Watching the primary results last week on MSNBC I was struck by one thing: how did someone as sensible as Rachel Maddow make it onto a cable news channel? Seriously, she was the only one willing to tell the boring truth that nothing has really changed in the last few months, Clinton and Obama haven't been engaged in some thrilling back-and-forth, and voters couldn't care less about the various ridiculous scandals surrounding Obama. I also enjoyed watching her run circles around Pat Buchanan and then openly laugh at him.

Anyway, as Michael Calderone notes, she told NPR's fantastic "On the Media" that she is gunning for a show of her own (the whole interview is great and makes clear that she's thought a lot about the problems of cable news). Give someone who's smart and knowledgeable a political talk show? Now there's a novel idea.

--Sam Boyd

Josh Marshall, perusing the latest WaPo/ABC News poll that shows both Dems beating McCain, notes that there might be a substantial "social undesirability bias" preventing poll respondents from expressing genuine apprehension about voting for black man for president. The poll found that "Only three in 10 said they were "entirely comfortable" with the prospect of a 72-year-old new president." Marshall:

But basically, many people won't say they'd be uncomfortable with a black president because they know they're not supposed to think like that, even if they do. On the contrary, there's no comparable social stigma associated with thinking that about someone past retirement age.

I think that's probably true (and true about sexism as well), but people wouldn't be voting for just a generic "black" or "woman" president, they'd be voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. The polls are an imperfect measurement of how prejudice works, not just because people don't always tell the truth, but because, even viewed through the lens of race and sex, who that person is and how they are perceived still matters a great deal. When we like someone, we see them as a person, but when we dislike someone, race becomes a fundamental element of that dislike. Last month Nicholas Kristof cited an interesting study on the topic:

For example, one experiment found it easy for whites to admire African-American doctors; they just mentally categorized them as “doctors” rather than as “blacks.” Meanwhile, whites categorize black doctors whom they dislike as “blacks.”

The question isn't really whether racism or sexism will be a problem for the nominee, as much as it is whether he or she can get voters to see him or her not as a "black person" or a "woman," but as Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. How they succeed at that will ultimately determine how important race or gender bias are. That's not right, and it's indicative of how powerful those forces remain in our society, but it's how it is.

No, Obama and Clinton won't carry the "hang that darky," or "iron my shirt" votes. But history suggests that intolerance can be circumvented by the talents of an exceptional person.

The real problem is that most of us aren't exceptional, and we shouldn't have to be.

--A. Serwer

Via Roy Edroso, Ross Douthat claims that "the GOP is now a working-class party." The linked article, as you might suspect, does little to actually substantiate the claim as it is riddled with obvious errors, such as ignoring the fact that donations need to be a minimum level to be reported, not accounting for the fact that Democrats have substantially more donations in total, etc. The key strategy, though, is to define "working class" by a series of arbitrarily chosen professions rather than by income, which is crucial. After all, when it comes to actual support at the ballot box Republican support consistently increases as income level does, and this has been the case since 1972.

Douthat anticipates the objection, saying that he's using "class defined by education and culture more than income, just to be clear; there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who make more money than teachers and journalists and academics." But while I can understand not wanting to reduce "class" solely to income, to count people with well-above-median incomes as "working class" is to distort the term beyond its usual meaning. Even more problematically, to define class by "culture" is just a straightforward tautology. I concede that if you define people with reactionary cultural views as "working class" this makes the GOP much more working class, but obviously this isn't a very useful definition.

I'll have more to see about Larry Bartels's fine new book later, but this also seems like a good time to mention his finding that people with high incomes are more likely to vote on cultural issues than people with lower incomes.

--Scott Lemieux

Here's what uber-Clinton loyalist James Carville (his book is even called Stickin': The Case for Loyalty) had to say about Hillary's chance at the nomination: "I still hear some dogs barking. I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee. As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check." (Via Taegan Goddard.)

--Dana Goldstein

There's a lot to chew on in this ABC/WaPo poll, but what's striking about the above graph (stolen from Brendan Nyhan) isn't just that 8 in 10 Americans currently think the country's on the wrong track, but that the periods where a majority of Americans felt the country was on the right track are few and far between. The only sustained period, in fact, was during the late 90s, presumably because of the economic boom. This chart doesn't go back this far, but I'm willing to bet the rest of the 1970s were just as bad, and the late 60s not much better, which suggests that Americans haven't been happy with the direction of the country since the postwar boom, and that economic conditions had a lot -- if not everything -- to do with it.

