Reason Magazine - Staff

Union Rules

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:00:00 EDT

If you ever want a window into the needs and desires of the labor movement, you should listen to Stewart Acuff. And if you get within 50 yards of Acuff, you’ll be listening: The snow-bearded activist, now the AFL-CIO’s director of organizing, projects his voice like an opera singer. He grips the podium, white-knuckled. He clasps his hands, then pulls them apart with a snap. When I saw him at the Take Back America conference in Washington in March, his reedy voice grew rougher and louder as his speech went on.

“My brothers and sisters,” he said, “if we go into 2008 with an even larger mobilization of workers behind this legislation, with even more commitment to win the election in 2008, and put this on the agenda in 2009, I’m here to tell you today that we will pass this legislation, in the House, overwhelmingly! We will pass it in the Senate! We will defeat a Republican filibuster! And we will have a president who signs the Employee Free Choice Act! And we can get back to the business of restoring the American dream for millions and millions of workers!”

What’s the Employee Free Choice Act? If you aren’t a lobbyist in Washington, a union worker, or an employer nervously trying to prevent your staff from organizing, you might not have followed the twisty history of the latest attempt to increase private-sector unionization. “Card check,” as it is usually known, would allow employees at a company to bypass secret-ballot elections and declare their intent to unionize by simply signing cards. If adopted, it could portend the most revolutionary change to labor law since the 1940s.

The battle over card check is part of a much larger story of Campaign ’08: the coming-out party of Democratic interest groups. For the first time since 1992, Democrats are eyeing complete control of the executive and legislative branches, with all of the spoils of appointment and legislative scheduling that would entail. Unions want to grow their numbers. Green industries want tax incentives. Trial lawyers want a ceasefire in the war on torts.

If these groups could actually form a line in January, the unions would be at the front. Card check was the brainchild of organizers who had watched their numbers tumble as manufacturing jobs moved out of the rust belt and successive conservative administrations made it tougher to organize. President Bill Clinton, signer of NAFTA, did little to stop the skid from labor’s point of view. The organizers have learned their lessons, pushing members of the House and Senate—including the junior senators from New York and Illinois—to commit in writing to card check.

“When we started working on this legislation five years ago,” Acuff said at Take Back America, “people in Washington said it would never be taken seriously, never pass the laugh test.” Bills were introduced in 2003, 2005, and 2007. The first two times, they never reached the floor, with Republicans arguing that labor organizers usually win unionization elections anyway and that 90 percent of those results are approved by the federal government’s National Labor Relations Board within two months. In 2007, with the Democrats in charge of the legislature, the same bill passed the House easily and won 51 votes in the Senate, but that wasn’t enough to proceed to an up-or-down vote. All along, the effort has faced a veto threat from President Bush.

Things are different now. Democrats believe that as many as nine Republican-held Senate seats are vulnerable in 2008. The AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and allied unions plan to spend $360 million on the 2008 election. That’s around $200 million more than the unions spent in the Kerry-Bush race. As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slug it out for the nomination, the AFL-CIO is running a $53 million campaign attacking John McCain—portraying him as a right-wing ideologue who co-sponsored the Secret Ballot Protection Act, the GOP’s attempt at making kryptonite against card check.

All that union money comes with a promise: What’s good for unions will be good for the Democrats. Greg Tarpinian, a Change to Win organizer who spoke at the Take Back America panel, pointed out that union membership was one of the strongest determinants for a voter choosing a Democratic ballot. “If union membership was 10 percent in Ohio in 2004,” he argued, “John Kerry would be president.”

If card check passes, Tarpinian has only one worry: the ability of the National Labor Relations Board to “keep up with the demand” for brand new unions. Those new brothers and sisters of the labor movement will start paying dues; said dues will find their way to new Democratic campaigns like salmon finding their way upstream.

Republicans and business lobbyists are watching all of this with a sense of resigned horror. They know Democrats will have the votes, and they believe that the end of secret ballot elections will be not just bad for business, but bad for democracy. They also see card check as the tip of a spear. One Republican staffer worried to me about collective bargaining rights for public employees. “Do we really want fire-fighters to start striking?” he asked.

The unions stand to be the biggest beneficiaries of an all-Democratic Washington. Affordable housing advocates, meanwhile, want the 2007 Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, which created a $3 billion fund bankrolled with tax revenue and the profits of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to be spent on more housing units instead of held up by concerns over budget deficits. Trial lawyers have paid their dues: The American Association for Justice spent $6.3 million to elect Democrats in 2006 through its political action committee, the most of any single PAC. For the first half of this decade, the plaintiffs industry fought a rearguard action against the tort reform movement, which Republicans have been using to limit the size of settlements. Trial lawyers lost a big battle when the Senate passed class action lawsuit reform in 2005, but they haven’t given much ground since then. When the Democrats come back, plaintiffs expect to go back on offense.

The Consumer Product Safety Reform Act, passed this year, is a model of what to expect in a Democratic future. The law doubled funding for the eponymous safety commission to $155 million by 2015, set no caps on damages, and empowered state attorneys general to make federal cases if they have “reason to believe that the interests of the residents of that State have been, or are being, threatened or adversely affected by a violation” of consumer safety. It passed the Democratic-controlled Senate by 79-13, aided by the scare over tainted toys from China.

But unions outmatch every other member of the Democratic coalition in demands and expectations. Now is their time. One organizer told me that a Democratic comeback would mean that the party had “no more excuses” for not giving them what they wanted. At Take Back America, Acuff said the party should gift-wrap anything wavering Republicans want if it will get the bill to a floor vote. “If we have to build a bridge somewhere to get it passed, then build the damn bridge!” he said. “If we have to rename a highway after somebody, rename the highway!”

Another activist, relaxing after a day of sessions and meetings, regaled me with stories of how businesses bust unions, how the National Labor Relations Board punctures budding movements, and how essential it was to change the system. He repeated my question back to me. “If we get a Democratic president, are we going to pass card check?” He leaned back and grabbed a Miller Lite from one of his brothers coming back from the bar. “If the sun comes up in the morning, we’re passing card check.”

David Weigel is an associate editor of Reason.

The Weekend Political Thread: Long Goodbye Edition

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:36:00 EDT

Unconvincing Quote of the Week
"Some call you swing voters. I call you Americans." Hillary Clinton, speaking to white people.

The Week in Brief
- The Democratic primaries effectively ground to a half as Barack Obama won a landslide in North Carolina and narrowly lost Indiana.
- Hillary Clinton refused to quit the race, praying for expected (Kentucky, West Virginia) and surprise (Oregon) wins in the remaining primaries to rattle the superdelegates.
- Bob Barr geared up for an official entry into the presidential race.
- Ron Paul's book rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
- Rep. Walter Jones, the last anti-war Republican on the ballot in 2008, handily won re-nomination.

Below the Fold
- Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan crafts a nomination strategy for the top 6 LP candidates. (One striking thing about this race is that the anti-Barr, anti-Root forces don't deny that Barr could get more votes than a candidate in the Badnarik mold. It brings to mind the war against McCain in the GOP primary: Conservatives were willing to trade the more electable McCain for the more doctrinaire, for the moment, Romney.)
- Brian Friel talks to Democrats about their coming, 1932 or 1964-sized landslide.
- John Judis wrings his hands about Obama's electability.
- Most of the Libertarian presidential candidates (except for Barr, Root and Phillies*) demand a new 9/11 inquiry.
- Matt Labash goes to the prom.

Did someone request mid-decade Marillion live? No? Too bad.

*This has been corrected -- I forgot about Phillies when I originally posted.

Will Ron Paul Support a Third Party Candidate? Ask Ron Paul.

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:06:00 EDT

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin has launched his web site, and as the boys at Third Party Watch point out, it's calculated to make him look like Ron Paul's heir. No surprise there. Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips pushed delegates to nominate Baldwin over Alan Keyes on the cryptic promise that Paul secretly supported Baldwin and that the vast riches of the Paul campaign were "resources we can look to."

I saw Ron Paul on Wednesday, at a signing event for The Revolution, and he told me he won't endorse Baldwin or Barr. He'll kinda-sorta endorse both. He won't stop them from using photos of him or talking about his campaign.

"Chuck was in my office today to say hello," Paul said. "but I haven't said anything about supporting either one of them. I support both of them in what they're doing, and I encourage them, but that's all."

