Election 2008

AlterNet's election coverage.

Missouri Nuns Fight Voter Disenfranchisement
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast on May 9, 2008 at 5:00 PM.

Because Nuns. Kick. Ass.

Surely, our majority-Catholic Supreme Court should have known better than to get on the wrong side of the Sisters. As we wrote earlier, the first victims of the new ruling on Voter ID were elderly nuns in Indiana. This just in, in my emailbox: The nuns of Missouri rap the Supreme Court's knuckles with a great big ruler:

Nun of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary comments on Voter ID disenfranchisement

WHO: Missourians for Fair Elections

WHAT: Press Conference on the impact of legislation to require government-issued photo ID to vote

WHEN: 1:00 PM, Thursday, May 8, 2008

WHERE: League of Women Voters, 8706 Manchester, Jefferson City, MO 63144

JEFFERSON CITY, MO – On Thursday, May 8, three Missouri voters who lack government-issued photo IDs as well as Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and community leaders will discuss the potential impacts of legislation currently being pushed through the Missouri General Assembly. The proposed legislation would make Missouri one of the toughest states in the country for eligible citizens who want to vote by requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls. If passed, these changes could be in place by the November general election and could put the voting rights at risk for up to 240,000 registered Missouri voters.

"This may sound like a good idea at first," stated Sister Sandy Schwartz of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary regarding voter ID requirements, "but once you stop to think about who would really be affected, this is going to keep a lot of our loved ones from being able to vote." Yesterday in Indiana twelve nuns in their 80s and 90s were turned away from the polls because they lacked the needed IDs to vote. Sister Schwartz and others are concerned about the difficulties the policy change would create for elderly Missouri nuns, as well as other senior citizens, the poor, and minorities.

Awesome.

(h/t)

Editor's Note: The issue before the Missouri Legislature actually has two moving parts: a new photo ID requirement AND a proof of citizenship requirement for new voters. That second piece – requiring that voters produce papers documenting their citizenship is nothing to sneeze at. In Arizona, where such a law has been in place since 2004, approximately 17 percent or some 30,000 voter registration forms have been rejected because of the failure to produce citizenship documents. And it’s not just minorities who are affected. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School reported in November 2006 that slightly more than 50 percent of all married women lack birth certificates with their married names on it. Of course, poor people and the elderly also are disproportionately affected.

We’ll be watching Missouri next week, when the state Senate is slated to pick up the voter ID bill as it ends its legislative session. --Mike

We'll "Never" See McCain's Tax Returns?
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 9, 2008 at 3:16 AM.

The Obamas released tax returns for both Barack and Michelle. The Clintons released returns for both Bill and Hillary. But when John McCain released his tax returns a few weeks ago, Cindy McCain’s tax documents will remain private.

It’s not too hard to understand why. The McCains are extraordinarily wealthy — one might even be tempted to call them “elites” — and Cindy McCain’s assets are estimated to be about $100 million, including a private jet, which her husband has been borrowing at a reduced rate.

Given the other candidates’ disclosures, and McCain’s own alleged commitment to transparency, will we ever see Cindy McCain’s returns? She was asked on the “Today” show this morning, and said, politely, “Never.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Unfortunate Racial Talk Creeps Back into the Democratic Campaign
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 8, 2008 at 1:32 PM.

Hillary Clinton still clearly hopes to make a case to the Democratic Party that she’d be the strongest candidate in a general election, but I have a hunch she’d like to take this one back.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

USA Today described these as “blunt remarks about race.” When a candidate equates “hard-working Americans” with “white Americans,” I can’t help but wonder if “blunt” is a strong enough adjective. (The Obama campaign called Clinton’s remarks “not true and frankly disappointing.”)

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton’s comment was a “poorly worded” variation on the way analysts have been “slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms.”

The remark came the same day chief Clinton strategist Geoff Garin also made a similar case for her electability in rather explicit race-based terms.

Atrios noted that there’s nothing especially wrong with a campaign talking about targeting specific groups of voters, but added, “What the Clinton campaign is doing is saying that Obama has electability problems, and using their support from white voters as evidence of that. That’s a wee bit problematic, and not just because it doesn’t follow logically any more than the other electability arguments such as Obama can’t win the election because he can’t win the primary in big states.”

Quite right.

Let’s put aside the unfortunate wording of Clinton’s statement in which she equated “hard-working” with “white,” and consider the merits of her broader point.