--Mori Dinauer

I would not defend teachers or principals unions in all cases; indeed, I agree with Megan McCardle that their resistance, in some parts of the country, to paying professionals a bonus for working in low-income schools isn't in the best interests of children. That isn't merit pay tied to test scores or other factors a teacher can't fully control -- it's simply paying professionals more for agreeing to do a much more difficult job, which would in turn attract better teachers and principals to where they are most needed. But by crediting the break-up of the New Orleans teacher's union with a subsequent small improvement in test scores there, Megan ignores many of the other factors at play in the Big Easy overhaul. Here's how the New York Times describes it:

Since Hurricane Katrina, most of the schools here have been taken over by the state, and are run either by [Superintendent] Vallas or as citizen-controlled charter schools. The local school board and administration — long notorious for corruption and political interference — have been neutered.

Classes are smaller, many of the teachers are youthful imports brought in by groups like Teach for America, principals have been reshuffled or removed, school-hours remedial programs have been intensified, and after-school programs to help students increased.

Still, the challenge remains substantial in a school district of 32,000, where 85 percent of the students are at least several years below their grade levels.

Just as it's easy to pick out circumstances in which the interests of teachers unions seem antithetical to the interests of children, it's easy to point to times when the two are in sync. Teachers unions advocate for smaller class sizes. Teacher's unions advocate for newer, better supplies, from textbooks, to chairs and desks, to cleaner classrooms. Teacher's unions advocate for more support staff, such as guidance counselors, psychologists to deal with learning disabilities and problems at home, and classroom assistants. All of that is very good for kids.

--Dana Goldstein

Ted Turner on environmentalist cartoon Captain Planet: “In terms of programming, it’s the best thing I ever did.”

Somewhere, Wolf Blitzer is weeping softly into a pillow.

--A. Serwer

At first glance, you might assume the fact that the government has brought fewer cases of terrorism to court while expanding the number of people under surveillance suggests that the surrendering constitutional liberties in the name of questionable security gains isn't really worth it, but you'd be wrong.

You might also think that there's something of a victory for terrorists in our government abandoning any notion of personal liberty and privacy. But, no, Bush tells us, what this finding really says is that the Bush Administration has terrorism in its last throes, and that fewer cases despite more surveillance just means "we're winning," much the same way that increased violence in Iraq means the same thing. I'll sleep so much better now...

• This McCain ad on global warming is hilarious. It says that one side denies the reality of global warming while the other supports "high taxes and crippling regulation." McCain you see, takes the moderate aproach we need: Admitting there's a problem without actually doing anything about it. Now that's a maverick! See Kate's recent piece for more on McCain's lousy environmental record.
  
• Noam Scheiber has some interesting thoughts about the dangers to Obama's tentative agreement to have unmoderated debates with McCain. Scheiber makes some good points, but I wonder if they're outweighed by Obama's sheer superiority to McCain in rhetoric. Can it really help McCain to be repeatedly and directly contrasted with a younger, more charismatic, and more substantive opponent? Seems to me he's better off sticking to musty biographical ads and veiled attacks on Obama's patriotism -- both hard to accomplish face to face. And hey, other people agree!
• Ben Smith makes an important and ridiculously overlooked point that I've been trying to make for weeks: Most of the narratives surrounding the Democratic primary doggedly refuse to acknowledge that the calendar just happened to put Clinton-friendly states late in the game.
• Clinton's campaign is apparently $20 million in debt. She's got nothing on Mitt Romney though; he's likely going to lose $35 million from his own pocket.
• Like a lot of folks I've been impressed by Kathleen Sebelius's record, but unsure about her rhetorical gifts. She's no Obama, but this endorsement video I recently came across is impressive.
• This new MoveOn ad in which a Republican explains why he is supporting Obama is quite interesting. There's a lot of evidence that the biggest influence on people's behavior, in many spheres of life, is what they think other people like them are doing. This, for example, is why anti-drug ads often actually increase drug use. There's no obvious reason a similar aproach couldn't work in politics.
  
