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June 7, 2008

Even in Defeat, Clinton Makes History

Standing between two soaring pillars in the ornate Great Hall of the National Building Museum in Washington, Hillary Clinton officially brought her campaign to an end Saturday, delivering a moving valedictory that will seal her place as a legendary figure within the Democratic Party—and within our nation's history itself. Gracious in defeat, effusive in praise for the nominee—she was all the things the talking heads demanded she be, but also much more than that. Unburdened of the pressures of the campaign trail, she spoke openly and directly about the history she and her rival for the Democratic nomination have made by coming this far.

While her speech was one of party unity and reconciliation, the hall was full of Clinton supporters stung deeply by her defeat. "I'm exactly Hillary's age, so this breaks my heart," Dianne Cooperman, an IT systems engineer from Maryland, told me. "I'm devastated." She shook her head. "She came so close."

Though disappointed, and bitter about the way the press covered Clinton's candidacy, Cooperman plans to vote for Obama. "Hillary's a real Democrat and she'll support the Democrat in the fall. I have the same criteria. And there's no way I could vote for four more years of the same."

Another Clinton supporter, Mary Ogum, also from Maryland, said that Clinton's loss was "very disappointing."

"The party never really supported her," she said. "Barack Obama came along and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. It just wasn't her time, I guess."

Ogum said that while she won't make the sorts of donations to Obama that she made to Clinton, she will vote for him. It was a sentiment echoed by almost everyone I spoke to. As Hank Tuzda, a retired Department of Labor employee, put it, "We forget sometimes that their policies are basically the same."

Clinton acknowledged this in her speech when she said, "The way to continue our fight now—to accomplish the goals for which we stand—is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next President of the United States."

Beyond publicly throwing her support behind Obama, she discussed the history-making nature of the Democratic primary campaign. Even in defeat, Clinton declared a measure of victory. "Could a woman really serve as Commander-in-Chief? Well, I think we answered that one," she said. "And could an African American really be our President? Senator Obama has answered that one. Together Senator Obama and I achieved milestones essential to our progress as a nation, part of our perpetual duty to form a more perfect union."

And for the first time, she spoke directly and unreservedly about what her quest for the White House means to women:

…When I was asked what it means to be a woman running for President, I always gave the same answer: that I was proud to be running as a woman but I was running because I thought I’d be the best President. But I am a woman, and like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious.

I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.

I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter’s future and a mother who wants to lead all children to brighter tomorrows. To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect. Let us resolve and work toward achieving some very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits and there are no acceptable prejudices in the twenty-first century.

A Virginia lawyer who only gave me her blog handle, Hecate, said that Clinton's fight was ultimately thwarted by the forces she was trying to overcome. "Any woman who gets close to a position of power gets treated badly," she said. "The calls to drop out wouldn't have happened if she were a man. The attitude was that she needs to let the deserving man have his job." She added, "This election has ripped the cover off things we like to hide. Lots of young women and female bloggers have had their eyes opened to how sexist our society is."

In her speech, Clinton mentioned the timeline of progress that Barack Obama often uses in his stump speeches, putting both of them within it and describing how prejudices have been put to rest over time in America.

Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes. Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot-soldiers who marched, protested and risked their lives to bring about the end to segregation and Jim Crow.

Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote. Because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together. Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them, and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African American or a woman can yes, become President of the United States.

And it was for the opportunity to make this point, I believe, that Clinton didn't drop out on Tuesday, a night dominated by Obama's victory. She wanted one last chance to gently remind the public and the press of what had been achieved. Clinton's hard-fought campaign has paved the way for other women to walk in her path—in the workplace and the classroom, women will see greater opportunities and encounter greater respect because of Hillary Clinton's bid. And in politics, it likely won't be long before a woman wins the fight in which Clinton fell just short.

The Cocktail Napkin Plan for Regime Change in Iran

Enlisting high-level contacts in the White House, Pentagon and Congress, Iran-Contra figure Michael Ledeen relentlessly pushed a freelance intelligence collection and Iran regime change plan on behalf of another veteran of the scandal, according to a report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (PDF) released Thursday.

The proposed plan to change the Iran regime, which requested $5 million in initial "seed" money from the U.S. government, was outlined on a cocktail napkin by Iran contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar at a Rome bar during a three-day meeting in December 2001 that brought the Iran contra actors together with two officials from the Pentagon. The Pentagon officials’ attendance at the meeting was authorized by Stephen Hadley, now the top White House national security advisor, the report found. Revelations that Iran Contra figures Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved in a new channel to the Bush administration set off alarm bells throughout the US government, and prompted multiple inquiries into whether the channel amounted to an unauthorized covert action and a possible counterintelligence threat. The latter issue was never resolved, after a top Pentagon official shut down the counterintelligence inquiry only a month after it had begun.

Later operations would require as much as $25 million, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar advised US officials, but could be financed in part, they said, by a foreign government in exchange for commitments of future Iran oil contracts to the foreign government’s state energy company, believed to be Italy’s ENI. Italy’s military intelligence service Sismi facilitated Ledeen’s Rome meeting, which, highly unusually, was not cleared with the US embassy in Rome or the CIA, even though it involved interaction with a foreign intelligence service.

