THURSDAY,  MARCH 13,  2008

STATE OF THE CONTEST

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll does not provide good news for Democrats:

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll released Wednesday night shows John McCain is now statistically tied with Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Here's the poll summary:

McCain 44%
Obama 47%

McCain 45%
Clinton 47%

In the Democratic race:

Clinton 47%
Obama 43%

The survey, conducted March 7- 10, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Why is this not cause for Democratic partying?  Because at this stage in the campaign the Democratic candidate should be far ahead of McCain.  This is, presumably, a Democratic year.  The Democratic race between Clinton and Obama has grabbed most of the attention.  The Republicans have controlled the White House for eight years, and the incumbent is unpopular.

Yet, look at the numbers.  Obama and Clinton are tied with each other, and ahead of McCain by either a statistically insignificant three or two points.  McCain, who has a great story and looks like a president, hasn't even started his general-election effort. 

And Democrats are poised to hold a national convention which, unless bitter disputes can be settled, will exclude two key states, Florida and Michigan.  There's dumb, and there's very dumb.

And look at the numbers for the Democratic nomination race.  Clinton is pulling ahead of Obama at a time when she needs this momentum to overtake him.

What we're seeing here is a reply to conventional wisdom.  It's been accepted, for months now, that Obama would make the better candidate against McCain.  Voters may well be giving that proposition the time-honored political second look.  Obama, whose eloquence and intelligence are evident, has not done well under pressure.  There has been some petulance in his remarks.  His relations with the press have begun to show wear.  It is discovered, in some circles, that he's a, a...human being.  He does not leap tall buildings at a single bound.  He is not more powerful than a locomotive.  There is no "S" on his chest.

Six weeks remain until the all-crucial Pennsylvania primary.  There is no voting between now and then.  Watch these six weeks carefully, and watch the tracking polls published by Rasmussen and others.  If Obama can rally and defeat Clinton in Pennsylvania, it's all over for Clinton, regardless of any gains in the polls.  But if Clinton wins, she can rightly claim to have captured all the major industrial states, except for Obama's home state of Illinois.  If that Pennsylvania win is accompanied by advances in poll numbers, we are going to see a whopper of a fight, and even the possibility of a bitter, contested convention.  The superdelegates, unelected in primaries, will hold the balance of power.  Smoke-filled rooms may make a comeback.  If you look carefully, you may even see some fat white guys with cigars. 

This is really fun.  Right? 

DOROTHY WRITES, WE READ

I don't know how many Urgent Agenda readers are familiar with Dorothy Rabinowitz, of The Wall Street Journal.  Those of us who've followed her work for years know her as one of the best columnists, and one of the best investigative reporters, in the country.  She was perhaps the most influential journalist in exposing the fraudulent child-abuse prosecutions in the 1980s.  Her Pulitzer Prize was one of the most deserved ever awarded, and given despite opposition from the usual leftist suspects.  Dorothy Rabinowitz is not politically correct, and has thrived nonetheless.  Here, in a brilliant and clarifying piece, she takes on the Obamas, both of them.  Please read the whole thing.  See how it proceeds point by point, based on evidence.  This is the real stuff:

It came as a relief to hear, in the last few days, that both Democratic candidates were now about to go on the attack, though pundits agreed such low tactics had been forced on Barack Obama. There's something reassuring about the usual election season blather over negative campaigning. That relief is a response, mostly, to any whiff of normality promising to emerge in the current Democratic race.

Still, the prospects are thin, given the rapturous response Mr. Obama has enjoyed at the hands of a good part of the press -- attitudes so obvious that the usual stern media denials that their coverage was other than objective have been hard to find. Anyone who doubts this bias has only to look at the past week's charges that Hillary Clinton and company have been playing the race card -- the latest in a series of such accusations made by Obama surrogates, carried forward by the media.

She then examines the accusation that the Clinton camp has been using race, and makes this blunt statement:

In all, the pattern of these charges may well suggest a race card in play, only it wasn't the Clintons who were playing it.

She gives us the transcript of a "60 Minutes" interview in which Senator Clinton is alleged to have smeared Obama by saying that he wasn't a Muslim, "as far as I know."  The context makes clear that the remark was benign:

Mr. Kroft: "You don't believe that Sen. Obama is a Muslim?"

Mrs. Clinton: "Of course not. I mean, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. You know, there isn't any reason to doubt that."

Kroft: "You said you take Sen. Obama at his word that he's not. . . . You don't believe that he's. . . ."

Clinton: "No, no. There's nothing to base that on, as far as I know."

Kroft: "It's just scurrilous . . .?"

Clinton: "Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time."

I'm no Clinton fan, but she's not guilty.

Rabinowitz turns the spotlight on one Michelle Obama, and she is withering, noting that Michelle said she's never been proud of her country until now.  Dorothy replies:

It was, furthermore, just one of numerous such revelatory statements she has regularly made. In speeches on the campaign trail she has held forth on her view of America, which is, as she describes it, a country that is "downright mean" and "driven by fear." She recently waxed irate over the American attention to security interests, arguing that we should be "changing the conversation" and building diplomatic relations "instead of protecting ourselves against terrorists." A minor note, to be sure, though it's to be hoped that a President Obama will not turn to this closest adviser for her views on the national defense.

A New Yorker profile published last week quotes numerous stump speech pronouncements, among them Mrs. Obama's assertion that most Americans' lives have gotten worse since she was a girl. "So if you want to pretend like there was some point in the last couple of decades when your life was easy, I want to meet you."

In short, not only is existence in America a desperate proposition for most citizens -- anyone claiming to have led a satisfactory one not sunk in the hell that is American life is, quite simply, lying. America is, she has elsewhere informed audiences, a nation whose "souls are broken."

It is a vision striking for its consistent hostility to any notion that Americans have cause for optimism and pride in their country: striking, too, for the stark and obvious absence, in this graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, of any sense of the reasons Americans might revere their nation and consider themselves fortunate to be its citizens.

Better stated than anyone I've read.  Get to know Dorothy Rabinowitz.

THE UGLY ISSUE

Look, the race issue is with us.  It may consume the Democratic battle.  The New York Times has a well-reported story analyzing how the issue is playing out: 

Yet race, as well as sex, have been unavoidable subtexts of the Democratic campaign since the two candidates began seeking to be the first African-American or the first woman to lead a party’s presidential ticket. In the primaries and caucuses this winter, too, Mrs. Clinton has enjoyed substantial support from women, while Mr. Obama has increasingly drawn overwhelming votes from blacks.

The Tuesday primary in Mississippi, a state where the electorate has historically been racially polarized, generated one of the most divided votes. Mrs. Clinton received 8 percent of the black vote, and Mr. Obama received 26 percent of the white vote, according to exit polls by Edison/Mitofsky for The Associated Press and television networks.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said Wednesday that they were concerned about her standing among blacks, once a core constituency for her and her husband, but that they also believed that black support for Mr. Obama was a foregone conclusion at this point.

They said they were wrestling with ways to make inroads with blacks in Pennsylvania, which holds the next primary, on April 22.

And...

From virtually the start of the contest between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama in January 2007, they have sought to move beyond race and sex, acknowledging that their possible nominations would be historic, yet saying they were running on their qualifications.

At the same time, each has used the issue against the other. Mr. Obama’s advisers suggested that Mrs. Clinton was playing the sex card last fall after a brutal debate where several male contenders criticized her.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers and former President Bill Clinton suggested that black candidates like Mr. Obama had done well in South Carolina because of support among African-Americans there.

Further...

Race has been a defining feature of the primary contests. Beyond Mississippi, Mrs. Clinton was backed by 5 percent of black voters in Illinois, Mr. Obama’s home state; 8 percent in Wisconsin, where black voters made up 8 percent of the Democratic primary vote; 9 percent in Delaware; 10 percent in Virginia; and 11 percent in Georgia, all states Mr. Obama won.

