EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 6,  2008

Posted at 7:30 p.m. ET

NEW SOURCE

I'm not familiar with columnist Patrick McIlheran of The Milwaukee Journal.  But he's written such a sharp piece about Barack Obama that I wanted our readers to be aware of it.  There's a bit of anger here, and maybe for good reason:

Senator Obama's victory speech this week, delivered in friendly Minnesota surroundings, was full of "we" and "us" and unity. As he woos the neighboring swing states, listen for him slipping in a different message: some use of "them" and their comeuppance.

And...

He'll have to do a little more convincing in Iowa, where for now he leads easily, in Wisconsin, where he leads less, or in Michigan or Ohio, where it's a toss-up.

Compared to Minnesota, all those states have more of the blue collars that Mr. Obama lost to Mrs. Clinton. In each, about a quarter of adults have college degrees; in Minnesota, a third do, more like New York.

It's true that Mr. Obama beat Mrs. Clinton throughout Iowa and Wisconsin. That was before he got caught talking about bitter middle-American rubes clinging to guns and religion, before his mentor damned America and before Mr. Obama said "we can't drive our SUVs" because the world objects.

Since then, on Tuesday, 4,000 people in Janesville, Wis., and Dayton, Ohio, learned that because Americans won't drive the SUVs their GM plants build, they'll be out of jobs.

And...

In St. Paul, he soared, implying that everything will improve. His implications bore little link to reality. He said he'd "rally the world" against nuclear weapons as if ex-weasels France and Germany already weren't aboard regarding Iran sanctions. He spoke of conservation as if there weren't an ongoing boom in hybrids.

But nuance was unwelcome. The St. Paul crowd of 32,000 wasn't there for details. "We were just in line to be in line. This is a historic moment," said one woman who didn't make it into the arena. The St. Paul speech was about letting supporters self-identify as part of history, part of "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow," as he put it. It was about feelings.

And...

By skipping details, he avoids the reality that, judging from his past 20 years, he seems to think what stinks are the kind of people to whom he's offering sympathy. Some supporters aren't so inhibited.

One St. Paul rally-goer, white, professional, 34, and from an upscale Minneapolis suburb, told a reporter how a black president would make America better for her biracial daughter: "When she's out in, God knows where, some small town in rural America, they'll think, 'Oh, I know someone like you. Our president is like you. ... That just opens minds."

Yes, he's a gift from progressives to hicks. Now on guard, Mr. Obama will try not to hint at this in the hinterland, and he'll deny any knowledge of long-time class-warrior Chicago friends.

Finally...

Listen for the tension though. To win the Clinton base in Midwestern swing states, Mr. Obama has to add a dour message to his hitherto sunny one. This is Mr. McCain's opportunity to show by contrast what real optimism looks like.

Well done.  The question is, how many journalists are there who will take on Obama like that?  When will the charge of racism envelop this columnist?  When will he be accused of being disruptive of "the dream," or a destroyer of "unity"?

It won't take long.

June 6, 2008.      Permalink          

LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE:  JUNE 6,  2008

Posted at 5:58 p.m. ET

THE START

The McCain campaign has launched a new group aimed at indies and Dems, according to The Politico:

The McCain campaign yesterday launched a new coalition meant to target independent and Democratic voters.

"Citizens for McCain" will be spearheaded by Joe Lieberman, and in an e-mail sent in the Connecticut senator's name, it's plain to see what they have in mind by launching the coalition now.

"The phones at the campaign headquarters have been ringing with disaffected Democrats calling to say they believe Sen. McCain has the experience, judgment and bipartisanship necessary to lead our country in these difficult times," Lieberman writes. "Many of these supporters are former supporters of Sen. Clinton."

In case you didn't catch that, Lieberman continues: "Sen. McCain has had a very good working relationship with Sen. Clinton and will continue to do so in the future." Lieberman then quotes in full McCain's generous homage to Clinton in his New Orleans speech Tuesday.

To drive the point home, McCain's campaign this morning issued statements from Charlie Crist, Tom Ridge and Mitt Romney separately addressed to residents of Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan, praising the new coalition.

Besides being key swing states that could ultimately decide the election, they are all states where Clinton defeated Obama (insert Michigan/Florida Dem primary caveat here).

It's a smart move.  It's also, in all probability, Joe Lieberman's swan song to the Democratic Party.  Lieberman holds a committee chairmanship in the Senate, and I can't imagine the Democrats allowing him to hold it after this November's election.  I would not be shocked if he became a Republican, or listed himself as an independent, rather than an independent Democrat.  Lieberman was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, which shows just how far the party has drifted.

Will this new group be effective?  It can be, especially among voters concerned with national security.  But it must understand fundamental rules of politics:  1) Never depend on voter anger over long periods.  It can fade, and people can return to their political roots; 2) The group of supporters can never be stronger than the candidate.  McCain has work to do in projecting a dynamic image, one that presents him as the candidate of effective reform, not just vaguely defined "change."

