Opening the Day: Iraq Vote Delayed, Obama Becomes Nominee

by: Matt Stoller

Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:26


The Iraq vote is being delayed.

  • Obama pushed Operation Chaos, as this blog reported yesterday.

  • Kevin Phillips argues that the true US inflation rate is at 6-9% a year, and that this means the economy is shriveling rapidly.

    In theory, a vigilant Congress might want to hold hearings, but in practice I suspect not. Democratic presidents (notably Bill Clinton) have been involved in the numbers game along with Republican administrations. Neither party has clean hands. Far more likely that any serious investigation will be mounted clandestinely by central banks or sovereign wealth funds in places like China, Singapore and Saudi Arabia as part of their ongoing study of just how much longer they can continue to support a deteriorating U.S. dollar. It is not a happy prospect.

  • True Majority is asking shareholders of KBR to take action against the military contractor.

  • This is ugly race-baiting from Clinton.

    "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.

  • Google is building a nationwide wireless broadband network.

    Google, Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners have entered into an agreement to invest $3.2 billion in a new wireless broadband company. The new company will combine Clearwire's existing consumer WiMAX business with Sprint's broadband infrastructure and 2.5 GHz spectrum to create a new nationwide wireless broadband network. In addition to our $500 million contribution as part of the investment group, we will provide search and applications to the network's users, and will work with Clearwire to offer additional services and applications. This will include jointly creating an open Internet protocol to work with mobile broadband devices (including Android-powered devices) and implementing other open network practices and policies.

  • Blue Dogs are blocking veterans benefits.

I get the feeling that we're in the period before the convention where the presumptive nominee isn't yet the official nominee, but everyone assumes he will be.  Only, instead of focusing on the Obama-McCain contest, there's a collective viewing of the trainwreck that is Hillary Clinton.

Some uncommitted Democratic superdelegates refused to meet with the beleaguered candidate when her campaign approached them in the hope of wooing them. Reps. Brad Miller (N.C.) and Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) said they were invited to meet Clinton but declined to attend.

That is just embarrassing and sad.  Unlike many Obama supporters, I respect Hillary Clinton a great deal.  I don't agree with her politics and I think she has a moral blindspot in her support for the war, but I never felt the hatred towards her that seemed a bit too widespread for my tastes.  She built a good amount of infrastructure for Democrats and is a superb political strategist.  But this is just sad.  Uncommitted supers refusing to meet with her?  Every day she stays in and race-baits she is destroying her legacy.

What are you reading today?
Matt Stoller :: Opening the Day: Iraq Vote Delayed, Obama Becomes Nominee

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Opening the Day: Iraq Vote Delayed, Obama Becomes Nominee | 35 comments
There could be many reasons .. (0.00 / 0)
why Brad Miller or Lincoln Davis declined ... would you want to be getting constant calls from Harold Ickes and T-Mac?  The other problem is then why don't they publicly come out for Obama then?  The again .. Hillary isn't even returning DiFi's calls ... so that is even worse
Bush is promising to veto the mortgage crisis relief bill (0.00 / 0)
put forth by Barney Frank (via the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05...

Damn crappy, but this also looks to be a good campaign issue for Dems.

As far as Google's broadband network, NPR said yesterday that it should also reach neglected rural areas. Cool!

I would veto it too (0.00 / 0)
how to address the mortgage crisis does not have a clear ideological path. lots of tax paying liberals think the govt should stay out. we're not happy about the Fed gifting Bear Sterns to JPMorgan (note it was NO gift to Bear owners!), but two wrongs don't make a right. The market is flooded with cash right now, on the next round of adjustable mortgage resets rates are going to go down. Barney is crazy to want tax payers to insure mortgages.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
[ Parent ]
That basically renders her unelectable as a Democrat (0.00 / 0)
Third party run?  
if you have the broader base, shouldn't you have won, Hillary? (4.00 / 2)
Sure, Hillary has a broader base. That's why she lost twice as many contests as Obama. Oops.

She built a good amount of infrastructure for Democrats and is a superb political strategist.

How can you call her a superb political strategist when she entered this campaign the inevitable nominee and ended up losing to a freshman Senator? If she was a superb political strategist, she would have run on change and policy instead of her grossly exaggerated and partially fabricated experience, wouldn't have dismissed whole states and blocs of voters as not mattering, and would have won this contest easily.

