Vindication

To anyone even considering allowing John McCain to become president, I offer the words of Lawrence Kaplan, the neocon's neocon, from an interview in Spiegel Online:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Iraq war was percieved as the one chance the neocons had in our time to prove that their theories were right. Is neoconservatism already a historical footnote?

Kaplan: The near-term argument here is that if John McCain wins the presidential election, neoconservatism will have been vindicated. Because by voting him into office, people will have tacitly given their endorsement to that sort of foreign policy. His advisers are the very people we are arguing about.

Kaplan believes that neocon ideology is now so deeply embedded that even a President Hillary Clinton or a President Barack Obama won't be able to oppose it. I do agree that either of them will have to fight it, and that we will have to push either of them to fight it. But to Kaplan, a McCain presidency means the ideology has been validated. Imperialism, warmongering, and torture: elect McCain, and they're simply modern American values.

McCain's Land-Swap Buddies

Here's more proof that if you hire the right lobbyists (usually former McCain staffers or Vicki Iseman), and write big checks to his campaigns, you can get anything you want out of Straight Talk.

Sure, many in Congress do things like this all the time. But rarely does the benefactor(s) stand to reap a $250 million benefit, brokered by a man who is running on his integrity while Tim Russert and Chris Matthews help him hide the fact that he is K Street's best friend.

Broad and Squishy

Chris Bowers offers exactly what Barack Obama doesn't need: a vision and description of the Obama movement that is guaranteed to alienate exactly those voters Obama now needs to seduce. This is painful.

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types.

And he then goes on to describe Obama in the precise manner the Republicans will want him described- as an elitist yuppie. Bowers seems to think this is a good thing. The word "myopia" comes to mind. So does the word "solipsistic."

Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

The problem being, of course, that we netroots types are very much irrelevant, while the white working class remains the swing vote that will decide the election. We vote Democratic. Our earlier iteration enthusiastically voted for Dukakis, who was exactly the type of candidate Bowers is describing. The white working class didn't vote for Dukakis. This year's election will be decided in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, and Florida. I want Bowers to explain how the so-called creative class carries those states. The self-abosrption of this type of thinking is truly astonishing.

Open Thread

Here's to a great May Friday.

Your turn now.

We Are All Players

The Sun, last month:

AL GORE wants to make a sequel to his Oscar-winning documentary on global warming – and despite Earth’s “rising fever” he is still hopeful for a happy ending.

We are, he says, all players in deciding the outcome.

Despite the success of his film An Inconvenient Truth and last year’s Live Earth concerts in raising awareness, the former US Vice President believes little has changed where it counts and the situation is even more urgent.

And he warns that while individual efforts such as changing to low-energy lightbulbs are important, it is more significant for world leaders to change laws to stop pollution pouring into the atmosphere and affecting the climate.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Mr Gore – hailed as the world’s leading green campaigner – said recent polls had found that while people rate climate change as a “serious problem”, some ranked it lower than clearing up dog mess.

“When politicians walk down the pavement, four or five of every ten people they meet ask, ‘What are you doing to solve the climate crisis?’ he said. “If you ask people their opinion, more than two thirds will say, ‘It’s a very serious issue, we’re responsible for it. We need to take action’.

Healing

Yesterday, I wrote about the need for Clinton supporters to accept that they must come around and support Obama. And while my tepid support for Clinton- and my much more passionate crusade for a degree of fairness, honesty, and decency in how both Clintons are treated by the corporate media and its mirror, the shrillosphere- often has me lambasted by the usual victims of CDS, yesterday it was the passionate Clinton supporters who were less than pleased with me. Lacking passionate support for either candidate leaves one open to criticism and anger from passionate supporters on both sides. It's fascinating.

Some of the Clinton bloggers have already begun to attempt to rationalize why McCain wouldn't be all that bad, or why Obama is so horrible that he doesn't deserve the presidency, even at the cost of having to live with McCain. One blogger, whom I like and often agree with, even tried to make the case that we don't have to worry about McCain appointing Supreme Court justices, because the Democratic Congress will prevent their being confirmed. Which is laughable. If the past year has taught us anything, it is that we can't expect much leadership from the ostensible leaders of this Democratic Congress. And I don't see the gains we will make in this year's election dramatically changing that. Change will have to come from the top, and although I don't buy into Obama's clever "change" schtick, he certainly would be paradigmatically different than the extremism that is Bush, and that would be McCain.

But this is not meant to criticize the passionate Clinton supporters. Support from people like me is easy for Obama to obtain, because I don't see many substantive differences between him and Clinton, and I loathe McCain. Passionate Clinton supporters do see substantive differences. I had subtle and complex reasons for coming to prefer Clinton, but tens of millions of people were in Clinton's camp from day one. And one point many of them are fairly making is that Obama has to win their support. He has to ask for it. He has to lead the effort to heal the party's wounds. The Clinton critics love to blame them for practially everything that is wrong in the Universe, but the reality is that Obama is also a deeply flawed person and a deeply flawed candidate. He's human. And he's a politician. And in a tough campaign, he has done his share to exacerbate the divisions within the party. If he's going to be the party's nominee for president, he is going to be the leader of the party. And it will be his singular responsibility to bring it back together. Others must do their parts, including being open to what he says and does, but he is the one who has to say and do what is necessary to earn the respect of those who are capable of giving it. And the vast majority of Clinton supporters are capable of giving it. But they are skeptical, and angry, and wounded. So, how Obama declares victory, how he handles Florida and Michigan, and, more than anything, how he addresses the issues that are the core reason many voters preferred the wonky Clinton still matter. Clinton had electability problems, but anyone who believes Obama doesn't is delusional. And discussing the demographic aspect of that is not racist, it's factual. Reality-based. A long lost concept, in the shrillosphere.

