EVENING UPDATE:  APRIL 28,  2008

Posted at 7:25 p.m. ET

THE WRONG STUFF

The occasionally Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. is out with more weirdness.  The man will not go away, will not shut up, and seems to be aiming right for Barack Obama.  Obama's worst enemy could not do more damage.  Here is Rev. Wrong today:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that he will try to change national policy by “coming after” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) if he is elected president.

The pastor also insisted Obama “didn’t denounce” him and “didn’t distance himself” from Wright’s controversial remarks, but “did what politicians do.”

Wright implied Obama still agrees with him by saying: “He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was [portrayed as] anti-American.”

Wright, who was Obama’s pastor for 20 years and performed his wedding, made the explosive comment during a chaotic question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington, following the pastor’s remarks about the black church in America.

“I said to Barack Obama last year, ‘If you get elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people,’ Wright said.

The minister was speaking as part of a tour that is drawing heavy news coverage and causing a huge headache for Obama’s presidential campaign.

This is coming right before the Indiana primary.  Indiana is not a state known for its embrace of radical black ministers.  The more coverage this gets, the worse it is for Obama, who has not regained his stride after losing the Pennsylvania primary.

April 28, 2008.      Permalink          

MORE PAIN FOR OBAMA?

AP is reporting that popular Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina will endorse Hillary Clinton, just a week before the North Carolina primary.  Clinton is not expected to win the state - a new poll has Obama up 12 - so Easley's endorsement can mean one or more of the following:

1.  Easley knows something about the North Carolina electorate that we don't know, and may have internal polls showing Clinton moving up.

2.  Easley is idealistic and is endorsing the candidate he thinks best, regardless of the numbers.

3.  Easley knows Clinton can't win North Carolina, but believes he can make Obama's triumph smaller with his endorsement of Clinton, thus giving Clinton a moral victory.

4.  He calculates that, ultimately, Clinton will be the nominee, and, if he helps arrange an upset in North Carolina, he can be her vice presidential choice.

5.  He has a feminist wife who has made physical threats. 

It's a fascinating political move, worthy of examination...assuming the AP story is correct.

April 28, 2008.       Permalink          

THE BARNYARD FIGHT

Michael Goodwin of The New York Daily News is a fine, colorful writer, who now writes a fine, colorful, and brutally delightful appraisal of the Democratic race.  He pulls no punches.  In fact, it's all about punches:

Debates about debates are common in campaigns, but that is no ordinary invitation Hillary Clinton is extending to Barack Obama. It's a gang-girl taunt when she tells a big rally she will go anywhere, anytime for a throwdown.

She offers to do it without a moderator, just the two of them asking and answering questions. Stripped of her gauzy spin that it could be like Lincoln-Douglas, she's really challenging him to a bareknuckle punchout. On TV.

It's what a schoolyard tough would do: Knock on a rival's door and dare him to come out and fight on the street. Right here, right now. No rules, just a slugfest, you and me.

She does it because she needs to bloody Obama to win. And because she knows she can kick his butt in a debate.

Not much nuance there.  It goes on:

Welcome to yet another defining moment in the Long March toward the Democratic nomination. He's soft and wounded and she's nasty and desperate.

She's even talking about "obliterating" Iran to prove how tough she is. And she calls Dick Cheney Darth Vader!

Sixteen months after it started in glory, the Dem fight has fallen to Snob-ama vs. the Obliterator, the Unelectable vs. the Unlikable. Yuck.

Ah, where has elegance gone?  A warning for Senator Clinton:

Although her fierce attacks on Obama are pushing her negative ratings into the danger zone even among Democrats, she has little choice. The delegate math is against her and time is running out. A loss in Indiana, where she should win, could finish her next week. A blowout by him in North Carolina, where he is favored, could also end it.

In fact, she could lose the nomination even if she keeps winning primaries and pulls out a narrow win in the total popular vote. That's because Obama is quietly closing in on a majority of delegates.