The new Senate Intelligence committee report presents more evidence that the U.S. government under the Bush administration has been uniquely vulnerable to the intelligence schemes and foreign policy freelancing of discredited individuals and deemed fabricators such as Manoucher Ghorbanifar, and potentially even counterintelligence threats of an Iranian or other nature. It details how top officials in the Bush administration endeavored to permit such an ill-advised channel, took affirmative measures to conceal it in order to bypass the professional intelligence service, and then took steps to protect their role in the matter by shutting down the counterintelligence investigation launched by the Pentagon and to stall the Senate probe. The report also documents that Ghorbanifar has been able to influence US policy and intelligence channels in particular through Ledeen's contacts within Cheney's office and the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz Pentagon.

"The questions is: is information from Ledeen and Ghorbanifar still going to the vice president's office, and is it affecting them?" a former senior CIA offiicial said. "It's a logical assumption. That is what is known in the intelligence business as circular reporting: the same information, coming through the same source, peddled through different channels, slightly altered to make it look like it's coming from multiple sources. And it's one of the biggest dangers in the intelligence business. That is what Iraq Niger was all about."

On one of the December evenings in an unidentified Roman bar, Ghorbanifar used the cocktail napkin to sketch out a coup plan that would start with the “simultaneous disruption of traffic at key intersections leading to Tehran,” the report states. The traffic jams “would create anxiety, work stoppages and other disruptive measures.” Ghorbanifar wanted $5 million to get the plan off the ground.

Ledeen and Ghorbanifar advised US officials of a foreign government—presumably Italy—“support for this information collection opportunity and financing by [foreign] corporate enterprises midway through the interviews,” the report states. The contracts “would be part of “multimillion-dollar business deals that the [Italian] government arranged for the two Iranian interlocutors.” Ledeen refused to identity the two Iranians who Ghorbanifar had brought to the meeting to Pentagon human intelligence officers, the report found, until the US government indicated it was committing to the Ghorbanifar plan.

The report sheds additional light on the actions of highly placed U.S. officials who were involved in approving the Ledeen Iran channel and suppressing knowledge of it from normal US government intelligence channels.

Then deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz placed the meeting plan on a "close-hold” status to protect it from unwelcome inquiries. Later, then Pentagon intelligence czar Steve Cambone ordered halted a Pentagon counterintelligence inquiry of the channel, which had raised the possibility that “Ghorbanifar or his associates are being used as agents of a foreign intelligence service to leverage[e] his continuing contact with Michael Ledeen and others to reach into and influence the highest levels of the US government.”

Cambone also rejected Pentagon counterintelligence investigators’ recommendations, including that a comprehensive “analysis be conducted of the counterintelligence implications related to the ability of Mr. Ghorbanifar or his associates to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials.” The Senate Intelligence committee described Cambone’s decision to kill the counterintelligence inquiry as “premature,” and criticized his failure to implement the group’s recommendations for further analysis of the counterintelligence implications of Ghorbanifar's contacts to the US government through Ledeen.

Some top officials in the State Department and CIA became indignant when they discovered the plans of the two veterans of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal. That led to repeated efforts by the White House’s Hadley to curtail the meetings. But Ghorbanifar’s pipeline to the U.S. government remained open, the report documents, because of persistent efforts by Ledeen and many current and former US officials he enlisted to champion his plan. Among them: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former assistant secretary of defense for low intensity conflict Thomas O’Connell, and even then Senate Intelligence committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), who stalled the Senate committee’s investigation of pre-war intelligence issues for years.

U.S. officials became concerned that the Ledeen-Ghorbanifar pipeline amounted to an illegal covert action that would require a finding signed by the President and that Congress be notified. The Ledeen plan ran into concerns about the legality of meetings between unpaid private consultants, Pentagon bureaucrats and members of foreign intelligence agencies and the requirements for reporting them to intelligence agencies.

‘“Once again, the Pentagon didn’t understand any of the rules: about country clearance, interagency coordination, the need to do name traces on the supposed Iranians Ghorbanifar brought to the meeting.” the former CIA official said. He pointed out that one of the figures Ghorbanifar brought to a second June 2003 meeting in Paris with Pentagon civilian Harold Rhode, Ayatollah Maliki "does not exist." He said of Ledeen and the Pentagon officials' refusal to do name traces on the other supposed Iranians Ghorbanifar brought to the Rome meeting: "How do you know who you are dealing with? How do we know that these guys have not walked into 15 other embassies? They probably have."

"It's always the same with Ghorbanifar," the former intelligence official added. "The napkin. He makes some dramatic presentation. I'm telling you, for three days those guys talked about that Iran regime change plan. And they talked about money. Ghorbanifar is lying through his teeth. That is obvious to anybody."

The report chastised several officials for their role in authorizing the meetings and keeping them secret. “Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley failed to inform [Director of Central Intelligence] Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Armitage of the full nature of the planned contact with the Iranians in Rome, to include the involvement of Mr. Ledeen and Mr. Ghorbanifar in proposing and facilitating the meeting,” the report stated.

“The role Mr. Ledeen played as interlocutor for Mr. Ghorbanifar and in setting up the Rome meeting, and potentially the Paris meeting, was inappropriate,” the report further said.

In 1984, during Iran-Contra scandal, the CIA had issued a “burn notice” on Ghorbanifar. The Iranian exile, the report quotes the CIA, “should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance.” The agency’s distrust of Ghorbanifar appeared to extend to Ledeen and led to a protracted war of polemics by Ledeen against the intelligence agency.

