Getting to know Barack

So Obama is doing what I thought he should be doing a few blog posts ago:

Obama needs to solidify his African American support in Philly and march his way out through the suburban counties, where my horsesense tells me he will find much support. The rest of the commonwealth will really test his persuasive skills. Those blue collar and older voters will be a tough sell. I would suggest a change in tactics. Get on the ground, work smaller rooms, hold some town halls, do some barn storming, maybe a railroad tour or a bus road show. Couple that with hard nosed policy proposals and stir the pot with big rallies on the college campuses and big cities, and he might get the votes he needs. Oh, and hammer Clinton on policy and experience issues. Show no mercy. To win Pennsylvania or at least to keep the margin of loss miniscule, he's got to turn voters away from her.

My sense is that, anemic bowling skills aside, his charm offensive is working. As Pennsylvania voters get used to the man, see that's he not a Manchurian candidate, an empty suit, but a level-headed, intelligent, principled candidate, they will begin to lean his way. For the first time, I'm thinking he has a shot in this state. He has plenty of time to close the gap, and Clinton's slipping down the credibility slope, thanks to her Bosnian embellishments.

You can't underestimate the Bob Casey endorsement. It will play very well in upstate and Western PA, where Barack needs to make serious inroads. I'm not convinced that the Rendell endorsement is going to help Clinton all that much, aside from the obvious institutional advantages. Rendell's base of support is Southeastern PA, which should go strongly toward Obama. He's not nearly as popular in the rest of the state, which has a longstanding bias against Philadelphia. So the Rendell endorsement might work against her to some degree. Just saying it's not an automatic advantage.

Obama should not give up on this state. It is winnable. It is not Ohio (as I have maintained already), and he has time to close the deal. By all appearances, the campaign has weathered the "guilt by association" storm and is back to work in a big way. I'm impressed by their discipline and street smarts. They never panic. In PA, they've been quietly registering voters in bunches. Now, they're kicking it into third gear. Obama looks refreshed, sober, and serious about getting this thing done. I'd be shocked if the polls don't start moving significantly after this week. By the time of primary week, I expect to say gigantic rallies in the major cities.

He shouldn't gamble it all on Pennsylvania. Hedge some bets for North Carolina, Indiana, and the remaining contests. But he should go for a knockout blow. It could happen, and I'd be proud to say my state delivered the stake to the heart of the Bush-Clinton era, one of our most shameful political generations.

One final note: I think the keys to victory in Pennsylvania are the cities beyond the suburban rim of Philly: Allentown, Reading, Harrisburg, and Lancaster. If Obama can win over those cities, he'll cruise in Pennsylvania. It won't be easy, but it looks like Obama is going to force Clinton to wage all out war in PA, which could bankrupt her campaign headed into the final round of states.

Chelsea does West Chester

Walked over to West Chester University's Sykes student union building to see Chelsea Clinton speak at a Q & A session. There was a sizeable crowd stuffed into a TV lounge area. I was on the fringes where the curiosity seekers lurked alongside dweebs hoisting their McCain signs. Obama's supporters must have engaged their cloaking devices, for they were nowhere in sight.

The PA system was underpowered and you couldn't hear squat. Chelsea, though a well groomed, amiable looking woman, did not look very comfortable standing in front of the half interested, hearing impaired crowd, and she didn't really exhibit any political charisma. That's not her fault; the genes just didn't get passed on.

When a cocky student shouted from the back "WE can't hear you?!" he was surrounded by defensive, sweating Hillbots who assertively explained the sound problem to him. The entire event was obviously pointless, so we walked away after five minutes and bought pizza at the food court.

The enthusiasm for this event was not registering on the Richter scale. If any news was made today, I missed it.

Carry on Wayward Son

Watch this Japanese girl kick ass on a Kansas classic, all by herself!

A more perfect union

The speech on race in America. Watch it. Read it. Pass it on. Ignore what the media tells you to think about it, and read it for yourself. Then ask yourself, is this guy not ready to be president?

A run on the shadow system

Nouriel Roubini on the Bear Stearns flameout:

This is the worst US financial crisis since the Great Depression and the Fed is treating it as if it was only a liquidity crisis. But this is not just a liquidity crisis; it is rather a credit and insolvency crisis. And it is not the job of the Fed to bail out insolvent non bank financial institutions. If a bail out should occur this is a fiscal policy action that should be decided by Congress after the relevant equity holders have been wiped out and senior management fired without golden parachutes and huge severance packages.

Methinks financial panic has just gone mainstream. Fasten your seatbelt.

Dwelling in Possibilities

Mark Edmundson delivers another great essay on university students, teaching, speeding up, slowing down, the rewards and risks of hooking up, and why his students can't bring laptops to class anymore.