• Ron Paul's supporters are preparing for a good old fashioned revolt at the RNC in September. Jonathan Martin says the GOP can prevent this by being nice to them. 'Cause that's soooooo likely to happen.
• Meanwhile, former GOP congressman Bob Barr formally an announces his candidacy for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination -- he aims to draw the Ron Paul coalition out of the Republican party.
  
• SNL seems to know which way the wind is blowing. The sketch has some cheap shots, but there's also some great satire. After all, saying "my supporters may not support Obama" really is tantamount to saying you should be the nominee because your supporters are racists.
• Add another job to the what-could-Clinton-do-next debate: Mayor of New York City. I guess if Governor of New York doesn't work out ...
• Speaking of cheap shots, this blog about things younger than John McCain is hilarious as is this site about totally awesome things that will happen if Obama wins the presidency.

Harold Meyerson observes that Obama's success in weathering controversy demonstrates his wider appeal to the electorate:

With his appearance at the National Press Club last week, Wright endeavored, whether consciously or not, to swallow both Obama and Obamaism. His onetime parishioner might be telling Americans that it was time to end our historic divisions, and Obama's young followers might be chanting "Race doesn't matter," but Wright would set them all straight. By heightening racial polarization, Wright delivered self-fulfilling prophecies of America's inability to transcend its racism.

On Tuesday, however, those prophecies were not fulfilled. By breaking forcefully with Wright and by refocusing on the economy, Obama came through the worst patch of his campaign to do better among white voters than he had in Ohio and Pennsylvania -- primaries that had preceded Wright's press club outburst. Obama pulled down 40 percent of the white vote in Indiana, an improvement over the 34 percent he won in Ohio and the 37 percent he won in Pennsylvania. He also won 37 percent of the white vote in North Carolina, which, notwithstanding the in-migration of Northern whites to the Research Triangle, is still a Southern state.

Read the rest and comment here. And subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our articles as soon as they're published.

--The Editors

From our May special report: Jonathan Cohn argues that introducing universal health care would also salve the cost crisis facing Medicare:

But if privatizing and pruning Medicare won't save the program from financial turmoil, what will? The answer lies in understanding the real reason why Medicare costs keep going up. Surprisingly, the prime cause is not the aging of the population. If aging were the only factor driving up Medicare costs, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the program would grow from a little less than 3 percent of gross domestic product today to a little less than 5 percent in 2080. That's serious money but a relatively small portion of the projected overall cost increase.

The real reason Medicare is expected to grow so fast is that all medical spending, for both the elderly and non-elderly, is going up. The reason for that is a combination of newly available technology and an unchecked demand to use it. And this is where Medicare's real problem -- and that of the whole system -- comes into view.

Historically, Medicare, like private insurers, has rewarded doctors and hospitals for performing more procedures. (While the payment reforms of the 1980s, so called "diagnosis related groups," helped mitigate that problem, they didn't eliminate it.) But patients don't actually seem to be better off for the extra attention. The proof of this lies in the now-famous work of John Wenn-berg and his colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School. As they and their disciples have repeatedly demonstrated, Medicare currently underwrites vastly different levels of care in different parts of the country. Seniors in South Florida, for example, get a lot more medical care than seniors in Minneapolis -- apparently because South Florida has a great many more doctors (who often overtreat their patients). But statistically, South Florida seniors don't seem better off for the extra care. That means Medicare must be paying for a lot of unnecessary or counterproductive treatments.

--The Editors

Maybe it's too much to hope for more than a prolonged flirtation between libertarians and liberals on the issue of the War On Drugs, but the fact that Radley Balko's blog post at Reason and a diary on Dailykos from the ACLU elicit similar responses from readers gives me hope.

The case in question is the story of Terry Ingle. Police somehow obtained a no-knock warrant despite not, according to the ACLU, "presenting any evidence of why Ingle posed a risk to police safety and without even a specific reference to Ingle, who had no history of violence or drug law violations." A SWAT Team (what the ACLU and Reason define as "paramilitiaries") showed up at Ingle's house heavy and burst in without identifying themselves (the point of a "no-knock" warrant is to allow the Police to do this, supposedly to prevent suspects from destroying evidence or fighting back). Ingle picked up a broken gun to scare off what he thought were armed robbers, and ended up getting shot up so bad he almost lost a leg. The police found no drugs, only a scale and plastic bags that Ingle's sister said was for her jewelry business.

