Et Tu, Carville?

May 13, 2008 11:09 AM

Clinton loyalist James Carville at Furman University: "I’m for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee. As soon as I determine when that is, I’ll send him a check.”

The Ragin' Cajun also said that Sen. Hillary Clinton should keep fighting until the last dog dies, and "I still hear some dogs barking.”

- jpt

May 13, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (53) | TrackBack (0)

The Math

May 13, 2008 11:01 AM

With former DNC chairman Roy Romer endorsing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, this morning that makes a net gain of 26 superdelegates for Obama in the last week over Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.

That completely -- numerically -- negates Clinton's pending West Virginia victory today. The Mountain State has 28 pledged delegates.

(None of which is to say that for the general election Obama doesn't have a huge task ahead of him to convince these white working-class voters that he understands and cares about their problems. But the math is the math.)

- jpt

May 13, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (26) | TrackBack (0)

The Goldberg Variation

May 13, 2008 8:32 AM

That blatant twisting of Obama's comments about Israel was based on an interview with the senator by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, who weighs in on the controversy today.

Goldberg writes that "Mr. Boehner, I'm sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn't have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there's no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a 'sore,' is there?

"I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me.
If he doesn't, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner's statement a 'flat-out lie.' In fact, I would add to Andrew's post, by calling Boehner's statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable."

- jpt

May 13, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (72) | TrackBack (0)

House Republican Leaders Twist Obama Statement on Israel

May 12, 2008 9:19 PM

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., talked a great deal about Israel. He was rather effusive in his support for the Jewish state.

Apparently given nothing of substance to criticize, House Republican leaders then took a statement Obama made and twisted it to act as if the Democrat had insulted the Jewish state. Which he had not.

After describing some of the first times he thought about Zionism, Obama said "the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience."

He talked about how "the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land."

He assailed Hamas as a terrorist organization and said the United States "should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements."

When the topic turned to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama said, "Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security." When asked if Israel besmirches the United States' reputation, Obama said "No, no, no."

Then he said: "But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that ... I want to solve the problem..."

It seemed pretty clear to me that by "constant sore" Obama was referring to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As he says in the next sentence: the "lack of a resolution to this problem."

Nonetheless, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who knows better, accused Obama of calling Israel a "constant sore."

"Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims," Boehner said. "Obama’s latest remark, and his commitment to ‘opening a dialogue’ with sponsors of terrorism, echoes past statements by Jimmy Carter who once called Israel an ‘apartheid state.’"

(That's interesting because in that very same interview, Obama rejected Carter's use of the term "apartheid" as applied to Israel. Said Obama: "I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.")

Another member of the GOP House leadership, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, also misrepresented what Obama said.

"It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel," Cantor said.

When Obama twisted Sen. John McCain's "100 Years" comment, it was pretty dishonest as well.

But this may be worse, because Boehner et al are falsely accusing Obama of besmirching a nation and a people. They are accusing him of being anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic. It is false.

This kind of twisting is unbecoming a party that claims to have superior ideas to Obama's fairly orthodox liberal record. Voters may conclude that Republicans think they have to make things up to beat Obama. Which they don't.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 in John McCain, Obama, Barack | Permalink | User Comments (131) | TrackBack (0)

Super-Scooping Super-Ds

May 12, 2008 5:19 PM

It was just Friday. I was standing on a street corner in Portland, Oregon, at 4 am Pacific Time, telling Good Morning America's audience that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, had surpassed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, in the one remaining metric left -- superdelegates.

Obama had 267 to Clinton's 265.

Now it's Monday afternoon, and Obama leads Clinton with superdelegates by 17 -- 283 to 266.

In total delegates, Obama has 1,873; Clinton has 1,692.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (93) | TrackBack (0)

Coates: "The Myth of the Black Racist Voter"

May 12, 2008 4:59 PM

My old Washington City Paper friend and colleague, Ta-Nehisi Coates, writes a thought-provoking essay disputing the "notion that black people voting for Barack in large margins is the equivalent (or on the scale of racism, arguably worse) of white people breaking for Hillary in similar margins."

