Obviously, I don’t read the Post enough

I’m talking about the Washington Post, and after reading the sample below, I gotta ask: Why would I?

While responding to a comment (by Alex) on yesterday’s cross-post to The Seminal—a comment asserting that Edwards would be dogged in the general election by the two-minute video of him fixing his hair—I said the following:

The hair thing? Gosh, have we not had our fill of that, yet? I bet that you are right, and some 527 or nutosphere parrot will try to get that going again, but I actually think that the hair got so much play early—complete with late night talk show jokes—that we might have hit saturation on that one. I expect that we can counter that with “what’s worse, pretty hair or an ugly war?” or some such. I also think that if it’s down to Edwards and a Republican, those that would be swayed by the hair probably weren’t going to vote for JE anyway.

Unless there’s a metrosexual equivalent to the Bradley effect.

Silly me.

Only a few hours later, I came across this:

On December 11, The Washington Post published four pieces profiling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards that each mentioned the cost or "expensive" nature of haircuts Edwards has received. Edwards was the subject of the Post's series "The Front-runners," which the Post bills as a "revealing look at each of the leading presidential candidates."

That’s from Media Matters, and you can follow the link to read the (ir)relevant quotes from the fab foursome of Pressley Montes, Kornblut, Milbank, and Givhan so that you don’t have to soil yourself wading through the entire paper.

The thing that I guess I want to comment upon further is that I have a hard time thinking all the way through this supposed contradiction. Does the hair part (pardon the pun) look good in-and-of itself? No, of course not. But this idea that a guy who has lived a successful life is somehow contradictory or insincere when he expresses a concern for what the press seems to like to call “the little guy” is absurd on its face.

I look at it this way: what’s the opposite? Is it better to be successful and disdainful of the less fortunate—would that be more “sincere?” Would that be less “contradictory?” Would that make for a better president?

Because, I gotta tell you, that’s what we’ve got. President Bush—a guy who was born on third base and claimed he’d hit a triple—has taken every opportunity to work against the interests of the poor and middle class. His tax cuts have overwhelmingly favored the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, and have widened the gap between rich and poor at alarming rates. His second veto of SCHIP funding leaves over six million children in limbo. His “bailout” proposal for the victims of predatory sub-prime mortgages helps almost no one because Bush insists you can’t “reward” people who made bad choices (on the flip side, the plan has been called “the bank lobby’s dream”). And his overall management of the economy has been so bad that financial insiders are “spooked,” and many economists expect things to get precipitously worse for years to come.

Not that the slide will likely hurt George Bush or John Edwards. But where Edwards proposes leading America out of this era of greed and economic injustice, Bush fiddles while the working class burns.

Which brand of sincerity sounds better to you?

To tell you the truth, I think that Senator Edwards got ripped off on his haircut. I mean, it’s solid, and clean and all, but I’d like to see him loosen up a bit. Over all, though, I think Edwards is pretty well turned out. His suits fit him much better than President Bush’s.

Now, don’t I sound a little ridiculous? Does any of that matter when we are faced with a failing economy at home and a military disaster (or two) abroad?

Exactly. . .

. . . except if you work at the Washington Post.

I suppose that I shouldn’t expect better from a paper that has also spent time commenting on Senator Clinton’s pants and spreading tired and unsubstantiated rumors about Senator Obama’s, oh, let’s call it his early religious influences (no, you don’t get a link), but I am astounded that four seasoned newshounds (OK, three, Givhan’s position on this paper is a complete mystery) can’t get this. . . or get over it.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

The results are in (or are they?)

Following up on yesterday’s post—if electability is the sort of thing that floats your boat, then you absolutely should take a gander at the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll. Yes, it’s a national poll, so all appropriate caveats apply, but the results are striking all the same:

On the Democratic side, Edwards performs best against each of the leading Republicans. In addition to beating Huckabee by 25 percent and McCain by 8 percent, the North Carolina Democrat beats Romney by 22 percentage points (59 percent to 37 percent) and Giuliani by 9 percentage points (53 percent to 44 percent).

