MIA
In our reader blogs, TPM Reader GC has a post up entitled "Where is Barack Obama" which he kicks off by writing "These last few weeks, he seems to be missing. Not literally, but his presence in the national dialogue has receded." As I wrote in the comments section, that's been my sense too. His voice seems silent and has for a few weeks. Of course, he's out in the field campaigning, not focusing on national media and catering to political junkies around the country. But what I really think this is is that he's not controlling the agenda. Hillary's controlling the agenda, defining the race at the moment. And that's made him recede into the background, even as he's a constant topic of conversation.
--Josh Marshall
Dark, Very Dark
The Journal today has a dark and curdled portrait of Bill Clinton's growing role in Sen. Clinton's campaign ...
Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. While she has jabbed her opponent over his "elitist" tone and controversial statements by his former pastor, Mr. Clinton delivers his own slams on the stump, calling Obama ads misleading....
Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."
On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.
...
Mr. Clinton's influence is evident in pollster Mark Penn's continuing role in the campaign. Sen. Clinton recently demoted Mr. Penn as her chief strategist after he took part in talks with Colombia's U.S. ambassador over promoting a free-trade pact with the U.S. that she opposes.
However, Mr. Penn has helped in recent debate preparation, and proposed Sen. Clinton's last-minute negative ad in Pennsylvania questioning whether Sen. Obama has "what it takes."
--Josh Marshall
Principle
Following up on my question to Joe Klein below, there are plenty of John McCains. And Obama's got to figure out how to respond to this 'my opponent is the terrorist candidate' stuff. But that's his problem. And it'll be a test of him to see how he responds because there will always be McCain types in the political arena and being able to stand up to them and put them in their place is a test of political canniness and stamina. But the key here is McCain himself.
The truth is that the guy doesn't actually have any real convictions -- or to put it more precisely, no real consistent convictions. That's evidenced in part by the kind of campaign the guy's running now. And at least a few of his press admirers are starting to sense that. But where you really see it most clearly is in the policy agenda he embraces.
Genuine political and ideological transformations are pretty rare in contemporary American politics. Two in a row in less than a decade is close to unprecedented. McCain went from conservative Republican, to embracing many core Democratic policy positions and actively discussing a possible party switch, to cycling back and re-embracing the same policies.
What's gotten the most attention is McCain's position on taxes -- the same Bush tax cuts that he said earlier in the decade "offend[ed] his conscience", he now says must be made permanent and added on to by another round of tax cuts on the Bush model. This can be reduced down to cheap charges of 'flip-flopping' or expediency. But it actually goes a lot deeper than that. McCain is absolutely gung-ho and certain that he's right about whatever his position and 'principles' are at the given moment. But they change repeatedly.
--Josh Marshall
How's He Doing, Joe?
A couple weeks ago Joe Klein wrote a column in Time, which provided an overview of the coming campaign wrapped around the question of what kind of campaign John McCain will run -- whether he will he run a Bush-Drudge-style knock and sleaze campaign in which opponents are painted as crypto-terrorists and Hollywood-loving-pansies or embrace a "substantive debate."
Though not without doubts
said he believes McCain will run an honorable campaign. "I suspect that he will. It's McCain's way. He sees the tawdry ceremonies of politics -- the spin and hucksterism -- as unworthy." If he doesn't "McCain will have to live with the knowledge that in the most important business of his life, he chose expediency over honor. That's probably not the way he wants to be remembered."
Well, the last two weeks haven't been kind to that confidence. As we reported yesterday, McCain is now making clear that he plans to run his campaign on the basis of portraying Barack Obama as a dangerous outsider in league with foreign terrorists. The first topic of choice is the bogus 'Obama endorsed by Hamas' story that McCain has embraced with a vengeance.
So this is basically a question to Joe, who has actually been more critical of McCain on Iraq than many realize. How do you think McCain's doing? Is this the kind of campaign you expected him to run? And when you see him pushing the line that Obama is the candidate of the Muslim terrorists and anti-American marxists, how confident do you feel that you actually know the guy?
Late Update: Klein responds here at Swampland. I will follow up in a subsequent post.
--Josh Marshall
Hard To Know What To Say ...
Eleanor Clift on how it'll be retribution time a la Corleone if Hillary manages to wrestle the nomination from Barack.
--Josh Marshall
Know Your Audience, Know Your Economy ...