This is going to be a very tough race, and the corporate media will make it even tougher. And those Obama supporters who have paroxysms of hysterical shrill every time the Clintons or their surrogates take a tough shot- or even every time a tough shot is invented or promoted or post-parsed into being by the magical prestidigitational powers of pathological liars- might as well just spend the next several months buried in tabloid magazines, avoid all blogs and news media, and ignore television altogether, because when the GOP 527s take aim at Obama it will be as ugly and vicious as anything any of us have ever seen. And some of you aren't prepared for it. But Obama and the professionals around him had better be. And they'd better be ready not only to respond to the attacks, they'd better have long before succeeded in healing most of the rifts and tensions that are currently roiling the party. Obama's most passionate supporters need to understand that many passionate Clinton supporters have valid reasons for their anger- both at the Obama campaign, and even more so at you. If Obama is going to beat McCain, both he and his supporters are going to have to figure out a way to be political healers. It won't be easy, but failing to succeed at it will mean failure in November. We've heard a lot about change; it's time we began to see it.

The Last Dead Enders

Government Of, By, And For Whom?

Reuters:

Big-ticket warplane programs run by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) received a boost Wednesday as the 2009 military budget wended its way through the U.S. Congress.

A House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee recommended $3.9 billion to buy 15 Boeing C-17 cargo planes, although the Bush administration sought none and the Senate Armed Services Committee did not fund any.

Likewise, the House's Air and Land Forces subcommittee recommended an additional $523 million as a down payment on 20 more Lockheed F-22 fighters in fiscal 2010.

The Bush administration had deferred decisions on both the C-17 and F-22 production lines, leaving the next president, to be elected Nov. 4 and take office in January, to decide their fate.

Open Thread

Oh-oh. How does Condi fit into the Scott Bloch investigation?

Your turn.

Toxic

Elizabeth Grossman, in Salon:

When coal is burned in power plants in the U.S., China and elsewhere, mercury is released into the atmosphere. Airborne, mercury can travel great distances before settling to the ground, or into lakes, rivers and oceans. Air and ocean currents, propelled by weather patterns and storm systems, sweep the mercury north. But the recent increases in Arctic mercury outpace and cannot be explained by smokestack emissions alone, says Gary A. Stern, a senior scientist with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, professor at the University of Manitoba and co-leader of the Amundsen expedition. Rather, signs point to global warming and other disruptive impacts of climate change.

As temperatures rise, causing sea ice, permafrost and snow to melt, the mercury that had been frozen in place is now being released, causing exposure up and down the food web. "Climate change alters exposure in the north and increases the system's vulnerability," says Robie Macdonald, a research scientist with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Yet the Arctic researchers are routinely recording a lot more than mercury. They are seeing synthetic chemicals such as the brominated flame retardants known as PBDE's (used in upholstery, textiles and plastics), as well as perfluorinated and chlorine compounds. And while long banned in many countries, lingering amounts of DDT and PCBs continue to turn up in people and animals in the Far North. Of concern due to their persistence and ability to accumulate in plant and animal tissue -- particularly the fat prevalent in Arctic animals -- these chemicals are also known to disrupt the endocrine hormones that regulate reproduction and metabolism. Some are considered carcinogens.

Alaskan polar bears, for instance, have some of the highest levels yet found in Arctic mammals of hexachlorohexane (HCH), a pesticide used to kill fungi on food crops. Carrie's ice samples, collected hundreds of miles from any agricultural sites, contain HCH. Polar bears also have some of the highest recorded levels of perfluorinated compounds, chemicals used in waterproofing and in fire and stain retardants. Indigenous people in both the Canadian and Greenland Arctic have some of the world's highest exposures to these persistent pollutants.

In the summer of 2007, Arctic sea ice reached a record low. Scientists monitoring the 2008 winter ice pack suspect this year's summer ice may also be remarkably low. As David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic system science at the University of Manitoba, puts it, "Well over a million years of all ecosystems evolved to take advantage of this ice cover." With markedly less substantial sea ice cover, the hemispheric system is being thrown off balance, prompting changes that are increasing the load of contaminants in the Arctic.

Kingmaker

The incomparable digby:

Look, I have the same analysis of the outcome of the elections in Indiana and North Carolina that most people have this morning. Clinton's best argument --- which was essentially that the voters were taking a second look at Obama and showing some buyers remorse --- didn't pan out last night. And there's nothing wrong with political junkies sitting around the virtual pot-bellied stove and saying the race is "over" or exhorting her to drop out. We're citizens and, in some cases, political players. There is, however, something unbelievably distasteful about a handful of powerful, millionaire, celebrity pundits "declaring" such a thing and having the paper of record breathlessly report it as if it was decisive and meaningful.

Who the fuck anointed Tim Russert as the final arbiter of anything? His job is to analyze the political landscape not declare the decision as if he were some kind of Roman Emperor giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It's bad enough that these gasbags put those thumbs on the scale as hard as they do, but actually taking the initiative to say when the race is over is even worse. To coin a favorite Village phrase, "it's not their place."

