Mullings

Life is Old There ...

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:01:00 +0000

As expected, Hillary Clinton beat the you-know-what out of Barack Obama in West Virginia by something on the order of 66% to 27%.

This is becoming a White v. Black primary battle. According to the exit polls, 95% of the voters in West Virginia were White and, according to the AP piece written by Dave Espo and Matt Apuzzo:

"Nearly a quarter were 60 or older, and a similar number had no education beyond high school. More than half were in families with incomes of $50,000 or less, and the former first lady was wining a whopping 69 percent of their votes."

If you want this primary campaign to be over, then you write-off the Mountain State and continue your fantasy that Clinton will have some epiphany tonight and wake up tomorrow morning proclaiming Barack Obama is the one and true nominee of the Democratic party.

If you are not on illegal drugs, you look at her better than 2-1 win last night and say, "Why would she want to get out after a huge win in a state which is no less legitimate than North Carolina (which Obama won handily last week).

The only major difference between the two is that WV is almost completely White and North Carolina is about 22% Black.

The issue for Democrats is that according to the 2000 census, Blacks make up less than 13% of the total population of the United States, and so winning even overwhelming majorities of Black voters in November will not be enough to win the Presidency if he is getting the support of a minority of White voters.

I am not in favor of people voting on the basis of race but, obviously, people do.

Hillary Clinton is a Woman. Barack Obama is Black. John McCain is 71.

Those are facts. For most people those particular facts don't matter. For some, maybe for a lot, they do.

I did a phone interview with a newspaper reporter yesterday afternoon and after sparring for about 20 minutes, the reporter finally asked me "and you can answer this off the record, if you want" whether I thought America was ready to elect a Black President.

I said (on the record) that America was ready for a Black President, but I didn't think it was ready for this particular Black man (Obama) to be President.

I reminded the reporter that Obama has been in the US Senate for three years and has been running for President for two of them.

Remember, that Hillary Clinton said at the debate in Cleveland this past February that Obama

"chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He's held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan."

To which Obama responded: "Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007."

He was too busy running for President to (a) do the things a Senator is paid to do, or (b) learn the things that a President needs to know.

Go figure.

I told this reporter that, as far as I was concerned, someone like [NY Congressman] Charlie Rangel might make a formidable candidate for President having served in the US Congress since 1991 and, (according to Wikipedia) is the "Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He is the first African-American to chair the committee. Rangel earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War."

Compare and contrast that to Barack Obama who didn't serve a day in military service, and has spent two-thirds of his entire three-year US Senate career running for President.

Thus he has been, by his own admission, too busy to do any substantive work on the important Committees to which he is assigned:

Foreign Relations

Veterans Affairs

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

See what I mean?

According to the New York Times, in his eight years as a State Senator in Illinois, Obama "effectively sidestepped" difficult issues by voting "present … nearly 130 times as a state senator."

Hillary won big in West Virginia last night and only a fool would bet the family homestead that she will be leaving this race any time soon.

New Topic: The Lad has, once again, published an essay which I would not have thought of in 1,257,350 years. You can read it from a link on the Secret Decoder Ring page.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the lyrics to the John Denver song about West Virginia, to an analysis of Obama's Committee attendance, to the NY Times look at the number of times Obama voted "present" in the Illinois Senate, and to The Lad's essay on RealClearPolitics.

Also a Mullfoto which will further erode my popularity in the Garden State and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Isn't That Bribery?

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:41:00 +0000

From the Green Room

Fox Studios

New York City

There is a disturbance in the Democratic Force which holds that Hillary Clinton might exit the race if Barack Obama would promise to help her recoup the reported $11.4 million she has lent to her campaign.

Here's my question: If Senator Barry were to call his pal Senator Hillary and offer to help her retire that debt in return for her getting out of the race … wouldn't that be offering a bribe?

According to Webster's Third Unabridged a bribe is defined as:

1: A reward, gift, or favor bestowed or promised with a view to pervert the judgment or corrupt the conduct especially of a person in a position of trust (as a public official)
2: Something that serves to induce or influence to a given line of conduct

Another definition for bribery (from legal-explanations.com) is … "to pay or offer monetary benefits for influencing a person to take an action or decision which he or she would not have done otherwise."

Hillary has not indicated she has any intention of getting out of this race. If Obama - either directly or through third parties - has offered to "pay or offer monetary benefits" for her to leave the race ("take an action or decision which he or she would not have done otherwise") isn't that offering a bribe?

Isn't that illegal?

I know Obama is from Chicago where bribery is, by long custom, is not just accepted, but expected, but still.

The reason I was in the Green Room at Fox's NY studios last night was because I was on the Geraldo Rivera program. In the Green Room and on the air we were talking about why Hillary would not get out of the race.

I said there were several reasons:

1. Barack - or more likely Michelle Obama - might make an unforced error. Something on the order of "finally being really proud of being an American," or telling the poor White folks of America they are bitter and use guns and religion as a crutch.
2. There might be another Jeremiah Wright type character out there.
3. Both

I also pointed out, on the air, that while Hillary should easily win the West Virginia primary tomorrow, the bigger deal will be if she wins the Puerto Rico primary on June First.

Why?

According to the 2000 Census, West Virginia has a population which is 94.9% White. Given the recent splits in who is voting for whom in the Democratic Primaries that would indicate that Hillary is a lock in the Mountaineer State.

Clarence Page wrote in a recent column that while Hillary was getting "about 60% of the White voters in Indiana and North Carolina last week, "Black voters, by contrast, turned out nine-to-one for Obama in Indiana and North Carolina, which is close to the black turnout for Democratic presidential candidates in recent decades."

However, the Black vote in recent Presidential elections has been only a little over 11% of the total; so if Obama is only getting 40% of the White vote, that does not bode well for November.

If Hillary wins the Puerto Rico primary - which, one assumes, will be largely made up of Hispanics - the public debate will switch from White-Black voting patterns to Hispanic-Black voting patterns.

If Obama, as now expected, becomes the Democratic nominee, this will be the question: How much damage might he do to the Democrats' efforts to wrest Hispanic votes away from the GOP - perhaps for decades to come?

New Topic:

A woman swimming in the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa was attacked by a … pelican. It's not funny, in that she had to get 15-20 stitches in her face and the pelican died but this is why the story struck me.

She has to tell people she was attacked by a pelican.

A couple of weeks ago I had an attack of the gout in my left foot. If you've never suffered from gout, you have no idea how painful it can be.

A friend called and heard the strain in my voice and asked me what was wrong. I told him about the gout. He said, "Don't tell anyone that. Tell people you got run over by a tank, or that you were trying out for the US national soccer team, or anything. But don't say you have gout.

Memo to that woman in Florida: Say you collided with a nuclear submarine; not a pelican.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Clarence Page and Pelican attack pieces. Also a Mullfoto showing how Fox has FINALLY decided to show proper respect and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Good News From Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Good news is hard to find coming out of Iraq. In fact, any news coming out of Iraq is hard to find because a good deal of the news is good and therefore is not news.

Dear Mr. Mullings:

County, Indiana tried to figure out how to steal the election for Obama, but what in the world did that first sentence mean?
ASPA - American Sentence Parsers Association.
You know the old saying, "No news is good news?"
Yes. We believe we may have heard, read, or seen that once or twice in our lifetimes.
Well, when it comes to Iraq, the saying is turned on its head: "Good news is no news."
Good one.

Word flashed across the Internet late yesterday afternoon that Iraqi forces had captured a guy named Abu Ayyub al-Masri in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Who is Abu Ayyub al-Masri?

Al-Masri is the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, is all. According to Al Jazeera:

He is the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who was killed by a US air attack in 2006.

One of the first reporters to break the story was Fox's National Security reporter (and Mullfave) Catherine Herridge who correctly pointed out that it was Iraqi TV and the Iraqi government which had announced this - not the US military, which was being careful to distance itself from the report until independent confirmation could be obtained.

According to Reuters, "In late June 2006 the United States put a bounty of $5 million on al-Masri's head."

Given the current state of the US Dollar, that is now about $1.57 in 2008 dollars, but never mind.

Whether or not the Iraqis have the right guy, the broader point is that the central government is carrying the fight to the insurgents. If al-Masri wasn't snagged last night, he will be at some point.

While there are no straight lines in nature, the Iraqis are taking control of their country. Absent a unilateral departure of American and coalition forces (if-you-know-what-I-mean-and-I-think-you-do) Iraq will be a peaceful, successful, democratic ally of the West.

New Topic:

NOTE: The following actually had the approval of the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices!

What with this being Friday and all we, at Mullings Central, have a hard time being too serious for the entirety of the 750 word effort, therefore we bring to you the HEADLINE OF THE MILLENIUM!

I know the MILLENIUM is only about eight years in, but I'm telling you your great-great-great-great grandchildren will remember this one as the best headline.

From, of all sources the BBC … and I am not making this up:

Great Tits Cope Well with Warming

As you might well imagine, this headline got my attention.

Beach Volleyball?
Hollywood starlets?
Discovery Health Plastic Surgery Channel?
Nah.

Turns out the Great Tit is a bird. A regular bird. It is a bird whose chicks eat caterpillars and with warmer weather there appear to be more caterpillars for the chicks to eat and, ergo, the Great Tit chicks are thriving.

Get me Al Gore on the phone.

A few words about Mothers' Day:

According to one site:

In the U.S. Mothers' Day is a holiday celebrated on second Sunday in May. It is a day when children honor their mothers with cards, gifts, and flowers.

And, for some of us, schlepping up the New Jersey Turnpike to Exit 8A.