Clinton has done well with white “hard-working” Americans, especially in states like Pennsylvania. But her argument is premised on the notion that White Joe Six Pack who votes in a Democratic primary would rather support a Republican than Obama. Where’s the proof to bolster this claim? There isn’t any.

By the logic of Clinton’s argument, we should also note that her support among African Americans is quite poor, and the “pattern” is pretty clear. Are we to assume that if she were the nominee, those same voters would back McCain over her? That Clinton couldn’t possibly win because she’d never get the support of African-American Dems? Of course not.

Why, then, characterize the race in this illogical, race-based way?

For that matter, Steve M. raises a very important point.

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Obama's Consolidation of the Party
Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left on May 8, 2008 at 7:47 AM.

Brownsox blogs.

Over 1.25 million Indianans voted yesterday for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary.

Over 1.1 million Indianans voted for Jill Long Thompson or Jim Schellinger in the Democratic primary for Governor of Indiana.

In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received 969,000 votes in the state of Indiana...in the general election.

That is stunning. The primary has been exceptionally good for party building. Obama has created a number of significant infrastructure pieces through his campaign, displacing traditional groups the way he promised he would by signaling the end of the old politics of division and partisanship.

Voter Registration: Obama has launched a 50 state registration drive.

"That's why I'm so proud that today our campaign announced a massive volunteer-led voter registration drive in all 50 states to help ensure every single eligible voter takes part in this election so we can take back Washington for the American people."

I have heard from several sources that the Obama campaign is sending out signals to donors, specifically at last weekend's Democracy Alliance convention, to stop giving to outside groups, including America Votes. The campaign also circulated negative press reports about Women's Voices Women's Vote, implying voter suppression.

Obama Organizing Fellows: Here's Obama describing them:

Basically what we've done is we've been attracting so much volunteer talent, so many young people who have gotten involved in the campaign, that we wanted to give a handful of them an opportunity to have some more intensive training. So we've asked them to apply for fellowships. I think they're called Obama Fellows. They will get intensive training, and they will be put on staff and will have an experience, starting in June.

These are unpaid positions, and they will be used to do field organizing, message, and helping to "continue to build the movement". This is pure leadership development, though it continues the class-based diminution of talent by refusing to pay, a problem outlined in Crashing the Gates.

Money: MyBarackObama.com: With 1.5 million donors, this campaign has blown away anything we've ever seen in terms of grassroots fundraising. The technology is all centralized, so Obama knows the name, address, giving patterns, and occupation of every donor out there, as well as social networking information, like who the best raisers are.  He has bypassed Actblue, and will probably end up building in a Congressional slate feature to further party build while keeping control of the data.

One email from Moveon to their full list can bring in between $100k to $1M for a candidate, with $1M being the very top end of the range. With one good email to his list, in a few months, Obama will probably be able to bring in $1-3M for a Senate candidate under attack or split that among several. 10-20% of the money going to Senate candidates this cycle might come from Barack Obama's internet operation. Stunning.

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Newt Gingrich: Republicans Face Real Disaster
Posted by Cliff Schecter, Cliff Schecter's Blog on May 8, 2008 at 4:30 AM.

What? The hyper-organized, disciplined, get-out-the-message, self-righteous Republicans are in trouble? Quick! Call for help! Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… it’s … ::cricket, cricket::

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

Oh no! What’s a Republican to do? Ooo! Ooo! I know! Pick me! Solution: Every man for himself!

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

This is one dire situation. There’s gotta be a superhero around here somewhere. Wait! Who’s that undressing in that phone booth? Why, it’s Newt “Looks-Unappealing-In-Tights” Gingrich!

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

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Clinton Camp: “There Are No Rules”
Posted by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet on May 7, 2008 at 9:14 AM.

Anyone who thought Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) might reconsider her presidential bid after her big loss in North Carolina and narrow victory in Indiana on Tuesday are mistaken.

In fact, in a conference call with the national media on Wednesday morning, the campaign’s top strategist, Geoff Garin, and top spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said the fight would almost surely last past the final primaries and be taken up by the Democratic National Committee’s standing committees, starting with the Rules and Bylaws Committee on May 31.

“There really are no rules,” Garin said, when asked about the seating of delegates from Michigan and Florida – two states stripped of delegates for holding early primaries – and about any scenario where the campaign is behind in the delegate count won in the primaries and caucuses, or the popular vote total. “You make a conscious decision of what is in the interest of the country.”