And here's why:

The idea floating around, even in the blogosphere, that once Tim Russert "says it" it's true is so galling that I can hardly keep from projectile vomiting. Giving him that power will come back to bite us hard down the road.

And here's why we need to allow the now inevitable to take its course:

I think we all see the writing on the wall. Obama has plenty of money and there is no great problem if this thing goes on for a couple of weeks. I think everyone should relax about the campaign and start regrouping around the ideas that brought us here --- one of which is the fact that the mainstream media are tools, that Drudge is a Republican pimp and that our nation is not well served by a bunch of corporate whores who all sit around sipping mojitos on Nantucket playing with our politics like they are a rousing game of cribbage.

But how will those who have spent the past six months citing Russert and Dowd and Drudge and Politico and Sullivan and their ilk ever again have the credibility to criticize these blights on the body politic, when it is Barack Obama or the Democratic Congress or any other Democrats or liberals or progressives who are on the receiving end of their bilious spew? I look forward to the attempts. But for the obvious fact that a true liberal with truly liberating policy proposals has no chance of getting elected president, not to mention even competing for the nomination, The Great Convergence remains the most disheartening aspect of this political cycle.

Utter Insanity

This is so absurdly telling that it would almost defy belief, were it not yet another in an endless stream of examples of the utter insanity of the Bush Administration. As reported by McClatchy:

The Iraqi government has all but given up on hopes it can persuade Iran and the United States to meet again to discuss security issues, the Iraqi foreign minister said Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that his government has proposed four dates to the U.S. and Iran for tri-lateral talks, but that each has been rejected. He said the government will not propose another.

“We believe the conditions should be conducive,” Zebari said. “In the atmosphere of media attacks . . . and the lack of trust and confidence, I don’t think we will succeed in having the fourth round,” he said.

But he added that he believed talks were necessary in the current atmosphere.

“The idea is not dead,” he said. “We hope that we will be able to resume it. We think it’s very useful especially with the current circumstances of increase tension in the area.”

Think about that. The Bush Administration's warmongering against Iran is supposed to be based on Iran's supposed support for those supposedly attempting to undermine Iraq's supposed government. But even that supposed Iraqi government doesn't seem to think Iran's all that much of a threat. Rather than the Bush Administration attempting to calm supposed tensions between Iran and Iraq, it's Iraq that is trying to calm very real tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Perhaps, if the Bush Administration would just get out of the region and mind its own business, there would be no tensions about Iran and Iraq. They seem capable of getting along, now. It's the Bush Administration that's trying to stop that.

About Grace

Hillary Clinton was never more than my fourth choice for president, and I've never been more than a tepid supporter. I'm going to vote for her in the Oregon primary, so, in this historic year, I will have ended up having cast my two presidential votes for a woman and an African American. It would be nice if the politics of identity was irrelevant, but this year has only proved the degree to which it still is. So, I will feel good about voting for a woman and for an African American, neither of whom I consider to be a true liberal, and neither of whom I ever expected to seriously advance liberal causes. But either one of them will end the Bush era, while John McCain would only extend it, and very possibly exacerbate its most insidious and dangerous excesses.

Instead of writing directly about the campaign, or about the candidates, I want to write directly to their most passionate supporters. But too many of Obama's most passionate supporters are incapable of either reason or comity, so I won't bother with them. Instead, I will address Clinton's most passionate supporters. Not those, like myself, who reluctantly ended up in her camp, but the true believers. Those who have suffered most from online behavior by many very prominent Obama supporters that disgusted not only tepid Clinton supporters such as myself, but even the more sane and honest Obama supporters. Many of you handled this primary season with extraordinary grace. Some of you did not. It cannot have been an easy process to witness and experience.

Even though I couldn't passionately support either candidate, and knew I'd be more disappointed with our nominee than I had been since Bill Clinton clinched in 1992, I find much that is admirable about both. And it is simply wrong to ignore the historic nature of these campaigns. Whatever happens, future candidates and future presidents will look back on 2008 with an appreciation and gratitude that we, now, are incapable of appreciating. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are working a broken system, both often stooping to its level, but I have no doubt that both seriously want to improve it and, more than anything, seriously want to make this nation and this world better places for all. That they are both compromised is a given. Such is the nature of the system. Neither would be capable of radically transforming it, but both recognize that it needs transforming.

The Clinton candidacy was never going to be easy. That she hired so many incompetents to run it only made things worse. I have no doubt that the people she would have had running the government would have been vastly superior to her campaign staff, but her campaign staff has cost her the chance to prove it. Hillary Clinton's most passionate supporters need to come to terms with the stark fact that she is not going to be president. Not next year, and not in five years. On many levels, it's not fair, but neither a woman nor a Clinton has ever known political fairness. The corporate media and the Beltway mob have been waiting a full sixteen years to defeat a Clinton, and they took to the task like swine to offal.

The Obama campaign fought hard, and at times quite viciously, but that's the game of politics, and Clinton both knows it and plays it, herself. The most effective weapon in the Obama campaign's arsenal was precisely the framing that the Clintons fought dirty, while they fought clean. It was brilliant, because it was a framing that the media and the mob were only too slaveringly thrilled to enable. But it would be wrong to begrudge the Obama campaign their success. They played by the rules, and they played very well. Politics is a dirty business, and it's never been fair, and anyone who doesn't recognize that probably shouldn't take it up as either vocation or hobby. Losing hurts. Blood is spilled. Wounds feel like they will never heal, and when they do, the scars often are not pretty. But the strong and the smart and the sane survive.