"Maybe you'll endorse McCain and surprise everybody," asked one of the people walking out of the event with us. "That would surprise me, too!" said Paul. But this is actually a sticking point in the Paul campaign: Some people in his circle want him to swing his weight behind McCain once the primaries are over. At the moment, they're being overruled.

On a related note, back in Pennsylvania I asked Paul if he'd weigh in and help the "Ron Paul Republicans" who are running for office using all or part of his platform. He's started doing so in earnest, buoyed by the easy victories of candidates like BJ Lawson. Here's a quick-'n'-painful endorsement he shot for Amit Singh, fighting for Virginia's 8th district (a safe Democratic seat held by the deeply flawed Jim Moran).

If Dirty Want His Money, I Think Y'All Should Give Him His Money

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:50:00 EDT

I predict that Steven Ybarra of Sacramento will end this primary as the Democrats' least popular superdelegate. Why?

He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.

Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

When asked whether it was right to offer what is clearly a quid pro quo, he responded, "yeah, absolutely. People do it all the time," answered Ybarra.

But not in public! And not for $20 million. J.D. Rockefeller bought the Senate for less than that!

Ybarra isn't trying to enrich himself—he's bribing the party to spend money "registering and educating eligible Mexican-American voters, who he calls the key to the White House." It's yet another reminder of how foolhardy the Clintonites sound (or in-kind allies like Rush Limbaugh) when they talk about the small-d democratic values of the primary. There's no election less democratic than a Democratic primary. Wintry, tiny states get godlike powers over the citizens of the other 48. Electoral vote-less places like Guam and Puerto Rico have a say. "Momentum" is almost totally hostage to quirks of the calender—how strong would Obama look now, for example, if Indiana (swing) and Pennsylvania (strong Clinton) had had their primaries on Tuesday, and not Indiana and Obama's sure-thing North Carolina?

Bob Barr is Your President

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:49:00 EDT

Former Rep. Bob Barr's campaign won't confirm or deny it, but John Martin is reporting that Barr will move from an exploratory bid to an official presidential run on Monday.

As I reported last week, Barr is the frontrunner, narrowly, for the Libertarian Party nomination—it's been a close three-way race between him, Wayne Allyn Root, and Mary Ruwart. Root-backing South Carolina delegate Stewart Flood tells me that he was "on the fence" as long as Barr didn't officially declare, but he's "definitely supporting him" come Monday. "I'm sure Wayne's not happy," Flood says, "but he knows my position. I think he'd make a great running mate." (I pointed out to Flood that Root has said he'd turn down the vice presidential nomination: "If Wayne doesn't want the VP under Bob, I'll buy a hat so I can eat it."

Candidate George Phillies, who has theorized that Barr was going the "exploratory committee" route because he didn't think he could win the nomination, didn't express much surprise. "If he tried announcing his bid at the convention it would get complicated," Phillies says. "This way he has a chance to make a legitimate case to the delegates. He must think he can pull it off." (Phillies has his own motives, obviously, but the "Barr won't get in because he's scared to lose" meme was swirling around when I talked to delegates.)

Phillies isn't intending to step aside for Barr. "My current reaction is that if he’s the nominee he’ll blow the party apart," he says. "The entire radical wing will walk. Some of the centrists will walk. Bob may get the nomination and go after some of those disaffected conservative voters, but it would be a dismal result for the party."

UPDATE: A statement from Wayne Allyn Root:

Bob Barr is a fine man and a solid candidate- with a well-known name in D.C. political circles.
But the Libertarian Party is an anti-establishment, anti-big government, anti-tax, anti-D.C. insiders party. Bob is a politician, ex-prosecutor and lawyer- just like virtually every single candidate offered by the Republicans and Democrats.

On the other hand, I offer a very different and unique image and attitude for the LP. I'm the ANTI-POLITICIAN. I'm a son of a butcher, 2nd generation American, small businessman, home-school father of 4 young children (including a brand new baby), and a citizen politician. I'm the quintessential Washington D.C. outsider. I've never worked in DC, never lived in DC, never done business with the government, never collected a check from government (other than a student loan - which I paid back in full). That's a very different resume for a Presidential candidate.

Amazingly, I've actually created jobs. I've actually risked my own money to start businesses. I've actually made payrolls and signed checks so others could live the American Dream. I've actually paid the health insurance for my employees. How's that for different? I don't just talk about jobs...and the economy...and the problems of small business...and the health insurance crisis- I've lived it. This is the stuff that politicians, prosecutors and lawyers just talk about!

And in a country where small business now creates the majority of non-government jobs, I think a President who understands the unique issues and problems facing small businessmen and women is the perfect person to put in the White House.

If a third party wants to think "out of the box" and present a unique candidate that fires up the spirit and passion of American voters who are obviously sick of "the same old, same old" and the same D.C. status quo, I'm the rebel with a pitchfork. That's a picture that will make huge inroads versus the 2-party system in 2008. As opposed to running a politician, ex-Congressman and lawyer to defeat who? A bunch of politicians, Congressman and lawyers. And where is Congressman Barr announcing his decision? In Washington DC of course. I spend my life figuring out ways to avoid going near the federal government or stepping foot in D.C. Quite a difference in image and attitude.

As far as media, let's compare my record to former Congressman Barr or former Senator Gravel. I'm able to attract major national media because of who I am and what I have to say, not what I've been (an ex-politician).

The media is attracted to me because I have interesting things to say and because I always say it in a dynamic, passionate and colorful way that makes Americans stop the channel and take notice. That's precisely what the LP so desperately needs. Not just someone with a great Libertarian message- but someone who can translate that message in a way that appeals to mainstream American voters.

Having said all that, I look forward to presenting our messages and visions to LP voters at our convention in Denver.

UPDATE: Mary Ruwart responds.

There are a lot of good things about Barr candidacy, and there are some things that trouble me. One thing that bothers me is his endorsement of the Fair Tax. I think we should eliminate the income tax and replace with nothing. That’s something we’ve been saying for years in the Libertarian Party. The fact that he wants to replace the income tax suggests that Bob is not serious about cutting spending.

There's something else I talked about with Bob several weeks before: The legalization of hard drugs. He said he'd come down on the side of liberty, and he said he'd express that in the media. But when he went on Hannity and Colmes he got pushed to the wall by those guys. And once again he took a different position than the LP has taken.

He sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, something that's making a lot of gay couples very unhappy, and the gay community has produced some of the biggest supporters of the LP. I'd hate to think of doing anything that would antagonize that community.

Bob has made quite a turnaround in his views, and that's a good thing. He's seen the light: That's a powerful message to Republicans disillusioned with the major parties. If I were in Bob’s shoes I’d certainly run for president, but four years ago, not this time. I'd correct my record on DOMA, my hard drugs stances, my tax stances. Our standard bearer should epitomize the libertarian philosophy in entirety, and present it in an attractive package to the country. If our standard bearer doesn’t believe in liberty, how can we convince the American people to do so?

Ruwart didn't rule out running as a VP candidate to Barr "if I felt it would be good for the party."

Jesse, Are You Listening?

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:32:00 EDT

Q: Could the Libertarian Party nomination fight draw in a third legendary former-office holder?

A: No. No, it couldn't. But former Minnesota Gov. Jesse "the Mind" Ventura gave an interview to Maria Heller a week ago, from his Mexico hideaway, where he opened the possibility of the LP gratefully awarding him its presidential slot. Thirty-two minutes into the video he starts discussing it.

I had somebody from the Libertarians contact me, and they said their convention is in May, and I don't know if this is true but he claims they have ballot access in all 50 states.

They actually don't, but Ventura says he'll explore it "when I get back in country May 15." He follows up this thought with a discussion of the 9/11 "truth" movie Loose Change. If the party could reject the brainy-but-conspiracy-minded Aaron Russo, the chances of Jesse Ventura parachuting into the race a week before the convention and seizing the nod are... slim.

There was a time in 1999 and 2000, dimly-remembered now, when Ventura really could have jumped into the presidential race, gotten taken seriously, and as much as 22 percent of the country would consider voting for him. Ventura has definitively joined the Chuck Hagel Memorial Home for Candidates Who Blew Their Chance.

In the "candidates who didn't blow their chance" file: Ron Paul's The Revolution will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list this weekend.

Headline disturbingly explained here.