Ledeen repeatedly told U.S. officials that the two unidentified Iranians would refuse to talk to the CIA. But the Iranians apparently expressed no such reservations at the Rome meeting, according to Senate committee interviews. “It is likely that this allegation was used by Mr. Ledeen, Mr. Ghorbanifar or others as a means of circumventing the Intelligence Community’s knowledge of and involvement in the meeting given the CIA’s fabrication notice against Ghorbanifar,” the report concluded.

-- Dave Wagner and Laura Rozen

Wagner is an Arizona writer and journalist. From 1993-2000, he was political editor of the Arizona Republic. Rozen is national security correspondent for Mother Jones.

(Illustration of Iran contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar by Steve Brodner, for Mother Jones.)

June 6, 2008

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao Explains Rising Unemployment

The Labor Department reported today that the unemployment rate rose from 5.0 percent to 5.5 percent in May, the largest monthly spike in more than two decades. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's explanation?

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market."

Sounds ridiculous? That's because it kind of is. Here's some sense from Jared Bernstein at EPI:

"An increase in the youth labor force played a role in May's unemployment spike. However, even if we take teenagers out of the data, unemployment still rises from 4.5% to 4.8%, a considerable 0.3% increase, and well above the 4.0% adult rate of one year ago."

Fox News Isn't Even Trying Anymore

Maybe the Republican Party's struggles are driving Fox News employees to hit the bottle. Because there's no other explanation for this video clip. Make sure to watch the second half, which is arguably worse than the first.

What I love about this is that, while it's conceivable that the Fox News producers mixed their clips up, the host and his guest plow on through like there isn't a problem. Like they aren't literally creating attacks out of thin air.

(H/T Ben Smith, who doesn't need the traffic)

The GOP's (Hilarious) Down Ticket Struggles, Cont'd.

This ought to become a running segment. Yesterday, I highlighted ten races where Republican incumbents are seeing their reelections chances sink. I should have also pointed out that Republicans are having just as hard a time, if not harder, finding challengers to go against incumbents on the Democratic side. In Montana, the winner of the Republican primary and the man who will challenge entrenched Democratic Senator Max Baucus, is an 85-year-old former Green Party candidate who has raised less than $5,000. He formerly ran for president on a plan to remake Congress into a parliament.

At least this guy didn't get the Republican nomination for the Senate race in New Jersey. But the fact that he was once the New Jersey GOP's favored pick is kind of embarrassing.

And then there's the situation in New York's 13th District. That House seat currently belongs to Vito Fossella, the disgraced Republican congressman who is retiring because of a drunk driving arrest and revelations of a long-time affair and secret child. A Republican holds the seat now; it shouldn't be that hard for the GOP to find a viable replacement who can be counted on to keep it, right?

Wrong. Brooklyn Conservatives and the New York state party chair support a Republican named Frank Powers. Long Island Conservatives, however, support a Democrat named Mike McMahon. But that's just the beginning. With Powers likely to get the nomination, his son, a 47-year-old carpenter with the same name, has announced that he will enter the race as a libertarian candidate. That photo at right is him. It is not, I believe, a mug shot. "We can't have the Republicans take this seat again," the younger Powers, who goes by Fran, said. "A vote for my father is a vote for the straight Republican ticket." In response, the older Powers has started attacking his son in the press, saying that his gigs as the front man for the Staten Island band Box of Crayons and as head of an independent record label have contributed to a "carefree" lifestyle.

In response, the younger Powers shot back, "I'm not out here doing heroin... I have a regular life. Do I have a beer? Yes. I'm having one now." Swear to God.

The chairman of the Manhattan Libertarian Party says that although Fran Powers does not have a history as a political activist," he has been "politically active philosophically."

So am I. I wonder if I could win this seat.

McCain Adviser Phil Gramm in the News Again: Did His Bank Help Wealthy Clients Evade Taxes?

For someone who wants to change Washington, John McCain has surrounded himself with plenty of guys who game the system. His campaign in recent weeks had to boot out a bunch of lobbyists, though his two top campaign aides—Rick Davis and Charles Black—remain in their posts, despite the fact they recently were high-powered lobbyists. Then there's Phil Gramm, a campaign cochairman and economic adviser to McCain. After leaving the US Senate, he became an executive and lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss mega-bank. And as I noted recently, eight years ago, when he chaired the Senate banking committee, he helped create the current subprime meltdown by slyly slipping into a must-pass appropriations measure a bill that completely deregulated certain financial instruments. Isn't that the sort of person you want advising a president and in line to be Treasury secretary?

Gramm is back in the news today. The New York Times reports that federal authorities are investigating UBS to determine whether the bank helped thousands of wealthy Americans hide their assets from the IRS in UBS offshore accounts. Without mentioning that Gramm is a top McCain ally, the paper notes:

The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank’s investment banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in bad investments, many of them linked to risky American mortgages.

So it's not too early to ask, What did Phil Gramm know about UBS' offshore practices, and when did he know it? And reporters ought to ask McCain if he has asked Gramm about this investigation. Another query: how long can Gramm remain on McCain's campaign?

June 5, 2008

John McCain's Top Priorities: Getting Your Vote, Questioning Obama on Iraq, and... Golf?

In anticipation of the general election, the McCain campaign just revamped its website to focus more specifically on his contest with Barack Obama. The front page now has four main tabs that visitors can use to access the rest of the site. They are, in this order: "Decision Center," "General Election," "Obama & Iraq," and "Golf Gear."