Seriously, though, being a Mom is probably the hardest job in the world. No matter how old their children are, they are still the babies. They worry when they don't hear from them; they brag to their friends when they do; and they heave heavy sighs in between.

God bless them every one.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Iraqi Al-Qaeda story; also the link to the Great Tit story from the BBC and a link to this somewhat tortured history of Mothers' Day.

Also, a Mullfoto about McDonalds in other lands and the Catchy Caption of the Day dealing with the Great Tit.

Dann Foolish

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:56:00 +0000

SPECIAL OFFER: This is an advertisement, please skip down if you don't want to read about it.

It is an ad for the services of a senior political advisor for a campaign in which you may be involved as the candidate, the friend or relative of a candidate, or a staff member to a candidate.

I am that senior political advisor and the reason I am making this offer is because Sunday, May 4, marked the six-month-to-go mark to the November general elections.

Please take a second and go to the proposal page which explains what I am offering.

Thank you,

Rich

As regular readers of MULLINGS know; when I am correct in a prediction I write about it every day for the next three or four months. When I am wrong, I either ignore it or remind you that there is no way to understand all of the permutations and combinations of events which can affect an outcome.

SIDEBAR

At dinner the other night with two other couples we got into a discussion about how many different combinations of glass-clinks could be organized.
I said, with the absolute conviction I have developed over many years of being a talking head on Fox and CNN, that the formula to determine it was 6x5x4x3x2 divided by 6.
I had no idea if I was correct and, before you hit the REPLY key, I have no desire, even now, to know whether I was correct.
I only mention this to remind you to take what I write with not just a grain, but with an entire peck, of salt.

END SIDEBAR

Recent events in Ohio prove my point. They have to do with the Ohio Office of Attorney General and the resultant ripples may well last all the way to next January 20.

The Attorney General of the State of Ohio is a man named Marc Dann. Marc Dann, a Democrat, was elected in the tsunami of 2006 which swept just about every Republican office holder down the Ohio River in the wake of astonishing scandals which attended to the GOP Governor at the time.

Keep that in mind: Scandals swept Republicans out of office in Ohio, and Democrats are now in control.

Marc Dann is a Democrat from Youngstown and after he was elected he hired three of his buddies to senior positions in the AG's office.

The four of them rented a townhouse in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio which caused an Ohio GOP official to claim that Dann, "turned the attorney general's office into a raunchy frat pad."

Putting aside for the moment the obvious redundancy of "raunchy" and "frat pad" it turns out that one of Dann's buds was sexually harassing the office staff (and possibly running his Youngstown construction business out of the AG's office) and at least two other pals were either complicit or turned a blind eye.

Not only that, but Marc Dann, the Democratic Attorney General his own self, was using the "raunchy frat pad" to spend quality time with his scheduler - an affair to which he finally admitted late last week.

All four of his subordinates were either fired or quit, including the 20-something scheduler with whom Democrat Marc Dann was having the affair in that raunchy frat pad, but Dann, the Democratic Attorney General has not resigned, and says he will not.

The Columbus Dispatch pointed out that Democratic the Attorney General's "troubles will be a renewable source of political fodder for the GOP and a form of drip-drip-drip water torture for Democrats."

Ohio is a pivotal state in any national election. It was President Bush's victory in Ohio in the 2004 Presidential election by 118,600 votes (out of more than five million cast) which gave him the Buckeye State's 20 electoral votes and cemented his victory over John Kerry.

With Marc Dann (D-OH) refusing (as of this writing) to resign it will give the Ohio GOP an easy target to use as a reminder to voters that scandal and abuse-of-power are non-partisan.

Joe Hallett wrote in the Columbus Dispatch over the weekend:

"As John Wayne once said, 'Life is getting up one more time than you've been knocked down.'
He also said, 'Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid.'"

Republicans around the country should send notes of thanks to Democrat Marc Dann. He has single handedly put Ohio back in play in November.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the campaign proposal I noted at the top of the column. Also, lots of links to the scandal(s) involving the Democratic Attorney General of Ohio.

The Mullfoto compares the cost of filling the Mullmobile with the Skippy Scooter and the Catchy Caption of the Day which is ridiculous even by normal MULLINGS standards.

Elite in Indiana

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:55:00 +0000

From Marietta, Ohio

45750

I know you think I have been hitting this Obama-as-Elitist thing too hard, but here's the lead paragraph from Reuters' Caren Bohan writing from Fort Wayne, Indiana:

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought to convince Americans he is not elitist on Thursday as new polls showed his aura of inevitability has declined after weeks of negative headlines."

Hillary Clinton, sensing the vulnerability, jumped on Obama's opposition to a Gas Tax Holiday (which both she and John McCain favor) in Brownsburg, Indiana saying:

"I find it frankly a little offensive that people who don't have to worry about filling up their gas tank … think that it's somehow illegitimate to provide relief for the millions and millions of Americans who are … unable to keep up with their daily expenses."

I love that "frankly" thing. Does that mean the rest of the time she opens her mouth she is Shirley not being Frank?

SIDEBAR

That "Fort Wayne, Indiana" dateline reminded me of another elitist story.
Dan Quayle was the Congressman from Fort Wayne. I was Quayle's press secretary when he was a Congressman and a Senator.
In the 1980 race for US Senate against 18-year-incumbent Birch Bayh, Time Magazine insisted on referring to Quayle the same way that Bayh did: J. Danforth Quayle - a clear attempt to mark Quayle as an elitist man of privilege.
I called the Time bureau in Chicago and complained that they were giving credence to a ploy being used by Birch Bayh - although I've always thought a guy named "Birch" didn't have much to complain about a guy named "Danforth".
The editor I talked to said that Quayle's name was James Danforth Quayle and therefore their usage was legit. I countered with the fact that they weren't calling the incumbent President "James Earl Carter". They were using his preferred construct: "Jimmy."
We finally decided on a test. I asked whether he would accept the name the official publication the "Congressional Directory" used. He said he would.
vCongressman Quayle was referred to as "Dan Quayle" by Time Magazine for the rest of the campaign.
I had looked it up. I knew the answer before I had made the bet.

END SIDEBAR

Back to the next round of primaries. North Carolina and Indiana are on Tuesday. As recently as Monday of this week Obama had a lead of 15 percentage points over Clinton in North Carolina: 51-36. As of last night the RealClearPolitics average had Obama's lead down to about seven points: 49-42.

Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.

Obama's lead in North Carolina has been sliced in half in just four days.

In Indiana, over that same period, Obama has gone from being ahead of Clinton by three points - 46-43 to down five 43-48; a switch of eight points in five days.

When you read in the Popular Press that Obama has put the Jeremiah Wright business behind him? Look at those numbers.

I said on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer Tuesday that Barack was going to find himself in the same position in North Carolina as Hillary had been in Pennsylvania: A win was not going to be enough. It had to be a BIG win.

More: According to the CBS.com website, a New York Times/CBS poll shows that 51% [of Democratic voters] now say they expect Obama to win the nomination, down from 69 percent on April 3rd, while 34% now expect Clinton to be the nominee, up from 21% a month ago.

Not only that - but helping make Hillary Clinton's case to the Super Delegates - the poll said 48% of Democrats now say he is the candidate with the best chance of defeating John McCain, down from 56% in early April. Minus 12.

Keep in mind, as we tick toward the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August, that the Democrats still haven't dealt with that pesky problem of what to do about delegates - or lack of delegates - from Michigan and Florida.

What does all this mean? It means that unless something extraordinary happens, the Democratic National Convention is going to be Must See TV.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Reuters piece and to the CBS/NYT poll. Also a Mullfoto of the day proving gas prices are all in your head and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Wright is Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:04:00 +0000

An increasingly anxious Obama campaign had to have been watching in horror as Jeremiah Wright continued to elbow his way onto the national political stage with his performance at the National Press Club in Washington the other day.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank short-handed Wright's remarks as follows:

"Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his belief that the government created AIDS to extinguish racial minorities, and stood by his suggestion that 'God damn America.'"

Louis Farrakhan is the head of the Nation of Islam and has said things like:

"Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET [Black Entertainment Television]?... Everything that we built, they have. The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry and television."

And that wasn't 10 years ago. It was five months ago in November of last year.

After claiming that the oft-viewed clips of his sermons were taken out of the context of 30 years of preaching, Wright is now - with, as the Chicago Tribune called it, "caustic sarcasm" - defending those very snippets and putting them very much into context.

On the campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama said of Wright, "He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign."

Obama is wrong. In the minds of many - if not most - Americans, Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama are very connected, spiritually and politically.

The Boston Globe's Joseph Williams wrote:

A series of high-profile appearances by [Wright] defending some of his more racially charged remarks threatened to undermine Obama's campaign just when he is trying to connect with white, working-class voters on the eve of crucial Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

And Obama doesn't need any more problems on the white, working-class voter front. Obama tried to shake the "elitist" tag a couple of weeks ago by going bowling, at which he was dreadful.

The other day he threw a verbal gutter ball by saying:

"I was raised in a setting with my grandparents who grew up in small-town Kansas where the dinner table would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana: A lot of pot roasts and potatoes and Jell-O molds."

So … he was describing his grandparents' dinner table in small-town Kansas. The pot roasts and Jell-O molds and all. Was Obama faced with pot roasts and Jello-O as well?

I … don't … think … so.

And, we must assume, this was the same grandmother whom, Obama told a world-wide audience, damned-near fainted at the sight of Black people; "a woman who once confessed her fear of Black men who passed by her on the street." In that small-town in Kansas. As she carried her famous pot-roast and Jell-O mold to the K of C Hall. For the annual Founder's Day Pot Luck Dinner.