You Make Me Feel Mighty Real

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:25:00 EDT

I'm at a bipartisan Cato Institute event with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) and Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D), both of them opponents of the REAL ID Act.

Sanford, who turned back threats from the Department of Homeland Security, starts with some throat-clearing quotes from Jefferson about human freedom. "You could look up Locke, you could look up Hume, you could look up Burke. This debate is not about REAL ID - it's about the tenuous balance of liberty."

More Sanford: this represents the "Maginot Line" of the 21st century's debate on freedom. He rejects the scaremongering about what terrorists will do if we don't have a REAL ID. "Terrorists will always be asymmetrical in their attacks."

He goes after Congress: "There have been more debates about steroid use in baseball players than there have been about this issue." The REAL ID is "the mother of all unfunded mandates. If Washington can no longer afford the bill, the last-ditch effort is handing the bill to someone else."

"Outside of the liberty component, outside of the security standpoint, if you care about spending you'd ought to care about REAL ID."

On the time it'd take to assign people their IDs: "Two hours is a lot of time on earth. You can spend it with friends, you can spend it with family, or you can spend it in a DMV line."

Sanford rattles off a list of information abuses, like the passport file breaches of the presidential candidates. "One-stop shopping for every computer hacker around the world is not a good idea for our security."

Tester gets up to speak and tosses down the gauntlet. "When our rights get trampled upon, the terrorists win."

Tester calls the application of the law-"cringe"-worthy, especially the "arbitrary deadline" that states were given to comply. DHS is "using federal resources to bully states to go with the program." He points out that full agreement with the Act isn't mandated until 2017.

"Creating a national ID -- make no mistake, that's what REAL ID is -- will create countless opportunities to access our information in a way we have not agreed to."

"Just as the warrantless wiretapping issue has prevented Congress from passing actual legislation" to let us prevent terrorism, "so too has REAL ID distracted us."

More Tester: "There's a real tendancy for legislators to overreact because of what happened on 9/11." A modest proposal: "We ought to have some radar on the northern border. On a dark night, if you fly across the border, no one can see you. If they've got a REAL ID in their pocket, who gives a damn?"

Sanford shouts out to Bob Barr: "He's now travelling the country talking about the problems with the PATRIOT Act." He calls federalizing the TSA "a gut-check vote" for real conservatives."

Tester gets an easy question from the audience about Montana's local effort to improve driver's licenses. "You're dead spot-on. If Montana can make a non-counterfeitable driver's license, any state in the union can do it." He has to skedaddle early: "I could talk about this stuff all day!" Sanford echoes him on cost: Jim Harper, the moderator, says the biggest worry is the national database.

One of the questioners asks if nullification is an option for states. "I'm not a lawyer," Sanford says. "What's that mean?" The questioner gives a Jeffersonian example. "Huh," says Sanford. (John Calhoun could not be reached for comment.)

Sanford gets a question about the exact cost. He doesn't mark it, but he notes that the federal money that would come for this would be diverted from exisiting DHS grants. "We don't know if we're going to get hit by a terrorist, but we're going to be hit by hurricanes." So the money they want to spend on radios and evacuation plans would be blown on ID cards.

Sanford pounds home his objection to data centralization. "You can go back to the time of Pearl Harbor and the navy will say, 'I tell you what, it's not a good idea to keep all our ships in the same place." He doesn't have a problem with e-verify, since Social Security numbers are already in the system.

Sanford is asked what he'd do if he was still in Congress and "strong-armed" to vote for REAL ID. He doesn't think it's a huge worry because Congress is so congenial. Hm.

A questions comes about the penalties non-compliant states face. Sanford isn't worried about it, but he mocks "the bizarre legalistic dance" wherein he'll send a letter to DHS announcing South Carolina's non-compliance and "you'd get a letter back saying 'we very much appreciate it and we'll grant you an extention."

A long-winded questioner compares Sanford's fight against DHS to Fort Sumter. "That movie didn't end well," Sanford says.

Sanford tries to make some news by comparing the effort to fight REAL ID to the Obama campaign. "You'd have never have bet against the powerful apparatus" he was up against, but he built a grassroots network. "Talk to two friends, talk to three friends."

Landslides and Freedom Fries

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:06:00 EDT

Two big stories that got mostly cut out of the coverage last night: The victory of Rep. Walter Jones in North Carolina and the narrow victory of Rep. Dan Burton in Indiana, both Republicans. Jones, who joins John Duncan and Ron Paul as one of the only anti-war, anti-surge Republicans in Congress, dispatched pro-war former Army officher Joe McLaughlin by 19 points, carrying 14 of 17 counties. Harbor no illusions that he did it because voters turned against the war. Jones simply finessed the issue, talking about health care and benefits for soldiers the way that Ron Paul does when he's hit on this.

"I think more and more Republicans are starting to understand after five years that the Iraqis need to step up and take responsibility," Jones said.

Jones retained some strong military support in his district, particularly among retired Marines and other veterans.

"We are close to the veterans and they knew it," Jones said.

Burton, meanwhile won by only 7 points (52 percent of the vote in a multiple-candidate race) over an emergency room doctor who hammered him on corruption.

Dr. John McGoff, who hammered Burton on ethics, thought he had a good shot to dethrone Burton, who has been in office since 1982 and routinely wins elections with about 70 percent of the vote.

McGoff's campaign had criticized Burton for missing votes in order to play golf and for spending $200,000 in taxpayer funds to send mailers to constituents during the heat of the campaign.

Burton -- who has been unbeatable and, apparently, unfazed about negative media coverage in the past -- may have received an assist from Republicans choosing to vote Democrat today.

I think it was a combination of that and Burton belatedly engaging in the race. If Burton had fallen asleep at the wheel and the GOP had a competitive presidential race yesterday, McGoff would be heading to Congress.

The third underreported story: John McCain's dramatic underperformance in his uncontested, beauty contest primaries. Even as activist, talk radio-listening Republicans (who don't like McCain) bolted into the Democratic race, McCain won only 78 percent of the vote in Indiana and 74 percent in North Carolina. That's compared to George W. Bush's 81 percent and 79 percent in 2000, at the same time in the primaries, when he also had it locked up. McCain plunged as low as 67 percent in Indiana's Whitley county and 57 percent in North Carolina's western Madison County. (The famous Madison County is actually in Iowa.)

Ron Paul came in third in both states, but his campaign crowed about hitting a "milestone."

"The big picture is that now onemillion Republicans have voted or caucused for Ron in this primary," said Paul's spokesman Jesse Benton. "Once people come and get behind Ron, they're not soft supporters. They're committed. I think it sends the message that people want limited government."

I've chattered about "Operation Chaos" (the Limbaugh voters-for-Clinton plan) plenty, but after last night I realized exactly how bad it is for the GOP. The party's hardest hard-cores can't stand their nominee. They're driving to the polls to vote for Hillary Clinton in part because it's more fun than casting a McCain ballot. It's more fun to vote for Hillary Clinton. How the hell do you motivate them to turn out, phone bank, donate to their ticket in the fall?

Wave Goodbye to Hillary Clinton

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:27:00 EDT

I said it almost three months ago: After Barack Obama's delegate-hogging blowouts through the month of February, there was no way Hillary Clinton could still become president. Sure, she's performed better than I expected in the post-February states. I always thought (as the Obama campaign thought) that she would lose Indiana. But her win there was ephemeral and will net her one (1) extra delegate, and it came after public and internal polls showed her winning another clear, thank-you-white-working-class-of-which-I-am-a-part victory of 5 to 10 points. Expectations ran away from the Clinton campaign. Today the pundits are discounting the squeaker win and saying, louder, what they've known since February.

Andrew Sullivan quotes the New York Times, assessing Obama's resilience under a monthlong scandal/negative storyline cloud, and jumps for joy.

Wright is a grenade that will fizzle. The right will try other gambits - the Ayers crap and if that doesn't work, look for them to take aim at Obama's wife. But Obama's survival - or rather the voters' refusal to make this election about the Freak Show - suggests that Newt is right. This will not work this year.

The Wright stuff, and a few other developments in the campaign, had me openly rooting against Clinton last night. There was a time at the start of the primaries when I credited Clinton for a more substantive campaign than Obama. When I saw Obama on the trail (I never caught a town hall, though West Virginia's not too far away...) his campaign would fabricate a rally that felt like the concert portion of an auto show. Hours early, voters would stream into the venue. They'd chatter and wave signs as the event got off to a late start. Obama would arrive and give a soaring, but warmed-over, speech of crescendos and promises and Mick Jagger moments. Then he'd leave. Clinton, on the other hand, would hustle in to a less-crowded event, give a short speech very long on policy, and start taking audience questions. Sometimes she'd get an odd one and answer it with a howler. But she was never uninformed.