Many of you passionate Clinton supporters have been in the game for a very long time. You knew what could happen. That the impossible seemed probable makes defeat that much harder to bear, but Hillary Clinton is not going to be president. She was lied about, smeared, vilified and demonized. And that was just by the corporate media. There was never going to be objective reporting. The behavior of many Democrats, particularly in the shrillosphere, was inexcusably petty, dishonest, and manipulative. People exposed themselves in ways that will never be forgotten. But none of that changes either the result or the necessity of salving the wounds, stepping back, and maintaining both composure and perspective.

It isn't necessary that those who support Clinton now enthusiastically come to support Obama, but it is necessary that they come to support him. Even at the bare minimum level. And that bare minimum level is to vote for him, in November. You don't have to like doing so, but you do have to do so. The alternative is unthinkable. Many of you like to think of yourselves as wiser and more politically astute than are many Obama supporters, and it is time to make that case for yourselves. Be as graceful in defeat as the worst of them have been graceless in victory. Obama himself, however imperfect, is a far better person than those who do such a terrific job of turning people away from him. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind the irrevocable damage that would be done by four more years of neocon/theocon/kleptocrat autocracy. And keep in mind that the often odious behavior you have seen from online Obama supporters is not the fault of the candidate himself.

Onward From Here

A couple of follow up comments from last night:

I understand the disappointment from Hillary supporters about the state of the race and my comments last night. And I don’t expect a large number of her supporters to suddenly jump off the train and sign right up with Obama’s effort, because commitment to a candidate relative to their competitors can’t just be turned off like that. But Obama needs to begin the fall campaign now, free of defending himself from daily attacks by Clinton, and there are signs that his team will move away from the remainder of the primary schedule towards campaigning in general election battlegrounds, to build upon his gains from last night.

Hillary for her part has apparently been loaning herself survival money since last month, and that situation will not get any better now. There are some signs this morning that her team sees the handwriting on the wall, and they now admit what I’ve been saying for months: they lost this race in February with a crappy strategy and message. So it’s possible that we’ll see an unforeseen development here in the coming weeks. Her problem is that she has no cash to pursue her likely victories in Kentucky and West Virginia, should she decide to continue on until she has a face-saving exit lined up.

I have no idea whether Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” has had any real effect on the Democratic race. Since it was claimed that he and his listeners were heavily engaged in voting for Hillary in Indiana to prolong the Democratic race, she almost lost the state anyway. But if the GOP is so eager to run against Obama this fall, why is there a need for an “Operation Chaos” in the first place?

Question for the morning: If you are Obama's campaign team, and want to simultaneously shift to general election mode early and convince the Hillary base that you can win against McCain and govern effectively in January, do you start floating possible VP and cabinet choices now?

Open Thread

Meanwhile, in today's soap opera news: CountryWide continues to suggest fraudulent loans while Bank of America is pondering if perhaps their new dancing partner, that very same CountryWide, could be bit too high maintenance for their taste. And just as things become really dicey for overstretched Americans, Fed bankers are suggesting that only increasing interest rates will nip inflation in the bud. Isn't it ironic that energy and food are ignored as inflationary forces until they actually dictate the cost of essentials for people? So how's that Bush economy working for you?

What tales are you following?

Hillary, It's Time To Leave

Reuters photo

With most of the North Carolina vote in, Obama seems to be trouncing Hillary by over 200,000 votes in a state that may be in play this fall. Zogby’s last NC poll showed that Obama benefited from the state’s early voting in mid-April before the Jeremiah Wright sideshow, and from a late rush of support as well (we are assuming here that most of the late-registering Democrats will stay Democratic for the fall). This drubbing, coupled with a small victory, even potential loss in Indiana does not make a convincing argument for Clinton going forward. For Clinton, it all comes down to money and super delegates, and she'll be lacking both from this point on.

The Clinton campaign moved from the Bosnia sniper stupidity to the gas tax pander, in a year when voters are fed up with pandering politicians they cannot trust. Perhaps voters are ready for the truth about shared sacrifice, energy policies, universal health care’s benefits, tax fairness, and keeping good jobs here at home. They may even be ready for a real debate about an effective war on terrorism, and shining a light on those who would rather use fear to avoid that debate. And yet as late as several minutes ago in her speech, all Clinton could do was rehash the gas tax pander, and infer once again that Obama wasn’t ready to be commander in chief, after she voted for the 2002 AUMF and Kyl-Lieberman.

Although I have no illusions about what lies ahead, I’m clear on one thing after tonight: It’s time for Hillary to cash in.

As I have said many times, Obama is not my first choice but he has run the better campaign, with more discipline and frankly more smarts, two things in extremely short supply in Clinton’s campaign. I suspect she will continue the race out of Clintonian vanity and self-interest above party interest. However, he now has a clear path to the nomination at a time when we need to start destroying John McCain and the GOP every single day between now and November. It will be a challenge, as the party is about to test the proposition that his core voters can lead the party to a general election victory.

