Category: The Dish

Craig Crawford on delegate counting:

It is understandable, but not excusable, that the news media is trying to fit the unprecedented chaos of the Democratic presidential race into the world as we have known it for many elections. That is what we do — cram unknowable things into little boxes that everyone can play with…

Still, we think “the math” will make all the confusion disappear. Sorry, but no matter how many graphics generators, telestrators or calculators we deploy, this is politics. It is not algebra class. And in this campaign, it looks like the only count that matters will be the first ballot at the Democratic national convention.

Karl Rove on the race ahead:

Remember: It has only been eight weeks since Iowans voted in the first contest of the season, though it seems like a geological age has passed. There are now seven weeks until Pennsylvania, nine weeks until North Carolina and Indiana, and 10 weeks until West Virginia. Imagine how many twists and turns are possible.

A reader writes:

Raising money to make the Clintons go away reminds me of this line, classic Bob Dylan:

"And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice."

A reader writes:

I never thought in a million years that Hillary Clinton could make me hate her as much as I do now.  I am an Obama supporter who was kind of OK with the thought of voting for Hillary if need be.  Now, I think I’ll stay home if she steals this by daring to call Obama’s tactics like those of Ken Starr. The sense of entitlement that she and Bill are displaying right now is amateurish and awful.

I’m moving in a few weeks and I’ve decided to lighten the load by throwing out Bill’s narcissistic biography and her book as well. They don’t deserve the place of prominence they’ve had on my bookshelf.

Please keep doing what you’re doing.

Another writes:

I’m so depressed. I cannot decide which would be worse, four more years of Republican presidency or four more years of Clinton drama. I don’t really have anything else to say.

The crisis in Texas continues.

The Clintons’ inexplicable refusal to be transparent until after the votes are in prompts this reader’s speculation:

I can think of several non-scandalous reasons the Clinton’s don’t want their tax return out:

1. Their gross income is obscene, in the eyes of their key demographic, lunch pail Democrats.  Remember how the Kerrys were portrayed in the media as rich and out of touch despite his modest income as a Senator.

2. Their marginal tax rate was relatively low due to the use of creative tax shelters (e.g. Clinton Family Foundation).

and several scandalous:

1- Bill’s income from foreigners in unfriendly nations (Kazakhstan, China, Saudi Arabia don’t have sister cities with Scranton and Harrisburg);

2- Income from sweetheart stock deals;

3- Income from large contributors, raising stories of influence peddling, especially when the national press starts linking it to her earmarks.

The notion that the Clintons have been vetted is one of the more preposterous of the campaign.

"Rick Lazio can’t explain why it took three months to release his taxes. Now he won’t come clean with New Yorkers and reveal the real cost of his reckless trillion-dollar tax plan. It’s time for Mr. Lazio to stop playing games and start talking straight," – Clinton spokesman, Howard Wolfson, in 2000.

It only took Lazio three months?

Obama brings in the money. I’ve been lambasting the Clintons today. Surprise! So allow me to make some critical points about the Obama campaign. He needs to get off the pedestal. The Clintons are awful but the race isn’t over and there is an absolutely legitimate concern among some Democrats that among key white ethnic voters, he hasn’t yet closed the deal. It’s perfectly understandable that super-delegates are worried that Obama is too vulnerable on national security, too unknown, too risky a bet against McCain. I think they’re wrong, but I’ve long since internalized and figured out why I think that. So has Obama. But many others haven’t. And in a democracy, those many others count, as they should. So some specific thoughts: 1. Obama himself should not go negative directly against the Clintons. His surrogates can and should. I, for one, am perfectly happy to splash around in the muck for a while, if it means we get more transparency from the Clintons and greater awareness among Democrats of the enormous electoral risks of allowing that couple and their warring, dysfunctional teams back into the White House. But Obama needs to keep on message about his ability to say goodbye to all that, to forge a post-Rove, post-Morris politics for a country in too much trouble to be allowed to convulse into red and blue jerking knees again. The ability to go negative and positive is crucial – more crucial now, I’d say, than it will be in the fall. Limbaugh is right about this: the Clintons are far less scrupulous than McCain. 2. Obama needs to get out there door-to-door again, talk to the working poor, engage Reagan Democrats, explain his positions on the war, and the economy and healthcare, reiterate why he can get stuff done in a way that the polarizing psycho-drama of the Clintons cannot. Save the great speeches for later. More round-tables; get on a bus; show you can work as hard as she can. Stop looking so aloof.

3. Forget about the delegate math.

Stop claiming you’ve won already or that the Clintons cannot win. Remember that your job is to win the argument about the future of the US and the world. Make this campaign about your kind of politics rather than the Clinton-Bush style of politics. This race will not be decided by a delegate count. It will be decided by a collective decision about the better candidate some time in the next few months. Math is not an argument; it’s an analysis.

4. Make a speech about the Internet slurs. Stop ducking them. Confront them. Talk about your Christian faith and your childhood exposure to Islam. Tell people about your parents. Debunk that idiotic pledge of allegiance meme. Grab the flag pin issue by the lapels. Do it all at once undefensively. Yes, it will raise the profile of every single slur. But if you rebut them candidly, gracefully, calmly, you will defuse them. You can run but you can’t hide from Internet crapola. So confront it; defeat it. Right now, on these issues alone, the Obama camp is actually captive to the politics of fear. Don’t be.

Kittery Point, Maine, 6 pm.

John Warner offers the campaigns ready-to-produce scripts for negative political advertising.