Blog entries for daveclay

Clinton's Electability pry bar... Obama machine rolls on...

daveclay — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:04:38 GMT

This is The Primary. The one to remember, one for the books. For over a year, maybe two years now, America has followed politics like never before. From the inevitability of Hillary Clinton's early cinch to the inevitability of Obama's post-Iowa poll surge, entire encyclopedias have been written and thrown out after primary after caucus. And at this point in the twilight months before the General kicks off, we have that perfect perspective of history and maybe a bit of nostalgia for those exciting days leading up to Super Tuesday when all things two massively funded campaigns could buy seemed possible.

David Axelrod is on CNN, looking extremely calm and confident, maybe a bit tired now with that feeling of certainty for Obama's nomination. This might be surprising, as Indiana will likely go to Clinton by the time I'm done writing this. But he knows that Obama's weathered so many of these Clinton wins and held his lead in delegates and the popular vote. Clinton takes wins in general election swing states and claims each as the start of a Momentum that never seems to manifest itself. Obama has steadily worked the right groups and the right crowds to keep himself in the lead - never quite overcoming Clinton's base states, but certainly gouging away at her once double-digit leads to limit her take-home delegates to single digits.

The pundits and Clinton herself are hammering home the big Electability question, the last stance she can make as a losing horse in the fourth turn. Will it work? No, but it doesn't have to in terms of the remaining primaries. Clinton is positioning herself for the Convention battle, which looms dark black and ominous just over the horizon, before the New Day dawns on August 29th. The Electability question will work like a pry bar to work a deal between superdelegates and the DNC to seat all those Florida and Michigan delegates... where Obama's staff will face trench warfare across makeshift private phone lines sprawling through the Pepsi Center in Denver connecting them to Clinton staffers armed to the teeth with vicious, mechanical precision. Bill Clinton will be on hand with his experienced staff pulling favors at 3am.

Or maybe it will come sooner, a slow burn tactic from the Clinton campaign in the early weeks of June when the final primaries are done and the dust has settled. Maybe the question should be whether Clinton needs the approval of the primary voters across the country to throw a coup de'tat at the Convention. A majority of Obama's supporters so far would support a Clinton nomination if she were to win, but those numbers are surely based on Clinton winning a hypothetical popular vote and delegate count going into the Convention... Clinton leveraging Michigan and Florida delegates to take the nomination behind closed doors, with CNN and Fox News Breaking News some evening on Tuesday, August 26th would cleave the party clean in half. Obama supports would be left out in a disillusioned and angry daze at which point every corner of lunatic will be making phone calls and pundits will be falling off their chairs. No, she'll want a commitment early for those faceless delegates, who kicked and cawed to make themselves important in a campaign that has run the length and breadth of American politics. Who knows, maybe in a cruel twist of irony, they'll become The Deciders in June and July as Clinton focuses everything on taking the popular vote and delegate lead from Obama.

The long hard 3/4 beat-down delegate dance

daveclay — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:28:05 GMT

Obama is coming on early in TX, but Clinton's OH numbers are big, generating excitement for her crowd in Columbus...

Texas is comprised of an insane conglomerate of primary and caucus events that the major news outlets don't even bother to explain.

The advertisements seemed to work for Clinton in OH. The sleeping baby faces, the children innocent and soft... the red phone ringing with Clinton on the other end. After 8 years war, America seems ready to elect another president with an itchy trigger finger. The impact wasn't so much the ad as was the limited response of Obama. This is presidential politics, a harsh rough kick in the teeth reality in the identity of America. Fear is King here, Mr. Buchanan. Scarborough talking about 9/11 leadership and extending the peace dividends into the future. This is politics at its best, and the pundits can't help but squirm giddily red-faced shouting for more... I'm playing along at home with a bottle of fine red wine and a giant doctored map of Fear America.

It seems the polls are often the target of malice from pundits who've put their name on the line based on delusional number trends. What I'm seeing in OH and TX right now are falling right in line, more or less, for good or ill. I don't know if anyone had a real gut feeling that any normal deviation would result in either candidate walking away from tonight with confidence in the nomination. The candidates are up against the numbers behind those polls regardless of their steadfast posturing, and the Clinton-Obama struggle has defined the new numbers game: Age, Gender, Race, Income, Education... each campaign targeting The Base and The Independents with military precision, while holding the line that somehow none of unique characteristics of this nomination are in question.