That description was typical of an elitist, Ivy-League-educated, snobbish, pretentious dope who thinks Hoosiers still sit in front of their black-and-white TV sets watching Howdy Doody reruns while waiting for their Jell-O molds to set up in the Frigidaire.

Here's the thing: I was Congressman and Senator Dan Quayle's press secretary. I spent a lot of time in Indiana. I'm not certain I ever saw a pot roast or a Jell-O mold.

I did see a potato. But, it didn't have an "e".

Jeremiah Wright is basking in the glow of the national spotlight; the spotlight which has been denied him lo these many years in favor of fellow Chicagoan Jesse Jackson and New Yorker Al Sharpton.

Jeremiah Wright is working out the decades of frustration, having attempted to do good works for the poor and underserved in Chicago while Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been on the national stage in top hats and tails like Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle singing "Puttin' on the Ritz."

But the unkindest cut of all comes, again, from the Dana Milbank piece:

"Most problematic for the Democratic presidential front-runner was Wright's suggestion that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his former pastor. 'He didn't distance himself,' Wright announced. 'He had to distance himself, because he's a politician.'"

Maybe, on that, Wright was right.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Dana Milbank piece and to the Anti-Defamation League's summary of Farrakhan's greatest hits. Also a Mullfoto from the cooler at the business class lounge in Dubai the other night and an anatomically strange Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Racial Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:58:00 +0000

The Republican Party of North Carolina is running an ad which features that footage of Barack Obama's preacher, Jeremiah Wright uttering his now-infamous imprecation for God to damn America.

The ad is not in opposition to Barack Obama; nor is it an ad in favor of John McCain. It is an ad aimed at the two Democratic candidates for North Carolina Governor.

The ad (and there is a link to it on today's Secret Decoder Ring page) attempts to make this case:

- Wright was Obama's "spiritual advisor" for 20 years.
- Wright is on record of saying some fairly awful things.
- Obama is a Democrat.
- Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore are Democrats running in the primary for Governor on May 6.
- Each has endorsed Barack Obama for President.
ERGO
- Perdue and Moore are "too extreme for North Carolina."

I have worked with State Parties off and on for more than three decades. This is the kind of ad which (a) seems like it was written over greasy cheeseburgers and cheap beer on a paper napkin, (b) sounded like a really good idea at the time, because (c) it would tie the North Carolina gubernatorial race to the Presidential primary, thus (d) providing a terrific fundraising opportunity, and (e) could be produced for $1.47.

John McCain immediately condemned it, which irritated the right wingers of the GOP but that was not enough for the main stream media. The New York Times, which has resolved to be the nation's decider of what is acceptable in this campaign and what is not (after spanking Hillary Clinton for the race she ran in Pennsylvania):

"Unless Mr. McCain quickly gets control of his party, we fear there will be worse to come."

Which caused Barack Obama, who would have been better off keeping away from anything having to do with Jeremiah Wright (but couldn't) to say:

"I assume that if John McCain thinks that it's an inappropriate ad that he can get them to pull it down, since he's their nominee and standard bearer."

Which demonstrates, at a minimum, a willful ignorance of the way State Parties operate.

Dear Mr. Mullings:

We could have gone for the whole rest of our lives - indeed we could have gone for the whole rest of the history of the Planet Earth - without having to deal with the mental image of Hillary Clinton being spanked.
Thank you SO much.
Signed,

Everyone

Let us not forget who was the first person to interject Race into this election cycle. It was not the North Carolina GOP. It was the once-sainted William Jefferson Clinton.

From ABC's Jake Tapper on January 26, 2008:

Said Bill Clinton today in Columbia, SC: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."
Boy, I can't understand why anyone would think the Clintons are running a race-baiting campaign to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

Not only that, but the Washington Post put Race on its front page this weekend in a piece headed:

Party Fears Racial Divide

Attacks Could Do Lasting Harm, Democrats Say

In the piece, reporters Jonathan Weisman and Matthew Mosk wrote that following the Pennsylvania primary:

[Clinton's] backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination - handed to her by superdelegates - would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

The House Majority Whip, James E. Clyburn (D-SC), who is Black, said in the WashPost article:

"We keep talking as if it doesn't matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble. Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It's almost saying black people don't matter."

Oh, yeah. This is all the fault of the North Carolina GOP. They're the ones bringing Race into this deal.

Here's the short hand: Republicans have nothing in this. The Racial thing in this cycle is between a White woman and a Black man for the Democratic nomination.

John McCain was correct: It's the Democrats' mess and it is going to get worse before it gets better.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the North Carolina GOP ad, the definition of the word, "imprecation," the New York Times article blaming the NC-GOP ad on John McCain, and a link to the WashPost front pager on Race in the Democratic nominating process.

Also a Mullfoto from my trip over to the Middle East and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Dubai, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:19:00 +0000

STILL from Dubai, UAE

As you know, I am an accomplished world traveler. I can get from just about any point on the planet to any other point on the planet zip-zap-passport-please-you-may-board-now.

So, I arrived at Dubai airport Wednesday night with plenty of time to spare, my well-stamped passport in one hand, and my Delta platinum member card in the other and got into the Elite line (which, by just about any definition, I am) and joked with my fellow passengers about the 12½ flight to Atlanta.

In the words of that great American philosopher, Curly Howard: Nyuk. Nyuk. Nyuk.

Guess what? I was exactly, precisely, to-the-minute, 24 hours early for the flight I had actually booked.

So, I am writing this from the Business Class Lounge at the Dubai International Airport still waiting for my 12½ flight to Atlanta.

The previous night I had dinner with former US Senator from Texas, Phil Gramm. We got to talking about the results of the Pennsylvania primary the previous night and he said he had some thoughts about that.

I have known Gramm since he was a DEMOCRATIC Congressman from Texas …

SIDEBAR

Phil Gramm has a PhD in economics and was an Econ professor at Texas A&M before he ran for the US House in 1978 - as a Democrat. He won and quickly established the fact that (a) he knew a lot more than his Democratic colleagues about economics and (b) what they did know, was wrong.
In 1982 - in the midst of the Regan Revolution, Gramm decided to switch parties and become a Republican. I do believe what he did next was the only time in my adult life someone has done it:
He resigned his seat saying, in effect, my constituents elected me as a Democrat. If want to elect me as a Republican, I'll be back.
They did. He was. And the rest is history.
It was a truly extraordinary example of political courage for which Gramm has gotten just about zero credit.

END SIDEBAR

… so when Phil Gramm says he has some thoughts about just about anything, I put my fork down, pull my reporter's notebook out, and pay attention.

His main point was this: The news media, the national Democratic party leadership and the Barack Obama campaign had all been beating the drum about how Obama was unstoppable in his quest of the nomination; that it was over; that Hillary Clinton had no chance; and that she should drop out.

In the face of all that, Democratic voters in Pennsylvania chose her over Obama by about a 10 percentage point margin.

Gramm thinks that, as the super delegates begin deciding how the end game for the Democratic nomination should play out, this will weigh very heavily in Clinton's favor.

This was a nice tactical move on the part of the Clinton campaign: Did you notice on Tuesday night, that Bill and Chelsea sat to the side of the stage while Hillary took her victory lap? And they only joined her at center stage when all the other Democratic bigwigs in Pennsylvania came up as well.

No chance of Bill stealing Hillary's spotlight. I thought that was pretty smart.

The new most-overused-phrase among the Popular Press is: "Can't Close The Deal." Obama, that is.

Why? Because this is a country at war. It is a country sliding into a recession. It is a country where food and fuel inflation is beginning to affect everyone. And it is a country where people are saddled with home mortgages, student loans, car loans, and maxed out credit cards which means most of us are not more than one large financial hit - a new roof, for instance - of being completely underwater in are ability to pay our debts.

"Change" my butt. People are not going to turn the keys to the kingdom over to a guy who has three years experience as a US Senator and has spent two of them running for President.

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

They're calling my flight.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to Phil Gramm's bio and an pretty interesting anecdote about him. Also a Mullfoto which is even a worse pun than today's title and a Catchy Caption of the Day which may make you feel small and inadequate.

Hill-are-EE; Hill-are-EE!

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:29:00 +0000

From Abu Dhabi, UAE

It is shortly before 4:00 AM in the Middle East. I feel like writing a Blues song:

It's four in the mornin' (dah-dum; dah-dum)

Ah'm in the UAE (dah-dum; dah-dum)

Watchin' CNN's results (dah-dum; dah-dum)

For a Democrat nominee

In Pennsylvania

It's Pennsylvania

I'm just bored waiting for the numbers to start coming in. Maybe I'll add a lyric about my wives leaving me, my camel dying and my having lost my oil well in a card game.

Ok. 5:05 AM in Abu Dhabi and CNN has just called the race for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

This is great news. For Sen. John McCain.

She's never getting out. Hillary will not leave the race tonight. She will not leave the race before the convention in August. She may not leave the race ever.

Here's my new fondest hope:

- Clinton and Obama go to the convention with neither - including the super delegates - having a majority to claim the nomination.
- The issue of seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan delegates will not have been resolved.
- The "L-word" - Lawsuit - will be in the news every day with each side threatening to take the result in Denver to court.
- The race between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama has become so nasty that their negatives are driven through the roof and the general electorate doesn't like either one of them.
- While Clinton and Obama continue to slime each other, McCain continues to look and sound Presidential.
- The "C-word" - Change - election Democrats have been touting, implodes and John McCain becomes the "C-word" - Consensus - candidate.

