Tuesday’s campaign round-up

July 1, 2008

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* There is such a thing as going to the well once too many times. The McCain campaign is trying to milk the Wesley Clark issue for another day of headlines, but the best McCain aides could come up with is an odd and largely incoherent whine about the Obama campaign neglecting to tell Clark to apologize.

* The Obama campaign unveiled its second national TV ad of the general election. As the press release explained, “The spot highlights Senator Obama’s decision to bypass big money jobs and help lift neighborhoods stung by job loss. The ad illustrates Senator Obama’s record of working hard to move people from welfare to work, passing tax cuts for workers and providing healthcare for children.” The ad, entitled “Dignity,” began airing in 18 states (14 of which supported Bush in 2004) yesterday.

* I guess McCain is writing off the labor vote: “Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) visited Worth & Co., a contracting company in Bucks County, PA, where he held a town hall. The visit is a slap in the face to the state’s unions, since Worth & Co. has been investigated by the state Department of Labor and Industry for ‘intentionally failing to pay the predetermined minimum wage’ to its employees.”

* After several days of parity, Obama has reclaimed a five-point lead over McCain in the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, 47% to 42%.

* Bush’s money men have not yet lined up behind McCain: “President Bush has headlined a fund-raising event to help John McCain finance his campaign to succeed him, but most of the big-money backers who helped reelect Bush in 2004 haven’t pulled out their checkbooks for McCain – or asked their friends to chip in either. Of the 548 leaders of Bush’s vaunted money-raising machine, about 43 percent have contributed to McCain, a Globe review of finance reports covering the period through May 31 shows. Even fewer of them solicited and bundled donations from others for McCain, as they did for Bush four years ago.”

* Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Florida by seven points, 48% to 41%, fueled in large part by 20% of Florida’s Democrats supporting the conservative Republican.

* Rasmussen also shows McCain leading Obama in Georgia by 10 points, 53% to 43%.

* SurveyUSA shows Obama leading McCain in Massachusetts by 13, 53% to 40%.

* Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Alabama by 15, 51% to 36%.

* There have been some questions this week about whether Obama supporters have successfully shut down some pro-Clinton blogs through Blogspot. A Google spokesperson said the real culprit here was an errant spam filter: “…[I]t appears that our anti-spam filters caused some Blogger accounts to be blocked from creating new posts. While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the ‘Just Say No Deal’ network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam. We have restored posting rights to the affected blogs, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression.”

* The NRA is investing $40 million in the presidential campaign, most of which, one assumes, will be devoted to attacking Obama.

* To my delight, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) may have trouble getting re-elected this year.

July 1, 2008 at 12:05 pm

The first test Obama should put the Clinton willingness to help to is to send her to Florida. They love Bill down there so let him go, too. Given that Obama trails, there is little to lose, and given that the reason appears to be reluctant Dems (presumably many who harbor anger over the delegate issue), the Clintons would seem to be the best hope of an antidote.

Now that campaigns consist chiefly of volleys of whining, what will become of our republic when we select leaders based on who whines most effectively?

I heard McCain also, and he did sound awful. And old too boot.

Dr. Wulsin’s loss to Mean Jean in 2006 was morale-crushing – so I’m not going to get my hopes us this time around.

McCain surrogate & fellow POW: “General Clark probably wouldn’t get that much praise from this group. I can’t speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.”

OK, NOW Obama needs to send his surrogate John Kerry to call out McCain’s surrogate for demeaning Gen. Clark’s service.

Consider this a pre-emptive strike before Black Hole Mary assumes this is some kind of Gotcha moment.

It’s easier for Barack Obama to give up “big money jobs” when a: his wife makes a pretty decent living – decent enough for most couples to make it as a single-income household – and b: he’s written two reasonably-well-selling books.

Of course, the fact that, with his qualifications he could’ve gotten a job that would’ve provided him the sort of income most Republicans can only dream of, and he chose not to pursuee them – will he lost on the mouth-breathers.

Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Florida by seven points, 48% to 41%, fueled in large part by 20% of Florida’s Democrats supporting the conservative Republican.

Probably the same morons who couldn’t figure out the Butterfly Ballot 8 years ago.

slappy magoo (#6)

Actually, when Obama graduated from Harvard Law, Michelle had yet to achieve her “high paying job.” The two of them went out and achieved pretty much together over the years. And given the debts he had getting through school and the offers he would have had as Editor of the Harvard Law Review, he really did take a financial hit to choose as he did.

As the polling numbers suggest, Obama lacks support in the deep south. Imagine that.
Red State Blue State all over again.
I am sick and tired of these backwards assed, ignorant rednecks being the deciding factor in our presidential elections. That and fraud of course.

