EVENING UPDATE,  MARCH 22,  2008

THE TRACKERS

Both the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls continue to provide good news for John McCain, in theoretical matchups against both Obama and Clinton.  They also provide some good news for Hillary Clinton:  Any advantage Obama may have had against Clinton in a race against McCain has essentially been wiped out.

Gallup has McCain up two points against both Clinton and Obama.  Rasmussen has McCain up eight points against Obama, six against Clinton.

Maybe the Democrats should start to realize they have a problem, and it isn't with a snooping clerk in the State Department.

There are no up-to-the-minute polls in Pennsylvania, but the most recent show Clinton well ahead of Obama for the Democratic nomination.

Latest polls in North Carolina, which had been expected to go to Obama by an important margin, show the race between Obama and Clinton to be tightening. 

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

MORE GRIMNESS FOR DEMS

There is more grim news for the party that thought it was a shoo-in this year.  A poll in Pennsylvania shows that an embarrassing number of Democratic voters may jump ship in November and vote for John McCain:

The lengthy Democratic primary contest bodes well for Republican chances of holding the White House, a new poll suggests.

As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters -- at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary -- aren't committed to the party's ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. (See poll)

The significant number of potential defectors underscores how divisive the Democratic primary has been.

Democrats won Pennsylvania in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, but it was a competitive state in both election cycles. McCain, meanwhile, has touted his appeal to swing voters.

"Pennsylvania is a must-win state for a Democratic presidential nominee," Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, told Cybercast News Service. "If there is a significant weakness for a Democrat in Pennsylvania, it could indicate a weakness in Ohio or other key states."

Clearly, things can change dramatically once the Democratic Party actually chooses a candidate, and unanticipated world events can have a significant impact on how the nation votes.  But the bitterness among Democrats is likely to last, and McCain, seen as someone who can work across the aisle, can capitalize on that, if his own party's ideologues let him.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink 

OFF WE GO...

The Obama campaign has a tendency to go over the top when responding to opponents, and their latest example is classic.  Responding to a relatively innocuous comment by former President Bill Clinton, the Obamans sent in their virtual air force to carpet bomb the opposition.  Frankly, I think this constant playing the victim is going to backfire, but you decide:

ABC's Sunlen Miller and Sarah Amos report: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, Gen. Tony McPeak, reacted angrily to a comment by former President Bill Clinton today.

Campaigning in Charlotte, N.C., Clinton said, "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country, and people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

"Outrageous," McPeak said after an Obama rally in Salem, Ore. "I think it's horrible. ... I think Bill Clinton is, or ought to be, better than that."

McPeak likened the comment to McCarthyism.

"It sounds more like McCarthy," he said. "I was in college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it."

He said that those who know Obama know that he loves America.

"Is this stupid or what?" McPeak asked. "It's a use of language as a disguised insult. We've seen this before. This real clever spin on stuff."

McPeak said he did not know if Clinton's comments were intentional or not.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton, Matt McKenna, had earlier elaborated on the former president's remarks.

"As is indicated by the quote itself, President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues, rather than falsely questioning any candidate's patriotism," McKenna said. "He was lamenting that these kind of distractions 'always seems to intrude' on political campaigns. This consistent with his criticism of the 'politics of personal destruction,' which dates back 16 years."

McPeak was chief of staff of the Air Force.  He also has a less-than-stellar reputation around Washington.  Like Samantha Power, now departed from the Obama campaign for calling Hillary Clinton a monster, McPeak should be monitored, and masking tape be placed over his mouth, lest he go off like this again.  I mean, Bill Clinton as Joe McCarthy just doesn't fit.  It wasn't Communists that Clinton was chasing.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

THE MULTICULTURAL DEATH WISH

There is a wonderful Canadian writer named Salim Mansur.  He's one of those guys who gets it.  He's just written an outstanding piece on the problem with multiculturalism, at least multiculturalism as it's come down to us from the leftist precincts within our universities.  It's well worth reading because of the multicultural currents in our election campaign.  Mansur quotes the British writer, Malcolm Muggeridge, to the effect that liberal multiculturalists have a kind of death wish:

This is the great liberal death wish, a twisted psychology of that intellectual class which willingly goes out to buy the lies of a culture that entombs freedom, as was done in the Soviet Union -- and continues in places such as China and Saudi Arabia -- and fashion these lies as a cure for manufactured ills in the West, with the purpose of undermining it.