For one, Coates writes, "Blacks have been voting for whites for president since they've gotten the vote. There is no question about black people's ability to vote for a white man for president. Even in cases when blacks have a so-called black leader in the actual race, they still--in crucial times--have voted for the white guy."

Read the whole thing HERE.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (97) | TrackBack (0)

Pro-Clinton Unions Continue Full-Steam Ahead

May 12, 2008 4:18 PM

Officials from four labor unions that endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, say they will continue to lobby for her candidacy regardless of the daunting delegate math. One union is even hoping Clinton takes her battle against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, all the way to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in August.

Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers says the union is rallying its members to support Clinton in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon.

"We're not slackening off at all -- this is full speed ahead for us," he says. "We deal with really high tolerances building jets. Usually when we reach those tolerances we say, 'This is terrific, this is quite a piece of work.'"

Sloan was a member of the platform committee and an at-large delegate for Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on the floor of the 1980 Democratic convention, the last time there was a convention fight.

"Only 979 delegates separated (then-President Jimmy) Carter and Kennedy," Sloan says. So the smaller number separating Clinton and Obama -- right this second a rough ABC Count has a 180-delegate lead for Obama -- "isn't a big swing. And none of these delegates are legally bound. She has 17 million votes, he has 17 million votes. The proper place to decide this is the convention."

ABC News contacted the four unions today to assess whether they would continue to spend union dues on a campaign many in the punditocracy have pointed towards a statue of St. Jude.

"We continue to support Sen. Clinton," says AFSCME's Gregory King. "We're going to continue to campaign full-steam ahead."

AFSCME had about 100 people each campaigning for Clinton in Pennsylvania and Indiana going door to door. "I presume we're just continuing with that," King says. "As long as she's the candidate our union is committed to supporting her."

Chuck Porcari of the American Federation of Teachers says "we're running our program in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon as we speak, member-to-member phone and mail, and door-knocking."

Tim Stricker, political director of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades says his union is quite active in West Virginia and Kentucky, and will be in Oregon. "Of the other three remaining states," he says of Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota, "we have practically no membership there."

Sticker says the IUPAT staffing isn't as big in West Virginia and Kentucky as it was in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but that's only because "her numbers in both states make it safe enough we didn't have to go full-bore. If we're asked by the campaign to send some people in, we will, though right now I haven't been asked by the campaign to do that."

"She's our candidate and we're with her until Barack is officially the candidate or if she releases us," he says. "I'm sure there's a lot of our members who think it's a lost cause. I'm sure if you polled it there'd be a number who said you're wasting your time and efforts and money." But between 16,000 and 20,000 members of the IUPAT voted for Clinton by ballot, by a margin of four-to-one, so the union will stay with the date that brung them to the dance.

"Does it look like it's an extreme long shot right now?" Stricker asks. "Yes. But stranger things have happened. One thing I've learned in the short time I've been in Washington, DC, is never count out the Clintons."

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (79) | TrackBack (0)

McCain Campaign v Newsweek

May 12, 2008 4:12 PM

In profile of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, Newsweek writes that the "Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968, when Richard Nixon built a Silent Majority out of lower- and middle-class folks frightened or disturbed by hippies and student radicals and blacks rioting in the inner cities."

Mark Salter, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took issue with that description in a letter to Newsweek's editor Jon Meacham.

(A letter that hilariously Newsweek is touting as a "Newsweek Web Exclusive"! Hey guys -- it's not a WEB EXCLUSIVE, it's a letter to the editor, a complaint about perceived bias. But I digress...)

"A useful way to read the piece would be to try to imagine you were a Republican reading it," Salter writes. "The characterization of Republican presidential campaigns as nothing more than attack machines that use 527s and other means to smear opponents strikes us as pretty offensive.  Is that how Ronald Reagan won two terms?  Do they really think other Republican presidential candidates were elected because they ran dirtier campaigns than their opponents? Or could it be that they were better candidates or ran better campaigns or maybe more voters agreed with their position on important issues?"

Salter writes that the story makes "a biased implication that Republicans have won elections and will try to win this one simply by tearing down through disreputable means their opponents."