I ran though some of this - especially the lawsuit idea - with Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Fox radio show, Brian & the Judge. He immediately pointed out that the US Supreme Court isn't in session during August and September. "They don't come back until the first Monday in October" he reminded me.

In truth, it is impossible to believe that the Dems won't come out of Denver with a nominee. But it is very, VERY possible that they come out of Denver with a nominee who is out-and-out detested by the supporters of which ever candidate comes out the loser.

The Pennsylvania exit poll numbers I found most interesting last night tracked a Gallup poll from several weeks ago - that is the relatively huge numbers of Obama and Clinton supporters who told the pollsters they would not vote for the other candidate in November; they will stay home or vote for McCain. From the AP:

The animosity between the two camps led more than one in seven Obama supporters to say they would vote for Republican John McCain if Clinton were the nominee. Even more Clinton supporters, one in four, said they would defect.

At shortly after 7 AM in Abu Dhabi, the CNN ticker just clicked over to the double-digite percentage point lead (55% - 45% with about 84% of the votes counted) that the Clinton camp was looking for while Obama was speaking through the top of the hour to make certain he was still on when local newscasts began.

"In White, blue-collar rural Pennsylvania," CNN's John King just said, "Hillary Clinton is getting 75% of the vote."

This is an issue which will not go unnoticed by the super delegates as they try to figure out how to avoid that nightmare situation I described above.

Hill-are-EE; Hill-are-EE!

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the AP's exit poll analysis a Mullfoto with my new best friend here; and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Pennsylvania Primary from Afar

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:33:00 +0000

From Abu Dhabi, UAE

I am in Abu Dhabi to give a speech tomorrow to a conference sponsored the financial firm, UBS. As long-term readers of MULLINGS have come to know, I have been to this region many times and I like it.

One of the advantages of being in the Middle East is that there is an eight-hour time difference. I am typing this at 10:30 Monday morning UAE time which is 2:30 AM in Your Nation's Capital.

While 90% of those of you on US soil are fixated on the primary election in Pennsylvania tomorrow, the major English language newspaper here, The Gulf News, found it could wait until page 23 before getting to the US elections.

The major story on the front page of The Gulf News describes the decision by the United Arab Emirates to begin moving toward nuclear power to meet its energy needs by 2020.

You may know that they grow oil here, so if the Emirates think they need to move to nuclear power, what do you think will happen to the power grid in the United States over the next couple of decades.

SIDEBAR

Gasoline here is about two dirhams per liter. A dirham (the unit of currency in the UAE) is about 27¢; there are about four liters to the gallon so petrol is about $1.08 a gallon.
Actually, according to the NY Times, the price of a gallon of gas (not adjusted for inflation) in the US didn't break through the one dollar barrier until 1980.
Although, when measured in 2007 dollars, a gallon of gasoline has never dipped below a dollar a gallon, and from1920 to 1985 was almost always north of two dollars per gallon.

END SIDEBAR

As we are somewhat more interested in the ins-and-outs of the American political landscape than the average Abu Dhabian, the campaign finance reports for March have been released showing that Sen. Barack Obama raised $41 million during the month - down from the $55 million he raised in February - but still unbelievable by any rational standard.

Overall, Obama has raised some $235 million. At his current rate he will have broken through the QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLAR mark by mid month.

There is a point of diminishing returns, however. When that point is reached, the additional money spent does not have an additional impact on the campaign.

No matter by how much Obama will have outspent Sen. Hillary Clinton between April 1 and tomorrow night, the RealClearPolitics.com polling summary shows Hillary hanging onto a six-ish point lead moving into the final hours of the campaign there.

SIDEBAR II

While we're on the subject of RealClearPolitics, I am probably never going to write about, or speak to, The Lad again as long as I live.
It is not enough that he has interpersonal skills which I cannot even pronounce.
It is not enough that he has a better head for business than I can even calculate.
It is not enough that he has progressed so quickly in politics that while he used to be known as "Rich Galen's son," nowadays I am known as "Reed Galen's dad."
Now, it turns out, he is every bit as good a writer as I am and a much better analyst than I will ever be as his essay which was published on the RealClearPolitics website late last week really, clearly shows. The link is on the Secret Decoder Ring page.
Humbug.

END SIDEBAR II

Finally, on all this, Barack is in a full whine saying Hillary is throwing "the kitchen sink" at him with charges which are nothing but "distractions" from the big issues. ABC's Jake Tapper captured the theme on his blog, writing:

"How on Earth can Obama with a straight face decry these "distractions" when his campaign that very same day organized a conference call to harp on Clinton's Bosnia-sniper-fire gaffe?"

This has gotten so ugly, that I am not now certain Hillary will get out of this thing even if she loses tomorrow.

Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the NY Times graphic on gasoline prices through the ages, a map of the Middle East for your viewing pleasure, the RealClearPolitics polling summary for the Pennsylvania primary, the link to The Lad's essay, and Jack Tapper's blog.

Also a Mullfoto from the Amsterdam Airport the other day and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Hits Just Keep On Comin'

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:22:00 +0000

On Wednesday night, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama participated in their final debate before Tuesday's primary in Pennsylvania.

The prevailing theory is that Clinton was trying, in the wake of Obama's "bitter" comment, to demonstrate to the super delegates that he is unelectable in November and, so, they should support her at the Democratic National Convention in August.

According to Clinton's home-town paper, the New York Times, it didn't work.

Reporter Patrick Healy writes in today's paper that the Times interviewed "a cross-section of a cross-section of these super delegates - Members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders."

The result? "Most of the super delegates said they wanted to wait for the results of at least the next major primaries - in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Indiana and North Carolina two weeks later - before choosing a candidate."

On Super Tuesday, February 5, it was inconceivable that this would go beyond the date of the Texas and Ohio primaries a month later - March 4.

When Clinton won three out of the four contests that night, senior Democrats were horrified as they considered the six long weeks before the next major event - Pennsylvania.

There was a flurry of activity (in what would have been smoke-filled rooms if indoor smoking were still a part of our culture) way back then, to try and come up with some mechanism to have the super delegates choose up sides.

The idea was - and is - to get the number of super and the number of elected delegates above the current magic number of 2,025 which would be the majority and, thus, declare a nominee.

That, of course, presumes, that neither Michigan nor Florida has their delegations seated, but that is a discussion for another day.

Senior Dems are putting on a brave smile saying the continuing excitement attached to this electoral death march is good for their party.

But, DNC chairman Howard Dean was on CNN yesterday whining about a process which is sapping the strength of the party faithful. Calling on the supers to pick a side, Dean told Wolf Blitzer:

"We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time. We've got to know who our nominee is."

Whoa. Check please! "Healing time?" If this is such a good party-builder what is Dean talking about? Who has to heal? And from what?

Obviously, every day this goes on is one less day Hillary or Barack get to run against McCain and is one MORE day when the lines harden between their supporters.

Further, I continue to get questions from reporters wondering whether this attention on Obama/Hillary is damaging Sen. John McCain's ability to generate news.

Here's the answer: McCain gets to make news whenever, and where ever he wants. News organizations HAVE to cover McCain when his is on the campaign trail because he is the GOP nominee.

McCain went to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for major economic addresses this week and the press corps dutifully followed to report on them.

Not only that, but if Hillary or Obama had much to say about that speech, it was lost in the tsk-tsk-tsking over whether Obama is more elitist than a woman who has been driven around in limousines by state troopers and Secret Service agents for, maybe, decades.

McCain looking Presidential and looking forward; Hillary and Barack sniping at each other and looking small. Does it matter?

Associated Press has a new poll which provides the answer. McCain has a slight general election edge over either Clinton or Obama. According to the analysis by Alan Fram and Trevor Tomson:

"The survey suggests that those switching to McCain are largely attuned to his personal qualities and McCain may be benefiting as the two Democrats snipe at each other during their prolonged nomination fight."

Isn't that what I've been telling you?

As much as it pains me to write this, Howard Dean is right. There will not be enough time for the Democratic Party to heal its self-inflicted wounds.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the NY Times and the Associated Press pieces a topic-appropriate Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Olympian Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:46:00 +0000

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games are scheduled to be held in Beijing, China from August 8 to August 24.

As part of the run-up to the Opening Ceremonies, China has mounted an Olympic Flame tour - a highly staged effort to drum up support by having runners carry a torch who's flame was lit in a ceremony in Greece on March 24, as the official International Olympic Committee (IOC) website reports, "by a Holy Priestess, according to the traditional ritual, using the sun's rays and a parabolic mirror."

Since that time the Torch has been mugged in Paris, London, and San Francisco by demonstrators who, apparently, blame it for the troubles between China and Tibet.

The Modern Games were reinstated in 1896 in Athens with the goal of:

"to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

A worthy effort which, unfortunately, has been - as Hamlet said - honored more in the breach than in the observance.

It is precisely because the world's attention turns so fully to the Olympic Games that the whole business becomes as large a stage for political actors as it is a field for athletes.

There is a rule, according to the UK Times, against athletes participating in propaganda. The reporting by Ashling O'Connor has IOC president Jacques Rogge saying that "that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda."

Fine line there, it seems to me.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has broad-jumped into the fray by demanding that President Bush follow the lead of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown (whom she praised) in boycotting the Opening Ceremonies.

Once again Hillary appears to have been misinformed. According to The Times, Brown had long ago announced he would be attending the Closing Ceremonies instead and 10 Downing Street has been trying to knock down the notion that Brown was now the poster child for high-level protest of the Chinese government.