Mike Huckabee's on television bleeding his red Isaiah-quoting heart out for the Republican party, riding high on his tenacity and a handful of those true GOP gunslingers hell-bent on following Gingrich to defeat Clinton, Obama, McCain, and anything else weird, liberal, and weak they find rotting on the side of the campaign trail. McCain's still loved enough in the party that the insane calls by Limbaugh to commit high treason against a McCain-led GOP nomination will fall on the deaf ears of his few political fanboys.

But really, what's at stake here?

Clinton's going to win <i>something</i> tonight, meaning Obama's long streak of victories fell exactly in line with a lot of Clinton campaign managers - but architected for failure with notion of these late-state "firewalls" that now hold up the last remnants of her tireless campaign. Regardless of her wins tonight, the long hard fight will continue to PA on April 22nd. It will be there, not tonight, that the Democratic party will decide whether the popular vote dictates the nominee, or whether the backroom deals that dealt the fatal blow in 1968 with the Vietnam war brought home to the streets of Chicago... ultimately leading to the sad collapse of the new & young McGovern, carrying with him those hopes of all those activists to his political grave. Exit light, Enter Reagan. Now OH's numbers are at 31% in with Clinton pushing for a huge 60/40 split, which is sticking in Obama's throat tonight. Seeing his clean, idyllic image forsaken for traditional negative campaigning. The downfall of the liberal elite. This is why Obama needed all those quiet, insignificant states and that big significant win in WI earlier: the poll numbers are still dictating a long road for Obama. Clinton won't go down without serious firepower against Obama and a furious appeal to the superdelegates to overturn a popular vote against The People. It will be an appeal to some historical ruleset of the Democratic party, that the rules are there to protect the people from their own ignorance and insignificance.

Dear God... it'll only get <i>weirder</i>. Amen.

Election Day, the early notes of WI's take on ending Bush Doctrine.

daveclay — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:30:27 GMT

Between calls of plagiarism and pride offensives against the Obama campaign, the Clinton campaign remains iron-clad, going up against a rough Wisconsin primary. The attacks today probably won't last beyond today, but offensives have short-term goals in this late campaign. We're getting down to the last days, and either candidate can get sloppy and loose with words. They're both waiting anxiously for the other to make that one fatal mistake after some hard volley. One minor break, like Obama slipping up a campaign speech or some faint gem of a skeleton in the closet... Obama taking his supporter and colleague's speech isn't quite at that level. No doubt, the media are digging up supporter-experts in every corner that'll fuel the fire.

Of course, the debate over the details of plagiarism misses the point. This is presidential politics - the attack is made, and the soldiers move on to the next offensive. Fire and forget, full-speed ahead.

Obama isn't above the fray in this either. He's run a mind-bending campaign with all the right strategies, a near-perfect machine operating efficiently across the nation. Enough to wage this long campaign against Clinton's massive poll numbers. Here in Milwaukee at the Wisconsin Founders Gala Obama fired on Clinton, using his standard munitions of her connections to lobbyists, and same-old Washington experience. Obama's sticking with what's worked for him.

Ah, campaign numbers coming up now on television. The challenge for Obama is to hold off the old democratic groups prevalent in the more rural areas of Wisconsin. The worker unions and more practical factions of the state can compete with the liberal epicenters of Madison and UW-Milwaukee. Television is asking the same redundant questions of importance of states, an echo of the same question asked every primary. For Obama, this is indeed an important state. For Clinton, she can lose and still maintain a hard fight in TX, OH, PA - she's held him in check through 8 wins in smaller states against Obama's machine. As long as she holds Obama to within 20 or so delegates, she has enough numbers to still win the popular vote.

For Obama, a "surprise" loss (poll numbers are within the error margin) would limit his ability to claim momentum after his touted 8 victory streak. If Clinton remains strong tonight, Obama has to consider those tight margins in TX and OH as last stands, with a good portion of PA's delegates going to Clinton. A win here in Wisconsin is critical for continuing to wear down Clinton's lead, the difficult long road he chose a year ago.

Why do we tuck ourselves into our coats to fend of the bitter cold & snow to vote in record numbers across Wisconsin tonight? Is there meaning to any of this political warfare? It seems like politics has struck some raw nerve ending deep within America. There was a great & terrible reckoning after 9/11 when we all woke to horrifying consequences of national security and foreign policy. Maybe its the desperation of ending a doomed Bush Doctrine that segregated the country... We're all tied a little more into the global screw now.

