Bush's War

This week's Frontline broadcast is part one of the two-part series Bush's War, billed as "The definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history."

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Economic Deja Vu

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.” — George Bernard Shaw

The New York Times published an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman today in which he argues that we are repeating the economic mistakes which led to the Great Depression. Some excerpts:

We chose to forget what happened in the 1930s — and having refused to learn from history, we’re repeating it. Contrary to popular belief, the stock market crash of 1929 wasn’t the defining moment of the Great Depression. What turned an ordinary recession into a civilization-threatening slump was the wave of bank runs that swept across America in 1930 and 1931. This banking crisis of the 1930s showed that unregulated, unsupervised financial markets can all too easily suffer catastrophic failure. As the decades passed, however, that lesson was forgotten — and now we’re relearning it, the hard way. . . .

Wall Street chafed at regulations that limited risk, but also limited potential profits. And little by little it wriggled free — partly by persuading politicians to relax the rules, but mainly by creating a “shadow banking system” that relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass regulations designed to ensure that banking was safe. . . .

As the years went by, the shadow banking system took over more and more of the banking business, because the unregulated players in this system seemed to offer better deals than conventional banks. Meanwhile, those who worried about the fact that this brave new world of finance lacked a safety net were dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned.

The financial crisis currently under way is basically an updated version of the wave of bank runs that swept the nation three generations ago. People aren’t pulling cash out of banks to put it in their mattresses — but they’re doing the modern equivalent, pulling their money out of the shadow banking system and putting it into Treasury bills. And the result, now as then, is a vicious circle of financial contraction.

A More Perfect Union

Barack Obama addresses racism in general, and Jeremiah Wright in particular:

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News Flash

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Giant Whale Beached on United States

The Big States

Markos Moulitsas posted an article today examining the argument that Hillary should be the Democratic nominee because she has won "all the big states" in the primaries. Some excerpts:

The 10 biggest states by population [are] California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina. ... Of the states that will be competitive, Obama has clear advantages in Texas and North Carolina, while Clinton has clear advantages in Pennsylvania and Florida. In the electoral math, that is 49 EVs for Obama, 48 for Clinton. Yup, Obama has a one electoral vote advantage from the top 10 "big states" that Clinton can't stop yammering about.

But more important than the biggest states should be the closest states in 2004. ... If you were to make the moronic assumption that only the winner of the primary could win those states, that would add up to 74 electoral votes for Obama, 49 for Clinton.

But better yet, let's look at SUSA's 50 state poll and see how the candidates fared in these states against McCain. ... In terms of electoral votes, that's an advantage of 101 for Obama, 74 for Clinton.

No matter how you parse it, the data is clear that Obama is the more competitive November candidate for the Democratic Party.

Crazy Like a Fox?

At first glance, it might seem that Geraldine Ferraro, a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter and a member of her campaign finance committee, has gone mad. Yesterday she said:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Coming from anyone but Bill O'Reilly, one would naturally expect a statement like that to be followed by an apology within 24 hours. But today, Ferraro stubbornly refused to back down, responding to her critics with the following:

Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?

What the heck is going on here? Is Ferraro nuts? Are these the initial symptoms of encroaching senility?

Some have suggested this is actually part of a cynical strategy.

The next Democratic primary is in Pennsylvania on April 22nd. James Carville once quipped that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh on the west, Philadelphia on the east, and Alabama in the middle. Unfortunately for Democrats, the Alabama in the middle is white, redneck, racist Alabama.

It may seem absurd to many Americans, but a common refrain among rednecks is that minorities get all the breaks in this country. That the system is biased against whites. That a black man is "very lucky to be who he is," to quote Ferraro. A considerable number of whites really believe this. Mind-boggling perhaps to anyone who knows anything about black history, but true nonetheless. Many whites sincerely believe they are the persecuted minority.

Does anyone still remember the South Carolina primary? It was six weeks ago. Yes, I realize that time in the Democratic primaries is now measured in dog years. Six weeks seems like a lifetime ago. A lot has changed since then. For starters, we don't see much of Bill Clinton any more. Does anyone remember why that is? Does anyone remember the embarrassing racist comments he made during the South Carolina primary?

Is it hopelessly cynical of me to wonder if Ferraro is deliberately playing a similar race card now? That her comments are carefully chosen to resonate with Pennsylvania's "Alabama in the middle?" That the timing is suspiciously coincident with Obama's big win in Mississippi, where he garnered 90% among blacks but only 30% among whites? Am I seeing racist conspiracies where none exist?