The IOC didn't just decide Tuesday afternoon to allow China to host the 2008 Olympics. They awarded the Games to Beijing in July, 2001 with Sports Illustrated saying:

"The International Olympic Committee put aside human rights concerns in making their historic decision, hoping to foster further change in the world's most populous country."

The point being, the world has had seven years to complain about the 2008 games and has had nearly 60 years to complain about China's swallowing of Tibet which (according to the BBC webpage) occurred in 1950.

The very people who are calling on political leaders, advertisers and athletes to boycott some or all of the Beijing Games are the same people who routinely pillory President George W. Bush for not following a policy of engagement with political foes.

Sen. John McCain has suggested President Bush reconsider his plans to attend the Olympic Games saying, "If Chinese policies and practices do not change, I would not attend the opening ceremonies."

Clinton we already know about.

Barack Obama skated on the issue first saying, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), "he was of 'two-minds' over whether the United States should play a full role in the Olympics, again citing Tibet and Darfur."

But upon, as NFL referees like to say, further review, Obama's folks realized he was the soft cheese standing along and so hardened his position saying:

"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security, and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies."

The people who get caught in the cross-fire of all this are the athletes. For a huge proportion of demonstrators against the Olympic Flame, their commitment to the protest was cutting their ten o'clock Poly Sci class.

The athletes, however have, in most cases, devoted the majority of their time on Earth preparing for these Games. If, having practiced for hours a day, every day, for years on end, an athlete decides that China's reluctance to help in Darfur or free Tibet is too much to overlook, then he or she has earned that right.

The pretension of politicians and protesters that anything China is doing today is any worse than it was doing in 2002 or 2003 or 2004 is at best, folly, and at worst, hypocrisy.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A TON of links today which I urge you to take a look at. A Mullfoto which demonstrates the excellence of professional work, and a Catchy Caption of the Day which, I guarantee you, has NOTHING to do with Beach Volleyball.

General Protect Us

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:57:00 +0000

From Gen. David Petraeus' opening remarks to the US Senate Armed Services Committee:

Security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional forces to Iraq.

Last September Democrats were frothing at the mouth as they looked for reasons to declare "The Surge" in Iraq an abject failure.

Unfortunately for the MoveOn.org wing of the Democratic Party, General Petraeus proved to be the military equivalent of Chief Justice John Roberts - intellectually honest and factually powerful.

Democratic Senators - whose staffs had labored for weeks to develop the "killer question" which would embarrass Petraeus - only served to expose the Senators to be the self-promoting, ill-prepared, unproductive academic pygmies they are.

Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had to sit through hours of political theater - mostly amateur political theater - while the Senators postured and the two men at the pointy end of the sword patiently parried.

At one point in the proceedings, Petraeus tried to explain to the Senators that they shouldn't look at the up-tick in violence over the past few weeks in isolation to the overall improvement of security in Iraq.

A significant percentage of Middle Eastern men have attended college in the West. It is not at all unusual to ask someone where he went to college and have him answer something like Colorado State.

The point here is, the bad guys understand the nature of the media. Over the past few weeks they have returned to their first principals: If you want to influence the Western press, toss rockets and mortars into the Green Zone where the Western press will report it.

The bad guys knew that Petraeus and Crocker would be testifying this week, so they increased their bad behavior to attempt to influence policy.

Obviously the American media were specifically interested in the questions posed by the three remaining candidates for President, John McCain, Hillary R.(!) Clinton and Barack H.(!) Obama.

On Fox yesterday morning, I suggested that Obama needed a map to find his way to the hearing room.

This is the actual transcript, according to the Washington Post, of Obama's first question:

Should we be successful in Mosul, should you continue, General, with the effective operations that you've been engaged in, assuming that in that narrow military effort we are successful, do we anticipate that there ever comes a time where Al Qaida in Iraq could not reconstitute itself?

Read it again.

See? You can read that as many times as you like and it will not make any more sense than it did the first time.

Now say these words to yourself: President Barack H.(!) Obama.

Make you feel comfortable?

Later in his questioning, Barack H.(!) Obama asked this of Ambassador Crocker:

Can you respond a little more fully to Senator Boxer's point?

Let me tell you: If it weren't for Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) would be the dumbest member of the US Senate. So Obama depending upon anything that Boxer asked is an open admission of his lack of preparation.

SIDEBAR

To prove my point, Rockefeller - who appears to have crawled out of the shallow end of the family gene pool - said in an interview in the Charleston (WV) Gazette:
"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they (the missiles) get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."

After half the civilized world smacked Rockefeller in the back of the head for being even dumber than usual, his office issued the following:
"I have profound respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words."

Dope.

END SIDEBAR

The Democrats in Congress must take care that they are not seen as rooting for failure in Iraq.

Americans are, by our nature, optimists. We may be exhausted by this war, but we will never be so weary that we want our military personnel to lose.

General Petraeus is representative of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have answered the call to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given that, it is politically very dangerous for Democrats to try and paint Petraeus as anything other than a patriot.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the opening statement of General Petraeus and the apology of Sen. Rockefeller. Also a Mullfoto which I really, really like and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Conflict of Interest

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:43:00 +0000

One of the problems in modern-day Washington is trying to decide who works for whom and on what basis.

So as not bury the lead, Mark Penn has been relieved of his duties as the Chief Strategist and More of the Presidential campaign of Hillary R.(!) Clinton.

Here's the background.

Penn was not paid by the campaign. His polling firm, Penn Schoen & Berland, is paid by the campaign. His polling firm is owned by the mega-PR firm of Burson-Marsteller. Burson-Marsteller is a unit of Young & Rubicam which, in turn, is owned by the WPP Group.

Penn is the CEO of Burson in addition to having been the Chief Guru of the Clinton campaign.

According to a long backgrounder in the Washington Post by Anne Kornblut last year, Penn

"receives no compensation directly from the Clinton campaign and that his salary from Burson-Marsteller, which he declined to reveal, is contingent upon his management performance for the corporation overall, rather on than specific fees from the campaign."

It is one of the many oddities of the campaign finance laws that campaigns have to disclose to which vendors, and for how much, they write checks; but vendors are under no obligation to disclose who is on their payroll or how much they are paid.

According to the FEC, Penn's firm was paid $3.1 million in March and is owed $2.4 million bringing the grand total for this campaign to over $10 million.

Why is this important?

Because the work of Mark Penn and the work of Burson-Marsteller got tangled up last week when Penn met with the Ambassador to the US from Columbia

One of Burson's clients, it turns out, has been the country of Columbia which is in serious negotiations for a Free-Trade Agreement with the United States. I have been involved in this sort of thing and it is the PR firm's job to convince people that this is not only a good idea, but the passage of this agreement is the most important issue facing the Congress this year!

Susan Davis, writing in the Wall Street Journal,

"Hillary Clinton has been railing against free-trade agreements.
Clinton pointedly told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO: 'We've got to have new trade policies before we have new trade deals. That includes no trade deal with Colombia while violence against trade unionists continues in that country."

Oops.

This business of having clients on both sides of the same issue is known in most places (not counting, of course, Your Nation's Capital) as a conflict of interest. Some conflicts are easy to avoid. But being paid by Clinton to advise her on how best to oppose the Columbian Free Trade Agreement and being paid by Burson-Marsteller for advising the Columbians on how to minimize opposition (like Clinton's) to the same pact is - even INSIDE the District of Columbia - a serious conflict.

The Clinton campaign stated that Penn was meeting with the Ambassador in his role as the CEO of Burson. But a spokesman for the government of Columbia, according to the Wall Street Journal, appeared to disagree, saying:

"The ambassador met with Mr. Penn to discuss the bilateral agenda. There have also been meetings with the advisers to the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. It's the embassy's job to explain Colombia's reality."

Well, that certainly sounds like the Ambassador thought he was meeting with Penn, at least partially, as a representative of the Clinton campaign.

On Saturday the country of Columbia fired the PR firm of Burson-Marsteller. According to the WSJ's Jackie Calmes, after Penn called the meeting "an error in judgment," the Columbians canned B-M saying:

"The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable."

By Sunday night the pressure - internally and externally - became too much and Penn was out as the Senior Strategist and More of the Clinton campaign.

It didn't take long for the Clinton insiders to begin dancing on Penn's professional grave. Again, according to Jackie Calmes in the WSJ:

Mr. Penn has been blamed by Clinton advisers and supporters for a flawed strategy that has left the New York senator, once seen as the inevitable nominee, instead struggling against Sen. Obama for the Democrats' nomination.

As the old saying goes: In Washington, ya want a friend? Buy a dog.

As the new saying goes: Wanna wear two hats? Buy a second head.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Kornblut backgrounder and the WashPost coverage of Penn's departure. Also a cool link to the FEC page on Presidential campaign spending, a Mullfoto showing the highlights of the in-seat entertainment on my Delta flight last week and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Random Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:10:00 +0000

This 'n that for a Friday Morning.

The husband of US Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mi), Tom Athans, is described by the Detroit News as "the co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio" and "was executive vice president of Air America."

Ok. Stabenow is a liberal Senator so the fact that she is married to a liberal activist - pro-abortion, pro-women's rights, and all that - should not be a surprise.

But here's the paragraph which makes this piece Mullworthy. It seems that Athans

"was stopped Feb. 26 by undercover officers investigating a possible prostitution ring in a room at the Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75. Athans paid a 20-year-old prostitute $150 for sex in the hotel."

Putting aside, for the moment the onomatopoeian name of the town involved, it may be there emerging a "Spitzer Rule:" The more liberal the public figure, the more likely he is to pay for sex.

