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And speaking of Michael Kinsley...
I have lost count of how many people have sent me or urged me to read his column on the New York Times and John McCain. As others have remarked, it is a classic--and a Kinsley classic is an awesome thing.
To be absolutely clear: the Times itself was not suggesting that there had been an affair, or even that there had been the appearance of an affair. The Times was reporting that there was a time eight years ago when some people felt there might be the appearance of an affair, although others, apparently including Sen. McCain himself, apparently felt that there was no such appearance.
Similarly, I am not accusing the New York Times of screwing up again by publishing an insufficiently sourced article then defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn't trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply. I am merely reporting that some people worry that other people might be concerned that the New York Times has created the appearance of screwing up once again.
The article's final two paragraphs are a triumph. I won't clip them because you have to read the whole piece, if you haven't already, to appreciate the full majesty of this crescendo. Because Mike is a writer on politics who is both extremely clever and extremely funny--a gift granted to very few (who else could one point to, apart from the unserious, and much less prolific, P.J. O'Rourke?)--he upsets some of the competition and has his detractors. Well, critics of Kinsley, read this column and weep.
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My evening (or was it afternoon?) with William F. Buckley
I met the great man only once, and it was an odd experience. Michael Kinsley roped me into appearing in a "Firing Line Debate", which he, Kinsley, was chairing; presumably I was being asked because somebody else had dropped out. I was to speak on Buckley's team in favor of the proposition that the budget deficit was a bad thing, or words to that effect. This was back in 1992. In those days a lot of conservatives thought that big deficits were wrong, whereas most liberals thought they mattered not at all and that concern about them was just a ruse for cutting public spending and grinding the faces of the poor.
I had never watched "Firing Line" and I knew Buckley only by his writings and reputation; an innocent foreigner, I did not realise that the debate was essentially just a platform for him to perform. Mike, I recall, kept everybody else to a strict time limit--cutting me off in mid-sentence--in order to give Buckley all the time in the world to orate, with operatic pauses that seemed longer than my entire contribution. At one point, I recall, he read at some length from a sarcastic review I had written of a book by Robert Kuttner, one of our opponents, asking Kuttner exuberantly in conclusion: "What do you think accounts for such animadversion?" What a strange approach, I remember thinking. And surely not terribly effective: Kuttner was entitled to reply, "Why should that be any concern of mine? Ask Crook why he got my book so wrong."
Did we--well, Buckley, I mean--win? Was the motion even put to a vote? I can't remember. It turns out there's an archive of these programs, but this one, unaccountably, is not available for download or purchase. (The synopsis quotes me, I am surprised to see. But did I really say that?)
I came away liking Buckley very much, but resolving not to take part in any more of his debates, for or against. He seemed a charming as well as brilliant man, with a constant twinkle in his eye. National Review says he was "sweet and merry". The one time I met him, so he was.
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The Cleveland debate
Clinton and Obama both did well. I wouldn't say there was a clear winner, or that anything in the debate was likely to change anybody's mind--despite good probing questions from Russert and Williams. Hillary came across as the more forceful and dominating of the two, as usual, and Obama the more flexible and reflective. They engaged with no issues of substance that have not already been flogged to death, as far as I could see.
I did think Obama was a little tepid in his denunciation of Farrakhan (and he ignored the part of the question that dealt with his own pastor's praise of the man; I would have liked to hear him say something about that). But then I think Hillary neutralised her own slight advantage by making a bit too much of it, in a way that seemed forced. Overall, both mainly just underlined their previous messages. Her line: she is a fighter and he is not. His line: she is a fighter apt to lose, and there is a better way to get things done. (Both cite health reform to prove their points.)
They were both more bitterly opposed to NAFTA than ever. Now they are threatening to tear up the agreement altogether unless it is renegotiated in ways that suit the US. I wonder what Mexico and Canada think about that. So much for the new spirit of multilateralism that will help repair the country's standing in the world. The prospects for liberal trade look bleaker by the week.
The polls seem to be moving Obama's way in Texas and Ohio. I can't see this debate changing that, but who knows?
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The Democratic debate
Interesting. Until the last question, I was getting ready to say that this was the first debate that Obama had won outright.