Mark Penn. (0.00 / 0)
Notice that her strategy significantly improved once he was pushed out of the capo di capo spot.
[ Parent ]
if you mean stupid gas tax holidays and more open race baiting is better (0.00 / 0)
and squeaker victory in a favorable state after her opponent had the worst campaign week in human record, then yeah, her strategy is awesome.

I agree with the grand parent post, I fail to see how Hillary has great strategic sense at all. Her Iraq vote was a train wreck, and being anti-flag burning didn't help. She pretty much cornered herself, then drove the car head on into a wall.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

[ Parent ]
I am mystified by the "superb political strategist" comment (0.00 / 0)
What "superb" strategies has she pursued and carried out recently? The large-state path to the nomination? The contentless "inevitability" strategy? Introducing the gax-tax holiday legislation? Tell.
[ Parent ]
Not reading... (4.00 / 1)
I think it's fair to say she has taken the Huckabee position at this point, which is I'm in it until somebody gets the actual amount of delegates. I don't mean that in a bad way either. In her press conference in WV yesterday she didn't mention the convention even when asked about it. That said, she isn't leaving without seating MI and FL, which Obama should have done something about ages ago.

Everybody kept talking about the numbers to Huckabee too, and he won states after McCain was hundreds of delegates ahead well within his rights to do so. Huckabee didn't even lift an eye when the NYT piece about McCain came out which he could have jumped on if he wanted to.  

Free the iPhone

Huckabee did not attack McCain (0.00 / 0)
after he became the presumptive nominee.  Now, if Clinton can embrace that aspect of the "Huckabee position" and quit attacking Obama, it might be useful for her to stick it out.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
audi100quattro - fix your sig ine (0.00 / 0)
You are missing a doublequote in the freetheiphone.org link, which makes the close italics not work.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
fixed (0.00 / 0)
Thanks.

Free the iPhone
[ Parent ]
sounds like (0.00 / 0)
Soap Box needs some better html purification. I would recommend http://htmlpurifier.org - for those who might care.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
[ Parent ]
At some point (2.67 / 3)
Barack Obama is going to have start acting like the uniter he has always claimed to be.  I'm not going to argue with the members of this community who believe that Hillary Clinton is responsible for 99.9% of the division within the Democratic Party.  Carry on with the vilification. But your candidate needs to rise above it.  
Absolutely! (4.00 / 3)
If Obama had gracefully withdrawn before Super Tuesday so Hillary could win it in an epic landslide, there would have been no need for her campaign to engage in the scorched earth politics that have been battering the Democratic base for months now.  Clearly, the blame for all the damage done by Clinton's attacks falls squarely on Obama's shoulders.

In other news, this morning I rear-ended your car at 25mph because it was in the way of a parking spot I needed and I was in a bit of a hurry.  You will shortly receive a bill for the damage because of your failure to properly get out of my way.

[ Parent ]
I understand your feelings about HRC, but... (4.00 / 2)
I am angry at a democrat who is not making a case for her vision, is not advancing Democratic Party values and is wasting goodwill and a long deep level of trust the (B+C) Clinton coalition has built up in the party for decades. But I dont hate. I see anger and disappointment.

That is just embarrassing and sad.  Unlike many Obama supporters, I respect Hillary Clinton a great deal.  I don't agree with her politics and I think she has a moral blindspot in her support for the war, but I never felt the hatred towards her that seemed a bit too widespread for my tastes.  She built a good amount of infrastructure for Democrats and is a superb political strategist.  But this is just sad.  Uncommitted supers refusing to meet with her?  Every day she stays in and race-baits she is destroying her legacy.

Look what you wrote. People see the same things you do, the moral failure of the war vote, the race baiting, and the historical triangulation, and feel anger, not hate. I feel disappointment about that coalition's stumbling and I have felt anger at her repeated use of foul rightwing attacks, including race, I felt anger at her coalition for the lies to produce voter suppression (I assume HRC was not involved personally), but I do not feel hate.

Pretend the things you attribute correctly to HRC were anyone else's flaws, and I think you could understand the anger.

But I share your respect for years of good work, a lifetime of commitment, and the Clinton coalition's victories against the first Bush.  

Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.

Triangulation (0.00 / 0)
If you are going to mention triangulation then include Obama because is is the master triangulater. He has openly reached out to Republican voters and Republican politicians and their ideas in this campaign and his unification campaign is the Mother Of All Triangulation. No one can say with a straight face that post-partisanship is not triangulation. It is the personification of triangulation.
[ Parent ]
Hard Working White Americans (4.00 / 1)
Will someone PLEASE explain to me why Hillary's "hard working white Americans" seem to be limited to those earning less than $40,000/year?

