Obama '08?

Voters don't choose the 842 unpledged "super-delegates" who comprise nearly 40 percent of the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

The category includes Democratic governors and members of Congress, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former vice president Al Gore, retired congressional leaders such as Dick Gephardt, and all Democratic National Committee members, some of whom are appointed by party chairman Howard Dean.

UNPLEDGED AND PLEDGED PARTY LEADERS AND ELECTED OFFICIAL DELEGATES

The procedure to be used for certifying unpledged party leader and elected official delegates is as follows:
Not later than March 1, 2008, the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee shall officially confirm to each State Democratic Chair the names of the following unpledged delegates who legally reside in their respective state and who shall be recognized as part of their state's delegation unless any such member has publicly expressed support for the election of, or has endorsed, a presidential candidate of another political party;

The individuals recognized as members of the DNC (as set forth in Article Three, Sections 2 and 3 of the Charter of the Democratic Party of the United States); and,

The Democratic President and the Democratic Vice President of the United States, if applicable; and,

All Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives and all Democratic members of the United States Senate; and,

The Democratic Governor, if applicable; and,

All former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee.

01.25.08 -- 1:46PM // link

Finally
I'm relieved that Mark Penn has again inserted himself into the Clinton-Obama brouhaha. Because after so much squabbling between two people both of whom I actually like, it's comforting to have a consummate bulls--t artist like Penn take the stage so I can pillory him with no misgivings or cognitive dissonance.

I'll say this, the real tragedy of Hillary's comeback win in New Hampshire is that it saved Mark Penn's job.

--Josh Marshall

Today's Must Read
By Paul Kiel - January 21, 2008, 9:46AM
We spent a good deal of time in the 2006 elections tracking the activity of third party groups on the right, groups with anonymous names like the Economic Freedom Fund. Funded by the most part by millionaire home-builder (and former Swift Boat patron) Bob Perry, the groups swooped in to attack Dem candidates throughout the country, airing radio, TV, and print ads and calling hundreds of thousands of voters with push polls.

But Perry only gave about $9 million to such groups that year. Freedom's Watch, with its close White House connections and network of Bob Perrys, is a whole new breed.

The group aims to raise and spend approximately $250 million for the 2008 cycle, a vast amount of money they apparently plan to use not only on the presidential election, but to greater effect in numerous House and Senate races throughout the country, where six figures can go a long way.

To review the White House connections: the group is headed by Bradley Blakeman, a former Bush White House official, Mel Sembler, a millionaire former Bush admbassador to Italy, and Ari Fleischer, who serves as the group's spokesman. Much of its support so far has come from Sembler and casino magnate and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the sixth richest person in the world. (The group intends to "broaden its base" as time goes on, Fleischer says.) The group got off the ground with a $15 million effort to support the president's surge strategy in August, but it's sticking around for the long haul.

The Washington Post headlines its takeout on the group "A Conservative Answer to MoveOn." To which the founder responds:

Wes Boyd, who co-founded MoveOn.org with his wife in their home in Berkeley, Calif., said the two groups are fundamentally different because his liberal organization was set up outside the influence of Democratic Party operatives and is funded primarily by small-dollar donors around the country.
Freedom's Watch, on the other hand, is "doing attack ads by Beltway operatives, financed by billionaires, at the request of the White House," Boyd said by e-mail. "MoveOn helps millions of real people get engaged and be heard and is solely funded by these same people."

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

McCain has taken positions that drive liberals nuts, and he has taken positions that drive conservatives nuts

Hell, he's taken a lot of positions that would have driven himself nuts a few years earlier. Or later. And then reversed those again.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

teenyboone wrote:

Really? Seems he was a "doormat" for the Bushes! :wink:

A teeny bit of research would demonstrate how unscientific 'seems' is. :wink:

Dunno. He talked a good game, but when push came to shove he almost always voted for the Bush line after all. But by then, of course, all his critical talk in the preceding weeks or months had bolstered his "maverick" image, tainted only a little by the one-day story of how he ended up simply voting party line..

Also, Clinton and Obama are doing damage to the democratic cause by defaming each other. There's an article in today's editorial page of the San Jose Merc where one says he plans to vote for Hillary, because of what he read in Krugman. He wrote in part: "Krugman is absolutely correct that the last thing we need is a rookie Democrat who denigrates his own party and the achievements of the last two-term Democratic president and who celebrates Ronald Reagan and the GOP as the party of ideas. Myvote is for Hillary Clinton, not only for the gravitas and sheer intellect she has demonstrated, but also because she is capable of taking on the Republican attack machine. Lofty rhetoric, a desire for unity and whining are not going to cut it for someone to be our president in these troubled times."

It's my personal contention that both Obama and McCain has the potential to "blow it." Ten months is a long time for candidates.

Also, Clinton and Obama are doing damage to the democratic cause by defaming each other. .....

nimh, I echo snood. That photo has a high ewwww factor. A black man in a provocative pose with what appears to be a white woman. Harold Ford redux.

Also, Clinton and Obama are doing damage to the democratic cause by defaming each other. There's an article in today's editorial page of the San Jose Merc where one says he plans to vote for Hillary, because of what he read in Krugman. He wrote in part: "Krugman is absolutely correct that the last thing we need is a rookie Democrat who denigrates his own party and the achievements of the last two-term Democratic president and who celebrates Ronald Reagan and the GOP as the party of ideas. Myvote is for Hillary Clinton, not only for the gravitas and sheer intellect she has demonstrated, but also because she is capable of taking on the Republican attack machine. Lofty rhetoric, a desire for unity and whining are not going to cut it for someone to be our president in these troubled times."

January 25, 2008
Clinton's Depressing Assault on Obama
By E. J. Dionne

WASHINGTON -- It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn't allow to pass their lips.

Ronald Reagan, Clinton said, deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan's "rhetoric in defense of freedom" and his role in "advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back."

"The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing," Clinton declared.

Clinton was careful to add that the Reagan military program included "a lot of wasted money and unnecessary expenditure," but the signal had been sent: Clinton was willing to move beyond "the brain-dead politics in both parties," as he so often put it.

His apostasy was widely noticed. The Memphis Commercial Appeal praised Clinton two days later for daring to "set himself apart from the pack of contenders for the Democratic nomination by saying something nice about Ronald Reagan." Clinton's "readiness to defy his party's prevailing Reaganphobia and admit it," the paper wrote, "is one reason he's a candidate to watch."

I have been thinking about that episode ever since Hillary Clinton's campaign started unloading on Barack Obama for making statements about Reagan that were, if anything, more measured than Bill Clinton's 1991 comments. Obama simply acknowledged Reagan's long-term impact on politics, and the fact that conservatives once constituted the camp producing new ideas, flawed though they were.

Obama's not particularly original insight was a central premise of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Clinton argued over and over that Democrats could not win without new ideas of their own. To reread Clinton's "New Covenant" speeches from back then is to be reminded of how electrifying it was to hear a politician who was willing to break new ground.

That's why the Clintons' assault on Obama is so depressing. In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he'd be advising Obama and cheering him on.

Let's grant the Clintons their claims: The press is tougher on Hillary Clinton than it is on Barack Obama; the old, irrational Clinton hatred is alive and well in certain parts of the media; Hillary Clinton gets hit harder when she criticizes Obama than Obama does when he goes after her.

Let's further stipulate that Obama's formulation -- he said Reagan "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not" -- was guaranteed to enrage the former president. In Democratic circles, associating someone with Nixon is akin to a Roman comparing an emperor with Caligula.

None of it justifies the counterproductive behavior. Does anyone doubt that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she will need the votes of the young people and African-Americans who have rallied to Obama -- and that what she's doing now will make it harder to energize them? Doesn't calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama's central theme, that it's time to "turn the page" on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past?

And with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander.

Yet there was Hillary Clinton's campaign, unveiling a radio ad on Wednesday implying that Obama bought into such ideas as "refusing to raise the minimum wage." Come on, guys.

The worst thing about all this is what both Clintons are doing to their own legacy as pioneers of an approach that rejected, as Bill Clinton said in a 1991 speech, "the stale orthodoxies of left and right." The great asset shared by both Clintons is their willingness to bring fresh thinking to old problems.

"Our new choice plainly rejects the old categories and false alternatives they impose," Bill Clinton added in that 1991 address in which he offered a long list of new ideas. "Is what I just said to you liberal or conservative? The truth is, it is both, and it is different. It rejects the Republicans' attacks and the Democrats' previous unwillingness to consider new alternatives."

Pretty good stuff, still. Why should either Clinton attack Obama for facing some of the same truths that both of them taught their party so long ago?