The format, allowing for longer answers than usual, suited him well. He was relaxed and assured. And some of the questions (especially the ones from John King, I thought) were more probing than average, inviting the kind of considered response that plays to Obama's strength. He did well on the "commander-in-chief" question, too. Oddly, Hillary ignored that one to begin with, preferring to hammer away (with diminishing effect, I thought) on health mandates. When the national-security question was put again, she was not strong, settling for a quick tour of recent events--Cuba, Kosovo, Pakistan--as if to show she reads the foreign-news pages, glancing off lots of specifics but saying nothing about them. Obama answered the question in a broader way, as he does, but this time seemed firmer and more authoritative--"I would not be running for president if I thought I wasn't ready to be commander-in-chief".
And I also thought Hillary made a terrible error over the Obama-is-a-plagiarist nonsense. When asked about this accusation, a patently unsuccessful stratagem, instead of walking way from it, she dug herself deeper in, and even used a canned line about Obama's standing not for "change you can believe in" but "change you can xerox". Amazing. (I had to ask my wife if I had heard that correctly.) Hillary's supporters were embarrassed into silence; somebody booed. Obama swatted it away as the kind of stupid politics he is opposed to: case closed. For Hillary to make that mistake in the heat of the moment would have been bad enough. To rehearse it beforehand, as she evidently had, is simply inexplicable.
That was a bad moment, all right, but overall, you understand, she was doing pretty well. We know she is a great debater. It's just that Obama seeemed to be coming over unusually well in a setting he has often found discomfiting. And so, as I say, I had him as winner on points...until that last question.
"I'm wondering if both of you will describe what was the moment that tested you the most, that moment of crisis."
Obama's answer was only OK. He spoke about his life's "trajectory"--which, who could deny, has been pretty impressive. But Hillary's answer was superb. Also rehearsed, no doubt--but this time to magical effect. After alluding with a laugh to the fact that "everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life," she said that her problems didn't really amount to much. She described a recent visit to a hospital where she had met injured soldiers.
And I remember sitting up there and watching them come in. Those who could walk were walking. Those who had lost limbs were trying with great courage to get themselves in without the help of others. Some were in wheelchairs and some were on gurneys. And the speaker representing these wounded warriors had had most of his face disfigured by the results of fire from a roadside bomb.
You know, the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country.
And I resolved at a very young age that I'd been blessed and that I was called by my faith and by my upbringing to do what I could to give others the same opportunities and blessings that I took for granted.
That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what motivates me in this campaign.
Reading the words, it looks false. But delivering them, she was subdued, and seemed moved--as who would not be--and it came over as genuine. A brilliant, self-effacing answer: What are my moments of stress, compared with those facing so many ordinary Americans? What indeed. The stupid pettiness of the plagiarism charge, the strident bossiness of her prating on health care, so characteristically Clintonian, faded out. She stole it at the end, and the closing standing ovation was at least two-thirds for her.
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The Wisconsin effect
Obama won big. Last week I pointed to an interesting article by Jay Cost which argued against the idea that Obama had already built unstoppable momentum, and showed that demographics could account for his recent run of successes, leaving Texas and Ohio as likely wins for Hillary. Jay's update on Wisconsin is worth reading. If it is right, the news is bad for Hillary.
Hillary Clinton suffered a stinging blow last night, losing Wisconsin by 15 points. What is worrisome for her is that Obama seems to have broken into several of her core voting groups. This is the first real evidence of momentum we have seen on the Democratic side.
After the Potomac Primary last week, some argued that Obama had already begun to build momentum because of his large victories in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. I thought this talk was hasty. Given the large number of African American voters in each contest, and given that white voters in all three primaries were quite wealthy - Obama's sizeable victories did not come as a surprise. In particular, 39% of all Maryland Democrats and 39% of all Virginia Democrats claimed to make $100,000 or more per year. So, it is hard to argue that Obama's success among whites was due to him peeling off portions of the Clinton coalition. What seems more likely is that he won handily because his best voting blocs were in good supply that day.
The same cannot be said for Wisconsin. Just 20% of Wisconsin Democratic voters claimed to make $100,000 or more per year. So, there is strong evidence that, at least last night, Obama expanded his voting coalition. Consider the following chart, which uses the exit polls to review Obama's margin of victory with key groups in the non-southern states in comparison to his performance with those same groups in Wisconsin last night.
So, for instance, Obama won white males in the non-South by 8 points prior to the Potomac Primary. Last night, he won them by 26 points, yielding a net increase of 18 points.
March 4th could settle it.