It is ugly and sad.  When you live by identity politics, you die by identity politics.  It's intriguing, I think, that when black Republicans like Michael Steele run for office, not much is made of their race.  Has the Republican Party, with all its past failings, truly become the party of Lincoln?

AFTERMATH OF A MURDER

Here is a tragic story in which intelligent responses prevented race from becoming a factor.  Most readers are probably aware of the heartbreaking murder of Eve Carson, the outstanding president of the student body at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  To read of this fine young woman cut down in her prime just sears the mind. 

As the investigation into the murder proceeded, surveillance photographs from ATM's, where the killer tried to use Carson's credit cards, were displayed by the police.  It turned out that the man in the photos is African-American.  I feared that either some racist idiots would make something of that, or that the politically correct crowd at the university would refuse to publish the pictures.  Neither happened.  There's been no mention of race, and the online edition of the Daily Tar Heel, the school paper, published the photos as a public service, the proper thing to do. 

Now two men have been charged:

CBS/AP) Two suspects were charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the killing of the University of North Carolina's student body president.

Demario James Atwater, 21, of Durham, was arrested and ordered held without bond. Police said they are still searching for the second suspect, 17-year-old Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr.

Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran declined to say whether Lovett was the subject of an intense police standoff Wednesday afternoon in nearby Durham. City Councilman Eugene Brown said it appears the standoff was resolved without an arrest.

Police in Durham refused to comment, referring all questions about the standoff to police in Chapel Hill.

Shackled at the ankle and waist and with a public defender at his side, Atwater whispered "yes" when asked whether he understood the charge against him. His next court appearance was scheduled for March 24.

"I hope the arrest can ease the minds of some in the community," District Attorney Jim Woodall said.

This is a terrible tragedy.  The community and the police have responded well.  It is a far cry from the mess, and the corruption, surrounding the Duke lacrosse case last year, in the same state.

AMERICANS BACKING THE TROOPS

Some good news for those concerned about our war effort, and the morale of our troops overseas.  Support for the war among the American people is at its highest level since 2006: 

American public support for the military effort in Iraq has reached a high point unseen since the summer of 2006, a development that promises to reshape the political landscape.

According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007.

The percentage of those who believe the war in Iraq is going “very well” or “fairly well” is also up, from 30 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent today.

The situation in Iraq remains fluid, of course. A surge in violence or in troop deaths could lead to rapid fluctuations in public opinion. But as the war nears its fifth year, the steady upturn in the public mood stands to alter the dynamics of races up and down the ballot.

As the story goes on to say, this could have a major impact on the presidential campaign.  John McCain has staked his candidacy, in large measure, on his support for American military operations.  If those operations are successful, he can gain.  If the other side increases its attacks, his cause can be hurt. 

We must, painful as it is, ask who our enemies would rather see in the White House.  The answer will determine their actions.  America might well be manipulated, as it was to a degree during the Vietnam War, by the strategies of opponents thousands of miles away.  The job of putting enemy activity into perspective lies with the press.  It failed miserably at that during Vietnam.  Don't hold your breath this time either. 

A SHATTERING BLOW

Finally, in researching this morning's edition, I came across a February story that has created pain and agony, and set me back.  The claim:

On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.

And this scandalous remark:

While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).

Oh yeah?  Well look, buddy, Urgent Agenda is done on a Mac.  In fact, it's done on two Macs.  And I don't consider myself Vermont.  You get that, guy? 

And I don't think my PC readers want to look at their screens and think, "I'm Hillary."

You talk about pseudo-intellectualism, this story takes the prize.

I'll say it over and over today:  "I'm not Vermont, I'm not Vermont."

I've not yet begun to fight.

But I'll be back later.   

Posted on March 13, 2008.