Golf gear?

mccain%20golf%20gear.JPG

It's no surprise that John McCain wants you to donate money, and of course he wants you to know what he thinks of his opponent. But what he wants just as much is for you to head out to the green with your buddies, McCain golf pack in tow.

The disdain you may notice in my voice is not because the maverick is trying to sell us something—in the modern campaign, every candidate needs merchandise. It's that he's pushing golf, the classic sport of the leisure class. Even George Bush, historically oblivious to the pain of the common man, claimed recently to have given up golf because he couldn't bear the irony of trying to perfect his swing while troops died in Iraq. "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf," he said recently in an interview with Politico. "I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." McCain apparently didn't get the memo...perhaps he was out golfing?

Did Obama Take a Page Out of HRC's Playbook on Jerusalem?

Reuters is reporting angry Palestinian reaction to Barack Obama's statement yesterday at AIPAC that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." In response Mahmoud Abbas told reporters, "This statement is totally rejected," and Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said Obama "has closed all doors to peace."

Saying "Jerusalem" and "undivided" in the same sentence is an easy applause line at AIPAC, but we have to remember that when it comes to statements about Jerusalem, syntax is everything. In her official statement on Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton went so far as to use the words "undivided" and "capital" in the same clause: "Hillary Clinton believes that Israel's right to exist ... with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital ... must never be questioned." But as was pointed out to me in April, even Hillary's stronger formulation left some wiggle room:

Well, [Clinton's statement] is strong, but if people are determined to be a little bit creative in the way they interpret these things, ‘undivided' sometimes literally means 'don't put the barbwire back up,'" said William Quandt, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a longtime observer of America's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. "In 1967 there was a divided Jerusalem," he added, referring to the period before the 1967 war when Jerusalem was physically divided, a state of affairs to which no one wants to return.

Bottom line: The Jerusalem bit was hardly the worst section of Obama's address, which Dana Milbank described today as the "full Monty" of "a pandering performance."

10 House Races All Headed in One Direction

Charlie Cook and the folks at the Cook Political Report have changed their ratings on 10 different House races. A Republican is the incumbent in all of them. Guess which direction they're heading:

CA-04 — OPEN (Doolittle) — Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CO-04 — Marilyn Musgrave — Lean Republican to Toss Up
CT-04 — Chris Shays — Lean Republican to Toss Up
IL-10 — Mark Kirk — Lean Republican to Toss Up
NM-02 — OPEN (Pearce) — Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-29 — Randy Kuhl — Lean Republican to Toss Up
NC-08 — Robin Hayes — Lean Republican to Toss Up
OH-01 — Steve Chabot — Lean Republican to Toss Up
VA-02 — Thelma Drake — Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WA-08 — Dave Reichert — Lean Republican to Toss Up

And wait till they get some of that sweet Obama money.

Obama Fundraising Advantage Over the Entire GOP Is Huge

Good God. Look at these numbers from Politico:

If each of Obama's donors gave him a modest $250, he'd have $375 million to spend during the two-month general election sprint. That’s $186 million a month; $47 million a week.

During the same September to Nov. 4th period, McCain will have about $85 million to spend since he has decided to take taxpayer money to help finance his campaign activities.

The Republican National Committee, which is charged with closing the gap between McCain and Obama, has $40 million in cash. Obama raised almost as much — $31 million – from just his small donors in the month of February. His total for the month, $57 million, exceeded the RNC's cash balance.

Obama has more than 1.5 million donors; McCain has a few hundred thousand. If just a million of Obama’s donors sent him the maximum donation, $2,300, he could raise $2.3 billion.

Two quick observations: (1) Obama is going to be able to use that money to make random red states like Kansas and Idaho competitive enough that McCain has to put time, energy, and money into winning them. That's a huge advantage. (2) Obama could have enough money to finance every Democratic congressional race in the country. Certainly every key Senate race. He could essentially buy himself a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate.

More on Good Gov't: Obama Pushing for Change at the DNC

Consistent with Obama's fundraising policy, the Democratic National Committee announced today it will no longer take donations from registered federal lobbyists and PACs. "Our presumptive nominee has pledged not to take donations from Washington lobbyists and from today going forward the DNC makes that pledge as well," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

This is not only a sign that Obama will insist that the standards of his campaign become the standards for the whole Democratic Party (I anticipate fewer attacks on the Republican candidate from liberal-leaning independent 527s this cycle, as well), but also a sign that Obama is really, really confident in his ability to raise all the money he needs. An earlier indication of this confidence: Obama is considering limiting the size of the donations he will accept in the general election.

The Politico says Obama's confidence is justified. See my other post for details.

Obama, McCain Working Together on Good Government Bill

From the Hill:

Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are quietly working together on a good-government bill despite their campaign-trail battle over who is tougher against Washington’s special interests.

McCain's Senate office contacted Obama’s office Monday night asking to sign on to a bill opening federal government contracts to public scrutiny, according to three knowledgeable sources.

Before the call, Obama had been working on the measure primarily with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), an ardent proponent of eliminating wasteful government spending and an early supporter and longtime Senate ally of McCain's.

After learning that Obama and Coburn were introducing the bill without his backing, McCain’s staffers immediately contacted Coburn to express concern and a desire to be named as an original co-sponsor of the update. They then called Obama's office.