“The DNC will engage in an adjudicary process to seat the delegates,” Wolfson said, referring to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), and then the Credentials Committee, which under the DNC rules hears appeals of RBC decisions.

Wolfson also said the number of delegates needed to win the nomination was not 2,025, as both the Clinton camp and campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) have said in previous conference calls with the media earlier in 2008.

“That is not the operative number,” Wolfson said. “The number is 2,209.”

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Barack Obama's Very Good Primary Night
Posted by John Nichols, The Nation on May 7, 2008 at 3:47 AM.

The last really good primary night for Barack Obama was February 19, when the senator from Illinois won the Wisconsin primary by a 58-41 margin.

Since then, the candidate who has been on the verge of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination for so very long has struggled to "close the deal."

He did not close it Tuesday night.

But he did have his best finish since February. And that finish all but assures that this most unlikely presidential contender will soon secure the nomination of his party.

The headlines may suggest that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana -- with North Carolina for Obama and Indiana for Clinton.

But it was not an even split.

As Obama secured a landslide win in North Carolina, Clinton barely prevailed in her firewall state of Indiana.

In North Carolina, Obama was ahead 56-42. His popular vote advantage was more than 230,000.

In Indiana, Clinton squeezed out a 50.5 to 49.5 win. Her popular vote advantage was barely 20,000.

Bottom Line No. 1: Obama has come out of a night that was supposed to be a mixed one for him with a solid boost in his delegate total. He now leads Clinton by almost 150 pledged delegates and the gap is widening.

Bottom Line No. 2: Barack Obama has finished the night with a tremendous improvement in his popular vote total -- a boost so significant that it now seems all but certain that he will finish the primary competition with an overall popular-vote advantage.

That's very bad news for Clinton, who really needed to narrow the margin in the delegate race and improve her popular vote position if she was going to make an effective appeal to wavering super delegates.

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Voter Suppression Happens (in Indiana)
Posted by dday, Hullabaloo on May 6, 2008 at 5:19 PM.

The primary results from Indiana and North Carolina should be pretty much projected by 8:00ET or so. But we already know who's won, at least in Indiana - voter suppression advocates like the 9 robed figures on the Supreme Court.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

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Democracy Corps: Youth for the Win!
Posted by Mike Connery, AlterNet on May 6, 2008 at 9:42 AM.

Democracy Corp has issued a new poll of young voters: Youth for the Win (pd). The polls, conducted over landline, cellphone, and via the internet, treads a lot of old ground and I won't rehash it all here, but I do want to pull out a few interesting bits that put hard numbers to current memes about youth engagement and mark out distinctions that have thus far been overlooked.

First, some new stats on increased participation:

In early 2008 Democratic primaries, young people increased their participation by an astonishing 88 percent. Republican involvement also improved, though far less dramatically (by 7 percent).

This is great news for the Democrats. As the following graph illustrates, this lopsided increase in participation translates into a huge partisan advantage at the ballot box. The Democrats now have an advantage among young voters not seen in years, and potentially not since 1992:

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NC Robo-Call Investigation Broadens - NAACP Files Complaint
Posted by Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend on May 5, 2008 at 11:32 AM.

As I said last Tuesday, "Stop messing with my primary!" and "All I know is that this better not be connected to the Clinton campaign." That was a desperate wish for it to be some right-wing scheme to suppress votes. You just don't want to deal with an internal problem of this nature.

I posted the above statements before it was revealed by Facing South's investigation that the source of the misleading and illegal robo-calls in NC was the progressive DC non-profit Women's Voices Women Vote. It's still not clear what on earth really went on, but WVWV has been on a swift offensive to dispel any suggestion that there was purposeful deception.

Be that as it may, the NC attorney general is investigating, and over the weekend, Sue Sturgis of Facing South reported that the NC NAACP filed a complaint against WVWV.

The North Carolina NAACP has filed a formal complaint of possible voter suppression against Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit that as we revealed earlier this week was behind the deceptive and illegal robo-calls made to state residents. The N.C. NAACP hand-delivered its complaint today to state Attorney General Roy Cooper and State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett. It's also alerted the U.S. Department of Justice that it's collecting more information from its national network and is contemplating filing a formal complaint with that agency.

N.C. NAACP President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (center in photo) announced the filing of the complaint at a press conference held this afternoon outside the N.C. Department of Justice. He was joined by his group's attorney, Al McSurely (left), and Bob Hall (right) of Democracy North Carolina. The state Attorney General's office is already investigating Women's Voices, but the N.C. NAACP and Democracy North Carolina want to be parties to that investigation.

