Liberal College Kid

On the eve of the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary, the media, the twenty-four hour news networks in particular, are putting on their thinking caps and really revving up the prediction game. With the help of copious amounts of polls and apparently knowledgeable pundits, they will spend most of today and likely all of tomorrow trying to determine who will win the majority of Keystone state votes among various demographics, geographic locations and age groups. In one breath, many of them will acknowledge the fact that they are very often wrong and that polls are notoriously inaccurate (not to mention the drastically different conclusions that each individual poll finds), while continuing to supply we humble citizens with their professional predictions anyway. God bless America.

Today MSNBC has been continuously referring to a poll that they conducted in an attempt to penetrate the minds of “blue collar” voters (a term which has been used so often in the last few months that it may soon lose its meaning). This enlightening poll breaks down Pennsylvania working class voters into four very insightful groups:

1. Hunters

2. Bowlers

3. Beer Drinkers

4. Gun Owners

Ignoring, for the moment, that many of these groups are not even close to being mutually exclusive (particularly groups 1 and 4, which, if we are to believe the ubiquitously referenced logic for pro-gun legislation, should be the same exact people), it is very interesting, in light of the recent charges of “elitism” being throw around so carelessly, that MSNBC would conduct and then relentlessly cite this poll. When Barack Obama remarked at a San Francisco fund raiser that rural Pennsylvanians have become bitter about the economic situation in the state and have been clinging to guns, religion and antipathy towards immigrants in response, there were loud cries accusing him of condescension and failure to understand the small town-mentality. These accusations were amplified and trumpeted gleefully by the media whose members are always happy to portray Democrats as Ivory Tower elitists.

But what was largely lost in the ensuing debate over Obama’s character was the truth that is inherent in his statement. There has been a great amount of speculation as to the true intentions behind it, but I believe that the generally accepted interpretation is wrong. Rather than insinuating that the only reason rural Pennsylvanians and other Americans like them are religious or live traditional lifestyles is because of their economic predicament (an assertion that I don’t totally disagree with), I believe that what the Senator meant, in this case at least, is that when a population is abandoned by their government on economic issues (as many Pennsylvanians have been over the last 30 years), their political involvement becomes focused on issues that they believe they can still have a significant effect on. Year after year, decade after decade, Pennsylvanians have become increasingly convinced that whether there is a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent in office, the economy in their state will still be left out to dry. They have learned that despite all their rhetoric on stimulating job growth and preventing the outsourcing that has devastated much of the state, politicians will never follow up on these promises and that the situation may continue to get worse. In order to prevent a feeling of complete political innocuousness, they turn their attention to issues relating to their religion, to gun control, and to immigration, realms of the political dialogue in which they see they can still be an important factor. Under this line of thinking, faith, gun ownership and similar characteristics of rural Pennsylvania are an integrated part of the culture, which do not exist simply because of economic situations but become amplified and prioritized when a sense of abandonment takes hold of a community.

Now, this is certainly a debatable idea. The argument over the direction of causation between economics and culture/social structure goes back at least to Marx (economics determines social structure) and Weber (social characteristics determine economic activity). My point here is that I do not see Senator Obama’s remarks as revealing his inner elitism and disdain for rural Americans. Rather, I think he is truly trying to view Pennsylvania’s political culture through the eyes of a social scientist, a method that more politicians should probably utilize, regardless of whether or not the particular assertion Obama was making is entirely correct or not.

On the other hand, what I do find insulting and condescending, as a Pennsylvanian who has spent the majority of his time in the less urbanized middle ground of the state, are polls like the one MSNBC is using today and comments that are endlessly made by pundits that reflect that poll’s thinking. Even if you assume the most socially unacceptable interpretation of Obama’s remarks is the correct one (that the only reason why rural Americans are religious and traditional is because they are in poor economic health), to me, assuming that voters in the state are so moronic, so nonintellectual that they are unable to differentiate their participation in a bowling league or their love for Yuengling Lager from their political ideology is far more insulting. At least, under the harshest interpretation of the “bitter” statement, Obama was mapping out a somewhat identifiable process by which the phenomena of religion and nativism occur. The MSNBC poll, however, insinuates to the entire nation and anyone in the rest of the world who is closely following this election, that somehow, there is a direct correlation between a Pennsylvanian’s choice in alcoholic beverage and who he or she will vote for in a presidential election. Interestingly, in the beer drinking category, Obama and Clinton were tied. But the offense I take lies not in the answer, but in the formulation of the question in the first place. Imagine the phone call that Pennsylvania residents must have been subjected to: “Hello ma’am, may I ask you a few questions? Do you drink beer? Do you ever go bowling? For whom are you planning on voting?”

