LATE EVENING POSTING,  APRIL 12,  2008

Posted at 10:28 p.m. ET

THE ATTACK

I wrote last night that this is the moment when Obama's opponents must go for the jugular.   Apparently, they've brought in the right physicians to locate it, and the guys with the scalpels are headin' that way.

Jonathan Martin of The Politico, which has done superb work on this affair, reports the surgical plans in progress:

Hillary is organizing a conference call with Tom Vilsack (not just a former Iowa governor but a Pennsylvania native) and other Keystone state officials to drive her own aggressive message from this morning (that Obama was being an elitist and that religion is embraced because people are "spiritually rich" and not "materially poor).

The RNC is circulating comments by pundits and reporters that underscore the danger of what Obama said and also enlisting every GOP official from Minority Leader John Boehner to the Pennsylvania Republican chairman to lambaste the Democratic hopeful.

This double-barreled assault, the equivalent of a two-against-one schoolyard fight, offers significant fodder to both perpetuate the story and balance out Obama's version of what he meant.

Third, Obama's comments play directly into an already-established narrative about his candidacy. Why did Hillary's Bosnian gaffe cut deep but McCain's Sunni/Shiite mix-up not seem to leave much more than a bruise? Because, fair or not, questions of honesty are the Achilles heel of the Clinton brand while McCain is perceived as strong and knowing on national security. One fit into a framework and the other didn't.

And much ink has already been spilled on Obama's primary shortcomings and potential general election challenges with blue-collar white voters. For him to an offer an inartful explanation of that which informs these people’s lives and voting patterns only underlines his weakness with this constituency.

The Pennsylvania primary is a week from Tuesday.  This will be a week of mortal political combat.  Oh goody.

April 2008.      Permalink          

EARLY EVENING POSTINGS,  APRIL 12,  2008

Posted at 7:10 p.m. ET

RECOLLECTION

The Obama flap over his description of hard-pressed Pennsylvanians, now a major campaign issue, recalled something that occurred during the legendary 1960 campaign.  I was a student at the University of Chicago and a part-time intern for Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois.  Mr. Douglas had been a distinguished academic, held a Ph.D. from Columbia, and had been severely wounded at Okinawa.  He was highly respected, even among those who disagreed with him.

We were campaigning in central Illinois, and traveling through a mid-state community.  Being brilliant and all-knowing, I made a typical undergraduate comment about the kind of people who lived there.  Mr. Douglas turned to me and said, "Bill, let me give you a gentle word of advice.  Never underestimate the wisdom of a small town."

I shut my mouth, and absorbed what Paul Douglas had taught me.  I've remembered it all my life, for it's some of the best advice I've ever received.  If Paul Douglas were here today, I have no doubt that he'd be saying to Barack Obama, "Barack, never underestimate the wisdom of a small town."  Obama did underestimate it this last week, let his thoughts fly through his lips, and now he's in trouble.

April 12, 2008.      Permalink          

WHY OBAMA IS HURT

Mike Allen, at The Politico, has just written an excellent wrap-up piece on why Barack Obama has been damaged by this latest flap.  He writes:

The Obama campaign contends that coverage of the San Francisco remarks is overheated and distorted. One aide said that “any logical analysis” would make it obvious that the brouhaha will not “change the pledged delegate count” — the key to the Democratic presidential nomination.

In fact, this is a potential turning point for Obama’s campaign — an episode that could be even more damaging than the attention to remarks by his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, since this time the controversial words came out of his own mouth.

Allen then cites 12 reasons why Obama is damaged.  Just as a sample, here are the first two:

1. It lets Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) off the mat at a time when even some of her top supporters had begun to despair about her prospects. Clinton hit back hard on the campaign trail Saturday. And her campaign held a conference call where former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native, described Obama’s remarks as “condescending and disappointing” and “undercutting his message of hope.”

2. If you are going to say something that makes you sound like a clueless liberal, don’t say it in San Francisco. Obama’s views might have been received very differently if he had expressed them in public to Pennsylvania voters, saying he understood and could alleviate their frustrations.

Read the rest.  Well worth it.     

