The first article in this series described how some of the most astute political observers were “blindsided by Hope” and Barack Obama’s historic victory, convinced America would continue to be ruled by Freak Show politics.Eleven organizational principles guided Obama’s campaign for the nomination, which relied heavily on grass roots and community organizing tactics.The successful “early states” strategy provided enough momentum to carry Obama over the finish line, a race he won by the only measure that counted: delegates.
This article offers a candid assessment of the campaign’s challenges as Obama goes from being a candidate to the nominee.Obama will adapt his management approach to the general election campaign, internalizing electoral strategy as an important part of the corporate culture.The internal challenge is melding a grass roots movement with the Democratic Party establishment and limiting expenditures on paid political ads and services.The external challenge is to avoid inevitable distractions and stay on message. Obama can reassure voters it is "safe" to vote for him by convincing them he can best promote their enlightened self-interest and through his selection of a running mate and naming a shadow cabinet. The result could be an historic and major pendulum swing in American politics.
Part II continues below the fold.
No sign of Obama hinted some sensed in 2004 that Obama would make history. But few expected it would be so soon.
Party leaders will be making a statement tomorrow morning to end the process. Will they recognize Obama as the presumptive nominee?
In the absence of a concession speech from Sen. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, top figures in the Democratic Party are set to go public, urging all uncommitted officials to declare their presidential affiliations.
Sources have confirmed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, and an official with the Democratic Governors Association are planning to release a public statement on Wednesday morning requesting that the party close its ranks and prepare for the race against Sen. John McCain.
Today the Democratic party will be holding the final primaries of the 2008 presidential campaign season. Our goal should not only be one nominee going forward, but one party.
That's why I hope you'll make a contribution today to support the Democratic National Committee, no matter what the results today, and make a statement for unity. Help support the grassroots network of organizers that Howard Dean and the DNC have built in all fifty states! And show your support for the difficult compromises the Rules and Bylaws Committee made last weekend.
The Clinton campaign has repeatedly fallen back on criticizing the process after every loss --- challenging the right of students to caucus in college towns when they realized they would turn out in large numbers for Obama; challenging the Nevada Democratic party's right to set up worksite caucus locations for casino workers otherwise disenfranchised once their union endorsed Obama; challenging the entire caucus process once they had repeatedly been out-organized and defeated by large margins.
At no point in 2007 did Hillary Clinton critique the caucus format, nor did she challenge the Rules and Bylaws Committee's initial decision to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates. These decisions were made only later, only after they became necessary to keep her chances alive.
The most dangerous moments at Saturday's RBC hearing were when Harold Ikes repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the process, arguing that although the Clintons might lose, the party process was fundamentally unjust and an Obama nomination illegitimate.
And these ideas filter down to Clinton's supporters. According to Newsday:
And many of her supporters are vowing to fight on despite the odds. Some have circulated a 17-page critique of the party's primary rules prepared by Clinton supporter Stephen Herbits.
It's titled: "The 2008 DNC Presidential Nomination Process: A Crisis Of Legitimacy."
This group is not connected to the campaign, but they are pursuing the campaign's logic to its natural end and accepting the campaign's rhetoric.
I've never ceased to be amazed at the ultimate insiders on the Clinton campaign --- people like former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe or Harold Ickes --- express shock (shock!) at the way elections are conducted around here. They could have been voices for reform during any time in the last two decades that they dominated the DNC.
Hillary Clinton personally has made arguments comparing the DNC's initial decision not to seat Florida and Michigan delegations --- a decision she herself explicitly agreed with and which her surrogates on the RBC (Ickes included) voted for --- to Zimbabwe's corrupt government, to apartheid, and to the civil rights movement.
The Clinton campaign has spared absolutely no fire when turning not only on Obama but on the Democratic party. In Nevada, they tacitly supported a lawsuit against the state Democratic party to close caucus locations where Obama supporters might caucus. On Saturday, as the DNC tried to work out a compromise to meet both campaigns halfway, Clinton surrogates repeatedly threw up their hands at the injustice of it all. Harold Ickes made open threats.
Continue your run for president, continue to try to sway superdelegates. Fine. And be a voice for changing the nomination process for 2012.
