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Posts by Chris Bowers
Obama's Activist Victory
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 4, 2008 at 4:00 AM.
Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination because of the roughly two million activists who supported his campaign. These were the donors, the volunteers, the caucus goers and the rally attendees who, in several key ways pushed him over the top. Here is how:
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Obama Will Narrowly Win the Popular Vote
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 2, 2008 at 10:02 AM.
There are innumerable caveats to any popular vote total in the nomination campaign. Some states held primaries, while other held caucuses. Some primaries were open to all registered voters, others to only Democrats and Independents, and still others to only Democrats. The staggered primary calendar is another major issue, which resulted in many states having different candidates on the ballot, and voters with varying knowledge of results. Some states did not even keep popular vote totals. Michigan and Florida are also obviously major caveats. No campaigning took place in those states before the voting began, many voters stayed home because they were told the elections wouldn't count, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Further, a nomination campaign is not about the popular vote, and there wasn't a single campaign that used the popular vote as a metric before the voting caucusing began. So, the popular vote is a contentious metric in the nomination campaign, to say the least.
However, whatever the difficulties of applying the value to the specific "election" that is the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination campaign, there is also an obvious value to the principle that the individual with the most support of the electorate should win any given election. Governing power should always derive from the popular will, and we should always work to make our system of government more democratic. The lack of a clear, consistent definition of the popular vote in the Democratic presidential nomination campaign speaks of the serious flaws in the process itself. For all of the reasons listed in the first paragraph, not only is there no universally accepted definition of the popular vote, but as a party we are also a long way from instituting a democratic form of intra-party governance. Major changes need to be made in advance of the 2012 nomination contest, and all future nomination contests, so that our election process better adheres to democratic principles.
As I have argued in the past, within the context of the 2008 Democratic nomination contest, any attempt to determine who won the "popular vote" should adhere to democratic principles itself, as best as can be done. This is because the "popular vote" is not a legal argument, and not specific to any campaign, but instead a moral one based on abstract principles of democracy. As such, popular vote totals should do the following:
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Bob Barr Wins Libertarian Nomination
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 27, 2008 at 7:01 AM.
Sounds like a wild convention:
Former Rep. Bob Barr won the Libertarian Party's Presidential nomination at the party's convention in Denver Sunday afternoon. He defeated long-time party activist Mary Ruwart, 54 to 46 percent, on the sixth ballot.
Fourteen candidates ran for the nomination. Former Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel was defeated in the fourth round.
Third place finisher Wayne Allyn Root, an internet gambling entrepreneur, is the vice-presidential nominee. (...)
"I'm sure will we emerge here with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party," Barr said in his victory speech.
For a great play by play of the convention, click here.
Now, if Barr-Root actually will be "with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party," it would require at least 1.07% of the popular vote, surpassing the 1.06% Edwards Clark scored for a fourth-place finish in 1980. Since that election, the best libertarian performance was 0.50% by Harry Browne in 1996, also for fourth place. In fact, 1984 and 1988 are the only elections where the Libertarian nominee even managed to finish in third-place.
As a former congressman, Bob Barr appears to be a more formidable candidate than the typical third-party crusader. Also, Ron Paul's campaign demonstrated that there was both activist excitement, and a 2-3% national voting base, for an effective libertarian candidate. So, there does seem to be an opening, at least in theory.
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Republicans to Campaign as Democrats
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 19, 2008 at 6:02 AM.
Following up on D-Day's article on this past week's string of progressive victories, which Paul already followed up earlier today, comes the new Republican message for the 2008 campaign season:
Republican Solutions and a Positive AgendaPosted By: Tom Cole, May 16, 2008 - 9:52 AM
Families today face challenges that yesterday's laws simply don't address. We need to fix government, and one solution is to update our laws so they provide America's families with more freedom in their jobs; greater healthcare and retirement security; safer communities; access to quality, affordable education; and the ability for future generations to compete in the global economy.
Embarrassed by three special election defeats over the last two months, all in supposedly deep red districts, Republicans apparently plan to campaign as Democrats this year. This passage could have come out of virtually any Democratic campaign from 1992-2004, and reverses a long standing trend where Democrats have felt the need to campaign like Republicans over the past two decades. It is another sign of realignment, as Republican narratives collapse and they are forced to campaign as Democrats in order to have any chance. Campaigning against "liberal elites" along with more recognizable conservative rhetoric just doesn't work for Republicans anymore.
Now, rhetoric from Republican campaigns is one thing, and voting patterns, legislation, and base attitudes are another. The laws behind this messaging are undoubtedly still retrograde corporatism. Also, the over 1,300 comments that appeared below this post from Tom Cole, more comments than appeared on the last 100 NRCC blog posts combined, were all negative, as online conservatives signaled their intention to revolt against this new messaging. Further, even as the NRCC sounds conciliatory notes, conservative whipping infrastructures such as the Club for Growth are still running ads against Heath Wilson in the New Mexico Republican Senate primary for supporting S-CHIP, no matter how hopeless that campaign is for Republicans. So, we are a long way from conservative and Republican capitulation to progressive ideas like expanding the social safety net.