Following up on the post from earlier this morning about Sen. McCain's claim that you can't find Americans willing to do hard manual labor for $50 an hour, this from the TPM mailbag ...
My name is Kevin Flynn, I am the legislative/political director for the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. Our union is an affiliate of the BCTD. I was at the legislative conference when McCain lost his cool and began this tirade. Your readers are correct, his assertion was that no American would be willing to do this work for $50.00 an hour. There are those who will argue that offering such a wage to American workers would not be adequate incentive, but clearly to an audience of construction workers this is not the case. Our president was behind him on stage when he made this asinine comment in response to the public outcry he received because of his very vocal support of comprehensive immigration reform, Our president(and myself since I worked in the field as well) was struck dumb because our members(not unlike those of the other trades represented in the crowd) work 8-12 hours each day in the heat throughout the country bending over and laying 80 lb concrete blocks, heavy stone & marble, brick, and working in hellish conditions worse than the Arizona summer.Your original point was correct, John McCain is clueless when it comes to the economy or the experiences of ordinary people who work for a living. His only working experiences were as a pilot in the Navy and as a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It should be very apparent from this ludicrous offer he made to people doing similar work and in a fair number of states for less. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
--Josh Marshall
Better For All Concerned
I've gotten a sense of this looking over the exit polls over the last couple months. Now Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News Service has put it together in an article. The issue of race and whether that is what has prevented Barack Obama from cutting into Hillary Clinton's vote totals in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania has been a dicey and toxic question in this primary campaign -- and one that's not good (though in different ways) for either candidate.
But what Tilove points out is that at least a very substantial part of what's going is not whites voting against Obama because of race but women, particularly white women, voting for Hillary because of gender. This is something that shows up not only in the breakdown of the white female vote but the turnout of female voters in this year's primaries.
Tilove has various data points. But in Pennsylvania, for example, white women went for Clinton 68% - 33%. And they made up 46% of the electorate. Meanwhile, white men went for Clinton 57%-43% and made up only 33% of the electorate.
There are some questions the numbers themselves won't tell you. Is Hillary's still-strong showing among white men nonetheless an example of white resistance on the basis of Obama's race? While I think race is and will continue (if Obama's the nominee) to play a key role in this campaign, there's simply no basis to infer this just on the basis of the number spread.
But I see no reasonable argument that white women are more resistant to voting for a black man than white men. So in this case, I think we can reasonably infer from the poll numbers what common sense would likely tell us is obvious: that a big factor in this contest is women voting for Hillary because of her gender -- whether in the sense of identifying with her and her take on key issues or because of the historic nature of her candidacy.
This doesn't rule out racial voting -- but it does narrow the potential scope of it. And, as I alluded in the title of the post, it's one of these facts that has the virtue, in addition to being true, of casting the whole process in a much less toxic, divisive light.
--Josh Marshall
Don't Need a Weatherman to Know ...
As you know the Weather Underground, the somewhat hapless but definitely violent 60s and 70s radical group, has bubbled up into the 2008 presidential campaign. It's come up against Obama for his association with Bill Ayers and then Obama brought it up in response because Bill Clinton pardoned two former Weathermen in his end of presidency pardons.
Inside Edition of all places asked Hillary about the pardons and her response was that "Well, I didn't know anything about it."
Now, we've gotten a lot of emails from readers asking for us to follow up on this. And we ask for clarification from the Clinton campaign about just what she meant because I found her statement ambiguous. Did she mean she didn't knowing anything about it at the time? Or that she didn't know about it until Barack Obama brought it up in the debate. And Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told Greg Sargent that she was "unaware before it was done," which I take to mean that she wasn't privy to any of the discussions about it before the pardon and basically only heard about it in the newspapers like the rest of us.
But as New York Newsday points out, the murders in question (the crime the two individuals were in prison for) took place in New York. And the campaign to get them pardons and the opposition to it got a lot of publicity in New York in the summer and fall of 2000, when Clinton was initially running for senate. Newsday's blog has a chronology of who was doing what, including Sen. Schumer's lobbying against the pardon. So take a look and let us know what you think. For my part I think it makes her claim not to have known anything about this seem a bit dubious.
--Josh Marshall
McCain's "Respectful" Campaign, vol. 1, no. 3
McCain today on Barack Obama ...
I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader BO for the catch.)