Ok, you caught me. I didn't think the story was such a big deal but, I really did giggle at the name of the town.

The WOW fundraising numbers that Sen. Barack H.(!) Obama put up yesterday ($40 million raised in March to about $20 million for Sen. Hillary R.(!) Clinton) obscured some numbers which were just as interesting.

The Gallup organization has been conducting nightly tracking polls following both the Obama-Clinton primary race as well as general election matchups between either of them and Sen. John McCain.

As summarized on the RealClearPolitics.com polling page, through Wednesday night, Obama and Clinton were at 49-46 for the second straight night - essentially a tie. That three-point spread matches the Rasmussen Poll tracking which has them at 46-43.

Now to the general election matchup. McCain leads Clinton by two percentage points (47-45) and McCain leads Obama by one (47-46) in the Gallup numbers.

But Rasmussen has the potential general election numbers with McCain leading Clinton by five percentage points (47-42) and leading Obama by seven percentage points (48-41).

The CBS/NY Times poll, to complete the circuit shows each Clinton or Obama beating McCain by five percentage points, but even that isn't all good news for Obama. According to the analysis by Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee:

"Obama's support among Democrats nationally has softened over the last month - particularly among men and upper-income voters."

How to account for the disparity? You should treat polls like judges used to treat Olympic figure skating scores:

Everyone knew the French and the East Germans were cheating so they threw out the highest and the lowest scores and then averaged the rest.

Same with early polls.

National reporters are beginning to pick up on the fact that GOP senior political hacks don't much care who the Democratic nominee is. From a Reuters piece by John Whitesides:

"Originally people thought Hillary would be better to run against only because she generated so much ill will among the Republican base," said Republican consultant Rich Galen.
"But I don't think professional politicians on the Republican side have a rooting interest anymore because it doesn't matter. We can beat either one. We just wish the election was tomorrow," he said.

A quote which I pulled off the Internet by random chance.

Bill Clinton, campaigning in Altoona, Pennsylvania (oh, how the mighty have fallen) spoke about those who are urging Hillary to get out of the race. From the AP's Beth Fouhy:

"They're telling you, 'Oh don't worry, this doesn't matter, and it's OK if we disenfranchise Michigan and Florida, we got this deal under control. You guys just be quiet and go away,'" Bill Clinton said.
"Let me tell you something. I've been in politics a long time. People don't tell you your votes don't count unless they do."

Uh …

With Clinton/Obama raising money at a $60 million-a-month clip; with Iraq still dodgy; with the Fed Chairman telling Congress that "a recession is possible," either Clinton or Obama should be leading McCain by 25 percentage points.

Why, then, have the Democrats in Washington put away their tape measures and stopped putting in their bids for corner offices in the Executive Office Building?

Because Americans consider their vote for President on a completely different intellectual and emotional plane than any other public office.

Americans, it appears, are extremely hesitant about trusting Hillary or Barack with the keys to the country.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to just about everything referenced above. Also a Mullfoto from Ontario, California and a Catchy Caption of the Day which … well, just take a look.

Good News

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Rasmussen has published polls in New Jersey, Michigan and Washington State which show - as of now - John McCain is, at a minimum, competitive with either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Whoever the Democratic nominee is, he or she cannot afford to lose either New Jersey, Michigan or Washington State.

Got it?

I will repeat this, probably, twenty seven hundred times over the next seven months but all that matters on November 4 is the number 270. That is the number of electoral votes necessary to stand on the steps of the US Capitol building at noon on January 20, 2009 and take the oath of office as President of the United States.

A state's electoral votes is calculated by adding the number of Congressional Districts plus the number of US Senators (always two).

New Jersey, as an example, has 15 electors. Michigan has 17. Washington State has 11. Neither Hillary nor Barack is likely to get to the magic 270 without all three.

Why is this? It is because the two Democratic contenders, Hillary R. (!) Clinton and Barack H. (!) Obama, are slugging it out in Wilkes-Barre and Upper Macungie Township, Pennsylvania while John McCain is standing astride the world in places like Baghdad and Jerusalem.

On the air, my Democratic debate partners insist that the Clinton-Obama bloodletting will ultimately be good for their party in the Fall, I always ask this:

If this is such a good thing, why is every senior Democrat in Washington in a projectile sweat trying to figure out some mechanism to stop it?

That is generally when we go to a commercial.

Next bit of good news: The economy may have already bottomed out.

From the Associated Press last night:

Wall Street began the second quarter with a big rally Tuesday as investors rushed back into stocks, optimistic that the worst of the credit crisis has passed and that the economy is faring better than expected.
The Dow Jones industrials surged nearly 400 points, and all the major indexes were up more than 3 percent.

If, in the approximate words of my back-door neighbor James Carville, "It is ALWAYS the economy, stupid" then the economy may not be the crushing issue Democrats have been hoping for.

I have no idea what this means, but the AP also reported that:

Wall Street got another boost when the Institute for Supply Management said its March index of national manufacturing activity rose to a reading of 48.6 -- indicating a contraction, but a slower one than in February and tamer than many analysts had predicted.
Government data on construction spending for February also came in better than expected.

The next bit of good news is that the Bush Administration, it turns out, has been working for about a year to bring the Federal regulatory mechanism into the 21st Century to match the new realities of how slick-haired, spread-collared, French-cuffed Wall Streeters do their work.

According to the NY Times:

In the past decade, there has been an explosion in complex derivative instruments, such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, which were intended primarily to transfer risk.
These products are virtually hidden from investors, analysts and regulators, even though they have emerged as one of Wall Street's most outsized profit engines. They don't trade openly on public exchanges, and financial services firms disclose few details about them.

According to that semi-official mouthpiece of the Bush Administration, National Public Radio:

[Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson's proposal is aimed at curbing the kinds of risky investments that led to the current credit crisis, like the widespread use of complex mortgage-backed securities.

Naturally, economic geniuses like Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct) who is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee complained the plan was "a wild pitch" but Politico.com pointed out that the basis of Dodd's opposition became clear when he was caught "grumbling that he was not consulted."

Rules to Live By: Never underestimate the size of the ego of a sitting United States Senator.

Final bit of good news: This was the headline in the Washington Post: "Clinton Vows to Stay in Race to Convention"

"I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for."

You go girl!

Absolutely last bit of good news: The Washington Nationals have won their first two games and are on pace to go 162-0 this season.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to everything - EVERYTHING - in the piece, an unabashedly self-promoting Mullfoto of me on the field prior to the Washington National's first game and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Fathers, Sons, and Baseball

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:48:00 +0000

NOTE: This is an updated version of MULLINGS originally published April 2005 on the day of the first Washington Nationals' game at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. It is being reprised here on the occasion of the first Washington National's game at the new Nationals Park.

September 6, 1995 I flew to Austin, Texas to watch a baseball game on TV with The Lad who was then an undergrad at the University of Texas. The occasion was Cal Ripken's 2,131st consecutive Major League baseball game, breaking Lou Gehrig's record.

Baseball has been a bond between us.

When the Lad played Little League I rarely missed a game. In McLean, Virginia it was not at all noteworthy to see national leaders - Administration and Congressional, Democrat and Republican - working in the snack bar or helping prepare one of the fields.

It was not unusual to be watching a game, leaning on the centerfield fence with the head of the President's Domestic Policy Council on one side and a US Senator on the other, discussing the most important issue of the day: Shouldn't the shortstop (who was about 11-years-old) be playing a couple of steps toward second base with a left-handed batter up?

Over the years the Lad and I had gone to many baseball games in Baltimore; Washington, DC having been shut out of Major League Baseball since before he had been born. One night we saw Ripken make not one error, but two errors. The Lad was - literally - concerned that we were witnessing early evidence of the end of the world.

We had wanted to be together the night that Ripken broke Gehrig's record. We had dinner in Austin, went to my hotel room, ordered every dessert on the menu from room service, and sobbed in concert as, at the end of the fifth inning - making it a regulation game - Cal took a lap around the stadium in acknowledgment of the fact that the fans would not let the game re-start until he had done so.

Some 13 years have gone by. The Lad has gone from being a college student, to being a member of the President's staff, to making his own, highly successful way, in business and politics.

In 2005, after 34 years, baseball came home to Washington. Two different clubs which had been called the Senators had deserted the city, so the current team is called the Nationals which is a double entendre in that they are a National League team, and they represent the Nation's Capital.

According to the Washington Post, in the years since the departure of Major League baseball to last night the population of the region doubled from less than three million to around six million; ticket prices went from top price of $6 to a top of $300 and gasoline has gone from 36¢ per gallon to well over three dollars.

At 6:52 AM, the morning of the Nationals' first game - exactly 12 hours before President Bush was scheduled to throw out the first pitch - The Lad came through the arrival doors at Dulles airport, returning the favor of my flight to Austin for a baseball game a decade earlier.

At 7:05 PM the first pitch from a Major Leaguer was thrown to a Major Leaguer in a real game.

Fathers and sons - parents and kids - have been going to baseball games for over a hundred years. This father and this son have been blessed to have shared unique opportunities over the course of our 30+ years together. That Opening Day was one of them.

Baseball has been a continuing thread in our relationship, The Lad and I.

That year, we sat along the first base line and watched a ballgame together. Ate hotdogs. Worried over defensive alignments. Ducked foul balls. And went home happy.

This year The Lad is in California so I sat in the press box. The game ended on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning by Nats third baseman Ryan Zimmerman who is the face of this franchise.

While I was in the interview room waiting for the post-game press conference with manager Manny Acta The Lad sent me an instant message which read: "Walk off! Go Zim!"