Obama staffers were happy to comply with McCain’s request to sign on, an Obama adviser said, because they knew support from the two presumptive nominees could propel the legislation to passage in the final months of a packed legislative schedule.

Coburn's reason for why he didn't bring McCain on from the beginning? "I'm not good at politics," he told the Hill. "I never have been." Ha.

Anyway, good for Sens. Obama and McCain. They deserve kudos not just for working together in a time when they are competitors, but also for pushing part of the good government agenda. Now they should tackle the rest of it.

June 4, 2008

Clinton Effectively Drops Out

Just received from the Clinton campaign:

Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, DC to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend.

More details from the AP:

On the telephone call with impatient House supporters, Clinton was urged to draw a close to the contentious campaign, or at least express support for Obama. Her decision to acquiesce caught many in the campaign by surprise and left the campaign scrambling to finalize the logistics and specifics behind her campaign departure.

How anyone could be surprised by her conceding at this point is beyond me.

Update: The Obama campaign says it is open to paying off some of Clinton's campaign debt. "Obviously we want to help each other," says Obama surrogate Tom Daschle.

I Suppose This Was Inevitable

RNC releases a Democrats against Obama ad.

Better than Republican advertisements in the past, at least.

Hillary's Historic Impact Already Felt

I'm with Dana Goldstein:

Now that the endless primary is over, American women -- especially those engaged with politics -- owe Hillary Clinton a "thank you," no matter which candidate or even political party they support. Clinton has profoundly altered and enhanced, probably forever, the role of women in American political life....

Over the course of this historic, thrilling, aggressive primary election, we've seen more female pundits than ever before writing and speaking about presidential politics. We've experienced unprecedented interest from male politicos in women's participation in the electoral process. And demands for women's leadership have been given their fairest hearing to date in the United States, with Democrats nationwide expecting Obama to give close consideration to female vice-presidential prospects -- not only because there are a few wildly successful and talented women who would be great at the job, but also as a gesture of good will toward the feminist energy that animated so many Clinton supporters....

Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas are among the top three most frequently-mentioned vice-presidential prospects, trailing only Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia... it is inconceivable that the lady governors would be receiving anything close to a fair hearing had Clinton not first demonstrated how hungry a large segment of the Democratic base is to see a woman president. Neither Napolitano nor Sebelius endorsed Clinton, but both must feel some debt toward her path-breaking campaign, which raised their own national profiles.

Check out the whole thing.

The Change We Need, But Whither Stem Cells?

Barack Obama's speech last night was a changemaker, an oratory sweep full of grand pledges. And while he touched on most of the big issues with the promise of a strong agenda:

The economy, "the struggles facing working families can't be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, but by giving a the middle-class a tax break."

Foreign policy, "I won't stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what's not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years - especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored."

Health care, "[we need a] health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants it and brings down premiums for every family who needs it."

Energy policy, "[we need] an energy policy that works with automakers to raise fuel standards, and makes corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future - an energy policy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."

Education, "we owe it to our children to invest in early childhood education; to recruit an army of new teachers and give them better pay and more support; to finally decide that in this global economy, the chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American."

Conspicuously absent were some of the third-rail issues that will need to be reckoned with in his plans for change:

Guns, abortion, gay marriage, these are hot-button dividers, but they're also areas where the Bush administration has waged its own change agenda, leaving us with irresponsible gun policies, anti-gay marriage statutes in 45 states, and Roe in serious jeopardy, in no part helped by Bush's appointments to the Supreme Court. No doubt Obama will speak to these issues in debates and speeches to come, and we'll see how he handles them as he tries to woo moderate and conservative voters.

Another topic untouched, perhaps surprisingly, was stem cells. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans (and half of evangelicals) support even embryonic stem cell research. Bush's ban on federal funding into new lines of embryonic stem cells has set science back 7 years and counting, and while private and state funding has elevated the research a federal change must come to ensure advances. And just think, Obama can reference Nancy Reagan as an ally for change in this arena. Two degrees from the Gipper, believe it.

Mathematical Notes in the Wake of the Primary's End

We finally have some hard answers on the popular vote.

According to Real Clear Politics, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote if you give zero votes to Obama in Michigan and/or you leave out estimates for the four caucus states that have not released popular vote totals (IA, NV, ME, WA).

However, if you use estimates for those four states and you give Obama the "uncommitted" vote in Michigan the final tally was:

Obama: 18,107,710
Clinton: 18,046,007

That's 48.1 percent to 47.9 percent. Obama's margin of victory was thinner than turnip soup, as Dan Rather would say.

Also, Open Left has a good rundown of when each candidate earned their delegates. (Obama pulled down more than Clinton in January and in February, there was essentially no difference in March, and Clinton beat Obama in April-June.) Noting that the only period where the results were truly lopsided was that post-Super Tuesday period in February, blogger tremayne notes:

Delegate-wise, Sen. Obama won the race by essentially tying Sen. Clinton on Super Duper Tuesday (can we go back to just regular-sized Super Tuesdays or smaller?) and then going on his "rest of Feb. run." 121 of his 126 pledged delegate margin occurred in this period. And incidentally, only 4 of those 11 contests were caucuses which benefited Obama by a margin of +48. The other +73 pledged delegates in this period came from primary states.

For an excellent article on how Obama's people understood the rules of the race and the impact of the calendar from the very beginning, check this out.