The authors, Salter wrote, "framed this race exactly as Senator Obama wants it to be framed—every issue that raises doubts about his policy views and judgment is part of a smear campaign intended to distract voters from the real issues at stake in the election, and, thus, illegitimate.  And even if Senator McCain might not be inclined to support such advertising, if he can't stop them from occurring then he will have succumbed to the temptation to put ambition before principle.  How this notion could appear credible after MoveOn, the AFL-CIO and the DNC launched negative ad campaigns weeks ago, and after leaks from the Obama campaign that they would soon start running negative ads against McCain, is mystifying.  When a conservative talk show host emphasized Senator Obama's middle name, Senator McCain immediately denounced it himself in the strongest possible terms.  When a left wing radio host called Senator McCain a 'warmonger;' when Senator Rockefeller disparaged Senator McCain's war record; and when Howard Dean consistently accused Senator McCain of corruption, dishonesty and various other smears, the response from the Obama campaign has been either silence or a spokesperson releases an anodyne statement saying they don't agree with the characterization…

Herr Salter concludes that "Without a trace of skepticism, your reporters embraced the primary communications strategy the Obama campaign intends to follow: any criticism of their candidate is a below the belt, Republican attack machine distortion that should discredit the authors.  And any attempt by our campaign to counter that suggestion will be dismissed as a rant.  The other day, Senator Obama noted that Representative DeFazio's accusation that Senator McCain was up to his neck in the Keating Five scandal was a legitimate line of attack, despite the fact the Senator was largely exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee, whose special counsel declared he had been kept in the investigation only because of his party affiliation.  Were we to raise the Rezko matter, their campaign would accuse us of distracting voters with a low blow by making more of a 'flimsy relationship' than the facts warranted. ...The McCain campaign will keep to the high standards of political debate Senator McCain demands of us.  The Senator will not tolerate unfair attacks by anyone on our campaign.  We won't, however, abide by rules imposed on us by our opponents, and which pertain only to our campaign and not theirs, even if they manage to get reporters to call the deal fair."

Read the Newsweek piece, then Salter's letter …What sayeth thou?

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (22) | TrackBack (0)

Huckabee on Novak's Column: "It's Total and Absolute Nonsense"

May 12, 2008 2:45 PM

Bob Novak today has a column suggesting that some "U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as 'God's candidate' for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course...

"One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve," Novak writes. "That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.

"According to this activist, at the heart of the let-Obama-win movement is longtime Virginia conservative leader Michael Farris -- the nation's leading home-school advocate, who is now chancellor of Patrick Henry College (in Purcellville, Va.) for home-schooled students. Best known politically as the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, Farris is regarded as one of the hardest-edged Christian politicians. He is reported in evangelical circles to promote the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency."

I e-mailed Gov. Huckabee for a response, and he quickly shot back: "it’s total and absolute nonsense! I told Bob this last week in a phone call. He went with the story with his 'unnamed source.' Should have been listed as an 'unbrained source.' He must have liked the story no matter how ludicrous it is. There was NO conversation between Mike Farris and me to that effect. None. I don’t know of anyone who feels that 'America deserves Obama.'

"I have no idea where this comes from unless from someone jealous because of the really good relationship that I have with McCain and hoping to diminish it. You guys (in the media) need to remember that I was the one guy who didn’t have to take back a thing I ever said about McCain since if anything, I was accused of being TOO supportive of him."

Huck notes that he also wrote about this on the Huckablog today.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (35) | TrackBack (0)

Hillary's New Internet Video

May 12, 2008 12:45 PM

Check out Hillary Clinton's new "Thank You" internet video message to her supporters.

She seems tired, resigned, forlorn.

Especially when you compare her tone and expressions to her "I'm In" announcement internet video from January 2007, in which she seems confident, energetic, assertive.