As interesting to me as the four first-place finishes for Edwards are, I am also intrigued by the margins—in three of the four races, Senator Edwards does better than Senators Clinton and Obama by statistically significant margins. The difference between the three is within the three-point margin of error only in the match-up with Rudy Giuliani (all three Democrats would beat Giuliani, according to the poll).

Senator John McCain is the strongest of the Republicans in this poll—fighting Clinton and Obama to a statistical draw—but, as noted, even he falls significantly short in the head-to-head with Edwards.

I was going to beat this drum a bit more, but Ian Welsh has already done a really fine job of it, so let me just cut to him:

Ok, enough with the BS "let's not talk about electability" idea that seems so prominent in the left-wing blogosphere. This isn't 2004, Kerry isn't the "electable" candidate preparing to cruise himself into the ground. It's almost 2008, we've got a different crop of candidates, and the most electable of the three top candidates is Edwards. This has been clear in poll after poll, the latest of which is CNN's poll, which shows Edwards crushing Republicans.

. . . .

Edwards is also the most liberal (or progressive, if you prefer) of the three of them. Democratic primary voters are supposed to be left-leaning, but they seem to support the most centrist candidate of the three -- Hilary Clinton, the woman who won't even say she'd shut down torture without exception.

Now, as long as we're talking turkey and breaking taboos, let's say the rest of what needs to be said.

Clinton has the highest negatives of any Democratic candidate, by a large margin. She's also a woman. Everyone plays up how that's an advantage, and sure, Americans claim they'd vote for a woman. But there's a well known polling bias on such social issues: people don't want to say they're sexist on the phone, but we all know sexism hasn't gone away. Some of Clinton's theoretical support in a general election is probably phantom popularity. It might only be a few percent, but given she already has razor thin margins against many Republicans, that could be the difference between victory and ignomious [sic] defeat.

And then there's Obama. Bill Clinton wasn't America's first Black President. Obama, on the other hand, would like to be. I fully expect a chunk of Obama's support would simply evaporate at the polling station, because a lot of Americans, no matter what they say, aren't voting for a black man. Shoot the messenger if you choose, but everything I know about America tells me America is still riddled with racism.

Edwards is male, southern and telegenic. He has run a populist campaign. He is probably as left wing as someone can be in the US and still run for President. He has been a friend to unions and to the poor. He has had the guts to admit he was wrong on the war and while his anti-war platform isn't as strong as I'd like (he should commit to pull out) it's better than Clinton's or Obama's.

He's electable. Of the big 3 candidates he's the most progressive.

. . . .

This isn't 2004. Voting your beliefs (the poor and middle class are getting screwed) and choosing the most electable candidate aren't in opposition to each other this time.

So what I'm asking Democratic primary voters is to take a good hard look at Edwards again. Stop accepting the media's narrative of Edwards as "the number 3 guy". Look at the numbers, look at his positions and realize that this time you can have it all -- you can have a progressive candidate and you can have a nominee who will absolutely wipe the floor with the Republicans.

Vote your heart, but by all means also vote electability. And don't let political correctness blind you to political realities. Because the country simply cannot afford another 4 years with a Republican president.

Sorry to quote at such great length, but I wanted to make sure you all read that middle part—yes, that part.

While I am not going to tell you to avoid Clinton or Obama based on sex or race—because I don’t think you should—if you are talking about electability, I think Ian makes a fair point about the biases that still lurk in the dark recesses of the American psyche.

It’s called the Bradley effect, and I am old enough and grew up in the right part of the country to remember whence it got its name. The short read: popular LA Mayor Tom Bradley, and African American Democrat, ran for governor of California in 1982 against the white Republican George Deukmajian. The polls consistently showed that Bradley would win, but he did not. Post election analysis revealed that, when polled, white voters over-reported their willingness to vote for a black man.