Time will tell. April 22nd is six weeks away, another lifetime in dog years. No doubt a lot will happen before then. We'll have a much clearer picture of the Clinton strategy for Pennsylvania.

And perhaps we'll know whether Geraldine Ferraro is crazy or cunning.

Update (3/11/2008): Maybe Ferraro is just a bigot, pure and simple. During the presidential primaries in 1988 she said, "If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Update (3/11/2008): Here's more evidence that Ferraro's remarks were not just extemporaneous misstatements. Almost two weeks ago, on February 26, 2008, Ferraro gave an interview to conservative talk show host John Gibson. Gibson posed the scenario of Barack Obama arriving at the Democratic convention with more pledged delegates, but Hillary Clinton receiving the nomination because of super-delegate votes. He asked if that would cause a civil war within the Democratic party. Her reply included the following:

If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position? Absolutely not.

Update (3/12/2008): In a post today, blogger dnA writes:

The aim here is to evoke racial resentment on the part of white voters over issues like Affirmative Action, and cast Obama as a talentless hack who excels only because our country is held victim by political correctness. The hope is that this will drive a permanent wedge between Obama and white voters that will sway Superdelegates to ultimately go with Hillary at the convention. At worst, Obama will be so damaged in the general that he can never be a threat to their ambitions again.

Update (3/12/2008): Ferraro just resigned from Clinton's campaign finance committee. Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson said:

We were completely unaware of Mrs. Ferraro's remarks before she made them. We did not in any way enourage them.

Apparently, they were also completely unaware that she had made essentially the same remarks two weeks ago and twenty years ago.

Update (3/12/2008): On tonight's broadcast of Countdown, Keith Olbermann made some scathing comments on this whole affair that are well worth watching.

1627

This post has nothing to do with the Puritans in Massachussetts or the first European sighting of Australia or anything else that happened in the year 1627.

The number 1627 is a critical threshold in the Democratic primary race. It is 50% + 1 of the 3252 pledged delegates. The candidate who reaches that number will have the strongest legitimate claim to the party's nomination in August. It's hard to imagine the majority of super-delegates voting for the other person; to do so would risk an ugly civil war among Democrats.

Currently, just after the polls have closed in the Mississippi primary, realclearpolitics.com shows Obama with 1395 pledged delegates, Clinton with 1237. Several pundits are estimating that Obama will reach the 1627 threshold on May 20th during the Oregon and Kentucky primaries.

It remains to be seen whether some lucky Oregon or Kentucky Democrat will be awarded a prize for casting the vote that put one of the candidates over the top. But one can only hope that the other candidate will acknowledge defeat and bow out gracefully.

Another Lie Exposed

In October 2002, President Bush delivered a speech which included the following:

We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. ...

Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. ... Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction.

During the months preceding the March 2003 Iraq invasion, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice also gave several speeches citing "bulletproof evidence" of Saddam Hussein's al Qaeda connections.

McClatchy Newspapers today published a story which begins:

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

Update (3/12/2008): ABC News has a story today that the Pentagon is trying to bury the study:

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online. ... The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. ... [A] Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

ABC News is providing the executive summary of the report in PDF format.

Pandering Hypocrite

"Neither [political] party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
— John McCain, 2000.

"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."
— John Hagee, 2007.

"I am very proud to have pastor John Hagee's support. He has been the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement in many areas."
— John McCain, 2008.

Bad Week?

Everyone in the press is saying that Barack Obama had a bad week last week, that Hillary Clinton staged a comeback. But if you sit down and do the delegate arithmetic, you might reach a different conclusion.

On Tuesday, Obama had a net loss of 6 delegates in the four primaries.*

On Thursday, the final California primary results showed that Obama gained 8 delegates over previous estimates.**

On Saturday, Obama won Wyoming, with a net gain of 2 delegates.

And finally, throughout the week, Obama picked up a net gain of 9 super-delegate endorsements.***

The final tally from Obama's bad week? He netted 4 pledged delegates and 9 super-delegates, increasing his lead by 13.

At this point, Hillary must surely be thinking the words of Pyrrhus: "One more such victory will undo me."

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* He lost 9 in Ohio, lost 5 in Rhode Island, gained 5 in Texas, and gained 3 in Vermont.

** He won 4 more than expected, she won 4 fewer than expected.

*** Obama got 13: Carol Fowler, Mary Long, and Roy LaVerne Brooks on 3/4; Rhine McLin and Jane Kidd on 3/5; Connie Thurman, Nick Rahall, and Teresa Benitez-Thompson on 3/6; Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker on 3/7; Bill Foster, Mary Jo Neville, and Joyce Brayboy on 3/9. Clinton got 4: Barbara Boxer and Mona Mohib on 3/6; Aleita Huguenin on 3/7; Mary Lou Winters on 3/8.

Breaking the Rules

Gary Hart posted the following editorial today on The Huffington Post:

It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.

As a veteran of red telephone ads and "where's the beef" cleverness, I am keenly aware that sharp elbows get thrown by those trailing in the fourth quarter (and sometimes even earlier). "Politics ain't beanbag," is the old slogan. But that does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters.

Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.

Head to Head

For many Democrats trying to decide who to support, the most important question is this: Which candidate would fare better against John McCain in the general election?

According to some polling data released today, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would beat him, with Obama doing just a smidgen better.

SurveyUSA (or SUSA, for short) has been one of the most reliable pollsters during this primary season. Today they published the results of two head-to-head polls carried out in each of the 50 states. From these they infer the following electoral college tallies: Clinton vs. McCain: 276-262 and Obama vs. McCain: 280-258.

Although the net electoral numbers are almost the same, it's interesting to observe that Clinton and Obama achieve their victories by somewhat different means. Clinton loses the blue states Washington, Oregon, Iowa, and Michigan, but she wins the red states Arkansas and Florida. Obama loses the blue states Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but wins the red states Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, and Virginia. Somewhat surprisingly, they both win Ohio by 10% margins.

Note: A close look at SurveyUSA's data reveals that in most of these 100 polls, the winner's margin of victory is exceeded by the sum of the margin of error (4%) plus the number of undecideds. So remember: "Your mileage may vary."

The following maps show the battlefields (click on either for a larger view):

Dodgy Math

After their big wins in yesterday's elections, the Clinton campaign today issued a statement in which they said, "After 28 million votes have been counted, the popular vote contest in the Democratic primary is within one-tenth of one percent."

Well, no, that's not true. It took me a minute to figure out that part of the problem is that they're including the "votes" in Michigan and Florida. But even then, the total popular vote would only add up to 27.2 million, according to realclearpolitics.com.

Obviously, the Clinton staffers who wrote this memo, Mark Penn and Harold Ickes, are fudging the numbers. So what are the actual numbers?

If you don't include Michigan and Florida, there have been a total of 25.4 million Democratic votes cast so far. Obama leads by about 587,000 votes, which translates to 2.3% of the total. In the pledged delegate count, he currently leads by 144 out of 2,642, which is 5.5%.

For a little perspective, 587,000 votes is slightly larger than the margin by which Gore beat Bush in 2000, which in turn is about five times the margin of Kennedy over Nixon in 1960. In other words, it's enough to proclaim a winner even though it's not a landslide victory.

Then again, maybe the Clinton campaign in 2008 is planning to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by following the example of the Bush campaign in 2000, with superdelegates playing the role of a "supreme court."

Update (3/7/2008): The above numbers leave out four of the caucus states — Iowa, Nevada, Washington, and Maine — because they didn't report exact popular vote tallies. But they did give estimated total turnouts. Based on that and the final state delegate percentages, we can arrive at estimates of the popular vote which are probably fairly accurate.

Iowa: 239,000 estimated voters, Obama 37.1% delegates, Clinton 29.9% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 88,669, Clinton 71,461.

Nevada: 117,599 voters, Obama 45.1% delegates, Clinton 50.8% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 53,037, Clinton 59,740.

Washington: 250,000 estimated voters, Obama 67.6% delegates, Clinton 31.2% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 169,000, Clinton 78,000.

Maine: 44,667 voters, Obama 59.5% delegates, Clinton 39.9% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 26,577, Clinton 17,822.

Adding all these together yields 651,266 total voters with Obama garnering 110,260 more than Clinton. Finally, incorporating this into the above tallies yields a grand total of 26.1 million popular votes and Obama leading by about 697,000, or 2.7%.

Update (3/8/2008): Suppose we also add in Florida, whose "primary" at least had Obama on the ballot, unlike Michigan. That brings the total popular vote up to 27.4 million and Obama leading by about 420,000, or 1.5%.

Update (3/12/2008): Adding Wyoming and Mississippi yields 28.0 million total and Obama leading by about 517,000, or 1.8%. Remember, this includes Florida and estimates for Iowa, Nevada, Washington, and Maine. There are less controversial vote tallies at realclearpolitics.com.

Clinton's Law

"One of Clinton's laws of politics is this: If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you'd better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."
— Bill Clinton, 2004.