But still, America will never reach it’s potential if the 19th century types still have all this power.

Is Andrea Mitchell a paid operative of the McCain campaign?

I’m watching her interview — no, interrogate — Wes Clark right now, and she’s making Rush Limbaugh look like an impartial observer. She tried to link Clark to some left-wing conspiracy to denigrate McCain’s service.

Her evidence? A blog post by John Avarosis, which stupidly said McCain had taken part in Viet Cong propaganda, and which Clark smakced down. Then she moved in for the kill, using the MoveOn.org ad with the baby as an example of dishonoring McCain’s military service. Seriously. It’s an ad focused solely on the “100 years” comment, but Mitchell sees it as a vicious left-wing assault on McCain’s Vietnam experience.

I knew she had poor judgment — this is, after all, a woman who decided to marry Alan Greenspan — but this is just fucking bewildering.

I just dropped her a line at letters@msnbc.com. Hope others do too.

To Grumpy @ 2:

I am looking forward to comprehensive offensiveness legislation, which will set federal standards for determining whether comments are “out of bounds,” “outrageous,” or “insulting to hard-working Americans.”

Also, a Cabinet-level Secretary of Perceived Slights, who will oversee a new Self-Esteem Administration charged with monitoring the nation’s Okay-ness levels and regulating emissions of noxious sentiments.

Is Andrea Mitchell a paid operative of the McCain campaign?

If she isn’t, she’s giving it up for free.

“General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.”

Agree or disagree with Clark’s record, the point is that his record contains enough relevant experience to judge by. Clark’s point, if I may sum up, is that McCain is being judged based on an insufficient record — not even enough to say whether it would make him a good or bad president. (The backlash seems to be aimed at the implication that Clark judges McCain to be a bad person based on his record.)

There is a little confusion here about Obama’s community activism and his salary. Here is a quote from Obama’s official webpage:

“Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.”

———————

From this description, Obama worked as a “community activist” after he earned his college degree from Columbia but before he became an attorney. He did not turn down any big-firm salaries then. He was a recent grad who had not yet applied to law school, much less been admitted. His bio implies that was always his goal, but I think it more likely that he didn’t know what to do with his life at that point. He worked for a church-based organization, of the sort he is now seeking to reward in his faith-based initiatives. He doesn’t say whether it was Wright’s church or not. Perhaps some of you may know from his book? Chuches like Wright’s will benefit from his recent proposal, perhaps Obama’s guilt-money for abandoning Wright, Pflaeger and his roots when they became such a liability to him.

After Obama graduated from law school, he did choose to be a civil rights lawyer instead of a corporate attorney. It is unclear what kinds of jobs he was offered. An editor of the Harvard Law Review might typically be offered a Supreme Court clerkship, something anyone interested in constitutional law or civil rights law would be a fool to turn down, or a legislative internship. I find it curious that he did not accept a position more in keeping with his own stated interests, but maybe he didn’t turn down anything because he wasn’t offered such opportunities. No one can know — there is some controversy about just how stellar his law school performance was. He looked for jobs at the same time as Michelle looked for jobs, so her salary did supplement his (and vice versa). As a civil rights attorney, he earned a salary comparable to other civil rights attorneys, far from minimum wage or entry level in most other fields because all areas of law are well paid compared to other jobs. He earned a lot more money than he earned as a fresh-out-of-college community activist — or than current community activists typically earn. He taught law classes but was not a professor — we call his position adjunct lecturer and it is the equivalent of part-time academic work. Such jobs are easy to get and do not confer any particular distinction. In contrast, tenure track jobs are very hard to get and do mean something about someone’s qualifications.

Continuing to call a civil rights lawyer a “community activist” is misleading. He didn’t donate his salary to charity. He didn’t take any cut in pay. He simply chose a less lucrative area of the law than his peers did (or than Michelle apparently did). It is sort of like when a person good in math chooses to become a teacher instead of going into industry where they could have made much more money. It isn’t like being a math teacher who joins the Peace Corps or Vista where you are paid only your living expenses or a small stipend, or working in inner-city schools on the weekend for no pay to help disadvantaged kids pass the SAT (as Jaime Escalante did). So Obama’s sacrifice was limited.

Obama’s so-called community activism, which no doubt helped the neighborhoods, also became his political base, routinely co-opted by the Chicago political machine. The loyalty of that base is now being rewarded via his faith-based initiatives, just as Bush used the program to reward the religious right for electing him. There are some genuine saints out there working in the neighborhoods to help people find a better life. Obama isn’t one of them — it is offensive that he is even compared to them when his own self-interest has so obviously been served by his career choices.

there is some controversy about just how stellar his law school performance was.

