William Katz: Urgent Agenda
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I'll be away for a few hours, but will post later tonight. I'm beginning to get some very disturbing information on Joe Biden's relationship with the Iranian government.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2008
THE BIDEN ERA? NOT
Posted at Posted at 11:36 p.m. ET
We've now had almost a full day of Joe Biden. Had enough?
Jay Nordlinger, at National Review Online, certainly has. While there are both good and bad things to say about Biden, Nordlinger believes that, for Obama, Biden was a poor choice:
I am quite surprised — nearly shocked — at the pick of Biden. I believe Obama has made an error — not just hope so, believe. And he had so many good options for the veep slot (unlike John McCain). He could have gone Kaine, Bayh, Sebelius, Boren, Edwards (Chet) — he had many good options. It was practically impossible to screw up.
But, in Nordlinger's mind, Obama did the impossible.
I believe that Barack Obama will not wear well. Indeed, I think his act has been wearing thin for weeks. And I think that his vice-presidential nominee will wear even worse. I’m not sure why he went with Biden — maybe he likes him, personally, which is not the worst thing in the world. It’s helpful if a president likes his vice president (or at least doesn’t dislike him). But I don’t see what Biden gains him. Biden is a slightly risible figure, what with his hair plugs (or whatever) and his many, many examples of public obnoxiousness.
All politicians have sizable egos, but this may be the most self-loving ticket ever. There’s an old saying, “He’ll die in his own arms” — that can apply to both of them. (I’ve thought of it in connection with McCain, too.) And Obama and Biden are two of the gassiest politicians in all the land — they are rhetorically impossible.
The verbiage ticket, this is, and the arrogance ticket, and the emptiness ticket. McCain and his running-mate-to-be should really take them. Don’t you think?
I think yes, but it will be a difficult fight, and there are the problems of press bias and possible widespread voter fraud in big cities. No one should be confident.
August 23, 2008. Permalink 
SURPRISE?
Posted at Posted at 10:35 p.m. ET
The Politico is reporting that Gen. Colin Powell is under consideration by McCain for the vice-presidential slot. That, assumes, of course, that Powell might be interested, which I seriously doubt. If you're going to put yourself out there, why not go for the top job?
But, politically, it's a fascinating thought. The implications for policy leave me with considerably less enthusiasm:
Retired Gen. Colin Powell is among the potential running mates who have been considered by John McCain, campaign advisers told Politico.
Powell was among the possible vice presidential choices the Arizona Republican senator was thinking of when he said he would not rule out a supporter of abortion rights, a key adviser said.
Let's see how long the boomlet lasts. I'll give it 'til dawn.
August 23, 2008. Permalink
TRACKERS
Posted at 1:10 p.m. ET
Both trackers for the day are out, with both showing Obama two points ahead. Both had him a point ahead yesterday. The change is too small to be significant. It wouldn't be shocking if he got a modest bump during his convention, starting Monday.
The trackers do not yet show the effect of naming Biden. The story just below suggests there may not be any important impact.
Augut 23, 2008. Permalink
BIDEN A WASH
Posted at 12:29 p.m. ET
First polling on Obama's choice of Biden is in, from the Washington Post:
Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate is unlikely to shake-up the presidential horse race. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll completed last night, three-quarters of voters said picking Biden would not sway their votes one way or the other. And about as many said they would be more apt to support Obama with Biden on the ticket as said the choice would make them less likely to vote Democratic on Election Day (13 to 10 percent).
Well, at least Biden doesn't appear to be doing any harm...so far. The results also reflect the fact that people look at who's leading the ticket.
August 23, 2008. Permalink
THE CHOICE
Posted at 5:35 a.m. ET
Obama has now chosen Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate. The official announcement comes at 10 a.m. today.
So, the most interesting part of the vice-presidential contest is over. Now Biden can contemplate the emptiness of the job, and the madness of rushing around the country to all 50 states, or 57 according to Obama, trying to get elected while explaining a past comment that Barack Obama isn't quite ready for the presidency.
Slip of the tongue, I'm sure he'll say.
For the rest of us, go back to sleep. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. Obama could have chosen worse, or he could have chosen Hillary, and re-ignited his campaign, which is starting to look like a plant that hasn't been watered in two or three weeks. Choosing Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, presumably will demonstrate that Obama values foreign-policy expertise, although expertise without sound policies means nothing. Don't tell Obama that.