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) tried to lean on a federal prosecutor, then tried to get him fired, and all he got for it was this letter of qualified admonition from the Senate Ethics Committee.
--David Kurtz
Fair and Balanced
A senior Obama adviser tells TPM Election Central that Obama will "take Fox on" in his Fox News appearance Sunday.
--David Kurtz
Livin' Large in the Lettuce Field
I've been giving a lot of thought to how John McCain could have changed his positions on the economy by 180 degrees, not once, but actually twice in the last decade. There are many examples. But the clearest is on tax policy. Remember, McCain was one of the few Republicans who voted against the Bush tax cuts. And he was quite clear at the time that he did so not only on fiscal responsibility and deficit grounds but on equity grounds equally if not more so. Now, he's not only championing the tax cuts he voted against and pushing for them to be made permanent; he's pushing for a new round of tax cuts on the Bush model.
There's a reason why McCain has been relatively consistent over the last decade on foreign policy but all over the map on economic policy: he just doesn't know very much about economics. That's something he's often admitted. But I'm surprised at a number of his quotes over the last year that have cast this point into exceptionally high relief.
This got a little attention at the time. But in a Q&A with construction and building trade unions, in an effort to illustrate why undocumented migrant farm workers will do work Americans will not, he used this example ...
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here $50 an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So -- OK? Sign up. OK.You sign up. You sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season. OK? Not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend.
(ed.note: see further discussion of what McCain might have meant below.)
Undocumented migrant farm workers make $50 an hour? Let's do the math. Obviously the work is seasonal, not all year long, but let's compute it on an annualized basis. $50 x 8 hours (which understates the hours) = $400 a day x 5 is $2000 a week x 52 is $104,000 a year.
I think would put these migrant farm workers in like the top 5% of the US labor force in income. Does this guy have any idea how much money ordinary Americans make or don't make?
Late Update: Some readers say that I've misconstrued McCain's meaning, that he's not saying migrant farm workers make $100,000 a year but that Americans wouldn't do the work even if it paid $100,000 a year. And on second reading I think they may be right. But in terms of out being of touch with the wages most Americans make, I think it's basically the same difference. Who thinks you couldn't find Americans willing to work in lettuce fields if it paid over $100,000 a year? US labor statistics say the actual wage for this work is about $10,000 per year. And at that wage -- which, let's be honest, we all reap a benefit from in the form of cheap lettuce prices -- no wonder Americans are unwilling to do it.
--Josh Marshall
Bad Senator! Bad Senator!
Senate Committee 'admonishes' ("qualified admonition") Sen. Domenici for pressure phone call to later-canned US Attorney David Iglesias.
--Josh Marshall
Nonsense!
Well, reporters did ask John McCain today during his trip to New Orleans about Rev. John Hagee's remarks that Hurricane Katrina was punishment for the sins of New Orleans:
"It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. I dont have anything additional to say. It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, I don't have anything more to say....it's nonsense. I reject it categorically."
--David Kurtz
Organize, Organize, Organize
For now at least, the DNC has decided not to seat delegates from the non-DNC-sanctioned primary held in Michigan in January. Hillary Clinton won 55% of the vote in the election in which only her name (of the remaining candidates) was on the ballot. But now this weekend in state district conventions to choose delegates, Clinton supporters have managed to get not only the delegate slots that voted for her but as many of half the delegate slots that voted 'uncommitted'.
It helps to have the party apparatus on your side.
Late Update: Chris Bowers has more (and in some critical instances more accurate) information
--Josh Marshall
Matthew Yglesias observes that Obama and Hillary suddenly stopped talking about foreign policy -- and wonders why.
--David Kurtz
No Comment
Dana Perino: You can chase me around this podium and I still won't comment on today's North Korea-Syria briefings to Congress:
Late today, after the White House press briefing, Perino released the following statement:
Today, administration officials have briefed select Congressional committees on an issue of great international concern. Until Sept. 6, 2007, the Syrian regime was building a covert nuclear reactor in its eastern desert capable of producing plutonium. We are convinced, based on a variety of information, that North Korea assisted Syria's covert nuclear activities. We have good reason to believe that reactor, which was damaged beyond repair on Sept. 6 of last year, was not intended for peaceful purposes. Carefully hidden from view, the reactor was not configured for such purposes. In defiance of its international obligations, Syria did not inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the construction of the reactor, and, after it was destroyed, the regime moved quickly to bury evidence of its existence. This cover-up only served to reinforce our confidence that this reactor was not intended for peaceful activities.We are briefing the IAEA on this intelligence. The Syrian regime must come clean before the world regarding its illicit nuclear activities. The Syrian regime supports terrorism, takes action that destabilizes Lebanon, allows the transit of some foreign fighters into Iraq, and represses its own people. If Syria wants better relations with the international community, it should put an end to these activities.
