AP says Edwards out -- Updated

by shamanic

According to AP, John Edwards will drop out of the race today. For all the howling on the right about the "hypocrisy" of a wealthy person advocating for the poor, he's been a strong and dedicated voice for those who usually go without one. And really, if the better off don't advocate for the poor, who will?

Edwards ran a good campaign that couldn't get oxygen against this year's roster of rock stars. He's a good man who's added an important dimension to the race so far, and I hope his message continues to resonate.

Update by Libby: I see Sha broke the news, so I posted on this at my place but I'd quote myself here on this point.

It's difficult to figure why Edwards campaign never took off with progressives. He was voicing our concerns and willing to buck the establishment to promote them. Certainly his failure to acheive any crossover momentum was partly driven the hateful media vendetta against him but his failure to energize 'the left,' including myself, always surprised me.

I never could quite put my finger on why I didn't see a champion for our cause in him. In retrospect, I have to think that in some part, it all went wrong when he allowed himself to be browbeaten by the right wing rage machine into firing Amanda and Melissa. I was really encouraged when he hired them and extremely disappointed when he let them go. It made it difficult to believe he could lead us, when he caved so quickly to the fringers. I think subconsciouly, I never quite got over it. I have a feeling, I'm not the only one.

Update by shamanic:

I don't know Libby. I gave him some money early on, but I really think at the end of the day, Clinton and Obama generated so much excitement that he just couldn't get traction. If I were voting strictly on policy ideas, Kucinich would be my candidate, and I think the same is true for an awful lot of progressives. But we're taking into account a whole lot of things beyond policy. One of those for me is the opportunity to elect a historic first in this campaign.

The media fell victim to the same rock star fetish, by the way, which made the problem worse for Edwards. With limited column inches in print sources, writers preferred to write and editors preferred to run with stories about Clinton and/or Obama.

Difficulty Spinning South Carolina

South Carolina was a notable and decisive victory for Barack Obama and it is a difficult defeat for either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards to spin. Up until now, in the contested states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada) the results have either been very close (New Hampshire) or a plausible second choice spin narrative was available such as the Obama Delegate Math charge after Nevada. Yet last night the networks called it for Obama within seconds of the polls closing as he pretty much doubled up on Clinton and tripled up on Edwards.

I am impressed, especially the way that he has been able to parry and reflect back the attacks over the past couple of weeks. I am still very suspicious of Obama's policy and political instincts, but a concern that I had after New Hampshire in 2008 and one after Iowa in 2004 for potential coalition transformation candidates is not there. Can a creative class backed candidate at the national level get beyond his/her high intensity support and create a majority coalition within the Democratic Party? Obama is the first Democrat in a competive situation to gain a majority of votes, so I think this concern has been allayed.

Nail Biting and Happy Indifference

Wow, that is about all I can say. And also double wow as my wife, who normally chuckles at my political junkie hobby is happily flipping between Office reruns and CNN, quietly cheering every update that has Clinton adding another half dozen or a gross of votes to her margin over Obama.

If I had to have voted today, I think I would have voted for John Edwards but this time around it is so much less stressful as I am generally and generically happy with the leading three Democratic candidates while in 2004 I was very happy with Dean, okay with Clark, wary about Edwards and Kerry, and indifferent at best to Lieberman. I want a long nomination process as I think the debates and the practice that the candidates are getting in is a healthy process, and I also think that Obama's critical claim of differentiation --- bi-partisan rhetoric, leadership language, and kick-ass organizing to bring in independents, young voters and infrequent voters to the Democratic coalition needs to be seriously fielded tested. Is Iowa a good predictor? Or is New Hampshire where massive voter turnout occurred without independents being disproportionally overrepresented the norm? Or something else?

Beyond that a couple more quick thoughts:

None of us can predict primary elections well....

Libby may just have a bottle of Bushmills going her way if we take the horseshoes and hand grenade approach as it looks like she got the Dems right and got the top two Republicans right...

Being a bit cynical, were all of the leaks today about disorder and disaester striking the Clinton camp a leak hunt?

Ouch, the Nevada Culinary Union thought they could have timed their endorsement for maximum value at low cost, now the internal cost of their endorsement decision has massively increased

I like being happily indifferent, far less stress, and far cheaper on the bank account

Oh, John

by shamanic

I'm really unhappy to see news today that John Edwards took a shot at Hillary for experiencing, and showing, emotions on the campaign trail.

I feel compelled to turn this around on him, because quite honestly, if you look at America today and don't get choked up about the state of our nation, I don't think you really understand the situation well enough to be president.