And...

The strength of the West measured in terms of freedom -- of Prometheus unbound and its creative spirit unleashed soaring upwards despite risks -- resides in its assimilative capacity and openness to share its freedom with those beyond its cultural boundaries seeking the same.

Yet keeping the West strong requires perseverance and vigilance. The spirit that soars also can sag through fatigue, the creative can begin to lose fecundity, freedom can become corrupted in time, and decay can loom over that culture ever larger.

It is in these circumstances that false hope readily may be planted and false remedy readily sold. The curative unthinkingly bought turns out to be medicine hastening the end.

Finally...

Multiculturalism is in appearance the most pleasing of liberal barbiturates offered to stave off the West's demographic decline through immigration. For it to work the requirement demanded is suspension of critical and discriminating thinking replaced by politically correct speech that must offend none except, if need be, the patient (the West) requiring the cure.

And so Muggeridge would have said that multiculturalism being one big swindle it is a "sedative rather than a stimulant, a slough rather than a precipice; blurring the edges of truth, the definition of virtue, the shape of beauty; a cracked bell, a mist, a death wish."

A lot to think about.  But I wouldn't bring a copy of that piece into a college classroom.  Arrests might be made. 

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE...

Finally, I must tell you more, as I've tried to do, about our political situation here in New York.  As you know, during our last episode, Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor because he was caught with prostitutes, disgracing (organ music here) his wife and daughters.  Then David Paterson was sworn in (triumphant music), promising a new day.  Then he admitted that he and his wife both had extensive extra-marital affairs (grim music).  Then Patterson agreed to pay back some strange invoices charged to his last campaign: 

And now people are starting to think...what comes next?  It's not a great prospect:

Concern is growing in Albany over the prospect that, even as Governor Paterson races to get on top of the budget crisis, the disclosures of his private sexual affairs have damaged — perhaps irreparably — his capacity to execute the state's highest office.

Dogged by suspicions that his campaign expenditures and his extramarital relationships were improperly entangled, Mr. Paterson heads into his second week on the job no longer the fresh face who symbolized a return to civility, but a weakened politician.

"Paterson's persona has been really damaged," a politics professor at Baruch College, Doug Muzzio, said. "On Monday, he was sitting on top of the world. It was, 'I am David Paterson and I am governor of New York.' It now becomes, 'I am David Paterson and I am this philandering, pay-for-it-with-other-people's-money type of guy,'"

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Paterson struggled to account for a 2002 payment, billed to the credit card of his campaign committee, for an Upper West Side hotel room where Mr. Paterson had a sexual liaison.

The governor, who served as lieutenant governor under Eliot Spitzer, has also been unable to explain the circumstances behind a $500 campaign payment to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.

Meanwhile, Paterson officials sought to provide details about more than $11,000 in payments that his campaign committee made between 2002 and 2007 to a 45-year-old woman, April Robbins-Bobyn, whose connection to Mr. Paterson is not clear.

And...

Mr. Paterson finds himself lumped together with two disgraced former state leaders, Eliot Spitzer and James McGreevey, as charter members of the "Governors Gone Wild" club.

There is now talk that Paterson, too, might have to resign.  The problem is, the guy who's next in line may be indicted soon for a host of offenses.

Like the Marine Corps, we're looking for a few good men, or women.  So hard to get good help these days.

And I'll be back tomorrow.

March 22, 2008.   Permalink