We have long been seriously concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its proliferation activities. North Korea's clandestine nuclear cooperation with Syria is a dangerous manifestation of those activities. One way we have chosen to deal with this problem is through the Six Party Framework. Through this process we are working with our partners to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The United States is also committed to ensuring that North Korea does not further engage in proliferation activities. We will work with our partners to establish in the Six Party Framework a rigorous verification mechanism to ensure that such conduct and other nuclear activities have ceased.
The construction of this reactor was a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the region and the world. This is particularly true because it was done covertly and in violation of the very procedures designed to reassure the world of the peaceful intent of nuclear activities. This development also serves as a reminder that often the same regimes that sponsor proliferation also sponsor terrorism and foster instability, and cooperate with one another in doing so. This underscores that the international community is right to be very concerned about the nuclear activities of Iran and the risks those activities pose to the stability of the Middle East. To confront this challenge, the international community must take further steps, beginning with the full implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions dealing with Iranian nuclear activities. The United States calls upon the international community to redouble our common efforts to ending these activities and preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction in this critical region.
--David Kurtz
Getting the Engines Revved Up
A group called "Savethevoters.org: a non-profit movement" has commissioned a poll purporting to show that "the eventual Democratic nominee is poised to lose over 30% of disenfranchised Democratic primary voters in Florida and Michigan in the general election if the DNC does not seat these state delegations according to the will of the people."
According to the "Brief History" posted at group's website: "SaveTheVoters.org was originally started by A.S. Achrol and A. Joseph Rao, a scientist studying neurosurgery at Stanford Medical School and a medical research scientist in Boston. The founders have long pushed for greater access to medical literature and life-saving treatments in the medical sciences and believe that the concept of access is one born out of the American way of life and is tied to access and accountability in our democracy ..."
The group's website address was registered on March 12th of this year.
--Josh Marshall
Cuz I'm Tough Enough, and Strong Enough ...
If John McCain can't stand up to the North Carolina GOP swift-boat freaks, how can he stand up to al Qaeda?
--Josh Marshall
Telling It Like It Is
Reed Hundt calls out the person really behind the growing chorus of right-wing attacks on Obama: John McCain.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Clinton's New Math
With the pledged delegate lead now out of reach, the Clinton campaign is focused on the popular vote. In today's episode of TPMtv, Greg Sargent looks at the different ways to slice and dice the numbers and what it would take for Sen. Clinton to grab hold of the popular vote lead ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
Unraveling?
First, it was supposed to be video of North Koreans inside of Syria's alleged nuke facility. Then it turned out the "video" was really just the intel community's own presentation, which contained still photographs.
Now Reuters seems to knock the story back another notch:
A U.S. official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss classified matters, said that among the intelligence the United States has was an image of what appeared to be people of Korean descent at the facility.
"Appeared to be people of Korean descent"?
As a friend of the site wondered in a email a little while ago: "I'm not sure how one would recognize NKs in photos...'Hard Rock Café Pyongyang' T-shirts?"
Late Update: The Financial Times offers a more definitive account from a source:
One photograph shows a North Korean nuclear scientist named Chon Chibu standing beside a person believed to be his Syrian counterpart. Mr Chon has worked at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which produced the material for the bomb North Korea tested in 2006, and has dealt with US officials in the past. The US official said the date of the meeting was unclear, but said the vintage of a car that appears in the background suggests it was sometime after 2005.
--David Kurtz
Hands Off
What does the FBI do when faced with evidence of torture by the U.S. government?
--David Kurtz
D'oh!
Always wait for the fine print.
We've been hearing for several days now that the White House was poised to released new videotape showing incontrovertible evidence of North Korean helping the Syrians build the alleged nuclear facilities the Israeli air force destroyed last September.
Well. Read down in the details. Now it appears there's actually no videotape -- only still photos. The 'videotape' is a videotape of the still photos.