At the same time, voters might notice that the second man is far more experienced than the top guy. They might also notice that Biden has a way with words - using thousands of them when ten would do and five would be perfect. Thus, the law of averages is against him. The chances of a gaffe increase proportionately with the number of words employed.
And they might recall that Biden went nowhere in several presidential bids, the latest being earlier this year. He hasn't exactly made a hit with the public.
But the vice-presidential nominee tends to disappear during the campaign. The veep choices will get a debate, and maybe there'll be a consolation prize from a game-show host. The top of the ticket will decide the contest.
I'd be curious to see if the choice produces any bump in the polls. While Biden failed with the voters in the primaries, Hillary came close to making it. No doubt her supporters, both at the convention and among the masses, will notice that Obama chose the low-score guy. Some bitterness will flow.
So that phase is over. No longer will the Biden fanatics have to wait. They both have gotten their way. The convention will act appropriately enthusiastic, and Obama/Biden will be launched.
As I said, go back to sleep.
August 23, 2008. Permalink
BAD REVIEW
Posted at 5:30 a.m. ET
Veteran political reporter Ron Fournier, of the AP, is already taking a dim view of Obama's vice presidential choice:
The pick says something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden pick is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.
Democratic strategists, fretting over polls that showed McCain erasing Obama's lead this summer, welcomed the move. They, too, worried that Obama needed a more conventional — read tougher — approach to McCain.
And...
Biden brings a lot to the table. An expert on national security, the Delaware senator voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq but has since become a vocal critic of the conflict. He won praise for a plan for peace in Iraq that would divide the country along ethnic lines.
Chief sponsor of a sweeping anti-crime bill that passed in 1994, Biden could help inoculate Obama from GOP criticism that he's soft on crime — a charge his campaign fears will drive a wedge between white voters and the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House.
So the question is whether Biden's depth counters Obama's inexperience — or highlights it?
After all, Biden is anything but a change agent, having been in office longer than half of all Americans have been alive. Longer than McCain.
And he talks too much.
Do you get the feeling there may be problems here?
Finally...
On the same day he announced his second bid for the presidency, Biden found himself explaining why he had described Obama as "clean."
And there's the 2007 ABC interview in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.
It seems Obama is worried that some voters are starting to agree.
Painful, painful. You mean there's no national yearning for Biden?
Other reviews will undoubtedly follow. And the McCain side will provide its own reviews, which are unlikely to include any quotable raves.
August 23, 2008. Permalink
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
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UPDATE AT 10:59 P.M. ET: Betting at this hour centers on Joseph Biden as the Democratic pick for vice president. But betting four hours ago centered on Evan Bayh. So save your money and wait for ten in the morning, when the announcement is made. No name in serious contention would arouse any real excitement. Also, once the name comes out, interest in the vice presidency starts to decline. It's the top of the ticket that decides things.
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BARONE
Posted at 7:52 p.m. ET
One of our best political analysts, Michael Barone, asks a fundamental question this evening: Why won't the mainstream media question the Barack Obama narrative? Barone comments:
The Democrats can usually depend on the mainstream media to accept their narratives uncritically, while the Republicans can expect them to punch holes in their story lines...
...The narrative of this year's Democratic National Convention can be forecast with some assurance. It will emphasize Barack Obama's roots in Kansas more than Kenya or even Hawaii; it will portray him as a leader from a new generation eager to cast off the partisanship of the past decade; it will hail him as a symbol that America has risen above past prejudices and can once again stand proud in the world.
But..
An interesting question is whether mainstream media have any appetite for undermining this undeniably attractive narrative...
...Obama's record of reaching across party lines is, as his own answer to Rick Warren's recent Saddleback Civil Forum question showed, pretty thin. His paper trail is surprisingly thin, too: He has left no papers from his Illinois Senate days; he hasn't listed his law firm clients or provided more than one page of medical records; the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which he chaired and in which the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers was heavily involved, were suddenly closed to National Review's Stanley Kurtz by the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois. Mainstream media, with the conspicuous exception of ABC News's George Stephanopoulos, have shown little curiosity about Obama's connection with Ayers. It will also be interesting to see if there is much coverage of Obama's 2003 vote in Illinois against protecting infants born alive in attempted abortions, now that his campaign has conceded that the bill was virtually identical to one that passed the U.S. Senate 98 to 0 in 2001.