But don't try to change the rules after the fact. Don't challenge the Democratic party's nomination procedure as unjust and illegitimate after you've lost, or treat in bad faith the DNC's constant attempts to remain neutral, find compromises, and mediate between the two campaigns --- that's what will be so destructive to the party and will ultimately give Clinton supporters an excuse to sit out the election in November.
Hillary Clinton must eventually recognize that she lost --- fair and square. The future of the party depends on it.
Too much is at stake in this election. Another seat on the Supreme Court. The opportunity to finally end the war in Iraq. A historic opportunity of having a solid Democratic majority to pass a progressive agenda on health care and poverty. That's what this election is about, not Hillary Clinton.
CNN is reporting that "most" of the remaining seventeen undecided senators would endorse Obama "this week":
Sources familiar with discussions between Obama supporters and these senators tell CNN’s Gloria Borger that the senators will wait until after the South Dakota and Montana primaries to announce their support for Obama. [...]
[A]ccording to one source, “the senators don’t want to pound Hillary Clinton, and there is a sense she should be given a grace period.”
Unfortunately, this may mean that Obama might not have the chance to be lifted over the top by the final voting in South Dakota and Montana.
[UPDATE]Marc Ambinder hears that not only are these senators planning an endorsement, but a group --- Harkin, Salazar, Carper, and Cardin --- is meeting tonight at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. to plot the endorsement:
Sens. Salazar and Harkin [neither of whom have officially endorsed Obama yet] are spearheading an effort to persuade all 17 undeclared Senator superdelegates to endorse Sen. Barack Obama at the same time, possibly as early as tomorrow night, probably by late Wednesday.
Remember the heady days of 2007 when multiple candidates were announcing their runs for president... over and over and over again?
After all, why announce just once, when you can stage a series of ever more elaborate announcements, one after the other, milking every last bit of press coverage for all its worth?
McCain was particularly ham-fisted about it, announcing with a smirk in March that he would announce his run in April:
“This is the announcement preceding the formal announcement. You know you drag this out as long as you can. You don’t just have one rendition. You’ve got to do it over and over.”
Dan Balz kindly described the trend in the Washington Post of "multi-step announcement schedules to garner maximum attention for their bids."
But this kind of admittedly cheap stagecraft is hardly unique to this cycle. After nearly a year of campaigning in 2003, finding his campaign hitting a lull, John Kerry decided to start all over again with a new re-announcement in front of an aircraft carrier in Charleston harbor. It worked.
And why just have an "announcement" anyway? When you can have an "announcement tour"? It's about savoring every last drop of free media coverage.
Let's not forget this, as Obama makes victory address after victory address, first in Des Moines last week and tomorrow night in St. Paul, that the cable networks will be broadcasting them at full length, granting the kind of airtime money couldn't buy.
There were worried supporters this morning, wondering if Obama's St. Paul announcement would really be it this time, if enough superdelegates would announce to put him over the top. Let's use the victory lap for all its worth.
First, there have been conflicting rumors tonight about Clinton's plans for Tuesday, along with word that the Clinton campaign is starting to let go of staff. Via Ben Smith:
Members of Hillary Clinton's advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending...
The advance staffers -- most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana -- are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed -- at least -- some of its staff. The advance staff is responsible for arranging the candidate's events around the country.
With the future of her campaign in doubt, Clinton hasn't announced her plans for the final election night of the primary cycle or beyond, but the aides said she would stage her election night event in New York City. Her entourage is currently expected to wake up Tuesday in New York and to arrive in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.
Some suspect that an event in New York is a signal she could be preparing to end her campaign for president. It's also possible, however, that Clinton is merely shedding some staff now that there will no longer be any primaries and hence less active campaigning. With the Clinton campaign already deeply in debt, she would need a leaner organization if she intended to survive until the convention.
Second, from the British newspaper Telegraph, there are rumors that Obama's staff is preparing a package for Clinton to convince her to leave the race. I don't attribute much value to rumors from the British press, since they rarely seem to be accurate, and they probably lack the inside sources their American counterparts have.
And please note that all of these anonymous sources are second-hand, twice-removed and twice-anonymous. "Colleagues" who heard from "senior figures." A "Democrat" who discussed strategy with "friends" in Obama's "inner circle."
But so the rumor goes, the Obama campaign, unwilling to nominate Clinton for vice-president, will instead put together a concession package.
Senior figures in the Obama camp have told Democrat colleagues that the offer to Mrs Clinton of a cabinet post as health secretary or to steer new legislation through the Senate will be a central element of their peace overtures to the New York senator. [...]
The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”
Another Democrat who has discussed strategy with friends in the Obama inner circle said that Mr Obama was openly considering asking Mrs Clinton to join his cabinet, alongside two other former presidential rivals: John Edwards, who is seen as a likely attorney general; and Joe Biden, who is a leading contender to become Secretary of State.
Mr Obama hinted at the plan last week. “One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was 'how can we get this country through this time of crisis?’ And I think that has to be the approach that one takes.”
I post these ideas less as reality and more as genuine possibilities worth pondering.
As I write this, Democrats are about 63 hours from concluding our primary season. The end is near. Barack Obama is the presumptive winner of the Democratic nomination for president, and this was never more evident than the remark he gave in South Dakota last night after the rules committee made its decision on seating the Florida and Michigan delegations to the convention.
"I think that Senator Clinton and former President Clinton love this country. They love the Democratic Party. I think they deeply believe that Democrats need to win in November. And so I trust that they’re going to do the right thing."
A friendly but firm invitation into the fold for the last challenger yet to concede. A sign of how the Obama campaign does business. And a sign that the Democratic Party has coalesced behind Obama and pressure now mounts on the Clintons to do the same.
Via DailyKos, during the closed lunch meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting today, Obama supporters realized they had the votes to pass their initial proposal to split Michigan 64-64, which would have essentially thrown out the results of the January 15th primary and simply evenly divided the delegates.
But the plan would have only passed the committee by a single vote. So they instead decided the support the Michigan State Democratic Party's 69-59 proposal to essentially split the difference between the Obama and Clinton plans, knowing that they would get a larger majority on the committee.
This is perhaps the reason we saw so many defections among Clinton supporters on the final committee vote, which Obama won 19-8.
The heckling of even Clinton supporters on the Rules and Bylaws Committee by audience members upset with the results is an embarrassement, but we now have a clear picture of how many delegates Obama needs to clinch the nomination. Not the best day in the history of the Democratic party, but the committee made the best of a bad situation.
Al Giordano does the math, makes a few conservative predictions about the results in Puerto Rico and on Tuesday, and offers that Obama now only needs 25 superdelegates. The Obama campaign almost certainly has that number of superdelegates willing to step in and end this. So after today, the end is finally in sight.
A few careless and destructive people might still be chanting "Denver," but few in the party will see the need for this to go on any longer after Tuesday --- and with their actions today, those protesters have only hastened the end.
Via the New Republic, a couple strong examples from Mark Mellman, who chides those who worry too much about the now mythical white, working-class voter:
[T]here is no relationship between how candidates perform among any particular group of voters in primaries and how they do with that segment in the general election.
In 1992, Bill Clinton lost college-educated voters to Paul Tsongas in the early competitive primaries, but he went on to win that group in November by the largest margin any Democrat ever had. Similarly, John Kerry lost young voters in the competitive primaries in 2004 before going on to win them by a record margin in the general election.
For that matter, given recent trends in youth voting, had Clinton been the nominee, she almost certainly would have won the youth vote by an even larger margin than Kerry, despite their strong support for Obama.
And in November, this will be most true of women --- although the length and bitterness and historic nature of the race may make this process more difficult. It is however well worth remembering that it's been Obama's success among women voters --- especially among young women --- that's put him over the top in crucialstates. [Note that in neither of the two states I link to, Iowa or Wisconsin, was Obama's margin supplied by minority women voters.]
And as has been said often the last couple weeks, the single-minded focus on white, working-class voters is an accident of timing in the primary process, given the string of Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Forgotten is the obsession with supposedly irreconcilable Latino voters, with whom Obama has already made up much ground.
Consistently insightful, unabashedly wonkish but clear and accessible, and although he often finds fault with Obama over policy, Ezra Klein of the American Prospect is probably my favorite progressive blogger.
He makes a strong point today that Obama's political instincts when it comes to foreign policy might be just as important as his actual concrete policy suggestions.
Traditionally, Democrats have avoided foreign policy debates, trying to shift the conversation back to domestic policy, afraid of looking weak by promoting international institutions. "Doves," Klein writes, "were no more comfortable forcefully advocating for their positions than they were advocating force." Republicans, on the other hand, aggressively pushed belligerence as a sign of strength, feeling comfortable that they were always on safe political ground.
Obama is offering a rare break from that tradition: He's a relative dove who is, if anything, more aggressive and confident in his opinions than the hawks. And he's bashing their heads in every time they attack him.
Tomasky uses Bush's loathsome comments to the Israeli Knesset as his example, but the exact same pattern manifested in the argument over negotiating with dictators.
Obama gets hits as weak on national security, and rather than issue a pro forma response and retreat to firmer ground, he keeps hitting back, keeps the issue alive, keeps releasing statements and ads and mailers.
This is, it should be said, Obama's style more generally -- he did the same thing on the gas tax.
Hillary Clinton, whatever you might say about her, favors the same tired political approach to foreign policy, staking out aggressive positions on issues like negotiations with dictators and the Iraq war resolution vote in 2002 --- instead of staking out progressive positions aggressively.
It's not hard to see that Obama's message better fits the current political climate.
Open Left has posted a new straw poll where you rank fifteen potential candidates for vice-president. Currently Richardson is carrying the poll, with Sebelius a close second. But stop by and vote. I'd be curious what your thoughts are.
I would guess that Tom Daschle is a dark horse candidate for the position. He isn't included on the poll.
There have been many straw polls in the blogosphere, but it's interesting to watch the results shift as more and more attention is focused on the question. It's especially interesting that Sebelius' support has surged recently.
The question of the week: What exactly it will take for Clinton leave the primary?
There's talk of potentially helping pay off the Clintons' some $20 million worth of debt from running a national political campaign they could not afford and with little prospect of success. Clinton would essentially be insisting Obama pay for months of negative advertisements run against him.
Then there's talk of promising to support a Clinton bid for Senate majority leader --- a position for which she isn't particularly qualified, having never served in the Senate leadership nor having served many years in the Senate. In my opinion, there are also simply better candidates, such as the affable and progressive Sen. Dick Durbin, currently the Majority Whip.
And anyway after months of Clinton following personal ambition and dividing the party, why would the party reward her with such a post? How does that demonstrate the qualities the post would require?
Most of this spectulation arises from the sheer inability of journalists to understand why Clinton persists in campaigning at all when she has no conceivable path left to the nomination --- they assume she must have some agenda, she must be working to cement her status as a power broker in the party. After all, the narrative goes, she can't still believe she can win, can she?
Like a poker player without any cards left in her hand but who still somehow expects to control the game, Clinton continues to try to stave off irrelevance by simply not leaving. Her bargaining power though only continues to dwindle.
And then there's the most beloved media invention of them: the Unity Ticket. There is an obvious appeal to simply joining forces, but leaving aside that Obama would be undermining his own brand by choosing a consummate insider like Clinton and that Clinton would be forced to walk back her many criticisms of Obama in recent months, there's been a lot of thoughtful criticism this week of the idea:
OK, so we know Kentucky is an uphill battle for Barack Obama. That doesn't mean the Obama campaign is writing off the state. Every delegate won puts Obama one step closer to the nomination, including whatever delegates the campaign can get in Kentucky. Below the fold, see the campaign's email to canvass and call Kentucky before May 20.
obama smiling during editorial meet of indianapolis star in indiana
Note: Next edition of This Week With Barack Obama, April 27-May 3, 2008 will be under the management of Al Rodgers, next Sunday, May 4, 2008. I am in Indiana from Friday through Wednesday, for the crucial Indiana Primary on Tuesday May 6, 2008. I will be working in NW Indiana between Gary, Valparaiso and South Bend. So, give Al the love you give me on this weekly. Peace.
Last night I posted a call to action after one of the most unfair and uninformative debates ever. It got a overwhelming response and tons of donations poured in. But we can't just do that for one night. We have primaries to win still and we need to keep the focus on action up. We still need to be taking action. Calling voters in PA. Traveling to PA for GOTV. Donating to the campaign so they have the resources to win. Doing whatever you can. And so I bring you the third day of Obama Action Week.