As one "US official" told AFP, "There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it's a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It's not a video of the facility."
--Josh Marshall
Big Bucks
The Clinton campaign is sticking by its claim that it raised $10 million between the time the polls closed in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and 11 ET last night.
--David Kurtz
Hurricane Hagee
John McCain is in New Orleans' 9th Ward today as part of his "poverty tour," which prompts TPM Reader BM to recall McCain's endorsement by the Rev. John Hagee:
It's probably folly to think that a member of the press corps would ask McCain about whether he believed that New Orleans' sinfulness is responsible for the damage inflicted by the hurricane, as his endorser continues to allege.
Here's Hagee on "the homosexual parade" that prompted God to unleash Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, from TPMtv (starts at the 3:17 mark):
Late Update: Hagee essentially repeated his verdict as recently as this week.
[Special Thanks to TPM Reader JY.]
Super Late Update: McCain told reporters today that Hagee's suggestion was "nonsense," according to Fox:
"It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. I dont have anything additional to say. It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, I don't have anything more to say....it's nonsense. I reject it categorically."
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The CIA has some 7,000 documents responsive to human rights groups' FOIA requests for more information about secret detentions, renditions, and torture -- but it's not going to turn them over.
--David Kurtz
If At First You Don't Succeed . . .
After two mistrials, the feds decide to try the Liberty Seven Six (one was acquitted) for a third time.
--David Kurtz
Hitting Us Where It Hurts
As you've probably read, lawmakers are being briefed today by the Bush Administration on the intelligence gathered in advance of that Israeli strike last year on what the U.S. and Israel claim was a nascent Syrian nuclear weapons facility.
Included in the case against Syria (and North Korea) is a videotape purportedly taken inside the facility that shows North Koreans present.
As you might imagine, that hasn't sat too well with the Syrians, but come on, this is hitting below the belt:
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. "If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around," he said.
Ouch. Isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on our goof? I mean it's been five years since Colin Powell's UN presentation. And look at all we've done since: brought peace and stability to Iraq, made real progress on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, calmed world financial markets.
You'd think they could overlook this one little hiccup in light of all our other good deeds. Not to mention the catharsis we've undergone here at home: the extensive congressional hearings on the misuse of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Dick Cheney's teary apology in the well of the Senate, Bush's re-election in 2004. Look at the disgrace it has brought to the Republican Party: John McCain is barely running even with the Democrats in national polls.
Can't the world see? We've changed.
--David Kurtz
Getting Real
I think I've said this a hundred times, as have many others. But this article in Thursday's Times is a good moment to revisit the point. As Patrick Healy explains, it is simply a fallacy to claim that winning a state's Democratic primary means you're more likely to win that state in the general election or that your opponent can't win it.
The dynamics are simply different between general elections and primaries. You have on the one hand patterns and preferences that Democratic voters show for different candidates in Democratic primaries. Then you have the separate question of whether these same voters will vote for the Democratic or the Republican nominee in the general. One is simply not predictive of the other. It could be -- if one candidate's voters simply refuse to vote for the other candidate. But who wins a primary doesn't tell you that.
And it's really not a big mystery that the argument doesn't hold up because it wasn't devised or conceived as an electoral argument. It's a political argument -- one that only really came into operation at the point at which the Clinton campaign realized that it was far enough behind that it's path to the nomination required making the argument to superdelegates that she's electable and Obama is not.
That's not to say there isn't a difference between the two as general election candidates -- at least in their current incarnations. There is. It's just not this big state nonsense. Peter Hart who, for what it's worth is actually part of the same polling firm as Hillary's new pollster/strategist Geoff Garin (though himself not working with either candidate), comes much closer to the mark when he says in the Times article, "Hillary goes deeper and stronger in the Democratic base than Obama, but her challenge is that she doesn't go as wide. Obama goes much further reaching into the independent and Republican vote, and has a greater chance of creating a new electoral map for the Democrats."
That's the essence of it. But there's actually a little more than that too when you combine that partisan analysis with a geographical one.
There's not a lot of good or consistent polling state by state yet. But we were looking today at what polling data is out there. Clinton is running a bit better against McCain in the rustbelt states that sit just above the Mason-Dixon line. That's principally Ohio (see Ohio polls) and Pennsylvania (see PA polls). The state where you see this pattern more wildly than anywhere is in Kentucky. (See KY polls). Clinton loses to McCain there but respectably, whereas Obama simply gets slaughtered. SurveyUSA has polled the state three times in the last eight weeks and the last two times McCain beats Obama better than two to one.