Terry McAuliffe Never, Ever Says Die

Top Clintonista Terry McAuliffe, quoted by TNR's Michael Crowley yesterday night:

"Tonight was Hillary's night!" he exclaimed. "We won tonight! We won in South Dakota! We keep winning!"

He may be delusional, but I'd want him in my camp.

Obama at AIPAC

Some key take-aways from Barack Obama's speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) today:

I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security. That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. ...I will ensure Israel can defend itself from any threat, from Gaza to Tehran. ...

As president I will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.

That starts with aggressive, principled tough diplomacy with clear eyed understanding of our interests. We have no time to waste. ... We have tried limited, piecemeal talks, outsourced to other parties. It has not worked. It is time for the US to lead ....

I have no interest to sit down just for sake of talking. But as president I would be willing at time and place of my choosing, if and only if it advances the interests of the United States. It is time once again to make diplomacy succeed.

(Choice to Iran will be clear). If you abandon your nuclear program, your support for terrorism, and your threats to Israel, there will be economic incentives. If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure.

(And it will be clear to the world) that the Iran regime is the author of its own isolation, and that will strengthen our hand -- with allies, Russia, China ...

(A contact in the room observed that Mccain got a better reception two days ago. "Applause on Obama's Iran comments was very lackluster - and the cheers seemed to largely come from the student delegation there.")

Here's a full transcript of Obama's remarks as prepared for delivery (.pdf).

Highlights from liveblog of Obama speech below:

Extraordinary night last night. I want to publicly acknowledge Hillary Clinton for extraordinary race that she has run. ...She has made history alongside me for the past 16 months.

Provocative emails circulating around Jewish community in country. Let me know if you see this guy Barack Obama because he sounds pretty scary.

Today I will be speaking from my heart as a true friend of Israel.

I know that when I visit AIPAC, I am among friends, good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment that bond between US and Israel unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable forever ....

One of many things I admire about Aipac is fight for this cause from the bottom up .... to make sure bond between Israel and the US is rooted in more than our shared national interests, rooted in shared values and stories of our people. As president, I will work with you to ensure that this bond that is strengthened.

First became familiar with Israel when I was 11 years old. Had a camp counselor, who was American Jew, but he had lived in Israel. Faith family and culture, year after year, generation after generation. Story made powerful impression on me. I had grown up without a sense of roots. My father from Kenya, left when I was two. My mother white, from Kansas. In many ways I did not know where I came from. Understood Zionist idea that there is always a homeland at center of our story. I also learned about horror of the Holocaust, and terrible urgency it brought to need for state of Israel. My grandfather served in World War II, for months when he came home from Germany, he was in shock. ...

Like Eisenhower, each of must bear witness... We must mean what we say when we speak the words 'never again.' (sustained applause)

Just a few years after liberation of camps that David Ben Gurion established state of Israel. Just and necessary. Sixty years later, we cannot relent, we cannot yield, and as president I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security. (applause)

Not when maps across Middle East that don't acknowledge Israel's existence, not when rockets raining down on Sderot. ....

I have long understood Israel's quest for peace and need for security. Never more than travels two years ago when went to Israel, flying on IDF helicopter, .....talked to people who never wanted something more simple and more elusive than secure future for their children.

I am proud to be part of strong, bipartisan consensus that has vowed to stand by Israel in face of all threats. That is a commitment Mccain and I share. Support for israel goes beyond party in this country.

But part of our commitment must be speaking up for Israel's security when Israel is at risk. None of us can be satisfied that [recent] foreign policy has made Israel more secure. Hamas controls Gaza. Iraq wrong war - Iran more dangerous. Iran emboldened and poses greatest strategic threat to US and Israel in a generation.

Question is how to move forward. There are those who would continue and intensify this failed status quo. Ignoring evidence our recent foreign policy has been dangerously flawed. Then there are voices that blame Middle East conflict for all region's extremism. Those that threaten Israel threaten us.

I will bring to White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.

That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage.

Will ensure Israel can defend itself from any threat, from Gaza to Tehran.

As president I will implelement a Memeorandum of Understanding to provide $30 billion in [defense] investments to Israel - not tied to any other nation.

I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself at the UN and around the world. (applause)

Real security can only come through lasting peace. That is In Israel's national interest, in America's national interest, and in the Palestinian peoples' interest. (applause)

I will help achieve the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. And I won't wait until waning days of my presidency. I will take an active role to advance cause of peace from start of my administration (applause). ...

There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. (applause) That is why I opposed allowing Hamas to run in 2006 presidential elections. Israel and the Palestinian Authority warned us, but this administration pressed ahead. The result is Gaza controlled by Hamas.

Egypt must cut off smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

Israel can also advance cause of peace by taking appropriate steps consistent with its security to ease freedom of movement - at checkpoints - as it agreed to do with Bush administration at Annapolis.

Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non negotiable.

Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive and enables them to prosper. But any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, secure in its borders, and Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, secure and undivided.

No illusions any of this will be easy. Most Israelis and Palestinians want peace.

US must be strong and consistent partner in this process, help committed partners achieve progress.

Threats to Israel start close to home but do not end there.

Syria has taken dangerous steps in pursuit of WMD which is why Israeli action entirely justified to end that threat.

Also believe US has responsibility to support Israel''s effort to renew peace talks with Syrians. We should never force Israel to negotiating table. But neither should we block negotiations when Israeli leaders think they serve Israeli interests.

Success requires full enforcement of UN SC res: It is time for reckless Syrian behavior in Lebanon to come to end.

(Iran)
There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran. This audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. The enemies of Israel should have no doubt: regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Israel's security.

The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across region. It pursues nuclear capability that could start arms race and... its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

My goal will be to eliminate this threat.

Just as we are clear eyed about threat, we must be clear about barriers to effective policy.

We knew in 2002 that Iran was a threat - supporting terrorism, etc.... Instead we ignored it and invaded Iraq.

When I opposed the war I knew it would fan flames of extremism in Middle East. It has.

US and Israel are less secure (because of Iraq invasion).

McCain and I differ on that.

Iran has strengthened its position (because of US policy in Iraq). Those are the facts and they cannot be denied

Refuse to continue policy that has made US and Israel less secure (applause)

McCain offers false choice. ... I reject his logic because there is a better way.

Keeping all our troops in Iraq is precisely what strengthens Iran. It's a policy for staying, not a policy for victory.

I have proposed phased redeployment of our troops for Iraq. Get out as carefully as we got in carelessly.

As president I will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything (sustained applause).

That starts with aggressive, principled tough diplomacy with clear eyed understanding of our interests. We have no time to waste.

We have tried limited piecemeal talks - outsourced to other parties. it has not worked. Time for the US to lead (applause). ...

I have no interest to sit down just for sake of talking. But as president I would be willing at time of place of my choosing if and only if it advances the interests of the United States. (play on Rice's speech).

Time once again to make diplomacy succeed.

(Choice to Iran will be clear).

If you abandon your nuclear program, your support for terrorism, and your threats to Israel - there will be economic incentives.

If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure.

(And it will be clear to the world that that) Iran regime is the author of its own isolation, and that will strengthen our hand -- with allies, Russia, China, etc.

(ticks off support for every element in Iran counterproliferation act. including ban on gas imports.)

I introduced legislation a year ago to divest from Iran..... For some reason, McCain never signed on. Anonymous senator blocks the bill. It is time to pass this into law. So we can tighten sanctions on the Iranian regime. We should also tighten sanctions on Iranian banks and other assets....

We must reduce our dependence on oil. And Bush policies have driven up the price of oil. And we can join Israel to develop alternative sources of energy. (applause, applause, applause)

We should work with Israel - increasing scientific collaboration and joint R/D - surest way to ensure leverage is to stop bankrolling the Iranian regime.

There should be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action to defend our security and our ally Israel. Do not be confused.

Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed and have more support at home and abroad if we have exahusted our diplomatic options. That is the change we need in our policy.

Tikkun Olam....obligation to repair this world.....American Jews are committed to social justice.....

(Jewish Americans joined African Americans in leading civil rights movement. ...)

Their legacy is our heritage. We must work together ... Jews and African Americans ... to end prejudice and combat hatred in all its forms. Join our voices together - and in doing so even the mightiest enemies will fall down. Now is the time to be vigilant to be facing down every foe. Just as we move forward in seeking future of peace.

Now is the time to stand by Israel as it writes the next chapter. ...

Now is the time to join together in the work of repairing this world.

Thanks everybody, God Bless You.

Hillary Clinton at AIPAC

Live blog highlights:

We need a Democrat in the White House. It is not just Israel which faces threats. America does too. Next president will inherit grave problems, difficult threats....Bush moved us in wrong direction. ... McCain will continue same failed policies in Iraq and the Middle East.

America needs a new policy to make us stronger. We cannot stand strongly with Israel if we are not strong at home and not respected as leader of the world everywhere else.

America needs new beginning in foreign policy ...

We have rare moment of opportunity and we must seize this moment. ... Build world we want, rather than just defend from world we fear....

June 3, 2008

Obama Wins

(For the latest on the Clinton campaign's decision to endorse Obama Saturday, see this post).

With Barack Obama's loss in South Dakota and win in Montana on Tuesday night, the primaries and caucuses are over. The senator from Illinois who ran an unconventional movement-esque campaign of and for change is the winner. He has bagged the most voter-determined delegates and a majority of the superdelegates commitments, enough to declare victory. The nation is heading toward a general election featuring a dramatic face-off between a progressive who opposed the Iraq war and a conservative who was a cheerleader for the war. A fresh face versus a Washington veteran. A onetime community organizer versus a former war hero. A 46-year-old black man versus a 71-year-old white man. Assuming the Democratic mantle, Obama declared in a speech before thousands in St. Paul, Minnesota, "This year must be different than all the rest." It will be. And hours earlier, John McCain, delivering a speech in New Orleans, used the word "change" almost three dozen times. But before the Obama-McCain clash throttles up, there is one last item of business for the Democrats: Hillary Clinton must concede.

Can Clinton harbor any hope of nullifying the verdict of the millions of voters who flocked to the primaries and caucuses in record numbers? That would be the political equivalent of nuclear warfare. To do so, Clinton, who spent the end of her campaign positioning herself as a count-every-vote champion, would have to become an anti-democratic renegade, challenging the outcome of the voting and confronting the party leadership, which has signaled its preference for allowing the pledged-delegate count to determine the final outcome.

