I've written quite a few things on Obama since deciding to support him last January, before many people even knew who he was. Given that roughly 65% of television news airtime is devoted to campaign strategy rather than substance, Obama is starting to be painted more and more negatively by news outlets. This will be the last, or one of the last, arguments I try to present that he should be the next POTUS. It resides on a few of HRC's talking points:
- her experience
- her having already been "vetted"
- his inelectability
Don't let her spin fool you. Obama has more legislative experience and accomplishment than HRC: he was in the IL State Senate from 1996 to 2004 and has been in the US Senate since then (total: 12 years) to HRC's 8. Being First Lady or a governor's wife should not be equivocated with being a legislator, co-President or being co-governor. Why is she ready to be president right now? Simply because she lived in the White House with one until 1/20/2001? And the "35 years of experience" is quite a stretch -- why should her last years of law school as a political activist count towards being President? Living with her husband in the Arkansas Governor's mansion means...what...again? HRC would mock Laura Bush if she claimed to be an inveterate politician, but that's exactly what she herself does.
Even if you grant her fallacious arguments for having more experience, I have made reference to experience as a factor in presidential history. Lincoln had two years in the House and went on to become widely regarded as America's greatest president. His predecessor Buchanan had a long résumé and is regarded as one of the worst.
2) HRC is "already vetted"
A few months ago, I brought attention to Frank Rich's column that showed how her claim is false in a major way: the murkiest areas of the Clinton's past probably lies in Bill's post-presidential activities and the donors to his foundation. Guess what? Just last week, the WSJ published "Clinton Foundation Secrets" -- an incisive cut through her spin to the facts -- a half-billion dollars of influence over a future president has already been bought by anonymous persons. Here's an excerpt:
Transparency is a popular word in this presidential election, with all three candidates finally having released their tax returns. Yet the public still hasn't seen the records of an institution with some of the biggest potential for special-interest mischief: The William J. Clinton Foundation.Also see Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker:
Bill Clinton established that body in 1997 while still President. It has since raised half-a-billion dollars, which has been spent on Mr. Clinton's presidential library in Arkansas and global philanthropic initiatives. The mystery remains its donors, and whether these contributors might one day seek to call in their chits with a President Hillary Clinton.
That's no small matter given the former first couple's history. Yet Mr. Clinton says he won't violate the "privacy" of donors by disclosing their names, even if his wife wins the Oval Office. What is already in the public record should make that secrecy untenable, however:
Chicago bankruptcy lawyer William Brandt Jr. pledged $1 million for the Clinton library in May 1999, at the same time the Justice Department was investigating whether he'd lied about a Clinton fundraising event. The Clinton DOJ cleared him a few months later.
Hillary has her own vulnerability in this general area, and it is larger than the fact, mentioned by Obama in his riposte to her, that her husband, on his last day in office, commuted the sentences of a couple of old Weather Underground jailbirds. (After a decade and a half in stir, they had been denied parole, apparently unfairly. Good for Bill.) What Obama did not mention was Hillary’s internship, back in the groovy summer of 1971, at the Oakland law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. Treuhaft (Robert Treuhaft, husband of Jessica Mitford) had left the Communist Party thirteen years earlier, but Walker (Doris Walker) was still a member, and the firm was a pillar of the Bay Area Old Left. I assume that Obama didn’t mention this because doing so would have rightly pissed off a lot of Democrats, because he is running as a non-kneecapping uniter, and because there is no evidence that Clinton has or has ever had the slightest sympathy with Communism. (Of course, there is no such evidence with respect to Obama and Weather Underground-ism, either, but that didn’t stop Hillary from twisting that particular knife.)She's "been vetted"? Right. All of Obama's Rezko stuff (scroll down) has been raked over and over and it doesn't even come close to this level of potential fraud and influence peddling:
My point is that Hillary Clinton has not, in fact, survived the worst that the Republican attack machine (and its pilotless drones online and on talk radio) can dish out. We will learn what the worst really means if she is nominated. The Commie law firm will be only the beginning. Many tempting targets—from Bill’s little-examined fund-raising and business activities during the past seven years to the prospect of his hanging around the White House in some as yet undefined role for another four or eight years to whatever leftovers from the Clinton “scandals” of the nineteen-nineties can be retrieved from the dumpster and reheated—remain to be machine-gunned. The whole Clinton marital soap opera, obviously off limits within the Democratic fold, will offer ample material for what Obama calls “distractions.” To take the most obvious example, the former President’s social life since leaving the White House will become, if not “fair game,” big game—and some of these right-wing dirtbags are already hiring bearers and trying on pith helmets for the safari. Is this a “there” where the Democratic Party really wants to go?