Kentucky isn't really an issue in itself. It's highly unlikely either Democrat would win it. But it's the best example I've seen where Clinton appears to run dramatically stronger than Obama.
But this isn't the whole story.
In a whole arc of territory stretching from the Great Lakes through the upper Midwest down into the inter-mountain West Obama consistently runs stronger than Hillary. Some of these states are ones Democrats really must win in order to win a general election -- states like Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Others are states red states that have been trending blue but which Obama appears able to put in play while Hillary can't. Colorado is a good example. The last four polls of the state show Obama tied or ahead of McCain while McCain beats Hillary handily. The most recent poll -- April 21st -- has Obama beating McCain by 3 points while McCain is beating Hillary by 14 points.
Given the spottiness of state by state polls, for now it's best to watch the national popular vote polls, which show the two Democrats basically even in how they'd face McCain. But there are differences. They run better in different parts of the country. But the 'big state' argument is just malarkey, an artifact of the spin necessities of the post-Super Tuesday campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Doesn't Hold Water
Ed Kilgore weighs in on the debate between John Judis and Jon Chait over whether Obama is being McGovernized.
--Josh Marshall
Elizabeth Warren and Dana Chasin discuss bankruptcy reform in the context of the housing crisis.
--David Kurtz
Go Terry!
Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe fluffs Fox News so hard they've made him into the new network promo ...
--Josh Marshall
The Bright Side
I've said this a number of times in conversations with friends and I'm not sure if I've written it up on TPM or not. But while there a lot of downsides for the Democrats about the current primary campaign (regrettably, so many self-inflicted), there is one thing that I think bodes well for the Democrats -- or at least shows a problem for John McCain.
That is this: right now McCain is enjoying his post-nomination-clinching honeymoon. He's also got the field completely clear. No one's out there whacking him everyday, which means the press has no McCain-whacking stories to churn through. On the other hand, the Democrats are beating each other senseless. They daily hit on each others' weaknesses, which not only airs their dirty laundry, and gets the press to talk about it. It also breeds resentment between the supporters of the Democratic candidates, thus pushing up the number Democrats saying they're unwilling to vote for the possible nominee. Put that all together and John McCain is enjoying the most favorable environment he's going to get right now and the Democrat (whoever is the nominee) is probably suffering the worst. And with all that, the race appears to be essentially tied.
I don't want to be Polyannish. With all the terrible news Republicans are getting these days and with an incumbent Republican president who is now more unpopular than any president in modern history, the fact that the Republicans have a nominee who is very much in the race is little short of astounding and very disheartening for any Democrat. With all that said, though, this simple fact should not be forgotten. I assure you smart Republican strategists are not.
--Josh Marshall
Just Wondrin'
As you know, on Sunday the Times published a blockbuster article detailing how the Pentagon has used a mix of control of access, defense contracts and more to get network "military analysts" to spout Pentagon talking points in their on-camera analysis. In some cases they even appear to have gotten the analysts to report back to them on what news stories the nets had coming down the pike.
Anybody notice any of the networks -- broadcast or cable -- picking up the story?
--Josh Marshall
$10 Million in 24 Hours?
That's how much the Clinton campaign says it expects to pull in between last night's win and the end of the day today.
For comparison, Richard Nixon's entire 1960 campaign cost about $10 million, which was more than JFK spent to win the presidency that year. That's not adjusted for inflation, and the 1960 election pre-dated Watergate-era reforms, so it's not a precise comparison.
But still, $10 million in 24 hours?
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Pennsylvania Post-Game
Hillary Clinton achieved a solid victory in the Pennsylvania Primary Tuesday night, but just how much does her 10-point win change the look of the Democratic nomination battle? We break down some numbers in today's episode of TPMtv ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
Interests in Common?
Some very interesting news today out of the trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, one-time Barack Obama fundraiser and friend.
On the national level, Patrick Fitzgerald is best known as a scourge of the Bush White House, because of his role investigating the Plame leak. But he's very much an equal opportunity prosecutor. And back in Illinois he's been whacking away at the administration of Democratic Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. So if Fitzgerald was the toast of Dems nationally that was very much not the case in Illinois where he's actually US Attorney.