Do you have any clue about law, Mary? He was EIC at Harvard Law Review and was an RA to Professor F’n Tribe. Those are two positions that go to some of the very best students at Harvard, and the students at Harvard Law are already among the most select out of the tens of thousands in law school. How can that “performance” be considered remotely “controversial”? As law students go, Harvard + EIC of Law Review + Tribe’s RA is like hitting the trifecta at the Kentucky Derby.

And it strikes me as having a distinct anti-lawyer bias to suggest that public interest law is not “community activism.” Law — and more important the affordable access to lawyers — is an absolutely huge part of improving the lot of those less fortunate and less able to defend themselves against lenders, landlords, employers or less able to work their way through paperwork, buraucracy and an programs.

Get a life Mary. No one gives a damn about your anti-Obama diatribes, and mostly they just reveal how fucked up you are personally. You hate everything about him, we know it, please go away.

He taught law classes but was not a professor — we call his position adjunct lecturer and it is the equivalent of part-time academic work. Such jobs are easy to get and do not confer any particular distinction. In contrast, tenure track jobs are very hard to get and do mean something about someone’s qualifications.

Just to pile on after -daze . . .
Mary, do you have any clue about law schools? He was an adjunct at the University of Chicago Law School, one of the finest in the country. That is not an easy job to get. And constitutional law classes are not an assignment that any yutz off the street can come in and be given; there are a lot of other faculty members there with great qualifications eager to teach those classes. As I understand it from recent reports, they were trying to recruit him to be a professor, but he was working on his book at the time, and did not want a tenure track position. You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with negatives here. If any of your “genuine saints” are running for president, please let us know.

It is comical, to the point of overt obscenity, that an individual who calls herself a life-long Democrat can expound such spiteful vitriol against her party’s presumptive nominee, as is found in Post #14, while saying time and again that she is not actively supporting the presidential aspirations of johnmccain.conjob ….

I’m absolutely in love with this notion of Obama following his self-interest.

I think I’m beginning to get it: Obama left the nation’s elite law school to go to the South Side of Chicago because he felt this was the choice that would provide the clearest path to power.

Because, you know, the true centers of power in this country reside in the poor black neighborhoods of the upper Midwest. No one gets to become president without paying their dues there.

The fact is anyone who would go through the bullshit it takes to become president is somewhat self-interested. You have to have a pretty high opinion of yourself to think you can handle the job. (Or, in the case of G.W. Bush, a pretty low opinion of the job.) The trick is to find a leader who is mature enough to bind some of their massive egotism to the goal of making a fairer and more just republic. I trust Barack Obama is mature in this way. By contrast, Bill Clinton never was. His primary resource was self-love, and his primary need was to justify that self-love through the public ritual of campaigning. Once he reached the apex of his potential by winning a second term, he didn’t mind having sex with a college-age woman literally in his public office, even if it would seriously damage the reputation of the political party whose goals he ostensibly believed in. Why not? He had been affirmed and so he got what he wanted. To hell with Al Gore and Mrs. Clinton.

If we’re going to speculate on the candidates’ following their self-interest, let us not leave out Mr. McCain’s selfish conduct. He did, after all, leave his first wife to marry Cindy, who, as an heiress, was in a much better position to provide the funds for McCain’s political ambitions. All Obama did was go to work in a neighborhood where he thought his abilities were needed.

Do you have any clue about academia -daze? If you did, you wouldn’t assume that merit is the only thing that governs who gets what, among students or faculty. I read what Tribe said about Obama and I also read what his classmates said about him. There are analyses of his editorship available. EIC is an elected position, which means Obama’s obvious charisma played a role. If Obama were not African American, Harvard + EIC + Tribe’s RA would be such a trifecta. The problem with indiscriminate affirmative action is that an African American person with those qualifications may be stellar or may be just above average getting a boost up the ladder. The meaning of his accomplishments becomes ambiguous and may have been treated as such by hiring companies.

It bothers me considerably that, by accounts of press and campaign staff, Obama cannot speak well extemporaneously, that he can’t handle himself in non-scripted exchanges, doesn’t think well on his feet. I fully believe he is hard-working and intelligent, but I don’t think he is brilliant because of that. If he couldn’t come across as sharp enough during law school interviews, I doubt he would have been offered much despite those qualifications. Tribe’s glowing praise for Obama is comparable to the kinds of over-inflated letters of recommendation that we read all the time during our faculty searches, and sometimes write on behalf of our own students, even when we know they are solid but not spectacular. They won’t get jobs without them — sort of like a recommendation-letter grade inflation. Sort of like the people who run around saying that Obama is a “once in a lifetime candidate” and other such nonsense.

Distorting the title of community activism to include well-paid lawyers does a disservice to those who work in social service agencies to help the poor and disadvantaged. Those people work for minimum wage. They spend far more hours than they are paid for. They invest much more emotionally and of themselves. Their jobs are often tenuously funded and their activities are often discouraging. Obama didn’t do that kind of work. His work was important, but it wasn’t the same kind of work. I did such work myself for 3 years, in Chicago, with Hispanic organizations such as Ser-Jobs for Progress and the Illinois Migrant Council, so I do know the difference.

Shalimar — no one is forcing you to read anything I write. Just shove your fingers in your ears and chant “la-la-la I can’t hear you.”

Leftfield — lawyers who are out making money do not want to teach because it is time consuming for what you are paid and they can make more money in their day jobs. Even the best schools hire lots of adjuncts because they are cheaper than tenure-track faculty (around 25-30% of faculty). Because it is hard to recruit qualified adjuncts, Obama would have no trouble getting the job. Being an adjunct at a great school is not the same as being hired as tenure-track faculty there — there isn’t the same requirement for publication, something Obama didn’t do a lot of. Obama probably did the teaching for the money and because it added stature to his resume, looked good for his campaign whereas his law firm would be relatively unknown or less impressive outside his field. It clearly impresses people like you to see the name of the University of Chicago on his vita, which would make it well worth the time.

I think Obama might even have been hired as a professor at the University of Chicago, given his Harvard credentials and his minority status. I am less sure he would have been tenured because his quality of mind isn’t appropriate to that kind of job, because of his plagiarism (not tolerated in academia) and because I don’t think he would enjoy the job as an actual assistant professor much, aside from the teaching, given his personality. BUT, I don’t confuse his actual appointment with something it is not, as you insist on doing.

Terrorist — for Obama, the route to political success is through the South side neighborhoods. Not for others. Obama would not have access to the traditional paths because he is African American.

To clarify — I am not calling Obama selfish. I am saying that he is not self-sacrificing and that his claims are exaggerated. Support him if you want, but know who he really is. Look beyond the hype and the official bio.

Steve @18 — again, supporting Obama is confounded with being a Democrat. Unity through purge. If I don’t believe what you believe then I must not be a Democrat. There’s only one true way to be one. Talk about obscenity.

wow, 20 and 21 may be the single most racist things i’ve ever seen posted here, and that includes posts from outright race trolls.

If Obama were not African American, Harvard + EIC + Tribe’s RA would be such a trifecta.

His being brown-skinned automatically diminishes accomplishments that would be astounding if he were white?

Obama might even have been hired as a professor at the University of Chicago, given his Harvard credentials and his minority status.

Everyone knows the Harvard Law Review part wouldn’t do it without the minority status. The only way Obama gets anything is Affirmative Action.

sweet flying spaghetti monster that’s some seriously bigoted stuff!

On June 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am, (just yesterday!) Mary said:

“I would have nothing much against Obama if he were working his way up the party as a Senator, building a track record and providing the service to the party and the country that politicians ALL do before they aspire to the top job.”

Really? All bullshit but telling because if lack of tracking is the only thing she has against him, why would she diss him in droves of drivel every chance she gets? As Joanne said earlier maybe she really is *just* a gooper. However I think it’s more Mary has a huge gaseous case of professional envy which has apparently driven her off the deep end. Got her piss-ant doctorate at some piss-ant university and hates everyone and everything because she couldn’t go further.

It’s not about Obama and it’s not bigotry. It’s about his success. And the successes of all surrounding her.

I’ve been on the net for 2 decades. In fact, the first time I heard a modem roar was 1986 as my husband worked for a little start-up in Research Triangle Park, NC and had connections to the early net. So I’ve seen a lot.

I say this because of all these years of experiences, Mary is the worst of the worst I’ve encountered. Honestly? It’s no exaggeration for me to state I’ve not seen such scary manic madness from one person anywhere. Here or IRL. I sincerely hope she doesn’t own a gun.

Mary, you claim to be well-versed in psychiatric disorders. I am certainly not. But I’ve known manics and you’re very close to being one. Get help. You’re out there, girlfriend.

MissMudd, you are quoting out of context. I go on to say why I do have something against Obama in the part you have omitted. Further, if you knew anything at all about psychology, you would know that you don’t diagnose a person without ever meeting them — here you are just name-calling using a term you clearly do not understand.

-daze, I am not denigrating any credential Obama has actually accomplished. He was not hired by the University of Chicago in a tenure-track job, so it does not matter what I say about his likelihood of having been so hired — his minority status would have made him a more attractive candidate because nearly all universities give priority to increasing diversity on their faculties. I am saying that I have seen from the inside what affirmative action contributes to hiring decisions. I said it blurs the water. Obama could be wonderful or he could be average — once affirmative action enters the picture you cannot tell which because sometimes the goal of increasing diversity means that a candidate who wouldn’t otherwise have been hired is given the job. THAT is what I said, and it is not racist, it is an acknowledged reality that has been stated by both minority group members and administrators of institutions in the ongoing discussion about the pros and cons of affirmative action. Distorting my comments into some sort of bigotry means that you either did not understand them, or you are not trying to have a good faith discussion, but just trying to discredit my comments. If the latter, there is little point in talking with you and I won’t bother. If you have a knee-jerk reaction that anyone who says “affirmative action helps get African American applicants more jobs” is being bigoted, then there is no possibility of communication here. That is exactly what affirmative action is intended to do. Coming from Harvard with his trifecta AND being African American would ensure Obama a job almost anyplace he applied. Without that, he would lose the job to an equally qualified African American applicant. That’s how it works. That we cannot even admit that in a discussion here is an eloquent example of how screwed up our discussions about race have become — something himself Obama acknowledges.

Further, if you knew anything at all about psychology, you would know that you don’t diagnose a person without ever meeting them — here you are just name-calling using a term you clearly do not understand.

As I said, I don’t claim to know shit about psychology (hallelujah) but I have known manics and you are *clearly* on the verge. Doesn’t take a degree or even a course to be aware. Just spending time with one teaches you everything you need to know. But of course, manics are the last to know and the last to care. Even diagnosed many enjoy their mania and refuse to take lithium when the highs are just so seductive.

If you could you view yourself as others do here you would see the bizarre inconsistencies in your thoughts and unmitigated inner rage that seems to be driven by much more than politics or mere discomfort with a candidate.

Whatever. Have nice wacko day. And I’ll just keep hoping you’re not anywhere near Southern California.

I’m not going to say what you wrote is “racist,” Mary, because that’s not a word to throw around. I think your statements are prejudiced. According to your logic, as long as there is affirmative action and the chance that a given black student or professional benefited from it, the academic and professional achievements of blacks can be “ambiguous” at best.

Plenty of whites benefit from older traditions that have practical resemblances to affirmative action. The best example is giving priority to admitting the children of alumni to universities. John McCain’s father was an admiral–are you willing to say his achievement of a Naval commission upon his graduation from the Naval Academy is an ambiguous achievement because John McCain benefited from a trait over which he had no control, i.e., being his father’s son?

It seems as though you are using affirmative action as an excuse for dismissing the considerable accomplishments and progress of blacks within American academics.

I’ll offer a hypothetical question to try to make you change your mind: for the sake of argument, let’s say Obama’s race was a factor in his obtaining the law review editorship and the adjunct teaching job. What do you make of the fact that, according to his peers and colleagues, Obama performed both of these jobs, at the very least, up to the schools’ normal standards? Why is his successful acquittal of his responsibilities at the law schools “ambiguous?” You seem to leave room for no other conclusion than that you believe this because he is black. Even if you view the way he got the work as tainted, that has nothing to do with how he actually handled the work.

As for my comment on his work in Chicago, my point was that Obama made a choice that was counterintuitive to his self-interest. If he merely wanted power and prestige, surely there are easier places to find it for Harvard Law School graduates–black and white–than the South Side of Chicago. This isn’t 1950–a black man can build a base of power, if that is his desire, in a more amenable place than a poor black neighborhood.

24. On July 1st, 2008 at 6:04 pm, MissMudd said: It’s not about Obama and it’s not bigotry. It’s about his success. And the successes of all surrounding her.

If that were true, why would Mary have been such an ardent Clinton supporter? By most measures Hillary has been more successful in her life than Obama so far. From her post the other day, it seems the two democratic candidates Mary really didn’t like were Obama and Richardson. Sounds like racism to me, regardless of the excuses she comes up with for why it isn’t.

No, Mary—the obscenity is your endless promoting of Republican talking points. The obscenity is your second-nature-willingness to repeat lies, half-truths, and rumors that affect Obama in a negative manner, while all but ignoring the vast political inferiority of McCain.

The obscenity is that your candidate lost—and you want revenge in the worst possible way. You’re beginning to come across as the disgruntled employee who finally comes into work one day with a couple of loaded guns, and starts shooting anyone in sight for no apparent reason.

Comments are closed.