Until tomorrow..

Election Day, the early notes.

daveclay — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:43:46 GMT

A stinging cold morning on election day. Vote early & vote often, as they say in Kenya. It should be an exciting hour or so tonight as I watch the returns and see if my predictions pay off.

Today's starting out with Obama enjoying a narrow, within-the-error-margin lead in the polls, meaning little chance of a big win out of WI for him tonight. At least according to the numbers. I believe he'll do better than expected, perhaps taking a 9% margin over Clinton. This is based largely on hard research in my own voter demographic - the liberal gun toting rock n' roll vote, a widely neglected group. And for good reason. Reporters and politicians rarely wish to be associated with the high scream of a Marshall full stack blasting broad themes of Justice and Equality, pointed directly at tearing down established conservative policies of war. They've been neither centrist nor practical, but they certainly spoke loud. Fogerty, Hendrix, Springsteen, Dylan, Stones, Paris, Steve Earl, Nine Inch Nails, and a slew of other undesirables you wouldn't want showing up in your poll numbers. Never mind them, it was their drug and alcohol soaked brains... which is what I'll blame if I'm wrong about today.

It seems to go unnoticed that Obama's momentum can be attributed to Clinton's long history as the Democratic candidate. She had the Democratic nomination locked up in 2005 when her biggest challenge seemed to be minor characters like Richardson and Warner and maybe a second unlikely Kerry revival. Since then, those numbers have been in a long slide as an unlikely second viable and inspiring candidate has taken up position opposite her. One could make the argument that Obama has pressured Clinton to clarify and defend her policies rather than easily taking the nomination and walking into the Presidency unchallenged.

More and more time is spent on the GOP front targeting the prospect of a fractured Democratic party. The real reason this nomination has motivated Democrats in record numbers are these two unique and progressive candidates they have to choose from. You hear it from voters across the country in previous primaries and caucuses - hard choices between Clinton and Obama. The notion of a fractured doomed party is an unrealistic dream for the GOP to hook into and drag down the inevitable Democratic win in November. The superdelegate problem is also an unrealistic scenario, and a few of Clinton's superdelegate supporters are hinting at what will happen at the convention in August. Superdelegates will not override the popular vote - at least not a majority of them - and set off a maelstrom of fury and chaos going into November, regardless of whether Clinton goes into the convention with a superdelegate lead. There is no doubt that the nomination will go to the candidate with the popular vote.

And Castro has finally resigned.

Obama's in town, Rock n' Roll fans line up outside...

daveclay — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:58:16 GMT

Obama is in town this morning. He'll be speaking at the Midwest Express Convention Center, across the street from where we saw him back in April of 07 to a full house. Right now, Obama looks like he has that edge and momentum to win the nomination and once again, there's more than a few people out there making their bets. He's won the last 8 contests in smaller and mid-sized states, taking a few more than 200 delegates. He's captured the lead - even counting superdelegates - from Clinton which is by all marks a milestone. This morning, and for this weekend, Obama is focused on taking home as many of Wisconsin's 74 delegates as he can. This is absolutely necessary for him.

Clinton has a different strategy in this campaign. While Obama's had to fight hard to get to this point, Clinton's had to hang on to those high-delegate states that still poll in her favor. Similar to Giuliani's doomed run, she conceded the smaller races hoping that she'd still have enough fight in her to win the big ones. If failed miserably for Giuliani, and even Mitt who said a lot of the same things as Clinton's saying now - but Clinton certainly didn't have the lackluster indifference that GOP voters had for either Mitt or Giuliani.

Indeed, on March 4th, there are 370 delegates available in places like TX and OH, where Clinton is still polling ahead of Obama. In PA, on April 22nd, Clinton's had a long time to hold a solid 16-20 point lead in the polls, adding another 188 delegates.

In the face of what looks like her faultering campaign, with resigning staff and desperate claims to March 4th, Obama's lead is not significant enough to preclude a Clinton victory. Obama needs big wins to cut down the margins on those March 4th states, which will likely favor Clinton. The real question will be by how much they will favor Clinton. The delegates are split by congressional district and popular vote, requiring Clinton to do better than 50% to eliminate Obama's current lead. Its likely Obama will increase the lead next Tuesday in Wisconsin, probably by a better-than-expected percentage. Afterwards, however, I predict Obama will face some tough losses to Clinton with big numbers attached to them, where the thin lead Obama holds today will play a big role in holding off Clinton...