This, we were told, was why Obama was winning and Clinton was losing. I thought that was unfair. Clinton's microtrendy town halls, her dull, wonky events, and her long debate answers seemed like the sort of stuff a candidate should do, and Obama's events and answers seemed like the stage-managed crap that lulls the electorate into electing a cypher.

That changed sometime after the February blowouts. Clinton's people looked at the numbers and saw which voters were sticking with them--which voters had moved to Obama, but could be snagged back. They saw whites with less income and less education. So they made a virtue out of that support. They retooled the campaign to go after them and to argue, implicitly, that to not do so, and to not win them, was rank elitism. This is what Noemie Emery found so appetizing about Clinton over the last leg of the campaign.

She is becoming a social conservative, a feminist form of George Bush. Against an opponent who shops for arugula, hangs out with ex-Weathermen, and says rural residents cling to guns and to God in unenlightened despair at their circumstances, she has rushed to the defense of religion and firearms, while knocking back shots of Crown Royal and beer. Her harsh, football-playing Republican father (the villain of the piece, against whom she rebelled in earlier takes on her story) has become a role model, a working class hero, whose name she evokes with great reverence. Any day now, she'll start talking Texan, and cutting the brush out in Chappaqua or at her posh mansion on Embassy Row.

Cultural feints like that were part of the strategy. The other part was dumb policy, like the "gas tax holiday" that Clinton spent the final week of Indiana/North Carolina pushing at events and on TV. I'm flabbergasted that it didn't work, but it didn't deserve to work. Coronation, 30-point-lead-era Clinton was comfortable enough to talk to voters like grown-ups.

The North Carolina/Indiana Primary Thread

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:00:00 EDT

A word about exit polls: The early ones suck. I do lots of parsing of the first, post-poll-closing wave of numbers, but they are faulty and they get massaged as the night goes on. I anticipated a closer-than-my-prediction race in Pennsylvania when the early exits had him winning the Philadelphia suburbs, but as the night went on Obama's 16-point lead there vanished. So if, for example, the first exit polls show Obama tying Clinton among west North Carolina whites, assume the data sucks.

Indiana (7 p.m.)
The Democrats. If Rev. Jeremiah Wright had greeted the new year with a self-imposed exile to Tibet, or if—even better—he'd turned off the cameras in Trinity United Church and never recorded himself saying "God damn America," Barack Obama would be knocking Hillary Clinton out of the race today. Sure, she would have tried to stagger on after losing Indiana and North Carolina. As Phil Klein points out, her "incredible resilience" is mostly a function of the fact that she's Hillary Clinton and started this race with legions of delegates in her pocket, one of the biggest fundraising lists on the planet, and a list of owed favors that approached Santa Claus naughty-or-nice-list-length.

But if not for Jeremiah Wright, Obama would be crushing her in both primary states. In its widely-circulated post-Super Tuesday spreadsheet of coming delegate fights, Obama's campaign predicted a 7-point win in Indiana. It was even more fertile territory than Wisconsin (they predicted a 7-point win and won by 17) or Virginia (they predicted 2 points and won by 29). It borded Illinois, and voters in the 1st and 8th congressional districts already knew and liked Obama. It was lousy with college towns. It had a small but energized black population that would pad his margin. Obama only needed to win about 40 percent of the white vote to carry the state, and he'd done that in Missouri, a demographically similar state.

Obama is weaker now and will probably lose what he called (in April) a "tiebreaker" state. He won't lose by the 10-point margin of Ohio or 9-point margin of Pennsylvania, because Indiana is more Midwestern than either of those states, and it doesn't touch on the Appalachian Mountains—the single strongest region for Clinton in the entire country. A win wouldn't be impossible, actually, because (as Robert Novak pointed out), Obama could pummel Clinton in the five most vote-rich counties and win, as long as he wasn't totally blown out in the other 87 counties. I think he'll win more than five counties but lose anyway. Clinton 53.5, Obama 46.5, with Clinton netting 5 delegates over Obama.

- Counties to watch: Hamilton, the wealthy, fast-growing county north of Indianapolis. If Clinton's winning easy there, Obama's coalition is coming apart. The Politico suggests that Howard County will be the swing area.

- Demographics to watch: Whites, of course, with a quick glance at the black vote. (The pollsters that show Clinton winning handily show her recovering ground with black voters, but they showed that in Pennsylvania and she lost them by 80 points.) In Pennsylvania Clinton won white Democrats by 30 points. If Obama closes that number to less than 20 points, he wins. If it expands, she wins easily.

- Voters to watch: Republicans. The impact of Rush Limbaugh's campaign (joined by some local hosts) to get Republicans to vote Hillary is really hard to measure, especially now that Obama's image has been damaged by Wright. Republicans went for Obama by 44 points in Wisconsin; they split 50-50 between the candidates in Ohio. (They weren't allowed to vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.) Anecdotal evidence is that the Limbaugh voters are matched by the good-faith Clinton and Obama Republican voters.

- Issue to watch: The gas tax holiday. If exit pollsters ask about it, let's see if the Clinton pander worked.

The Republicans. It's really hard to tell what McCain's margin will be here, as thousands and thousands of Republicans will be bolting their primary to vote for Clinton or Obama. Huckabee, Romney, and Paul are all on the ballot. In 2000, Bush only got 82 percent of the primary vote even though he'd defeated McCain weeks earlier. So I'll guess McCain 78, Paul 10, Others 12.

North Carolina (7:30 p.m.)
I simply don't believe the tightening polls in this state. Not the ones that show it becoming a toss-up.Todd Beeton, a Hillary-leaning blogger, points out something in this expectation-setting post: Southern polls have always underestimated Obama's support as they underestimate the black vote gap between Obama and Clinton (they usually peg it at 50 points, and it ends up around 80) and lowball Obama's white vote. Of course, we haven't had a Southern primary since Wrightgate, and Clinton has worked North Carolina harder than any Southern state since Tennessee, which she won easily. Obama 55, Clinton 44, with a net gain of around 9 delegates for Obama.

- County to watch: Watuga. John Vaught LaBeaume explains why: It's the kind of rural whites-plus-blacks-plus-college kid county that Obama used to dominate.

- Voters to watch: Independents. They've padded Obama's margin in all of the pre-Wright states. What are they doing now?

- Issue to watch: Jeremiah Wright. Apparently voters were split 50/50 on whether they factored him into their vote. What did whites think?

The Republicans. This could actually get interesting. When John McCain criticized the state GOP for running an ad linking Obama and Wright to the state's Democratic gubernatorial candidates, he won his usual dollop of national praise and pissed off a lot of Republicans back here. McCain 72, Paul 12, Others 16.

Other races to watch: The 3rd and 4th district congressional races in North Carolina, and the 5th district race in Indiana. The former to see if Ron Paul endorsees are winning their elections, the latter to see if the grassroots can purge a well-fed insider Republican.

UPDATE 6:08: The Daily Kos has the only early exits that are ever any good: racial voting. Blacks went against Clinton in both states by about 85 points. That's nightmarish and much worse than in the polls that showed her closing strong--they showed her climbing back into the teens. In North Carolina, this matters. Assuming 33 percent black turnout, the difference between a 70-point loss of the black vote and a 85-point loss is about 4 points overall. She'd have to win about 71 percent of the white vote to overcome that.

UPDATE 7:03: NBC calls Indiana "too early to call," which must mean they have clear exits (or else they'd say "too close"). I'm guessing Obama isn't pulling the votes he needs in the Chicago burbs, which have been bombarded with Wright coverage.

UPDATE 7:06: Early, bullshit exits have Clinton winning by 4 in Indiana as Obama carries everything but the rural south and central parts of the state. I'm sure this'll get massaged.

UPDATE 7:11: On MSNBC, John Kerry is really pushing the "Rush Limbaugh is begging Republicans to vote Hillary" meme. They want to discredit a Hillary win if she takes it by the margin of crossover voters. Indeed, the exits have her winning Republicans.