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It depends what you mean by "pledged"
I should have known this but I confess I didn't:
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.
This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.
What? Isn’t that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right?
Wrong...
The notion that pledged delegates must vote for a certain candidate is, according to the Democratic National Committee, a “myth.”
“Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot,” a recent DNC memo states. “A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required.”
Since you can be "pledged" without being "bound", this surely raises the question whether you can be "bound" without being "required", or vice versa, or indeed whether you can be "required" without being "actually required", or "bound, in fact". Fortunately the party has a few lawyers on hand, so I'm sure the correct result will emerge in the end...but am I alone in thinking that this system leaves something to be desired?
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More on economic patriotism
Something I should have mentioned in my previous post on Obama's "Patriot Employers" plan is the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that the arrangements he's proposing are at odds with US treaty obligations under the WTO. Of course I understand that this only makes the idea even more attractive to hardline anti-trade types, Democrat and Republican alike. But I keep being told that one of the reasons for supporting Obama is that he would improve and even transform relations with America's friends abroad. If he hopes to do that, picking an immediate fight over existing trade agreements might not be the best way to start. (I thank a European diplomat who would doubtless prefer to remain nameless for drawing this to my attention.)
International legality aside, why is the idea such a bad one? The plan appears to have two parts: cut taxes for companies that meet some tests of good behavior, and (to make good the revenue shortfall) raise the tax that US-based companies have to pay on profits earned abroad. The first is the kind of leaden-handed intervention that I had hoped Obama would avoid. The second reprises a discredited idea of John Kerry from 2004.
Let me refresh your memory about that earlier debate. At the moment, foreign investments by US-based companies are usually taxed at a lower rate than would apply to profits earned at home. Why? Because America's corporate tax rates are higher than the rates typically levied by other countries. Making the US-based company pay the full US domestic rate (ie, the foreign tax, plus a margin to make up the difference) on overseas profits would, it is true, eliminate the tax incentive to invest those profits abroad. But it would also encourage US-based companies to divest their foreign activities outright, and it would put US companies that did continue to operate abroad at a significant disadvantage to their foreign competitors. Realistically, tax avoidance is only one factor, and usually not the main one, in investment decisions of this kind, so the effect of this change on jobs and wages might not be great either way--but I'd guess it more likely to be negative than positive.
Here is a good analysis of the Kerry proposal by Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. On the broader issue of outsourcing--what to do about it, and how much of a probelm it is in the first place--I recommend this paper by Greg Mankiw and Phillip Swagel.
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Obama's Economic Patriot Act
Avidly seeking the blue-collar vote--in Wisconsin today and Texas and Ohio on March 4th--Obama continues to pump up the anti-trade populism, and to tack even further to the left. Ed Luce reports in the FT:
Barack Obama on Monday made an aggressive pitch at Ohio’s blue-collar workers by proposing a “Patriot Employers” plan that would lower corporate taxes for companies that did not ship jobs overseas.
The proposal, which came two weeks before the critical Ohio primary and just before on Tuesday’s nominating contest in Wisconsin, is the most radical any presidential candidate has put forward so far to mitigate the perceived effects of globalisation on US manufacturing...
Mr Obama’s plan would lower the corporate tax rate for companies that met criteria including maintaining their headquarters in the US, maintaining or increasing their US workforce relative to their overseas workforce, holding a neutral position in union drives among their employees and providing decent healthcare.
Yes, it is radical--and, on its economic merits, remarkably stupid. Are we even intended to take this seriously? "Holding a neutral position in union drives," for heaven's sake? That becomes a criterion for setting the corporate tax rate? "Providing decent health care," whatever "decent" means? (I thought he had a plan for reforming healthcare; is this nonsense now part of it?) Hillary is making new populist thrusts as well, but nothing, so far as I know, as barking as this. It would take a lot to persuade me that Obama is the wrong choice for Democratic nominee, but if he keeps this up he might do it. And surely it is all an unforced error; Ed Luce again:
Mr Obama’s plan met instant scepticism from otherwise sympathetic Democratic economists who said it would require a large regulatory apparatus to put into practice. They also said that companies could “game the system” by spinning off overseas subsidiaries in order to reduce the offshore-onshore workforce ratio.
They questioned whether it was necessary to provide incentives for employers to provide health insurance since Mr Obama’s healthcare plan would already mandate them to do so. Finally, Mr Obama has already tied up the estimated $10bn (€6.8bn, £5.1bn) in revenues that would be saved from abolishing tax incentives for multinational companies that retain their profits overseas.
“I would say that this plan is borderline unimplementable,” said a Democratic economist in Washington. “It is also puzzling. Normally presidential candidates only come up with plans that are unrealistic when they are losing. But Obama is now the favourite.”
Earlier my friend Jonathan Rauch directed me to this article by Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. It argues that Obama is more suspicious of heavy-handed economic intervention than Hillary.
In her campaign, she presents herself as an experienced hand with a penchant for practical solutions, suggesting that her opponent, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, dispenses nothing but vaporous oratory detached from the real world. When it comes to the mortgage meltdown, though, her policy rests on the assumption that upon arriving in the Oval Office, she'll open the closet and find a magic wand. Obama, by contrast, acknowledges the bitter truth that when government regulators clamber into a carriage, it can easily turn into a pumpkin.
Their approaches to the problem are not an aberration but a symptom of a larger difference. Obama is not a staunch free marketeer, but he grasps the value of markets and shows some deference to economic laws. Clinton, however, tends to treat both as piddly obstacles to her grand ambitions.
As I read the article, I was mostly nodding in agreement. But Obama's evolving views on corporate patriotism have got me wondering. Can a man who "grasps the value of markets and shows some deference to economic laws" really think this new proposal, political expediency aside, is a good idea?
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Style and substance and Obama
In my column today for the Financial Times, I respond to the unsettling suggestion (to me, anyway) that Barack Obama could turn out to be the Tony Blair of American politics:
With eight wins out of eight in the most recent contests and another expected on Tuesday in Wisconsin, Barack Obama is for the first time the clear favourite to win the Democratic nomination. His support continues to broaden: beyond the affluent, who liked him from the outset; beyond blacks, who switched wholesale from Hillary Clinton starting in South Carolina; lately even to the white working class and Latinos.
Those are the constituencies that Mrs Clinton is relying on to win the crucial primaries in populous Texas and Ohio on March 4. As that showdown approaches, contrary to Mrs Clinton’s claim to be the better manager, Mr Obama is running a more effective campaign, with more and better organisers in the right places and more and better advertising at the right times. The Clintons thought it would be all over by now: their planning beyond “Super Tuesday” was perfunctory and they are short of money. It is too soon to count Mrs Clinton out. She is nothing if not tenacious. But for the moment, she and her team are scrambling.
As I argued last week, this is good news for the Democrats. Mr Obama is so much the better candidate that I find the party’s hesitation difficult to credit. But I made the case for Mr Obama in terms of vision, temperament and appeal to uncommitted voters, not policy – where his differences from Mrs Clinton are slight. A fair comment, lodged by many readers, is that, as president, he would be judged by results, not speeches. The greater his appeal at the start, the bigger the disillusionment to come. In a low blow, Tony Blair was mentioned. With that, I knew how Mrs Clinton felt as she watched the results come in from Virginia.
Unlike a British prime minister with a big parliamentary majority, a US president is not an elected dictator. When it comes to taxes and spending, Congress legislates – not the White House. The president is a shaper of opinion, a builder of consensus and a broker of agreement. Mr Obama, one may plausibly hope, has those skills. The question remains: to what end?
You can read the rest of the article here.
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A note on usage
May I digress? Yesterday, as I jogged along on the treadmill, I listened to Lou Dobbs (he helps the adrenaline, I find). He used the word "coronate"--as in, McCain wants the Republican party to coronate him. Whatever next, I thought? So now the great bloviator is making up his own words. Or perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. Anyway, I laughed and moved on--or not, you understand, since I was on a treadmill.
Just now I was reading Margaret Carlson on Bloomberg, and I saw this:
[Clinton's] Lazarus-like win [in New Hampshire] kept her from looking any further into why she lost so badly in Iowa. It put off any move to change her insular staff and validated her original strategy in which the primaries were a mere formality. Voters would coronate her partly because she had been first lady, because she was a Clinton, and because it was her turn after all she had been through.
Maybe I owe Lou an apology. Is this recognized American usage? Is there something wrong with "crown"--an objection, I mean, that does not apply to the idea of a coronation? The American Oxford Dictionary does not offer a definition of coronate; it helpfully (in its Mac version) asks whether I meant "coronet". But the Columbia Guide to Standard American Usage has anticipated Dobbspeak. It says:
A nonstandard back-formation from the noun coronation, perhaps coined first as a jocular nonce word. The Standard verb is to crown or to be crowned, and the usual idiom is to have a coronation.