The pundits that subsequently take the information derived from polls such as these and attempt to formulate conclusions about voters only increase the idiocy of this game of prediction that they so love to play. One frequent MSNBC guest, Jonathan Alter, when asked why hunting, bowling and beer are relevant characteristics of PA voters, he responded, “Because there are a lot of them! Have you ever seen the movie Deer Hunter?” If a movie made thirty years ago is the source from which our media establishment “experts” are drawing their demographic information, we are all in trouble. And within his response lies the condescension of which I am speaking. It’s true that a good amount of Pennsylvanians love beer (myself included) and go bowling (myself not included), but for the vast majority of them, these activities have absolutely nothing to do with the way they make voting decisions or how their political ideology is shaped, and to assume that they do is true condescension. If Alter and the long line of pundits that MSNBC has been interviewing all day long really believe that these are significant factors in this race, then it reveals a deeply ingrained misunderstanding of the average and “blue collar” Americans on the behalf of which these experts supposedly speak. Next time, before they begin with the tirades about Senator Obama’s elitism and his disconnect from rural America, they should stop to contemplate whether or not they are truly in a position to attach these monikers to politicians, when they so obviously deserve them themselves. Oh, and Contessa Brewer, if you are reading this, call me sometime.

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Ever since John Edwards dropped out of the nomination race, I have stayed basically undecided between the remaining Democratic candidates, Obama and Clinton. That is, until recently.

As I discussed yesterday, the mood of this campaign has taken a decidedly negative turn, driven almost entirely by the Clinton camp. She and her advisers have decided that resorting to fear-provoking tactics is the best way to blemish Obama’s image, scaring the public into voting for her and her long history of “experience.”

I noted yesterday that this strategy is myopic on all sides, that regardless of who becomes the Democratic nominee, whether it be Clinton or Obama, it will do no good in the long run. The logical outcome of this sort of campaign is one that bolsters McCain and harms his opponent.

Today, however, Clinton has taken it to a new level. Before, with the “three a.m.” ads and the general attacks on Obama, she and her campaign were unintentionally helping John McCain (at least I assumed it was unintentional). Perhaps just insinuating the she and Senator McCain were better suited than Obama to become president was not enough, because today she said it, flat out:

Look, I have said Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience, and Senator Obama will bring a speech he made in 2002.

And:

I think that since we now know Senator McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold.

I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Senator McCain has done that, and you’ll have to ask Senator Obama with respect to his candidacy.

What, exactly, is she trying to do here? Am I the only one that thinks she sounds like McCain’s running mate? It was bad enough when she was satisfied just attempting to destroy Obama’s image. Now, she not only questions Obama’s ability to handle national security, but bewilderingly, unnecessarily, brings up John McCain and showers him with praise and attests to his preparedness. Please, someone explain to me how this strategy is supposed to pan out? How can it possibly benefit her OR Obama? All she is doing is taking on McCain’s work for him, taking cheap shots at her fellow party member and coming up with handy attacks for the McCain campaign to use in the general election.

Jonathan Alter at Newsweek.com showed, using a delegate calculator, that even in the very best of circumstances (Clinton winning every single state from here on out; some, like Pennsylvania, by staggering margins), she will still be behind Obama in the overall delegate count. If events pan out, even as positively for Clinton as they do in the Alter experiment, then the only way Clinton could clinch the nomination is through the influence of the superdelegates. Unless her advisers are completely inept, they must know this as well. Why, then, resort to this strategy of tearing apart the other Democratic candidate and boosting the image of the Republican? I cannot assume to know how the superdelegates will interpret her statements, but if any of them are concerned about the cohesion and strength of the party, they should be appalled. If I were a superdelegate, and a Democratic candidate were speaking like this, there would be absolutely no way I would support them.

The McCain praise is not the only shocking statement the Clinton campaign has made in the last 24 hours. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for her campaign, today compared Barack Obama to Kenneth Starr (you all remember that name), because Obama continues to ask that Senator Clinton releases her tax returns to the public. (An interesting side note: while she was running for the Senate in 2000, Clinton made a lot of noise about her then-opponent, Rich Lazio, not releasing his tax returns… exactly what she now keeps putting off herself). Again, I cannot see how comparing Obama to Starr helps her chances in getting the nomination. Not only is the comparison a complete and idiotic misnomer with no basis in reality, it brings up an uncomfortable time for the Democratic Party. The public does not want to go through that again, and by calling attention to Starr in any way, Wolfson simply reminds voters how much of a lightning rod for right-wing criticism the Clintons are. When asked to comment on Wolfson’s statement, Senator Clinton, for some reason, refused to comment.

Finally, this news came out of the Canadian press today:

A storm of reports in the Canadian media say that the Nafta-gate flap last week involving Barack Obama was started by a key aide to Canada’s prime minister - who told journalists that Hillary Clinton’s campaign - not Obama’s - had contacted the Canadian government to play down its Nafta-bashing.

Apparently, the story about Obama giving the Canadians the “ole’ wink wink” (Clinton’s words), got mixed up at some point. It was, in fact, the Clinton campaign that reassured the Canadian government there would be no major changes to the the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement if she became president. And why not? It was her husband’s administration that pushed NAFTA into existence, and she has made plenty of statements applauding the agreement in the past. When Obama and his campaign denied ever reaching out to our northern neighbors on this subject, he wasn’t lying.