UPDATE 7:30: North Carolina is called a nanosecond after polls close for Obama. Hey, Mickey Kaus, how's that "Obama by 3 or less" prediction holding up?

UPDATE 7:35: North Carolina exits look good, not great, for Obama. He held but didn't gain among white voters: He'll win about 38 percent of them, his best result outside of Virginia and Georgia. Also -- and expect this to change -- he's winning every region of the state. Landslides in the Research Triangle and Charlotte, single-digit wins everywhere else.

UPDATE 7:55: Basically nothing has been counted in the NC-3 and NC-4 races, but Jones and Lawson won big in early voting. Jones is up by 17 points, Lawson is up by about 40 points.

UPDATE 8:01: Unless northwest Indiana breaks for Clinton, she's not holding the current 14-point lead. Her vote is coming in early: Counties like Vigo, Jefferson and Floyd are counted, while Marion (home of Indianapolis) is 15 percent in and Lake (home of Gary) is completely out.

UPDATE 8:45: Good news from Marc Ambinder:

Campaign advisers are saying that the gas tax pause debate helped him ... though they're not terribly happy that the question wasn't on the exit poll questionnaire

Said one adviser:

"It blunted her appeal with middle and downscale and helped us in the burbs with upper income/college educated voters; it showed why Obama was different than her, which we needed to make people make the leap to vote for us. That didn't happen in PA or OH."

Ha. Also, ha.

UPDATE 8:51: Maybe Paul's biographical links to Pennsylvania made the difference for him, because he's running third behind Huckabee in both states. If he's lucky, though, he'll get 80,000 votes from both states, and cross the 1 million vote mark.

UPDATE 8:54: I don't know why NBC hasn't can't Indiana, as the crucial counties that needed to swamp for Obama are coming in rather weak for him. St. Joseph County (with South Bend) by 6 points, for example.

UPDATE 9:04: I just spoke to B.J. Lawson, who is clobbering Augustus Cho 70-30 with more than 60 percent of the vote counted. "We're very excited," he says, although he won't declare victory until Cho concedes. "We're ready to run a positive campaign based on Constitutional values."

UPDATE 9:15: Hm... Obama altered the Indiana line in his speech. He added the word "apparent" when congratulating Clinton on her Indiana win. MSNBC, at least, is eyeing Lake County and calling it too close to call. (It looks in some ways like Missouri, where Obama was losing, and several networks called it against him, until the final precincts of St. Louis came in. The problem for him is that Gary is not St. Louis.)

UPDATE 9:28: NC-3 is going to take forever to report... all of those hard-to-reach coastal towns. But Jones is widening his lead over McLaughlin. Everyone I know thinks Jones has it won.

UPDATE 9:43: Tim Russert is reiterating the "gas tax hurt Clinton" storyline -- it took the focus off Wright at the 11th hour and showed voters the non-pandering Obama they liked in the first place.

UPDATE 9:51: B.J. Lawson wins.

It's a landslide, and a surprisingly big total for a low-turnout GOP primary.

9:56: I can sense the spin moving away from "split decision" to "Obama wins." Even if Clinton wins Indiana now, it's within the margin of Limbaugh-listening spoilers.

10:15: The Daily Kos (yes, I'll link 'em again) begs Clinton to stay in for two weeks in order to reduce the embarrassment of Obama's coming West Virginia (May 13) and Kentucky (May 20) losses. He's on to something. Obama would lose both states even if Clinton dropped out five minutes ago. The question is whether Clinton can take Oregon (also May 20) from his column, something that seems less and less likely as Obama's coalition refuses to budge.

10:39: Clinton speaks! She claims to have "broken the tie" without actually declaring an Indiana victory. Because she can't declare it yet, if she can declare it at all. Sorry if I'm stepping on Ann Althouse's beat, but my God does Bill Clinton ever look red-faced and sad, standing behind Clinton. This is the body language of a mounting defeat.

10:47: With all but 5 (of 17) counties counted, Jones is winning his primary by 20 points. It's over. The pro-war bloc won't get its scalp.

Do You Remember Walter?

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:01:00 EDT

Back in February, when anti-war Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest lost his safe Maryland House seat, anti-war conservatives wondered if the GOP was undergoing a purge. Ron Paul sent out a panicky fundraising letter, begging his friends to prevent him from getting Gilchrested. Joe McLaughlin, the county commissioner challenged Rep. Walter Jones in North Carolina's coastal 3rd district, crowed that he was closing in. There was plenty of anecdotal evidence for a McLaughlin surge, if you looked for it.

The walls at Cubbie's diner used to be plastered with pictures, stickers and campaign signs for Rep. Walter Jones, who championed the eatery's idea to serve up "freedom fries" in the days before the start of the Iraq war.

But the Republican soured on the war soon after it started, and now there's a new banner hanging above the grill: Joe McLaughlin for Congress.

"Walter abandoned us," said Cubbie's owner Neal Rowland. "Walter hopped on the bandwagon. But when the heat got turned up, he hopped off."

But today, I'm told to expect an easy Jones win, with McLaughlin unable to crack the 40 percent support floor. The last public poll showed Jones crushing McLaughlin by 38 points (with a high undecided vote); it was two months ago, but Jones has only consolidated since then.

He got lucky. McLaughlin talked to most of the right people in the district, and at least one D.C. conservative group was considering jumping into the race to help him. The meltdown of Republican congressional candidates in open seats and the paltry fundraising of the party's congressional campaign committee made a sure-thing incumbent with a fat bankroll look pretty good.

Meanwhile, in the Research Triangle-centered 4th District, B.J. Lawson is sounding confident notes about his primary. "We're getting an overwhelmingly positive reception when I meet people at the polls," Lawson says. "We have 20 percent of them covered. As far as I can tell, Augustus [Cho, Lawson's libertarian-bashing opponent] has signs out there but no one working the polls."

Turnout looks lighter than the general election of four years ago. When Lawson's wife visited a Wake County precinct, 600 voters had cast ballots by noon, compared to about 1200 in 2004. It's an open primary, where independents can vote in either race, and Lawson's seeing "the vast majority" of independents jump into the Democratic primary. (This is mixed news for Hillary Clinton: This is a district where Obama should be romping, and he needs high turnout, but independents are going to go heavily for him.)

Lawson wouldn't hazard a guess about how Ron Paul will do. "There isn't a get out the vote organization, but the guys from the MeetUp groups are doing a good job putting signs out there." The 4th district and its college towns will probably be one of Paul's best areas—it's the only place he campaigned.

Sort of related: Paul was asked about the "gas tax holiday" on Fox News today and pronounced it "a pretty good idea" but "foolish if you don't consider also cutting spending."

Wait... Ron Paul is Running for President?

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:29:00 EDT

Drudge gives a traffic-driving link to Garance Franke-Ruta's short Washington Post story on the continuing Ron Paul campaign. The shocking headline: "Paul Campaign Never Ended, Spokesman Says."

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told supporters in early March, through a Web video, that he knew he was no longer in the running for the presidency, and aides said his campaign would be "winding down." But it turns out Paul never stopped running for president.

"He put out a video in which he said victory in the conventional sense was not available to us, but there was still much the campaign could try to accomplish," Ron Paul 2008 spokesman Jesse Benton said yesterday. "People in the press reported that as him dropping out when he was not dropping out."

So... shouldn't the campaign spokesman have, uh, corrected them? Paul hinted that he was dropping out twice. On February 9 he announced he was refocusing on his House re-election bid, a move interpreted as a strategic retreat to prevent Chris Peden from making the presidential bid an issue. Because it happened so soon after Dennis Kucinich completely quit the presidential race to save his House seat, the national press assumed that Paul was out. We got press releases, on the presidential campaign press release list, about endorsements in the 14th District.

The primary came, Paul won, and he made another cryptic statement about "winding down" the race. Was he just stating the facts, admitting that he'd shrunken his staff? Yes, he was. But the campaign basically let press and reporters report that Paul was quitting. It's not like they were caught unaware by reporters not caring about the campaign. I remember the press conference after the Dec. 16 moneybomb, where less than 10 reporters crowded a room built for 50 at the National Press Club to listen to Paul's financial team. (The Iowa press conference with the candidate himself was just as thinly attended.) The campaign didn't exactly get caught unaware by national reporters not taking the time to follow up, one-by-one, on a lengthy and opaque video where the candidate mutters Maoisms like "the campaign for freedom will continue in this new phase."