The video that's linked in the article is quite touching, and shows absolutely nothing that I haven't experienced or witnessed within my own (largely female) group of friends in this decade. My God, was he here for Katrina? Did he sleep through our invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us, using air strikes and "shock and awe" to drive home the point that we're the toughest kid on the block?

So Mr. Edwards, my question is: Why don't you sometimes get choked up out there, with the sleep deprivation and the bewilderment of constant travel and the drain of talking one-on-one with hundreds of people every day? Why don't you sometimes feel what the rest of us feel?

2 last minute Iowa thoughts

1) I am very glad that I do not have to vote/caucus/shuffle intently tonight. Right now I still do not know who I would be voting for. My wife and I were talking politics over dinner last night and we both agreed that most of the Democratic candidates meet our minimal comfort level for a vote, and beyond that it is a matter of last minute perceptions. I am pretty sure that Obama would not be my initial choice, but beyond that I don't know as I have worries about Clinton and Edwards, and I know Dodd's group would be deemed non-viable.

2) Anyone in Iowa who is not caucusing should just stay off the roads is my advice as a former GOTV team driver... via Political Wire on the Clinton campaign ---

Vilmain also claimed she has lined up 4,900 drivers to bring people to the caucuses -- compared to perhaps 500 for Sen. John Kerry four years ago -- and has another 5,000 people willing to offer rides and more than 600 shuttles.

Drivers under intense time pressure, who are highly charged, on way too much stale coffee, and not quite sure where they are going will be dominating the highways tonight. Be safe.

Edwards looking for Richardson's non-viable groups?

When I saw the report that John Edwards supports a rather swift and rather complete pull-out of US forces from Iraq, two things came to mind. First this is another differentiation policy proposal as both Obama and Clinton have supported maintaining large 'training' contigents and anti-coup forces in Iraq for the long haul despite the fact that the problem with the Iraqi government's armed forces are not training per se (as the militia members who are also government soldiers have done well in achieving their objectives) but a matter of loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for a national government. I think this is good policy.

The other thought is pure horse race and it is a quest by Edwards to gain a disproportionate share of Gov. Richardson's supporters as Gov. Richardson has made no residual forces a central piece of his campaign. With Kucinich urging his non-viable supporters to Obama, and Biden supporters seeking 'experience' that may lean towards Clinton, Richardson's supporters are the biggest in play group right now, and I think Edwards is making a strong pitch for their second choices.

Obama and liberal chumps

As I stated in April, I don't want to be the chump in the Democratic coalition, and chumpmanship is determined by the coalitions formed by winning and losing primary candidates.

I am part of a faction within a much larger coalition. The distribution of power between the factions that dominate the Democratic Party is in flux on a day to day basis, but I want to move my party closer to my policy positions and outlook on the major issues of the day....I don't want to be a chump, but I believe that there is a risk that the netroots and other self-identifying over educated liberals will be the chumps in the Democratic Party coalition....Tim F at Balloon Juice has a great succinct summary of basic party organizational theory as he comments on the current Republican coalition:

" If the party wants to keep its coalition and wield power at the same time, somebody has to be the chump."

Assuming that the DMR poll is the closest to accurate poll, and the internal crosstabs are closely accurate and Big Tent Democrat's calculations are correct, then liberals are the chump in Obama's coalition and thus the Democratic coalition for at least 2008 to 2010.

So Obama gets 40% from 45% (assuming he gets at least 40% of GOP "Dem" caucus goers) and 27% of the 55% Dem Dem caucusgoers. Let's do the math:

0.4 × 0.45 = 18. 0.27 × 0.55 = 14.8.

Ergo, the MAJORITY of Obama's support in Iowa does NOT come from Democratic voters. It comes from Republicans and Independents. That is what the DMR poll tells us.

If Obama wins Iowa, he likely wins the nomination (something screwy about our process, but that is another rant for another point in the election cycle) and if he behaves like a typical person and is consistent in his behaviors, he'll favor the coalition that brought him into power. And that coalition and past behavioral patterns are not friendly to liberals.

Partisanship, marginal members and majority of the whole v. majority of the majority

I have to disagree with Shamanic's earlier argument that Krugman is implicitly and unfairly criticizing Barack Obama's rhetoric of bi-partisanship. I think our difference lies within the nature of the agendas being pursued and the internal and informal House organizing rules that will allow a projected diminished Republican House and Senate caucuses to be very partisan vehicles.

I believe the GOP would hemorrhage voters if Obama faced Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee (my gut says it's one of the two, but we'll know in a month or so). Obama's coattails could sweep in a dramatic Democratic majority to augment the narrow one getting thrashed between the GOP minority and the 25% man right now.