Nevertheless, the time for that experiment to begin is now, regardless of our feelings about how we got here. Again, no matter how you feel now, in the fall it will simply come down to Obama against a doddering, pandering, Bush ass-kissing sack of shit. If you vote for the sack of shit out of rage at how Obama won this thing over Clinton, we are all screwed. We cannot endure another four years of disaster capitalist elites running this country into the ground, aided by a Supreme Court full of corporatists. If you are a Clinton supporter, please leave your disappointment behind as you enter the voting booth in November. Your opponent is not Barack Obama, but rather the bastards across the aisle that got us here.

Calling It On Exit Polls Alone

Even though the polls closed three hours ago, the AP is calling North Carolina for Obama based only on the exit polls, and Obama's 9-1 advantage over Hillary with African Americans according to those exit polls.

Hmmm.

Update: With 20% of the vote in, he's cleaning her clock by 150,000 votes. Their call makes perfect sense now. If this trend holds and he beats her by this type of margin, given the Democratic registration jumps (assuming they are all really Democrats for November), she should see the handwriting on the wall.

But she won't.

Results Thread

Exit polls are so consistently wrong that I won't bother posting them.

I predict Obama wins North Carolina by about 12, and Clinton wins Indiana by about 7. I expect to be proven wrong.

If you want to talk about it, this is the place...

7:35 Eastern Time: Obama wins North Carolina, while Indiana is too close to call. The basic demographic trend lines are holding, as they have, as they apparently will.

7:55: Clinton holds a steady 14% lead in Indiana, but only 20% of Indianapolis is in, while nothing at all is in from the very northwestern counties, that are effectively suburbs of Chicago.

8:20: 44% of Indiana reporting, and Clinton still leads by 12. A third of Indianapolis is in, but still nothing from the northwest. Obama will have to win by a landslide in the northwest to overcome Clinton's overall margin.

9:03: Obama is currently winning North Carolina by the same huge margin by which he won many February primaries and caucuses. But most of the results, thus far, have been from his urban strongholds. That margin could shrink. Or maybe the rest of the state will split. Or maybe he'll build on his lead. What's clear, though, is that if he does rack up a huge popular vote win, Clinton's potential overall popular vote argument to the superdelegates will be all but gone.

9:35: Fun fact for the night- a quarter of the Republicans in North Carolina are not voting for McCain. In Indiana, that number is 23%.

10:00: The margins in both states are closing, but Obama's win in North Carolina is a solid double digits, while Clinton is looking at a narrow win in Indiana, that is not yet assured.

10:12: I'll be going out for the night, but I'll close with this thought: if the superdelegates are inclined to end this race, they will do it in the coming days. It's all about spin, now, and both campaigns will make arguments about why their wins were more important than their opponent's, and why their candidate is again proven more electable. But Obama is not going to have another night where any state or territory will provide him with such a large margin of victory. Clinton can look ahead to huge wins in demographically favorable West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. If the superdelegates are going to make a move, it will be after a big Obama win. If they don't make their move in the coming days, they do intend to wait until June.

OR-Secretary of State: Meet Vicki Walker

(This is my personal opinion, and does not necessarily reflect that of TLC or TLC's other writers)

We tend to pay less attention to down-ballot state races, as if their only real importance lies in the creation of strong political benches, a sort of stockpiling of talent for the future. Even so, just reading the names Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell reveals that we do actually understand that Secretary of State is among the most important political jobs in the country. From the opposite end of the spectrum, Californians proved it, yet again, when Debra Bowen was elected, last year. Now, it's Oregon's turn.

A few years ago, it came to the attention of some Portland activists that Portland General Electric (or PGE- and not to be confused with California's PG & E- Pacific Gas & Electric) had been charging rate-payers for its federal and state tax liabilities, even though it wasn't actually paying the taxes. The Public Utilities Commission had given PGE a waiver. So, PGE was using false pretenses to over-bill its customers. In the amount of $150,000,000 a year! The total came to over $1,000,000,000! These activists thought it might be a good thing to stop this outrageous practice; so, they approached a prominent state legislator with the idea of passing a law that would forbid it, and that would require utilities to refund to ratepayers the money they were charged for taxes that the utilities did not pay- plus interest. The legislator didn't want to do it. PGE is enormously wealthy and politically powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it had never suffered a legislative defeat! The activists approached a second legislator. A third. A fourth. A fifth. None had the political courage. The sixth legislator they approached was Vicki Walker, a state senator from a mostly rural Willamette Valley district that also includes Oregon's second largest city, the university town of Eugene. Walker said she'd do it.

Oregon's Democratic Governor, Ted Kulongoski, refused to take a stand on Walker's effort. Even he lacked the guts to confront PGE. But Walker ushered the legislation through both the Senate and the House, and Kulongoski signed it into law. It was one of those extremely rare examples of a government standing up to a powerful special interest, on behalf of the people. And it was the first time PGE had ever been defeated in Oregon's legislature! And Vicki Walker was singularly responsible for making it happen. And Oregon's utilities tried to make her pay for it. Eugene's popular mayor ran against her, in the next election. Eugene's mayoral candidates need not declare party affiliation, so until this mayor challenged Walker, many of his constituents probably didn't even know he was a Republican. So, he could run as a liberal Republican, a species with which Oregon actually has a long, and often happy, history. And needless to say, he was very well-funded. He was actually favored to win. And then they had their debate, and Walker was so much smarter, and so much better versed on the issues, that all the local media agreed she had soundly defeated him. And that turned the election, and led to her victory. Now, Oregon has the opportunity to bring her intelligence, integrity, and courage to state office.