This had an effect on support. I was startled by how many people at Paul's Pennsylvania rallies actually thought he'd left the race, even after speeches where he talked about staying in the race. I wasn't startled when the campaign's last finance report showed monthly fundraising drying up. Now, Paul's doing so well with under-the-radar campaign work that all of this stuff starts to take on an air of cunning: Maybe if Paul was in the news, generic Republican voters wouldn't be about to give primary victories to two candidates he's endorsed in North Carolina, Walter Jones and B.J. Lawson. (One Paul ally joked to me over the weekend that the 16 percent Pennsylvania vote suggests "that Ron's biggest mistake was not 'ending' the campaign in November.")

The rEVOLution in North Carolina

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:21:00 EDT

Book sales numbers aren't the only metric of success Ron Paul cares about now. He's finishing up a mini-tour of campuses in North Carolina and Indiana, reminding voters that he's on the ballot, bidding for protest votes that will (almost assuredly) pump his total for the primary season over one million. From the North Carolina stop:

Paul told the crowd that his hopes of winning the White House will continue to the end.

"If there's money in the bank and you want to continue the process and you want to go all the way to the convention and make sure our message is heard, that is what I intend to do," said Paul.

This from a two-city, two-campus stop in Durham and Chapel Hill. I assume the stops went as well as the stops I saw in Pennsylvania, probably with more repeat business by Paul fans driving from event to event. (Durham and Chapel Hill are closer than Gettysburg and State College.)

"It's improbable, but not impossible," said Bill Thompson, 75, who drives 150 miles round-trip from Sampson County to attend the weekly meetings of the The Wilmington Ron Paul 2008 Meetup Group.

You would have been hard-pressed to have missed the group's handwork over the past year. They've held signs at the intersection of College Road and Oleander Avenue, passed out anti-income tax leaflets on April 15, and even broadcast a continuous loop of an interview with Paul on a low-power radio station beaming on 1610 AM.

And, of course, they have put up roadside signs, which have sprouted like wildflowers. Many are hand-painted with slogans like "Dr. Paul Cured My Apathy," "Vote Ron Paul and Win a Free Country," and "Legalize the Constitution - Ron Paul '08."

"I don't think you can drive five minutes in Wilmington without seeing a sign," said Martin Goter, a computer repairman and a leader of the local group, which claims 160 members. Most are written on others' signs reclaimed from the dump.

The biggest libertarian event in the state won't be the presidential race, though. It'll be the 4th district congressional primary, where Paul activist B.J. Lawson is running against Augustus Cho, a deeply unimpressive candidate who's basically running to prevent a Paulite from getting the nomination. The second biggest event: The 3rd district primary, where Paul-endorsed anti-war Republican Walter Jones will beat pro-war challenger Joe McLaughlin like a drum. (I've met both of them and Joe's better than his campaign.)

Woody and Bobby

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:52:00 EDT

On Friday, I saw Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) address the National Press Club ostensibly to talk about his remarkable political success in only six months as governor of Louisiana. Most of the questions, predictably, focused on whether he'd run for vice president with John McCain. On Saturday, I refreshed the state's election sites as Woody Jenkins, once promoted in the pages of reason as "America's most libertarian legislator," battled for a safe House seat in the Baton Rouge area. Woody blew it, and the Democrats picked up the seat. Kathryn Jean Lopez (who was at the Press Club) linked the two events, calling it "further evidence Jindal has his work cut out for him."

I'd link the two events differently: I think it's fantastic that Jenkins has collapsed on the runway and Jindal's carrying the Louisiana conservative torch. Jenkins was a movement dead-ender, the kind of guy who voted the hard line against taxes and abortion (displaying plastic fetuses to hound pro-choicers) while Democrats ran the state into the ground. Jenkins was a true-blue believer in white populism who bought David Duke's mailing list (for a Senate campaign run by now-Family Research Council guru Tony Perkins).

Jindal is basically the antithesis of all this. I wasn't too impressed by him in the U.S. House (remember when the Republicans dyed their fingers purple in "solidarity with the people of Iraq?" Yep, him.) but he's a shockingly good, clear-headed governor. Jindal headhunted a Fortune 500 executive to run his state department of Labor and commanded him to prune it down. In response, the secretary came up with a plan for abolishing the department. This is what you fantasize about Republicans doing before they go and do things like hire Tom Ridge to lobby for the duct tape industry.

This is why I agree with Ross Douthat on the Jindal-for-president buzz.

The question... is whether a young and promising governor like Jindal would want to be dubbed the heir-apparent to a President who would have won the White House in spite of his party's deep unpopularity, and whose administration would be almost certainly defined as the last gasp of Reagan-era Republicanism, rather than the first step into whatever's next for the GOP. Which is to say, even if a veep slot led to a Presidential campaign further down the road, by hitching his ambitions to a McCain Administration, Jindal might be signing up to play Walter Mondale, rather than the Bill Clinton he could hope to be instead.

And his party needs it even more than the 1992 Democrats.

Money, It's a Crime/Share it Fairly but Don't Take a Slice of My Pie

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:22:00 EDT

That was then.

This is now.

"Why don't we hold these Wall Street money-grubbers responsible for their role in this recession?" Clinton asked at an Indiana Democratic Party dinner in Indianapolis tonight.

There's a question of fairness here: Are Clinton's panders any worse than the average politician's panders? Is Hillary's discovery of Huey Long, I-wanna-live-like-common-people, hold-an-event-on-a-flatbed-truck (seriously) any more offensive than, say, John Edwards's embrace of the same aesthetic? I think so. Edwards didn't count Robert Rubin as one of his advisers, whereas Clinton does, and as recently as 6 weeks ago was promoting him as a fix-it-man in her administration. Part of Clinton's pitch in the first place, part of her appeal, was that she and her husband had spent eight years running the country. She knows a tactical strike on "money-grubbers' won't happen. (If it did, what would happen to Chelsea's company?)

Related news: Clinton comes out against economists!

New at Reason

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Steve Chapman, who hasn't gone easy on Barack over his Weather Underground friendship, asks John McCain whether he'll repudiate a comparably scuzzy connection.

The Friday Political Thread: As Serious as Hillary Clinton on Energy Policy Edition

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Unconvincing Quote of the Week
"Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours." - Karl Rove (caught by Jon Chait) reversing, oh, 10,000,000 words of White House blather about what is and isn't torture. Pay attention, kids, if you want to become America's #1 pundit.

The Week in Brief
- The phrase "throw under the bus" jumped the shark as Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright took turns betraying one another.
- Ron Paul's new book hit the shelves and hit #1 on Amazon's bestseller list.
- Hillary Clinton and John McCain came out swinging for the deeply silly "gas tax holiday."
- McCain rolled out his health care plan, but Jeremiah Wright had no comment so it got ignored.

Below the Fold
- Bob Tyrrell, who has his own motives, mourns for the post-racial, 2007-vintage Barack Obama (cudgeled by the Clintons).
- Peggy Noonan defends Obama, too.
- Hugh Hewitt, no longer so concerned about "religious tests" now that Mitt Romney's hit the mulch pile, has a list of religious questions for Obama.
- Daniel Larison disagrees with me.

Ladies and gentleman, Rick Wakeman!

SATURDAY UPDATE: Two pieces of news.

- Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory has left the LP after a stupid controversy over the party weighing (not subtly) in over the Mary Ruwart story.

- Democrats seized a Republican House seat in Lousiana: Once-promising Republican Woody Jenkins is probably done with politics. A side note: Black state Rep. Mike Jackson lost the Democratic primary to white Democrat Don Cazayoux, then grumpily promised to run in November as an independent. His thinking is that the 35 percent black district could go his way in a three-way race with Barack Obama on the ballot. To drive down turnout in Baton Rouge, he ran a TV ad telling voters not to worry, he'd run again, implying that they could stay home this time. It might have shaved a few points off the total, but the white Dem won anyway. That's got to be comforting to Democrats who worry about the aftershocks if they cudgel Obama.

When There Is Nothing Left to Burn You Have to Set Your Campaign on Fire

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:25:00 EDT

The much-maligned Zogby poll, which so badly blew the New Hampshire and California* primaries, actually did quite well in Pennsylvania and Texas. Zogby's tactic is to enter the field late and publish poll results over the last week before voters go to the polls; in those last two states** that meant he caught late movement to Hillary Clinton and called the results exactly right.

