Archive for the 'Clinton' Category

A remarkable year for Hillary and Barack

Published
by
Taniel
on December 1, 2008
in Clinton and cd-Administration
. 1 Comment

And just like that, the deed was consummated. Barack Obama formally nominated Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State, bringing a stunning close to one of the most hardly contested primary battles in modern politics.

All of this has been repeated ad nauseam over the past month, but it is too remarkable a story for us not to linger over it a bit more. Just a year ago, the two were busy attacking each other’s health care plan and trading leads in Iowa polls. And that was before New Hampshire, the tears and “you’re likable enough,” the nastiness of the South Carolina campaign and of its brutal debate, the Bosnia controversy, bittergate, accusations of racism, the Snub and the fight over superdelegates. The end of the primary battle did not silence PUMAs and Hillary’s alleged resentment remained a storyline until the Democratic convention.

Any posts touching the Clinton-Obama battle invariably sparked dozens of comments - some of them uncivil enough that I had to start policing the comment section! Never did the general election generate as much controversy on here - making me miss the time I got 86 comments just by mentioning the word “Hillary.”

And now, Clinton is preparing to work with Obama, giving new meaning to Barack’s contention in last December’s Iowa debate that he looked forward to Hillary’s advising him.

Of course, none of this is that surprising. While the two went after each other ferociously for months, there was little fundamental disagreement between the two, particularly on policy details - not enough differences, in any way, to prevent collaboration between the two. Obama’s team had always been made up of many former Clintonites, and the President-elect had always been closer to Bill’s tactics and legacy than he cared to admit.

That some speculated that Hillary might help McCain always betrayed a misunderstanding of this fiery partisan who has been a loyal Democrat since her party’s hopeless 1972 campaign. It made as little sense to think that Clinton might challenge a President Obama in the 2012 primaries. She might have attempted a presidential comeback had Obama lost against McCain, but his victory clearly left her no path to oppose her party’s de facto leader.

The only thing that truly surprises me in Clinton’s nomination is that she accepted to leave her Senate seat for an inherently unstable position that might last as little as four years. Many foresaw a long career for her in the Senate - and her name was circulating as a possible future Majority Leader. However, Clinton is fairly low in Senate seniority, and she must have realized that she wasn’t even going to be able to take a leadership role in crafting health care legislation.

Moving to Foggy Bottom allows Clinton to emerge as a stateswoman and craft a legacy of her own instead of staying stuck among 100 Senators without any obvious responsibilities - that might be an enviable position for most, but not for a politican who got so close to the presidency.

There is also some talk that New York’s Governor David Paterson might appoint a placeholder, or at least a Senator who is old enough that he or she will retire soon, giving Hillary a chance to reclaim her seat if she so chooses. This scenario appears fairly improbable, however, as the names that have been circulating over the past few days are comprised of younger Democrats who would be likely to want to stay in the Senate. And would Hillary want to go back to the Senate at the bottom of the seniority ladder?

Whether Obama and Clinton have a warm relationship or whether tensions emerge will have to be seen, of course. But those who expect fireworks between the two will likely be disappointed. For one, their foreign policy worldviews are not as different as some are suggesting, and it is not obvious that Clinton is that much more of a hawk than her former rival. While Obama attacked Hillary for her vote on Iraq’s war resolution, there was little daylight between the two on other Iraq-related issues; on Iran, Clinton took a more explicitly hawkish stance, but Obama was not far behind. (He did oppose Kyl-Lieberman, but he favored its most controversial provision - the labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group - putting him at odds with many of his fellow Democrats.)

The past few months have shown that their personal animosity has been largely overstated; at the very least, it is not intense enough to stand in the way of political cooperation.

Third night: Clinton, Kerry and Biden vent Democratic anger, vouch for Obama

Published
by
Taniel
on August 27, 2008
in Biden, Clinton, Nat-Dem and convention
. 5 Comments

In the convention’s first two nights, the tone was often flat. Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton performed beautifully, but too many of the other primetime speakers let John McCain go unscathed - continuing a strange pattern the Republican benefited from in the GOP’s primary debates. But in a night that started with some great visuals and that officially nominated Barack Obama in a show of unity, the Democratic speakers weaved together the convention’s different themes.

In a memorable night, Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden energized the Democratic Party and electrified the crowd by vouching for Barack Obama’s character, his national security credentials - and they also found time to finally blast the Republican Party and John McCain. Sure, none offered the type of blistering character attacks that Zell Miller delivered four years ago, but they absolutely did not to need to.