The Campaign Has Benefited Both

Reuters photo of Clinton in North Carolina yesterday

Just a quick note about today’s contests. From a common sense perspective, Hillary needs to somehow win both contests in order to further her argument that her late-charging campaign provides a better chance for the party to win in November. Similarly, if Obama wins both contests and shows he can carry working class voters in Indiana, Hillary is done and should drop out. Will she? Probably not, as the Clinton campaign has thought all along that the nomination was deemed to them from Day One, no matter how god-awful a campaign they ran.

If she wins both contests, again unlikely because of Obama’s early leads in both states, and demonstrates that she continues to win working class Democrats and pick up late-switching support in states like North Carolina, she has a perfectly valid case to make to super delegates. If she does what I expect, namely winning Indiana and losing North Carolina by a smaller-than-expected margin, she will continue her campaign until the end. Many of us will gnash our teeth at this, but the polls show that the long campaign hasn’t hurt either of them in head-to-heads with McCain, even though McCain is using this time to repackage himself as someone scrambling back to the center. According to the latest NYT/CBS News poll, Obama would defeat McCain by 11 points and Clinton would defeat him by 12.

Clinton has somehow managed to recast herself as a regular Judy, focusing as she should have on real issues facing Americans. In response, Obama has rushed to shed the elitist label himself, ditched the talk about hope, and instead engaged voters on current concerns. All of this is good for both of them, and the party. A little populism and a little anger directed at the GOP’s last eight years will take the Democrats a long way this year. And because the campaign between them has been bare-knuckled and heavily-contested, the Democratic nominee will be fully prepared to not only connect with real voters on real issues, but will also be able to deal with the certain GOP slime and smear machine as well. We all know that politics isn't beanbag, and this tough campaign now ensures that our candidate has no excuse for a replay of 2004.

Open Thread

A mis-begotten arranged marriage falls apart.

Your turn now.

School Responds To Ridiculous Gym Class Project

My daughter's school responded to my questioning the safety and intelligence of their gym class project that measured "ideal" body weight and fat percentage of 12-year-olds. The response came not from the administration but the PE teacher herself, who is obviously required by the state of Illinois to teach nutrition and exercise, but apparently is free to develop her own methods.

As an aside, if anyone can make any sense out of the first sentence, please help me out. Where do these people get degrees? By the way, the last I heard of this woman she was running the local bowling alley.

Mr. Dinelli,

As far in any other class I have State goals that I must show that I address. Some of these goals are based on activities we do in class and some are based on health related fitness components. In these goals students have to set goals, develop these goals, implement them and monitor themselves. Some goals are to know and apply physiological principles, understand principles of health promotion, among other things. You may look at the State goals for physical Education and health on the State website, www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/pdh/standards.htm, which I listed for you.

The objective of my project is to let the students find out appropriate weight, find their percentage of body fat, find their target heart rate zones, assess their fitness levels, learn about the Food Pyramid and see if they follow proper nutritional habits. I do not tell the students what they should weigh. On the website, (and I stated in class), the weight calculator is a tool, it states right on the site that weight may fall in a window between 10% higher or lower. I do not tell the students to change their eating habits, in fact I told them not to change the way they eat for this assignment. I want them to make observations about what they actually do and see if they need to make some adjustments. This is all done on their own, other than the fitness tests we will take in class. I do not share personal information with other students, so if this has been done it has not been by me. Projects are turned in and graded only by me. I am not trying to embarrass any students, but trying to provide information for the students that may be used as a life-long learning skill. The students make their own conclusions and change whatever they think needs to be done. It is just a self-assessment of their lifestyles and fitness levels.

I do realize that there are concerns for under and overweight people in our society. I am trying to provide our students with some tools that they can use later in life that may help them not be one of those statistics.

(Gym teacher)

The first thing you may realize is that her "link" gets you nowhere. I tried to search around, looking for Illinois State Physical Education Goals, Illinois Learning Standards, Physical Development and Health, Goal 22, etc., but came up empty as far as using a "weight calculator" to determine "ideal" weight according to height and age, or body fat percentage use.

The Satanic Gas Tax Holiday for Flag Burning

UPDATE: By the way, don't miss this post by Susie Madrak and this one by Lambert to see exactly how depraved some of the "liberals" of the blogosphere have become. (Also see this).

Reading some of the key segments of the "liberal" blogosphere and the SCLM today was interesting as always. Maybe some Obama supporters are just slightly nervous about whether Sen. Obama will win in IN and defeat Sen. Clinton by a big margin in NC. I could be wrong of course since I see no reason for them to be nervous - I think he will win in NC for sure and has a decent chance of winning IN. In fact, considering that he has, um, Won The Nomination Already^TM (right?), whether or not he win or loses IN or NC or both should make no difference to The Math^TM, right? That's why the predictably vile attacks on Sen. Clinton over the gas tax proposal are certainly a sight to behold. 

The funny thing is that what she has proposed - moving the tax burden to corporations from low income and middle class Americans - is as liberal a policy as it gets. Now, one can legitimately argue that this policy has only limited benefits (or maybe more) for consumers (as Sen. Obama and some economists argue), but this type of policy long used to be considered a liberal policy position (tax rich corporations rather than less-well off individuals) - i.e., until this primary and until The Precious decided he would oppose it (after enjoying the benefit of supporting it when he was in the IL state senate) - at which point it became the Satanic Gas Tax Holiday. Even more fascinating are the "liberals" fainting on the couch because she proposed something that is "DOA in Congress". Can you just imagine this Horrible Crime?! Obviously none of these people were presumably advocates for impeachment or other such minor trivialities that were "DOA in Congress", so I certainly appreciate their Highly Informed, Creative Class, Liberal "Non Elite" world view.

Anyway, as I was ecstatically gulping down the Great Wisdom that abounds in the (Very) Creative Class blogosphere on this matter, thereby discovering how Sen. Clinton is now More Evil Than Evil Itself and how people, for the zillionth time, have finally had it with her*, I stumbled onto the Daily Howler and realized that Bob Somerby had just discussed another one of those Dastardly Eeevil Clinton policy positions that has re-emerged over the weekend - one that is another Sad Reminder of Her Satanic Nature and has long evoked a paroxysm of hatred or dislike for her amongst the um, Highly Informed Creative Class.^TM Somerby starts with the predictable Gail Collins:

We may examine more of the rubble in the next few days, but let’s start with a (familiar) paragraph by the well-scripted noble, Lady Collins. Late in her Saturday column, she warbled the following song, thus expressing a story-line these dullards can recite in their sleep. You can tell that Obama is finer than Clinton because of that flag-burning bill!

COLLINS (5/3/08): All this actually tells us something about the Democratic candidates, which has nothing to do with fuel prices. Obama believes voters want a sensible, less-divisive political dialogue, that the whole process can become more honorable if the right candidate leads the way. Hillary really doesn’t buy that. She has principles, but she doesn’t believe in principled stands. She thinks that if she can get elected, she can do great things. And to get there, she’s prepared to do whatever. That certainly includes endorsing any number of meaningless-to-ridiculous ideas. (See: her bill to make it illegal to desecrate an American flag.)

Barack Obama believes in high principle. Sorry, but Hillary Clinton doesn’t! Indeed, Clinton is willing to do and say anything, much like Vile Candidate Gore before her. To get elected, “she’s prepared to do whatever” Indeed, apparently unlike Obama, Clinton is willing to “endors[e] any number of meaningless-to-ridiculous ideas,” Collins says. Collins’ example? Cue the snoring! “See: her bill to make it illegal to desecrate an American flag.”

You know where this is going, but I promise you more fun than you might expect - below the fold!

Global Warming Heating Up The World's Largest Lake

Wellesley College Office of Public Affairs:

Russian and American scientists have demonstrated for the first time that the world’s largest lake, located in frigid Siberia, has warmed rapidly over the past half century, at a rate almost three times that of the average global air temperature. The findings are consistent with additional signs that this remote region is responding strongly to global warming.

Through long-term studies of Russia’s Lake Baikal, Stephanie Hampton, deputy director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and Marianne Moore, associate professor of biological sciences at Wellesley College, and four other scientists have written a research paper, “Sixty Years of Environmental Change in the World’s Largest Freshwater Lake,” which will appear in the scientific journal Global Change Biology.

Using cutting-edge statistical analysis, the authors detail the effects of climate change in the world's largest lake – from warming of its vast waters to reorganization of its microscopic food web. “Warming of this isolated but enormous lake is a clear signal that climate change has affected even the most remote corners of our planet,” Hampton said.

An abstract of the study can be found here.

Calvinball

While HuffPo, and those in the shrillosphere who still take it seriously, hyperventilate over the possibility that the Clinton campaign might push to have the Florida and Michigan delegates seated (something I oppose, although my solution- re-votes- was undermined by the Obama campaign), Craig Crawford offers a little reality-check (emphasis mine):

The mandatory penalties set forth by the Democratic National Committee’s delegate selection rules call for outlaw states like Florida and Michigan to only lose half of their delegates to the national convention. And yet the DNC went beyond its own rules to add further penalties, stripping those states of all delegates.

Calvinball, brought to you by the DNC.

And Crawford points out that Obama actually technically violated the Florida rules, by speaking to reporters after a Tampa fundraiser, and by airing television ads, on national cable networks. And what Crawford doesn't mention is that Obama coincidentally began airing the ads right before Florida. Not weeks beforehand, and not immediately after. Crawford again (emphasis his):

Strictly speaking, if the DNC rules were tightly construed in this case, Hillary Rodham Clinton would receive half of the Florida delegates she won and Obama would receive none -- the penalty for violating the campaign ban.

But the DNC's strict adherence to the rules- not to mention its going beyond the rules- only happens when it hurts Clinton and helps Obama. Curious, that. And who is going nuclear?

Joe McCarthy Would Be So Proud

To the point, from the Los Angeles Times:

When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.

But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.

As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.

Quakers seem to be a serious threat to our national security.

Really Really Really Bad

I'm confused. First, the ever-reliable Michael Gordon of the New York Times has an unidentified American official, with ridiculous opacity, claiming that Iran is behaving really really really badly.

Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.

Material from the interrogations was given to the Iraqi government, along with other data about captured Iranian arms, before it sent a delegation to Tehran last week to discuss allegations of Iranian aid to militia groups.

So, certainly, the Iraqis would want to confront the Iranians about that. Except that Iraq concluded that Iran wasn't actually behaving really really really badly. McClatchy:

The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.

As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months.

The government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, told reporters Sunday that a committee was formed to find "tangible information" about foreign intervention, specifically Iran's role in Iraq rather than "information based on speculation."

