THIRD EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 10:45 p.m. ET

UPSET?

Well, here's something strange.  South Dakota and Montana vote tomorrow.  Conventional wisdom says both will go to Obama.  But a new poll in South Dakota, incredibly, has Clinton up by...well, read on:

On the eve of the final pair of Democratic primaries, a new poll of South Dakota Democrats gives Hillary Clinton a 26-point lead over Barack Obama – a surprise, at least to me, in a state that had the early makings of an Obama stronghold.

The survey, from the independent New Hampshire-based American Research Group, shows Clinton pounding Obama by a 60-34 percent spread. The only previous poll in the state, from about a month ago, had Obama up by 12. Because every other state around South Dakota previously went overwhelmingly for Obama, there had been little expectation in the national press that Clinton would win there.

What's going on?  An insurrection?

Not surprisingly, the ARG poll is being greeted with some skepticism. But in a phone conversation a few minutes ago, Dick Bennett, ARG's president, told me that the assumption that South Dakota is Obama country has been flawed from the start.

"The numbers we got are consistent with what we've seen in other states," Bennett said. "The groups that are usually supporting her are supporting her. The people who live there look more like Clinton voters than Obama voters."

Is it possible?  Will George McGovern's state give Clinton an unexpected victory, and a landslide at that?  Does it matter?

Yes, I think it matters.  Clinton won a huge victory in Puerto Rico on Sunday.  The primaries were supposed to end tomorrow, Tuesday, with two quiet victories by the presumed nominee, Barack Obama.  But if they end with a jolt, it could change the psychology just enough to encourage Clinton to stay in, and argue that Obama is fading away. 

We'll be on top of this tomorrow.

June 2,  2008.      Permalink                

SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 8:45 p.m. ET

HILLARY'S FATE

Does she or doesn't she?  Intend to stay in the race, I mean.

Ben Smith of The Politico has an intriguing report on today's goings on in Hillaryland:

A Clinton donor tells me that on a conference call today with major fundraisers this afternoon, Harold Ickes told them Clinton isn't planning to drop out. He pressed donors to stay unified, and reviewed tactical options, including challenging the Michigan delegation.

State finance committees are also circulating letters to deliver to Clinton tomorrow in New York, and I've obtained a draft of the Illinois finance committee's letter, being circulated by a Clinton fundraising aide, Rafi Jafri, which stresses a fight until the convention, and a resolution in "August, and no earlier."

Well, we won't know how far this goes for a few days, at least.  Clinton could, of course, run a stealth campaign, seeming to "retire" from the race - not drop out - yet keep up private pressure and pray to every available deity for Obama to stumble.  And that could happen.  He's been stumbling since March.  Only a loving and nurturing press has kept him from the political graveyard. 

By the way, the full quote from the letter Smith refers to goes as follows:

"Senator Clinton is ahead in the popular vote, and neither candidate can secure the nomination with pledged delegates alone. The automatic delegates can change their mind up until their vote at the convention, and that is why this nominating process must be resolved in August, and no earlier."

That's the strategy.  The "automatic" delegates are normally called superdelegates.  It would be remarkable if events forced them to change their minds by the time of the Denver convention in late August.  Then you'll see combat.  They could charge admission.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 7:08 p.m. ET

FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

We await, as does an oppressed humanity, the address by Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust before graduating ROTC cadets this week.  Now, let me explain:  Harvard doesn't have ROTC, but does permit misguided, xenophobic, militaristic, Islamophobic, Bush-loving homophobes to take ROTC at nearby M.I.T., an institution well known for its participation in the industrial-military complex.

Faust, who became Harvard's president when the brilliant Lawrence Summers was brought down on a lie - that's another story - skipped last year's ROTC commissioning ceremony, and got plenty of heat for it.  So she condescended to address this year's...with an asterisk:  She would take the opportunity to denounce the military's don't ask/don't tell policy regarding gays in the service.  The Harvard Crimson explains:

Faust will address the graduating members of Harvard’s Reserve Officer Training Corps in Tercentenary Theatre, and her pledge to use the speech to criticize the military’s controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which bars openly gay individual from serving in the armed forces, has already drawn fire from conservative and pro-military groups across the country.

But despite public pressure from some, including an op-ed last month in The Wall Street Journal, Faust said in a phone interview on Friday that she still intends to criticize the policy during her speech.

“I have deep respect for these students and I want to express my respect for them,” said Faust, who has noted that she is in part a military historian. “But I also want to make clear that I wish all students had the same opportunity, the same right to serve.”

Some Harvard ROTC alumni and cadets have criticized Faust’s decision to address the issue, saying the event should only focus on the students being commissioned.

“This is not a political event, it is a military one,” said Paul E. Mawn ’63, the chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC. “The focus should be on the future second lieutenants and midshipmen.”