Bipartisanship is a lot less necessary the closer you get to 60 Senate seats, and while Obama's agenda is hardly revolutionary, I think the general feeling about him is that he will work diligently and -- more importantly -- smartly to implement it, creating stakeholders out of disparate interests.

I'll first disagree on the hemorraging of either registred Republicans or strongly Republican leaning unaffiliated voters from the Republican coalition. Clinton performs the weakest in the head to heads compared to Obama and Edwards, but not by a significant margin against Obama. He does better but not amazingly so.

As Greg Sargant notes at the Horses Mouth, gridlock has a simple explanation:

Partisan gridlock happens because people -- and by extension, political parties -- disagree about stuff. One party wants to do one thing on a particular issue. Another party says No. The first party offers a few concessions. The second party still says No. That's where "partisan gridlock" comes from -- underlying disagreement on issues [my emphasis]

I'll agree with Krugman, and I believe Shamanic will agree with me, that all of the major Democratic candidates are proposing roughly similiar progressive plans in a variety of policy fields. Details definately matter, but the agendas proposed, in broad strokes, are interchangable. Edwards, Obama and Clinton are all broadly proposing carbon dioxide cap and trades/auction/taxes, some form of massively expanded health care payment and access that will eventually lead to some bastard step child of single payer, and about the same Iraq policy and non-comments about residual forces.

And here is the problem with the bipartisanship mien --- addressing CO2 and healthcare are system changing moves that dramatically impact the Republican coalition's ability to restrengthen itself without dramatically recasting itself and rearranging internal power distribution.

Even very optimistically assuming the Democrats pick up a net of seven seats in the Senate and net another twenty in the House, two problems emerge. One is more pronounced in the Senate, as the six potential net pick-up seats have four Republicans (Sununu, Warner, Snow, Smith) who are occassionally willing to defect from the rest of the Republican caucus on their pet issues or to moderate their conservative votes for a swing(ish) state. Other potential Democratic pick-ups will be in New Mexico and Colorado which will lead to net improvements in Democratic margins by almost 2 full votes, and potentially the scandal seat in Alaska. The Democrats will increase the size of their caucus faster than they will increase their vote counts even assuming that no current Democrat defects on any particular vote. Seeing Landrieu lose to a conservative Republican conversely has less impact on any particular vote. The same basic dynamic will play in the House, as Democrats are targetting Republicans who already occassionally defect from the caucus, so a net 1 pick-up is a little less than 1 expected value vote on any given progressive bill.

The second problem is the way that Nancy Pelosi has decided to run her Democratic caucus and the rule sets of the House. She has decided to adapt a "majority of the whole" operation where bills will be scheduled if they have a majority of the entire House behind it. This is in contrast to the Republican rules of 'majority of the majority' where the Republican caucus would have internal whip counts behind legislation which when presented to the entire House would have near unified GOP support even if there was significant internal divisons.

Assuming as I do that carbon dioxide policy and healthcare are coalition rejiggering efforts, they will only pass the House in a majority of a majority rule framework if they are anything that vaguely resembles their campaign intent. In a majority of the whole framework, the Republican Caucus will first have higher degrees of unity due the losses of their marginal and moderate members (see New England in 2006) and the ability to offer Blue Dog/Bush Dog the marginal decision maker value and dictate to their own self-importance. Any GOP+Bush Dog bill on carbon dioxide or healthcare will be a hollow farce in actually achieving its goals beyond shoveling pork to extractive and protected industries. The only way that a good bill gets out of the House and into the Senate where it faces its own concentrated minority opposition, is through majority of the majority rules

Pushing through these two major policy initiatives are coalition cutting efforts that are also good public policy. Even if these are very good first steps and not the entire marathon, the political, and economic pay-offs that should occur will start occurring fairly quickly which means we should expect either hollow shells of bi-partisan bills, or a knock-out, drag down partisan fight as either, and especially both policies, are existential threats to the current Republican Party coalition.

Edwards answers on FISA

By Libby


Chip Reid, with tongue in cheek, complains that following Edwards on the campaign trail is boring because he never makes any mistakes. He notes John is a personable guy, easy to like, but has tremendous message discipline and doesn't provide the kind of verbal gaffes that give Chip an easy hook for a gotcha piece.

Edwards internet team is on the ball as well. It took them a few days to respond to my email about supporting Dodd's filibuster of the FISA bill and although I'm sure it's a template of some kind with canned language, it was personalized in a way that gave the impression of a personalized response. Since it relates to my earlier post today on the candidate's positions, I thought it worth posting the main points of the email.