Here's what Zogby's saying about post-Wright North Carolina, where 15 percent of voters say the pastor's soured them on Obamania:

Obama - 50 percent
Clinton - 34 percent
Someone else(?) - 8 percent
Other - 8 percent

And Indiana's a 42-42 tie, with 21 percent of voters fretting about Wright. Zogby's outlook is a bit sunnier for Obama than most pollsters, but I'm convinced that he's worth following again. There's just no way that Obama can lose a state, like NC, where close to 40 percent of voters will be black. He'd have to lose the white vote by 60 points to lose, worse than he even did in Mississippi, and North Carolina has a fair sight more college kids and latte liberals than Haley Barbour's fiefdom.

I bring this up because of the engaging back-and-forth going on between Daniels McCarthy and Larison over at the AmCon. Larison thinks Obama has been done in by Wright; McCarthy thinks he's hit his nadir and is bound to rise against a GOP opponent who hasn't taken a punch all year.

The political environment that exists now, however, is nothing like the one that will exist in the summer, let alone November, when the Democrats will be fighting McCain instead of each other and the media glare will be upon the Arizonan as well as Obama. The present circumstances are—as several commentators, including me, have pointed out—the best that McCain is likely to enjoy for the rest of the season. I suspect present conditions are also nearly rock-bottom for Obama, though it’s a mistake ever to underestimate how much slime a Clinton can excrete. Nevertheless, barring new skeletons spilling out of Obama’s closest, the race is going to get better for him and worse for McCain.

McCarthy daydreams about the Democratic Convention and the bounce Obama will get when the party unites behind him. I think that's right, and I think Obama's Wright explosion this week, paradoxically, is making an Obama nomination more likely. For the first time Obama's entering a primary as bruised and mocked as Bill Clinton was before the 1992 New Hampshire primary. A week ago he was expected to win North Carolina easy, and Indiana would be the "tiebreaker" that the media paid attention to. Now if he loses Indiana narrowly and wins North Carolina by about 10 points (the black vote plus 30 percent of whites), he can sieze back the spin.

Another Zogby result from earlier in the week, predicting a four-way general election:

Obama (D) - 45 percent
McCain (R) - 42 percent
Barr (L) - 3 percent
Nader (I) - 1 percent

Barr rises to 4 percent in a Clinton matchup.

*Some of the explanation for that was the high absentee vote for Clinton. She won on election day narrowly, but won big with postal voters.

**Yes, Mississippi and Wyoming came between them, but they were so safely Obama that no one really polled them.

Give Me Fuel, Give Me Fire, Give Me That Which I Desire

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:43:00 EDT

Well, there's a twist: the Clinton/McCain double-reverse pander on the gax tax is experiencing actual blowback. First the general economic community pointed out the folly, then Clinton-friendly economists did, then journalists on a conference call roll the campaign's flacks back on their heels.

"Every penny counts," [pollster Geoff] Garin said, and insisted that the holiday will save $70 per driver (not $30, as Obama claims).“If you live in the center of the city it may not be a big deal.”

"There’s a real gap here of how some people see this from 30,000 feet", he continued, and how North Carolina and Indiana residents "experience it every day."

“What driving do they want them to stop doing?” he asked.

Ooh-er, take that, you beltway-bound snobs! You can imagine the wheat stalk idling between his teeth as Garin rocks back and forth on his porch and cradles his shotgun. Meanwhile Michael Bloomberg, who is an urban billionaire (and whose state Republicans favor suspending the state gas tax), adds his own spicy demogoguery:

Bloomberg praised officials who opposed the “summer break on gasoline taxes which would help Chavez, Qaddafi and other people like that. I don’t know why anybody would want to do it.”

Can the efforts of basically every journalist and economist convince people that the tax holiday his a bad idea? I feel like they can't. How else to explain this mega-pander by Hillary Clinton, caught by Megan McArdle?

Hillary Clinton wants to sue OPEC for not producing oil from wells they haven't drilled yet. Next: a lawsuit against Ford for not building us the cool flying cars we were promised in The Jetsons. I WANT MY FLYING CAR!!!!

Question: Is Hillary Clinton still a senator? Is John McCain? Why haven't they introduced gas tax holiday legislation if it's such an urgent need for the yeomen of Indiana and North Carolina? This isn't one of those "when I'm president" promises—if you want relief for summer 2008, then legislate to make relief happen for summer 2008. The only reason you wouldn't is if it's, you know, a poll-tested fraud.

Free Market Clintonism, RIP

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Hillary Clinton was angry about free trade, and she wanted Wisconsin to know it. “I’m tired of being played for a patsy,” the candidate said, 48 hours before the state’s Democrats would hand a 17-point landslide to Barack Obama. “It’s time we said to the rest of the world, ‘If you want to have anything to do with our market, you have to play by our rules.’ ”

That may have been red meat for a hungry crowd in the economically depressed upper Midwest. But Clinton sang the same tune in an interview with the liberal Capital Times newspaper in Madison, railing against a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), one of her husband’s most famous economic initiatives.

“It did not fulfill its expectations and caused a lot of consequences that we’re going to have to deal with,” she told the paper. “I have clearly stated for a number of years that we need to have the kind of pro-American smart trade that comes from looking at the trade agreements we’ve already passed, evaluating them and revising them so that they’re more in keeping with…the standards that we expect.”

The main selling point of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, ratcheted up after Barack Obama started scaring her up a ladder, had been her “35 years of experience,” along with a certain nostalgia for the 1990s, which both Hillary and Bill smugly described on the campaign trail as having been “pretty good.” The linchpin of that claim was the economic boom of the Bill years. Yet last fall Hillary began to soft-pedal or sweep under the carpet the very policies that made the boom possible.

NAFTA was a critical moment in Bill Clinton’s presidency, a New Democratic victory over the old union elements of the party. When Clinton signed the final treaties in 1993, he warned that no government action “can change the fact that information can flash across the world, that people can move money around in the blink of an eye.” He compared trade skepticism to the ways of old and dying industrial nations: “If we learn anything from the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the governments in Eastern Europe, [it’s that] even a totally controlled society cannot resist the winds of change that economics and technology and information flow have imposed in this world of ours.”

As recently as 2006, Hillary Clinton positioned herself as the heir to this trade-accommodating policy. She was not a “die-hard free-trader,” she said at the time, but she also wasn’t “an unreconstructed protectionist with very little regard, frankly, for how trade agreements are actually working.”

It’s not a mystery how NAFTA is working, actually. America’s GDP and industrial production have grown about 50 percent since the trade pact took effect. Total U.S. unemployment was 6.9 percent in 1993, before NAFTA went into effect; today it’s 4.9 percent. Hillary Clinton once considered this an accomplishment.

But then came the 2008 presidential campaign. In a November 2007 Iowa speech to the United Auto Workers, Clinton called for a “time-out” to “take stock of where we are on trade.” As the mortgage default wave gathered momentum in late 2007 and early 2008, Clinton proposed freezing adjustable rates by legislative fiat. To help eliminate the gender gap in salaries, Clinton endorsed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require a federal study to pave the way for an eventual legislative fix.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, matched her stride for stride toward the old economic left. Before the January 3 Iowa caucus, the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign, a union-backed group that describes NAFTA and the World Trade Organization as “a proven failure for working people,” asked the candidates to explain their trade stances. Obama promised that revisiting NAFTA was “one of the first things I’ll do as president,” language in line with what he’s said to other audiences but a lot tougher. (Clinton has vowed to review trade agreements every five years.) Obama also played up his support for the Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for employees to sue for pay discrimination based on gender.

As the campaigns headed to the populist temptations of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Texas, Clinton put out word that she was never on the record agreeing with her husband about NAFTA. The evidence, apparently, is on her side. In For Love of Politics, Sally Bedell Smith’s 2007 biography of the Clintons, former U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor claims he had to convince Hillary Clinton that NAFTA would be good for the country.

“If she would somehow come out and tell the real story of what she fought for in the White House,” Hillary biographer Carl Bernstein said in February, “and failed in a big argument with her husband, she would end up moving much closer to those Edwards followers.”