Zimmerman, who in a little over two years in the majors has had four walk-off homers, came to the interview room after his manager had finished. He was asked if this was the most thrilling walk-off home run.

"No," he said. "The first one was. It was on Father's Day and my dad was in the stands."

See what I mean?

Fathers and sons and baseball. Life might get better than that, but it doesn't have to get much better.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to my baseball blog about getting to the Nationals ballpark, a reprise of the Mullfoto from that first opening day and a bonus Mullfoto of President Bush throwing out the first pitch. Also a Catchy Caption of the Day which might be in questionable taste.

Getting to the New Ballpark in Washington

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:00:00 +0000

on Saturday March 29

Nats v. Orioles – the Final Exhibition Game

I spent most of the week before trying to figure out the best route to Nationals Park using the Metro from downtown.

Nats president Stan Kasten has been exhorting everyone in sight to take the Metro to the Park. Aside from the actual stadium being ready on time, the next most questionable item was whether the extension of the Green Line’s Navy Yard Station would be ready.

If you are reading this and you are not from the DC area – don’t feel bad. We don’t know where these places are, either.

For those who may not be heavy users of the Washington area’s Metrorail system the lines are named for the last stops on each. The Blue Line directions will send you to Largo Town Center or Franconia-Springfield. The Red Line runs between Shady Grove and Glenmont.

I had figured out how to get to the ballpark from my office downtown, so I turned to my attention to getting there from home, which is in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Looking at the subway map, I realized I could come in through, essentially, the back door: If I drove up the Maryland side of the Potomac River, I could park at the Anacostia Metro Station, get on the Green Line going toward Greenbelt and be only one stop from the Navy Yard.

One of the issues I have been thinking about has been: Where do I want my car to be after the game? Clearly, if I can walk out of Nationals Park get on the subway, go one stop and drive home from the Anacostia (with the additional excitement of a trip across the Wilson Bridge) then that will be the way to go.

Following the old rule (never drive to Alaska or Anacostia without a full tank of gas), $70 later, at 12:45, I had the Mullmobile aimed for the Beltway.

I carefully entered the ramp which said “Baltimore” and steered toward the first exit over the Wilson Bridge which is I-295.

Interestingly, the exit was labeled 2A and 2B. This is how I get into trouble – I started thinking about how can it be that first exit is not 1A and 1B.

The reason this leads to trouble is because I am a linear thinker. If I’m involved with the 2B or not 2B issue, then it is absolutely possible that by the time I remember what I am looking for, I will have gone miles past Anacostia and be well on my way to Annapolis.

I DID snap out of it when I realized that the second exit was Exit 1. You might think this solved my mystery, but it only deepened because the exit Mapquest had told me to use was Exit 3.

Lo and behold, the exit after Exit 1 was Exit 2, and then there was Exit 3.

SIDEBAR

There is a scene in one of the “Hitchhikers Guide …” books by the late Douglas Adams where one of the characters lands on a planet and runs into local. The new arrival drops something and asks the native if he saw the object go up or down.
“Down,” he says. “Why?”
“I was just trying to determine which way time runs on this planet,” said the newcomer.
I felt much the same way with the 2-1-2-3 exit sequence.

END SIDEBAR

I didn’t find myself in Annapolis, but I couldn’t remember whether I was supposed to get off at 3A or 3B. On the theory that … Ok, I didn’t have a theory, but I saw a sign which said “METRO” so I got off at 3A which, of course, turned out to be wrong.

It turns out the parking garage for the Anacostia Metro is off Exit 3B and the Metro Station stretches for about three blocks underground.

Parking is free on the weekends, so I pulled in, asked a Metro cop how to get to the station and he pointed to the end of the garage and said the escalator was right there.

I bought a Metro Smartrip card and went down to the platform just as the train pulled in. I hopped on, got off one stop later, went up the escalator marked “BALLPARK” and was a block from the stadium entrance.

This was a great way to go!

As Nat’s manager, Manny Acta, had promised in his pre-game press conference he pulled his starters after six innings and I thought that would be a good time for me to leave the game, too.

Most of the fans agreed with me and Manny and were leaving as well.

At the Metro stop, the platform was jammed to the point where the Metro folks had turned off the escalators and were only letting a few people walk down at a time.

I told the Metro Monitor I was going toward Anacostia, not toward downtown (where the huge proportion of riders would go to change for points north and west, and she let me go.

The Anacostia-train side of the platform was relatively empty and I thought this was the ONLY way to this, at least on weekends when I would be coming to the games from home.

Guess what? Metro is smarter than I gave them credit for.

They started bringing trains into both sides of the station to take the traffic back to one of the transfer stations – L’Enfant Plaza or Gallery Place, leaving those few of us going south toward Branch Avenue to stand and wait.

A Metro person with a microphone was instructing riders which train was going where. After the fourth or fifth train pulled into the station and left toward downtown, several people started shouting at the person with the microphone about having been stranded.

This is the kind of thing which crowd control people know can lead to big trouble in a big hurry. Loud venting spreads like ebola, infecting everyone within earshot.

A couple of Metro cops hurried down the platform and told the people who were upset that the very next train would be going south so please to calm down.

True to their words, the next train pulled in about five minutes later, we all got on, and I was back in the Anacostia parking garage four or five minutes later.

There were two Metro police on duty in the garage who watched me walk to my car, fifteen minutes later, I was sitting in Landini’s ordering a glass of wine.

According to the sign in the station, the last train out of the Navy Yard toward Branch Avenue leaves at about 12:15 am. I am not certain whether that will depend upon when a home game ends, but as the official opening game Sunday night doesn’t begin until 8:15, it is not unlikely that I will be writing until after the last train leaves.

To that end, I will sample the RFK-to-Nationals-Park-Shuttle-Bus and report on that experience.

-- END --

Baby Booming

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:32:00 +0000

spoke on Wednesday afternoon to a meeting of business people who have products and services designed for Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers, for those of you born sometime after the end of the Eisenhower Administration, are people born in the midst of the post-World War II exuberance.

As I was born nine months TO THE DAY after my dad got off the troop ship in New York, I can tell you that I am at the outer edge of baby boomers.

To prove the point, I was reading the agenda of the meeting and saw a breakout session titled: "Partnering for Success."

Fine. Except - and this is true - I thought the agenda read: Pandering for Success," and wondered why I had not been invited to speak to that group.

As it happened I was scheduled to speak about politics and I wanted to make the point that nearly everything everyone says is absolutely guaranteed is going to happen - doesn't.

Just to test my own theory (which I generally do not do because once I have settled upon a theory the last thing I want to know is: "Is this correct?") I went back six months to look at what the polling was telling us back then.

First of all, back in the dark days of the Fall of 2007, there were some 19 candidates on both sides in the running.

Six months ago, according to national polls, Hillary R. (!) Clinton was leading on the Democratic side with 53% of the vote in September of 2007. On the Republican side the leader with 34% of the GOP vote was Rudy Giuliani.

But wait! There's more!

The second place runners on each side were Barack H. (!) Obama with 20% for the Dems and Fred Thompson with 22% for the Republicans.

It gets spookier.

The third place holders on each side were John Edwards (13%) and John McCain (15%).

So, just about as far back as there is to go forward before the November election Hillary R. (!) Clinton had a THIRTY ONE percentage point lead over Barack H. (!) Obama and Rudy Giuliani was cruising along with a 12 percentage point lead over his nearest competitor Fred Thompson.

If you are watching any of the cable news channels and someone who (including me) who pretends to be a strategist tells you they know what is going to happen in the November election switch immediately to the DIY channel and learn how to re-caulk your shower.

I bring that up because that is exactly what I did: I watched the DIY (Do It Yourself) network and plugged the leak in my shower by following the instructions. This is important because I have long been an adherent of the theory that, if something around the house needs to be repaired, replaced or reinstalled, I "call the guy."

But, what with the credit crunch and all, I decided to DIMS (Do It MySelf) and, so far, the ceiling underneath the shower has not fallen into the living room, so I am now "the guy" other people can call.

Opening Day for the Washington Nationals baseball team is Sunday night. I know that sounds odd - Opening Day being Sunday Night - but this is Your Nation's Capital and so it is not any more incongruous than anything else that comes out of here.

For the third season I will be the credentialed reporter covering the Nationals for the Alexandria Times (the publisher, Jon Arundel, has asked me to stop referring to the paper as the Mighty Alexandria Times).

I went to the stadium yesterday for a final tour and sat both in my season ticket seats behind the visitor's dugout on the third base side AND I sat in my seat in the press box (which is six - SIX - floors up and the elevators weren't operating yet so I walked up the 140-or-so steps.

I did not have to take a nitro, so this Baby Boomer intends to be around for a while.

I will post my columns for the Migh … the Alexandria Times on MULLINGS. If you haven't read the Spring Training Travelogues, you should so you are not disappointed when little of what I write about has to do with the actual games I am watching.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: The polling referenced above, and links to the Spring Training Travelogues and my pre-season-opener essay in the Migh… the Alexandria Times, a Mullfoto from the paper and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Hillary Mis-Remembers

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Here's what happened: Hillary R. (!) Clinton pulled an Al Gore the other day and allowed as to how something had happened to her in Bosnia which, in fact, had not.

According to the reporting by Jim Malone of the Voice of America:

"Last week, Clinton said she recalled landing at the airport under sniper fire and that she and other members of her party had to run to vehicles with their heads down.
"But news footage of the visit showed an apparently relaxed Clinton greeted on the tarmac by a welcoming group that included an eight-year-old girl."