So this morning we have this, from the Chicago Tribune ...
More bombshells were lobbed in the Antoin "Tony" Rezko trial even before the jury was seated this morning and they involved a purported attempt to pull strings with the White House to fire U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald. In a hearing before court began, prosecutors said they hoped to call Ali Ata, the former Blagojevich administration official who pleaded guilty to corruption yesterday, to the stand.Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton said she believed Ata would testify to conversations Ata had with his political patron, Rezko, about working to pull strings to kill the criminal investigation into Rezko and others when it was in its early stages in 2004.
"[Ata] had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.
That sentence is loaded with a who's who of political heavyweights. Bob Kjellander was the veteran Republican National Committeeman from Illinois who was a sometimes business associate of Stuart Levine, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Rezko to rig state boards for contracts.
Remember too, this isn't the first we've heard that Fitzgerald may have been on the chopping block in the US Attorney purge. Rove of course has never had to testify about the purge. But his minion and doppelganger Kyle Sampson did have to testify and was obliged to concede (see video here) that he had recommended Fitzgerald's ouster.
We'll have more on this shortly.
(ed.note: Special thanks to TPM Reader GN for the tip.)
Late Update: Paul Kiel has more.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer of Colorado: human rights investigator and parasailer.
--David Kurtz
Decimalist Backlash!
On our election scoreboard to the right we're showing a 10 point margin for Sen. Clinton. But we're hearing from a lot of Obama supporters saying that isn't right. Many of them are pointing to the official Pennsylvania Secretary of State website which has ...
Clinton 1,237,696 54.26%
Obama 1,043,174 45.74%
Only one problem. Those numbers are out of date. Sorry to disappoint. But they're out of date. It may sound weird that the media sites have more up to date numbers than the state itself which is holding the election. But that's completely normal.
AP's current numbers, which most media sites (including TPM) are showing is ...
Clinton 1,258,245 54.69%
Obama 1,042,297 45.31%
So according to TPM numbers wizard Eric Kleefeld, that's actually a 9.39 point spread, not 10. I trust this has acquitted us of our mathematical responsibilities for the day.
Late Update: Above I said that the state numbers were out of date and that AP (the second set of numbers) are more current. However, a number of you have noted that Obama has about a thousand more votes in the state numbers than the more current AP numbers. So that doesn't compute. The explanation is this. In pretty much every election the state itself and the AP are getting numbers at slightly different rates. Not just that one is faster but they're receiving them differently. So for instance, the state could have one precinct in that AP doesn't and vice versa. How can that be? Basically the AP has people contacting the precincts directly and the state is waiting for the counts to be reported directly to the state official charged with running the elections. Basically it should all sort out over the course of the day. But with that caveat the AP number has a higher percentage of the vote tabulated and should, at least for now, be viewed as the more accurate number.
--Josh Marshall
Status Quo Ante
Lots of spin coming from both campaigns tonight. I'd say the real story is that this leaves us basically where we were. It was a decisive win for Hillary but that was the expectation. Going into tonight I think the dividing line was about 8 points. Closer than that and the story would have been that Obama didn't win but closed the margin (which is how it looked early in the evening). A bigger margin than that and the story would be that Hillary got her big victory. So the 10 point spread is close to the dividing line but on Hillary's side of it. There's a lot of crowing from Hillary's campaign tonight about a shift in momentum and doubts about Obama. Tomorrow there will be a lot of chatter from Obama's campaign that none of that really matters because of the reality of the delegate numbers which won't change much.
Like I said, I think that means we're basically right where we were.
--Josh Marshall
Remaining Precincts #2
As we noted in the last update, the remaining precincts are mainly in the Philly suburbs where Obama has done well tonight. And that suggests that the margin could tighten a little bit in Obama's direction. But that was the case an hour ago. And Hillary's margin has actually slightly crept up since then -- from around 8% to 10%.
--Josh Marshall
Remaining Precincts
The word going into tonight was that it would be Clinton's counties coming in late. But Chuck Todd just did a presentation on MSNBC which suggested that the remaining precincts may lean slightly in Obama's direction. Apparently there's a lot of suburban Philly still left to report.
Another story coming out of tonight is that Obama's margin in the City of Philadelphia does not appear to have been as big as many people expected. (I'm sure there will be speculation about whether Obama's refusal to pay "street money" was a factor. But remember, Hillary did have Mayor Nutter plus Gov. Rendell, who's a former Mayor of Philadelphia, on her side. I suspect that was at least as big a factor.)