Larry David doesn't want Hillary answering that phone

Larry David on Hillary's 3 AM fear mongering ad:

How is it that she became the one who's perceived as more equipped to answer that 3 a.m. call than the unflappable Obama? He, with the ice in his veins, who doesn't panic when he's losing or get too giddy when he's winning, who's as comfortable in his own skin as she's uncomfortable in hers. There have been times in this campaign when she seemed so unhinged that I worried she'd actually kill herself if she lost.

The "Seven Sermons" by C. G. Jung

The "Seven Sermons" by Carl Jung was written in 1917, the same year as Hermann Hesse's Demian (which was published in 1919). This fascinating text -- in which Jung adopts a pseudonym named Basilides of Alexandria, the City where the East Toucheth the West -- contains extended digressions on the mythic God Abraxas, who plays a key role in Demian. The Seven Sermons is an indispensible skeleton key to unlocking the symbolism in Hesse's novel about the individuation of Emil Sinclair.

PA voter registration

In order to vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, you must be registered as a Democrat. IT is a closed primary. Keystone state residents have until March 24 to register or change party affiliation.

The Race Factor in the Border states

Talking Points Memo reader offers an excellent analysis of how race may be playing a role in the Democratic primaries, more so in the border states like Ohio than the deep south.

I was canvassing for Obama in OH from Saturday through Election Day, but I still expected Clinton to win. My reasons were in part anecdotal: Despite working with a solid Obama ground organization, I encountered much starker resistance from older, middle- and working class whites than I had in other places I'd canvassed, namely Maryland and Iowa. But this anecdotal evidence only added to the much more extensive sense of the Ohio electorate I got as the field director on a House race there in 2006.

and this:

In the "border states," though, you have a collision between old patterns of racist sentiments bleeding up from the South and traditions of populism and white working class unionism bleeding down from the Rustbelt North. Ultimately, I think this means that while you may find more out-and-out racists in Alabama or Texas, you're more likely to encounter latent racist sentiment among a broad segment of Democrats somewhere like Ohio or Tennessee.

The million dollar question is how will Pennsylvania respond? From the Appalachians through the Alleghenies, I think you're going to see the racially biased pattern continue (with inner city Pittsburgh being the exception). East of the Susquehanna the pattern will skew more favorably towards Obama. Obama needs to solidify his African American support in Philly and march his way out through the suburban counties, where my horsesense tells me he will find much support. The rest of the commonwealth will really test his persuasive skills. Those blue collar and older voters will be a tough sell. I would suggest a change in tactics. Get on the ground, work smaller rooms, hold some town halls, do some barn storming, maybe a railroad tour or a bus road show. Couple that with hard nosed policy proposals and stir the pot with big rallies on the college campuses and big cities, and he might get the votes he needs. Oh, and hammer Clinton on policy and experience issues. Show no mercy. To win Pennsylvania or at least to keep the margin of loss miniscule, he's got to turn voters away from her.

My gut tells me that if Clinton wins, it will not be as big of a margin as Ohio was. But Obama really has something to prove. A decisive win (say 10 points) would close the book on the Clinton fairy tale. Is it possible? I think so. Probable? Talk to me six weeks from now.

March 4 postgame analysis

I know the delegate math continues to favor Obama, but last night's results in Ohio and Texas will slow his momentum. Clinton's relentless negative attacks are biting. Obama stumbled in the last week. On the stump he has appeared by turns too smugly confident in his inevitability (understandable after an 11 game winning streak), at other times disinterested and slow to respond (could this be campaign fatigue setting in?) He has not counterpunched as sharply as he needs to. He also made the mistake of looking too far ahead, campaigning against McCain before he knocked out Clinton. So some of the blame for his loss should rest on his campaign's shoulders.

He did close a big gap in Texas, to his credit. It's a shame he couldn't eek out a popular vote win. His failure to do better in Ohio has to do with racism. Ohio is a dying state filled with disaffected, scared white voters.

What happened in Ohio and Texas also comes down to money. Clinton ran out of money after Super Tuesday and needed weeks to refill the coffers. She had the bucks to compete strongly in Texas and Ohio, and I see no reason why she wouldn't have enough to compete staunchly in Pennsylvania.

Obama is likely to pick up two more small wins very soon in Wyoming and Mississippi, which should erase whatever delegate losses he suffered last night. He will probably build on his pledged delegate lead.

He has a narrative problem, though. He can't put her away. He can't win a hotly contested big state. That's what they'll say, and the media will crow until you believe it. There is a positive flipside to that narrative: Clinton has won nearly all the biggest states: California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, Ohio, and she's still behind. But I doubt you'll hear that spin.