Our government should protect the privacy, communications, and personal records of Americans-not spy on them without court supervision as the Bush Administration has done. John Edwards will end the warrantless wiretapping of Americans' phone calls and e-mails and the data-mining of Americans' communications and personal records, restoring judicial review to surveillance of American citizens. He will also reject retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

John Edwards will also fix the Patriot Act by restoring important safeguards to the provisions most susceptible to abuse: the "sneak-and-peek" delayed-notice searches, National Security Letters, and the business and library records provisions. He will also end racial profiling by law enforcement.

Sounds good to me. Kind of mitigates the less than reassuring answer on executive privilege.

Absurdly low value information

That is about all I can say about the decision of a major media consortium's decision to do entrance polling for the Iowa caucus. Political Wire noted this Politico story:

a consortium of the major TV networks and The Associated Press will conduct an entrance poll to measure how people say they will vote.

Those results will be broadcast long before the official vote is announced and, in some cases, before the voting is finished...

The entrance poll has a greater chance of reflecting the official results on the Republican side than on the Democratic side.

That’s because Republican caucus voting is pretty straightforward in Iowa: A voter goes into the caucus site, listens to some speeches and then writes a name on a ballot. At the end of the evening, whichever candidate gets the most votes wins...

On the Democratic side, however, entrance polling is what we columnists like to describe as “fraught with peril.”

That’s because Democratic voting in the Iowa caucus is not straightforward. There is an “alignment” where voters go to different spots in the room to indicate whom they wish to vote for, and, if a candidate does not get 15 percent of those present, there is “realignment,” with those voters going to other candidates.

If the Democratic Iowa race is as tight as it seems so that the plurality winner and the expectations winner as well as the delegate count winner(s) will be highly dependent on both second choice realigned voters, and the vagaries of organization, local speechifying, and idiosyncratic social networking effects, the headline information released only an hour or two before good information starts coming in has very little value.

I can understand wanting to entrance poll to gain information for the cross tabs, and for analytical purposes but the headline numbers as an end in and of themselves don't sound like they have a lot of value.

Thinking about polls

I think Mike Huckabee has a low probability of winning the general election in November. But that does not significantly differentiate him from the rest of the Republican field in my opinion. I think the entire field has a fairly low probability of winning the general election next year due to a combination of an internally divided along multiple axises Republican Party, President Bush as an anchor, rhetorical, policy and political as well low levels of enthusiasism and comparative fundraising success compared to Democratic candidates. Finally the stands a Democrat needs to be popular among the Democratic primary electorate universe are either fairly popular in general, or rather benign. However the stands Republicans need to make to win their primary nomination battle are significantly divergent from the stands they need to take if they are to win.

So when the CNN poll came out yesterday there was widespread analysis that this sinks his chance at the GOP nomination as he is beaten by all Democratic challengers. I disagree that this is the death knell of the Huckabee campaign on electability grounds for a couple of reasons.

The first is that electability so far has not played a determining role in either campaign this cycle. The following chart shows the CNN spreads in twelve match-ups.



McCain is the most 'electable' candidate, and John Edwards is the most 'electable' Democratic candidate according to these head to heads. Yet McCain is charitably in 4th place nationwide and in his firewall state of New Hampshire, is in 3rd place with a small chance of getting a net positive post-Iowa bounce. Edwards is in 3rd place despite being the most electable and liberal of the top three Democrats. His path towards winning is far clearer and has fewer dependencies than McCain but it is not a straight forward path to the nomination that Clinton has, or the double dependency path that Obama has.

Huckabee really is not performing much worse at this point in time in the head to heads than Romney, and only a couple points behind Guiliani. Both Guiliani and Romney have significant name recognition advantages at this time over Huckabee, but if Huckabee was to win the nomination, the first quarter billion dollars of advertising will bring his name recognition up to 95%. Once name recognition equalizes, soft Republicans who identify as independents or non-affiliated but vote 90% GOP will vote for their party's candidate. Nothing surprising there.

But getting beyond the horserace, one has to wonder what the objective of the Republican Party and its primary stakeholders is for this election cycle. It is analytically absurd to assign singular motives and objectives to an combined, collective decision making body such as a political party, but it is convienent shorthand.

Right now it looks like 2008 will be a very tough year for Republican candidates. Assuming that we don't get two straight 'freak' elections, I think it is safe to assume that some GOP challengers will beat Democratic incumbents somewhere (Georgia is the best bet), but overall, the betting line is for the Democrats to win expanded majorities in the House and Senate as well as the White House.

If that is the case, then an objective of winning the intra-party faction fight which has been simmering for a while is a high value and obtainable objective. The nominee is the de facto party leader and the coalition behind the nominee is the de facto flagship coalition within the party. Huckabee represents a significant faction within the GOP, and it is one that has threatened to bolt in order to demonstrate its own importance.

If a significant proportion of Republican decision and opinion leaders, and more specifically theo-/social conservative opinion leaders believe that this is a losing year for the general election nominee irregardless of who the nominee is, then the incentive to win the intra-party fight and support Huckabee no matter what becomes far stronger which will ensure that he stays in for a while.

Why I don't want Clinton as the nominee

I was lifting weights and talking politics with a good friend and fellow political junky last week and he asked me who I want the Democrats to nominate. I'm still unsure as I believe any of the major candidates have a very viable path towards the nomination, and there is something about Edwards, Clinton and Obama that raises some serious doubts. I have tactical questions about Edwards, knowledge that people like me and my normal allies are the people who Clinton will screw when faced with a tough decision as well as a distrust of her foreign policy judgement, and severe questions about Obama's decision making process as he consistently decides to not decide and the decry 'old politics'. However I'm going to steal Publius's work at Obsidian Wings on why I won't vote for Clinton in the primaries:

the Clintons are so scarred that they’re scared. Nothing bold will come from a second Clinton administration – and there’s a non-negligible chance that she’ll be pressured into doing something hawkishly stupid on the foreign policy front. Whether the flaw is action or inaction, the reason will be the same – they are intensely, neurotically afraid of appearing too liberal. The scars cut too deep.

As Sullivan and others have noted, the Clintons came of age in a different time. In their formative political years in Arkansas, they internalized the lesson of distancing themselves from the dirty hippies. And it worked for them – both in Arkansas and in 1992. And that’s all fine – politicians have to play the cards that historical context deals them. More power to them.

But 2008 is a new world....

I'm not a dirty f*cking hippy --- too damn young for starters, but I also never liked weed, and I have no rhythm or tone so I can't play the guitar --- but the DFH are my allies on a regular basis. And as John Cole noted earlier this week "you don’t diss the insight of the smelly dirty hippies. Once again, they were right.

Hillary Clinton can win the White House, but she won't be willing to attempt to get that much done besides immediate damage control. I don't think we can afford that opportunity cost.

Edwards looks to gain from debate

by shamanic

It looks like John Edwards is primed to reap the greatest bump from Tuesday's debate, but let me voice my emphatic worry about his recent opt-in to the public finance system.

We've been here before, with John Kerry in August 2004, when the verb "to swiftboat" was coined. Admittedly, Kerry opted to remain aloof, go windsurfing, and take the punches rather than punching back. We'll never know whether taking the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth to the mat that month would have changed the outcome of the election.

I don't think Edwards would be so lazy about such an attack. And I don't think he - or Elizabeth - would take anything dished out without heaping scorn right back. We've seen it throughout the campaign.

With Obama's barely-there performance, I can only conclude that he's folding his tent, and as I evaluate the other candidates, Edwards seems like an easier and easier choice. I've kicked around the idea of voting for Kucinich in the primaries as a protest, but the truth is I'd like to do more than protest. I'd like to shape the process, and I think Edwards may well end up the guy I vote for in a few months.

And, to address Kevin Drum's recent comments about the Democratic fetish with nominating southerners, it isn't because he's a southerner (though the drawl has its own folksy appeal). It's because he scraps really well, and if there's anything I know to be true about politics in America today, it's that it's fought with both brains and knuckles. Edwards has both. Hell, Edwards' wife has both. He just might be the guy.

Becoming more indifferent

While I am waiting for a couple of short novels to print from this set of work projects that have me buried, I'll be able to stick my head up for a quick breath of fresh air and write before I disapear for the rest of the week. I have long been reasonably happily indifferent with the Democratic presidential field. I am reading the 2008 race in the same way that I read the 2006 Pennsylvania Senate race --- a warm dishtowel with no discovered live-boys/dead girls history with a D next to their name should be able to win the race assuming a minimally competent campaign. So the question to me is how to get the best possible future outcome from that assumption.

I want to give Obama a chance as he is a very interesting speaker, and plenty of people whom I respect have been in a year long swoon for him. I like the transformational rhetoric but I have been waiting for substance. I am still happily indifferent with him as I can see a fairly clear path towards victory; the Gore/Kerry states, pick-off Florida, Ohio and at least one state in the Mountain West and reclaim Iowa for a decent margin of victory. My biggest worry about an Obama presidency has been that he has not taken significant leadership on any large scale policy outcome and he likes to avoid hard choices, so when he has to choose non-Pareto outcomes, I don't know whom he'll choose to screw.