And that is far from the only example of this effect.

Do I like that in 2007/8 America we still have to talk about this? Hell no! Do I think that there is still a statistically significant percentage of the electorate that will tell a pollster that a minority or woman would be just fine with them, but when in the privacy of a polling booth know that there is just no way they would ever pull the lever for a non-white non-male? Sadly, yes, I do.

Again, please, do everything you can to fight against the Bradley effect—vote for the person that most appeals to you—but if you are evaluating the polls, please don’t ignore this sad paradox, either.

All of which is to say that, if we were to take the Bradley effect (or some likely anti-woman corollary) into account, the CNN poll likely underreports Edwards’s electability advantage over his two chief rivals.

I would also add that some social scientists believe that the Bradley effect is amplified when the opposing candidates are otherwise poorly differentiated. In other words, when you give the racist or sexist voters the “all things being equal” equation, it gives them the opportunity to focus on the more obvious, demographic difference.

Which is all the more reason to look for a candidate that is not looking to hedge bets or split the difference on the major issues of the day. Being tentative or triangulating just invites the bias problem to again “surprise” the pollsters. Candidates—unfair as it is—that are faced with an extra level of immutable bias should take that to heart, and change their message accordingly.

And that, to make lemonade out of lemons, could be a great thing for Democrats because it brings the core values of the party and electability closer to being the selfsame thing.

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

On electability

I have never been one to push electability as a deciding factor in a political race. It’s sort of an absurd game to try to guess what’s in the hearts and minds of others. If everyone would go to polls and vote for the candidate they honestly think is the best choice, then that alone would make him or her electable.

But what if the other side (as I will call Republicans for the sake of argument and comity) tips their hand? What if they basically telegraph whom they would love to square off against, and, conversely, whom worries them—does that change the role of electability as an evaluative criterion?

I don’t think it is a great analytical leap to say that most Republican strategists are prepping for a campaign against Senator Clinton—and I have to think they are fine with that (well, as fine as you could be working for a Republican this election cycle—that can’t be fun). Clinton is an intensely known quantity with a long and well-documented track record in the public eye. Plenty of people like HRC, sure, and indeed feel a keen affinity for her, but plenty really and truly don’t. Nationally, Sen. Clinton has the highest negatives of any top tier candidate—and those numbers have proven remarkably stable throughout this overlong campaign season.

Like I said, she is a known quantity. There are not a lot of people out there who say, “I just don’t know enough about Hillary to make up my mind.”

There’s not a lot of room on the upside, and, theoretically, there’s not a lot of room on the downside, either.

Except that there kind of is. . . .

It is relatively easy to measure what people think, but not always as easy to predict what people will do. But I’m going to take a crack at it, anyway.

The Republican brand is a mess. At present, it is now hard to see what Republicans can stand for in a public sense. Standing by Bush ain’t gonna get it done. Talking about Iraq is not something any of them would want to do. Cutting taxes is an old standby, but with so many current and looming economic crises, and the gap between rich and poor so gaping that even the establishment media occasionally has to sit up and take notice, that old saw seems elitist and irresponsible. Even immigration, supposedly the Republican’s wedge issue, is, in reality, a disaster in the making: polls show most voters don’t think this is a top concern, and the hatemongering nativist bigotry will likely drive more voters to their opponents than it will galvanize any faux-populist groundswell.

The only thing I can see unifying the Republicans next fall is fear and loathing—an nothing seems to turn up the bass on the Republican noise box (and turn out the base for a Republican candidate) like the looming specter of another Clinton in the White House.

Honestly, part of me just doesn’t get this. A thinking Republican (work with me on this, OK?) would notice that President Bill took his party a great big step to the right when he emerged on the national scene. Just think, under Big Dawg, we had such anti-progressive legislation as welfare reform—which was nothing but a Republican pipe dream only years earlier.

