Our representative, representing our interests...

The blame America first Democrats are at it again.

The United States is seen as the key player in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, after President Barack Obama signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change in stark contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush.

"Certainly the United States has been negligent in living up to its responsibilities," Clinton said. "This is a propitious time ... we can actually begin to demonstrate our willingness to confront this.

Doesn't it seem at least theoretically possible that we Americans could have a Secretary of State that would NOT bad-mouth our country overseas?

New PA poll

The American Research Group has a new poll this morning, showing Hillary 20 points up on Obama in Pennsylvania. Glenn Reynolds doesn't see "how it could possibly be good news for Obama."

But I do.

OK, the poll itself isn't great news. But lets face it - she's going to win Pennsylvania. And it has never really been in doubt. The relevant question right now isn't "who wins Pennsylvania," it's "what's the margin?" And, even more importantly, "what's the perception of the margin afterwards?" If everyone knows that you're going to lose, you can win even by losing, if you "cover the spread." What Obama needs is for one of two things to happen in Pennsylvania. The first would be an outright win. That would effectively end the race. But it's not going to happen. The other thing that would work for him is to lose close, or at least closer than people predict. To that end, the worse the polls look for the next week, the more opportunity there is for him to beat expectations, to argue that his "bitter" comments and Reverend Wright haven't hurt him ("after all, she was always going to win") and head into North Carolina denying that she's taking any momentum out of a state where she won by less than everyone expected.

That's the way it works. Sometimes, winning the numbers is less important than winning the perception, and if they go into next Tuesday with people expecting her to win by 20% and she wins by 12%, then he wins and she doesn't. And the Democratic race is entirely about perception now, as neither candidate is going to finish with a majority of the delegates. The entire race, at this point, is about building a persuasive argument for the super-delegates and party "wise men," because that's who will end up making the decision. When the rank-and-file Democrats have had their say, they won't have chosen a nominee yet. To use a sports analogy, the Republican primary campaign was a "stop-watch" campaign, decided by objective reality - McCain won the delegate count. The Democratic primary campaign is going to be a "judging" campaign, where the party elders end up choosing from two candidates who failed to reach the finish line on their own.

The Convert

I have been converted.

For years, I have been apostate, believing that one voted for candidates based on their records, philosophies, associations and plans. And I have watched as the American left, the Democrats, home of identity politics in America, and their "Amen corner" in the American mainstream press have provided the racial/gender take on every political decision. And I now know, after resisting the truth for years, that Black candidates lose, not because people disagree with them politically, but because conservative voters are closet, or even not-so-closet, racists. Women candidates lose because voters are sexist, intimidated by "strong women."

They have converted me. I have come over to their point of view. I have been enlightened. It is now clear to me that there are no reasons, other than racism, not to vote for a black politician. There are no reasons, other than sexism, not to vote for a female politician.

I have been convinced. The re-education campaign has worked. The truth has been browbeaten into me. I have seen the light.

But I do have just one question remaining.

The Democrats are meeting in Denver in August to choose a Presidential candidate, and that choice will reveal a great deal about the Democratic Party.

Is the Democratic Party racist? Or is the Democratic Party sexist?

It apparently has to be one or the other...

GOP nominee - John McCain

It's OVAH...

McCain is the Republican nominee. It could be McCain vs. Obama, though I think that McCain vs. Clinton is still (slightly) more likely. But the Republican race is over, and Mitt needs to get out with his dignity intact at some point.

That depresses me.

As much as he's done many things that offended me, however, McCain is still preferable to either of the other two. The world is still a dangerous place, and on the Government's primary responsibility, national security, he's vastly preferable. He's likely to be much better on taxes and the economy, as well, even if he's not what I'd like to see.

I do see it being important that he choose an actual conservative as a running mate. He needs the Republican base, he needs the conservative base, and he needs to do something to acknowledge them. He needs to give them a reason to vote for a McCain/Conservative ticket - "better than the alternative" won't beat Obama (though it might beat Hillary.)

But unless he's caught in bed "with a dead girl or a live boy," to use Edwin Edwards formulation, the Republican race ain't a race no more...

Monday morning

Odds and ends, just to confirm that I'm still here...

• I'll have some football stuff this week. I don't want to give it all away, but I'll say this - on paper, this may (I haven't finished my research yet) be the biggest mismatch in Super Bowl history. I'm not going to be predicting the biggest blowout in Super Bowl history, but my pick won't surprise people. And a couple of the previous results that people are pointing to as support for the Giants don't make the point the way that people think they do.



• I think it's fairly clear that the Republican nomination contest is a two-man race at this point. Mike Huckabee is not going to be the nominee, neither is Rudy Giuliani. We're going to see Mitt Romney or John McCain. Mitt's my guy, and I think that he wins Florida tomorrow and becomes the clear front-runner.



• I also think that I've been wrong on the short-term tactical stuff every step of the way so far.



• Whether or not someone should feel guilty about taking pleasure in other's misforune, the schadenfreude of the left discovering that Bill Clinton is not truthful or dignified has certainly been amusing. And it's entertaining to watch the logical contortions necessary as people like Jonathan Chait go through the process of deciding that "Bill Clinton is a lying, egotistical, low-class practitioner of race-baiting and the politics of personal destruction, but there really was a vast right-wing conspiracy that was wrong when they said that Bill Clinton was a lying, egotistical, low-class practitioner of race-baiting and the politics of personal destruction."

Why didn't I think of that?

Rich Lowry reveals the secret to prescient punditry:

Here are the two steps: 1) think of trashy charges that can be made against Obama, and 2) predict the Clintons will make them.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression...

Don Surber channels Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in looking at the stages of a Clinton scandal...
"...The fifth stage is Acceptance. I don’t know how this works. The Clintons have never accepted responsibility for anything."

Kitchen... light switch... roaches...

Derb has an ... interesting vision of why Hillary is not, perhaps, as prepared for tough questioning as she could be...

Democratic debate summary

Best summary of the Democratic debate that I've seen comes from Chris Lynch:

Dennis Kucinich sees aliens and Hillary wants to give them drivers licenses.

Is Hillary the strongest possible Democratic candidate?

Jonah Goldberg is changing his mind on Hillary:"I used to think that Hillary would be the best candidate for the Democrats. I don't anymore."

Unlike Jonah, I never did.

I wrote this (don't look for a link - I wrote it in an email, meant to post it, forgot) in July:

As to the election, it’s far too early to tell. Anyone who tells you that the Republicans have no chance to keep the White House is a fatalist Republican, a cock-eyed optimist Democrat, or just clueless. While there are things that look bad right now, things are going to change tremendously over the next 12 months. How they’ll change is anyone’s guess, but my expectation is that a year from now, the media will no longer be able to hide the fact that things are going well in Iraq, and that the world is better off because we went in. The Democrats are almost certain to nominate Hillary, and I remain convinced that she’s not a good bet to win a national election under any likely set of circumstances. She could conceivably win, but she’s got a lot of negative baggage, and there’s a substantial percentage of the population, I’m convinced, that will have no interest in having her in their homes over the next 4 years. Also, the congress has lower approval ratings than the President right now. The Republican nominee will be someone unaffiliated with the current administration, someone who can associate with whatever the perceived successes are without being tainted by the perceived negatives. The Democratic nominee is almost certainly going to be a Senator, which is rarely a good thing to be in a Presidential election.


Anyway, it certainly could go wrong – Hillary’s probably the likeliest next President (a horrifying thought), but it is by no means a fait accompli...

And that wasn't the first time. Back in May of 2005, in response to a John Podhoretz article, I wrote that:

I have thought, and continue to think, that she's a terrible candidate, at least from a general election point-of-view. Yes, if she's the Democratic candidate, she'll have the complete "care and protection" of the mainstream media. (That differs from any other potential Democratic candidate how, exactly?) But the fact is, she's famous, but not likeable. She's cold, she's screechy - people are not going to want her in their houses every night. The fact is, the Democrats could not possibly find a candidate who starts out with higher negatives than Hillary. There isn't one. She's carrying all of Bill's baggage, and she doesn't have his likeability to take the edges off. Yes, she's been elected statewide in New York. New York is one of the most liberal states in the country, and she underperformed Al Gore by 5 points in 2000. I'm curious to see what happens this fall, but I'll be hesitant to read much into it.

I think she starts out with no chance at Republican men or men who lean Republican. I think that she can't get women who lean Republican. I think she alienates conservative Democrats, particularly men. I just think that she's really not a good candidate in a general election, and, if there is a plausible scenario by which she's denied the nomination, it'll be based on her (perceived or otherwise) lack-of-electability in the general election, much the same way that Howard Dean imploded.

Tryphorgettin

LOL funny...

"Now I don't even remember what a bimbo eruption is..."

Does the data really support the story?

Betsy Newmark links to a Washington Post story this morning about the potential drag on Congressional Candidates from either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. And the takeaway seems to be that maybe Hillary is going to hurt Democratic congressional candidates. As Betsy says,

Of course a poll a year out from the election without the name of their Republican challengers is very iffy. But the trend invites that sort of campaigning. The Democrats will probably respond with ads tying the Republican to George W. Bush. But Bush isn't on the ticket.

On the last part of that, hey, no question. The Democrats are clearly going to campaign against Bush. And he's clearly not running. (As I noted two years ago ["certainly sounds disturbing, or at least it would if he were running for anything again"], and which El Rushbo actually read on the air.)

And I agree that the Republicans will run against Hillary all the way up and down the ticket. Frankly, they would be foolish not to. And I have never been of the opinion that the Republicans are actually big underdogs in the presidential race. They aren't going to nominate anyone who is a part of this currently unpopular administration, I expect that Iraq will not be a big drag next year, and they aren't going to nominate anyone whose negatives are as high as Hillary's. She's won in New York, she's winning among Democratic partisans - I remain convinced that she is NOT a great candidate for a general election, and that the more people see of her, the more likely they are to decide that they don't want her on their television sets and radios every day for the next four years.

All that said, the fact is that what the Post did is essentially a push-poll. It's one thing to say "Some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton," and something completely different to say, as the Post's poll said, "some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and will support her liberal agenda of big government and higher taxes if she becomes president." Not that the Republicans won't do just that, but the story is focused on the name dragging down the results. The point is "Clinton and Obama ...even potentially serving as a drag." Given the additional pejorative language that the question is loaded with, it's not clear at all that the data actually supports that. People could easily be responding to the "higher taxes" as opposed to the "Hillary..." And the fact is, Republicans are going to talk about "big government and higher taxes" no matter who the Democratic candidate is, as they've done in every single national election since at least 1980...

Ugh

This is ... disturbing.