Woops. While this story was being published and reported incorrectly in the United States, Clinton was quick to criticize Obama over it, insinuating, most importantly to voters in Ohio, that he could not be trusted to stick to his word and reform or repeal the agreement if he becomes president. There is nothing more sickening then finding out that the entire time, it was really the work of her own campaign that she was rallying so strongly against. Even more disheartening is that the story and Clinton’s response to it almost certainly had a significant impact on the March 4 primaries, especially in Ohio.

All of these things ad up to make Senator Clinton and her campaign look pretty ugly. If she insists on lavishing John McCain with warm accolades and denigrating Obama (beyond what is necessary for a primary election season), then I do not see how Democrats, both within the upper echelons of the party and its every day members, can continue to support her. All of her recent actions and statements have seemed to suggest that she would rather see John McCain become president than see Barack Obama become the Democratic nominee.

Many of the political pundits and Democratic strategists are saying that this long and drawn out race for the nomination will be good for the party: it will further clarify the stances of each candidate; it will energize the party base; it will focus media attention on the Democrats while McCain’s coverage gets muted in the background. But none of that will matter if, after a nominee has emerged, Obama looks like a weakling on national security and a traitor to America, and Clinton looks like best friends with John McCain, and has isolated Obama’s enormous base. If she somehow becomes the nominee, how can she possibly expect the millions of young, dedicated Obama supporters to suddenly change heart and embrace her candidacy? If the Democratic candidates are really concerned about putting a member of their party in the White House next year, they both need to stay away from viscous personality-based attacks, and Hillary Clinton, if nothing else, needs to stop the love-fest with John McCain.

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The race for the Democratic nomination will continue on. With her wins in Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas last night, Hillary Clinton has narrowed Obama’s lead in delegates to 96 (according to cnn.com). MSNBC cited a poll showing that most Democratic voters actually want the primary elections to continue between Clinton and Obama. It seems their wish has been granted.

However, as the candidates move forward they should tread carefully. Prior to the latest round of primaries and caucuses, Hillary Clinton’s campaign began running the now-notorious “three a.m. phone call” television commercials, which insinuated that Barack Obama would not be capable of handling emergency situations prudently if he were to become president. They play off the already-held belief among some voters that Obama does not have the experience, and therefore does not have the judgment, to take on the country’s highest office, especially during a crisis. This, as we all know, has been the crux of Clinton’s self-marketing over the last few months; namely, that she is “ready to be president on day one” and that Obama is not. The entire ploy seems to be working, and the notion that Clinton has vast, tested experience in executive positions has taken root in many voters’ minds, despite the lack of proof (recently when a handful of her top campaign staffers were asked to name a specific moment in which she was tested in the way she claims to have been, none of them could come up with an answer). But setting aside the question of whether or not Clinton really does possess the experience shes touts, its obvious that she and her campaign have become comfortable with employing a more hostile and fear-based strategy. Last night will likely serve to reinforce their belief in the efficacy of this sort of campaign, and they will continue on to Pennsylvania under the premise that in order to siphon votes away from Obama, they need to scare the general electorate.

Scare tactics and ads playing to the fears of the country are an insult to the intelligence of Democrats and the public in general. They assume that whenever we are given the choice between voting based on an instinctual need for safety and voting based on thoughtful, coherent decisions, our animalistic tendencies will always win. They are saying to us, “we know that you, the common people, are too stupid to understand the intricacies of what we do; so, just trust that if you vote for that other guy, you might have to die, but if you vote for me, you’ll always be able to sleep like a baby.”

In 2004, Bill Clinton, while campaigning for John Kerry, said:

If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.

Sadly, his wife and her campaign managers have begged to differ with the former president. In their desperation to retake the lead, they have subjected the voters to the same kind of fear-mongering that Bill denounced just four years ago. And, if they do not back off from these tactics, they run the risk of doing serious damage to the Democratic Party and its presidential hopes this November.

If the Clinton campaign continues to demonize Obama in this way, they run the risk of significantly tarnishing his image in the event he becomes the nominee. There are seven weeks until the Pennsylvania primary, more than enough time to cement the irrational belief that Obama is weak on national security into the minds of millions of voters; not just those in PA and the other upcoming states, but throughout the country. If she does not win the nomination, she will have created a perfect target for McCain to exploit against Obama in the general election. She endlessly informs us that her number one priority is that a Democrat (be it her or Obama) is sworn into the Oval Office next year, but her actions seem to betray those claims.

On the other hand, if these tactics do work, and Clinton does eventually clench the nomination, they will hurt her as well. We hoped that this year, the election could finally move past mindless rhetoric and visions of nuclear holocaust, and instead concentrate on real substance. Inevitably, McCain and others on the right will use fear to win votes - I don’t think anyone doubts that. But because Hillary has descended into this filthy world as well, she will not be able to call them out and show the public why it is irrational to vote out of fear, why they should resist those candidates who replace dreams with nightmares, and why she offers an alternative to this nonsense - because she no longer does.