Ingle was charged with aggravated assault for picking up his broken gun, and with "running a drug enterprise" despite the absence of, you know, drugs. The quality of medical care Ingle claims he received is reminiscent of what we provide immigrant detainees with.

While libertarians and liberals might both agree that the War on Drugs has led to some very serious abuses of authority, the relationship might break down over issues that would require more government spending, like transitional services for former inmates. But at the very least, their combined efforts might lead to some accountability for law enforcement policy that has gotten completely out of control.

Similalrly the fact that all four officers in the Sean Bell case were acquitted of any wrongdoing essentially because the officers were "scared" (and so anything they did was justified) suggests that race remains a trump card for those looking to preserve a lack of accountability.

--A. Serwer

Michael Crowley believes the us-against-the-world mentality of the Clintons can be traced to a defining event in their lives: the unjust impeachment of Bill.

But I think that the source of that mentality can be equally traced back to the decade-long Whitewater non-scandal. In his autobiography, My Life, Bill spends much more time -- and, on the audiobook version, reads with more passion -- on Whitewater than on the impeachment. It would be easy to understand why. Unlike the Lewinsky scandal, in which Bill had done something at least privately immoral, with Whitewater he had not committed a single ethical transgression. He knew he was innocent. How could that not make you a bit defensive?

--Jordan Michael Smith

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb doesn't think recruitment is a very important issue in the fight against terrorism.

As to whether Bush is a recruiting tool for terrorists -- who cares? Al Qaeda was recruiting before Bush was in office and they will continue to do so after he’s gone. The important thing is that we keep killing those recruits. Eventually, one side will give up. And if Obama wins in November, we know which side that will be.

Others have already weighed in on this, but we miss the point if we assume that Goldfarb's ultimate goal is to eliminate terrorism. That would be counterproductive to the actual goal of neoconservatism, (as Matt Yglesias explains in this month's issue of TAP) which is to keep us fighting wars forever so that Republicans can keep getting elected so they can start more wars, because wars build character and make us strong.

So if you want to keep fighting a war forever, what's the point of trying to inhibit Al Qaeda's recruiting? It's not like you want them to run out of people. Then you'd have to go through the trouble of finding a whole new rationale for violating the Constitution and providing no-bid contracts to war profiteers.

--A. Serwer

Sure the Republicans have managed to bungle two wars, facilitate a recession, and cripwalked all over the Constitution of the United States, but Bill Clinton wants people in West Virginia to know that the real problem is that uppity Negro Barack Obama and his Yankee friends think they're better than you.

Bill's turn towards conservative populism is particularly ironic given Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn's insistence back in February that rural, mostly white states like Kansas and Iowa were not "significant states."

Jonathan Chait says in his excellent piece on conservative populism that "overt racism has all but disappeared from mainstream political life," I'd disagree, (between Islamophobia and Lou Dobbs, I'd say "overt racism" is doing okay) but I'd also point out that was exactly the point of Lee Atwater's turning such appeals into code, not so racism would disappear, but so people could exploit it without being held accountable.

What Chait doesn't say, but what needs to be said, is that conservative populism in politics is facilitated by its prominence in broadcast journalism. Conservative populism is the way that broadcast journalists show they're "in touch with your values."

Conservative populism is essentially white populism, and we can insert all kinds of modifiers about class and region, but what the rhetoric appeals to is really an idealized form of whiteness, for which phrases like "real Americans" are a transparent substitute. It's why wealthy newsmen like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert invoke them so often, as a way of reminding viewers of their "authenticity".

This is their way of "keeping it real," of signifying to the hood they know what's up. Only instead of calling out Harlem or Queensbridge, Russert calls out Buffalo and Matthews lets you know he still understands "regular people" aren't black and they don't have college degrees.

With high profile broadcast personalities constantly reinforcing race and class stereotypes as part of their identity (product?), it's incredibly difficult for them to turn around and criticize politicians who are doing the same thing. While compared to Obama, Hillary might seem more of a homegirl to voters in West Virginia, the same probably wouldn't be true in November, and certainly reporters using their own conservative populism as a marketing scheme wouldn't give her a pass.

--A. Serwer

A Republican National Committee ad targeting Barack Obama relies upon many of the same narratives Hillary Clinton has used in the primary: Portraying Obama's supporters as an unquestioning mob while challenging the candidate on his Illinois State Senate "present" votes, his cultural politics, and whether "three years in the Senate prepares Barack Obama to be our next commander-in-chief."

--Dana Goldstein

We should all be relieved that Rupert Murdoch has dropped his bid for New York daily Newsday, which means all he has left is the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and membership on the board of directors of The Associated Press.

--A. Serwer

The first part of Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein's harrowing report on the health care conditions inside immigrant detention centers (prisons) for the WaPo is another example of the Bush Administration's extraordinary talent for mismanagement. Reading the article you get the impression that, to the administration, there's little difference between "suspected terrorists" and immigrants who are seeking work or asylum (I suppose to the talk radio set, there is no difference). They're treated as equally undeserving of rights or basic medical care, objects to be shifted around indefinitely, like so many boxes in a warehouse.

It doesn't help that both ICE and the DIHS (Division of Immigration Health Services) are headed by political cronies Julie Myers and LaMont W. Flanagan respectively. The article notes that Flanagan has a history of corruption, which prevented D.C. from hiring him for a juvenile justice position (wow). It doesn't note that Myers, head of ICE, is niece to General Richard Myers, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and married to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff's chief of staff.

The piece is filled with stories like that of Joseph Dantica, who was fleeing violence in Haiti and sought asylum in the U.S. While his application for asylum was pending, he was detained at the Krome facility in Miami, (yes, these days we throw asylum seekers in prison) where his heart medication was taken from him. Dantica died of heart failure at a local hospital, a day or two after health care officials at the facility "determined" he was "faking" his symptoms. He was shackled to his bed.

ICE head Myers recently came under fire for trying to cover up the fact that an employee dressed up in blackface with a dreadlock wig at an office Halloween party and won that year's costume contest.

The employee said he was dressed as "an escaped detainee" from Miami's Krome detention facility.

--A. Serwer

Paul Krugman has a chart showing that 77 percent of American commuters drive to work alone, and less than 5 percent nationwide use public transportation. But because of sky-rocketing gas prices, mass transit ridership is up about 5 percent in large East Coast cities such as New York and Boston, and up as much as 10 to 15 percent in Southern and Western cities such as San Francisco, Nashville, Denver, Houston, and Salt Lake City.

I've just returned from a reporting trip to Phoenix, AZ, where Gov. Janet Napolitano is trying to convince voters to support a ballot initiative that would raise the sales tax by a penny in order to fund a transportation package that provides about $7 billion for mass transit, and would include a light rail line between Phoenix and Tuscon. Indeed, I was shocked and appalled by the rush hour conditions of the highways circling Phoenix -- the traffic really does impose a "time tax," as Napolitano calls it. Nevertheless, her proposal is an incremental one; highway funding accounts for over $24 billion of the $42 billion package, almost three times what will be spent on trains and buses. Of course, had the plan been more progressive in terms of prioritizing mass transit, it's unlikely Napolitano could have convinced Arizona's powerful homebuilders to support it -- which they did. After all, the continued exurbanization of America depends on the car.

I'll have more on all this in an upcoming TAP print feature looking at Gov. Napolitano and the political and physical landscape of Arizona.

--Dana Goldstein

Or at least that's what Steve Peterman, producer and member of the Writer's Guild, suggested in last week's House hearing on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

The push for net neutrality has occasioned the use of a range of motley metaphors -- tollbooths on highways, "slotting fees" at supermarkets -- but it was Peterman who came through with the clearest analogy I've yet heard: think of the Internet as the new TV.

Twenty years ago, Peterman recalled, a casual viewer could flip on the tube and find independently produced shows like Roseanne, Cosby, The Wonder Years and Cheers. Why? Because existing syndication rules were designed to promote diversity by favoring producers, not networks. That way, independent studios could gamble on all kinds of original programming, because if even one was successfully syndicated, it was a worthwhile venture.

The system we know today is quite different. Since FOX successfully lobbied away those rules in the 1990s, networks have become both studios and producers as well. And with that change, Peterman argues, came "inevitable stifling of creativity, and diversity," because when networks were allowed to control both content and distribution, independent producers had to sit at the sidelines.

Right now, anyone can create and upload video content online, and download it without restraints -- and it's hard to imagine it being otherwise. In fact, as Peterman notes, after the writer's strike ended, some writers just decided to keep producing for the Internet, because it was freer and -- as he puts it -- they didn't have "some humorless executive watching them." Obviously as well, there are myriad ways other creators and organizations would be affected if networks like Comcast and Verizon are allowed to continue slowing certain kinds of traffic, which is why Skype, Amazon.com, and a multitude of others are lobbying for net neutrality. But at a basic level, that's the driving issue: preserving the ability of any producer to innovate, and correspondingly, freedom of consumer choice.

--Te-Ping Chen

• A good article in the Times on Obama's political roots on the Chicago South Side
• McCain's convention chair gets booted after just nine days on the job for ties to the Burmese government. Where does the GOP find these guys?
• A depressing story in the Post on immigrant prisons. On a more positive note, it turns out that Spanish-only newscasts in Los Angeles might be a better source of news than their English counterparts.
• Did you know that Harry Reid wrote a book? Neither did I...
• North Carolina's Senate race is starting to look competitive.
• Frank Rich has another good column on why the 2008 election is truly sui generis, and trying to compare it to 1968, 1988 or even 2004 is ultimately futile.

--Mori Dinauer

To add to the debate about the merits of a unity ticket, I should say that I completely reject the central premise of some defenders, namely that the party cannot be unified in the fall if Clinton is not on the ticket. It is of course true that Clinton has many strong and deeply committed supporters, for good reason. But this is also true of any substantially contested primary. And, historically, no matter what they've said in the immediate aftermath of defeat, partisans of the losing candidate have generally supported the winning one, even in cases as bitter as GOP 2000. I simply don't believe that most supporters of Hillary Clinton are narcissistic enough to want John McCain to be elected out of spite should she be a powerful and influential senator rather than a vice presidential candidate. (I do agree with Armando on one narrow point: I think Obama's prominent supporters should follow his lead, be gracious, and not say anything about the VP slot. Kennedy's comments are indeed not terribly productive. But whether he's wrong on the merits is a separate question that we bloggers surely can discuss.)

So, I simply don't believe that this is the only criterion that should be considered. And there are others on which Clinton is a less-than-ideal VP candidate, some of which I've already mentioned. First, by far the biggest impact of vice presidents on the ticket is the potential to bring a swing home state into the fold, which Clinton doesn't offer. Second, if the idea is to shore up Obama's "foreign policy cred" you want someone with military experience but who opposed the war (such as Webb or Clark); Clinton of course is the opposite. Third, the media. It's hard to know what to do about the media's grossly unfair treatment of Clinton; if I was convinced that she would make the best president I wouldn't let it dissuade me. But when picking a running mate, surely this has to be considered a great deal more important. Fourth, partly because of the unfair treatment she receives from the media, she has much higher negatives than you would prefer in a VP candidate. Finally, even if you assume this is a lot more important than I do I should note that the fact that Clinton appeals more to lower-class whites and older voters 1)compared to Obama and (this is the important step for those of you who don't understand why it's illogical to make inferences about the general from primary results) 2)among people who vote in Democratic primaries hardly means that she is the optimal choice to appeal to these voters compared to other possibilities.

Of course, there are points in her favor. I think she fares very well on the important question of whether she would make a good president if necessary, for example. Her mastery of policy detail would be especially useful (although when it comes to health care I'd much rather have her putting plans together in the Senate, where any plan is going to rise or fall.) The fact that she inspires strong commitments from a lot of voters is also important. And, of course, it all depends on who the other possible choices are. But, on balance, there are other choices I would prefer, and I certainly can't see how it's irrational to believe that the #2 spot on the ticket isn't the best role for Clinton's future in the party. I would count 7 major candidates I would like as much or more, and that's with removing Red-state senators from consideration.

--Scott Lemieux

This Saturday at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, Jenna Bush married Henry Hager, an MBA student, former Karl Rove intern, and the son of Virginia's former Republican lieutenant governor. The couple will be moving together to Baltimore, where Hager will work for Constellation Energy, a wholesale power seller. The company's chairman is a Hillary Clinton donor. Other executives have donated to a number of other candidates, with many choosing Barack Obama. According to Open Secrets, only one Constellation executive donated to John McCain.

By the way, the man who married the couple, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, has endorsed Barack Obama. Awkward much?

--Dana Goldstein

Photo courtesy of the White House

• Did John Edwards let slip an endorsement this morning? Watch the video and decide for yourself.
• Obama picked up seven superdelegates today and ABC declared earlier in the day that by their count, Obama already leads Clinton in this category for the first time. (A story in tomorrow's New York Times puts Obama ahead as well.) Most other news sources still have him trailing Clinton by single digits.
• According to "West Wing" actors he dined with in 2001, John McCain voted against George W. Bush in 2000, something he has repeatedly denied.
• Stay classy: Rumsfeld blames the military for botching the Iraq War. Think Progress reminds us what really happened during the war planning.
• Speaking of Iraq, Ari Berman argues that Clinton's position on the war "doomed" her campaign from the start.
• Jonathan Chait shrewdly notes that Clinton has been campaigning as a conservative populist for some time now.
• Both Reason's Michael C. Moynihan and the NY Times' David Brooks argue that American conservatives ought to start emulating British conservatives. The Corner flips out.
• You can't make this stuff up: 178 House Republicans vote against Mother's Day. Meanwhile, McCain puts his mother in a new campaign ad.
• And speaking of mothers, salary.com determines that moms ought to be making about $117,000 a year, based on the work they do.

--Mori Dinauer

Matt says that while Clinton's assertions about the importance of her greater appeal to "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" are "one part fallacy, two parts baseless speculation" they're not "offensive." Let's assume that she misspoke and didn't intend the fairly overt racism of her literal comments; they remain problematic, but it's a fair assumption. But even given a more charitable interpretation, the fallacies in her argument are precisely what makes it offensive.

The baseless speculation, I assume, is the transparently illogical claim that because Clinton attracts more working-class whites against Obama that she would therefore attract more against McCain. But even if we assume that Clinton would perform better among this group in the general, we are left with the fallacy central to Mark Penn's approach to politics. Particularly when you consider that turnout as well as margins are not static, there's no reason why Obama's lesser performance with respect to any particular demographic can be assumed to be problematic. If Obama does worse among working-class whites in Pennsylvania but compensates by getting a higher turnout among African-Americans and young professionals, so what? The fact that the latter two groups are more reliably Democratic doesn't matter. If you get an extra 100,000 votes (whether by higher turnout or higher margins), the fact that the relevant demographic was already majority Democratic is wholly irrelevant.

This glaring logical fallacy leads us to what's offensive. Precisely because which group such analysis chooses to focus on is entirely arbitrary, the choice always reflects political interests (in Penn's case, inevitably with center-right results.) Clinton has outperformed Obama among a number of demographics, but surely it's no a coincidence that Clinton -- as is usually the case when people make this argument -- identified white workers rather than, say, Latinos or older women. It reflects the Bill Schneider assumption that there's something suspicious about a coalition that doesn't rely enough on white voters. Jon Chait's article about Clinton's desperate embrace of reactionary populism correctly identifies the context in which Clinton's comments should be evaluated:

Historically, the conservative populist's social divide ran along racial and ethnic lines. In recent years, overt racism has all but disappeared from mainstream political life, and even racial hot button appeals like the 1988 Willie Horton ad have grown rare. What remains is a residue of nostalgia about small towns--whose residents are said to have stronger values and work harder than other Americans, and who also happen to be overwhelmingly white. In 2004, after John Kerry declared that some entertainers supporting him represented "the heart and soul of America," George W. Bush embarked upon a national tour of small- and mid-sized cities, where he would say, "I believe the heart and soul of America is found in places like Duluth, Minnesota," or other such places.

Likewise, Bill Clinton recently declared, "The people in small towns in rural America, who do the work for America, and represent the backbone and the values of this country, they are the people that are carrying her through in this nomination." The corollary--that strong values and hard work is in shorter supply among ethnically heterogeneous urban residents--is left unstated. Hillary Clinton's statement about "hard-working Americans, white Americans" simply made explicit a theme that conservative populists usually keep implicit.