Finally, more kindness:

All of which means that if Obama does get pushed into a debate, he better make her walk through a metal detector. The lady might be wearing brass knuckles.

The fact is, Americans love a fighter.  That, more than any other factor, may account for Clinton's escaping the hearse on the way to the political graveyard.  Obama doesn't come off as a fighter, even thought the Chicago machine boys behind him know the game. 

I think the psychological impact of next week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina can be enormous.

April 28, 2008.       Permalink          

AFTERNOON POSTING:  APRIL 28, 2008

Posted at 4:37 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

The Indiana poll reported earlier (see "Indiana Poll" below) is the only new state poll.

Democratic nomination:  The national trackers are virtually unchanged.  Rasmussen has Obama up by eight over Clinton, Gallup has Obama up by one.  It is clear that Obama's momentum has been essentially stopped, but Clinton is not making dramatic gains.  Averaging the two trackers, Obama is up by about three and a half or four points.

National trackers:  Both Ras and Gallup have a dead heat in a race between McCain and Obama.

Ras has McCain up three over Clinton, but Gallup has Clinton up three over McCain, averaging a dead heat.

Once again, Senator Clinton, who'd been counted out not many days ago, shows remarkable strength.

The sometimes Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. is, as we've noted, back in the news.  It will take a few days to see if this public rebirth is hurting Obama.  It certainly can't help.

April 28, 2008.      Permalink          

EARLY AFTERNOON POSTING:  APRIL 28,  2008

Posted at 1:02 p.m. ET

INDIANA POLL

We now have the first new Indiana poll in days.  Survey USA, in a poll taken Friday through yesterday, has Clinton up nine over Obama.  I stress that this is one poll, and that we should await others for confirmation of any trend.  Recent polls have had Obama up by a few points.  If the poll is accurate, and Clinton wins Indiana a week from tomorrow, especially by a healthy margin, her campaign gets new momentum going into Kentucky and West Virginia, Clinton states, in the weeks after. 

April 28, 2008.      Permalink          

MONDAY:  APRIL 28, 2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

THE WRIGHT WING

The very or sometimes Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., formerly known as Obama's pastor, is making some kind of victory tour.  As the girl in the film said, "He's baaack!"  He's suddenly surfaced, and is speaking around the country.

Now Wright is attracting lightning once again, and this time John McCain is noticing:

McCain has said in the past that Wright’s comments should not be an issue in the campaign, because he does not think Obama subscribes to the views.

"My position that Sen. Obama doesn't share those views remains the same," McCain said Sunday.

But McCain noted that Obama said on Sunday on Fox News that Wright was an issue, seemingly opening a door for McCain to connect the Democrat to his former pastor.

"I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our Savior, I mean being involved in that. It's beyond belief..." McCain said.

What's hilarious is the pompous, over-the-top reaction of the Obama campaign:

Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said McCain had broken his word to the American people about running a respectful campaign.

"With each passing day, John McCain acts more and more like someone who's spent twenty-six years learning the divisive, distracting tactics of Washington," Sevugan said in a written statement. "That's not the change that the American people are looking for."

Oh, please.  Grow up.

Another little gem from Rev. Wright has surfaced, this one from the now famous "God damn America" sermon:

Wright says in the sermon, of the Iraq war, "we say that God will bless the shock and awe as we take over unilaterally another country, calling it a coalition because we’ve got three guys from Australia, going against the United Nations, going against the majority of Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout the world, making a pre-emptive strike in the name of God. We cannot see how what we are doing is the same thing that al-Qaeda is doing under a different color flag -– calling on the name of a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem.”

Yawn.

April 28, 2008.      Permalink          

KIND WORD FOR HILLARY

Did you ever think you'd read that here?  But Bill Kristol has a convincing argument that Hillary Clinton, she of a thousand negatives, has actually emerged as an impressive candidate.  I happen to agree, with reluctance.  She's fought her way back, and I suspect that fact alone is attracting voters.  Americans love a fighter:

The fact is Hillary Clinton has turned out to be an impressive candidate. She has consistently defeated Barack Obama when her back was to the wall — first in New Hampshire, then in several big primaries on Super Tuesday, on March 4 in Ohio and Texas, and then last week in Pennsylvania, where she was outspent by almost 3 to 1, yet won handily.