John Edwards is someone whose demographics I like as an electability argument, and whose policy positions are probably the strongest and most progressive in the top tier. I have seen an ability to reassess his opinions when new information comes in and to change his opinion. I like that. However I am seeing a harder and harder time for him to win the nomination despite doing a very good job of building a strong operation in Iowa and an adequate one in New Hampshire. I am worried about his decision to accept public financing in the primaries as he'll be forced to go dark and work with non-coordinated spending as his stop gap.

I have been skeptical about Hillary Clinton --- not on the fact that I don't think that she could win the general election, as I think she has a very clear and clean path forward, but on the fact that I have had some serious reservations about her judgement. My read has been that when push comes to shove, she'll screw over liberals and progressives first. However, the combination of the positive rhetoric that Looseheadprop picked up concerning Iraq and Iran, as well as the post by Eriposte at The Left Coaster, has done a good job of blunting my criticism. She is no worse than the other two leading Democrats on foreign policy and her decision criteria and processes when faced with non-Pareto choices and she understands how to operate in a hostile media environment.

Three months ago if I was forced to rank and weigh my preferences, I would have gone with a top pair of Edwards, Obama, with Clinton slightly behind, and then Richardson significantly behind Clinton but above everyone else. Now I am slightly leaning towards Clinton, with Obama three inches off her heels, and Edwards slightly further back from him. Richardson, Biden and Dodd are several miles off the pace.

Edwards is running for a message

John Edwards has just announced that he'll be accepting matching funds for the primary season. This effectively means that he will lose any 'electability' arguments as his spending will be capped, and the DNC will have limited ability to coordinate with his campaign if he was to be the nominee post Early Tuesday, Super Tuesday or Super Duper Tuesday.

Former Sen. John Edwards Thursday said he will accept public financing for his presidential campaign, and challenged his chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to follow his lead.....

In order to qualify for so-called "matching funds," the public funding program for the primary season, the FEC requires candidates to demonstrate nationwide support by raising $5000 in 20 different states with no individual contribution to exceed $250, a task which poses little difficulty for major candidates like Edwards.

Once qualified, the federal government will match the first $250 from new contributors, provided Edwards adheres to a $50 million national spending limit, as well as spending limits in each state. Candidates may not receive more than about $21 million in matching funds.

In November 2003, when Howard Dean opted out, I saw this as a good strategic move as an electability argument that he could compete monetarily with George W. Bush and the RNC from mid-February to late August when the DNC held its convention and the nominee received the general election check.

In an ideal world, he[Dean] probably would like to be able to do that [opt-in]as fundraising is expensive and time consuming with the opportunity cost that when he is looking for money, he is not campaigning. However Bush is planning to have $150 million dollars available to spend between next March and next August. Bush's plan is to drop that entire load on a bloodied and broke Democratic nominee after Super Tuesday in order to define our candidate negatively.

If the Democrats want to win, they have to counter that ability of Bush to go negative early and often. Dean forgoing the spending caps in the primary is an attempt to do this as he is betting that between now and the convention that he can raise $40-$50 million dollars to counterattack against Bush. [minor edits for readability]

John Kerry provided himself with a bridge loan in late 2003 and also decided to opt out of matching funds, and once he rode Iowa to victory, he was able to go toe to toe with the Bush financial machine. Every other Democratic candidate opted-into public financing of the primary cycle and would have been vulnerable to five months of minimal campaign activity as they would have been effectively out of spendable cash.

Even with the Republican field being fiscally weaker this year than the Democratic field, the Republican candidates who opt, in coordination with the flush RNC campaign account would be able to blanket the airwaves with defining negative attacks against any Democrat who was forced, due to a lack of money, to go silent for several months.

Therefore, I have to believe that John Edwards realizes that he has a minimal shot at the Presidency and his value on the campaign trail is either as a proxy for Obama against Clinton, functioning as Gephardt to Clinton's Dean murder-suicide pact that killed Dean's positives in Iowa, or as a messenger for change and conversation expansion.

Opportunity Cost in 2008

I am a liberal, a progressive and a Democrat. The vast majority of the time, my interests are better served by a Democrat winning than a Republican or a third party candidate winning. The few exceptions are in SW PA races where the Dem is either under indictment or there are very, very, very strong rumors of indictment or massive general incompetence needs to be scared out of the system by an upset win. However, I also recognize that my interests diverge from the interests of other Democrats, and that the Democratic Party is a coalition party with significant centripetal forces. So shutting up and taking it in bad years is part of the price of being a liberal Democrat, and screaming in frustration and running the numbers during good years on the mistaken DCCC recruiting strategy is part of the responsibility.

My preference order is smart, competent, honest Democrat>progressive Democrat> pressure sensitive progressive Dem>Blue Dog/DLC Dem> GOP unreliable defector> anyone else. The same basic order applies to the presidency. I want the Democrats to nominate as progressively/liberally as they can with a high probability of winning. Any of the candidates polling above 5% nationally should be able to win excluding extraordinary circumstances.

Recent electoral analysis by Crystal Ball, and Open Left looking at state by state polling show that the Democrats have a massive and significant early state by state structural advantage. The entire Democratic base states are secure, and the Dems are dominating within the swing AND making margin of error contests in deep Republican states. Yes, I know that polling this far out it unreliable, and that once the nominations occur, base voters and reliable 'independents'/unaffiliated voters will migrate back to the party, but these maps set the structure of the 2008 campaign.

The Democrats are going into 2008 with a significant advantage. We should think about using it to win as progressive as possible. I am not advocating a strategy of seeking 274 or 276 electoral votes as the margin of error there is too small; instead an electoral vote aspiration goal of 330 to 350 should be sought instead of 400 or more. The larger the coalition, the easier it is to make your base the chump.

So what is the electoral, progressive opportunity cost in 2008 under the current structural underpinnings of the campaign?

Obama Kills. Again!

by shamanic

At least $31 million. Good lord. I've got some catching up to do.

Clinton expects to pull $27M, while John Edwards appears completely handicapped by being a white male in a lineup of an amazingly diverse, excellent heavy-hitters.

In a full disclosure way, I'll tell you that I gave Edwards $25 in Q1 when Bill Donohue of the Catholic League went after his campaign. I haven't given to anyone else, but I'll soon be joining the quarter of a million other Americans who've donated to Barack Obama's campaign, and I'll be giving regularly through the primaries.

I suppose I'm announcing my support for Barack Obama because I can't wait to face him in the general when I've crushed Mitt, Rudy, John, Fred, and Jim Henley to win the Republican nomination. We'll see how Barack's smooth eloquence matches my scruffy sarcasm. My sexual orientation should neutralize his race, and I'm pleased to announce that I'll be contacting Colin Powell soon to go into VP discussions (sorry Libby). My dad was in the Army, so I'm sure he's got Colin's number.

The Republican Party will be the first party ever to nominate a lesbian for President. What a sea change! I can't wait. Also, I'm from the south, and if you listen to any of the pundits out there, you know that southerners only vote for southerners, and that apparently a party can't effectively govern if it isn't beholden to southern interests. I know my fellow southerners will flock to my candidacy--I'm urban, professional, oh so queer!, and really speak for the needs of the south.

So bring it Barack! I'm salivating at the opportunity to trounce you next November!

Oh, and... according to WaPo,

While Obama's second quarter haul set a new off-year election mark for Democrats, it still falls well short of the best fund-raising tallies ever. President Bush holds the record for an off-election year, collecting $50 million between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2003 when he was running mostly uncontested in the GOP primary.

That means I'll start my financial support in a quarter where Obama could, maybe, possibly, in a crowded field of stellar candidates, outraise the unopposed George W. Bush for the same quarter just four years ago. If I were Obama's fundraising crew, I would set a private, unofficial goal of $51M for the quarter.

WaPo also says Mitt Romney fell short of the $21M he pulled in Q1, but Rudy might have outraised him. I'll believe it when I see it. The excitement is just not there on the GOP side.

Illustrating the Obvious

by shamanic

Yesterday I saw this video of Elizabeth Edwards' call to Hardball guest Ann Coulter, which revealed Coulter's inherent, vapid nastiness in all its glory. Chris Matthews kept Coulter's feet to the fire, but the bigger question is why he had her on to begin with, and why anyone should consider his show to be even remotely serious about politics as a result.

I do think the episode is revealing for what it illustrates about the state of partisan politics and the media today. Here's my big-picture take on the exchange:

Democrat: I think we should focus on substantive issues instead of personal attacks.

Republican: What personal attacks? Just because your husband dines on the raw corpses of dead babies and molests little boys doesn't mean I think he's a bad guy.

Democrat: This is the kind of negativity that drives people out of the political process.

Republican: YOU WANT TO CENSOR ME!!!

Democrat: Um, are your pens all filled with bile instead of ink?

Republican: YOU CAN'T CENSOR ME! YOU'RE JUST A WOMAN! YOU HUSBAND GIVES SPEECHES!

Media Guy (doing an excellent impression of a concerned citizen): Why exactly did you say that "The Democratic party works constantly to destroy America, and anyone who votes for a Democrat should be dragged from his house under cover of darkness, hung in the town square, and stoned to death by a grateful community of patriots"?

Republican: Could you read me the sentence?