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“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and the obedience of the [U.S.] media.”

“The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or the modern corporation.”

-Noam Chomsky

Following the results of New Hampshire’s primary votes, it seems that John Edward’s presidential hopes are not looking good. It is infuriating, to me personally, that the whims of two states representing a tiny fraction of the American public can have such a substantial effect on the fate of the presidential race, and thereby the republic as a whole. But these frustrations, as much as I would like to now expand on them, are currently irrelevant, and should be reserved for a later date. What I do want to discuss, however, is what the Edwards campaign contributed to the general direction of the Democratic struggle for the presidency, and, vastly more important, the consciousness of the nation.

First of all: an indictment of the mainstream media. Throughout the last two years, as the candidates on both sides of the aisle have traveled around the country, the major news outlets in the United States (CNN, Fox, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, to name only a few) have depicted the Democratic race as a two-sided battle; namely, the battle between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. We would be foolish to think that this has not had a significant, if not vital, effect on the bid for the White House. The mainstream media is an incredibly powerful force. It has the ability to, and general does, shape our view of reality and world around us. The tell us who is a “viable” candidate and who is not (this, of course, is in reference to only one small aspect of the reality that the media shapes for us; the power they have extends far beyond campaigns and “politics,” in the strictest sense of the word). While anyone who considers themselves educated and enlightened acknowledges this fact, we must think further. Why is it that Edwards has been consistently counted out, considered a nearly hopeless candidate? Before you answer this question, try to disassociate yourself from everything you have been molded to think in the last year or two, everything that has told you that Obama and Clinton are strong candidates, and others like Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, and even Paul are weak.

The easy answer is that all of the latter campaigns have been very short on money, some more desperate than others. Despite the fact that we live in a “democracy” (a word that, in my opinion, has lost much of its meaning over the last quarter-century), those that do not have adequate financial backing are doomed. This, perhaps, is one of the great tragedies that our nation has had to suffer, and, no doubt, will continue to suffer. But I hope, for the sake of our fate as a nation, that this is not your only justification for supporting a candidate: whether they have the financial assets necessary. Let’s ponder for a moment what having a large sum of money to support a campaign actually means. It means that those with the money will have the most television advertisements and radio commercials; they will have the most signs crowding the landscapes of our neighborhoods; they will have the greatest number of paid staff members to conduct activities like door-to-door recruiting and focus group organizing.

Those of us that claim to be on the Left should have an ideological discomfort with these facts. We tout our commitment to equality and fairness, and yet barely notice when the entire system of nominating a Democratic presidential candidate is blatantly unbalanced and favored towards those who have the most money. This is not to say that a candidate cannot rise from obscurity and become a serious prospect for the nomination. But, there are certain circumstances that must unfold in particular ways in order for this to occur. They must convince those in this society that have the most money to donate that they are justified in supporting them. This is what the Barack Obama campaign has done. The donors that are really necessary to the success of a campaign saw that his chances of winning the nomination were reasonable, and therefore pushed money his way. It’s an easily identifiable cycle.

But there is another, more important reason that certain campaigns are focused on by the media, and others are ignored or portrayed as hopeless. For candidates like Kucinich and the libertarian - turned - Republican Ron Paul, its because their platforms and ideas are, rightly, considered radical. Suddenly the number one issue in the Democratic campaign (and even in the Republican one, to a lesser extent) is “change.” But can we honestly say that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are proposing policy shifts (if you can find any at all on Obama’s side (I know that they are there, but he rarely references them)) that are even comparable to the platforms of Kucinich? The worst part about the entire game is that huge numbers of voters have a feeling in their gut that people like Kucinich and Paul may be the only candidates playing straight, making a priority of honesty, not simply speaking from focus group and poll results. Paul, especially, is the only one of the Republican candidates who really understands terrorism in the Middle East and its causes, yet when he attempts to explain them during debates, the other men jump on him, ridicule him, condescend to him, and make him seem delusional. Even those of people in this country that are the most outspoken about terrorism, specifically that it is simply a manifestation of the terrorists “hatred of our freedom,” must know at some level this is fantasy, and that the a major cause of hatred against the United States is not jealousy or a disdain for democracy, it is a reaction to the imperialistic foreign policies that have been in place since the end of World War II. These candidates are counted out from the beginning, none the less, most importantly because the media says they are. The fact is, that in our culture of twenty four hour non-stop media, no matter how much you canvas a state talking about your ideas, the majority of voters are seeing you through the camera lens. The more politically active and focused members of the country will go out to hear candidates speak in person, the ones that have rational reasons for their vote and can clearly demonstrate why they are supporting one candidate over the other. But in reality, elections are swayed in one direction or another largely because of how voters “feel” about a candidate, not for any identifiable policy factors, and these feelings are a direct result of how the the candidates are portrayed in the media. Its not an obvious process, in fact, in many cases, it is the most sophisticated propaganda system ever implemented. We think that we are making these decisions for ourselves, and to some extent we are, but these choices are made based on ideas and images formed in our minds via the media.