--Scott Lemieux

Today, McCain embarked from New York City on a boating jaunt down the East River, and in preparation for his ride, Democrats have posted a tongue-in-cheek tourist's map to mark all the sites along the way that McCain has opposed funding: the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York ports, et cetera. His party's latest move to cut New York City's funding, however, got left off the list.

This week as Blue Dogs were busily digging in their heels against veterans' benefits, Senate Republicans quietly lined up to block a vote that would've provided New York City with the last of the President's pledged September-11th recovery aid: $1.7 billion to build a rail-link between Ground Zero and the Kennedy Airport in Queens.

Meanwhile, far from being abashed, Republican senators in fact defended the vote, with Sen. Judd Gregg going so far as to call the proposed rail a "train to nowhere" -- an apparent reference to Rep. Don Young's notorious $941-million attempt to build an Alaskan bridge to an island of 8,000 people. Not content to dismiss Ground Zero alone, he went still further to attack New Yorkers as a whole: "This is a situation where the folks from New York, who are good and decent people, have decided to raid the Federal Treasury to get some money to pay for something in a very questionable way."

Despite his anti-earmark reputation, McCain's already expressed a comfort with the notion that earmarks come in varying ethical stripes and colors. This week's latest gambit only helps flesh out the contours of the GOP's double standard still further. That is, earmarked military aid for countries like Israel and Egypt, good, earmarked 9/11 recovery aid for the people of New York City, bad.

--Te-Ping Chen

Karen Tumulty reports, as have a few other sources, that one of Hillary Clinton's considerations in staying in the race is a feminist one:

But the voice she is listening to now is the one inside her head, explains a longtime aide. Clinton's calculation is as much about history as it is about politics. As the first woman to have come this far, Clinton has told those close to her, she wants people who invested their hopes in her to see that she has given it her best.

I don't think there's any question that Clinton has already given it her all -- and more. But I do understand the rationale here. The race between Clinton and Obama has mobilized Democratic voters as never before. Now that we're just a month away from the finish line, there's little reason -- if Clinton can constrain her attacks on Obama -- not to give voters in all 50 states the chance to weigh in. And yes, some women out there, especially older women, desperately want a chance to vote for a female presidential candidate. They may not have another chance in their lifetimes.

--Dana Goldstein

On the heels of stepping out of anonymity, Edward Espinoza -- A.K.A. Mr. Super -- has endorsed Barack Obama, according to the candidate's web site:

“I am endorsing Barack Obama today because throughout this process I have seen him show a judgment and character that we need in our next president. From day one he opposed the Iraq war and has a plan to end the war in a responsible way and bring our sons and daughters home. He has shown he has the character to lead our great nation, from his choice to spend his career serving people in the poorest communities in Chicago to his commitment to speaking truth to the American people, even when it isn’t politically convenient to do so. To unify the country at this time in our history we need a president who has these qualities, and that is why I am proud to endorse him today. My good friend Bill Richardson, who backed Obama some weeks ago, knows what it takes to lead and I trust his judgment in this decision as well. I look forward to working with this great movement to bring victory in November.”

Espinoza reiterates his intention behind mrsuper.org here. This makes four superdelegate endorsements for Obama today.

--Mori Dinauer

The Clinton campaign has rolled out another pitch to undecided superdelegates in the form of a PowerPoint presentation that argues Clinton does better in competitive House districts than Obama. Slide three notes that "In 2006, the Democrats retook Congress by picking up 31 new seats. 20 of those freshman Democrats are in Republican-leaning districts that voted for President Bush in 2004."

Hey, I'm a fan of the Democratic majority as much as the next (liberal) guy, but taking a look at these districts in slide four, one notices that only five or six of them are in competitive states. The rest are in Dem locks like New York and California. Is the campaign arguing that a Democrat winning California will really hinge on him or her winning CA-11, for example? And even with the districts that are in competitive states, are we really supposed to believe that the results are going to hinge on those districts? I guess since learning that the Democratic primary isn't a winner-take-all system, the Clinton campaign decided to take that insight to its logical conclusion -- the reductio ad absurdum of all electability arguments.

--Mori Dinauer