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Handicapping the Veepstakes
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 13, 2008 at 11:02 AM.
The Hill has a cool story up, where they managed to get 97 of the 100 Senators to say whether or not they would accept the vice-president spot. Here is the question all of the Senators were asked:
The Hill asked all 97 senators who are not running for president the same question: "If you were asked, would you accept an offer to be the VP nominee?"
Looking only at the Democratic responses, here are my interpretations of the answers:
The "no" responses cross off some pretty strong and popular choices, including Sherrod Brown, Kent Conrad, and Jim Webb (and yes, they are all really clear and strong "no's." The unclear answers don't really matter that much, because none of them really have any chance of being asked (I think). Among the "yes" answers, Cardin, Lautenberg, Mikulski, Murray and Stabenow meet the "reinforcement" criteria by being against the war before it began. Of those choices, Murray is the strongest choice by a long way. She even has a similar background to Obama, working as both a teacher and a citizen activist before running for office. I could dig Patty Murray as VP.
Among the Democrats, the most annoying responses came from Ron Wyden and Blanche Lincoln. Here is Lincoln:
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The Medium is the Movement
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 6, 2008 at 4:27 AM.
Is there a progressive movement? This question has seemed particularly relevant over the last two weeks, as support for Barack Obama has washed away apparent long-standing principles of the movement: do not legitimize Fox News and Democrats should become more partisan. Now, apparently, we need to go on Fox News as much as possible and we much ditch partisanship altogether. If the Obama campaign can change the principles of the movement so quickly, perhaps there isn't a movement at all.
Perhaps a different question is necessary: what is a political movement, anyway? Thinking back over the 20th century, the defining characteristic seems to be a large-scale political undertaking that not only had goals of changing governmental institutions, but that changed the way people lived by shifting the balance of power in other major institutions as well. A political movement seeks to reorganize society on a far broader level than simply changing governmental policy. Examples include:
A political movement always targets more than governmental policy change, since only changing policy would not alter the general framework of how people live in a given society. With that in mind, in what ways is the contemporary progressive movement going beyond seeking governmental policy change, and directly altering the way people interact with other major institutions in our society?
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If Elections Were Football
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on April 22, 2008 at 11:00 AM.
This odd statement from Bill Clinton sums up quite a few things about the campaign:
Following a rally for his wife's campaign at Market Square in Pittsburgh, former president Bill Clinton suggested his wife would already be the nominee -- if she were running under Republican party rules."If we were under the Republican system, which is more like the Electoral College, she'd have a 300-delegate lead here," he said. "I mean, Senator McCain is already the nominee because they chose a system to produce that result, and we don't have a nominee here, because the Democrats chose a system that prevents that result."
Yes, and Mitt Romney would have been tied with John McCain in delegates if Republicans used the Democratic system. However, Clinton and Obama are not following the Republican system, and McCain and Romney were not following the Democratic system. This is a fact the Obama campaign appeared well aware of, but the Clinton campaign did not. The strange belief that winning eight or nine large primary states by narrow amounts, and ignoring virtually all other post-January states, would lead to victory in a proportional delegate system appears to be the largest strategic mistake of the campaign. Obama's massive caucus victories in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and Washington actually netted him more delegates (+85) as Clinton netted from her victories in California and New York (+84), despite vast population differences and monetary requirements to win the two groups of states. The Obama campaign executed a strategy to grab delegates wherever they were, and often found cost-effective ways of doing so. Their strategy worked, and Clinton's did not.
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The ABCs of Getting out of Iraq Responsibly
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on April 8, 2008 at 9:00 AM.
Since Cokie Roberts brought it up, I've always wondered what, exactly, there is for us to "win" in Iraq. Seriously-what is our national Iraq prize? It is not even clear to me what those people who cheerlead for the war are seeking for us to win. I know the permanent bases in southern Iraq serve numerous purposes for the architects of the war (influence over southern oil fields, a forward position against Iraq, redeploying out of Saudi Arabia, control over a puppet Iraqi government), and were actually listed as the rationale for war in a September 2000 Bush campaign document. However, no one ever publicly defends the war on those grounds.
Is our national prize for "winning" the Iraq war a free and stable Iraq? Really? That's what we have to gain from all this? That is why we severely damaged our economy, our reputation in the world, why 5% of all Iraqis are dead and another 16% are refugees, and why over 5,000 Americas are dead? There aren't many Americans who think that this is worth that. When CBS and CNN polled that exact question in March, only 29% and 36% of the country thought the costs of the war were worth the results so far.