Why, then, would the media choose to raise certain candidates to the status of “viable” while leaving the majority nearly out of the conversation? The answer seems elementary, but it is worth noting.

All the major news outlets in this country are owned by a handful of corporations: the television channels, the newspapers, the magazines, and many important websites. The reporters and journalists employed by these powerful conglomerates are often forced to report what they are told, to shape the issues and the reality of American life into the vision that their bosses have. The alternative is often the loss of their job (see the documentary The Corporation, one version is here.) Like any powerful force in the world, the owners of these conglomerates have certain interests that they must protect in order to achieve their own personal goals, which are generally the increasing of their personal fortunes or the appeasement of their stockholders.

From the beginning John Edwards, like the so called “second and third tier candidates”, was described by the media as a long shot, despite the fact that he was perhaps the second most recognizable candidate on the Democratic side (after Clinton, and before the rise of Obama’s celebrity status). As we have already discussed, if the media deems your candidacy hopeless, it usually is, both because many people will hear and see less of you and because opportunistic but well informed voters will latch onto a candidate that they believe is most likely to be elected (I include myself in this category: many times I’ve passed on supporting my first choice candidate simply because “they’ll never get elected.”)

John Edwards has been one of the most disturbing candidates to the owners of mainstream media and their friends. While all democratic candidates use rhetoric suggesting a dislike for corporate greed and corruption, those who own these interest know that this is probably just an empty platform with which to get elected. Whatever they may say, the major and now the only probable candidates, like Clinton and Obama, still take donations from lobbyists and wealthy corporation owners, hence insuring that they will be indebted to them and their influence once in office. Edwards, on the other hand, refused to take this sort of donation. Despite the enormous temptation to do so, he would not be bought off, and his campaign has suffered for it, both in their financial capabilities and their media portrayal. While reading posts and comments on the internet, I am surprised how many talk about how sincere they think Edwards is (to be sure, not all people think that of him). There are certain aspects of his campaigning that bother me, certain tactics used, like the many sound bites he produces, but these are, unfortunately, a necessary part of campaigning, and beneath them, myself and many many others can see the sincerity from which they stem.

The central idea of Edwards’ campaign has been resisting corporate influence and putting a limit on their powers in the government. This is exactly the opposite of what corporations that own media are interested in. This desire is most obvious in the case of the FCC and the recent loosening of monopoly-preventing regulations under the Bush administration. But it also extends to their friends whose fortunes and power would be threatened were Edwards to win the presidency. NBC, for example, is owned by General Electric, surely one of the largest and most influential corporations in the world. Edwards’ stance on limiting their ability to exploit cheap labor (which in many cases more closely resembles slavery), control the vast majority of the market, destroy the environment and produce harmful products is dangerous to their interests. Consequently, when NBC and MSNBC along with their related outlets have discussed John Edwards, it has been in language that distorts his image and reduces his chances of nomination, as I pointed out in one instance in an earlier post. And they are obviously not the only corporate giants afraid of Edwards. Most pointedly he has attacked insurance and pharmaceutical companies (who, on another note, Mitt Romney said were not the problem), two of the most powerful lobbyist groups in Washington.

Corporations are not only afraid of the attacks they receive from Edwards, but also of who his most important supporters are. Edwards has been consistently backed by the major unions (the few that still exist) in a large majority of the country. It doesn’t take a degree in Labor-Industrial Relations to see the problems this could create for large businesses like Wal-mart that do not allow their employees to organize and pay them near poverty level wages in addition to providing little or no benefits. Raising the pay of these people and giving them health care and other benefits would cut deeply into the pockets of the Waltons, the family that owns the mega-giant corporation and whose members are among the wealthiest in the country. In fact, Wal-mart is the perfect example of all that corporate America has to lose under an Edwards presidency.

Edwards has not yet dropped out of the race. His determination to keep going is remarkable, although its prudence can and will be debated. Even if he does eventually decide to stop running, the impact that he has had on the tone of the campaign will be felt all the way to the popular election and hopefully into the policies of the next administration. Not since the early part of the twentieth century has there been a presidential election that has confronted the growing power of large conglomerate interests and the resulting social stratification it produces. The American public, largely thanks to Edwards, is more aware now, I hope, of all that is being stolen from them in order to line the pockets of the upper echelons of society. Hopefully those that bemoan the welfare state that gives assistance to single mothers (although it is not much) will start to realize that while these programs are cut, corporate welfare in the form of subsidiaries, tax breaks and policies that allow functional monopolies are growing. Both Obama and Clinton have already had to address this issue more than they would have if it would not have been inserted into the discussion so forcefully as is has been by Edwards, and hopefully they will continue to pay it the attention it deserves. Nearly all of the major problems in the United States today can be traced back to the skewed influence of the corporate world into public affairs, and this trend is becoming ever more important and visible. Whether or not Edwards goes on to win the nomination, a scenario that is unlikely now, this election season has been fundamentally altered by his presence, and all of us that believe in real, not just the appearance of, equality and fairness, have him to thank.