Watch them side-by-side and tell me what you see.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (53) | TrackBack (0)

Obama's Inability to Hire Good Help Rears Its Head … Again

May 12, 2008 12:28 PM

We started covering Sen. Barack Obama's inability to hire good staffers in June 2007, when he blamed staffers for some opposition research trying to link Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to outsourcing in India; for injecting some venom in the David Geffen/Hillary Clinton fight; and for missing an event with firefighters in New Hampshire.

In December, we noted again that Obama was blaming the answers on a 1996 questionnaire on a staffer; and was blaming his touring with "cured" ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin (which antagonized gays and lesbians) on bad vetting by his staff.

Those five buck-passing incidents were apparently not enough.

Yesterday, in an interesting New York Times look at Obama's rise in Chicago politics, we learned that in 2004 some Jewish supporters became alarmed to learn that in a questionnaire Obama refrained from denouncing Yasir Arafat, or from expressing strong support for Israel's security fence.

Reports the Times: "In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama blamed a staff member for the oversight, and expressed the hope that 'none of this has raised any questions on your part regarding my fundamental commitment to Israel’s security.'"

In January, during MSNBC's presidential debate in Las Vegas, Obama was asked about a document put together by one of his South Carolina staffers that listed comments made by the Clinton campaign that some perceived to be attempting to stoke racial fires. "In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?” asked Tim Russert.

"Our supporters, our staff get overzealous," Obama said. "They start saying things that I would not say, and it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign.”

In February in a meeting with the Chicago Tribune, Obama was asked about an earmark that went to the University of Chicago while his wife Michelle Obama worked there.

"I don’t think that I was obligated to recuse myself from anything related to the university," Obama said, adding, "when it comes to earmarks because of those concerns, it’s probably something that should have been passed on to [U.S. Sen.] Dick Durbin, and I think probably something that slipped through the cracks. It did not come through us, through me or Michelle, and Michelle has been very careful about staying separate and apart from any government work. But you could make a good argument that this is something that slipped through our cracks, through our screening system.” 

In a March 2008 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times to answer questions about Tony Rezko, Obama was asked about the fact that Obama had told the newspaper in November 2006 that he had never been asked to do anything to advance Rezko's business interests. But the Sun-Times had subsequently learned about a October 28, 1998 letter Obama wrote to city and state housing officials on behalf of a housing project for seniors that Rezko was working on.

The letter, Obama said, "was essentially a form letter of the sort that I did all time. And that I wasn’t, by the way, aware of.”

A reporter asked: You weren't aware that he was associated with the project?

Responded Obama: "I wasn't even aware that we wrote the letter. The answer that I gave at the time was accurate as far as I knew...This was one of many form letters, or letters of recommendation we would send out constantly for all sorts of projects. And my understanding is that our letter was just one of many. And I wasn’t a decision maker in any of this process.”

The Sun-Times also pointed out that in November 2006 Obama estimated that Rezko had raised somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000 for him during his political career.

But since that answer, Obama has given back almost $160,000 in Rezko-related contributions.

"The original estimate was based on, I asked my staff to find what monies they attributed to Rezko, and this was the figure given to me," Obama said.

So, for those keeping track at home, that's ten instances of Obama publicly blaming his staff for various screw-ups.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!

(You of course could also add Austan Goolsbee, Samantha Power, Gordon Fischer, and retired Gen. Tony McPeak.)

That would be 14. We will continue to keep track.

And for the record, yet again, let me state that I find Sen. Obama's staff unfailingly competent and polite, courteous and efficient, and I once again express my regret that Sen. Obama does apparently not feel the same way.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (145) | TrackBack (0)

Why Shouldn't Obama Win West Virginia?

May 12, 2008 11:25 AM

1.8 million Americans live in West Virginia, 665,234 of them are registered Democrats. It's bordered by two states Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois won -- Virginia and Maryland, and two states Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, won -- Pennsylvania and Ohio.  (Its fifth border state, Kentucky, holds its primary on May 20.)

The Mountain State ranks 50th in median household income, $31,008; 50th in persons in the state 25 years or older with a bachelor's degree or more, 15.3%; and 48th in per capita income, $23,995.

The state is 96% white and 3.5% African-American.

The idea of Democrats winning in West Virginia is perfectly sane. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans two to one -- approximately 60% to 30%.