It is all well and good to say that the American people want to win. After all, in general, people want to win things, at least as opposed to losing things. However, no one wants to win regardless of the cost, and Americans decided a long time ago that whatever "victory" in Iraq might look like, it was not been worth what has happened there. When people decide that "victory" isn't worth the cost, they want a way to end the entire project, and that is what the Responsible Plan offers.
Clinton Superdelegate Lead Nearly Erased
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on April 3, 2008 at 12:13 PM.
Right now, Democratic Convention Watch prominently displays the superdelegate endorsement totals compiled by four major sources. The AP shows Clinton ahead 250-220, CBS shows Clinton ahead 249-217, CNN gives Clinton an advantage of 243-212, and DCW itself shows Clinton ahead 246-216. These margins are virtually identical, and all show Clinton ahead by between 30 and 32 superdelegate endorsements. However, a closer look at the numbers strongly suggests that Clinton's superdelegate advantage is actually much smaller, and will probably be erased entirely before Pennsylvania.
Consider the following:
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Hillary Plays the Rev. Wright Card and Blames Bosnia Lie on Sleep Deprivation
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 25, 2008 at 2:08 PM.
So, apparently Clinton decided to go there:
Clinton decided to weigh in on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
She continued later, "You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."
On her sniper gaffe, "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."
Even though it is not the main subject of this post, I really like that last line. I mean, if you are arguing that you are better at answering the red phone at 3 a.m., it seems like a really good idea to claim that you misspoke about national security experience because you were too tired. It really instills a lot of confidence in the 3 a.m. claim.
But anyway, do we really need to be telling other people where they are praying? Is that a pandora's box we really want to open in this country? Does a country built on religious freedom need one of the three people vying to lead the country comment on where one of the other two candidates should be praying? Really? That's a good thing for the country? That's a good thing for Democrats?
And hey, via BooMan Tribune, since we have decided to cross that line, let's see where it could lead us:
Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.(...)
The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God-leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators.
Military dictators and death squad leaders, eh? The elite winning power by the will of God, eh? This all kind of makes me wonder if Clinton's support for the Bush-McCain mission in Iraq is actually based on her right-wing prayer circle.
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We Are Way Past 4,000 Dead in Iraq
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 24, 2008 at 3:13 PM.
Whenever one a terrible milestone is reach in Iraq for the number of American soldiers killed, such as 4,000 today, it is necessary to point out that the milestone being focused on was actually reached a long time ago. In addition to the 4,000 dead American soldiers, the following fatalities have also occurred in Iraq over the past five years:
We are way, way past 4,000 deaths in Iraq. The non-civilian death toll, including journalists, all coalition military forces, contractors and Iraqi security forces, currently stands at a minimum of 13,501, or about 15 every two days since the start of the war. The civilian death toll is actually the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Rwanda genocide, and possibly since even before then (I don't want to start ranking genocides). Somewhere between 4% and 5% of the Iraqi population has died what is termed an "excess death" since the start of the Iraq war. For the sake of comparison, Pennsylvania represents just under 4% of the population of the United States.
Also, keep in mind that these are just deaths, and damage has been done in many other ways. Nearly four million living Iraqis are now refugees, roughly 16% of the population, 40% of the middle class, and larger percentages of religious and ethnic minorities. Between 60% and 70% of Iraqi children suffer from psychological trauma. Tens of thousands of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, have been injured. And oh yeah, the war will cost more than two trillion dollars.
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Clinton Campaign Pushes Rev. Wright Story to Win Over Superdelegates
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 21, 2008 at 5:47 AM.
ABC News asks Hillary Clinton if her campaign is pushing Jeremiah Wright to superdelegates:
ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has strictly maintained a public position not to comment on Sen. Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Many times, questions have been answered with -- "you will have to ask Senator Obama about that."
However at a Thursday press availability in Terra Haute, Indiana after a report surfaced that the Clinton campaign was pushing the Wright story to superdelegates arguing that the relationship hurt Obama's electibility -- Clinton refused to deny that her campaign was pushing the story.
When asked, Clinton ignored the Wright portion of the question and said "well my campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable that I have said that for a year or more that I am the person best able to make the challenges that our country faces as commander in chief."
When Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story -- she shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.
Well, I just returned from my ward meeting tonight in University City, Philadelphia, and two Clinton staffers made an appearance. When one spoke on behalf of Hillary Clinton, he specifically listed Jeremiah Wright as an example of why Obama would be less electable in the general election. The context of his argument was that the Wright story demonstrated that Obama had not gone through the rigors of a presidential election before, and it was possible that more damaging stories like that would come out as the campaign progressed. Aka, the Wright story is demonstrative of how Obama is less electable.
