THURSDAY,  MARCH 6,  2008

THE CLINTON STRATEGY

Patrick Healy, in The New York Times, gives us a good picture of Hillary Clinton's strategy in the months ahead.  Clearly, Pennsylvania, voting on April 22nd, is the Super Bowl.  The demographics there favor Clinton, and it's the largest remaining state.  The Clinton road map:

Advisers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today began plotting a ground game, advertising budgets and a confidence-brimming outreach strategy in hopes of both scoring a big victory in April’s Pennsylvania primary and accumulating enough superdelegates over time to even the nomination fight against Senator Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama, who had 11 straight primary and caucus victories in February, has enjoyed momentum lately in picking off superdelegates, the party leaders who have a vote in the nomination. Mrs. Clinton and her advisers now believe that with her victories in Texas and Ohio last night, she can convince superdelegates to stand with her after a Pennsylvania victory.

She also believes that a strong showing in Pennsylvania, which has 188 delegates at stake, could set up a powerful one-two punch two weeks later in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, which have a combined 218 delegates. Her team believes she has an especially good shot at winning Indiana, where the state’s influential Democratic senator, Evan Bayh, a former two-term governor, was one of Mrs. Clinton’s earliest supporters.

Clinton advisers acknowledged on Wednesday that the delegate arithmetic still has them at a disadvantage; Mr. Obama has 1,456.5 delegates to Mrs. Clinton’s 1,370, and the upcoming primaries will award delegates proportionally to both the winner and the loser. That will have the effect making each candidate inch toward the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination.

Senator Clinton is also hoping to get an extra boost by adding delegates to her column from Michigan and Florida, and her advisers today have been discussing ways to deal with the conundrum in those states.

The Democratic Party stripped the two states of their delegates after they moved up their primaries to January, but Mrs. Clinton remained on the ballot in both - as Mr. Obama did in Florida. She won in both Florida and Michigan and is now seeking to have the delegates counted.

That sounds about right.  But so much can change between now and April 22nd, in the country and in the world.  Also, something ugly can come out about a candidate.  Since all of Hillary's ugliness is pretty much known, look for serious attempts to probe deeply into Obama's past.  After all, Hillary's people discovered a kindergarten essay by Obama late last year.  It is my understanding that there were strange things in nursery school.

THE WARMTH OF INCLUSIVENESS

As The New York Sun reports, the issue of those Florida and Michigan delegates is now a major Democratic focus:

Democrats are now giving the first serious consideration to conducting re-votes in Florida and Michigan, after Senator Clinton's wins over Senator Obama Tuesday signaled that the nominating fight could be unsettled until Puerto Rico's June primary or perhaps all the way through to the Democratic convention in Denver in August.

The governors of Florida and Michigan issued calls yesterday for the Democrats to make some accommodation that would lift the lockout the party imposed after those states moved their primaries to dates earlier than permitted under party rules. Mrs. Clinton won both states, though there was no campaigning there and Mr. Obama took his name off of the Michigan ballot.

Last night, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, said he welcomed the effort to bring the two states back into the process, but added that the notion of seating delegates based on the out-of-compliance primaries was a nonstarter.

It's inconceivable that any national convention, but especially one where the competing candidates are so close in delegates, would exclude two of our largest states.  But both Florida and Michigan are widely considered Clinton country, so the Obamans may suddenly discover, not the warmth of inclusiveness, but the haunting beauty of exclusion.  Yes they can!

THE SUPERS LIVE, AND SCHEME

Apparently, some superdelegates are now taking their role very seriously, and to a new level.  In a way, they're taking a page from the cigar-chomping pols of old, saying, "Want my vote, offer me a deal."  And why not?  They're supposed to think independently.  Some are getting creative, and tough:

Flexing their new power to determine the Democratic presidential nomination, a bloc of Ohio superdelegates is withholding endorsements from Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton until one or the other offers a concrete proposal to protect American jobs, two Ohio Democrats told Politico Wednesday.

The apparent deal among Ohioans is the first evidence of superdelegates’ banding together and seeking concessions from the presidential candidates in return for votes at the convention. It’s a practice that could become more common after Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday put her back on solid footing in her race against Obama and ensured that the battle for superdelegates will continue for many weeks to come.

McCain must be loving it.  He can now run against "the dealmakers and back-room shakedown artists who are returning the Democratic Party to the boss-run sleaze of the past."  (Hey, that was pretty good.)  The more deals made, the worse the party looks.  This can drag on into the summer. 