Also, any supposed William Ayers connection is dubious and stupid, especially compared to her husband's pardon of those actually convicted as "terrorists", while Ayers was never convicted of a crime and is now a UIC professor:REALITY: Obama Has Done Nothing Wrong
Slate: There’s No Evidence That Obama Was "Fibbing" And "Obama Hasn’t Tried To Change His Story." Slate reported, "There's no evidence that the senator is fibbing or that the indicted fund-raiser asked anything in return for his neighborly behavior (though that might have been just a matter of time). Obama hasn't tried to change his story, even though Rezko is now talking to investigators." [Slate, 12/14/06]
Factcheck.org: "There’s No Indication Obama Did Anything Improper." Factcheck.org was asked "Was Obama’s real estate deal in Illinois really an issue?" Factcheck.org concluded, "Obama has a relationship with Rezko that dates back many years, but there’s no indication Obama did anything improper." [Factcheck.org, 12/28/07]
New York Times: "There Is Not Sign That Mr. Obama…Did Anything Improper." "There is no sign that Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, did anything improper." [New York Times, 6/14/07]
Washington Post: "There Have Been No Allegation That Obama…Broke The Law Or Committed Any Ethics Violations." The Washington Post reported, "There have been no allegations that Obama, whose political fortunes are soaring as he mulls a run for president, broke the law or committed any ethics violations." [Washington Post, 12/17/06]
REALITY: AYERS CONNECTION IS "PHONY," TENUOUS," "A STRETCH"If anything, HRC looks worse for bringing this up, given her husband's pardon of those actually convicted of domestic "terrorism" (i.e., protests and bombings). Facts: Bill's post 1/20/01 sexual peccadilloes have yet to be explored, but you'd better bet they will; the donors list for his foundation will remain private; there is plenty of dirt left to dig up on HRC and the claim that all her baggage has already been gone through is false and naive, just a last-ditch FUD-style attack.Chicago Sun Times: Obama's Connection To Ayers Is A "Phony Flap". The Chicago Sun-Times wrote in an editorial, "But Ayers, it is also true to say, has since followed in the footsteps of the great Chicago social worker Jane Addams, crusading for education and juvenile justice reform. His 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court, has been praised for exposing how Cook County's juvenile justice system all but eliminates a child's chance for redemption. Is Barack Obama consorting with a radical? Hardly. Ayers is nothing more than an aging lefty with a foolish past who is doing good. And while, yes, Obama is friendly with Ayers, it appears to be only in the way of two community activists whose circles overlap. Obama's middle name is Hussein. That doesn't make him an Islamic terrorist. He stopped wearing a flag pin. That doesn't make him unpatriotic. And he's friendly with UIC Professor William Ayers. That doesn't make him a bomb thrower. Time to move on to Phony Flap 6,537,204." [Chicago Sun-Times, 3/3/08]
Washington Post: Obama-Ayers Link "Is A Tenuous One." The Washington Post reported in a fact check, "But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one. As Newsday pointed out, Clinton has her own, also tenuous, Weatherman connection. Her husband commuted the sentences of a couple of convicted Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, shortly before leaving office in January 2001. Which is worse: pardoning a convicted terrorist or accepting a campaign contribution from a former Weatherman who was never convicted?" [Washington Post, 2/18/08]
Woods Fund President Harrington: "This Whole Connection Is A Stretch." The Washington Post reported in a fact check, "Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board. The president of the Woods Fund, Deborah Harrington, said he had been selected for the board because of his solid academic credentials and 'passion for social justice.' 'This whole connection is a stretch,' Harrington told me. 'Barack was very well known in Chicago, and a highly respected legislator. It would be difficult to find people round here who never volunteered or contributed money to one of his campaigns.'" [Washington Post, 2/18/08]
Noam Scheiber Of TNR: "I Don't See Evidence Of Any Relationship" Between Obama And Ayers. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic wrote, "Ben says Ayers and Obama were, at best, casual friends. Even that seems to overstate things, though. I don't see evidence of any relationship. The only concrete connection we know of is the meeting, which was attended by a number of local liberals; their contemporaneous membership on the board of a local organization; and a $200-donation by Ayers to one of Obama's state senate campaigns. (Obama also once praised something Ayers had written about the juvenile justice system.) I'm not saying they couldn't have been casual friends; just that there isn't much evidence for that at this point." [The New Republic, 2/22/08]
Birdsell: Obama Links To Ayers Were "Pretty Slender Ties." The New York Sun reported, "'Those are pretty slender ties to a controversial figure,' the dean of Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, David Birdsell, said of Mr. Obama's links to Mr. Ayers." [New York Sun, 2/19/08]
3) Electability
Perhaps a central argument for HRC now is that she can win in the fall and Obama cannot. It has been known for months that Hillary will be a uniter for the GOP, not for her own party. Her negatives are now very high, approval rating at a record low 37% (compared to 49% for Obama) and have been trending this way for a long time. With her consistently high negatives, (55% unfavorability in Rasmussen Reports) in getting GOP crossovers and independents; Republican voters are most comfortable with Obama, and he thus faces no such problem.
Yes, Obama saw some of his numbers go down slightly among certain voting groups, most notably Republicans. But he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is. And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago, when it was 51-28. Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.The "electability" card, then, makes more sense with him than with her.
On one of the most critical questions we've been tracking for a few months, Obama showed resilience. When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton. All three candidates saw dips on this issue, by the way. In January, 67 percent thought Obama could unite the country; 68 percent thought McCain could do it; and 55 percent said Clinton would be able to pull it off.
The fact that all three dropped equally in the last three months is a sign that the campaign is becoming more ideological and partisan.
In the head-to-head matchups, there weren't huge shifts in the numbers, with Obama and Clinton dead even at 45 percent in the national Democratic primary matchup (a slight increase for Obama from early March). In the general-election matchups, Obama led McCain by 2 points, and McCain led Clinton by 2 points; all margin of error results and nothing to get too excited over.
One thing about these head-to-head matchups: Our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.
Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.
The argument about primary results that she is making is flawed on its face: picking McCain over Obama in the general election does not follow from picking her over Obama in a Dem primary. Let X = Hillary, Y = Obama and Z = McCain. Picking X over Y does not necessitate picking Z over Y. It's an obvious logical fallacy.
Arguments that he is "too liberal" and too far left-of center are also fact-free.
Christopher Hayes explains:
The ideological implosion of conservatism, the failures of the Bush Administration and, perhaps most important, the shifts in public opinion in a leftward direction on war, the economy, civil liberties and civil rights are all coming together at the same time, providing progressives with the rare and historic opportunity to elect a President with a progressive majority and an actual mandate for progressive change.Besides Obama's centrist appeal and high positives with Independents and even Republicans, his election strategy is broad and comprehensive. Kevin Drum on his endorsement of Obama:
The question then becomes this: which of the two Democratic candidates is more likely to bring to fruition a new progressive majority? I believe, passionately and deeply, if occasionally waveringly, that it's Barack Obama.
Had you told me a few years ago that the left of the Democratic Party would be split between Obama and Clinton, I'd have dismissed you as crazy: Barack Obama has been a community organizer, a civil rights attorney, a loyal and reliable ally in the State Senate of progressive groups. For the Chicago left, his primary campaign and his subsequent election to the US Senate was a collective rallying cry. If you've read his first book, the truly beautiful, honest and intellectually sophisticated Dreams From My Father, you have an inkling of what young Chicago progressives felt about Obama. He is one of us, and now he's in the Senate. We thought we'd elected our own Paul Wellstone. (Full disclosure: my brother is an organizer on the Obama campaign.)
That's not, alas, how things turned out. Almost immediately Obama--likely with an eye on national office--shaded himself toward the center. His rhetoric was cool, often timid, not the zealous advocacy on behalf of peace, justice and the dispossessed that had characterized Wellstone's tenure. His record places him squarely in the middle of Democratic senators, just slightly to Clinton's left on domestic issues (he voted against the bankruptcy bill, for example). As a presidential candidate, his domestic policy (with some notable exceptions on voting rights and technology policy) has been very close to that of his chief rivals, though sometimes, notably on healthcare, marginally less progressive.
The good reasons include (a) the ugliness coming out of the Clinton camp over the past couple of weeks, which has turned me off, (b) a growing sense that Obama's steadiness running his campaign under fire is a good sign of what he'd be like as president, and (c) some of the red state endorsements Obama has gotten recently, which speak well for his potential to produce strong coattails in November.Although some people would claim that there are no policy differences between the two, it simply ain't so. See this and this. In addition, when it comes to voting in the fall, there are some good reasons to think that anti-war voters will feel less enthused voting for her than Barack. She enabled the war, which gives her little leverage with John McCain. This is why I think Rove &c. want her to win.
Hillary's views on Iraq are documented by Spencer Ackerman and show a complete lack of clarity, just tracking with polling figures. This is the sort of thing that will hurt her badly in the general election: unlike Obama, she can be labeled a "flip-flopper"
...Clinton set herself up to run for president as both a pro-war and an anti-war candidate—depending on the contingencies of the war and the politics of the moment.This will come back to haunt her.
Clinton’s statements during October 2002 have received much attention. But what she’s said in the intervening years demonstrates a vertigo-inducing lack of clarity. Her position tracked the political zeitgeist elegantly: cautiously in favor of the war before it started; enthusiastically in favor of it during its first year; overtaken with doubt during 2004; nervously against withdrawal in 2005; cautiously in favor of withdrawal ever since—and all without so much as an acknowledgment of her myriad repositioning. At no point did she challenge the prevailing assumptions behind the war.
As Andrew Sullivan made a point of, a significant ideological divide exists between Hillary and Barack: the 60s-era culture wars mentality that conjures up only visions of sexual freedom, gun rights and religious conservatism, while shrouded in the same sort of secrecy and embedded political machine as ever -- versus a new kind of politics focused on transparency and honesty. One candidate pushes a "50+1" strategy while the other attempts to transcend "red state, blue state" mentalities. Even if he is ultimately unsuccessful, his strategy is by far superior to hers, and his prospects for election are clearly better, which is why the GOP wants to match up with HRC.
From strategy to the poll numbers, Obama is the clear winner for electability.
4) Conclusion:
Hillary's three talking points are fairly fact-free and Obama is the clear best pick for POTUS.