Of course poll numbers have been on a wild mood swing for most of this year. Very little holds them down, and it seems people are feeling more and more comfortable with an Obama nomination. The ephemeral momentum Obama's currently enjoying may translate into shifting poll numbers after Tuesday... but it seems to me that those steady poll numbers are anchored to people who've thought of Clinton as the nominee for a long time. Back in New Hampshire, the poll numbers went wild after Obama's surprise win in Iowa due to his well-oiled caucus machine. This time, we're seeing consistent leads by Clinton. Between Tuesday and March 4th will be the final push by both campaigns...

But I imagine those throngs of people waiting in line are expecting a fire-breathing speech from their candidate won't be thinking too hard about Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania...

Clinton's Caucus Activist Dismissals

daveclay — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:13:31 GMT

I have a few notes from 2005 mentioning Obama's name as a long-shot contender. Its what everyone had jotted down in some margin of a notebook somewhere back then. Even Obama's, probably... just a vague notion after that wild 2004 Democratic Convention speech. I should have put my money on Obama back when he was 100 to 1 in Vegas. Ah, well...

Back in 2004, he ended with the line "And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come."

But not then. And maybe not today. The only thing that was apparently capable of ending the Bush presidency was his term limit in office.

Mitt's concession speech was a targeted blow to the Democratic nomination process. Maybe Democratic Party should thank him. He suspended his campaign in order to unify the GOP behind McCain (and today endorsed him) in an election where a GOP defeat seemed inevitable a few months ago. The problem generating thousands of yards of print is how Obama and Clinton will run a split line down the Democratic party, and at the end of the line at the Democratic National Convention, the nomination might be decided in those back-room political trickery that made the 68 and 72 elections so much fun. Mathew Dowd over at ABC nails it:

It would be an untenable position for the super delegates to award the nomination to a candidate who is behind in the pledged delegate count. And if that was to happen, then the November election becomes a very difficult prospect in motivating voters who backed Obama in the nomination process. And since he seems to be the only one inspiring new voters to the polls, it is hard to dampen that enthusiasm. So the bottom line is: Obama wins the plurality of pledged delegates, then the super delegates really have to go along with what the voters want. Otherwise, what kind of authenticity would the Democratic party have if it is not about counting the votes and it becomes the decision of the Democratic version of the Supreme Court???

So far as I can tell, he's the only one who's really nailed it - most of the articles talk about the GOP perspective on this subject: How the Democrats will argue amongst themselves in a heated primary, and end up committing political suicide with the disillusionment generated from a decision made through secret deals, rather than the popular vote. But this only occurs if Obama wins the popular vote by claiming the most pledged delegates and Clinton manages to convince enough superdelegates to capture the nomination. If Obama's down in the popular vote, he won't go after the superdelegates to try and steal the popular vote away from Clinton. Call it a gut feeling, or political insight, or principal of character, whatever... I'll put serious money on anyone who wants that sad, sorry bet. And I'm not the only one who sees it this way. I saw a handful of superdelegates talking about quitting the Democratic party if the superdelegates decide the candidate against the popular vote. It'll be mayhem, inner destruction, it'll be the political equivalent of a Deicide song.

Obama won't split the party. Clinton may - and it won't come off pretty. She's earned this nomination, and it says something about the Democratic character that we're in this position.

Clinton argued that caucuses are "primarily dominated by activists" and that "they don't represent the electorate, we know that."

She couldn't have stated her claim to centrist position any clearer than that - even at the expense of writing off 'activists', quoting something like Bill O'Reilly. Now she's arguing for the "rights of voters" in Washington D.C. just like she told the voters in Michigan and Florida whose delegates were stripped due to their disregard for the party's established primary dates. It just seems to me that she's claiming wins in places that don't count and making promises for more wins that she can't keep. Has representation in Washington D.C. been a mainstay of her political platform before today? So far, I don't think any specific phrase has captured my disillusionment for Clinton more than her writing off of "activists", something that I believe is integral to the Iraq protesters, social progressives, and the Democratic party.

"These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand."