Will the Left Sink the Democrats?

The left has decided that Barack Obama is their candidate. That's not news, although why the left coalesced around Obama rather than Clinton or Edwards is a matter that bears some speculation, as either of the other two are at least as left as Obama on the issues (Edwards was the farthest left in this primary season). What is news is that the left turns out to be a problem as we find ourselves in an exceedingly delicate political situation here in the far endgame of the Democratic primaries. I will try to be as direct as possible: both the left and the black voters are failing to appreciate the gravity of Obama's problems with working class whites. They are also making the big mistake of construing all of Clinton's voters as anti-Obama voters, ignoring two things: 1) many of those voters have been supporting Clinton since way before Obama emerged as the front-runner, and 2) many (almost certainly most) of Clinton's voters are motivated primarily by economic concerns. They see Clinton as the best hope of economic improvement. Clinton's voters are for the most part voting for Clinton, not voting against Obama. It was disappointing to hear an African-American caller on C-Span's Washington Journal the other day denigrating Clinton's supporters as ignorant crackers and Rush Limbaugh dittoheads. I would expect people who have been unfairly maligned for political ends to be sensitive to not doing that, but I guess I'm too optimistic. And that brings me to Florida and Michigan. I was also disappointed to hear Rachel Maddow on MSNBC making a distinction between what she called an "ethical" position - Michigan and Florida ought to be disenfranchised because they "didn't follow the rules" - and a "strategic" position - Clinton's, that is, what is needed to win the nomination. This manages to imply that Clinton is unethical and at the same time that the voters of Michigan and Florida deserve to be punished for some wrongdoing. Double nonsense. The situation with Florida and Michigan is a fiasco, to be sure, but now the reality is that the Democrats need both states to win the election. Contrary to what some of my Democratic friends seem to think, this election is not going to be an easy thing. We cannot write anyone off, concede any battle. Maddow, like a lot of Obama supporters, wants to silence Michigan and Florida because she's in the tank for Obama. What about consensus? What about representation? Who are these boutique "progressives" who turn out to be obtuse about consensus politics, alienated from working class people, disdainful of rural whites, hostile to compromise? Populists they ain't, folks, and this old-fashioned liberal says that if the Democratic Party loses the current wide-open opportunity to become a real alternative for ordinary working class whites, it might mean another generation of Republican power. What we are now going to find out is, how wise is the leader? Will Obama show that he is a bigger person than so many of his supporters are turning out to be?

Depends on What You Mean By "Rise"

It's not surprising that the success of the candidacy of Barack Obama is causing dramatic effects in the politics of the South. But Obama has taken us into the land of unforeseen consequences, and small surprises, and lessons, abound. Mostly this morning I am thinking about the Democratic Party. The Party now needs to rise to the historical moment, define itself, show that it can win elections, and present a clear (enough) and compelling (enough) vision and agenda to govern. Right now we are working out what exactly the Democratic coalition is, and until that comes into focus we will not be able to develop a coherent philosophy, because we don't at the moment know who we are. These abstractions are made very concrete by the political news coming out of the Old South. A "perfect storm" scenario has developed as the candidacy of Obama has at long last awakened the sleeping giant of the Southern black electorate, at the same time as the Republican Party is left holding the bag of an alarmingly bad economy, a hugely unpopular war, and a president whose disapproval ratings are higher than those of Richard Nixon's on the eve of his resignation. Add to this decades of immigration into the region of people, white, black, and otherwise, who don't share the political instincts and tropes of the old, apartheid South.
But Democrats need to be careful. Consider the lessons of the recent victory in a special election of Travis Childers to Congress in a heretofore safely Republican district in Mississippi. Childers won with overwhelming support of black voters there, and their numbers had been greatly increased by the Obama phenomenon. But he also was able to gain enough white votes to win because he is a staunch Dixiecrat, against gun control, against abortion rights: someone who would have had to run as a Republican in many other regions of the country. The key lesson in this is about party loyalty: the bridge between social conservatives who are disenchanted with the economic and foreign policy of the Republican establishment and African-American voters in the South is the Democratic Party. A Party that represents real black civic power and enfranchisement, while still appealing to traditional regional values, can only be based on the concept of Party loyalty at this point; later on we can grow into our new coalition. Right now it's just a practical reality that the Dixiecrats need the African-American vote, and the African-American community needs white allies. This is not the same conceptual equation as building something on "the left," or winning a battle between conservatives and liberals. For that matter, many Southern blacks are also strong Christians, law and order folks, and so on.
Meanwhile the race issue, that has floated the Republicans' boat so many times in the past, threatens to sink it now. In the special election in Mississippi Republicans were quick to play the race card (look, it's not some "dirty little secret" that the GOP uses racist tactics in the South; apart from national security rhetoric and Christian rhetoric, race baiting has long been the main tactic of the GOP in the region). But this time, running ads "tying" (I'm not sure how "tying" works) Childers to Obama had the effect of rallying the newly-galvanized black voters to Childers' cause. It works both ways: if the main issue in Republican rhetoric in the South is going to be built around the point that Obama is black, that means that the Republicans are distinguished from the Democrats mainly on race, and not in a good way. Nor can the Republicans simply walk away from their base, which has helped them win so many times before: somewhere around one-third of the Republicans' voters are frankly, explicitly racist at least in the sense that they would decline to vote for a black, and they will tell you so if asked (roughly mapping onto the one-third who identify themselves as "Christian fundamentalist," sadly enough. What happens to the GOP if being a self-identified Christian comes to mean that one is against racism?).
That brings me to the last point. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show this week ran clips of racist white voters in West Virginia. One middle-aged woman in a diner said that granting the history of conflict between blacks and whites, she was frightened of black candidates and would vote against them. To many of us (myself included) this may seem like a rather bizarre way to process America's history of slavery and racism (all Stewart had to do to get his laugh was run the clip and mug at the camera in disbelief), but we have to take a deep breath and try to listen to these people, understand their fears, and communicate with them. The Democratic Party will go on to govern in the years ahead, and to transform the country in the needed ways, if we can present an alternative political reality to people like her.

Radicals Don't Want to Talk Either

I think I can fill in a little bit more than just adding to the liberal chorus of outrage over Bush's comments to the Knesset to the effect that the Democrats, through the practice of diplomacy (disdained in itself by the Bush administration), commit appeasement like Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Three points:
1) The radicals and terrorists reject negotiation, just as Bush does. It is a canard to suggest that Obama thinks that "some argument" will change the minds of radical religious militants. Obama (and Carter) are trying to engage now-marginalized moderate Arab voices, as any sensible diplomacy must. What Bush's rhetoric does is to imply that any representative of, say, Iran or Syria is a "terrorist," something not even the Israelis would claim: thus Bush dangerously distorts grave matters of foriegn policy in the name of holding on to political power.
2) What needs to be repeated enough to get through to the popular consciousness is that the Republicans plan to run a national security campaign against the Democrats. In the 2004 election Vice-President Cheney publicly stated that a Democratic victory would make terrorist attacks more probable. It might be that the Democrats should engage with this issue, rather than trying to change the subject: voters can decide at the polls whether the appropriate approach to reforming America's diplomatic profile in the years to come is engagement or belligerence. There is no doubt that John McCain would continue with the current belligerence.
3) Common sense: if you are a radical anti-American of any kind, and particularly if your goal is to alienate the Arab world from the USA, what you want is for the Republican conservatives to stay in power. It greatly legitimizes Al Qaeda and other such groups when they are portrayed by the Americans as military foes, whereas the European approach, to view them as a problem for law enforcement, both diminishes them and has proved much more effective in terms of both security and diplomacy. I'm sure Osama bin Laden is hoping for a Republican victory, just as Raoul Castro is: that would help to keep them in business.

How the Rules Are Helping Clinton

Today Senator Clinton is trying out the line that "If we'd had the Republican rules I'd be the nominee right now, and if the Republicans had had our rules they'd still be fighting." This may be true on both counts (that's uncertain), but it misdirects our attention away from the real differences between the two parties and the real political consequences of those differences. The point of the proportional allocation on the Democrat side was to promote consensus democratic practice. The idea was to force the candidates to negotiate with each other, with the goal of a more inclusive ticket. I very much support this commitment to building a populist Democratic Party, not least because it acknowledges the fact that in our system, the voter is sovereign: we are electing the representative of the people's will, not a king or a queen. And the fact is that the Democratic rules have put Clinton in her current position, namely that Obama really has very little choice but to put her on the ticket. The people have spoken because they were allowed to speak. The primary voters have divided themselves into two halves, and that forces the leaders to bring the two halves back together. This is the people leading, and the leaders following: exactly what the proportional delegate allocation was meant to achieve. In the more pluralistic future that is fast approaching this difference between the parties could be decisive, if the Democrats become the populist party, as we should.

The Morning After Indiana and North Carolina

Yesterday morning I opined that yesterday's primary would only be decisive if Obama won both states. This morning I'm not so sure: Obama has won North Carolina by 15 points, 56% to 41%, while Clinton squeaked by in Indiana at the low end of a 2 point difference. I had expected the hockey game to continue, and as someone who's been for Clinton since last summer, I even had my clever post headline (if nothing else) for today: "Don't Tell Obama, I'm Still With Mama." Pretty good, eh? But that's not how I feel. What I'm thinking about are three things: 1) Now I can finally, really feel the inspiration of a charismatic young black Democrat who has a solid chance to win the presidency. That feels really good, my caution as a party loyalist prevented me from letting myself go with those feelings up until now. 2) I'm starting to worry about the general election, and specifically about whether Obama will be able to draw enough white votes to win. The news from the primaries is good on that: Indiana is an overwhelmingly white state and about half of the Democratic primary voters pulled the lever for Obama yesterday, and his unexpectedly large margin of victory in North Carolina means that he managed to draw significant white support there as well (I know that Southern whites are sensitive about the stereotype that they're more racist than everybody else, and I think that some white Democrats in North Carolina didn't like the part that they'd been assigned in the script that they were handed). But the fact that he has not, in fact, managed to win white majorities in big states, and this among Democratic primary voters, looks like the biggest political issue going forward. 3) I am convinced that he needs to put Clinton on the ticket, both out of respect for the Democratic Party ethos of consensual democracy and for more pragmatic political reasons (actually those reasons are the same, come to think of it). Probably the best thing for Clinton to do (assuming that she wants the VP spot, I think that she does want it) is to withdraw, go home, and wait for the Obama campaign to do the math. The best thing for Obama to do is to contact her privately and offer her the job, and start working on getting the Democrats into the White House in 2008.

The Morning of Indiana and North Carolina: United We Stand

Tonight we will learn of the results in the primary voting today in Indiana and North Carolina. It is possible that Obama can put down Clinton's campaign for the nomination, if he wins both states. However, as of this morning things are not trending his way in either state, although Indiana is (fittingly) a "jump ball," in a state that Clinton was long expected to win. More worrisome is the degree to which Clinton is narrowing his lead in North Carolina. Any outcome other than a double Obama victory means that the boxing marathon continues.
But this brawl is only over who will be at the top of the ticket. The ticket is decided, and it has been decided by the electorate. Consider the facts, as of this morning: Out of 2,831 total pledged delegates so far, Obama has a 155 lead (and remember that something will still have to be done about Florida and Michigan). Out of approximately 29 million popular votes cast so far, Obama leads by 600,000. The Democratic Party is having a primary, not a winner-take-all election. The goal of the process is to select a winning ticket for November. Consider, also, the demographics: Obama has the black voters, the under-30 voters, the college-educated and urban professionals. Clinton has the older voters, the rural voters, the union voters and blue-collar voters, and enjoys a significant gender gap in a party that is 55% women. Whichever one gets the nomination, they will desperately need (not just need but desperately need) the other to retrieve and rally their respective supporters. The good news is that they can do that: Obama can rally the African-American voters and younger voters if he is the VP candidate, the Clintons can rally the working-class whites and older voters if Clinton is the VP candidate.
I think that that part of it is decided already, folks: we are now involved in an endgame to determine which of them will be on the top of the ticket.

Operation Obfuscation

Just a note on some discussion of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" on MSNBC last night. Limbaugh has been telling his audience that Republicans should cross over and vote for Clinton in the primaries, his ostensible thesis being that Clinton would be easier to beat in the fall. The MSNBC crew (Matthews, Barnacle) hit the common sense points: 1) Limbaugh doesn't really have the pull to swing a point in a primary, Democrat or Republican; 2) more interestingly, it's at a minimum debatable which candidate, Clinton or Obama, would be the more formidable candidate in the general election (I for one suspect Clinton would be stronger, although at this point it looks like either one would probably win). But I'm posting about this because no one on MSNBC made what I take to be a likely explanation of Rush's schtick (besides that it's some theater for Limbaugh, who is essentially an entertainer): it has been widely reported over the past few primaries that Republicans are crossing over to vote in the Democratic primaries. These are Republicans that are being pulled off of their party, and who are trying to elect the next President, no sabotage intended, and that is very bad news for the GOP: evidence of a real realignment. I think Limbaugh is intentionally obfuscating that. His theatrics divert attention from an embarrassing discussion.

Black Generation Gap

This morning we wake up to the disturbing reality that the Rev. Wright issue might actually help to bring down the candidacy of Barack Obama. A portent of the future can be seen by random sampling of Fox News, where you will find an obsessive orgy of race-baiting aimed at the white audience, exploiting the dangerously cathartic effect resentful white reactionaries enjoy when they call black people "racist." Bob Herbert in today's NYT takes the line that Rev. Wright, who stated to the press corps yesterday that Louis Farrakhan is "one of the most important voices of the 20th and 21st centuries," is deliberately shooting down Obama. I don't go in for that sort of paranoia (I'm brought up short by the fact that a lot of people actually seem to believe that the Clintons want to sabotage the general election, an outrageous claim), but he might as well be right when we consider today's polling on Real Clear Politics that shows Obama in a dead heat with McCain, while Clinton vs. McCain is at the moment opening up a lead, almost ten points up on the latest AP poll. The real poison was the next thing that Wright said: "Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains." This makes it clear who "the enemy" is.
But I'm not here to pile on. I've posted before to the effect that there is a striking absence of appreciation of, or even listening to, the messages of Rev. Wright and other traditional black voices (Farrakhan, for that matter, develops some of the themes of Malcolm X, who is eminently worth reading). Besides dismissing the ideas of traditional black nationalists as something not worth listening to, there is also no appreciation of the fact that at the nationalist end of the black political spectrum, the more the mainstream reviles you, the more credibility you have. Another factor here is the black generation gap. Older blacks (Bill Cosby, who I admire, is another example) have a sensibility and a worldview reflective of an older, harsher and above all more segregated time (there is even nostalgia for the segregated middle-class neighborhoods of the 40s and 50s, like Russians missing Stalin). Their rhetoric is essentialist, "us" and "them." Obviously this is jarringly dissonant with Obama's attempt at a post-racialist rhetoric.
I don't think that Obama is in any danger at all of losing support from black voters. In fact I think that he might be well-advised to reject Wright in stronger terms than he has so far (Wright appears to be forcing him to do this). But the theme that is emerging on this blog is that Obama has been strategically incorrect in trying to run as a black candidate who is not a black candidate. We cannot overcome our racial problem by going around it (Obama as Ulysses), or over it (Obama as Icarus). We must work through it (Hercules). And whites must remember that racism is a white problem, and that if the country can't elect a black man today that is because the white community must evolve. The best thing about Obama is that he refuses to fall victim to the self-fulfilling prophecy, that we're not ready for him.
Meanwhile as to the proposal, endorsed by McCain and Clinton, of a gasoline-tax holiday over the summer (that is, during the election): shame on the both of them. We need to have a national energy policy that addresses our long-term needs, not pander to the voters with artificial prices that drive up the debt. And cheers for Obama for having no part of it.

Climbing Mt. Race

I was struck by some discussion of Obama on TV last night (it was probably MSNBC). Obama's problem, it was suggested, was that he was becoming (through the Rev. Wright flap etc.) to be "identified with the black agenda," and that he was therefore increasingly "threatening" to white voters especially the "Reagan Democrat" working-class whites who are voting for Clinton by large margins. This is emerging as a potentially serious problem as some of these voters are openly telling pollsters that they won't vote for Obama if nominated (it is likely that there are more who think this way but are embarrassed to admit it publicly). There are at least two strategies available for the black politician who wants to climb the Everest of American politics, getting elected President. One is to be the "accidental black man," the charismatic and attractive candidate who just happens to be black. Obama has been perceived for much of the past year as the accidental black man, even as he tapped into a deep vein of longing among white voters for the opportunity to redeem themselves at long last by voting for a black candidate. The obvious benefit of the accidental black man strategy is that such a candidate is non-threatening to white people. The unfortunate corollary to this is that the non-accidental black man is (still) threatening. But the accidental black man strategy hasn't worked in any event. Obama got where he is by solidifying his base among African-American voters (black men support Obama by somewhere around 95 percent). The appeal of the accidental black man strategy is that we all, whites and blacks alike, can pat ourselves on the back and say, congratulations, we're all beyond that awful race stuff. But this is a celebration to which we are not entitled. No, a black candidate is still a black candidate, and has no chance of advancement if he is not, for starters, a champion of the "black agenda," whatever that is (I'm not clear on what that is, but I know that "agenda" is a somewhat loaded word that people use when they want their opponents to appear more sinister than they are, as in "the gun-control advocates' agenda"). So what's the other strategy for climbing Mt. Race? That is for a large enough portion of the white electorate to be brought around to the view that the interests of the black community are not antagonistic to their own. This does not involve black people somehow acting any differently than they do (being "less threatening"), but it does involve educating the larger community, Rev. King-style, about the legitimate needs and concerns of the black community. What I'm suggesting is that Obama's grand strategy for transcending race is premature. If a black candidate can get elected to the presidency today (and I don't know if it's possible or not), he ("she" might be a bit of a stretch) will have to do it by simultaneously offering a coherent program addressing the country's various needs and articulating a credible vision for advancing the interests of the African-American community.

Why is Big Media Issues-Free?

The morning after the Pennsylvania primary, I'm not sure there's much more to say about the Democratic race. The voters are speaking the way the polls were speaking during President Clinton's impeachment trial, and like then the power-brokers and the pundits can ignore the voice of The People for so long and no longer, and in the end we will have the Obama-Clinton ticket, because that's what The People have (already) commanded. The Party may yet disobey this command, but that, I predict, would be a grave error.
This morning something a little weightier interests me. I'm a politics junkie and handicapping the horse race is good fun and all, but the degree to which our political discussion has become issues-free is striking. In the past I've thought that our collective aversion to serious debate was a combination of being too fat and happy and America's legendary anti-intellectualism, but that theory doesn't really do the work it has to do in the spring of 2008. I think it's the very gravity of the situation that is rinsing out even the thin film of policy debate that usually passes for substance in Big Media. Conspiracy theorists are more optimistic than I am: they tend to think that finite groups of willful persons are successfully manipulating events. I think, on the contrary, that we have a tiger by the tail: large structural changes are generally driving things and, for the most part, nobody's in charge. Here's this morning's take on why there is now no substantial policy discussion happening on our politics-saturated television screens:
Dynamic systems, like flowing water, tend to seek equilibrium. Our two-party system, for example, has been successful for a long time because it adds another level of stasis to our political institutions. Where I live here in Puerto Rico, for another example, the public has distributed itself almost precisely into the half of voters who support the "populares" (the pro-status-quo party) and the half who support the "nuevoprogresistas" (the pro-statehood party). 50-50 splits are stable arrangements that are easier to get to than the stability of total victory for one side (and obviously more desirable from the small-"d" democratic point of view). It has always been thus, but the larger the system the more homogenous it appears, and we are now living in a fantastically huge system, not only in terms of persons (hundreds of millions in-country, highly integrated with global billions), but also in terms of information (both in terms of bits and of sources).
Both the proliferation of sources (not only the internet but also cable and satellite TV and radio and, contrary to popular hype, even more print media than ever before) and the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of the population leads to informational and political "cocooning." Individuals are now able to choose their sources of news and opinion and most people very actively construct a customized information environment that largely echoes back their preconceptions (I'm guilty: lately I've been experimenting with networking on Facebook and I very quickly worked myself into Liberal Intelligentsia Land). People now have huge, interactive information resources to work on developing their own world view and theories of what to do and how to do it, and thus the political news becomes simply handicapping the horse race. Big Media is no longer the arena where minds are going to be changed, except in superficial ways (Does he cheat on his wife? Is she obnoxious? Do they cheat on their taxes?).
But most importantly of all, and this is really the thought that is driving me here, real discussion has simply become too radical to be handled by the stasis-maintaining Big Media, because the changes that are necessarily being considered by any real discussion are much more radical than they've been in decades. Tax policy is wildly regressive by any historical standard, and reform means a substantial redistribution of wealth. Health care is similarly dangerously maldistributed, and reform means changes in government, medicine, insurance. America has to stand down as global gendarme and cease to flood the world with weapons, but many communities and whole regions depend on military industry. Can you spell "global warming"? And so on. The irony of our current situation is that it is precisely because the choices that we must make are so radical that we cannot bring ourselves to even discuss them. A paradox is that the more pundits proliferate on the cable news shows, the less they have to say.

The Day Before Pennsylvania

Last March 4th I posted "The Morning of Ohio and Texas," and started by saying that by the end of that day, maybe we would know who the Democratic nominee would be. It certainly didn't turn out that way. After that primary day we had a few weeks of everybody (including me) wringing our hands about six more weeks of bloodletting by the Democrats while McCain consolidated his campaign, and that is exactly what we got. The good news is that this dark time didn't really change much. A Republican victory is still predicated on the unlikely circumstance that we have no national discussion at all of any substantial issues: the financial crisis, health care, the environment, education; even foreign policy and crime aren't issues that trend towards the Republicans this time around, and that hasn't changed. Not that it's not possible that we actually won't discuss any substantial issues between now and November. Big Media, that I continue to spend lots of time consuming for some increasingly inexplicable reason, is practically issues-free even now, the latest debate debacle being only the most conspicuous example.
Meanwhile the political situation is remarkably unchanged since I posted on the morning of March 4th. Barack Obama still looks like he's going to secure the nomination eventually, but Hillary Clinton still has a chance and can't be made to go away. I find my interest wandering off to Iran, Tibet, Cuba, Zimbabwe. But I do think that little blogs like this make a contribution, a thousand little voices swelling into a big noise when enough of them harmonize on a single note. And the note that I have to sound is this one: isn't the voter sovereign in our system? The electoral system, that is, is meant to serve the voters, not the candidates or the parties. Reagan understood that when he saw that George H. W. Bush and his buddy-in-arms James Baker had secured somewhere around twenty-five percent of the delegates heading in to the Republican Convention of 1980. Governor Reagan didn't presume to decide on the basis of whether he wanted to work with those guys, much less whether he liked them. He did it the old-fashioned way: he respected the voters. And here we are, Obama and Clinton separated at this point by about a half-million votes out of some 15 million votes cast in Democratic primaries thus far, Clinton running well in most of the big states that the Democrats need to win. I think that the difference between now and last March 4th is that the ticket has indeed been decided: Clinton has shot her way on to it. I would like to see them on the same ticket, but that's not the point. It's possible that we are already at the point where she has to be on the ticket, even if we don't yet see it clearly.

The Campaign on Facebook and MySpace

Michael Amato, Rowan University '09, sent me this e-mail yesterday:
"Dear Mr. Brown, I am a journalism student at Rowan University all the way out in Glassboro, NJ. I am currently working on a story for my Broadcast News Writing class and could definitely use your input. After reading your blogs for the past days, I thought you would be someone who would have knowledge of the topic...I'm writing a story about the new technology the nominees for President have been using this time around...now they are making profiles on the new fad MySpace and Facebook. I have a few questions about this:
1) Why do you think they have these profiles and who do you think these profiles are intended for?...is this a good marketing strategy?
2) Do you think these profiles may actually have an influence on the voting process?
3) Do you think these profiles could actually be a deciding factor when a person gets to the voting booth. Might someone think, 'Well, from Clinton's profile on Facebook, she seems cool, so I'll vote for her'?"
Michael, I'm glad to know you were reading my blog. It so happens that I have also recently started using Facebook. I can think of three points right off:
1 Since the 2004 election in particular, a key fund-raising tool has been the internet, so expect politicians to try using every available internet application.
2) Facebook and MySpace have youthful demographics: the great majority of people on these sites are under 35. This is a hard group for politicians to reach (a lot of young adults say that they get more info from The Daily Show on Comedy Central than they do from regular news sources). This age group is also a battleground between the two major parties.
3) The most important reason is that Facebook and MySpace actually are quite effective networking applications. For example, the past week I became Facebook "friends" with Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party, and with Arianna Huffington, a well-known liberal blogger (Huffington Post). Becoming their friend gives me access to the list of all their other friends, and these are lists of hundreds of people who have similar political views and interests to mine. I was able to find on those lists several other bloggers that I link to on my politics blog, and send them messages asking them to check out my blog and link to it if they wished. This way I increase traffic to my blog, and make connections with people who do what I do. A political organizer needs such lists for fund-raising and for get-out-the-vote drives. In the old days these targeted mailing lists would be sold for large amounts of money by political consultants who worked for years, sometimes, compiling them. When Barack Obama was recently endorsed by John Kerry, for example, he also gained access to Kerry's e-mail and snail mail lists from the 2004 campaign, a valuable asset. With networking applications such as Facebook, a campaign can quickly compile a very efficiently targeted list of people who are likely supporters. So you can see that these lists are more than just a fad.
(Historical note: Mark Hanna, the campaign manager for the successful Republican candidate William McKinley in 1896, is generally credited as the first operative to make mass-mailings of political flyers through the U.S. Postal Service.)

Professor Obama

I'm of two minds about this week's mini-flap about Barack Obama's comments to the effect that lower-middle class people react to economic stress with xenophobic sentiments about immigrants and minorities, and reactionary conservatism on social issues. Of course this is demonstrably true (these sentiments rise and fall in a statistically significant correlation with economic ups and downs), but it's the kind of thing that professors and columnists are supposed to educate us about. Politicians running for office need to cultivate a positive relationship with communities, not critique them.
On the one hand, I get queasy about the role of the media in the political process, amplifying stories about romantic and financial pecadillos, showing again and again how ridiculous Dukakis looked in a helmet, or Carter looked (or didn't even look) pushing a rabbit away with a canoe paddle, or Quayle telling the school kid that he had to put an "e" on the end of potato, or Bush Sr. allegedly not knowing about supermarket scanners (I think he was just trying to be polite), or even making some more substantive gaffe such as when Ford said that Soviet Poland was a democracy (he said it in a debate, I have no idea if he actually had that belief). I don't have a solution to the problem, but I get queasy, as I said, at the idea that a slip of the tongue can turn an election for President. I'm hoping that the unpredictable alchemy of these media storms doesn't produce a big problem for Obama this time because I don't think that would be fair (the point is that fairness isn't what runs these things).
On the other hand, there are a few observations about the general election and the Democratic candidate that it's not too late to make. Clinton has won all of the big states; the argument that Obama has won a greater number of states than Clinton is not a good argument. Most of those smaller states' electoral votes are going to the Republicans. Working class people, lower-educated people, union voters, older voters, rural Democrats, not to mention women, are all still leaning towards Clinton. Obama has pulled off a number of his wins largely on the strength of overwhelming black support: he has yet to show that he can get much more than 30 percent of white voters, anywhere. He is not, then, the populist hero in this race. That would be Hillary Clinton. And making theoretical observations about the resentments of working class whites like a law professor does not help.
Mary Matalin said on Meet the Press this morning that Obama and Clinton on the same ticket would be "a dream for Republicans." She often impresses me but in this case the opposite is true. Put them both on the ticket and Democratic victory is much more (not totally) assured. As to the numbers showing McCain-Rice beating either Democrat, forget it. It's the novelty of the suggestion exciting people. Rice has never campaigned, is the most undistinguished Secretary of State in memory, and it may very well be that the nominally good idea of pandering the Republicans out of trouble by putting a black woman on the ticket would turn out to be a dud. (Politics is rough stuff: I'd love to see a black woman on a national ticket, but I'd love a Democratic Party victory a lot more.)

Is It Just Me?

This morning there is a discussion on Slate about the latest polling data that were also discussed by Chuck Todd of MSNBC last night. Basically the discussion runs like this: polls still show Clinton beating McCain in crucial states (Ohio, Florida) where McCain is statistically tied or beating Obama. This is an extension of what I take to be a Very Good Argument, namely that having won California, New York, Ohio, even doing not so badly in Obama's home state Illinois, not to mention Michigan and Florida (yes I know, but still), it certainly does look (and listen, it certainly does look) like Clinton might be the more formidable nominee for the general election. The pro-Obama response is that Obama changes the map and adds formerly red states such as Virginia and Colorado, and contested states such as Wisconsin, and thus puts together a win without, say, Florida. Which is also a Perfectly Good Argument if not perhaps a Very Good one (because more risky).
But folks: Is it just me? If you put them both together you get the Unbeatable Argument. You get the unbeatable ticket. What is with everybody? Everybody is asking, "Who is the big shot who will broker us out of this impasse?" The best and only answer: the voters. They're doing it, if only the not-so-big shots would listen. The answer is right there. Obama-Clinton. No, I don't care how you feel about it. Let's go!

What is the Function of NATO?

It's not a rhetorical question. I really can't see what the NATO alliance is supposed to accomplish at this point. It is the paradigmatic Cold War institution, the centerpiece of a system of alliances (remember SEATO and ANZA?) meant to guard against Soviet expansion. Today it still can be aimed at no one but the Russians, a fact that quite reasonably vexes them no end, especially now that NATO expansion has moved beyond the Central European states and into traditional Slavic spheres in Ukraine and the Balkans (President Bush yesterday supported Ukraine for membership, a proposal likely to be voted down by the Europeans). Moreover, NATO is an institution bound up with Cold War nuclear strategy (as in Mutual Assured Destruction): under the nuclear standoff over divided Europe between the USA and the USSR, NATO (and the Warsaw Pact) insured that neither side would start anything along the peripheries, at the risk of escalation. Today, such an alliance with dozens of states only insures that should conventional troubles flare up (as inevitably they will), everyone gets drawn in. Limiting diplomatic flexibility in this way serves no current purpose (and look into the origins of World War I). Meanwhile, it is a constant refrain from the Americans (myself included) that the Europeans need to become the guarantors of their own security, while the Europeans lead the global chorus demanding that the US stand down from its role as global gendarme. The whole point of European Union is to provide an alternative to American hegemony, and this must be true both economically and in terms of security. So I ask again, what is the function of NATO? And why on Earth would the go-it-aloners Bush and Cheney be so adamant about its expansion, while they otherwise insist that the US will never be tied by international organization or opinion?

What Obama Needs to Do Now

What Obama needs to do now is pick up the phone and call Hillary Clinton. Probably Bill ought to get on another line; call with Michelle. And then ask Hillary to be the vice-presidential running mate. She must say yes. And then the election can get on to a discussion of the economy (Dems win), foreign policy (Dems win), health care (Dems win), the environment (Dems win): then the Democrats can get on with the business of winning. Obama accepting Clinton is the surest path to Democratic victory. It's better than hanging all of Clinton's supporters (about half of the primary voters so far) out to dry. Only Obama can do it. Come on, let's get on with it!

Are White Conservatives Loyal Americans?

I'm struck this week by the double standard that exists in American political discourse between whites and blacks. I mentioned it in the last post but that was a few days ago and the issue has conspicuously not gone away. I'm talking about the insinuation that Barack Obama's pastor, and by association Obama himself, are not loyal because they criticize America. The language used by Rev. Wright is indeed incendiary: Don't say God bless America when you should say God damn America. America's crimes are coming back to hurt us and we shouldn't be surprised. And so on. I'm not interested today in registering my own support or disapproval for this kind of rhetoric (not that it's a secret: I think rigorous self-criticism is essential for any society, a truism since Socrates). What I want to point out (and I wish more people in Big Media would point it out) is that exactly this rhetoric is standard issue stuff in white conservative pulpits every single Sunday and has been since before the Civil War. How is it that white conservatives can rail at America as possessed by Satan, doing the Devil's work, suffering calamity as payback from a righteous Lord, and yet no Republican, conservative politicians are ever called on the carpet to explain their associations with such explicitly anti-American statements? Part of the answer is that white voters have enough power that they cannot be subjected to loyalty tests by others, but they can presume to administer such tests themselves: raw power. Part of the answer is that there continues to exist an essentially racist assumption that the paradigmatic "true American" is a white man, despite the fact that most African-American families can trace their ancestors back in the United States to earlier times than most white families can. And part of the answer is that those essential features of the great American experiment against which the right rails - secularism, tolerance, religious pluralism, individual liberty for all - are either taken for granted today, or undervalued to the point where we don't see conservative rhetoric for the anti-Americanism that it is. People lost their lives fighting to preserve a nation where someone can burn the flag and not be carried off by the police, for example. If you don't understand that, you don't understand what makes the US different from other countries. John McCain is anti-American in this sense, Jeremiah Wright is not.

Taking it to the Heathens

It turns out that a political test for Barack Obama is media discussion of his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. In these electoral contretemps the fundamental decision is often between dissassociation and defense. George W. Bush at times errs on the side of combativeness, Bill Clinton has been a notorious dissassociater. I can think of two reasons why Obama may want to come out, not necessarily as a fighter, but perhaps as an aggressive horizons-broadener, which seems to be the role he was born to play. First of all, I hope that the lesson gets through here that there is a long and full-throated tradition of attacking American society on the right. Fundamentalist (white) Christian groups feel perfectly entitled to rail against an America they see as too secular and too "multicultural." And that kind of speech is perfectly legitimate, for what it's worth, but don't then claim that African-Americans need to pass some sort of loyalty test from white conservatives. There is a long tradition, after all, of Christian missionaries taking it to the heathen, and that brings me to the second point. The few clips of Jeremiah Wright that the cable news channels have been playing over and over again reveal a man strongly influenced by the civil rights-era thinkers Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. One of Malcolm's aphorisms that has always stuck with me was when he said that racism wasn't a black problem, it was a white problem. The moral authority of the church has provided over many years one of the few venues where black leaders were able to openly criticize the larger society. The black community understands this even if the white community does not. Another potent element here is an insistence that moral responsibilty extends beyond the borders of the country. One of MLK's most memorable lines is from his speech on the Vietnam War, where he questions how we could treat browns differently than whites and blacks. Jesse Jackson worked very hard to get out the message of labor rights and environmental protection abroad, during the formative years of "globalization" in the 80s. When Jeremiah Wright, discussing 911, uses the phrase "the chickens come home to roost," this is in fact quite a self-conscious repetition of Malcolm X's language in the event of JFK's assassination. I don't like the occasionally race-baiting tone of this sort of thing, but I also don't think that this tradition of African-American rhetoric is somehow illegitimate or without substance.
Obama's affiliation with this church was a major investment for him (he moved to Chicago after law school), and one that undoubtedly contributed greatly to his credibility as an organizer and politician there. He has to defend the church, and explain its doctrines, and not just appear to be dissassociating himself from them. This relates to the larger fact that a black candidate has to win the overwhelming majority of the black vote to be elected: that's an essential part of his coalition . That brings me back to this idea that Obama must pass tests that others needn't. The Republicans aren't embarrased to have constituencies. They frankly strategize between the fundamentalists, the corporatists, and the suburban oblivious. Obama has to take care of his base, and the black community is a major part (not all) of his base. He's going to give the big speech on this topic in a couple of minutes. If he makes insinuations about the Clintons, that's dirty but acceptable by hard-ball standards. But he will have to stand up for his church and its congregation. It's not fair to expect that a black candidate is supposed to prove that he's not a black candidate. Like MLK and Malcolm X, a black leader still needs to take it to the heathens.

Clinton and Obama Have Responsibilities to the Party

Once a candidate has accepted tens of millions of dollars from contributors and, more importantly, garnered enough support and won enough primaries and caucuses to push other competitors out, that candidate has passed a fail-safe point: they now have incurred a moral responsibility to the members of their party to do what they must in order to win the election. Their feelings about things, their own longer-term plans and ambitions, their sense of their own worth, all of those things now must be put aside in favor of following through and winning the battle as the champion of those who have lent their support. The sovereign voter is an independent party in an election, with their own rights and entitlements. It is not merely a question of what is best for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, or for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. The over-riding question is, what is best for the voters who want a Democrat in the White House? It's true that there are those who want to elect a specific individual (the first black, the first woman), and those voters may not feel a sense of responsibility to the Democratic Party. You can vote for anyone you want, for whatever reason you want, that's the very meaning of democracy: you're the boss of your own vote. But the candidates themselves have long since passed the point where it is improper to put their own preferences first. The battle is joined, and Clinton and Obama have appointed themselves, by dint of their efforts thus far, the Democratic champions. They now must do what is necessary for Party victory, whatever the cost to themselves. I'm talking about the ticket. When I read that Clinton says that she will fight on to the bitter end, or Obama says that he will never accept the VP spot, they both offend me. I don't care any more about what they want, about their idealizations about how things ought to go. I'm expecting them to cooperate to win the general election, and any willful decision that detracts from that I take as a betrayal. The ticket has to be Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton. They have more time to fight over which, but the clock is ticking, and I am impatient with their feelings and ambitions.