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Well the vote is in, and once again I got it wrong…  Congratulations Hillary.
However, for those that think of the 2008 Presidential election as the Ballot Bowl, the results in New Hampshire should certainly make for an interesting run up to the next Democratic primary in South Carolina.  As of this writing, Hillary leads there by 8 points.

<Yeah, she should be smiling!>

The 2008 race is forcing Democrats to make uncomfortable decisions.  In the caucus state of Iowa I think two things combined to boost Obama over Hillary that didn’t exist in  New Hampshire.

First, the caucus creates a different kind of vote.  That is, the caucus is a public vote, where everyone present gets to see who you are voting for.  Democratic voters this year have their choice of a woman, an African American, a Latino, and a few white guys.  One can easily imagine how this could become the oppression Olympics in terms of what group is most deserving of a vote based on their minority’s past experiences.  In essence, voters are being asked if they would rather have the first female president or the first black president, not an easy choice.  It is especially a difficult decision when everyone else around you gets to see who you are voting for.  We have to ask the question, how much of Obama’s vote in Iowa came from people who wanted to be for a black candidate in front of others?  While this question and others like it make me extremely uncomfortable I think there may be something to this theory.  South Carolina is another primary state and Nevada is another caucus state.  If the results of those two follow New Hampshire and Iowa we will certainly have to give this theory some serious consideration.

Next, the caucus rules in Iowa require that people casting their vote for candidates who receive less than 15% of the vote switch to another candidate or not vote.  This means that lower tier candidates, which for the Democrats in Iowa included Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, and Mike Gravel all had to find others to vote for (except in just a few places where Biden and Richardson received more than 15% of the vote of those present).  We have to ask the question of who did the best when these candidates’ voters had to switch to candidates with more votes.  Kucinich was fairly outspoken in asking his voters to go for Obama as a second choice.  The rest of the candidates had to choose between Edwards, Clinton and Obama.  This election season both sides are talking about the need for change.  Clinton, clearly, represents not change but a return to the prosperous 90’s.  So, many voters likely moved to Edwards because of his emphasis on the middle class and to Obama based on their desire for change in Washington.

These two factors had no bearing in New Hampshire, though.  Women turned out in record numbers, but something else existed in New Hampshire that was missing in Iowa.  The New Hampshire vote was a primary, done in private.  No one to try and convince voters to change their vote, no one there to see who they were voting for.  This helped Hillary, more so than anyone else could have predicted.  Obama came into today projected to win New Hampshire by double digits, and left 3 points behind Clinton.  The exit polling didn’t show it though, early exit polls and even those later into the evening were showing Obama in the lead.  However, as the votes were counted it became clear that Hillary had won.

So why were the exit polls wrong?  If my theory holds true its the same thing that happened in Iowa: people want to be seen as voting for the African American.   Now its on to South Carolina for the Democrats where the African American vote is around half of the Democratic electorate.  Don’t think race will be a factor in this election?  Think again.

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This post is intended as a response to Jake Barnes’ post “Change (OR - What a Republican Taught Me About Barack Obama)” below.

To disclose my own political preferences, I (at the moment) support Obama in his bid for the Democratic nomination. I’m as tired of candidates throwing around the c-word as everyone else seems to be, but what frustrates me is the even more cliché stance that Obama “has no substance behind his rhetoric.” It seems a favorite among people who have already made up their mind about the election, driven more by laziness than critical thinking.

Is it difficult to sum up Obama’s platform in a handful of words? Yes, it certainly is. Jake illustrates that point splendidly by comparing Obama’s message to those trumpeted by other candidates. Hillary is about health care (I, the American voter, get that), and Obama is about… “Change”? What in the world does that mean?

Jake, in the paragraph after claiming, “…all Obama is saying is ‘I’m not Bush. I’ll be different’,” admits that Obama indeed has outlined his position on the issues. Isn’t that the ’substance’ that we’re looking for? As far as I remember, he was the first Democratic candidate to take a strong stand on Pakistan—one, I’ll point out, that the other candidates seem to have adopted (after earlier, along with this website, decrying it as “hawkish”). He departs from the status-quo in promising to talk to leaders of Iran and other less-than-friendly countries without first making demands. You might disagree with these positions, but how are they not substance? How are they not change?

The problem, I think, is that Obama’s message doesn’t fit easily into soundbites, drastically hurting his ability to respond to everyone’s favorite criticism. And so those too lazy to do their homework fall back on the same argument they’ve heard their smart Republican friends (or Hillary supporters) use: that Obama simply has been ‘too vague’ or ‘hollow’ in his description of just what he means by ‘change’.

This is, I think, part of what Obama feels is broken about our political dialogue. People want arguments made in ten-second clips, in thirty words or less. The truth is, politics are messy. Oversimplification is friendly, but it’s ultimately misleading.