The state has two Democratic senators -- Bob Byrd and Jay Rockefeller -- and a Democratic governor, Joe Manchin. Two out of its three members of Congress are Democrats. The state went for Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Sure, with few African-Americans or college-educated Democrats, this does not seem like an "Obama" state the way these primaries have been playing out.

But Obama needs to be able to convince voters like these that he cares about them, shares their values, and will change their lives.

John F. Kennedy shocked the political world in 1960 by winning here, proving that a Catholic could win in a Protestant, heavily evangelical state. Why is it so crazy that Obama could win in West Virginia? Or at least not lose it 2-to-1?

If these Democrats vote for Clinton, the presumptive loser, overwhelmingly -- as is predicted -- that indicates a real problem for Obama. I know the delegate math is close to dispositive for Clinton, but tomorrow's butt-stomping seems to me like it should merit some serious hand-wringing among Democrats.

- jpt

May 12, 2008 in Obama, Barack | Permalink | User Comments (141) | TrackBack (0)

Burma, Baby, Burma

May 12, 2008 11:22 AM

Sen. John McCain's campaign has been trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the terrorist group Hamas because a Hamas spokesman said kind words about the lanky Illinoisan. 

The latest to attempt linkage was McCain surrogate Sen. Joe Lieberman, Ind-Conn. "The fact that the spokesperson for Hamas would say they would welcome the election of Senator Obama really does raise the question, 'Why?'" Lieberman said. "And it suggests the difference between these two candidates."

The Arizona Republican, meanwhile, had some resignations from his camp over the weekend because of their direct ties to the repressive regime of Myanmar (nee Burma).

Newsweek's Mike Isikoff reported on Saturday that McCain had tapped Douglas Goodyear, CEO of the lobbying and PR shop DCI Group, run the Republican convention. In 2002, Izzy reported, DCI group took $348,000 to represent Burma's military junta, to denounce the "falsehoods" pushed by the Bush administration about the regime's brutality and to urge the US government to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the junta.

And despite McCain's record on campaign finance reform, DCI Group has also been on the forefront of running independent 527 organizations, such as the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which former DCI Group consultant* Chris LaCivita helped run. You may also recall DCI Group, which represents oil interests such as Exxon/Mobil, also was behind that nasty little anti-Al Gore video a few years ago.

Over the weekend, after Izzy's story broke, both Goodyear and another DCI Group employee, Doug Davenport -- a regional campaign manager for McCain in charge of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia -- resigned.

Goodyear said he was stepping down so he did not "become a distraction in this campaign," noting that he continues to "strongly support John McCain for president."

Said Davenport: "I have long supported John McCain and do not want anything in my past business career - whether properly depicted or not - to distract the Senator's campaign."

Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun points out that as far as lobbying for foreign interests while working for McCain, apparently Myanmar is a no-no, but China and Saudi Arabia are OK. (The U.S. has diplomatic relations with all three countries, but sanctions only on Myanmar.)

McCain campaign co-chair Thomas Loeffler is a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. "Since 2006 his firm, the Loeffler Group, has received $10 million from the Saudi Embassy and the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry, according to reports on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Act office at the Justice Department." Loeffler worked directly on the Saudi account.

And senior McCain adviser Charlie Black chaired the BKSH & Associates lobbying firm "when it advised the largely state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation on its ultimately unsuccessful bid to take over Unocal Corp."

The McCain campaign's response to Gerstein: “Anyone who knows John McCain knows that he stands on principle and he isn’t affected by the relationships of others or of other people’s relationships."

- jpt

* I had originally identified LaCivita as a DCI Group "employee." He emailed to clarify that he was a "consultant" to DCI Group, but not an employee.

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

Four Remarkable Women I Went to Grade School With

May 11, 2008 6:10 PM

Please permit me to take a break from politics for a second for a slightly personal note. Because I can't pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV these days without seeing or hearing about one of my former classmates from grade school.

Today it was Liz Spikol in the New York Times Sunday Styles section.

Spikol has bipolar disorder and is part of the vanguard of writers and activists who write and speak about their struggles publicly. Specifically, Liz writes about it at her "The Trouble With Spikol" blog at Philadelphia Weekly, where she is a contributing editor.

The previous few weeks it had been -- on "Good Morning America," on Salon.com, and on NPR -- Jennifer Sey, a former National Gymnastics Champion who has a new memoir, "Chalked Up," about how tough it is to be a champion. (It's a great book, I highly recommend it.)

Then there's Zahavah Levine, chief counsel for Youtube.com, whose work I kept running into when researching the Internet and intellectual property a few months ago. And psychotherapist Elisabeth LaMotte, who has a new book coming out about Overcoming Your Parents' Divorce.

With the exception of LaMotte, whom I run into from time to time here in DC, I haven't seen any of these women since maybe 1981. I remember all of them quite well -- giggling at "Jaws II," running to the Zounds! arcade after school, going to Joey Augustine's disco party -- and now they're impacting the world in such interesting ways. The school was an experiment in education at the time; I wonder if there was some feminist underpinning to the curriculum (this was the era of "Free to Be You and Me," after all) that made them all such achievers?

- jpt

May 11, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

A Saturday Night Live Skit Clinton Won't Be Referencing Anytime Soon

May 11, 2008 10:58 AM

During a recent Ohio debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., cited an SNL skit mocking media adulation of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to make the argument that there had been a media double-standard.

Watch HERE.

The problem with citing a comedy show as an authority is that it can come back to haunt you.

Watch Amy Poehler's "Hillary Clinton" talk to the superdelegates HERE.

- jpt

UPDATE: Forgetting politics for a moment, THIS SKIT is just brilliant.

May 11, 2008 in Clinton, Hillary | Permalink | User Comments (125) | TrackBack (0)

How Badly Is the Presumptive Democratic Nominee Going to Be Shellacked in W.V.?

May 10, 2008 5:20 PM

Doesn't look good anecdotally for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in West Virginia this Tuesday.

Party insiders say Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., might beat him in the Mountaineer State on Tuesday by 30 points.

Yikes!

You want to know why superdelegates are trickling but not stampeding to Obama's side? His electoral weaknesses with white working-class voters, as evidenced by this pending stompage.

Of course, that doesn't change the daunting delegate math for Clinton. West Virginia has a mere 28 delegates, followed by Kentucky (51) and Oregon (52) on May 20; Puerto Rico (55) on June 1; and Montana (16) and South Dakota (15) on June 3.

- jpt

May 10, 2008 in Obama, Barack | Permalink | User Comments (304) | TrackBack (0)

Bill Clinton's Message to Rural America

May 10, 2008 2:43 PM

As Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., avoids any real campaigning in West Virginia, the former president of the United States is out there ginning up resentments.

Bill Clinton has the right to say whatever he wants, of course. But he's a smart man. Brilliant, even.

He can do the math. He must know that it's quite improbable that his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

So what purpose does it serve for him to barnstorm a state like West Virginia and tell rural voters that Obama and his elitist political/media cabal allies are mocking Appalachia?

He's using the kind of language Democrats typically use against Republicans -- as in, stuff you say when you don't want voters to vote for the other guy under any circumstance.

This is tough stuff to walk back from.

Per ABC News' Sarah Amos, this is what the 42nd president of the United States said Friday in Ripley, W.Va.:

"Hillary is in this race because of people like you and places like this and no matter what they say," Clinton said. "And no matter how much fun they make of your support of her and the fact that working people all over America have stuck with her, she thinks you're as smart as they are. She thinks you've got as much right to have your say as anybody else. And, you know, they make a lot of fun of me because I like to campaign in places like this, they say I have been exiled to rural America, as if that was a problem. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be here than listening to that stuff I have to hear on television, I'd rather be with you. There is a simple reason: You need a president a lot more than those people telling you not to vote for her."

In Madison, W.Va.:

"It is very interesting, from the very beginning of this race there has been a sharp divide in the vote -- the people who need a president, who need to turn the economy around, who need to restore the middle class, who need to give poor people a chance to work their way into the middle class, who need to give our children a better future, who need to restore our standing in the world and the war in Iraq, but do it in a way that rebuilds our military and stands up for America's security and standing around the world -- they have been for her from the get-go."

And on and on... Ginning up the resentments and the class divide (and maybe other divisions). ... His message to these voters: Obama and the media are laughing at you and think you're stupid!!!

Obama has a clear problem with white working class voters. This kind of rhetoric exacerbates it. Clinton knows that -- he's trying to drive up turnout to maximize his wife's popular vote argument to superdelegates. He has every right to do so -- the race is not over, no nominee exists yet.

But this is what keeps Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi up at night.

- jpt

May 10, 2008 in 2008: Democrats | Permalink | User Comments (650) | TrackBack (0)

House Majority Whip: 'I Don’t Believe That There Is Any Way That She Can Win the Nomination'

May 10, 2008 9:08 AM

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., tells The New York Times that the "tipping point" giving the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was "reached around midnight last Tuesday. I could tell the next day, when I got up to the Capitol, that this thing was going to start a slide toward Obama.”

And then he said -- cue clap of thunder -- “I don’t believe that there is any way that she can win the nomination.”

He is still refraining from endorsing anyone, Clyburn said, but he added, “I think everybody for the good of the party needs to find a graceful way of bringing all of this to a close.”

- jpt

May 10, 2008 in Clinton, Hillary, Obama, Barack | Permalink | User Comments (137) | TrackBack (0)

Obama-Backing Congressman Compares Hillary Clinton to Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction'

May 10, 2008 9:04 AM

Chris Rock said it last month: "It's going to be hard for Barack to be president. ... Hillary's not going to give up. She's like Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction.'"

Then NPR political editor Ken Rudin made the joke, saying on "CNN Sunday Morning" that Clinton was "Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction' -- she's going to keep coming back, and they're not going to stop her." (Rudin later apologized.)

This week, Obama-backing Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said on local television, when asked about Sen. Clinton, that "Glenn Close should have just stayed in the tub."

All were referring to Close playing the insane, deluded Alex Forrest -- the wronged  "other woman" who refuses to  accept her fate and just go away, and becomes suicidal and homicidal. (And also rabbit-cidal.)

There is understandably a lot of sensitivity (and sometimes not enough sensitivity) when it comes to Clinton's gender, Sen. Barack Obama's race, and Sen. John McCain's age.

The "Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction'" analogy brings with it a whole carousel's worth of baggage given the meme at the time of the release of "Fatal Attraction" that, as the late great Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker at the time, the "film is about men seeing feminists as witches."

"Fatal Attraction," Kael wrote, "parrots the aggressively angry, self-righteous statements that have become commonplaces of feminist fiction, and they're so inappropriate to the circumstances that they're proof she's loco. They're also the director Adrian Lyne's and the screenwriter James Dearden's hostile version of feminism."

No matter how you slice it, Alex Forrest was the movie's villain, like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. I'd posit at the very least that it's not keeping with Obama's lofty campaign rhetoric to compare Clinton's tenacity to psychosis. And it will indubitably further alienate women voters whom Obama needs to bring to his side once the Democratic race concludes.

- jpt

UPDATE: Congressman Cohen's office has issued an apology this evening. Cohen says, “I sincerely apologize for the comments I made about Senator Clinton's campaign. I have great respect for Senator Clinton as a US Senator. She has waged an historic campaign which has done much to break the glass ceiling.  My comments obviously do not reflect the sentiments of Senator Obama or the Obama campaign. Nor do they reflect my opinion of Senator Clinton whom I have known for years and admire. My hope is that our party will come together to work to defeat John McCain."

May 10, 2008 in Clinton, Hillary, Obama, Barack | Permalink | User Comments (157) | TrackBack (0)

The Latest...from Albany, Oregon

May 10, 2008 12:45 AM

Here's the piece we did for World News with Charles Gibson...

...and you can read the dot-com version here, too.

Hopping on a red-eye from Portland to D.C....talk to y'all tomorrow!

- jpt

May 10, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (39) | TrackBack (0)