"We don't want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran. What happened before is enough. We paid a lot," Dabbagh said, referring to the eight years war between the two nations in which an estimated 1 million people died.

But that must not have gone over too well with the people who govern the Iraqi "government." Because it didn't help with the propaganda catapulting. So, as the Washington Post reported, a little later, the Iraqis do actually think Iran is behaving really really really badly, after all!

Numbers

This is what I love about this campaign season. Not this issue, but how it's polling, and how supporters of each candidate can pick the poll that best comforts them. Two polls that came out on the same day!

USA Today has bad news for Barack Obama:

Barack Obama's national standing has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his former pastor, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, raising questions for some voters about the Illinois senator's values, credibility and electability.

The erosion of support among Democrats and independents raises the stakes in Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries, which represent a chance for Obama to reassert his claim to a Democratic nomination that seems nearly in his grasp. A defeat in Indiana and a close finish in North Carolina, where he's favored, could fuel unease about his ability to win in November. Such results also could help propel Hillary Rodham Clinton's uphill campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in August.

In the USA TODAY survey, taken Thursday through Saturday, Clinton leads Obama among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents by 7 percentage points, the first time in three months she has been ahead. Two weeks ago, before the controversy over comments by Jeremiah Wright reignited, Obama led by 10 points.

And despite The Math, that's how Obama could still lose the nomination. But don't despair, Obama fans, because the New York Times has the good news!

A majority of American voters say that the furor over the relationship between Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor has not affected their opinion of Mr. Obama, but a substantial number say that it could influence voters this fall should he be the Democratic presidential nominee, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll....

The poll, conducted after Mr. Obama held a news conference on Tuesday in which he renounced his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., for making incendiary comments, found that most Americans said they approved of the way Mr. Obama had responded to the episode and considered his criticism of Mr. Wright appropriate.

Now, the internals of both polls tell more nuanced stories, and so does the reporting in both articles. But the different tones of the two polls and the two articles pretty well sums up the absurdity of this campaign season. And if you want a good measure of the major blogs: how many reported both polls, and how many chose to highlight only the one that promoted their preferred story-line?

Open Thread

Has MacGyver found a way to rescue the financial systems? Perhaps. But that could pose a problem in the long run according to Dr. Krugman.

Your thoughts on this or other topics welcome.

The Gas Tax Brouhaha

Aside from the usual jokers rending their garments over it, I don't find the gas tax holiday back-and-forth to be particularly earth-shaking. I already linked to two Paul Krugman posts that touched on the gas tax issue in previous posts; one of Krugman's posts was a specific critique of Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain's different proposals and another was an op-ed where he again mentions the gas tax issue in a broader context. I agree with Krugman's view that Sen. Clinton's proposal is "pointless not evil".

All politicians pander and I've never said Sen. Clinton is above pandering. That said, her proposal has been misrepresented or distorted by the Obama campaign (see here and here) and by some in the media (see here). Sen. Obama's own history of pandering and his repeated voting in favor of a gas tax holiday in 2000 (when gas prices were much lower) make his current pronouncements on this matter, um, amusing. Some other posts on this topic worth reading:

Todd Beeton at MyDD: "The Politics of the Gas Tax Holiday"

Bill Scher at Liberal Oasis: "Two Ads"

Lambert at Correntewire: ""Creative Class" [Cough] to Dull Normals: Take One for The Team on Gas Tax!"

NC and IN

Big Tent Democrat says:

The newly all important Obama surrogate Joe Andrew was on Fox today and he flatly predicted Barack Obama will win both Indiana and North Carolina. Apparently he believes Zogby....

Zogby or not - there is no doubt that Sen. Obama is heavily favored to win NC and should be able to win IN comfortably given how he did in IL.

I've pretty much stopped paying much attention to pre-election polls after what happened in New Hampshire, but just to take NC as an example, it seems pretty obvious that Sen. Obama should be able to pull off a significant double digit victory in NC - by a margin of 10-20%. For example, let's assume that African-American (AA) voters vote for him 90-10 over Sen. Clinton and that he gets at least 40% of the White vote (both very reasonable assumptions). Let's simplify the turnout model and assume that the turnout of AAs is 30-40% and correspondingly that the turnout of Whites is 70-60%. In the AA 30 - White 70 turnout scenario, Sen. Obama would win NC 55% - 45% (30*0.9 + 70*0.4). In the AA 40 - White 60 turnout scenario, Sen. Obama would win NC 60% - 40% (40*0.9 + 60*0.4).

The people of NC and IN will tell us their choice on Tuesday.

Stay With Your People

I have been in a foul political mood for a week, starting when my parents and amazing sister #1 showed up Monday, gravely hurt and volubly upset that Reverend Wright was so vividly in the news with Nation of Islam bodyguards. After strongly supporting Obama for a year there was a base bewilderment to the racist, corporate skewering of their candidate and hero I found particularly difficult to watch, the Dean Scream echoing in my memory.

Then very first wave Tuesday morning at Hullabaloo was the infamous Commander Codpiece image, a picture so offensive to me on so many levels we all know about that it fucked up my day, it really did, nothing serious, but the pursuit of happiness was a goddamn failure all day long. Then Hillary Clinton acted like a Republican, encouraging wanton pollution while looting the Treasury, and to top it all off, incredibly, FISA and telecom immunity slithered out from Satan’s anus again, Jesus, just what in the hell are our Reps trying to hide from is this time?

Open Thread

Your turn now.