I wonder which superdelegates will get a Lexus.

OBAMA - A GERMAN VIEW

Once again, some of the best reporting on our election process is being done by foreign journalists.  Here, Germany's Spiegel Online examines what it clearly believes is the bursting of the Obama bubble:

The question now is: Will the extraordinary love affair between the young Senator from Chicago and the Democratic voters last? Or was the spell broken on Tuesday night? Will the voters turn back to her? Or will his charm offensive once again display its power?

In love, the first sight is followed by a second. The voters are not gamblers. Perhaps Tuesday's results are already a sign of their disillusionment following the new, less flattering light that has been shone on Barack Obama in recent days.

The article then ticks off the beams of that less flattering light.  And the conclusion:

Of course, love is always a question of the time of day and the lighting. And there is much to suggest that the love story between Obama and Democratic voters will not continue as romantically as it has up until now. The media has begun to take an interest in what the Chicago Sun dubs the "Teflon Obama." Hillary Clinton will also no doubt help them cast the klieg lights in order to best expose that side of Obama.

And the voters? They may continue to love their hero dearly -- or they may speedily return to her. Because many love-crazed affairs end, repentantly, where they started -- at home. Madonna sings: "Didn't know how lost I was."

Well, the writing is a bit overdone, but I think the thought is spot on.

BEEN TO THE PUMP LATELY?

Incredibly, this is getting almost no attention because it's being blotted out by our election campaign.  But tensions with OPEC are rising, and OPEC is showing no intention of cooperating with the United States:

OPEC on Wednesday rebuffed calls from President Bush to increase oil output, instead citing “mismanagement” of the American economy as a major factor driving prices up.

Record prices are suddenly creating the sharpest tensions in years between the oil cartel and the United States, the world’s largest oil consumer. Two days after the president called for more oil on the global market, OPEC members, meeting in Vienna, chose to leave their production levels unchanged, declaring that the market has plenty of oil already.

The cartel’s president blamed financial speculators and American economic problems, which have helped lower the value of the dollar, for the high oil prices. After the meeting, oil prices settled above $104 a barrel, a record.

President Bush, who said this week that it would be a mistake for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries not to raise production, was disappointed by the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting, according to the White House.

The cost of gasoline at the pump could become a major issue in this year's campaign.   It seems incredible that, more than a generation after the oil shocks of the early seventies, this country still does not have a coherent energy policy.

The only real answer to OPEC and its increased arrogance is the development of alternative energy, including nuclear power.  If only we can get some of those screaming kids around Obama to start chanting, "Nukes, nukes, glow in the dark, yes we can!"  That's the kind of change I can believe in. 

But even with the soaring price of oil, there's little sense of urgency.  The only thing that creates real panic among Americans is a cutoff of supplies, not a rise in the price.

This deserves a lot more attention than it's getting.  We're in for a jolt.

HOW COULD YOU, HARVARD, HOW COULD YOU?

Finally, a despicable disgrace.  Is there anything more important than climate change and the fact that the Earth, because of BUSH, is going to melt within the next 48 hours?  Anything?  Well, comrades, it's apparently not important enough for the Boston and Cambridge elite to act responsibly at an environment conference.  The Harvard Crimson reports on an embarrassment so great that, well, just read:

University President Drew G. Faust Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino called for action against climate change at a conference on the environment yesterday, saying that institutions of higher education must collaborate with cities in order to chart a sustainable future.

The event, a conference on green cities held at the Boston Public Library, drew scores of academics, policy makers, and green-design practitioners.

“Sustainability and climate change are two of the most challenging issues of our time,” Faust said in her opening remarks. “We cannot underestimate the significance of the partnership between cities and universities.”

Oh, right.  Sounds sincere, doesn't she?  Then get this, and prepare to be outraged:

Despite the often self-laudatory nature of the event, Faust acknowledged the need “to continue to do better.”

Indeed, the evidence at the scene testified to that sentiment—the event’s venue had only paper recycling bins, and as a result, over 100 unused plastic cups from the reception preceding the conference were thrown away.

Are you believing that?  And you thought Iraq was important?  Or 9-11?  A hundred plastic cups are thrown away, and no one is asked to resign.  Is it any wonder our kids are disillusioned?  Is it any wonder they follow around a young senator?

And that's Harvard.  Imagine what happens at Duke.  If a hundred plastic cups were thrown away, they'd arrest the lacrosse team.

I'm too shaken to go on.

But, recovered, I'll be back later.

Posted on March 6, 2008.