And Bill Clinton ran a coattail-free presidency, expending little of his political capital to help his party down-ticket. Under the leadership of Clinton 42, Democrats managed to do something they hadn’t done in some 40 years: lose control of both houses of Congress.

It took a decade of hard work and a really, really bad Republican in the White House to undo that horror (if you can call this current Democratic majority a real undoing).

Maybe it’s that President Clinton appropriated so many of the GOP’s positions, and did it in such a charming way, that has so many Republicans tearing at their clothes every time they hear his name. Or, maybe it’s just that he was so damn charming.

There is no doubting Bill Clinton’s great personal charisma, and when he is sandwiched between Prescott’s progeny and the progeny’s progeny, William Jefferson looks like a fucking god among men. (Hush, you!)

Of course, Hillary is not Bill. She has a bit less charisma, and actually stands a tad further to right (in my humble opinion). But to Republicans, it’s as if she were the wrong kind of second coming.

So, to my earlier point, the best way to unify the Republican Brand is to give them something to be against—and if you have seen the Republican debates or if you watch or listen to rightwing news/talk/blather, then you know they just love being against Hillary Clinton.

Then there’s the other side. Our side. It has long been the contention that the left-leaning base of the Democratic Party would accept a more centrist candidate for national office because, well, because of that electability issue. In theory, you gotta win over some of the middle, right? If you are to the left of the Democratic nominee, where you gonna go?

Unfortunately, many elections over the last two decades have taught us that while the party faithful might not always have somewhere else to go (Ralph Nader not withstanding), they pretty much always have some place to stay: home.

It is not sufficient to expect a voter to cast his or her ballot for the lesser of two evils, or the closer of two ideologies, because contemporary voters don’t always do that. All too often, the uninspired voter writes off the whole process. They don’t vote against you, sure, but they don’t vote for you, either. Much of the time, they just don’t vote.

While there is much to hope for in the candidacies of any of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, some capture that hope better than others. And some do it worse. To my mind, Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the latter category.

As HRC works overtime to win the general election without first winning the primary, she has taken to couching almost every one of her positions in a vast array of buzzwords and qualifying phrases. I find so little of what she says to be daring or inspired, and, so, I find almost none of it inspiring.

I fear other voters might feel the same way. And while I will be at the polls next November pulling the lever (yes, we still do that in New York) for a Democrat, no matter who it is, because this one is that important, I can easily envision others who just won’t bother. I can because I have met them.

Believe it or not, even here in liberal and engaged New York City, I have spoken with people who think this is all a big game. . . or a big bore. Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton—it’s just an amusement for the powerful corporate interests that really rule the world. (I am not making this up.) George W. Bush isn’t running this time, so they don’t have to worry about him, and they haven’t paid much attention to anyone else.

Democrats need a candidate that will get these people to pay attention. One that will get them, and people all over the country like them, excited. One that will articulate a message in such a way that it will inspire people who don’t normally think elections matter. One who can bring a cause to people who don’t often think there is a reason to vote. One who can give hope to people who don’t believe that what they do at the polls has any consequence.

So far, which is for far too long, Senator Clinton has not been that candidate.

Which brings us back to electability. Again, not a good reason in-and-of itself to choose a candidate—electability is just not an issue like Iraq, or healthcare, or poverty are issues. But, after eight years of horrific leadership, electability is not a non-issue, either. This is an election Democrats want to win; this is an election Democrats have to win.

And win up and down the ticket, I might add.

And, if that’s the way you see it, too, well, then Hillary Clinton is honestly not the best choice. Honestly.


(Oh, and, as to which candidate does worry Republican strategists, well, there is this.)


(cross-posted on The Seminal)

Katie writes a hit piece

I’m short on time, so I’m going to cut back on what could be a point by point refutation of many of the assertions published in today’s New York Times in a story by Kate Zernike about the relationship between John Kerry and John Edwards during the 2004 campaign—let me just say that the article is rife with unnamed sources, ignores the role of Bob Shrum in counseling Kerry not to disavow his vote to authorize the Iraqi incursion, and is filled with reductive statements that clearly represent opinion rather than a logical conclusion based on the evidence laid out in prior paragraphs.