It’s not as simple as asking, “Yes, but what does he mean by ‘change’?” and then expecting a concise response. That’s not an argument. After all, the response can’t be concise; most liberals (and, I hope, conservatives) recognize that much about our country needs reform. Yet because it can’t be printed on a bumper sticker, the apathetic American voter thinks that Obama’s message lacks substance.

Maybe what needs to change is us: our expectation that politics be spoon-fed, our quickness to jump all over the other guy because it helps us score points. Outlining how to change these things is difficult. Historically, pulling huge numbers of people together from disparate groups has required strength of character, near-genius, and powerful rhetoric.

Aren’t these the areas where Obama shines?

I recognize that I’m taking a risk with Obama. He doesn’t have the long political track-record that Richardson does. He hasn’t penned foreign policy decisions. He’s never been married to Bill Clinton (jab!). But what presidential vote doesn’t carry some risk? For that matter, what call for systemic change doesn’t threaten failure?

Perhaps I am naïve in thinking that the American people can change. Perhaps I’m foolhardy for supporting a candidate that shares my hope. But at this juncture, when our populace is manipulated by misinformation, distracted and disillusioned into apathy, and taken advantage of by the powers that be, I feel that the new, fresh-faced political phenomenon deserves my vote more than the candidate who perpetuates the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton refrain. These problems stem not merely from our current administration, and I worry that fixing them will take more than replacing red with blue.

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I was on a double date the other night. It went well, thanks for asking. I had never met the other guy on the date (he’s dating my girlfriend’s friend and she wanted our “approval” whatever that’s about). He’s a conservative Mormon attorney who graduated from UCLA law school last year and now works for the prosecutor’s office in the city I live in. Anyway he was a psych major as an undergrad and worked for a House Rep. in D.C. before going to law school, it was there (in D.C.) that he started paying attention to politics. I know you’re thinking “so what?” and I promise I’m going somewhere with this story.

We started talking about the vote in Iowa and he made an observation that made me realize exactly how Barack Obama is managing to soar in polls. My new acquaintance was talking about his friend (also conservative) who had taken classes under Obama when he taught law at the University of Chicago. When Obama was considering running his friend said that even though he is super conservative he’d vote for Obama because “he’s a genius.” Once Obama actually tossed his hat in the ring my new buddy actually thought, for a while at least, that he’d vote for him because Obama represented a fresh, new, invigorating energy in a stale political scene.

My double-date-partner then went on to tell me that he lost any sort of interest in Obama once he “actually started to listen to what Obama was saying.” In short my new pal said that Obama has no substance behind his rhetoric. While I don’t necessarily agree with him what he said demonstrated, in one of those “how did I not see this one earlier” sorts of moments, why Obama has taken off in literally the last week and a half.

Quick, what are the major platforms that the Democratic candidates are running on? Clinton: Healthcare, Edwards: Ending Poverty/Empowering the Working Man, Richardson: Foreign Policy Experience/Immigration. Now, what is Obama running on?

Change.

That’s it. Just, “Change.” It sounds so boring when talked about in a vacuum but when Obama goes on stage and talks about bringing Change to Washington crowds go nuts.

He’s done so well in fact that Mitt Romney, today, gave a speech in which he touted the need to bring Change to Washington (after the jump, at 11 seconds and more specifically starting at 1:13 with the Change quotes around 1:50) and even cited Obama as a sort of inspiration for the idea.

Obama has been able to surge past Clinton and Edwards in Iowa and now in New Hampshire because he’s promoting a platform that simply promises exactly what the American public wants. Instead of trying to rally support by outlining his stance of specific issues all Obama is saying is “I’m not Bush. I’ll be different.” This is why he was able to beat Clinton by eight points in Iowa and how he turned an almost double-digit deficit in New Hampshire into a double-digit lead. He’s been able to win the support of undecided voters who may not know exactly what they want in their next President but know that they want Change.

This isn’t to say that Obama hasn’t outlined his stance on certain issues or released policy papers. Rather, Obama hasn’t ran a campaign on one issue, instead he’s been content to simply say that whatever policies and stances he adopts will be new and different if he makes it to the White House. This is a weakness, in a sense, because it opens him up to attacks that claim he is too young, inexperienced, and doesn’t have any set goals he wants to work towards. However, so far these attacks have fallen of deaf ears in a country where the population knows one thing, and that one thing is that it’s fed up with where Bush has led the nation.

Should Obama be able to get the nomination from the Democratic party he’ll be forced to outline exactly how this Change he’s promising will be implemented because many of the Republican candidates are distancing themselves as much as possible from Bush. He won’t be able to claim that a vote for Huckabee, Romney, Rudy, or McCain is simply a vote for George W. Bush because the Republican candidates are also promising Change. But these candidates are also backing up these promises with policy proposals which they incorporate into their campaigns, as opposed to Obama’s almost singularly defined Change platform. For now though, simply promising Change is working pretty well for Barack Obama.

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OK, so I didn’t get it right last time… But that’s water under the bridge. Let’s talk NH.