Pennsylvania figures to be the showdown state. If Obama can't put her away in Pennsylvania, his nomination may be in jeopardy. Pennsylvania might be an uphill climb for him. I expect him to do great in the Philadelphia area and decently in Pittsburgh, but the rest of the state could look a lot like Ohio, and there are a lot of old f*cks in Pennsylvania who will cast for Clinton. Ed Rendell was right. A lot of people won't vote for the black guy. A shame, but it's true. I would love my state to deliver the deciding blow, but I can't guarantee it.

The coming weeks will test Obama's mettle. Can he counterattack? Can he rewrite the narrative? Can he change the tempo of his campaign?

Obama needs to revisit some themes he was hitting on a while back: the politics of the past vs. the politics of the future. He needs to say to the electorate, is this the polaring kind of shit you want for the next four years? Mud slinging, smear jobs, bogus ads, obstructionist nonsense, inside politics? Beyond that, he also needs to prove to the Democrats something that Hillary has been trumpeting about herself -- that he's a fighter. He needs to slay the Clinton dragon before he can move to Darth McCain. This will require some political muscle, and a willingness to engage in hand to hand combat. He will have to remind voters why Clinton would be a disastrous candidate. He needs to be the man of steel. Indestructible. Find your inner angry black man, Barack. You're going to need him now.

I really think if Hillary claws her way to the nomination, the Democratic party will be bloodied, disheartened, and utterly disengaged in the general election. Many Obama supporters will simply walk away in disgust. John McCain's viability will soar. Think about it. He'll destroy Clinton in the debates on national security, defense, the Iraq War, legislative leadership, and a willingness to compromise. He'll have the advantage suddenly of not being a Bush and not being a Clinton, and those who don't like dynastic rule will have to give him a long hard look. He'll be the outsider in the race, and he'll sweep the independent vote. The swing states could break his way. He'll be deemed the more experienced candidate at the same time as being the better "can do" change agent.

Should Obama survive and win the nomination, he will have been so bloodied by the negative attacks that his chances for success are diminished. He will cross the finish line wounded, with arrows in his back.

Nothing gives me confidence that the Democrats can figure this out. They've consistently blown elections. In 1984, Gary Hart was the candidate with new ideas and he was sidelined by Walter Mondale, a pure politics of the past has been, and he was slaughtered by Ronald Reagan. In 1988, the better candidate Joe Biden was smoked out of the race on a lame plagiarism charge by the anemic Mike Dukakis, who was ripped to shreds in the general election by George Bush. In 1992, the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton, a better candidate to be sure, but one who never won a majority in either three-way election, and who won by caving into Republican values and by losing his majorities in congress. It took more than a decade to repair the damage. In 2000, Al Gore ran an awful campaign, in part because he had to deal with Clinton's sullied legacy, making that election much closer than it should have been. (Bill Bradley would have been the fresher face in that election). In 2004, John Kerry somehow ended up the nominee, and promptly allowed himself to be swiftboated away. A 2008 Hillary Clinton candidacy will energize the Republicans, alienate the independents, and dishearten the young voters. A recipe for disaster.

This year, the Democrats had a chance to ride the wave of change with a smart, charismatic, inspirational, strong, principled nominee. They could have nominated Beowulf. Instead they might end up with Grendel's mother.

Whoever wins the general election (Obama, Clinton, McCain) is going to inherit a country in serious decline. In this sense, the rustbucket state of Ohio is symbolic of the country at large (the title belleweather is too euphemistic). We're going down the tubes. The housing crisis will take years to settle out. Banks will fail. Personal bankruptcies will soar. The price of basic commodities like oil, gas, bread and milk, will continue to inflate. Unemployment will go up. The nation is upside down. The war in Iraq will drag on thougtlessly for years. Healthcare costs will go up while quality of care will go down. The schools will teach to the test. And television will stupify the rest. The roads, bridges, railroads, water lines, and sewers will crumble. And no one will believe in the capacity of government to be part of the solution. We will yammer about tax credits and tax cuts and the infinite wisdom of market-based solutions, while we spin and twist helplessly down the toilet chute of history.

It would be nice to believe in the audacity of hope. But the Clintons have told us that's a fairy tale, a pipe dream, just some speech. I hope they're wrong (there's that pesky word hope again), but maybe they're right. They are, after all, baby boomers. And aren't baby boomers always right? Maybe our political system is too crass, too bought and sold to be reformed or inspired. We're not large enough as a people. We are not people of character. We're a nation of small minded, greedy bastards, feckless and afraid. And the country will yet again receive the kind of disastrous leadership it deserves. Allow me a tip of the top hat to Ohio for showing us the way....