Late Update: Another great Matthews' line for the evening, discussing the great cleavage in society -- "African Americans" and "white liberals" vs. "regular people".
--Josh Marshall
"It's too debonaire; it's too Fred Astaire; it's too Kumbaya." Talking about Barack Obama, Chris Matthews' quote of the evening.
So far.
--Josh Marshall
Latest
10% of precincts reporting, it's a ten point spread -- 55%-45% Clinton.
--Josh Marshall
I'm not sure I've ever heard a higher proportion of hypothetical spin on both sides in the absence of voting numbers. At the moment Tim Russert is going back and forth making each campaign's arguments based on various hypothetical vote spread.
--Josh Marshall
Fox calling for it Hillary. So far the other nets holding back.
NBC calls it for Hillary.
ABC and CBS too.
--Josh Marshall
Breaking!
First Matthews tirade of the evening ... developing.
Matthews wigging out about role of money in HRC's campaign, why surrogates can't pay for their own plane tickets.
As I write Fineman and Olbermann are trying to talk him down.
--Josh Marshall
Looking Over the Exits
While we're waiting, this is really going to be a question of whether these exits poll, which have now been officially released by the networks, are close to accurate.
Here's the big story. According to CNN, Obama is narrowly winning among men (53%-47%), and Hillary is winning women, (55%-44%). As has been the case in almost all the big primaries, women significantly outnumber men in the Democratic primary electorate. According to the exits 58% of voters were female.
So it's closer to the percentage among female vote percentage than the men's. But that still leaves you with a very tight race -- something on the order of a 3-5 point win for Clinton. So a win, but by no means a big one.
All that said, remember, the exits out of Ohio had it a much closer race than it ended up being.
--Josh Marshall
Alright. 5 minutes to 8 PM. Nothing left to do now but listen to the returns and crack jokes about Chris Matthews.
Late Update: Actually, don't know what I was thinking. Russert too.
--Josh Marshall
Break Outs
CNN has some exit poll demographics ...
White men -- 55% for Clinton.
Over 65 -- 61% for Clinton.
African-Americans -- 92% for Obama.
--Josh Marshall
Exits: Been There, Done That
As you may have noticed Drudge has up what he says are 5 PM exit poll numbers showing Clinton 52%, Obama 48%. I suspect they are 'accurate' as far as early, un-weighted exits can be. But let me point out that my recollection is that pretty much all the early and unweighted exits we've seen this cycle have turned out to be wrong. And often very wrong. So this has to be taken with a real grain of salt. And that's assuming they're not made up entirely.
Late Update: Jim Geraghty at NRO has Obama 52%, Clinton 47%.
And to be clear, when I say take them with a grain of salt, I don't mean that in the garden variety, being responsible, 'we don't know for sure yet' kind of way. I really mean that these early unweighted numbers have routinely been way, way off.
Later Update: Brendan Loy looked at some earlier states and seems to have confirmed what was my recollection that the early exits have not only routinely been wrong but they've routinely been wrong in Obama's favor.
--Josh Marshall
Things Are Tough All Over
It turns out it's not just the big global powers that have to worry about odd-ball conspiracies misleading potential supporters and tarnishing their image abroad. Seems the upstarts don't have it that easy either. Usually it's Israel or various anti-defamation type groups lashing out at conspiracy theorists alleging that Israel had some role in the 9/11 attacks. But now al Qaeda is lashing out at Iran for spreading conspiracy theories alleging an Israeli role in the attacks. And not some pseudo-qaeda like the outfit in Iraq, but the genuine article.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is attacking Iran for spreading the Israel-9/11 conspiracy theory in order to deny Sunni al Qaeda its hard-earned reputation as the leading practitioner of mass-casualty terrorist attacks against America.
"The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history," said Zawahiri.
Late Update: As a number of you have noted, Zawahiri seems to be cribbing his latest from this old episode from the Onion News Network ...
--Josh Marshall
On The Other Hand
Mark Blumenthal, who's the aforementioned Franklin's partner in putting together the Pollster.com site, has a far more agnostic take on what we know about tonight's results from the available poll data. He's actually got an interesting caveat about the suggestion that undecideds seem to be 'breaking' for Clinton.
--Josh Marshall