When you look at the demographics in a lot of the completed contests, Obama has carried whites making substantially more than 40k.

Does Hillary mean to imply that those of us who earn more are NOT "hard working white Americans"?

Does having a college degree mean one does not "work hard"? For those of us who work in the professions of medicine, law, finance, engineering, the sciences, etc, we actually DO work hard.

It is very insulting for Hillary to imply that unless we give back our college degrees, and take up jobs that pay 1/2 to 3/4 less then we earn now that we are NOT "Hard Working White Americans".

Is that if you use your brain to earn a living in lieu of your braun, you don't count in her book?

I do not mean these as rhetorical questions.

It's pretty clear (4.00 / 1)
by reading articles and her speeches that she has been referring to lower wage blue collar workers typically making less than $40,000 a year.

In Indiana Clinton actually won the majority voters in the following Categories:

$15-30,000
$30-50,000
$50-75,000
$100-150,000

Her largest margin of victory being in the $15-30,000 range. Voters under between $15K and $50K represented 38% of all votes and many of them are the ones who said they would not vote for Obama in November.

As a side note it is interesting that Obama claims operation chaos won Indiana for her when he himself got 46% of the Republican vote. Seems he profited big time from the Republicans himself given that number.

[ Parent ]
Understand the numbers... (0.00 / 0)
But I still ask -- WHY?

Those people are "Reagan Democrats" -- they've been voting Republican (against their interests) for more than 20 years.
While they might vote for Clinton in a primary, come November, it's far more likely that they will vote Republican.

The specious part of her argument relates to states like Indiana that ONLY voted in recent history for a Democrat for President in 1964, 1936, 1932 and 1912. It doesn't MATTER whether Obama or Clinton wins Indiana -- it's not going to matter in November since there is only a 2% chance a Democrat could carry it.

It infuriates me that Clinton continues on her path to help John McCain win so that she can have a clear shot at 2012. I hate that she would skewer the Democratic party because HER ends are more important to her than the good of the country.

Hillary is playing to fear and loathing by trying to say that only the blue collar whites matter (and yes, I knew what she meant).

We need a Democrat to lead the Executive Branch come January 2009 because we need to get out of Iraq, NOT bomb Iran, solve domestic problems, and rebuild our stature as the conscience of the world, NOT the world's police force.

That ONLY happens if a Democrat wins.

Hillary's last argument is "I'm better because I can attract the poor, low paid, barely got out of high school white people in rural areas".

Obama's argument is "Let's all work together -- none of this is a zero sum game. Together, we can approach fixing things, no matter what your colour, income level, religion, gender, etc, etc, etc"

Signed: a proud, latte liberal.....

[ Parent ]
You misunderstand (0.00 / 0)
Reagan Democrats. There is no evidence that they have continuously voted for Republicans. They are swing voters and always have been. They are more left leaning on policies but are usually strong on defence and tend to be more socially-values conservative. They vote for the candidate that best represents them and have voted both Democrat and Republican.

Indiana is not the only region in the country who has lower income blue collar workers. Indiana is representative of all lower wage blue collar voters even if we could not win there. And by being representative those voters reflect the preferences of the same kind of voters in other states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which Clinton won, and other similar voters in other states all over the country. So when Clinton speaks of Indiana she is only pointing out the most recent example of her ability to connect to those voters and get their votes and how that extend to sates other than Indiana.

[ Parent ]
I live (0.00 / 0)
in Pennsylvania. Have for more than 20 years. I understand why Obama lost here -- and it was NOT working class whites. And I assure you, we know the mistakes and will not repeat them in November.

Here in PA we call those Regan Democrats "Casey Democrats" as you probably know. And HERE they really HAVE voted Republican in the Generals ever since I moved here. It's only because of the influx of college educated whites in the South East and eastern parts of the state that their influence has been diluted. (For example, if you look at the county-by-county 2004 votes for Kerry-Bush). Kerry won the state NOT because he "connected with Clinton voters" but in spite of them.

[ Parent ]
Obama lost (0.00 / 0)
the overall White vote by 67%. 33% of those who voted earned between $15-$50k.

If you look at his overall margin of defeat and then do the math on white voters whose income is between 15-50k you will find that major portion of his overall defeat can be attributed to those voters.