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War, What Is It Good For? Not the Economy
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 19, 2008 at 2:14 PM.
As already linked by fladem in quick hits, this is it. This is the message that is both the winner for 2008, and for a long-term progressive mandate for sweeping change in governance:
More than 7 out of 10 Americans think government spending on the war in Iraq is partly responsible for the economic troubles in the United States, according to results of a recent poll.
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last weekend, 71 percent said they think U.S. spending in Iraq is a reason for the nation's poor economy. Twenty-eight percent said they didn't think so.
The argument over whether Democrats should run on Iraq or run on the war is not a useful argument. Ultimately, both are temporary messages that do not carry a mandate for comprehensive progressive change. If Democrats winning an election on Iraq, the rationale to vote for Democrats disappears when the Iraq war ends, since few Democrats are running a message that all wars in the Iraq mold should be avoided. Also, if Democrats win on the economy, the rational to vote for a Democrat ends either when the economy turns bad while Democrats are in power, or when the economy is doing well while Republicans are in power. Eventually, one of those to contingencies will come to pass.
However, winning an election on the platform that war spending is bad for the economy is exactly the sort of mandate for change that we need to order to end the national security state, reduce military spending, and implement the comprehensive reforms of The Responsible Plan When 71% of Americans view spending on war to be a drag on the economy, the justification to reduce military spending is accepted by a super-majority of the public, and skepticism about engaging in future military operations of this scale is cemented in the public consciousness for decades. If war spending is understand to be bad for the economy, then over the long-term people will want to spend less on the military, engage in fewer wars, and attack the root cause of wars like Iraq in order to prevent them from happening. Winning an election on the platform that Iraq is bad for the economy thus becomes a long-term progressive mandate.
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There's No Good Reason for Hillary to Drop Out of '08 Race
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 14, 2008 at 10:36 AM.
There is a sentiment in some parts of the blogosphere that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the campaign, "for the good of the party." The various aspects of the argument go as follows:
1. Clinton cannot win unless she convinces delegates to thwart the popular vote, which would invariably anger many people in the party and create lasting divisions for some time to come.
2. Clinton can only win by going nuclear on Obama in a way that will damage the party via right-wing arguments that will damage the party for a long time to come.
3. We need a nominee early enough in order to start directly taking on John McCain.
4. Obama has stronger coattails, and nominating him will help Democrats downticket in more areas of the country than Clinton.
5. Given her low chance to become President at this point, Clinton should start working on building her future position in the party through means other than a presidential campaign.
I disagree with all of these arguments. In fact, I think arguing for Hillary Clinton to drop out is counter-productive at this juncture for the party, and even for Barack Obama. A distinction needs to be made between the dangers of running a destructive campaign, and of the dignity in running a long-shot campaign. In the extended entry, I counter these arguments point by point:
1. Without a single more superdelegate making an endorsement, it is still possible for Clinton to move pretty close in the delegate count. I presented this case yesterday in a table projecting future delegate counts based on current polling in remaining states, which shows Clinton down by 79 delegates when all the voting is completed. However, it should be pointed out that it is also possible for Clinton to surpass current delegate projections and polling. She could, for example, net 18 more delegates in Michigan, 16 more delegates in PA, 12 more in Indiana, 10 more in Florida, 6 more in North Carolina, 4 more in both Puerto Rico and Oregon, and 2 more in West Virginia, Montana, and Kentucky. All told, that would put her within three delegates of Obama. If that winning streak also results in her winning the national popular vote, then she would have an overwhelming argument to bring to superdelegates based on both momentum and the popular will.
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Mississippi Goes for Obama Big Time
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on March 11, 2008 at 7:54 PM.
Obama wins Mississippi 60% to 38% with 98% of the precincts reporting.
****
Two elections of national note tonight: the Mississippi Democratic presidential primary, and the special election for IN-07. The former is expected to be an easy win for Obama, while the later is expected to be a fairly easy win for Democrat Andre Carson, son of the late Julia Carson who previously held the seat.
IN-07 results can be found at Blue Indiana and the Indianapolis Star. Polls close, I believe, at 7 p.m., eastern.
For Mississippi, results can be found at the websites for most national news outlets. Polls close at 8 p.m., eastern. Also, even though the polls have not closed yet, we can already project the delegate count reasonably well (see here and here for more):
Overall, that means we start with a delegate count of 17-13 in favor of Obama. Three "loose" delegates could go either way, and two of those three lean toward Clinton. While that does not seem like much to watch for, there are two interesting sub-plots. First, whoever wins two of the three "loose" delegates wins the most pledged delegates for March. Second, if Obama wins the state by more than 20,000 votes, he takes the overall popular vote lead in even the most favorable count for Clinton. A more complete count shows that Obama is already ahead.
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