Together, the three men delivered what Democrats had been waiting for years and what Kerry’s convention had denied them in 2004: an indictment of the Republican Party, of the Bush Administration and of McCain’s party label. Together, they mentioned torture, Iraq, global warming and the tax cuts for the wealthy. They allowed Democrats to vent their frustration and transfer that anger to urgent support for Barack Obama - an urgency that had Hillary Clinton had started to express in her Tuesday night address.

The one thing that could perhaps have been stronger was the length of Biden’s speech - surely the most watched of the night’s addresses. Biden had the crowd behind him as he lamented the Republicans’ economic record and questioned McCain’s judgment. But his speech was relatively short compared to other speakers, and it is hard to escape the impression that it could have gone a bit longer. He almost seemed to cut it off as the crowd was getting into it when he could have taken the crescendo a bit further.

Had all viewers seen John Kerry’s speech (which I thought was the night’s strongest), Biden might not have had to take it a few more steps. But it is a true shame for Democrats that not even the cable channels did not show Kerry in his entirety. You would think that CNN, MSNBC and Fox would realize that the speech of the 2004 Democratic nominee would be more important than their commentary on Bill Clinton’s address, but they only ended up showing the final minutes. One could sense Kerry’s excitement at finally being able to express everything he had been waiting to get out since his failed candidacy. When Kerry spoke of the Republicans’ “pathetic” attacks on a Obama’s patriotism, it was also the wounds of his own defeat that he revisited.

His attacks on John McCain were as extensive as they were precise, as Kerry turned the flip-flopping accusations he received in 2004 on their head. By reciting issues on which candidate McCain and Senator McCain disagreed, Kerry sought to portray McCain as a typical Republican voters must reject - not the independent voice he claims to be. “More of the same,” Kerry repeated time after time in what has become the Democrats’ favorite anti-McCain slogan. “Before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself,” he said. And in what was an explicit reference to his own campaign, Kerry scoffed, “Talk about being for it before you’re against it!”

For Kerry, this was a time to get revenge - and he took the hall’s Democrats with him. If a convention is an exercise in rallying the troops and set up the fall battle over undecided voters, John Kerry beat all expectations.

Just half an hour before, Bill Clinton had taken the stage, received by a standing ovation that seemed longer even to the one his wife had received the night before. Just like Hillary, Bill made a point of immediately proclaiming his support for Obama, adding “that makes 18 million of us.” And he went on to vouch for Obama’s national security credentials, insisting that he was ready to be commander-in-chief not only as a supporter of the Illinois Senator but also as a former president. Clinton framed this as a statesman passing the torch to another statesman.

Clinton was offering a direct response not only to the McCain campaign but also to the Clintons’ declaration throughout the spring. Said Bill towards the end of his speech, “Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.”

Like most other speakers, Clinton focused on Bush’s governance and the bad choices the GOP had made. “They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more,” he said. “Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks.” But Clinton’s argument went further to make a point few other speakers made - and that we don’t hear Obama talk about that often.

Most of the convention has been focused on Bush’s governance rather than on the overarching philosophy that supported it, but Clinton laid out the election as a clear ideological contrast. He argued that it is not just Bush who must be rejected but the Republicans’ political philosophy in general, that the past eight years were the most straight-forward expression of the conservatism that has overtaken the Republican Party. And denouncing the “extreme philosophy which has defined [McCain's] party for more than 25 years” was a powerful way to tie McCain to hisparty label.

As for Joe Biden, he lived up to the key promise of his vice-presidential pick: he is the rare politician who is just as comfortable on domestic issues as international issues and has the credentials to back up both. Tomorrow, Obama will offer his plan, detail his platform and explain to the American people why they should trust him. Tonight, Biden laid out the Democrats’ version of the choice facing voters, contrasting Barack Obama and John McCain both on the economy and on national security.

Biden’s central argument was: “These times require more than a good soldier; they require a wise leader, a leader who can deliver change.” Biden called himself a friend of John McCain, but he painted him as too eager a follower of Bushian politics, one who has shown that he would commit the same poor choices that have plagued the Bush Administration. Speaking about the economy, Biden highlighted his roots to talk directly to middle-class voters, claiming to understand their concerns and listing in an intimate and comforting voice the questions they ask themselves every night. “John thinks that during the Bush years “we’ve made great progress economically.” I think it’s been abysmal,” he said.

That’s the America that George Bush has left us, and that’s the future John McCain will give us. These are not isolated discussions among families down on their luck. These are common stories among middle-class people who worked hard and played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays. That promise is the bedrock of America. It defines who we are as a people. And now it’s in jeopardy. I know it. You know it. But John McCain doesn’t get it.

On national security, Biden’s argument was the same Obama used against Clinton in the primaries - respond to the experience claim by invoking judgment to point out to the audience that not only has Obama always cared about America but he has been much more discerning about what its best interest is:

Whose judgment should we trust? Should we trust John McCain’s judgment when he said only three years ago, “Afghanistan—we don’t read about it anymore because it’s succeeded”? Or should we trust Barack Obama, who more than a year ago called for sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan?

John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was right — again, and again, and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong and Barack Obama has been proven right.

Democrats need to make this an election about party labels. Tying McCain to Bush might sound old at this point, but it is their best weapon - and one that could by itself get them across the finish line. That is why Mark Warner’s speech was so ineffective yesterday - and why giving either Schweitzer or Kerry that type of exposure could have helped Obama much more. Sure, all of these speakers could have gone further, attacked more and gotten the crowd even more fired up. But they did something that had just been started by Hillary last night and that the party was still yearning for- someone to rally the Democratic party, electrify it and channel its energy for its first presidential victory in twelve years.

Now, Barack Obama’s speech remains, and he will surely speak to undecided voters more than tonight’s speakers were attempting to. But even with those more moderate voters, tying McCain to Bush ought to be a powerful strategy. One of the most remarkable phenomenons of recent years has been that self-identified independents have been behaving like Democrats when asked about their opinion of Bush, and this distrust for the GOP among independents played a huge role in helping Democrats gain congressional majorities in 2006. There is a lot people will be watching for tomorrow, but Democrats should at least be reassured that tonight’s speakers laid a solid foundation.

Second night: Hillary rallies her voters, unites party and makes up for Warner’s speech

Published
by
Taniel
on August 27, 2008
in Clinton, Nat-Dem and convention
. 12 Comments

In a night marked by Mark Warner’s disappointingly flat speech, Democrats can thank Brian Schweitzer and Hillary Clinton - as well as the ridiculously low expectations the media (and the McCain campaign) had set for Hillary’s performance.

For months now, everyone has been pointing to all the signs that favor the Democratic Party in 2008 - just as they did in 2006. Bush’s popularity is at record lows, the Republican Party is discredited, the electorate’s partisan affiliations have massively shifted towards the Democratic Party. Under those conditions, for the convention’s keynote speaker to deliver a nonpartisan speech that could just have easily (and with minor twitches) been read at the Republican convention was practically an act of political malpractice.

It’s not as much that Mark Warner’s speech wasn’t good (it would have been under other circumstances) or that it wasn’t well delivered; Warner undoubtedly improved his standing in Virginia and introduced himself to voters across the country. But I am not here to judge the oratory skills of various speakers but their effectiveness in pushing Obama into the White House. My point is that his speech did little to help Democrats and to help Obama. None of this is ultimately to blame Mark Warner; the convention organizers must have known that he would say this, and Warner did nothing that ought to have surprised them.

But it is hard to escape the feeling that Warner’s argument is exactly what Republicans want voters to think and what many of them will no doubt be telling voters next week - forget that we are Republicans and that Obama is a Democrat. For months, the GOP has been worried about how it can best escape the electorate’s viscerally anti-Republican mood; we have been documenting how some of its candidates are literally shunning away from the party label and Gordon Smith’s bipartisan ads are in a category of their own. McCain cannot win if voters think of this election as a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, which is why he has sought to make it about character and style of leadership.

And here comes Mark Warner, boosting McCain’s improbable bid to get voters to forget the candidates’ party labels. Said Warner: “I know we’re at the Democratic Convention, but if an idea works, it really doesn’t matter if it has an R or D next to it. Because this election isn’t about liberal versus conservative. It’s not about left versus right.” That could have worked for Democrats in 94, and could work for the GOP next week. Sure, Warner opposing past and future was meant as a swipe to the Arizona Senator, but does the GOP not also portray itself as the party of the future? What was their efforts to dismiss Obama as a tired ideologue and portray McCain as a pragmatist maverick (the whole point of emphasizing energy issues) if not to claim the future mantle? And even if the past v. future theme becomes central to Barack’s campaign, Warner should have outlined a much clearer case for McCain representing the past.

Hillary Clinton, on the other, did just the opposite. She reminded listeners that she might have had her differences with Barack Obama, but that they are both Democrats running against a Republican: “Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.”

Clinton was helped by the ridiculously low expectations that the media has set for her. The McCain campaign’s roll-out of videos using Clinton’s words against Obama as well as the media circus around the Clinton melodrama had made this somewhat of a suspenseful event. What was indeed suspenseful was whether Clinton would succeed in convincing her voters to rally around Obama as much as he needs them to, whether she would figure out which arguments might persuade them most; what was not suspenseful (contrary to the media’s preparations) was whether she would look sincere, try her best and look appeased.

Of course she was going to do the latter: she is a very successful politician who looked wonderfully at ease next to Obama in Unity at the end of June. But given the media drumming up her speech, we were basically led to think that Hillary might just choke up, slip or be unable to say anything in support of the Illinois Senator! Simply by coming out and immediately proclaiming herself “a proud supporter of Barack Obama,” Clinton beat expectations.

Whether she convinced her still-wavering supporters will of course have to be determined with polling data, but I believe she pulled off that task beautifully. Sure, her statement of support did not venture on the personal and she did not vouch for Obama’s experience or character; but it was not up to her to do that. If she had, she might not have sounded as powerful and as sincere as she did tonight by focusing on the substance of what it means to be a Democrat. In the speech’s most crucial moment that is already being played over and over again, Clinton said,

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage?

The very meaning of belonging to a party, Hillary reminded the audience and in particular the 18 million voters who supported her, is to share a set of commitments, beliefs and a desire to work towards goals that are entirely incompatible with the goals of the opposite camp. A figure who is usually described as ultra-partisan, Hillary’s conclusion was simple and it was powerful: for anyone to claim to be supporting her and to then go vote for McCain would be a betrayal of everything Clinton stands for, all the work she has done and all she has fought for over the past 20 months. “You haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership,” Clinton said, insisting that Obama must become President.

This is exactly the point Clinton needed to drive home - and she did it very convincingly. There have been critics, but the speech was meant to speak to Democrats, not to those who are suspicious of Clinton to start with. Of course, she alone cannot seal the deal, but Clinton is sure to have softened up the most devoted of her supporters and opened them to listening to Joe Biden and Barack Obama with a different mentality over the next two days.

It certainly did not hurt that Clinton went after Bush and McCain forcefully, delivering one of the convention’s memorable one-liners: “With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.” That preceded a long indictment of McCain’s economic policies:

But we don’t need four more years … of the last eight years.
More economic stagnation … and less affordable health care.
More high gas prices … and less alternative energy.
More jobs getting shipped overseas … and fewer jobs created here.
More skyrocketing debt … home foreclosures … and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.
More war … less diplomacy.
More of a government where the privileged come first … and everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

Shortly before Clinton went on stage, Brian Schweitzer had taken the stage to deliver an unexpectedly strong speech. (I strongly recommend watching it, here is part 1 and part 2.) Schweitzer would have been a good keynote speaker - he comes from a swing state (never neglect 3 electoral votes), mixed praise for Obama with hits on McCain and fired up delegates in what was a great set-up for Hillary.

He went on the attack in a wonderfully cheerful demeanor that drew energetic cheers and boos from the crowd: “We simply can’t drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in all of John McCain’s backyards, including the ones he can’t even remember.” The delivery was quite strong as he got the crowd into his refrain, repeating that McCain would represent “four more years of the same.” In fact, the crowd’s reaction forced CNN and other network channels that were not covering the speech to start showing it!

That alone was an exploit on a night in which most of the speakers could be as brilliant as they wanted (and many were much more aggressive than had been the case the first night - just look at Dennis Kucinich), but only C-SPAN watchers would see it - and we’re not talking about a group of undecided voters there. We knew networks channels would roll back their coverage, but even cable channels have given up: In the midst of hours and hours of coverage, analysis and previews, CNN and MSNBC only show three or four speeches. Even Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (”For John McCain, there’s no place like home, or a home, or a home”) was seen neither on CNN nor on MSNBC.

Overall, then, the convention’s second night was much like the first: Whatever little effort was made to remind Democrats of their hatred for the Bush Administration to rally them against McCain was not shown on TV. (Only true politicos are likely to have seen Kucinich’s or Sebelius’s addresses or those of pretty much all speakers except Warner, Clinton, Bob Casey and the last moments of Schweitzer.) But the night’s main event - and thus the main goal - was perfectly successful. Yesterday, Michelle Obama introduced herself and her husband to make their story more familiar; today, Hillary Clinton brought her supporters back under the Democratic tent. Tomorrow is Joe Biden’s night, and he will be the first headline speaker whose primary goal ought to be that of an attacker.

New GOP ads hit Obama on party unity

Published
by
Taniel
on August 25, 2008
in Ads, Clinton and Nat-Pres
. 1 Comment

In my previous post, I explained that the Clinton-Obama relationship will be the most crucial convention storyline. As if a press eager to find signs of division was not enough, Obama will also have to deal with a Republican Party eager to increase the rift between Clinton supporters and the Democratic nominee. The GOP is perfectly aware that it will make Obama’s next two months of polling miserable if it can capture Clinton supporters and the party intends to make a push for it throughout this week.

In the past 48 hours, the McCain campaign and the RNC unveiled 3 ads using Hillary Clinton, leaving little doubt that Republicans see great potential in the 18 million votes Clinton received. First, the campaign was ready with an ad blaming Obama for dissing Clinton as soon as he announced his vice-presidential pick. This ad, released on Saturday, revisits some of the comments Clinton made about Obama during the primaries.

And here is another ad that the campaign has released in the Denver market alone - a clear signal that they want to inject as much reporting of Clinton-Obama discord in the convention coverage:

And the RNC is following that up with an independent expenditure that calls Obama “the most inexperienced candidate of our times” - framing this as Clinton’s argument against her primary opponent. The ad uses footage of Clinton delivering what was one of her harshest lines (”Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign. I will bring a lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002″). “Was she right?” asks the ad?

We don’t know the size of McCain’s ad buys, but Jonathan Martin has some information about the RNC’s independent expenditure: The buy is somewhere between $2 and $2.5 million and will throughout this week in Ohio, Michigan, Western Pennsylvania (all Clinton states and regions) as well as Wisconsin and Colorado. Clinton isn’t particularly strong in that last state, but that buy is designed to counter-balance the coverage of Democratic unity the convention could receive in the local press.

This is the RNC’s second ad. The first, released in June, was devoted to the energy and it ran in only 4 states - MI, PA, OH and WI. Note that it the same as this new RNC expenditure. Wisconsin’s place in the top of RNC targets is somewhat less expected than Michigan’s and Pennsylvania’s, and it suggests that Republicans have absolutely not given up on the state, despite Obama holding a comfortable edge in the latest polling.

Update with Clinton’s response: “I’m Hillary Clinton and I do not approve that message,” she said to the New York delegation, adding “Now I ask each and every one of you to work as hard for Obama as you worked for me.” The Obama campaign needs to make sure that message is not muddied over the next few days, that she delivers it forcefully and that every Hillary supporter hears it. Meanwhile, Clinton aide Howard Wolfson writes a piece in the New Republic acknowledging the rift between his former boss and Obama and giving advice as to how the two camps should fix that. (He confirms that one of the big sticking points for Bill is that Obama has not respected his 90s record.)

Obama-Clinton will be the crucial convention storyline

Published
by
Taniel
on August 25, 2008
in Clinton, Nat-Dem and convention
. 4 Comments

A few months ago, Democrats were worried that the Clinton-Obama primary was heading towards a brokered convention: neither candidate would get a decisive edge after June 3rd, leading them hitting each other throughout the summer. Of course, Clinton fell too far behind to entertain hopes of staying in the race past June 3rd. The two organized a joint appearance in Unity, New Hampshire in late June and Hillary started going on the stump for Barack in New Mexico, Florida over the past two weeks.

But PUMAs continued to make noise, the press always manages to find a few Clinton supporters willing to bash Obama and the issue of Clinton’s debt and the dispute over whether to hold a roll call at the convention were not being resolved. It was always difficult to distinguish how much of these reports were exaggerated and how much they pointed to a truly continuing tension between the Clintons and Obama. But in politics, perception matters more than reality, and all these reports did nothing to unite the Democratic Party at a time Obama needed to solidify his base.

Now we are on the eve of the Democratic convention, and all evidence points to the fact that Obama did not succeed in uniting the base whatsoever - if anything, recent national polls have found him winning a smaller share of the Clinton vote. Last week, an NBC poll found Obama losing ground nationally and winning the support of only 52% of Clinton supporters - meaning that a huge 11% of the sample was made up of Clinton supporters who were not supporting him. Over the week-end, new national polls and a state poll from Ohio confirmed NBC’s finding that Obama will not capture a comfortable lead unless he closes the deal with these Clinton supporters:

  • A USA Today-Gallup poll has Obama leading 47% to 43% among registered voters, 47% to 44% among likely voters. You might remember that last month’s Gallup poll was the first since early May to have McCain leading (by 4% among likely voters). But while 70% of Clinton supporters back Obama, only 47% do so solidly and 30% back McCain or plan to not vote (that’s too high a number). Among other findings: 57% are worried about Obama’s experience, respondents blame McCain more for the campaign’s negative tone.
  • In a new CNN poll, the first taken after the Biden pick, Obama has lost a 7% lead and is now down to a tie at 7%. Some of that evolution is accounted by Obama’s fall among Clinton supporters: It’s gone from 75% Obama-16% McCain in late June to 66% Obama-27% McCain. That’s a dramatic turn-around.
  • As far as I can tell, the week-end’s third national poll (a Washington Post-ABC poll that had Obama leading 49% to 45%, 48% to 42% when Barr and Nader were included and both got 3%) did not include information about the behavior of Clinton supporters.
  • An Ohio poll released this morning by the Columbus Dispatch finds McCain up 1% - a result that comes from his good numbers among Democrats (Obama leads among independents). Obama only wins half of voters who voted for Clinton on March 4th. We will come back to this poll in the roundup later today.

As the reality that Hillary will not be the VP sets in, some Clinton supporters who were on board might temporarily withhold their support from Obama. That might explain why CNN’s poll (taken after Biden’s pick was announced) finds such a drop in the support Obama receives. How temporary those tensions are will be crucial to determining the results of the November election - and things appear to be getting worse.

The convention was meant to showcase the reconciliation between Obama and the Clintons. But Politico now reports that the negotiations between the Obama and Clinton worlds over the past few days has taken a bad turn. Associates of the two camps are voicing bitter complaints about the other’s sense of entitlement. A big sticking point appears to be Bill Clinton’s speech: He is speaking on Wednesday night, devoted to national security, but he was hoping to speak about the economy, highlighting the successes of the 1990s versus the failures of the past 8 years. Obama’s camp has insisted that he sticks to his topic.

In the context of Obama’s criticism of the Clinton years during the primary, that alone should be enough to flare up tensions. And to me it does seem inexplicable that Clinton was instructed to not go into economic issues since those are his forte - and his tenure is first and foremost remembered by the electorate (especially the blue-collar Democrats Obama needs to appeal to) as one of prosperity.

Then, there was the vice-presidential pick. Reports late last Thursday that Clinton was not being vetted led to both sides being angry - but reports had said the same exact thing in late July! We already knew that Clinton was not being vetted weeks ago, so the fact that it became such a huge story in the closing days of the veepstakes testifies to how any story involving Hillary will be drummed up and how those Clinton supporters who are looking to get upset will probably find a motive to do so no matter what.

Politico isn’t the only outlet to be focusing in on these intensifying tensions. The New York Times has a piece about doubts among Clinton delegates and Marc Ambinder, who usually urges caution about reports that the two camps are fighting, is reporting that he is hearing the same things.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Clinton-Obama story will be the most crucial part of this week’s convention. With a base secured and a much greater number of Clinton supporters on board, Obama will have a big lead that McCain will have trouble contesting. But it is far from a sure thing that he will get such a united base. After all, Clinton’s concession in June does not seem to have moved numbers much. And if anything goes wrong in the staging of Clinton-Obama moments, the road would become much more difficult for Obama. Remember in 1980, when Jimmy Carter chased Teddy Kennedy around the stage in a vain effort to get him to shake his hands.

The Obama campaign now has to push back on Politico’s report. The week is not starting off well for Democrats worried about Clinton-Obama relationship. Everything will have to go perfectly well to avoid the press seizing on small moments here and there. We will watch Hillary and Bill’s speeches and the roll-call very carefully to observe what is susceptible of finally bringing Clinton supporters back to the Democratic camp.

Obama needs Clinton voters, and why the Democratic convention will be crucial

Published
by
Taniel
on August 21, 2008
in Clinton, Nat-Dem, Nat-Pres and VP-Dem
. 3 Comments

A few days from the convention, the polls released this week will be used as a marker to determine whether Obama receives a bounce next week. Three major national polls released in the past 24 hours have Obama leading by 3%:

  • An NBC/WSJ poll has Obama leading 45% to 42% nationally. A worry for McCain: 77% believe he would follow Bush’s policies.
  • A NYT/CBS poll has the same exact numbers, with Obama leading 45% to 42%. Voters overwhelmingly named the economy as their top issues - which is both good news to Democrats and should worry them that they can’t open the lead in such circumstances.
  • A third national poll, released by Fox News, finds Obama leading 42% to 39%.

The most shocking result of all in this wave of surveys is the internal number in the NBC poll that Obama only gets 52% of Clinton supporters, with 27% undecideds and 21% for McCain - meaning that a full 11% of the sample is made up of Clinton backers who are now not supporting Obama. These 11% do lean Democratic in the sense that they think Bush is doing a bad job and that the country is headed in the wrong direction, but they also have a far more favorable opinion of McCain.

Recapturing these voters could do a lot to put Obama on top - and it’s unlikely the Democrat will ever have a comfortable lead unless he closes the deal with these Clinton supporters. Indeed, it is not just the NBC poll that has Obama too weak among registered Democrats, as most state polls show McCain is more in control of registered Republicans than Obama is of his base.

We are a few hours - perhaps a day, perhaps mere minutes - away from Obama’s VP pick and the Senator now says that he has already made his pick. But it is hard to escape from a simple conclusion: An Obama-Clinton ticket makes much more sense today than it did two months ago. After Obama wrapped up his nomination, the conventional wisdom - that I repeated here - was that he would only pick Clinton if, when the time came to make his choice, he had yet to heal the party’s divisions and needed a bigger show of unity with his former rival. In early June, conventional wisdom also held that Obama would be able to build solid numbers among registered Democrats, and would thus not need to go with Hillary.

Even if Clinton is not picked as the vice-president, the delegates’ floor vote, Hillary’s Wednesday night speech and the choreography of her endorsement of Obama might be the week’s most crucial moments. If these “cathartic” moments (as Ed Rendell put it) manage to bring Hillary supporters back in the Obama camp, the Illinois Senator could enjoy a big post-convention bounce. But if something goes wrong, or if the press seizes on a protest staged by a few Clinton delegates, the road could become more difficult for Obama.

The fact that Obama has room to grow among registered Democrats heightens the importance of next week’s convention - giving the event a bigger potential but also increasing the risks. These giant political infomercials might have become too conventional to seduce independents (in 2004, neither Kerry nor Bush got a significant bounce), but much of what Obama needs in this Democratic-tilting year is solid support from his base. The convention is an ideal moment for him to reach for that.

Another thing we will have to watch for is whether the Obama campaign imposes a “positive-only” rule on its speakers. The Kerry campaign had insisted that the 2004 convention stay positive, and that Bush not be mentioned. That had lead to a somewhat mellow four-days, and compared to the vitriol coming out of the GOP convention a month later it ended up looking like a bad choice. But the decision at least made sense on paper, as Kerry wanted to appeal to independent voters. In 2008, Obama has still not closed the deal with his base; and while the Democrats who are hesitating to vote for him certainly skew conservative, they nonetheless remain partisan. A convention is a candidate’s chance to throw meat at the base and play on their partisan allegiances. Will Obama take that route, or will his campaign imitate John Kerry’s?

Between Clinton and Obama, how much disunity?

Published
by
Taniel
on August 7, 2008
in Clinton and Nat-Dem
. 21 Comments

Over the past two months, I stayed away from discussing PUMAs or the state of the Clinton-Obama relationship. With little evidence that it would impact the election or disrupt Obama’s campaign, there was no reason to. But the risk of disunity is now taking a more tangible form.

Last week, many people from Clinton’s (former) entourage refused to defend Obama when the GOP accused him of playing the race card; some, like Howard Wolfson, implied that there was something to it. McCain adviser Steve Schmidt explicitly compared Obama’s strategy to the one he used against Hillary and compared his campaign to that of a defamed Bill Clinton.

Given that many of the voters Obama could lose if race enters the political conversation are Democrats, this was certainly not helpful and many of these statements appeared in the news stories devoted to the race card back-and-forth. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine Bill Clinton and Hillary’s former advisers, who think they were unfairly labeled as racists and fear that their reputation have been tarnished durably, coming to Obama’s defense on this one particular issue. In an ABC News interview last week, Bill Clinton got defensive, repeating “I am not a racist. I never made a racist comment” and confirming that the racial wounds of the primary have not been healed.

An issue on which Bill Clinton could - and should - help Obama tremendously, however, is experience. Throughout the primary, Obama supporters compared Obama’s experience and his emphasis on change and freshness to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Now, the experience question is Obama’s core vulnerability, and one McCain is eagerly exploiting in his attack ads with questions like “Is he ready to lead?” or “Is he ready to help your family?” It might be asking Bill Clinton too much to defend Obama from the accusation that he is playing the race card, but asking him to praise Obama’s qualifications is a very different thing.

In that same ABC interview, Bill Clinton was asked about Obama’s qualifications and responded: “You could argue that nobody is ever ready to be President. You could argue that even if you’ve been Vice President for eight years, that no one can ever be fully ready for the pressures of the office.” Clinton continued: “The Constitution sets qualification for the President. And then the people decide who they think would be the better President.”

In the primary, Obama’s argument was less that he had the same experience level as Clinton than that experience had proved to have no relevance to more important attributes, like which candidate has the best judgment. This is the argument Clinton was hinting at in this ABC interview when he dismissed the qualification question (and the argument he used in 1992) and as such his comments were not derogatory. However, they were most definitely tepid. Clinton offered a weak show of support (he did go on to say “I think he should win”) and he could not have ignored how his refusal to directly praise Obama would play in news stories. [Update: TPM provides a bit more context which does suggest that Clinton's experience sentence was meant to dismiss experience as an argument altogether and that his show of support was stronger than I implied: "He clearly can inspire and motivate people and energize them which is a very important part of being president. And he's smart as a whip so there's nothing he can't learn."]

This raises the question of whether Obama can send Bill on the campaign trail at all. It is true that he caused trouble for his wife throughout the primaries, but he also helped her cover more ground, drew big crowds and kept supporters enthused. If Obama needs help among blue-collar white voters in the fall, Bill Clinton would be a strong surrogate - but will Obama trust him with not sounding critical? And even if Bill decides to be more careful, is the media not too committed to getting a juicy quote out of him that it would make all of his appearances risky? [Update: Barack Obama addressed his relationship with the Clintons this afternoon and blamed the media for making up tensions: "There hasn't been controversy other than what you guys are projecting right now." He called Bill "very supportive" and "gracious."]

Hillary Clinton has looked far less bitter - at least in public. In her June appearance with Obama in Unity, New Hampshire, Clinton was fired up and showed no sign that she had just been defeated. She laid low over the next few weeks, introducing Obama to her donors. She will hit the campaign trail next week, campaigning for Obama in Las Vegas (you might remember Clinton won the Nevada caucuses on the strength of the Vegas vote). This at least should reassure Democrats that Hillary will be available as an Obama surrogate over the next few weeks, no matter how embittered she is privately.

And she will certainly be a boost for Obama: While she cannot help him among all constituencies, dispatching her in areas in which she did particularly well (particularly in Ohio and Pennsylvania) could shore up Obama’s support among the groups he is the weakest in. There are other Obama supporters who could help him among blue-collar white voters and downscale registered Democrats, but Hillary Clinton would be a rare surrogate with a national profile and the ability to draw crowds on the strength of her own name.

Finally, there is the question of the convention: Will Hillary’s name be put on the nominating ballot in Denver? ABC News reported yesterday that Clinton was leaving that possibility open. In a clip that has gone viral on You Tube, Hillary says: “I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views were respected.” We have long known that the Obama and Clinton camps were negotiating whether to put their two names on the nominating ballot, but Hillary’s determination to do so in this clip is surprising.

It is also difficult to predict in advance how much of a disruption a contested convention floor vote would be. If it was orderly and the result of an agreement between Obama and Clinton, it could be a show of party force and would not necessarily suggest that the party is too divided to win. But given the apparent intensity of many people’s feelings, the risk of an uglier scene with an open rift for all to see is very real. In recent cycles, conventions have become a celebration of presidential nominees. Do voters remember the time in which that was not the case, and would they understand why the convention floor is so tense?

Update: A bigger problem for Obama at the convention could be what to do with John Edwards.