On Tuesday, AP reported Clinton had told New York lawmakers she was open to being Obama's veep choice--a sign she won't push the button. And in her speech to supporters in New York on Tuesday night, Clinton was conciliatory toward Obama. She declared, "we stayed the course," depicting her hang-in-there strategy of the past two months as a cause, not a political tactic. She made no mention of the superdelegates, dropping her usual pitch for their support. But in a combative tone, she proclaimed, "I want the 18 million people who voted for me to be respected and to be heard." Heard? Respected? In what way? And by whom? By Obama? That was a statement ready-made for interpretation by pundits and analysts. "Where do we go from here?" she asked. She answered, "I will be making no decisions tonight." Speaking to her supporters, she said, I want to hear from you." And she noted that in the "coming days" she will be consulting with party leaders.

In the dwindling weeks of the race, she played it both ways: good Democrat and bad Democrat. The good Clinton ceased her attacks on Obama and stopped questioning whether he was qualified to be commander in chief. Yet, at the same time, the bad Clinton raised questions about the legitimacy of Obama's win. Using fuzzy and misleading math, she claimed she had won more popular votes than Obama. Campaigning in Florida, she noted that its residents had "learned the hard way what happens when...the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner." At the Democratic Party's rules committee, Harold Ickes, a top Clinton adviser, angrily claimed that four of her delegates had been "hijacked" and threatened that Clinton would appeal the committee's compromise decision at the convention. Ickes' mad-as-hell performance, no doubt, reinforced the view held by some Clinton's supporters that Obama's triumph has come--at least, in part--as a result of unfairness and anti-Clinton bias.

Still, ever since the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Clinton has managed to walk a careful line, keeping her post-primary options open without doing anything that could directly undermine an Obama candidacy in the general election. That allowed her to stay in the hunt--in case something precipitous happened to alter the race. It also permitted her to rack up a few more primary wins and continue to show her strength among blue-collar (or white) voters--which she could point to when arguing to superdelegates that she would be the better candidate to take on McCain in the fall.

But she can straddle no longer. On Tuesday night, MSNBC reported that Clinton wanted a private sit-down with Obama before conceding or embracing Obama as the nominee. Many party leaders--including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid--have said they have no patience for drawing out the race beyond the last primaries. Democratic figures--especially those backing Obama--have in recent weeks deliberately not called on Clinton to abandon her campaign. They have not been eager to force her out. But such courtesy will evaporate faster than desert rain in the "coming days."

It could well be that party leaders--out of kindness, respect, and worry (over whether her supporters will eventually swing behind Obama)--afford Clinton a few days to process her defeat. After all, this historic race was damn close, as so few nomination contests are. But this is politics, not therapy. So the grace period won't be long.

Understandably, the Senator from New York who almost became the first woman to win a major party's presidential nomination has put off this decision for as long as she could. And her performance in the final weeks of the campaign has strengthened her future presidential prospects. Should Obama lose to McCain, Clinton and her supporters could use these late-contest wins to bolster an I-told-you-so argument that would come in handy for the 2012 campaign. But if she does not play nice soon, she puts her future within the party at great risk.

All things come to an end--even tight and historic presidential nomination contests. Wounds are tended to; they heal. Bad feelings subside. Deals are cut, if need be. Political parties can--and do--come together. And heading into what promises to be a damn tough campaign, Obama will need Clinton and her followers. In his victory speech, Obama hailed Clinton and exclaimed, "Let us begin to work together." As a calculating politician, Clinton can probably be expected to do the right thing. But with the Clintons--politicians of unusual fortitude and audacity--you never know. Now that all the party's polls are closed, the moment belongs to Obama. He is the champion. He has made history. He has become the strongest progressive Democratic nominee in a generation. And, for Hillary Clinton, the clock has run out.

The Biggest Hillary-as-VP Problem? Bill

MSNBC is reporting that Bill Clinton is heading back to his Harlem office while Clinton makes the VP pitch. As Tom Brokaw said, "the former president really has become radioactive in a lot of ways." There is his finances — his consulting fees, his speech fees, his donation fundraising, his businessmen pals. There is his philandering — a distraction again these last few days because of a gossipy Vanity Fair article. And there is his mouth — which is connected to a brain that seems to think it holds the answer to every question, and is allowed to expressed that answer at all times.

I honestly think the prospect of having Bill on the campaign trail and in the White House is the most problematic thing about bringing Hillary onto the ticket. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have had their differences in the past, and she's said some things about him that Republicans will surely use, but that's nothing two talented politicians can't dance around. But you can't send Bill on a world tour for eight years. And the Clintons aren't getting divorced. Sooo... time to start looking for other choices.

Update: Adele Stan sees things the same way.

"I Will Be Making No Decisions Tonight"

That's Hillary Clinton speaking just a few moments ago in New York.

She will be talking to supporters and party leaders over the next several days to see what course of action is in the best interest of the party and the best interest of the nation. She's not dropping out. Though she seemed to understand the state of things.

I would recommend that Obama and his supporters, who must be frustrated that Clinton is not leaving the race and giving Obama his moment in the sun, be magnanimous in victory. Clinton will be out soon enough; treating her with grace and respect now will probably go a long way in determining how her supporters feel about his candidacy.

Update: I suspect Clinton will wait to meet one-on-one with Obama before making her decision. Tim Russert is insisting that a close Clinton confidante that he trusts is telling him Clinton wants the vice presidency. She will probably see if Obama plans on offering it to her before she decides what she does next.

If she drops out, she loses leverage.