Two More Primaries

Florida and Michigan are both must-win states for the Democrats. Bill Clinton cracked the Florida code and brought us Democratic government in the 1990s. The Democrats lost the election of 2004 when they lost the upper midwest. The Party must seat delegations from those states at the convention. The underlying problems with the primary process that led to this fiasco must be addressed in time for 2012, but the fiasco itself has to be dealt with right now, or we are in serious electoral trouble.
We cannot, however, simply seat the delegations as they were determined by the earlier votes. Those primaries occurred well after the DNC announced that the delegations would not be seated. The campaigns would have conducted themselves differently and the outcomes would have been different. So the Michigan and Florida primaries have to be done over. There needs to be some time for the campaigns to go back into those states with a reasonable expectation of making some difference, which suggests sometime in April. it occurs to me that Pennsylvania would have a reasonable complaint if those big primaries were scheduled shortly before April 22. The end of April might be best.
It's not legitimate for Obama supporters to say that seating delegations from Florida and Michigan would be some sort of betrayal. The only reason for someone to resist fair representation for the millions of voters in those two states is that they're already in the tank for Obama. I appreciate the power of rising expectations in the black community because of the Obama phenomenon (I find it intensely inspiring as well). But none of us can insist on the disenfranchisement of others in order to further our own political interests. In fact Obama has a large cash advantage and it's not clear that he couldn't do well in both states. (Here's a suggestion: what about Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm for VP?)
I've been arguing in this blog that the Democrats need to work out some agreement to stop the fighting (Howard Dean's line), but this morning I'm not so sure. The struggle between Clinton and Obama is riveting news; it's what will dominate the political news over the next couple of months. McCain will appear by contrast to be the Bush-in-waiting, while the Democrats continue to work out who will be the next president.
One more comment this morning: a pundit on TV last night characterized Clinton as emotional and angry during crises. I defy anyone to document excessively emotional and angry behavior over policy matters from Hillary Clinton. When it suits them, her detractors say she's calculating and cold. I've never said it on this blog before, but this week I'm really getting the feeling that maybe America isn't ready to elect a woman president. Very disappointing.

The Morning After Ohio and Texas

The morning after the Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas the situation for the Democratic Party is much more problematic than we might have anticipated, considering the fact that the electorate shows every inclination to elect the Democrat, whoever that might be, in November. Of course that circumstance makes the nomination something worth fighting for. If Obama had won last night overall, that would have been the end of it. If Clinton had won large, decisive victories in both Ohio and Texas, that would have meant a whole new race. But Clinton won big in Ohio with approximately 55 percent of the vote, and very narrowly in Texas with maybe three points between them, and Obama expected to pick up some more delegates when the caucus results come in later this morning (Texas assigns about two thirds of the delegates by popular vote during the day, then another third by caucus in the evening. I have no idea why). So the decision was as split as split can be. There's a lot of talk about "delegate math," but the unpledged "superdelegates" are presently rolling around like loose cannons on the deck: they've been drifting over to Obama during his late string of victories, but many of them gave their word to Clinton long ago, and now there is not a case that either is the clear popular favorite (it's not unreasonable to assume that many superdelegates will try to represent the popular vote in their states or in the country as a whole). There are, as of this morning, 256 formally unpledged superdelegates (technically they are all unpledged, remember: nothing legally binds any of them). I'm using today's New York Times coverage by the way. And as of this morning, Obama has 86 more delegates than Clinton out of 2,868 popularly elected delegates so far pledged between them. The superdelegates can still decide the nominee at the convention: it's false to claim that Obama has that locked up. Of course, the nominating rules, complex as they might be, have been known to all since the beginning, and so if Obama does win a narrow delegate win, and even if that occured while Clinton had won the popular vote overall, fair's fair and that will be that. But we're not there yet. Where we are is in a terribly difficult space: the only really big primary left is Pennsylvania, and that doesn't happen until April 22, an eternity from now. Seven weeks of the two Democrats throwing bricks at each other, while McCain gets down to running for president (and McCain, Bush et al pile on with attacks on the Democrats). Obviously (right?) the Democrats need to get together and put Obama and Clinton on the same ticket, but who blinks? There is a case that Obama is the front-runner, but it doesn't amount to much more than the "delegate math" argument, which is just not incontrovertible at this point. In fact I find much more persuasive the fact that Clinton has won California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and nine other states. Sit down with the Electoral Calculator and tell me which states the Democrats need to carry to win, if you're so impressed with delegate math. And by the way, what can it be but an intemperate bias towards Obama to just dismiss the voters of Florida and Michigan, two absolute must-win states for the Democrats? Millions of people voted in those states. The argument for Obama turns out to be quite thin - I'd say the argument for Clinton is stronger. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to e-mail both campaigns and beseech them to make a deal. You should too. If enough of us did, they'd start to move in that direction. Obama-Clinton, the ticket I thought was impossible a few weeks ago, looks like the ticket to me now. Otherwise it has to be Clinton-Obama (my preference). Consensus politics.

The Morning of Ohio and Texas

It's the AM of Tuesday March 4th, and very likely that by tonight we will know who the Democratic nominee will be. Specifics first: if Obama wins today, even by narrow margins, he'll be the nominee. If he wins by large margins, and does well among whites, women, older voters, less-educated and union voters, he's unstoppable (and perhaps for the national election as well). If Clinton wins today it's not that decisive, but does spell trouble for Obama, as in Clinton could win and the momentum would be changed. The polls suggest that things are very close, with a slight edge if any for Obama (and closeness is good for Obama). In an earlier post I predicted that Clinton would win on Super Tuesday (now fading in the rear-view mirror), and I was wrong. Obama has since then completely dominated the field. But I can't resist pointing out that the media has been dead-set against her, and the Obama campaign has four times as much money, and Clinton is still very much in it. For all that people constantly refer to the Clintons as insiders and cynical establishmentarians, there is no doubt, looking at today's polls, that Clinton is a candidate of the people. Millions of voters have stuck with her, and a poll number getting a lot of play on cable talk this morning is the huge number of people who opine that she should stay in. Tonight will tell the tale, and I'll be posting tomorrow morning, one way or another. Thomas Hobbes said that intelligence was the one resource of which we know we have no shortage, since everyone is satisfied with their share. It's possible that the tipping point was past some time ago and that Obama is already inevitable. But I think that Clinton is still alive. But only if the voters defy these polls and hand her bigger margins than expected.
Meanwhile the question of the Democratic running mate continues to be exciting, also because of the Hillary factor. In earlier posts I've pointed out that if Obama wins the nomination, he pretty definitely needs to pick a woman for his running mate (not out of any abstract sense of justice, which isn't how politics works: the Democrat needs to make the gender gap work to win the election, period). I've been assuming that that running mate won't be Clinton, since Obama would, all other things being equal, be happier without her. But earlier I would have said happier and better off. The old argument was that Clinton's negatives were large enough to counterbalance the loyalties of her supporters. But now the race has unexpectedly (by me, anyway) gone into this protracted, overtime phase. And that starts to look like a case for Hillary as running mate, if she's taking it to the wire with something near half of the votes and half of the delegates (and that's half of the historically high turnout, too). I'm not saying that Obama must accept Hillary on his ticket, like it or not, but the case for her is much stronger now than it was a month ago. Otherwise I like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, or Kathleen Sebelius.

Dictating in His Sleep

A friend e-mailed me this morning wondering what I thought about the announcement of Fidel Castro's resignation. Many people assume that the future of Cuba is a zero-sum affair: either the Cuban Communist Party continues in power, or a dramatic and rapid (and hopefully "velvet") revolution sweeps it aside. The East German model, I think, influences this perception, as well as messianic rhetoric from the Miami crowd. When we take a closer look at political history in formally communist states what we find is a more nuanced picture. The descendants of the old Soviet parties elsewhere in Europe (Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland) have varying degrees of power, in Romania they are a major player. They are today small-c conservative forces in their societies. In the Far East communist parties in Vietnam and most notably China have been, I think, surprisingly successful at holding on to centralized political power while cultivating market-driven economies (a true Marxist would have to regard this as the worst of both worlds). However I still suspect that economic development in China leads to class formation leads to political pluralism in the long run. Nicaragua is a closer model of course and there we see a Sandinista Party that continues to be one of the biggest parties after any number of electoral ups and downs. Like the Sandinistas, the Cuban communists will still be a force in the bureaucracy, the labor unions and the military for years to come after a change in regime. This is the reality that is clouded by radical rhetoric from Florida.
What does this all mean for Cuba? The exile fantasy of a Berlin Wall-style overnight transformation is possible but I think unlikely. A partial liberalization from within is to be expected for financial reasons more than political ones. But the biggest question for Cuba is not what happens when the Castro brothers are gone. The biggest question is what happens when the United States normalizes relations and lifts the embargo, as I think it should. If there is anything that might spark a rapid velvet revolution and bring down Cuban communism, that would be it. The failure of centralized planning to produce wealth or provide opportunity would then be completely exposed. How ironic that the exile community, and their influence on US policy, is today the main pillar holding up the Cuban Communist Party!

Florida, Michigan, Superdelegates

I'm someone following the election pretty closely, and still not all the intricacies of the nominating process are clear to me. I'll discuss "superdelegates" first, and then Florida and Michigan.
Superdelegates were introduced by the Democratic Party starting in 1984. The Party had been shaken first by the resounding defeat of the anti-war candidate George McGovern in 1972 and then by the self-nomination of the outsider Carter in 1976. Superdelegates are elected officials, government employees, Party officials, and other Democratic bigwigs, appointed delegates by the Party. They make up 20% of the delegates at the convention, unpledged to any candidate. Thus they can throw their weight behind whoever they choose, thus an insurgent can be stopped. This same thinking on the Republican side was responsible for the virtual appointment of George W. Bush in 2000, to forestall the emergence of more radical candidates such as Huckabee. On the GOP side one wonders what the real lesson is, considering that the only radical outsider to gain the Republican nomination since WWII was Ronald Reagan. On the Democratic side, even though I am still supporting Senator Clinton for the nomination, I'm on the side of the Obama campaign on this issue. I don't like superdelegates, I am a believer in grassroots democracy and I think the nominee ought to be the one who carried majorities in most precincts.
The situation with Florida and Michigan is a huge mess and I wonder who is really responsible for this. The DNC decided to punish Florida and Michigan for moving up their primaries by refusing to seat their delegations at the convention. (The problems with the primary process I have discussed in other posts.) But this decision is disastrous on the face of it. Florida and Michigan are, both of them, absolute must-win states for the Democrats. 1.3 million+ voters participated in the Democratic primary in Florida. It is out of the question that Florida and Michigan would not participate in the nomination. Obama's best option: move to hold the Florida and Michigan primaries again. Advantage in money and momentum.

Black Politics as National Politics

There is a fascinating article in this morning's NYT by Ginger Thompson about Barack Obama's steep learning curve on the issue of black politics during his at this point amazing presidential campaign. Going in to the race, Obama made it clear that he didn't want to be a "black candidate," that he wanted to go beyond that phase and campaign without resort to racial politics. Now he could not have entirely believed that that would be possible (his professional advisers have been lasered in on these issues from the beginning, like they are in every election). However, at the logical extreme of the strategy is the ideal of electing the first black president only because whites are ready to vote for a black candidate and only because the candidate is acceptable to them, and that ideal is naive and none too progressive either. In fact what may be happening now and will happen sooner or later is that a black candidate wins the nomination with the indispensable help of overwhelming support among African-American voters, and the whites have evolved enough etc. So the messy reality is that a black national candidate must be a politician for the black community (notice that's a function of the whites being not yet ready for the Platonic ideal of "color-blind" politics). Obama, unlike most African-American political leaders, did not grow up in a community where the leaders came out of the civil rights movement. That doesn't mean that he's not sympathetic to them, only that he's not one of them. But he certainly has had a crash course in the topic now.

The Race for Vice-President

Mike Huckabee is running for vice-president. His argument is good: he draws voters who McCain cannot reach, he can run for the right while McCain campaigns for the center, he has a different kind of charisma than McCain and campaigns well. So he is in a position to offer himself for the post, something neither Romney nor Giuliani nor Thompson can credibly do. But he's not yet at the point where he can shoot his way on to the ticket, the way George H. W. Bush and James Baker did in 1980, by winning enough delegates to go to the convention with an offer too good to refuse. To do that, Huckabee would have to go in to the convention with at least 25-30 percent of the delegates. I don't know if he can do that, but I think he's very well-positioned to be the veep nominee. McCain could of course choose someone else and survive, but that would be a costly gesture all other things being equal.
Meanwhile it looks like this same basic argument from general election expediancy pushes strongly for a woman as veep on the Democrats' side. I would have said some months ago that either Hillary or Barack would have to go with some senior white male Democrat to assuage voters wary of a black/woman, but it doesn't turn out that way: for practical political purposes, if he wins the nomination Obama will have to have a woman for veep (even though it won't be Clinton).

Who Will She Be?

I think Barack Obama can be expected to regard women voters as a well-defined constituency, like African-American voters, and like those voters expecting their needs to be met and demanding of respect. Certainly that is the political reality at the polls, as the gender gap between the two parties has become large. The women's vote is very real and the Democrat needs it to win, simple as that. I'm sure I'm not the only person on whom it is dawning, although I haven't seen much discussion of it: Obama's running mate is going to have to be a woman. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend? Or perhaps a senator from California would prove useful in the election. May I suggest people look at Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas. Who else goes on the list?

Dean is a Player

The current fight for the nomination is being fought out along lines of age, sex and race between two candidates who don't have much space between them in terms of ideology and policy. If Hillary really wanted to balance the ticket between factions in the Democratic Party I would suggest Clinton-Dean.
Dean has been hard at it as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee since winning a hardfought election to that post in 2005, and frequently clashes with Clintonistas such as Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dean has backed proportional allocation of delegates in 100% of Democratic primaries and caucuses, a policy that is doing exactly what it was intended to do: support consensus-building through democratization, and resist dominance by party bigwigs. This is part of a larger vision that famously developed grass-roots internet fund raising with Joe Trippi during Dean's 2004 campaign, a practice that has since become a basic part of the contemporary campaign. Another facet has been investing money and time in areas that are usually ignored in the big-media circus that the election has become. Dean has taken a lot of criticism for that but I think it will pay off.
And so today we get Dean suggesting that Clinton and Obama ought to reach some sort of entente in the interest of the party and the people. And this suggestion is, of course, yet another expression of Dean's left-populist commitment to consensus politics, and of course it's also exactly right. Count me a fan of the left-wing Yankee.

The Story of a Voter

I'm feeling conflicted about Clinton or Obama, although it might be that at this point the fact is that I'm going to follow the bandwagon either way and no sense agonizing. I'd be thrilled to elect either of them. If the vote was today I'd go with Clinton. It occurred to me that my long-term perspective on US elections is something that I have to share.
The first election I remember on an emotional level is 1968. My father went with Humphrey as a loyal Democrat, but my mother was so alienated by the Vietnam War that she couldn't bring herself to vote for HHH, and went with Eugene McCarthy instead, and my oldest sister, off to the University of California at Santa Cruz in the fall of 1968 as an 18-year-old freshman from Kansas (imagine that!) went "clean for Gene" as well. Richard Nixon won the election by the very narrowest of margins. For me, going to high school during Nixon's so-called "Vietnamization" (eg withdrawal of US ground forces) the bombing of Cambodia, the Christmas Bombing, etc., when so many students didn't even process that the war was still going on, was my formative political experience of the early 1970s. In 1972 the Democrats lost on the war and security again with the anti-war candidate McGovern. Then as now the Republican administration succeeded in making the ongoing war "palatable" to the public.
In 1971 the 26th Amendment, giving 18-year-olds the right to vote, was adopted, and in 1976 I turned 18 and cast my first vote, for Jimmy Carter. It would be another 16 years before I would cast another winning vote.
In 1980 Reagan defeated Carter largely on national security, and specifically Reagan ran a hard line on Iran, which was holding the American hostages from the revolution of 1979. Does everyone forget these things? Iran was driving our election 28 years ago. Carter was weakened by a challenge from Ted Kennedy and by the independent candidacy of John Anderson, and I spent that one trying to talk people into supporting the Democratic front runner.
A really important election for me was 1988. That was of course the year of Jesse Jackson's spectacular primary candidacy, when he took 25 percent of the delegates to the Democratic convention and assembled his family onstage. I drove down to Denver from Boulder with a friend to see him. Unfortunately I had agreed to be a precinct captain for Mike Dukakis, and so I organized us five Dukakisites in a back bedroom of the caucus house while the overflow crowd of Jackson supporters spilled out of the living room onto the lawn. But political commitments are real commitments after all. In 1992 I was still smarting from that one (feeling I should have gone for Jackson, and 1984 and 1988 were the dismal nadir of Democratic defeats during the Reagan era), and so I voted for Jerry Brown in the caucus, and Colorado was one of Gov. Moonbeam's major victories that season in fact, although I became disenchanted with Brown soon.
Meanwhile I have loved voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, two administrations worth of progressive taxation, middle class interests, civil rights in the judiciary, debt-hawkishness. Yes, thank you, I wouldn't mind some more of that. (1992 was yet another election that I spent trying to talk well-intentioned people out of chasing the butterfly of a third-party campaign, Ross Perot's.)
Nostalgia for the 90s, you say? I'm nostalgic for winning the election. (I'm also nostalgic for voting. How's that again? I moved to Puerto Rico in 1996. As a US citizen resident in Puerto Rico, I do not have the right to vote for the president. Nor do I have a senator or congressional representative. Did you know that the USA has second-class citizens? I'm one). I supported Gore and I was disappointed that he didn't run Clinton into areas that he might have helped, one of a dozen ways that Gore lost that election that he won. I supported John Kerry forever in 2004, but I wobbled when Dean surged in December 2003. I sent in a check to MoveOn, you know. But the people didn't lead the leaders, although they were starting to, and I continue to be a fan of Dean and the things he's doing to make the party more grassroots and populist. Meanwhile Kerry was strike two, the second failure in elections that the Democrats easily could have won, and not only that but it was a classic national security election for the Republicans, "The Democrats are peaceniks and they won't protect you." So I really don't want us to swing strike three.
So here I sit. Part of my heart wants to go with Obama, but I'm still thinking that Clinton is the better bet. But you have to understand that for an old party loyalist like me, it's all about winning the election. So the important thing is that we all end up behind whoever the Democratic nominee is and push. That's why I'm so against Nader now, and why I'm glad Edwards had the grace to get out of it after South Carolina: I hate spoilers.

Let Us Know When You've Identified the True Conservative

Today we're watching the footage of Rudy Giuliani endorsing John McCain for the Republican nomination. Meanwhile Real Clear Politics shows McCain leading for the nomination by six points, but what's more, McCain beats either Clinton or Obama in the general; no other Republican candidate beats either one. And what is the focus of conservative pundits today? McCain is "not a conservative." This liberal thinks he looks plenty conservative, but what do I know? Well gang, it's an interesting theological discussion, but if you'll excuse us, there's a nation that needs leadership. We'll be in Washington governing, if you ever want to stop by after you've identified the true conservatives. It's always fun to hear your stories about the old Reagan days. See ya.

Beware the Kingmaker

Barack Obama no doubt benefits from the endorsement of Ted Kennedy, but I wonder about the plan to tour around together, sit next to each other, etc. Maybe two cases of hubris feeding off of each other. The obvious opening for the Clintons: say that Obama is the candidate of the old liberal left, and that Clinton will not only do better in the general election, but also will govern from the center. This is exactly the primary strategy of Bill Clinton in 1992, by the way. Obama would be well-advised to stay his own man and not get too closely identified with the old lion, who is clearly out for his last hurrah.
I was interested by the endorsement of Obama by Kathleen Sibelius, governor of Kansas and also of dynastic political roots. She's very talented and gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union address the other night. (I e-mailed the Kerry campaign about her in '04, never got a response.) A woman on the ticket might not be such a bad idea if Obama beats Hillary in the primaries...and now Googling around a little after writing the preceding, I discover that James Carville has made the same suggestion.
Meanwhile, today we see the media criticizing Clinton for holding a victory rally in Florida (the Washington Post story by Dana Milbank is a good example). It's all a sham, the argument goes, because there were no delegates at stake. It's true that had the candidates campaigned in the state, the results might have been different. But over 800,000 voters went in to the polls and voted for Clinton. Wouldn't it be disloyal on the part of the Clinton campaign to fail to acknowledge the participation of over 800,000 supporters? And shouldn't the Obama campaign have staged something similar by way of thanking the 500,000+ people who voted for Obama in Florida yesterday? The punditocracy is decidedly missing a populist touch on this one.

The Rainbow Party Pays the Price

These are historic times for the Democratic Party, that now has an opportunity to become the dominant political party in American life. The Democratic coalition is gelling into something solid while the Republican one is fracturing. Demographics are on the side of liberalism as the Republicans can only try to keep as many people from voting as possible, for as long as possible. But what were the odds that the first absolutely credible woman candidate and the first absolutely credible black candidate would emerge during the same election? As a Party loyalist I wince at the stresses and tensions that this situation brings, but rejoice that it is the Democrats who are, to use a Clintonian trope from the nineties, the "bridge to the future." This sort of thing is not easy, as the Clintons, who did so much throughout the nineties to forge the rainbow party that we now are, notably by appointing, supporting and including far more than token numbers of blacks and women to all levels of government, are discovering. Rising expectations and deep cynicism among blacks lead to a quick perception that the Clintons are unfairly attacking a black man, a misperception confirmed as fact by an irresponsible media. But my point today is precisely that this sort of tension and problem is strictly unavoidable; it's something that we as a society have to work through. It is easier for whites to look away rather than confront old problems, but the leadership of the Democrats is now taking us in the positive, though difficult, direction. Both Clinton and Obama swear to avoid the trap of racial division at every dust-up, but no matter how hard they try there is is again, five minutes later.
Obama's entry into national political life, seemingly out of nowhere, was brilliant in its conception: he established himself as the candidate who happened to be black, rather than the black candidate (and let's acknowledge the historic achievement of Jesse Jackson in 1988), and he did it by getting white support. That was the breakthrough accomplishment. Now there is another, trickier task, that is to overcome the well-grounded suspicion and alienation of black voters, to move the community into issues-based voting as distinct from race-based voting. So far as I can see, the black community is showing us just as encouraging evidence that this is happening as white voters in Iowa and, of all places, South Carolina are showing that they are ready for a black hero. But we are tottering back and forth between the old way and the new, and it is Senator Clinton, I would submit, who is paying the highest price.
There are some clear advantages to Obama's position. Clinton supporters (like me) are by and large ready and in fact eager to support Obama if he is the nominee, while Clinton's negatives combined with her role as "establishment" make her, not him, seem like the riskier candidate for the general election (although I don't agree that she actually is the riskier). The difference in the alchemy of a black candidate and a woman candidate is difficult and fascinating. No one is talking about large numbers of women sitting out the election if they are hurt and disappointed. There is not the sense of the justice of payback for historical grievances in the "gender" (sex is actually the right word, for another post) case that there is in the racial one (although perhaps there should be).
There is a certain euphoria to the whole thing that tempts one to forget about the larger battle to come in the general election. The fact that the Clintons are notorious masters of the Dark Arts of politics continues, to my mind, to be a reason to support them. The Republican corporate mafia, with their racist troops and Christian dupes, will not react with the same sensitivity to a candidacy of a non-white or a non-man.
As to my predictions for the coming weeks, I continue to predict that Clinton will do well in Florida and then go on to lock up the nomination on "Super Tuesday," at which point Obama will face one of his toughest tests yet. A Clinton-Obama ticket is possible (the Clintons will be amenable if that would help them win, Obama will see that the vice-presidency is the logical step to continue running for president), an Obama-Clinton ticket is much more problematic and unlikely. No reason for Obama to want to be saddled with the Clintons. I admit, meanwhile, that the race is indeed open, and Feb. 5th may well be a mix of various outcomes that involve us all in complex calculations (a wonkish way of admitting that Obama is still in it). And it is true that John Edwards can play king-maker here by staying in and taking votes form Clinton. Grisell was arguing this morning (over pancakes and Meet the Press) that it's not clear that Edwards' voters would be Clinton voters, and I admit there's some ambiguity there, but with things this tight even if 30 percent of his voters would otherwise go with Obama he would still be shooting down Clinton. Finally, a significant bit of incoming for an old Dem like me: Sen. Kennedy will endorse Obama. Kennedy and Kerry: two guys who know things that I don't know.

Obama's Discussion of Reagan

Barack Obama drew fire from his Democratic opponents this week when he compared himself to Ronald Reagan.  In 1980, Obama said, Reagan's victory took the country in a new direction.  The conservatives, he went on to say, had had the most new ideas over the past two decades (pointedly including the 1990s).  Clinton, by contrast, had failed to change the national direction after 1992.

The Clintons and John Edwards (and Paul Krugman and other pundits) pounced on Obama for these remarks, arguing that the liberal cause must repudiate, not praise, Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement whose champion he was.  But Obama didn't say that conservative policies were effective or a good idea.  He was making a different point, about the historical moment and the momentum of ideology and history.  For better or for worse, the conservative movement has been, in fact, the most well-defined philosophically, and the most effective popularly, in American politics since the 1970s.  This is in the nature of the pendulum swing of history, an inevitable reaction to the stagnation of the liberal approach to government that dated, by Jimmy Carter's time, all the way back to the FDR 30s (the political success of conservatism was not inevitable, but the movement was).  So it wasn't entirely fair for Obama's opponents in the Democratic ranks to charge him with irresponsible burnishing of the Reagan myth (not entirely fair).

 However I do have a problem with Obama's remarks, particularly as they were clearly meant to draw a contrast between himself and both Clintons.  Obama was implying that unlike the Clintons, and like Reagan, he, Obama, is a potentially pivotal "agent of change."  I must say I fail to see the parallel with Reagan here.  Reagan was the spokesman for a systematic ideology that generated specific policy proposals.  Barack Obama can claim no such mantle.  I don't know of a single point of either ideology or policy where there is any essential distinction between Obama and the other Democratic candidates.  He leads no movement, he offers no radical reapproach to the federal government.  In fact, both Clinton and Edwards do a better job of laying out specifics.

What we really have here is a swipe at Bill Clinton.  I can appreciate that Obama is feeling a bit angry and threatened from getting beat up on by the mighty Bill Clinton, larger-than-life popular former president.  It is indeed an unprecedented spectacle, and I saw a report today that some Clinton friends and loyalists are warning Clinton to back off.  But if Obama, in the privacy of his own thoughts, is telling himself that he, unlike Bill Clinton, is a pivotal, dialogue-changing figure like Reagan was, that's an error of judgement that does not reflect well on him. 

Rudy Skeptic

Count me as a Rudy skeptic. His decision to skip the early primaries has sunk him. Over the summer Giuliani turned out to be a surprisingly strong campaigner. New York City is maybe the ultimate venue for retail politics, a patchwork of ethnic and class enclaves where politicians have to walk down the sidewalk shaking hands and looking people in the eyes, and Giuliani has mastered this art. What an error, then, to deliberately keep him off of the battlefield in the first rounds. I think that his campaign anticipated that he would look vulnerable in these weeks between New Hampshire and Florida. I doubt that they anticipated that John McCain would rise Lazarus-like to become the front-runner once again. McCain kills Giuliani. Giuliani wanted to run Bush-Cheney 2004, "Vote for me or the terrorists will kill you." But McCain has better national security and foreign policy credentials than Giuliani. And even if one assumes that on security McCain and Giuliani are a tossup, McCain is more conservative on social issues than Giuliani: he's always been against abortion, he's a western rancher's senator who opposes environmental regulations, he's been a major backer of the red-meat flag-burning amendment, etc. So if the choice comes down to those two, conservative Republicans will vote for McCain, for once voting for the more electable candidate for the general election. The next three rounds are South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida. If McCain wins any two out of those three, he locks up the nomination. This wonderful four-way split goes poof and we're back to reality. Meanwhile Romney is in serious trouble. His argument is that he's racking up the most delegates, but he should be more worried about his popularity. The national polls tell the story. Strange scenario de jour: McCain kills off Giuliani, the electorate wakes up to the fact that Huckabee is unelectable, but the inexplicable aversion to McCain doesn't evaporate, and Republican primary voters turn to: Thompson after all. And then they lose the election.

Notes on New Hampshire

First of all, shame on the media. I'm particularly disenchanted with Chris Matthews and MSNBC in general for losing their cool and flying off on this anti-Clinton, anoint Obama tear during the voting yesterday (insult to injury: "We can't tell you the results yet because we don't want to influence it, BUT..."). I've said it several times now: the Clintons, these supposed "establishmentarians," get exactly the same help from the "liberal media" today as they did 16 years ago: a swift kick in the teeth. Another thing I've been saying for a long time is that the Obama phenomenon has helped Clinton all along by giving her some competition. As to the view that the Clintons are the most conservative of the Democratic contenders, well, hello general election. I like blogging because it makes one more accountable. I was for Kerry in 2004 from way out a year or more before the primaries, but I confess that I wobbled when Dean surged in December 2003. If everybody rallies around someone, OK. I've always said I'll support Obama (or Edwards) enthusiastically if they are nominated. But I continue to think that Clinton would be the more formidable Democratic president. As to the criticism (from Donna Brazile for example) that the spectacle of the Clintons throwing punches in a tight spot diminishes their "aura" or something, look, they're the stars of their own movie. They don't want to retire and cultivate legacies and all that, they want to be in the show, today. And that means winning and losing and taking the chops.
As to the Republicans, Democrats need to beware McCain. McCain would be the best national candidate for the Republicans. Romney is an executive soliciting a job: his emotional engagement with the process is too professional, and the personal money he has had to spend is an embarrassment particularly when the contrast is with Huckabee and McCain. Giuliani made a strategic mistake, I think, in skipping both Iowa and New Hampshire. Now Huckabee, McCain, and Romney are all ahead, in his path, needing to be taken down. Late surging is going to come out of the South, and Huckabee and maybe Thompson will be the beneficiaries (Thompson still looks alive from a Southern perspective, but only just).
Next day addendum: Polls from South Carolina show Thompson dead last with maybe 4 percent. "Stick a fork in him," as they say.

The Republicans Want Obama

National elections run on different principles than primary elections. National polls tell a different story from state-wide primary polls. And so far as the national election goes, Republicans have been quick to seize on the development of an Obama win in Iowa and some polls showing Obama ahead in New Hampshire. They had nothing but good things to say about him in their debate this week. Why are the Republicans excited by the prospect of an Obama nomination? Several reasons: Obama, from their point of view, is less formidable of an opponent than the Clintons would be. The Clintons have long since established that they can take a pounding and give as good as they get, while Obama, with his platitudes and conciliatory rhetoric, appears much softer for a roughing up (this will be a factor for him even after inauguration, should he win). McCain would beat Obama, and that's the only Republican-winning match-up where I would say "would" instead of "could." McCain could beat Clinton. That's the other story, the re-re-resurrection of John McCain. My view is that the suddenly tangible prospects of a McCain candidacy and an Obama candidacy are dangerous waters for the Democrats. If Huckabee is nominated the Republicans lose. I was going to go on to say that the Republicans won't nominate Huckabee, but I don't think anybody knows what the GOP primary electorate is going to do, especially once it goes to the South. McCain is the best Republican to put up in the general, and so it's a worrisome development that the public is finding its way back to him. Romney and Giuliani are both capable of putting up a fight and getting lucky. Thompson is out of it, although I was surprised at James Carville and Mary Matalin on Meet the Press last week who seemed to feel strongly that he was still in. Surely they must know something that I don't know? But in the general the Clintons beat any of them, only McCain would have a chance. The Democrats' best hope is Hillary vs. anybody but McCain.

Why is the Election Up in the Air?

The presidential election is up in the air, a week before Iowa, because "Iowa" is much too soon. We cannot one year choose the person whom we will support for president a year later. It's too long a time span; tipping point is reached. We need a rotating primary, four groups of states chosen by lottery, states in the last group last time are in the first group this time. Once a week during May, convention around 4th of July. Something like that.

Hillary's Achievement

Paul Krugman in today's NYT continues his refinement of a political argument (as distinct from an economic one) in a very perspicuous column; whether one accepts all of his premises or not, the point is very clear. Real change will require leaders who are willing to confront the vested interests in the status quo. Krugman goes on to say that Edwards looks better than Obama when viewed in this light. That may be so (I guess I do agree with Krugman on both the general and the specific point in fact), but it got me thinking about Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton has no visible advocates in the "chattering classes" media. The liberal media (Chris Matthews/MSNBC, The Nation, NPR, the cybersphere) disdain her at best, and do their best to test her weaknesses at every opportunity. No self-respecting bohemian sort or bourgeois intellectual would openly back her. There are "pundits" who allow of their support of Giuliani, or Obama, or Huckabee or Edwards, but not a Hillary-advocate is to be heard. Meanwhile on the right it is as it has ever been: Hillary Clinton is Stalin, a blood-sucking vagina dentata or whatever they call it, a liar, a thief, the Mafia. But that of course is exactly the political climate in which the Clintons have always lived. And they have led and through the 90s the Clintons accomplished the third Democratic regime of the second half of the 20th century (after JFK/LBJ, and Jimmy Carter). And today Hillary Clinton, after weeks of late-campaign tightening-up erosion at the polls, is still, folks, in the lead. She leads without the backing of the media, just like the Clintons always have done.
And that's what was striking me reading Krugman's column. Obama, Krugman's argument goes, is too naive in his advocacy of conciliation (a la Woodrow Wilson and Carter?), while Edwards recognizes that progress will require some political contest to determine whose interests will prevail over whom. This dovetails with a theme of this blog, that a Clinton victory is important because, among other things, that would be a symbolic defeat for the movement conservatives, and they are the ones who need to be defeated for liberal government to move forward. But I think that Clinton is the best alternative here. The Clintons use the system to fight the battle, the way the Republicans do. The resolve is there at the bottom of things.
And there's a "silent majority" effect here too. We're not hearing from Clinton supporters in the media, but they are the largest plurality of voters among likely Democratic voters than any other candidate has of voters in their party. But then there's another item of old news: people always underestimate the Clintons.

Huckabee's Sting, Pt. II

Today we hear that Mike Huckabee, currently dusting it up with Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination, asked the question, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus Christ and the Devil are brothers?" The answer, for the record, is no, they don't. Apparently it's an old anti-Mormon canard. Asked about it on MSNBC this morning Romney showed a good ability, and not for the first time, to take the high road. I expected him to pounce on this, and the other shoe hasn't dropped yet in terms of the response from the Mormon community. Remember them? They have some millions (between four and five million? I'll check) of members in this country, who vote overwhelmingly Republican in case you didn't know. Imagine if a leading candidate said something like that about a Jewish candidate, or a Catholic one. This glimpse inside Mr. Huckabee's mind ought to get the message across that apparently failed to register when he talked about gays, and guns, and science: he's not ready for prime time. Maybe I shouldn't be pointing this out. After all, I want the Democrats to win.

Sting Like a Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is now a serious contender for the Republican nomination. Of course, so are maybe four other people, and the lurch to Huckabee may be just that: another symptom of disarray and desperation in the GOP. Be that as it may, here's a suggestion: nominate Huckabee, and the Republicans lose the election. I don't think, at this point, that the Republicans can't win the election under any circumstances. The Democrats' true virtuosity seems to lie in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and it could very well be that in 2008 they'll swing their third strike in a row. But to nominate a candidate whose national political profile is anti-gun control, statements very close to advocating internment camps for gay people (check that out for yourself, I'm not exaggerating), Southern Baptist preacher, that has got to be political suicide.
On the other hand, the party bosses were worried about a too right-wing candidate in 2000, so they looked around for someone "electable" who wouldn't frighten the children, and the rest is history. I think that it's important this time around not only that the Democrats win, but that the conservatives lose (not the same thing), which is why I'm for Clinton, so maybe Mr. Nice Guy bass player right wing nutjob isn't such a bad idea. How many points does one lose in the general election for being a homophobic bigot in America in 2008?

Will Chavez Be Strong or Weak?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez does not get entirely fair press in the US. His work to really benefit the poorer classes of Venezuela is discounted, his narcissism and obstreperousness are distracting, and his Fidelismo and anti-Americanism that once seemed clownish is now at least a little bit threatening. His own ability to alienate people is the main thing holding him back on the international scene, not the opposition of Washington (He has closely studied Castro's art of using the US as a Great Satan, and like Castro he relies on hostility from Washington for political fuel).
There is a basic question, though, that we might ask of any charismatic leader: is he committed to the rule of law and democracy in a constitutional republic, or is he committed to the rule of himself? People on the right and people on the left all tell themselves that their project of social transformation, and the power of their evil enemies, justifies suborning the democratic process. Castro, Pinochet, Guzman (Sendero Guzman I mean), Franco. I fail to see the difference. And anyway, if Fidel Castro is not smart enough to be the executive of The Just State, then Hugo Chavez sure as hell isn't. So will Chavez go down in history as a democrat or a despot?
This is the question on the occasion of the narrow (51% vs. 49%) defeat of his measure to centralize power more tightly on himself, and eliminate any limit to his time in "office" (dictators don't really have offices, in the formal sense. They just have buildings). He acquiesced, saying in effect, "We didn't make it this time, we'll do it eventually." So he respected the democratic process, and that's good, and that shows the rest of the world that Venezuela is not too far gone down the fascist path that they could not recover themselves politically (and neither is Iran, by the way). But Mr. Chavez doesn't help much with his manner that he respects the democratic process but just barely. The final verdict on what kind of political leader he really is lies in the future.