Ah, Mr. Mawn, you do not understand.  It is a very political event.  It allows Faust to polish her credentials on the left, and to assure her backers that she is in the tank for the sixties generation, the better to separate her from the despised Summers, who had the temerity to challenge that sainted crowd.  By denouncing don't ask/don't tell, Faust winks at Harvard's lefties, declaring, in effect, "I had to come, but I know what our revolution expects me to say."

The whole thing is despicable.  Don't ask/don't tell was instituted by civilians, not by ROTC cadets or uniformed officers.  Denouncing don't ask/don't tell before a group of cadets is like like denouncing pre-Civil-War slavery before a meeting of bricklayers, on the grounds that the Confederate South used bricks.

What strikes me here is the utter hypocrisy.  On the one hand, Harvard and other supposedly "elite" institutions continue to reject ROTC because don't ask/don't tell violates their "anti-discrimination" policies.  On the other hand, these same institutions turn around the next moment and accept millions in grants from Saudi Arabia and similar holiday havens, places that have the most homophobic policies of any societies on earth.  Maybe ROTC just isn't writing a big-enough check.

Let's see if Faust partially redeems herself by making at least a few comments praising the sacrifice of our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I'll report.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 3:35 p.m. ET

HOW JUICY

The Scott McClellan mystery deepens, although few in the press want to do the detective work.  The question:  How did this book "evolve" from a bland, nothing proposal that kept getting rejected, to a tell-all blockbuster with all kinds of wild charges, up to and possibly including the charge that President Bush is a space alien sent from a hostile planet?

Bob Novak pulls no punches in a column today, suggesting that this literary masterwork wasn't a solo job:

In Scott McClellan's purported tell-all memoir of his trials as President Bush's press secretary, he virtually ignores Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's role leaking to me Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. That fits the partisan Democratic version of the Plame affair, in keeping with the overall tenor of the book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

And...

In claiming he was misled about the Plame affair, McClellan mentions Armitage only twice. Armitage being the leaker undermines the Democratic theory, now accepted by McClellan, that Bush, Vice President Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove aimed to delegitimize Wilson as a war critic. The way that McClellan handles the leak leads former colleagues to suggest he could not have written this book by himself.

The plot thickens.  The night is dark and stormy:

A partisan Democratic mantra began earlier in the book. McClellan writes that George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign "acquiesced to certain advisers, including Roger Ailes and the late Lee Atwater," who opposed Bush's "civility and decency." (McClellan, then 20 years old, played no part in that campaign.) He contends that thanks to Rove in 2002, "the first cracks appeared in the facade of bipartisan comity."

McClellan's fellow Bush aides do not remember him ever saying anything like that. At senior staff meetings discussing policy, they recall, he was silent. His robotic performances from the White House podium seemed only to disgorge what he had been told, and "What Happened" has the similar feel of someone else's hand.

The book so mimics the Democratic line that Ari Fleischer, McClellan's predecessor as press secretary, asked him last week whether he had a ghostwriter. "No," Fleischer told me McClellan replied, "but my editor tweaked it." (McClellan did not return my call.)

The bland book proposal that McClellan's agent unsuccessfully hawked to publishers early in 2007 is not the volume now in bookstores. How and why McClellan changed is a story so far untold.

And it's a damned good story.  There is something wrong with McClellan's book and his version of how it came to be.  I don't know if we'll ever know the truth, but truth isn't what a number of writers and editors are after these days.

I want more on this.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

EARLY AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 1:28 p.m. ET

THE TOP COLLEGE

Real Clear Politics now has projections, as of today, for the hardest college to get into - the electoral college.  We will link to the maps.  The number to win is 270.

Projection for McCain vs. Obama:   Obama - 228, McCain - 190, toss-up - 120.

Projection for McCain vs. Clinton:  Clinton - 229, McCain - 168, toss-up - 141.

Well, it appears, at least from this estimate, that Clinton's claims are correct:  She runs stronger in the electoral college than does Obama.  Whether that will last once Obama is officially anointed is impossible to know.

New tracking polls are also out:

Both Rasmussen and Gallup have Obama and McCain tied.

Rasmussen has McCain up two over Clinton, but Gallup has Clinton up two over McCain.

What is remarkable is that Obama, the anointed one, hasn't experienced any surge in support.  Clinton continues to hold her strength.  Are the voters saying something?  I have no idea.  I still maintain that Obama is heavily favored in the general election because the mainstream media want him elected and will aid his campaign.  But McCain is a fighter, and Obama shouldn't order the champagne just yet.  Depending on store policy, you sometimes can't return it.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

MONDAY:  JUNE 2,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

PAYBACK?

A bomb has exploded outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan, killing at least four people.  An attack on Danish targets in the Muslim world has long been predicted:

Denmark has faced threats at its embassies following the reprinting in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims generally consider depicting the prophet to be sacrilegious and Islamic militants had warned of reprisals.