Ouch. Who does this Barone guy think he is, some fancy-pants researcher or somethin'?
Finally...
Obama backers dismiss attempts to undermine his narrative as distractions or as racism, beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse. Most of the mainstream media tend to agree. William Ayers is no more likely to appear at the convention than the disgraced John Edwards. But other media have a voice. Obama will probably get a nice bounce out of his convention. But it's not clear whether his narrative can be sustained in the weeks and months ahead.
It won't be sustained if we do our jobs. As for the mainstream media, let's see if they can regain some respect by doing theirs.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
EDUCATION DOLLARS AT WORK
Posted at 7:12 p.m. ET
My friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who supplies us with the best material on conditions in Iran, takes a change of pace and passes on this photo of a cake made for an employee's going-away party:
Apparently, when the cake was ordered, the customer said something like "Write 'Best Wishes Suzanne,' underneath that, 'We will miss you.'"
Look at the result.
Look, the cake maker can print. What about a career in media?
August 22, 2008. Permalink
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UPDATE AT 6:55 P.M. ET: Drudge is passing along a local broadcast report that a Kansas City company is printing OBAMA/BAYH materials. Well, that could well be the ticket. Or maybe the firm thinks that printing the wrong bumper stickers will make them collectors' items, like the election edition of the Chicago Tribune that erroneously headlined DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN in 1948.
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NOT SO FAST, BARACK
Posted at 4:35 p.m. ET
Gerard Baker, who we've often cited here, is one of the most astute British observers of the American scene. Here he astutely observes once again - this time examining the Obama campaign the way one might examine the Titanic as it approached the iceberg:
There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.
Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.
How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?
All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.
Wonderful, wonderful. The man had a good English teacher.
Of course, the conventional view is that it's all the work of that most terrifyingly effective piece of artillery since the invention of the howitzer, the Republican Attack Machine.
The credulous American voter, we're told, has been subjected in the last month to a televised blitzkrieg of right-wing lies about the hapless Democrat. He's not patriotic. He might be a Muslim. He might not even be American. He probably is a Muslim. There's no evidence he's ever said anything nice about Michael Phelps. He goes to the mosque on Fridays. If Obama's the leader of the free world, it won't be the Caucasian Georgia the Russians invade but the one sandwiched between Florida and South Carolina.
But...
The bigger change has occurred in perceptions about the race. A month ago the prevailing view among the wise was that Senator Obama would steadily increase his lead and by the time his convention concluded next week, it would be insurmountable.
But instead, it looks as though, even if he has a really good convention in Denver next week, and Hillary and Bill Clinton play the unlikely role of loyal followers, the race will still be close when the Republicans start their gathering in a week's time.
What a shame. The reasons?
The fact is that the 47-year-old Democrat, less than four years in the Senate, is still largely a blank page for American voters: a great orator and an attractive figure, but unknown and untested. The Republicans have been filling in some of the gaps and pointing out how thin his real biography is.
The second problem is that Senator Obama is having difficulty - curiously enough - with Democratic voters. Polls indicate that while Senator McCain has just about locked up the votes of those who supported other Republicans in the primary election, Senator Obama is still regarded with mistrust and dislike by large numbers of Hillary Clinton's former supporters.
Of course, the Hillary crowd would regard anyone with mistrust and dislike, probably including Bill.
The irony for Senator Obama is that he has built a campaign on a pledge to put an end to cynicism in the political system, but the more he offers only vague promises of hope, the greater the danger that he increases voter cynicism about politicians in general and him in particular.
The third problem is that events have not helped the Democrats. The war in Georgia has emphasised that the world is a dangerous place, and that simply being willing to talk to your enemies, as Senator Obama sometimes seems to suggest, isn't going to keep your people safe.
Finally...
The more the campaign is about the concerns of the American voter, especially the state of the economy but also the general anxiety about the direction of the country, the more likely they are to throw the Republicans out.
But the uncomfortable truth for the many devoted fans of Senator Obama is that the more the race is about him, the less likely he is to win it.
And it is about him, more and more. When Obama makes himself the center of everything, when he presents himself as the man the world has been waiting for, the election is going to be about him. And if he chooses a mediocrity for vice president, it will be even more about him.