She is, of course, still behind in the race, and Obama will most likely be the nominee. His team has run the better campaign. In particular, it realized how important the caucus states could be: Obama’s delegate lead depends on his caucus victories.

But Hillary may well be the better candidate. After all, for all the talk of Obama’s extraordinary ability to draw voters to the polls, Clinton has defeated him in the big states, including California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Obama won his home state of Illinois, but she won Florida, where both were on the ballot but didn’t campaign.

I can't deny it.

Kristol turns to the obvious fact that many in the press have been in the tank for Obama.  He notes that Obama is refusing to debate:

Will the media this week give Obama a pass on refusing to debate Clinton before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6? Will he be chastised for his lame excuse? “We’ve had 21, and so what we’ve said is with two weeks, two big states, we want to make sure we’re talking to as many folks as possible on the ground, taking questions from voters,” Obama said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Will it be left to conservatives like the estimable blogger “Allahpundit” (at hotair.com) to (sarcastically) state the obvious? “What’s the most efficient way to communicate with voters? Surely not at a massively promoted, televised, highly watched debate. Much better to hold a few town halls and meet and greets.”

And...

Will Obama pay no price for ducking? Should paid advertisements determine the Democratic victor, not the performance of the two candidates debating at length in an unscripted setting?

Over to you, anguished liberals.

The anguished liberals will probably reply that debating is an old trick of the Washington establishment.  Can't we get beyond this free exchange of ideas?  Yes we can!

April 28, 2008.      Permalink          

GET GAS WHILE IT'S CHEAP

Did you see this?  Better get to the local gas station and miniature food mart while 87-regular is still a bargain.  Some perfectly sane people are predicting a bit of a rise:

Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.

That’s the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

And...

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7–$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

And what will we do about it?  Probably nothing.

One of the great dangers is enormous damage to the economy.  But another is the vast increase in the wealth of Islamic countries.  I doubt very much if that wealth will be used to enhance the culture of the West.  But I don't doubt that some of it, important money, will find its way into the pockets of Westerners willing to front for our enemies in exchange for a chunk of the new profits.

What we need is a declaration of a national energy emergency, and programs the size of the Manhattan Project to get us off this gasoline-powered suicide mission.

April 28, 2008.       Permalink          

FROM THE ART WORLD

We are very attuned to high culture here, and I can't wait to give you this latest news from the more refined precincts:

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Admirers of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara have contributed more than three tons of bronze keys, kitchenware and old instruments for a statue to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Argentine revolutionary's birth.

``My idea was to do a collective work,'' said sculptor Andres Zerneri, 35. ``I wanted thousands of people to send small pieces of bronze to be involved in the production of the sculpture.''

Zerneri received about 15,000 donations from as far away as Australia and Mexico -- as well as from Cuba, where Guevara fought in Fidel Castro's revolution.

In Argentina, 90 collection points were set up to receive objects while others were sent by mail from abroad. Those that weren't bronze or were unsuitable for melting down were affixed to the lower part of the statue, Zerneri said.

``I wanted to incorporate everything that people sent in,'' said Zerneri, who said he spent 2 1/2 years completing the work.

The 4-meter (13-foot) figure will be taken by boat from Buenos Aires, where Zerneri has his studio, to Rosario, Guevara's hometown.

There, it will be unveiled on June 14, Guevara's birthday, as part of the city's commemorations. The statue will stand in a square to be renamed ``Plaza Ernesto Che Guevara.''

Have you sometimes felt that time could be better spent?

But look, who are we to judge an artist, especially one who's found a use for old trumpets, and especially one who represents a different culture?  Personally, I can't wait to see the sculpture's lower part, where the real junk is.  That's cutting edge.

And I'll be back later, uplifted by art.  And junk.

April 28, 2008.      Permalink