Nonce? "Made up for one occasion and not likely to be encountered again." Deep waters. But let's not make a habit of coronate. If crown won't work, there's always anoint. "Smear or rub with oil, typically as part of a religious ceremony."
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McCain takes aim
To judge by his victory speech after the Potomac primaries, John McCain expects to be fighting Obama in November. Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.
To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.
A well crafted line, aimed precisely at Obama's weakest spot. Note that McCain does not disdain hope and inspiration: he celebrates them, yet still turns the line against Obama. I wonder if Obama is ready for the possibility that McCain will be harder to squash than Hillary.
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Obama resurgent
Obama's impressive sweep of the latest primaries and caucuses renews and strengthens the momentum he had in the days before Super Tuesday. His support seems to be be deepening and broadening; and Hillary's lead among women and lower-income households (two of her three most loyal constituencies: the third is Hispanics) seems to be wavering. But in case you're thinking that Hillary is finished--as I am inclined to--see this interesting corrective from Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics. Demographics rather than momentum can explain the new results, according to this analysis. The race might still go all the way to the convention.
And though he would say this, wouldn't he, Mark Penn, Hillary's chief strategist, thinks that she still has a path to the nomination.
Plainly Hillary needs to win, and win big, in delegate-laden Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Even if she succeeds there, her campaign will need to lean on the party's "superdelegates" (party officials and other grandees, whose votes are worth thousands of the ordinary kind) to support her. Would they be willing to do that, if she was behind both in the popular vote within the party and in the share of pledged delegates? If I were a superdelegate, and even if I were convinced that Hillary was the better choice, I would not be willing: it is just too blatantly undemocratic.
And what about the delegates from Michigan and Florida, which the party disqualified when the states defied the ruling over the timing of their primaries? Both voted for Hillary, but nobody campaigned in either place and in Michigan Obama wasn't even on the ballot. Asked on CNN whether the Clinton campaign would call for some kind of rerun of those elections, one of Hillary's helpers blandly said that there was no need: those results were in, and it was just a question of un-disenfranchising the voters. If Hillary did get the nomination thanks to the party's uber-voters and to some kind of legal stunt involving Michigan and Florida, I would expect to hear fewer complaints from Democrats in future about Bush-Gore 2000. But I cannot see the Democratic party electorate standing for this--and, in any case, what would such squalid manoeuvrings do for the candidate's chances in the general election?
If Hillary's campaign collapses with defeat in Texas or Ohio, that will be the moment to concede gracefully. She could move on from this defeat with something of her reputation intact. I bet her truest friends are starting to wish for this outcome. But if those states leave her with a meaningful chance of the nomination--so long as she bends every rule and exerts every kind of pressure to get the result--we will find out just how much of her own reputation and her party's prospects she is prepared to stake on this venture.
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Why the Democrats must choose Obama
I dare say my preference for Obama over Hillary has been pretty obvious in a lot of my posts and articles, but I have tried up to now to maintain a disinterested altitude. Enough of that. In this new column for the Financial Times I come right out and say what I think of the choice that faces the Democrats.
The US is tired and discouraged these days. The country is right to seek a little inspiration, a lifting of the spirits, a sense of renewal. Mrs Clinton is the perfect antithesis of those things. She is commanding in debate; she knows her facts. But she is dreary and angry at the same time, which is no easy feat. She personifies partisan division. And, through her husband and her nostalgia for the 1990s, she is tied to the past. She is indeed the paradigm of business as usual, with the taint of dynastic succession thrown in. The Democrats would be wrong to make her their nominee, in my view, even in a field of unexceptional candidates – but this is not a field of unexceptional candidates. Make no mistake, Mr Obama is a once-in-a-generation possibility. Admittedly, in many ways he is too good to be true. Hopes of what he might achieve are running out of control. His followers say he is uniquely able to restore US standing in the world, partly by adopting a more conciliatory approach and partly (it seems) by being black. The sad truth is that on many issues US interests diverge from those of other nations. Any new president could improve relations with other governments; the current administration has set that bar into the floor. But if President Obama aimed first and foremost to advance US interests, as he would, then, regardless of how enlightened and encompassing his notion of US interests proved to be, overseas rapture at his election would quickly fade.
At home the disappointment might be worse. He is a liberal (the most liberal in the senate, according to National Journal’s annual assessment) yet running as a bipartisan moderate. If he were president, one of those tendencies would have to give way. And then there is the question of race. Black Americans were initially sceptical about the Obama candidacy: they backed Mrs Clinton in early polls. But now they have come around, and how. They have decided he is real; they think he can win; and they long for this affirmation of their standing in the nation. Gratifying that longing is one of the best reasons to nominate Mr Obama, but be under no illusion that he or any other president could fix the problems that have created and entrenched the black urban underclass. Soaring expectations would have to come to terms with (at the very best) grinding incremental progress. Again, the disillusionment might be bitter. All this is true, but secondary. What makes Mr Obama remarkable is that his message of hope, resonating so powerfully with black America, is cast to every American, regardless of colour, to Democrats and Republicans alike. This is surpassingly important: a man of outstanding intellect and magnetic personality, he is running on a one-nation platform, as though he merely happened to be black. And the best part is, the whole country is paying attention: polls say that he is more electable in November than Mrs Clinton. In a close election, he could make the difference.
Republicans, of course, are bound to dislike his liberalism – but what is there for Democrats to think about? Why are they even having this conversation? They have been waiting an awfully long time for a politician like Mr Obama. If, having come so close, they still manage to nominate Mrs Clinton, I think it is a choice they will regret for years and maybe decades.
You can read the whole column here.
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Who won?
Surging expectations made Obama's results on Super Tuesday seem a little disappointing, which is a measure of how far he's come. I'd be concerned about lost momentum--except for the money. My take from this morning's FT: As recently as the morning after his big win in the South Carolina primary of January 26, if you had offered Barack Obama the slew of victories he achieved on Super Tuesday he would surely have been delighted to accept. From that distance, winning the vote in 13 states to Hillary Clinton's eight would have looked like a great success.
But the count of delegates is what matters, and that will be closer. Indeed, thanks to Mrs Clinton's wins in big states such as New York, New Jersey and, especially, California, and thanks also to the complex rules Democrats use to apportion delegates, she will probably come out slightly ahead on that measure.
Even so, a week ago Mr Obama would have been thrilled with his performance. But on the eve of Super Tuesday, Mr Obama hoped to do even better. His poll numbers had surged; big endorsements were piling up; and the Clintons' aggressive campaign in South Carolina was getting a lot of criticism from other Democrats.
Nobody dared say it, but there seemed a chance he might sensationally win the whole contest and seize the nomination this week. California was crucial, but he lost there thanks to Mrs Clinton's strong support among women and Latinos.
The Clinton campaign breathed again, and Mr Obama had to steady himself to celebrate his wins and fight on.
You can read the rest of the column here.
I just looked at Intrade: Obama at 56.9. Feels about right. (He was a good buy on Tuesday night at 37 after all.)
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McCain pulls ahead; Clinton stops the rot
John McCain has scored impressive early successes, and is piling on the votes that matter with actual or projected wins in delegate-heavy New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Arizona, Oklahoma, Delaware and Connecticut. Mike Huckabee has done pretty well too, for somebody thought to be about to withdraw; he has wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and West Virginia (this last a clear case of tactical voting by McCain supporters). Partly because Huckabee has not collapsed, Mitt Romney is struggling. He has four wins so far. If he loses California and its haul of delegates to McCain--and with the polls just closed it seems to be going that way--it is hard to see how he stays in. On Intrade right now you can buy a Romney nomination for less than 5, down five during the course of the evening. McCain will cost you 90.
For the Democrats, it is all about managing expectations. It looks as though both sides are going to be able to claim success. Obama and Clinton are for the most part winning the states they expected to--with the edge to Clinton. She has won in Massachusetts: the polls consistently said she would, though the recent endorsements of the state's governor, Deval Patrick, and a clutch of Kennedys had given Obama hope. Her winning margin in New Jersey looks to be wider than expected too--at least, if one's expectations were based on the Obamania of the past several days. The polls have only just closed in California, but the signs are she is winning there too, thanks to strong support from Latino voters. Obama has done well across the South, and has won Connecticut (against the polls) and Delaware. Offered this a month ago, he would have accepted with gratitude. But a lot changed in that month.
To repeat, the delegate arithmetic for the Democrats is complicated, and way beyond me. Where that count will end up is anybody's guess. (Intrade prices Clinton at 63 right now, up 9 on the night; Obama is down 9 at 37. If if I were free to, I might still buy Obama at that price.) Regardless, at least for now, I'd say the Obama momentum has been checked.
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It depends what you mean by "win"
John McCain is hoping to sew the nomination up, and seems increasingly likely to do it. The Republicans rely on "winner takes all" for translating primary votes into delegates. This ought to speed the process. The polls show no sign yet of a Romney recovery.
The Democratic race is different, of course. It looks extremely close, and the party's rules apportion delegates using a formula that rewards votes cast, district by district, regardless of who wins the state-wide vote. The likely question for the Democrats is not who "wins"--barring an astonishing upset, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will triumph outright--but which of them leads going into the final lap. If Barack Obama emerges tomorrow even neck and neck with Hillary, that is a victory of sorts in itself. And the odds would tilt his way going forward, since the schedule for the remaining primaries levels out. The more time he spends with voters, the more they seem to like him: the Super Tuesday frenzy worked to his disadvantage. And money to support another spell of hard-fought campaigning for the nomination is not a problem for him: the cash continues to pour in.
In the past two or three days, many commentators have been extrapolating Obama's recent strong surge and, though mostly not daring to say it in print, guessing he would win big today. It could still happen--though Gallup's tracking poll suggests that Obama's national momentum might have peaked just too soon. Then again, it's votes in the states that count, and the state polls have been very unreliable up to now. California, for instance, is a crucial battle: one new poll there puts Obama well ahead; another says Clinton is leading.
The waiting is the hardest part...
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For once, it is all about electability
In a new column for the Financial Times, I look at what the presidential race on the eve of Super Tuesday tells us about what the parties' respective primary electorates appear to want--and, fortunately, it is not what they are usually said to want.
At first sight, the two races seem utterly unalike. The Democrats started with a clear front-runner who was challenged by an inspiring outsider and it became a close fight. The Republicans never had a front-runner – a nominee around whom their awkward coalition of conservatives, evangelicals and libertarians could unite – and alighted instead on a man pleasing to none of the above. Yet before you knew it, Mr McCain was winning, the polls swerved, Rudolph Giuliani was gone and endorsements from all parts of the party piled up, including from Mr Giuliani himself.
Mitt Romney is not finished yet – and he has bottomless pockets – but after Tuesday’s voting he might be. The Democrats face a greater chance than the Republicans of failing to settle on their nominee soon, and of watching their intra-party battle drag on damagingly for months. Who would have bet on that?
These weirdly contrasting battles do have one thing in common, though, and it speaks well of the respective electorates of both parties. In both cases, the loudest, most insistent and least compromising voices – of the activists, the netroots, the talk-radio ranters, the militant “progressives”, the “movement conservatives” – have been, if not ignored, then at least subordinated to an off-stage cacophony.
What the primary voters of each party appear to want most is to see their side win. And so, despite the evident polarisation of US political debate, each party has been drawn to candidates capable of speaking to, and gathering support from, the centre. Why else Mr Obama’s strong showing? Why else the McCain surge? As a corollary, differences over policy have been downgraded and questions of character and electability have moved up.
You might ask, what is so surprising about this – or, for that matter, so admirable? Of course, both parties want to win, you might say; of course, both parties will court independents. And, while it may be inevitable, isn’t it nonetheless a pity if superficial considerations of electability are crowding out careful examination of policy?
I argue that it is both surprising and a good thing. You can read the whole column here.
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The coalition against fiscal stimulus
The country may be ready for a woman or a black man as president--but can it deal with something more radical? I mean cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. The reception of last week's fiscal stimulus agreement between the Bush administration and the House leadership makes you wonder whether America is ready for bipartisanship. Everybody says they want it. Finally we get some, and everybody hates it.
Harvard professor and economics blogger Greg Mankiw recently posted a set of links under the heading, "The Coalition Against Fiscal Stimulus": 14 commentaries [latest count: 19] attacking the new plan. That is not counting Mankiw's own posts questioning the need for action, or pieces opposed to this fiscal stimulus, although not to fiscal stimulus in general. The New York Times's Paul Krugman, no part of Mankiw's coalition, attacked the plan as a cop-out. With critics right and left and up and down, the new spirit of cooperation looked exhausted within days.
You can read the rest of this column for National Journal here (the link expires in a week).
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