April 12, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POSTINGS,  APRIL 12, 2008

Posted at 2:08 p.m. ET

SALVAGE CREWS

The crews are out in force today, trying to repair the Obama campaign.  Crew chief is one Barack Obama, who finally threw in, if not the towel, then certainly the dainty washcloth. Well, maybe the handi-wipe you get at the Mobil station:

As his political opponents heap on scorn, Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged that he chose his words poorly when describing small-town Pennsylvanians at a fundraiser on Sunday. But he didn't back off the message he had sought to convey.

"I didn't say it as well as I should have," Obama conceded before a crowd in Muncie, Ind., this morning, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans prepared to hammer him for a second day.

The firestorm started when a recording surfaced yesterday of Obama speaking to a group of San Francisco donors about the electoral challenge he faced in Pennsylvania, where polls have shown him behind Clinton, but gaining ground.

To delightfully remind you of Obama's comment, this is what he said:

"In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long," he told the donors. "The jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

It's tough to get out from under that.  Tougher when you made the remarks before a group of San Francisco elitists, the red-meat symbol of everything those factory workers detest.  The Obama people are worried:

But Obama campaign officials worry more about the guns and religion references as ripe GOP fodder that could haunt their candidate if he wins the Democratic nomination. Essentially, Obama was describing Reagan Democrats, the ultimate general election swing voters.

The damage is done.  How much damage?  Depends on the way it's played by Clinton and McCain.  The issue here, of course, is not that some people are bitter.  Some are, and often for good reason.  The issue is Obama's seeming to talk down to working stiffs, to tell them they're interested in guns or religion only because of their economic frustrations.  That is not good.

Stand by.  The tracking polls won't pick up the impact of this flap until tomorrow or Monday.  Even if Obama is damaged, the question will be whether the damage will last until the Pennsylvania primary, a week from Tuesday.

Best line of the day on this?  It's from Mike Allen at The Politico: 

BOMBSHELL: The punditry has been saying Senator Obama appeared to have the nomination secure unless a political meteor were to hit the race. Ladies and gentlemen, out of the San Francisco sky ...  

While it's hard to think of Hillary Clinton denouncing elitism, after the revelation that she and Bill have made tens of millions since leaving the White House, Obama has given her the chance.

No political campaign is over until the votes are counted.  And even then, as we've learned in the Chicago past, there may be things to come.

Back later.

April 12, 2008.      Permalink          

SATURDAY:  APRIL 12,  2008

Posted at 7:12 a.m. ET

THE DATE

When I was much younger, everyone knew this date.  April 12th is the anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945.  World War II was in its final months.  Edward R. Murrow, the CBS reporter, would later begin a recollection of the president's death with these words:  "For those who loved him, and there were many, and for those who hated him, and there were many..."

I lived in a neighborhood where there was a picture of FDR in every home.  But on April 12, 1945, my father was traveling on a train in connection with his war work.  When a conductor came through to announce Mr. Roosevelt's death, some applauded.  My father told me how shocked he'd been that anyone could behave like that.   

It's hard for us today to imagine having a president who'd been elected four times, as Roosevelt was.  It's also hard for us to accept that we had real divisions in the country when he died, even though we were at war.  The way the press reports it, you'd think the split over Iraq now is unprecedented, something unique to George W. Bush, and caused by Bush himself.  Roosevelt had been elected to his final term just five months before his death.  His opponent, the bland Thomas E. Dewey, had received almost 47 percent of the vote, at a time when Allied armies were winning all over the world.  Division is the norm, not the exception.  We should never forget that fact as we listen to the siren song of candidates who promise to "restore" national unity.  A democracy unifies around great themes, but argues constantly over the details.

There's a story of a scene outside the White House on the day Roosevelt died.  A soldier was staring through the White House gates, and a reporter noticed that he was crying.  The reporter asked, "Did you know him?"  The soldier replied, "No, but he knew me."  I thought of that scene when reading the bizarre comments of Barack Obama - you know them by now - about the people of rural Pennsylvania.  None of those people can say about Senator Obama, "He knows me."  And that is a cause for sadness, for this man, who presents himself as a unifier, as a man above politics, is in fact one of the most divisive figures to come along in years, a man who doesn't understand his own country, and probably doesn't want to.

So remember Franklin D. Roosevelt, whether you liked his policies, or not.  At least he didn't spend his time ridiculing the feelings or values of the people he served.  Some 35 years after his death, another president, Ronald Reagan, also showed a needed respect for the American nation, its history, its institutions.  That is why he, like Roosevelt, is among the greats.