Unfortunately for Sen. Clinton a CBS crew was with her on that trip to Bosnia and it was something calmer than the hair-raising experience she described.

You can link to the CBS coverage of the actual arrival ceremony on the Secret Decoder Ring page.

Far from having to run in a serpentine manner (similar to Alan Arkin in "The In-Laws") Hillary Clinton was accepting hugs from little girls, handshakes from soldiers and posing for photos with the troops.

I have often said that Al Gore and I have something in common: If we invent a story up and keep telling it, after a while we think it actually happened.

Now, it seems, we can add Hillary to our little club of Self-Delusional Dopes.

SIDEBAR

I told the story yesterday morning on Fox & Friends of having met Sen. Clinton shortly before Thanksgiving in the Palace in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
I said that I had had to corkscrew into Baghdad International Airport on a C-130 on a number of occasions and it was possible she had substituted Bosnia for Baghdad.
I am not getting any younger and so am beginning to look for opportunities to atone for past sins.

END SIDEBAR

In the give-and-take of a Presidential campaign these are the kinds of mis-rememberances which make for great political fodder. Especially since the National Political Press Corps has been beating the you-know-what out of Barack H. (!) Obama for the past three weeks and have given the Clinton campaign a pass.

The next test for Hillary and Barack will be in Pennsylvania on April 22. Today is March 26. The damage the two campaigns can inflict upon one another in the next four weeks is music to the ears of the McCain campaign.

Remember earlier this month when the Intelligencia Politica was confidently predicting that Sen. John McCain having closed out the GOP competition was actually bad news for him?

You may also remember that I more-or-less vehemently disagreed with that assessment in a column titled Glass Half Empty; Glass Half Full.

The national head-to-head polling a potential general election match-up between McCain and either Obama or Clinton has McCain slightly ahead of either one. (The lead is so tiny as to be useless except for political columns such as this).

Nevertheless, given the state of the economy, the sub-prime mortgage sitch, the on-going conflict in Iraq and the general malaise amongst Republicans, either Clinton or Obama should be leading McCain by 20 or 25 percentage points.

They are not.

As the National Political Press Corps whipsaws between Clinton and Obama while Senator McCain meets with world leaders and receives the endorsement of the likes of Nancy Reagan this can only accrue to the benefit of the GOP nominee.

As my debate partner, Bob Beckel, pointed out on Fox this morning, "This is only March and there is a long way to go to November."

He's right. But the only way to stop the slugfest between Clinton and Obama is to have someone convince one of them they should accept defeat.

Obama is leading in both the delegate count and the total popular vote. He's not getting out.

Hillary comes from the Johann Goethe theory of politics: "What does not kill me makes me stronger," and she is far from dead and so, by definition, is getting stronger.

The polling in Pennsylvania shows her leading Barack by between 12 and 26 percentage points which means the fight for the Democratic nomination is likely to go on for months to come.

Hillary's imagined attack in Bosnia is (to misquote yet another movie) the stuff Republican dreams are made of.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the CBS footage, to an "In-Laws" page, the RealClearPolitcs page and the "other" movie. Also a Mullfoto which I thought was terribly amusing and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Speech Didn't Work

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:02:00 +0000

After Sen. Barack H. (!) Obama’s speech on Tuesday the Intelligencia Politica, largely declared it having accomplished its task of changing the national debate from the vitriol of Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama’s church, to a larger debate on race in America.

Susan Page quoted me in her USA Today piece on Wednesday morning:

"I don't think it's going to change anybody's mind," said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant in Washington. "People who were for him before will say, 'Yes, that's right,' and people who were against him will say, 'That's not right.' "
Galen said what he was "absolutely unmoved by the notion of going from the abomination of slavery … to somehow using that to justify the un-American and vitriolic language of Jeremiah Wright."

Now, it seems, many people agree with me. According to the Gallup poll track, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is sitting on a five percentage point lead over Obama 48-43. This is in contrast to the Gallup measure on March 16 (two days before The Speech) when Obama had a two point lead over Clinton – 47-45.

My well-documented arithmetic skills indicate that is a seven point swing in Hillary’s favor in five days.

Thank you, Mr. Wright.

On the Michigan/Florida re-do front, it is now clear that the battle lines have been drawn. The Obama camp has no reason to want to re-run primaries in two states which Hillary would probably win.

First, it would close the gap in delegates between Barack and Hillary. Second, because they are huge states she might win by enough (when you add in Pennsylvania) to take the lead in the popular vote over the primary season, and third it adds to the Clinton theory on Super Delegates that a late surge for Hillary supports her claim that Obama is unelectable and they should hand the nomination to her.

Clinton has attempted to make the case that is was the Republican Governor and the GOP-controlled legislature who put the Democrats in this position. But the Republican Party of Florida has published an excellent bit of research showing that the Democratic members of the Legislature were all for this.

Among them, Rep. Dan Gelber, the House Democratic leader, was reported by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as scoffing at warnings by DNC chairman Howard Dean saying:

“I don't have any constituents in the DNC,” Gelber said. “I only have constituents in my district. They would like to be more relevant.”

The issue of if, or how, to seat some or all of the delegates from Michigan and Florida is now almost certain to be a cloud hanging over the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

It may well lead to fights in the Rules Committee, the Credentials Committee and, ultimately, a floor fight.

As a professional, sober, and experienced observer of politics in the United States I have two words for this possibility: Woo Hoo!

Remember all that nonsense a couple of weeks ago about what bad news it was for Sen. John McCain for having wrapped up the GOP nomination on March 4th while Clinton and Obama were going to be slugging it out for months to come?

The RealClearPolitics average of head-to-head match ups shows McCain essentially tied with both of his potential opponents. McCain actually has a lead of slightly more than one percentage point, but that is meaningless.

Given the state of the economy, the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, the lack of any positive news for Republicans at the US House or Senate level and the constant claim of the popular press that Democrats are so much more energized than Republicans, how can this be?

Hillary and Barack should be beating McCain by 20 points.

Jeremiah Wright should be beating McCain by 15.

At some point the national political press corps is going to come to the realization that the prospect of a Democrat being sworn in as President on January 20th next year is becoming increasingly dim.

To those for whom it is relevant, have a wonderful Easter weekend.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Gallup poll and to the RPOF summary of Democrats’ excitement over an early primary. Also a Mullfoto which will make you laugh and a Catchy Caption of the Day which will make you wonder about me.

Race in the Race for the White House

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Galen) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:41:00 +0000

While waiting for the speech by Barack Obama on race in America:

I, like most of you, am loathe to pass judgment on the nature or quality of another person's faith, or lack thereof. For the most part, I just don't care so long as you don't use your faith for personal gain - financial, political, or otherwise. Then you are demanding that I pay attention.

On Fox & Friends this morning with debate partner Bob Beckel we talked about what effect the whole Jeremiah Wright deal. I suggested that the paradox in which Obama now finds himself is this:

Now that the video of Wright's hate-mongering sermons have become public, Obama wants us to believe that not only was he not sitting in a pew for any of the sermons in question, but Wright's tone and language were never even a part of any conversation he had with his wife or any other member of the congregation.
"In effect," I said, "Obama now would have us believe that all he did was slow down in front of the church on Sunday mornings and let the girls out while he went off to play paintball."

The Democratic Party is now in an ugly full-blown, racially-based fight between its two candidates. Without any evidence to support the claim, there is a growing feeling that the Clinton campaign is somehow behind the sudden appearance of the "Jeremiah Wright's Greatest Hits" DVDs.

Before you blame Fox News Channel for pushing this story, Tom Bevans - the man behind RealClearPolitics.com - wrote this morning that this political torpedo broke the surface after "ABC News ran a four-minute segment highlighting some of the hate-filled language of [Obama's] former pastor."

On CNN last Friday, Obama's campaign released what Wolf Blitzer called "a very strong statement" in opposition to the language and intent of Wright's sermons and suggested this might well put the fire out.

I said that in the words of the late, lamented H.R. Haldeman it was "TL2 - Too little, too late."

The WashPost's Liberal columnist Richard Cohen agreed in an op-ed this morning: "Why did Barack Obama take so long to "reject outright" the harshly critical statements about America made by his minister, Jeremiah Wright…?"

-----

After watching Obama's speech:

First observation is that Obama began with the words of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution - but not all the words of the preamble. "We the people … in order to form a more perfect union," the speech began.

Why, I wonder, would he leave out the four words: "of the United States?"

Obama said "I have already condemned" Jeremiah Wright, but there was NO call for "all Americans, Black and White; Brown and Yellow; Christian, Jew or Muslim to join me in this condemnation."

After that "condemnation," Obama then went into a lengthy defense of Jeremiah Wright.

And then after that lengthy defense of Jeremiah Wright he went into a long dissertation on the history of racism - in effect saying the true horror of slavery justified Jeremiah Wright's sermons which "simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."

Of course, Obama blamed Conservatives:

"Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism."

No slap at Liberals, though. The only time in the speech the word "Liberal" is mentioned is inferentially suggesting Conservatives are behind

"the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap."

In the end, Obama did exactly what I suspected he would do: suggest that to vote for anyone but him was to further racism in America.

We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism ... We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words … or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

The speech ended at 11:30 leaving me unconvinced that it was anything more than damages control; and certainly unconvinced of Obama's "new politics."

I am not a racist. And I'm still not voting for him for Obama.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the RealClearPolitics curtain-raiser and Richard Cohen's op-ed. Also a Mullfoto which is a cheap Spitzer joke and a Catchy Caption of the Day.