Maybe the messiah strategy wasn't so smart after all.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
TRACKERS
Posted at 2:31 p.m. ET
Both trackers are now out for today, and both show Obama with a one-point lead. Given that Obama normally polls better than he delivers, we can conclude that he's either leading very narrowing, or even slightly behind.
As I've said here before, this isn't the news the Democrats expected to receive as they fly to Denver this weekend. Obama is clearly in trouble. I can't imagine his vice presidential choice getting him out of it. If you hear any "We want Kaine" or "We want Bayh" chants in your neighborhood, please alert me. I haven't heard any.
So that would leave the convention itself and Obama's acceptance speech to produce the required "bounce." But the GOP convention starts almost as the Dems have had their last tofu parties in Denver. The McCain troops, becoming more effective every day, will be all over Obama.
For political junkies, the next two weeks should provide far better entertainment than anything on the major networks.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
MAYBE TODAY
Posted at 6:59 a.m. ET
The political equivalent of the college of cardinals has apparently met in the Obama camp, and the candidate will soon issue forth a name. Blessed be the selection, as it is written in Rove 43:15.
My own sense is that Obama is overplaying his vice presidential choice. He's orchestrated this tremendous buildup, the waiting, the promise to notify the faithful by text messaging, which is what the faithful understand. He will apparently go with the choice to Illinois tomorrow, to do one of those "where Lincoln walked" public appearances. I can't imagine Lincoln notifying anybody on a two-inch screen. He respected words too much for that.
The problem is that buildups require climaxes. And Obama better come through. If he suddenly brings forth Tim Kaine, who looks like the guy at the corner bar who just got rooked on a roof repair, the letdown will be immediate. Ditto Evan Bayh, a sweet guy but no barn burner.
Only someone spectacular will feed the moment. I just don't know if Obama has the guts to name a spectacular, to name someone who might, for a bit of time, overshadow him, maybe be more interesting than him. But if he doesn't have the stomach for it, he shouldn't have orchestrated the buildup.
What I learned in Hollywood: The audience always demands its money's worth.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
THE McCAIN MOMENT
Posted at 6:39 a.m. ET
Peggy Noonan gives a sharp assessment, I think, of why McCain has suddenly started to move up. The key, of course, is to keep the movement going.
Why is it a real race now, with John McCain rising in the polls and Barack Obama falling? There are many answers, but here I think is an essential one: The American people have begun paying attention.
They look at Obama:
This is what they see:
An attractive, intelligent man, interesting, but—he's hard to categorize. Is he Gen. Obama? No, no military background. Brilliant Businessman Obama? No, he never worked in business. Famous Name Obama? No, it's a new name, an unusual one. Longtime Southern Governor Obama? No. He's a community organizer (what's that?), then a lawyer (boo), then a state legislator (so what, so's my cousin), then U.S. senator (less than four years!).
There is no pre-existing category for him.
Add to that the wear and tear of Jeremiah Wright, secret Muslim rumors, media darling and, this week, abortion.
She argues that the Rick Warren debate mattered because it came just as Americans began to focus on the race.
Mr. McCain was direct and clear, Mr. Obama both more careful and more scattered. But on abortion in particular, Mr. McCain seemed old-time conservative, which is something we all understand, whether we like such a stance or not, and Mr. Obama seemed either radical or dodgy. He wouldn't vote to ban partial-birth abortions because we must contemplate a rigorous legal parsing of any and all possible implications regarding emanations and of the viability of Roe v. Wade?
As I watched I thought: How about "Let the baby live"? Don't parse it. Just "Let the baby live..."
...If you want to argue whether legal abortion is morally defensible, have at it and go to it, but Mr. Obama's answers here seemed to me strange and disturbing.
Noonan gives some surprising advice on which speech to look for:
I suspect everyone has the convention speeches wrong. Everyone expects Mr. Obama to rouse, but the speech I'd watch is Mr. McCain's.
He's the one with the real opportunity, because no one expects anything. He's never been especially good at making speeches...
...But Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play.
I'd forgotten about that, and Peggy Noonan is right. It was a great moment, and enjoyed by the people at home.
Noonan believes McCain should make a one-term pledge. I do not. It would simply call attention to his age, and who knows what a practiced, invigorated McCain would be like in four years? Maybe he'd be at the top.
This was supposed to be the Obama moment. If McCain plays it right, he can make it his moment. If he plays it right, and if the press lets him.
August 22, 2008. Permalink
"What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion."
- Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
of The New York Times.
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