April 12, 2008.      Permalink          

THE OBAMA MESS

See how he spins.  See how he digs deeper.

Barack Obama is not only refusing to apologize for his outrageous claim that Pennsylvanians facing hard times turn to gun rights, immigrant bashing and resentment over gays to ease their frustrations, he's defending them.  But the defense is weak:

At a campaign stop last night in Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Obama addressed the San Francisco remarks, but repeated their essence and tried to turn the furor into a basis for criticizing the other two candidates' stances on economic issues.

"Look, they're frustrated. And for good reason. Because for the last 25 years, they've seen jobs shipped overseas, they've seen their economies collapse," Mr. Obama said.

"Of course they're bitter and of course they're frustrated. You would be too ... the same thing is happening all across the country," he said, noting that people then "don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody is going to help them. And so they end up voting on issues like guns ... on issues like gay marriage and they take refuge in their faith."

The Illinois senator then attempted to recast the issue, ridiculing the other campaigns' charges that he is out of touch, based on their stances on economics.

Stop digging, Barack.  The story goes on:

The Obama remarks and their apparent reduction of religious faith to economics bring another religion-related problem upon Mr. Obama, who has gone through weeks of criticism over his close ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., a firebrand pastor who married the Obamas but also has said that blacks should call on God to smite America and that the U.S. government invented AIDS as an anti-black genocide weapon.

The other campaigns were unimpressed, Mrs. Clinton already having said earlier in the day that bitterness was "not my experience" of Pennsylvania voters, who she said "are working hard every day for a better future, for themselves and their children."

Spokesman Phil Singer criticized Mr. Obama over the Indiana speech because "instead of apologizing for offending small-town America, Senator Obama chose to repeat and embrace the comments he made earlier this week."

He then picked up his boss' refrain: "Americans are tired of a president who looks down on them ... The Americans who live in small towns are optimistic, hardworking and resilient. They deserve a president who will respect them."

I wrote late yesterday that this could be a decisive moment in the campaign.  This is the moment we learn whether the Clinton team is presidential level, or not.  This is the moment to recall the comment attributed to Emerson, "When you strike at a king, you must kill him."  The Clinton camp must now go for the jugular. ( I mean this in the political sense, of course.)  Barack Obama has, with his own mouth, placed himself in a precarious, lonely position.  He has ridiculed a large segment of the American nation.  If Clinton lets this moment drop, or thinks her statements up to now are sufficient, she reveals herself as a glorified amateur.  If she seizes the moment to thrust, we might see a new political landscape.

April 12, 2008.      Permalink           

MR. CARTER TO TRAVEL

Former President Jimmy Carter, who enjoys a fine reputation in Norway, is about to go to the Middle East, where he will seek to undercut American foreign policy by sitting down with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.  At one time this would have been considered a disgrace, and a major scandal.  Times have changed.  The Chicago Tribune, however, gets it right in editorially denouncing the Carter adventure: 

Mashaal could play an important role in the current peace talks if Hamas would renounce violence, embrace previous agreements with Israel and recognize the Jewish state. It's a very low bar to clear with a profound return—a Palestinian state. But it's still too high for Hamas, a group that is sworn to destroy Israel.

Carter hasn't said publicly why he may be going. Maybe the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate is convinced he can turn Mashaal into a peacenik. He better talk fast: Hamas is undertaking the most significant military buildup in its history, according to recent reports.

And...

Or maybe Carter can't resist a public and obvious rebuke to the Bush administration's policy of isolating and weakening Hamas.

Mashaal and his cronies are overseeing the descent of Gaza into further violence, misery and hopelessness, all because they can't envision a Middle East where Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in peace.

Can a Nobel be revoked?

Good question.  Maybe a better one is, "Does the Nobel Peace Prize have any value?"

Condi Rice also weighs in on the Carter itinerary:

"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said at a press event with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Rice was responding to a question about Carter's plans but did not mention him by name.

"Hamas is a terrorist organization," she said, repeating the Bush administration's explanation for why it will not meet with members of the group.

Barack Obama has said he wouldn't meet with Hamas, but refused to condemn Carter for doing so.  Why do I think a President Obama would be meeting with Hamas as soon as the table could be ordered?

Be back later.  Following the Obama Pennsylvania flap closely.

April 12, 2008.      Permalink