[ Parent ]
Hillary lost the black vote by 90% (0.00 / 0)
The must mean Black people would never vote for her in the general election if she were the nominee, thus dooming her against McCain. Right?  

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
[ Parent ]
When a poll (0.00 / 0)
comes on on that then you will have something other than speculation to talk about. In the meantime the only 'no' vote poll we have is on low wage white voters. Facts not fiction Will.
[ Parent ]
Here's What You Don't Know... (0.00 / 0)
of the 103 pledged delegates, and this IS a race about delegates, 41 came from some portion of Montgomery County. The congressional districts do not align here with the counties in most cases. Obama lost Montco by 49.3 to Hillary's 50.7 HAD those Montco 2,204 votes gone the other way, it would have meant Obama won the delegate count. She won big in the 5th District, which is multiple, multiple counties -- and generally votes Republican in the General (at least they have ever since I've lived here).

In addition, most of those people who voted here in PA for Hillary actually WILL vote for Obama in November. And if you add together the number of 2008 voters, the increased registration, look at the total number of people who voted for ANY Democrat (and remember, this is a closed primary) AND THEN compare those numbers to 2004 turnout, and the party registrations back then -- PA will go blue, AGAIN in November.  

[ Parent ]
The subject was (0.00 / 0)
White Blue Collar Workers. That is what I posted about and that is what you responded to. That is also what I gave you stats on via CNN Exit Polls. He lost the White vote. And he lost the white vote for the income levels and blue collar workers I mentioned. That was the discussion.

Now instead of acknowledging what you questioned you zip right by the facts and try to change the subject to something else. Perhaps in the future I shouldn't bother with you if you are too proud to acknowledge when a point is made and are only going to move on to a new topic. I mean what is the point of having a conversation if you are not going to acknowledge the conversation?

I can change the subject here too and we can change the subject forever but I won't.

[ Parent ]
Jerome Armstrong (4.00 / 1)
First, I try to close the italics.

Second. Did you read Jerome defending that comment? Apparently there's nothing racist about making "hard working Americans, white Americans" into equivalent statements. I mean, there certainly aren't any hardworking black Americans, that's for sure. So if Clinton is doing well among working class whites, that means she's doing well among working Americans, period.

It really is unfortunate. I don't think it is fair to push someone out of the race, and I certainly don't dislike Clinton in the way a lot of people do, but Christ she is running a bad campaign.

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

Dichotomy (0.00 / 0)
Well, I find it puzzling you would disapprove of us hating on somebody whom you acknowledge a couple of paragraphs above is RACE-BAITING even after she lost ! (as Ben Smith pointed out, she smartly waited until all the states with a lot of African-Americans have finished voting to get out with that kind of despicable junk out loud).
Matt (0.00 / 0)
I had read the article about the plan for the wireless network, but couldn't get a handle on whether this was good or bad. Does Free Press have a line on it? Is there a danger that it will be too tightly controlled? Any idea what types of regulations will be necessary for it? I guess I just don't know enough about the regulatory/technological interface at play.

Anyway, if you hear anything from people in the know please pass it along to us.

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

Jimmeny Christmas i am an idiot (0.00 / 0)
I've been meaning to buy some Google for months.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
slightly missleading (0.00 / 0)
"Obama pushed Operation Chaos"

what are you trying to imply? Obama is definitely trying to use it to his advantage to suggest he actually won Indiana, seems like fair game.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

Google, Sprint, + Clearwire (4.00 / 1)
I have WiMax broadband from Clearwire and I couldn't be happier with the product and service. I'm no technical expert but it seems like wireless broadband is the future and the quickest way to transform our information technology infrastructure (while simultaneously diminishing the powers of the cable and telecom industry). Just put up towers and you have broadband.

If you have Clearwire available in your area check it out as a possible ISP. It has some corporate problems (I've read about port issues that can monkey with Skype but I don't know firsthand) but the ability to have reliable wireless broadband at a good price is pretty damn cool.

John McCain

John Tanner is an arsehole (0.00 / 0)
That is all.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog
Hillary as a superb political strategist (0.00 / 0)
Matt, can you please explain what you had in mind when you stated that Hillary is a "superb political strategist"? I think several commenters on your post were puzzled by your comment. I am very curious to know what you were thinking. I am sure others are, too.
Opening the Day: Iraq Vote Delayed, Obama Becomes Nominee | 35 comments
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