participating in our own presidential elections in America, I have closely followed the tragic events that unfolded after Kenya’s polls closed. My thoughts and prayers and those of my family have been with the more than 650 victims of the violence and their families, as well as the 250,000 Kenyans who have been displaced.

Clearly, Kenya has reached a defining moment. It is up to Kenyan leaders and the Kenyan population to turn away from the path of bloodshed, division, and repression, and to turn towards reconciliation, negotiation, and renewed commitment to democratic governance. There is no doubt that there were serious flaws in the process by which presidential votes were tabulated. There is also no doubt that actions taken by both sides in the aftermath of the election have deepened the stalemate.

But Kenya’s hard-won democracy and precious national unity can be salvaged. Now is the time for all parties to renounce violence. And now is the time for President Kibaki, Raila Odinga, and all of Kenya’s leaders, to calm tensions, to come together unconditionally, and to implement a political process that peacefully addresses the controversies that divide them and restores the Kenyan people’s confidence in their political system.

This will not get Obama one more vote in the United States, but it's the right thing for him to lend his credibility to trying to get some sense of order in Kenya.

However, there's a moment right now to lead right here at home. At this hour the Senate is debating a terrible update to the FISA law that would give amnesty to lawbreaking telecom companies. Chris Dodd has vowed a filibuster and needs the support of his colleagues. Barack Obama has South Carolina fairly salted away, and is looking to a big boost nationally to help him in the February 5 states. What better boost could he give to his campaign than to come to Washington and onto the Senate floor, to deliver a long speech on the virtues of civil liberties and the need to uphold the rule of law. The guy is a Constitutional scholar and a law professor, ferchrissake. He can get into this back and forth about candor and records and low-down politics, or he can show that he actually wants to lead. Furthermore, he can show a willingness to take the desires of the bottom-up progressive movement to heart.

I hear Sen. Edwards may be pushing in this direction tonight on Keith Olbermann's show. Obama should do the same, and with more than a press release. He needs to go to Washington and do his job. Clinton too.

The Future Of FISA - And Leadership

The news on the FISA bill is not good. Glenn Greenwald laid out the goods yesterday. Basically the Republicans know they have the Democrats in a vice grip. The Protect America Act band-aid expires next Thursday. The White House wants the exact same civil liberties-crushing bill, along with amnesty for the telecom companies for breaking the law. Mitch McConnell has denied even a 30-day extension to amp up the pressure. Their goal is to frighten the Democrats into caving in. It's a sound strategy.

They're well on their way to forcing the Congress -- again -- into the most obscenely absurd posture imaginable, where they pass a major new surveillance and domestic spying bill, this time along with telecom immunity, because Republicans tell the country that unless Democrats do this, and quick, we're going to be Slaughtered by The Terrorists.

As always, conventional media wisdom is that Democrats will be harmed politically if they don't capitulate to the Big, Strong, Tough Republicans on all matters relating to national security (even though the efficacy of that fear-mongering tactic was empirically disproven in 2006). But isn't it painfully evident that a far greater liability for Democrats at this point than being "soft on terrorism" is their refusal and failure to demonstrate that they will take a stand -- any stand -- against this extremely weakened President and his discredited political party, and therefore prove they stand for something?

It ought to be evident. And especially among the three candidates running to be the leader of this party and the free world. They have studiously avoided this issue on the campaign trail and in the debates. They would rather stump for votes than show leadership. Unfortunately the only candidate who ever bucked this trend was Senator Dodd. He'll be back at it again this week, but he needs help from the leading Presidential candidates, as clearly that will be the only way to drive media attention. Jane Hamsher sounds the call to Sen. Edwards.

It will be increasingly difficult to listen to Edwards, Obama and Clinton tout their supreme leadership attributes and their commitment to "changing the way Washington works" if they choose to sit by, more or less mute, and allow such a blatant and corrupt evisceration of the rule of law -- and such a vast and permanent expansion of the limitless surveillance state -- to occur without a fight. Any one of them, or all three, has a unique opportunity to actually demonstrate with actions, rather than pretty speeches, their commitment to the principles they claim to espouse.

John Edwards is the perfect person to lead with this message. Such an action would illustrate his genuine commitment to change and fighting vested interests in Washington, and hopefully it will channel that intense anti-immunity passion toward his campaign. He won't be able to participate in the filibuster himself, but by offering to leave the campaign trail and go back to DC with Clinton and Obama he'll be able to show leadership in challenging all Democrats to put thoughts of personal gain aside and join together in the fight to save the constitution.

Without the help of the presidential candidates, we are doomed to lose this fight. And all their calls for change will ring hollow if they allow George Bush to railroad this bill through a supine Democratic-controlled Senate because of their absence.

If Clinton, Obama and Edwards would rather not lead, I don't see how it matters which one of them is the nominee. Obama's grand theory is that the public can make change by holding leaders accountable and organizing from the bottom up. Well, we can see how receptive he is to that theory. Let's organize and demand him to lead, along with Clinton and Edwards.

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