That’s what Democratic economic politics, and especially trade politics, have been about in 2008: pleasing the John Edwards voter. The slick-talking North Carolina trial lawyer did not win any primaries this year, but he did intuit that the new Democratic majority in Congress was far more trade-skeptical than the one that Bill Clinton split in half to pass NAFTA. Former Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.), who led his party’s charge against the NAFTA vote in the 1990s, was Edwards’ campaign manager. Before Edwards dropped out Bonior told me the public’s distaste for outsourcing and allegedly rising prices for consumer goods was much more obvious now than when Edwards first ran in 2004.

Jeff Faux, who was president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute during the NAFTA fight, speculates that Hillary Clinton has seen the same trend. “Unlike her husband,” Faux says, “who got his political education in Arkansas, she got hers campaigning in upstate New York in 1999 and 2000, in her Senate race. She saw those areas that had been hit by NAFTA. She had to deal with people in mill towns who lost their jobs.”

Now Faux, who had been as marginalized within the Democratic Party as Bonior in the early 1990s, couldn’t be happier. When Hillary Clinton talks about a “strategic pause” on trade deals, she is using terminology that skeptics have employed since at least 2005, when Faux lobbied Clinton before her vote against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

The candidates’ leftward tack was encouraged by the tight Democratic nomination fight. In early February, Clinton’s campaign made it clear that she would need the party’s “superdelegates”—bigwig pols who can vote at the convention without regard for the primary results—to win the nomination. The Associated Press reported in mid-February that among the superdelegates were “leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.”

There you have one of the lessons of this race: When Obama said, in January, that Ronald Reagan had been a “transformative” president in a way that Bill Clinton had not, he was right. Even if Hillary Clinton wins the party’s nomination, she will not do so as a candidate of a lasting Clintonism. The only 1990s economic policies that either Democratic candidate professed to believe in are the slightly higher tax rates that followed President Clinton’s 1993 increase. On health care, the candidates proposed bigger and more expensive plans than the last Democratic president ever pondered during his last six years in office. President Clinton once mulled putting Social Security funds in the stock market; candidates Clinton and Obama proposed funding it through transfer payments from here to
eternity.

Knowing all that, the distance Hillary has traveled from free trade to protectionism is no less shocking. Ten years ago, giving advice at a conference for developing economies in Africa, she warned that countries where the skeptics held sway were going to be left behind. “Look around the globe,” Clinton advised. “Those nations which have lowered trade barriers are prospering more than those that have not.”

It was true in Africa; it’s true in America. It will be true when, as seems likely, one of these Democrats gets the nomination and moderates his or her rhetoric. The crucial issue is how much of that rhetoric was mere pandering and how much represents a true political sea change.

David Weigel is an associate editor of Reason.

Downloading Lies

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:53:00 EDT

In 2005 the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) released a study of movie piracy that estimated how much money was being lost to copyright infringement. “The typical pirate is age 16–24 and male,” the MPAA reported, adding that “44 percent of MPAA company losses in the U.S. are attributable to college students.”

MPAA members used that impressive statistic to lobby Congress and universities for tighter controls on college Ethernet networks. College students became the bogeymen in the download wars, blamed for the movie business’s troubles.

But it turns out the number was wildly off. In January 2008 the MPAA admitted that the share of movie pirating losses attributable to college students was more like 15 percent, about one-third the figure offered in the 2005 report.

People familiar with the study say researchers assumed every film that was illegally downloaded otherwise would have been purchased—not rented, but bought at full price. Spokespeople for LEK, the consulting group that did the research, refused to comment on the size of what they called a “human error” or on how the new calculation was made. LEK has not corrected any other part of the 18-month, 20,600-subject study and has not made the full data cache public.

The MPAA has apologized for the flawed report, but during the two and a half years that the incorrect information was touted, it was cited in at least two congressional hearings on intellectual property. Those hearings produced the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, which requires colleges and universities to adopt strict antipiracy policies. Neither Congress nor the MPAA seems interested in revisiting that law.

Wayne Allyn Root: Barr's "Scared to Debate Me"

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EDT

After we ran yesterday's rundown of the Libertarian Party race, I talked to Wayne Allyn Root, the oddsmaker/entrepreneur who's battling for the right-leaning/pragmatic/celebrity vote with Bob Barr. Root wanted to clear the record on one thing: He did not demand that Mary Ruwart exit the race after some people dug up an apparent defense of child porn from one of her books. "I was 10,000 feet in the air," Root explains, "on my way to the New York Libertarian convention. We were asked for a response and my campaign manager made incredibly bone-headed mistake." So, Root isn't asking Ruwart to quit the race. He just wants to defeat her.

Root disputed my assessment that Barr is leading the race (which I can see the Barr campaign, uh, appreciated), although he acknowledged that they're going after the same votes and that Barr's entrance has him working harder. "I've won most of the straw polls, but even if you look at most of the straw polls I haven't won, the combined support for Barr outmatches the support for the other candidates." He pointed at the New York Libertarian Convention's straw poll, which he did win with 28 votes to Barr's 20. Six other candidates split 47 votes. "If you choose me or Bob Barr, you’d never choose Ruwart. If Bob Barr were to not run, or to not make it on a second ballot, I think all his supporters quite naturally go to me."

Root does think Barr is going to run (he's got an exploratory committee right now), but questioned why he won't jump in now and start participating in party debates. "I think he's scared to debate me," Root said. Exhibit A: Barr gave an hour speech at the New York convention, skipped the debate where Root only got 15 minutes to speak, and at the end of it Root got more votes in the straw poll. "I didn't know anyone in the LP when I started this, but I head into those debates and I'm able to win over these crowds who want somebody who can communicate our message. He's going to count on the one debate at the convention in Denver, and maybe he's hoping I have an off night."

That's the crux of Root's message: He can communicate in a way LP candidates haven't for a long time. "Barry Goldwater was my hero," Root said. "He still is my hero. But Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide because he had no charisma. You take what he said and put it in the mouth of Ronald Reagan and you win in a landslide."

So what's Root's explanation for donating to Joe Lieberman? "It wasn’t because I agreed with Joe Lieberman’s philosophy," he said. "Somebody who invested a million dollars in one of my projects was a bundler for Lieberman and he asked me to donate to the campaign. I would have given George McGovern a check if somebody who'd made me a million dollars asked me to! Also, Lieberman, at that time, was an independent fighting the two parties. At that time I was a Republican thinking about leaving my party. I like maverick independents, and I always have. I'd have given to Jesse Ventura if he was running." But Root does not support the Iraq War and stopped using the slogan "a WAR you can support" a long time ago.

But If You Want Money for People With Minds That Hate...

dweigel@reason.com (David Weigel) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:40:00 EDT

Back in January there was a split, among friends of Ron Paul, about how to respond to criticisms of weird and bigoted passages in old issues of his (now defunct) newsletter. Some in his circle, like his congressional Chief of Staff Tom Lizardo, wanted Paul to cut bait and name the paleos (including Lew Rockwell) who'd ghostwritten the most offensive and non-Paul sounding sections of the letters. (Yes, I'm aware of the argument that there was nothing controversial in the newsletters unless you're a namby-pamby cosmotarian. If the people making that argument are interested, I hear Jeremiah Wright is hiring in his PR shop.) Paul never did, and the controversy faded.

What's Paul think about this today? From his just-released book, The Revolution: A Manifesto:

I urge those who agree with this important message to educate themselves in the scholarship of liberty. Read some of the books I recommend in my reading list. Learn from the Mises Institute and Mises.org, the most heavily trafficked economics Web site in the world. Visit LewRockwell.com, an outstanding and crucially important Web site I visit every day.

The heterodox reading list includes a few Mises scholars and LR.com authors (Rockwell, Tom DiLorenzo, Paul Craig Roberts) among less controversial stuff by John Mueller, Andrew Napolitano, and Boris Pasternak. The Revolution is the best-selling book at Amazon.com today. I've read the book, though, and anyone expecting another bigot blow-up is going to be disappointed.

UPDATE: By way of explanation, here's Paul on racism:

In the long run, the only way racism can be overcome is through the philosophy of individualism, which I have promoted throughout my life... racism is a particularly odious form of collectivism whereby individuals are treated not on their merits but on the basis of group identity. Nothing in my political philosophy, which is the exact opposite of the racial totalitarianism of the twentieth century, gives aid or comfort to such thinking. To the contrary, my philosophy of individualism is the most radical intellectual challenge to racism ever posed.

Again, I'm flabbergasted by the attitude that there was nothing wrong about the newsletters. Paul clearly doesn't share it.