Next time Chris, instead of asking Coulter questions about the adjectives she uses, invite a real guest on instead. Think of it as donating to charity instead of sending flowers.

Electability

I do not like electability arguments as they are an argument of weakness and cosmetic salience. I was not a big fan of John Kerry's use of the electability argument in 2004 as his proposition that he was the only Democrat who could beat George W. Bush was later proven to be false as he was unable to create a distinct differentiation on the major issue of the 2004 election, Iraq, and could not parry the expected blows that were thrown at him. If a party has confidence that its basic ideas and prescriptions are both right and reasonably popular, and that it can also offer a fairly wide field of obviously non-batshit insane individuals than the electability argument should not be in play.

I believe that the Democratic Party in this Presidential Cycle has a fairly deep and credible field of obviously not batshit insane candidates. I also believe that the Democratic policy portfolio is fairly popular even as personal popularity of national Congressional Democrats is going downhill due to their inability to implement their publicly preferred agenda.

I also like John Edwards, or at least I want to like him, but when he is trotting out an electability argument in that he could expand the playing field for Democrats into the Deep South while Hillary Clinton due to her gender, and Barrack Obama due to his race implicitly could not do the same. This is an argument of weakness and superficial characteristics --- a drawling white Southern male is attractive to the South, but the Democratic Party does not need to win the South to win a majority as the 2006 Cognressional elections and the current composition of the Congress has proven.

John Edwards has some very good policy positions and an excellent moral center for his campaign. He should embrace the Two America diagnosis and prescription and run with it instead of engaging in such a weak electability argument.

And by the way, Hillary Clinton is beating all of the potential Republican nominees by a significant margin according to Newsweek (h/t AmericaBlog) so besides being a weak argument, it is a wrong argument to make at this time.

John Edwards - the man and his party

By Libby

It was a tough choice on Sunday afternoon, lounge poolside or go to John Edwards birthday party? The weather was perfect for the pool, so I wavered until the last second but in the end I jumped back in the shower at 3:30, chopped two inches off my hair, grabbed my camera and took my new power bob to Chapel Hill for the fundraiser. I figured it was worth the couple of hours and $15 bucks to see the campaign in action.

I'm not supporting anybody in this race yet but I'm interested in Edwards. Despite his shaky numbers, I still think he's a contender. The party reinforced that view. I've worked on a lot of campaigns, including a stint in the top tier of Robert Reich's gubernatorial bid for governor of Massachusetts and John Olver's initial run to replace Silvio Conte. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a candidate by looking at their organization and the way they interact with their team. Edwards left me positively impressed.

The event was really well organized. The crowd was having fun. They had a really good bluegrass band who played at the perfect volume, the volunteer staff was helpful, they didn't run out of food and the security for the most part wasn't overly heavy-handed.

I did have one bad moment with a couple of guys at the very end when I was cutting through the insider tent to get around to the other side of the crowd. After having spent most of the event backstage, unchallenged, I found myself between a little guy nominally in charge of security and a great big guy who looked about ready to physically restrain me for wanting to duck under the flags instead of walking all the way around. Fortunately, I was immediately rescued by the press guy and I ended up meeting their blogging co-ordinator.

Frankly, I wasn't that impressed with her, she didn't seem to know much about Blogtopia, but I was knocked out by Ellis Roberts.


Ellis is a local guy, and a friend of the family. He's been working with John since around 01 or 02 when he interned in the Senate office. He was pressed into service at the barbecue station for this gig - he owns the pig cooker in the photo. I didn't have any myself, but he must have done a good job since nobody lynched him. They do take their barbecue seriously down here.

He's an intelligent, articulate and personable young man, very straightforward, who is clearly going places. It speaks well of the candidate that he could keep his loyalty and enthusiam for so many years.

As for John Edwards himself, I've posted about his style and his supporters, along with more photos at my place. But I'll repeat here that I was really impressed with the way he engaged with his volunteers and his supporters.


I took this shot after he had been doing the meet and greet for over an hour and he was was just as attentive to the stragglers as he was when the media's cameras were rolling.

I was even more impressed with Elizabeth, who I spoke to briefly. She graciously posed for this shot.


This is a gorgeous woman, an extraordinarily brave one and an incredible wife. She's going through a difficult stage of chemo, but she pitched in like a trooper. She gave a great introduction and came out again later to deflect some of the crowd from John at the meet and greet.

She's unequivocally an asset to John's candidacy. She has a casual elegance about her, yet she's unpretentious and inclusive in her interactions with the public. But I was most struck by her air of serenity. She looks and feels like someone at peace with their mortal soul. I still haven't decided about her husband, but I think she would make a great First Lady.