In place of that tome, I’d like to make a couple of quick observations:

Almost every single line in Zernike’s story relates to 2004. It is highly critical of Edwards vis-à-vis his time on the campaign trail with John Kerry, but the article barely begins to explain what the three-and-a-half-year-old anecdotes have to do with today, here, now, in 2007. There are maybe three or four paragraphs, and one of them is mostly a quote that, if anything, reveals how little any of this story’s preoccupations matter today:

“There’s no question John Edwards is different now than he was in 2004,” said Peter Scher, whom Mr. Kerry recruited to run Mr. Edwards’s vice-presidential campaign. “There’s a great deal more confidence in his own instincts and his own judgment. You see much less reliance on consultants and pollsters and media advisers, and more of a willingness to say what he believes and let the chips fall where they may.”

Write this story for the Week in Review section in December of 2004, fine—interesting even—but what makes this even remotely worthy of front page coverage now? I can’t answer that question—if Kate could, she should have put it in print (though probably on the opinion pages).

However, even more importantly, as little as there is in this piece to tie it to the current campaign, what there is dwarfs the amount of reporting Zernike does on today’s issues. There is zero—not one line is devoted to what the 2008 election is, you know, about. Not a word about Edwards’s positions or proposals, not a word about his stump speech, not a word about his campaign today. There is nothing describing what Edwards proposes to do about healthcare, about poverty, about domestic security, about ending torture and rendition, about restoring the Constitution, about fixing the VA—nothing! Even when it comes to Iraq, the only discussion is about whether Kerry or Edwards renounced their 2002 votes first; Zernike has seemingly no interest in informing her readers about where Edwards stands today, or what he says he will do in 2009.

In fact, it appears that Kate Zernike and her Times editors have no interest in informing us readers about Edwards at all. I know I live in Clinton country here in New York, so maybe I shouldn’t expect better from the New York Times, but the Times is called “the paper of record,” and for the record, the only stories I’ve seen about Edwards this month have been about his campaign (how it’s in trouble), his fundraising (how it’s in trouble), and now, about how troubled his relationship was with Sen. Kerry back in 2004.

Isn’t it about time the Times got with the times? Isn’t about time they used today’s front page to inform us readers about today’s concerns? Isn’t it about time we got some campaign coverage that didn’t reduce everything to a cat fight, a horse race, a game show, a beauty pageant, or a coronation?

Maybe Zernike sees issues as nothing more than political footballs, and perhaps she is betting on Clinton to win this one by a couple of touchdowns, so the other campaigns are just the halftime show. But because the Times still claims to be a newspaper, isn’t it about time they really covered this year’s Edwards campaign, instead of just covering the spread?

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

WTF NPR?

It is actually hard to quantify the number of insults and inaccuracies contained in two radio pieces by NPR reporter David Greene that aired on last night’s All Thing’s Considered and today’s Morning Edition—there are that many.

The segments, as introduced and summarized on air and on the NPR website, are “reporting” on the supposed difficulties that Democrats (most specifically those running for President) are having with the current situation in Iraq. Why the difficulties? As Greene tells us, flat out, “It’s becoming clear the troops that President Bush added are doing some good.”

Really now? Says who, exactly? I mean, says who besides the president and his fan club?

Greene quotes no one on that point. Doesn’t even bother to bother us with Pollack or O’Hanlon. He certainly doesn’t bother to cite statistics, like those that say Iraqi civilian deaths are as high as ever, or those that show this to be the bloodiest summer of the war for American troops.

Greene also fails to even mention that many will disagree with his warm and fuzzy assessment. For instance, how about those seven US Army infantrymen and noncom officers? They “are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political, and social unrest we see every day.” And that was before they heard David Greene’s pieces.