"When you mess with the right to vote, you're messing with everything that is fundamental in our democracy," Barber said.

Here is the full text of the very detailed complaint, which recounts the facts at hand. Another serious aspect of this topic is below the fold.

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Iran Takes Center Stage on the Trail
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 5, 2008 at 8:36 AM.

I have to admit, watching the race for the Democratic presidential nomination the past several days has been slightly less annoying. It’s been far from perfect, of course, but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been talking more about actual policy differences, and less about nonsense (take your pick: flag pins, Wright, Ayers, bitter, etc.) and process (electability, polls, etc.).

We’ve certainly seen that with the debate over gas-tax policy, and over the weekend, we saw it again with a debate over Iran and deterrence.

This began in earnest a couple of weeks ago, with a question in ABC’s notorious debate, when, in response to a hypothetical question from George Stephanopoulos, Clinton said, “I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.” Because “massive retaliation” is a Truman-era phrase relating to a nuclear strike, Clinton’s remarks raised a few eyebrows.

She expanded a bit on her remarks a week later, adding, “In the next ten years, during which [Iranians] might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.” (Observers weren’t quite sure what to think when Clinton’s chief spokesperson said neither talk of total obliteration nor her talk about “massive retaliation” should be considered a threat to use nuclear weapons.)

Yesterday, Obama pushed back against the perceived “saber rattling.”

Barack Obama scolded Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday for saying that U.S. would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel, and likened her to President Bush. Ms. Clinton stood by her comment. […]

On Wednesday, Iran strongly condemned Mrs. Clinton for her remarks. Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, called her comment “provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible” and “a flagrant violation” of the U.N. Charter.

On “Meet the Press,” Mr. Obama said: “It’s not the language we need right now, and I think it’s language reflective of George Bush. We have had a foreign policy of bluster and saber rattling and tough talk and in the meantime have made a series strategic decisions that have actually strengthened Iran.”

For her part, Clinton did not back down at all.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Clinton asked rhetorically, “Why would I have any regrets?”

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McCain Gets 80% Discount; Free Inmate Labor for Fundraiser
Posted by Kathy, Pam's House Blend on April 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM.

(Oh my, free inmate labor! They really know how to show hospitality down there, Kathy. - promoted by pam)

Homewood AL Mayor Barry McCulley (R-obviously) has stepped in it with this one. He's supposed to bring requests for discounts to the City Council, but for some reason he decided to rent the McCain people a room at Rosewood Hall for $250, substantially less than the going rate of $1,200 for a weeknight event. He also provided free inmate labor to set up the tables and chairs, waiving the usual $100 set-up fee.

Homewood Mayor Barry McCulley said the rental rate was discounted because the event was on Monday, a slow day for business. City Council members say they always vote on such discounts but didn't get a say in this deal. They're upset, as are local Democrats.

"I think it's outrageous," said Robert Yarbrough, chairman of the Jefferson County Democratic Party and a Homewood resident.

"I was charged full book rate. I was never offered any free inmate services to set up for my event. Mayor McCulley owes an apology to every citizen in Homewood as to why he arbitrarily changed the fee for this out-of-state senator from Arizona."

Yarbrough rented the entire hall, three rooms, on Thursday nights in September 2006 and September 2007 for the Democratic Blue Dot Ball fundraiser. The weekday fee is $1,700 for all three rooms, according to the official rates. Yarbrough said the Democrats paid more than $2,500 for all charges each year.

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Clinton, The 'Nuclear Umbrella' & The NeoCons
Posted by Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action on April 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM.

On "Meet The Press" last Sunday April 20th, with David Brooks, E.J. Dionne and Michelle Norris, host Tim Russert brought up the "nuclear umbrella" idea that Hillary Clinton floated in her April 16th debate in Philadelphia with Barack Obama and DAVID BROOKS of all people, replied, "I’m amazed, I think like you, maybe,that it didn’t become a bigger issue. Because what it says, I think, to a lot of Americans, two Arab countries or two Middle Eastern countries get in a war and we’re going to get in the middle of it?... I don’t know why she would’ve said it, what policy thinking behind it was. It seems to me extremely perilous." E.J. Dionne concurred, "the term massive retaliation is a pretty strong term that she used in the course of that debate."

"Massive retaliation" is indeed a 'pretty strong term', to put it