June 6, 2008.      Permalink           

EARLY AFTERNOON UPDATE:  JUNE 6, 2008

Posted at 12:01 p.m. ET

THE BUMP?

In the only new poll out today, Rasmussen reports that Obama has opened up a five-point lead over McCain.  Is this the result of Obama's spectacular speech Tuesday night, as compared with McCain's dreadful one?  I don't know, but it's a bit worrying.

June 6, 2008.      Permalink          

FRIDAY:  JUNE 6,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

BOLTON ON OBAMA

Obama has only been anointed for a few days, but the assault on him has already begun.  The great John Bolton raises the most serious questions about Obama's foreign policy ideas:

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.

Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.

And...

It is an article of faith for Obama, and many others on the left in the U.S. and abroad, that it is the United States that is mostly responsible for the world's ills. In 1984, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick labeled people with these views the "San Francisco Democrats," after the city where Walter Mondale was nominated for president.

Most famously, Kirkpatrick forever seared the San Francisco Democrats by saying that "they always blame America first" for the world's problems. In so doing, she turned the name of the pre-World War II isolationist America First movement into a stigma the Democratic Party has never shaken.

This is yet another piece of history that Obama has ignored or never learned. There may be one more piece of history worthy of attention: In 1984, Mondale went down to one of the worst electoral defeats in American political history. We will now see whether Obama follows that path as well.

Well said.  The problem, though, is that Walter Mondale had all the excitement of a dry sponge.  Barack Obama has the excitement of Barack Obama.  Rarely has such policy insanity come wrapped so well.  And the press raves about his speeches before they're even given.  That is why we have reason to be very worried about the future of this country.

June 6, 2008.      Permalink          

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Thus far, Obama has been able, with varying degrees of success, to separate himself from some of his more rabid supporters, the better to appear mainstream.  But the supporters won't shut up.  The candidate considered weak on defense is now being asked by two prominent left-wing groups to cut the defense budget drastically if he's elected.  Obama didn't need this.  It emphasizes his greatest vulnerability:

Two influential liberal groups have sent the presumptive Democratic nominee a letter pressing him to support cuts to defense programs to pay for universal preschool, relief for Americans facing foreclosure on their homes and expanded benefits for military veterans.

The demands carry weight because the groups, the Black Leadership Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), represent two constituencies that are important to Obama’s political strategy: blacks and Hispanics.

Their calls for defense cuts have drawn the support of leading House liberals, many of whom gave Obama crucial support early in his contest against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

And...

Liberal groups and lawmakers have targeted the Department of Defense’s largest acquisition program: the Joint Strike Fighter program, which will provide more than 2,000 aircraft to the Navy, Marines and Air Force.

The Black Leadership Forum and LULAC wrote that cutting the program “would free up $1 trillion in the federal budget.”

“America could fund years of universal healthcare at $120 [billion] a year; we could fund universal preschool with $35 billion.”

We could also wind up dead. 

June 6, 2008.      Permalink          

JUAN WILLIAMS ON OBAMA

Juan Williams, the African-American commentator, has done outstanding work during this campaign in examining Barack Obama.  Here, Williams suggests that Obama needs to deal once again with the minefield of race because the controversy over some of his strange associations, like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., will not go away:

Mr. Obama needs to give another speech. This time he has to admit to sins of using race for political expediency – by knowingly buying into divisive, mean messages being delivered from the pulpit. He has to say that, as a biracial young man with no community roots, attaching himself to Rev. Wright and the Trinity congregation was a shortcut to move up the ladder in the Chicago political scene. He has to call race-baiting what it is, whether it comes from a pulpit or calls itself progressive politics. And he has to challenge his supporters, especially his black base, to be honest about real problems at the heart of today's racial divide – including out-of-wedlock births, crime, drugs and a culture that devalues education while glorifying the gangster life.

Mr. Obama also has to raise the bar for how political criticism is handled in his camp. Step one is to acknowledge that not every critic is a racist. His very liberal record and his limited experience, like his association with Rev. Wright, is a fact, not the work of white racists. Just as he calls for the GOP not to engage in the politics of fear over terrorism, Mr. Obama needs to declare that he will refrain from playing the racial victim, because he understands such tactics will paralyze political debate and damage race relations.

Only by admitting to his own sins can Mr. Obama credibly claim that he has seen the promise of our country, in which Americans of all colors work together. Only then can he convince dubious white voters that he is ready to move beyond racial antagonism and be their president.

That is tough love defined.  And it's good advice for Barack Obama.  Whether Obama will take it is another story.  Whether he'll need it, if he builds up a large lead, is still another.  Much of this race will depend on the performance of John McCain.  If McCain blows it with weak, poorly delivered speeches, Obama won't have to do much of anything.  But if still more negative associations are linked to Obama, then he might be wise to pull out the Juan Williams playbook, and play.

June 6, 2008.      Permalink