In April, Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terror threat against Denmark because of the cartoon. The warning specifically singled Pakistan, along with North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. It follows a bombing in March at a restaurant in Islamabad that killed a Turkish aid worker and wounded at least 12 others including four FBI personnel.

That may be one form of payback.  Here is another, from Iraq, and it's enraging:

Five weeks ago Leila Hussein told The Observer the chilling story of how her husband had killed their 17-year-old daughter over her friendship with a British soldier in Basra. Now Leila, who had been in hiding, has been murdered - gunned down in cold blood.

Leila Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband - the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal 'honour' killing for which he has shown no remorse.

Nice, huh?  It's a reminder of what we're up against, and that the ideas that drove the 9/ll attacks are still with us.  We face a religious ideology that is not going to change, even if Barack Obama is elected and starts the laying on of hands. 

We don't do ideology very well in the West.  We can't believe that people would descend into a frenzy of hate on behalf of an ideological cause.  It doesn't fit our profile.  But it's the reality, and that reality controls the Iranian government as it pursues a vigorous nuclear program.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

HINTS

What will Hillary do after tomorrow, when the last primaries are held?  Terry McAuliffe, her combative campaign chairman, hints that her campaign may well continue, and that she might target superdelegates, including those pledged to Barack Obama.  The Politico reports:

Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe tells my colleague Ken Vogel in San Juan that Hillary Clinton will “probably” continue a retail-level campaign operation after Tuesday’s primaries regardless of what happens in them.

Team Clinton also won’t necessarily consider the campaign over if rival Barack Obama soon reaches the 2,118-delegate threshold necessary to clinch the nomination.

“No, it’s not it,” McAuliffe responded when a reporter asked if securing 2,118 delegates would mark the end of the marathon race. “We’ll see. We’re going to get through Tuesday’s votes. We’re going to see where we are, and we’re going to look at all of our options. Every option is on the table.”

As for what Clinton would do Wednesday morning with no more primaries on the horizon, McAuliffe said he hopes she’ll call uncommitted superdelegates. “That’s what I’m doing,” he said.

And he hinted that the campaign might be targeting some superdelegates committed to Obama.

“We’re calling the uncommitted ones, primarily. But we’ve heard things. You know, you pick up stuff. So we’re following up on leads that we get,” he said. “Just remember: No superdelegate is bound until they vote at the convention.”

Well, it's a long shot.  But you never know.  McAuliffe is absolutely correct.  No convention vote has yet been cast.  I just wonder, and it's pure musing, whether the Clinton camp has some information on Obama that they're withholding, or has reason to believe that something is going to come out in the coming days. 

On the juicy scale, this rates about an eight.

June 2, 2008.      Permalink          

DOUBTS ABOUT OBAMA

One thing keeping Clinton going is the sense among some Democrats that Obama can't win in November.  Paul Harris in Britain's Observer takes on the issue, with its politically incorrect suggestions:

With senator Barack Obama poised this week to clinch his party's nomination for President, there are growing fears in some quarters that the Democratic party may not be choosing its strongest candidate to beat Republican John McCain.

Senator Hillary Clinton has been making that argument for weeks. Now some recent polls and analysis, looking particularly at vital battleground states and support among white voters, have bolstered her case - even as Obama looks certain to become the nominee.

Obama supporters reject this argument and point to his record of boosting Democratic voter turnout, especially among the young. But skeptics in the party, already nervous about nominating Obama after the furore over outspoken pastor Jeremiah Wright, are growing increasingly concerned. 'There is an element of buyer's remorse in some areas. The question is whether it gets really strong now or in September - or even after the election is over, if he loses,' said Steve Mitchell, head of political consultancy Mitchell Research.

Consider, for example, workers:

Clinton has been making the case for several months, as her support has grown stronger among white working class voters, that those voters will not support Obama in a general election. By contrast, experts believe Obama's core - educated Democrats and blacks - will remain loyal to the party no matter who the nominee is. There is strong data to back that up, especially from recent votes in West Virginia and Kentucky where large proportions of Clinton voters said they would not back Obama in November.

And consider North Carolina.  The Clinton people...

...point to Obama's performance in North Carolina as a bellwether: it was his strong win there earlier this month that dealt an almost fatal blow to Clinton's chances. Yet, two weeks after that win, polls showed Clinton easily outperformed Obama there when measured against McCain. 'Clinton has a very strong argument that she is a stronger candidate against McCain. It is just that it has fallen on deaf ears,' said Mitchell.

You know, that can encourage anyone.  Imagine the effect on the ferociously ambitious Ms. Hillary.   This nomination race isn't over until the last convention vote is cast.

This will be an important, possibly historic political week.  We'll be right on top of it.

And I'll be back with more later. 

June 2, 2008.      Permalink