New Hampshire is a very different state than Iowa with 65% listed as Independents. This means that they can vote in either primary, but not both. The two big candidates with Independents are McCain and Obama which, I think, has a lot to do with why they’re polling ahead of the pack.  Why New Hampshire should matter?  The fact that Independents have a choice in which party to cast their vote means that it may be a good predictor about which way Independents will vote nationally come November.  See, early primaries do matter!!  On to business:

Democrats:

1. Obama
2. Clinton
3. Edwards
4. Richardson
5. Kucinich

Its hard not to take Obama in this race. He polls well with Independent voters, he represents change, he looks strong coming out of Iowa, and to be honest the other campaigns just aren’t doing it for me. The Clinton campaign is struggling, slipping now to 29% in the last Reuter’s poll. Edwards also is not doing as well in New Hampshire as he would have liked, remaining in third place in the polling even after narrowly defeating Clinton in Iowa. Obama will take New Hampshire and the Clinton campaign will just have to hope that they can make some serious gains come Super Tuesday as the rest of the early primaries will more than likely go Barack’s way as well.

Republicans:

1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Huckabee
4. Paul
5. Thompson
6.Giuliani

McCain will take New Hampshire because voters are still convinced, no matter how many times McCain has supported everything Bush has done, that he is an Independent. A “maverick” as FAUX News has called him. McCain took New Hampshire in 2000 and he still has a strong presence there. He has also spent far more time and money in NH than he did in Iowa where he did better than expected. He has also now become somewhat of an underdog in the national race, which I believe will bring people out to vote for him. Romney beats Huckabee here only because New Hampshire doesn’t have the Evangelical vote that Iowa has. Don’t count Huckabee out of the nomination though. Right wing wackos who think the world is only 2000 years old have found their candidate and while Huck’s likely to finish third in NH he will likely rebound quite well in South Carolina.

As for the other candidates I think what happened to Kucinich is simply wrong.  Shame on ABC for excluding him from their debate.  This is not FOX, this is ABC and the fact that Dennis was left off the list of debaters tells me that ABC is endorsing candidates, not representing good journalistic view points and biasing the election.  I, for one, will not be watching any ABC news for a long time.

Paul will be interesting to watch in this race for New Hampshire.  This dark horse is likely to run on a Libertarian ticket once he’s out of the Republican race and that will cause some major headaches for Republicans, especially in Western states where much of Paul’s support lies.

Be sure and check back after the New Hampshire results for LCK’s analysis.  I know my predictions are a little on the safe side, it might be exciting to be wrong once again.

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Last nights historic election will be remembered for one reason: Obama. My intention here is not to demean him in any way, and the fact that the young voters came out like never before is also reassuring to me. However, there was another election last night in Iowa, one that seemingly no one is talking about…

<Get down Huck, go head get down>
Mike Huckabee won the Republican nomination by 9 percent. 9 PERCENT!! Huck carried 34% of the total vote leaving Mitt Romney, who had outspent Huckabee by millions of dollars in the dust. The Evangelical vote came out strong, with sixty percent of the GOP electorate in Iowa being born-again Christians. This is why the Republicans should be scared.

Mike Huckabee’s message is about change. He is an Evangelical minister who is not afraid to tell you his fix for immigration is to out law abortion, so that those babies will fill America’s demands for labor. He’s been outspent 15 to 1 in this campaign and he represents a dramatic turn for the Republican old guard. For more on the crazy be afraid of science kind of rhetoric go here.

As Howard Dean put it,

“Iowa caucus voters rejected the mainstream Republican frontrunners, and gave right-wing extremist Mike Huckabee a surprise victory in Iowa last night. He made a last minute surge - without money, and without staff - and has suddenly become a contender in the upcoming primaries.”

The Seattle Times wrote on the Republican results

“They [Republican insiders] realize that what happened Thursday in Iowa could be part of a national phenomenon favoring change, which scares the party now holding the White House. Iowa’s results also could reflect widespread GOP voter discontent, which could portend disastrously low.”

The Republican establishment should not like Huckabee. He’s not a pro-business conservative, he’s not especially pro-war, and he’s yet another Presidential candidate with hardly any foreign affairs experience.  While many on the right are trying to distance themselves from Bush he is still the current leader of the party.  Huckabee, while sharing Bush’s religious view points, would not put business interests ahead of domestic issues close to the hearts of born-again Christians.  This, however, is not what the Republicans need to be afraid of.

The lack of quality candidates is very likely to keep Republicans home come November.  This trend can already be seen just by looking at Iowa.  115,000 people showed up to cast their votes in the Republican caucuses in Iowa last night.  The Democrats had 239,000.  More than 100,000 more people showed up to the Democratic caucus then ever before… More than twice as many people voted in the Democratic caucus than in the Republican one. Iowa is not a state that is particularly blue… They are split almost exactly down the middle 50 - 50 just like the country at large.  This means that Iowa is a perfect model for voter efficacy come November and the national election.

Rejoice my liberal friends, rejoice.

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