After Greene tells us how swell the “surge” is going, he then seeks to detail the “tightrope” that Democrats must walk. This is from the Morning Edition piece:

The tightrope the president must walk is vexing, but so is the tightrope for Democrats in Congress and in the presidential campaign. Two candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have long criticized the war, but for the moment, they have joined the president in pointing to some military successes.

Wow. That paragraph is so messed up, it’s hard to take it apart (but let me try). First off, the President’s vexation, as explained by Greene, has to do with his need to support the rather miserable leadership of Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki (an entire post could be written on this point alone), which, as it turns out, has absolutely nothing to do with the Democrats tightrope, as “explained” by Greene.

That rope is stretched between being a longtime critic of the war and seeing some military success—which must indeed be a tough tightrope to walk, since those two “points” are not on opposite sides.

Even if we are to believe Greene’s assertion that the military surge is “doing some good” (which I do not), that does not in any way contradict a long-standing and/or ongoing opposition to the war. You can point to some regionalized or temporary success and still argue that the war was wrong from the start and continues to reap a whirlwind of problems, can’t you?

Then there is the lumping together of Senators Clinton and Obama. Their positions on the Iraq war are both different from the one President Bush likes to trumpet, but that doesn’t mean they are the same. Clinton voted for the Authorized Use of Military Force (in Iraq); Obama did not. Obama continues to speak proudly of his 2002 position, and Clinton stands by her directly opposite vote.

And, if that were not information enough, we have audio! While the morning piece quotes only Clinton, the segment on ATC played clips from both Senators. (Greene ignores all other the Democratic candidates for president on ATC, and only quotes Richardson and Biden, in addition to Clinton, in the morning.)

Here’s what Senator Clinton had to say:

We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in al Anbar province, it's working.

And here’s what Senator Obama said (audio is on the NPR site, the same speech is quoted in the New York Times):

Our troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq. They have done everything we have asked of them. They have won every battle they have fought. . . . [But] no military surge, no matter how brilliantly performed, can succeed without political reconciliation and a surge of diplomacy in Iraq and the region. Iraq’s leaders are not reconciling.

First, how are those two quotes even remotely similar? Second, where in Obama’s statement does he say that the surge is doing some good?

Trust me, I’ve read it and listened to it a half-dozen times, it doesn’t say anything of the sort. But Greene doesn’t let that get in the way—he’s got a story to tell, an analogy to make, and, apparently, a point of view to push.

This is Greene’s walk-off (from the ATC version):

Once again, key Democrats find themselves under all too familiar pressures: The need to show support for American troops, and the need to satisfy those Democrats that wanted the war over yesterday.

Memo to NPR: How the hell are those two things mutually exclusive? Where’s the dance (as Greene also calls it)? Explain how that makes for a tightrope.

If the Democrats are walking a tightrope, it is between some lizard brain fear of Republicans calling them soft, and the vast majority of voters that want America to begin a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. That is a sticky wicket. That is something to talk about. But Greene would rather perpetuate the tired saw that, somehow, you can’t be opposed to this war occupation fiasco, and still care about the troops.

Is that good journalism? I don’t think it is.

And, finally, let me talk about the elephant in the room (at least the room I’m in, I have no idea where Greene is): The “surge” is a tactic—it is not a strategy. A military push might win a battle or clear a district, but it does not, in and of itself, settle this conflict. Bush’s 30,000-person PR stunt was supposed to give the Iraqi’s “breathing room” to get their house in order. Regardless of what’s going on in al Anbar, or any other part of Iraq, how has Iraq as a country, as a nation, become more stable and self-sustaining?

Again, it has not. Not even a little. And, with the carnage on all sides continuing at the highest levels, this escalation hasn’t even worked as a tactic. It hasn’t done “some good”—indeed, it hasn’t done a bit of good.

Alas, with the airing of these two factually challenged pieces by David Greene, neither has NPR.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos)