Category: The Dish

Drum says for everyone to "chill out":

I’d like to offer a historical counterexample: 1968. Consider. The Democratic incumbent president was forced to withdraw after a primary debacle in New Hampshire. The Vietnam War had split liberals into warring factions and urban riots had shattered the LBJ’s Great Society legacy. A frenzied primary season reached all the way to California in June, culminating in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The Democratic Convention in Chicago was a nationally televised battle zone. Hubert Humphrey, the party’s eventual nominee, had never won a primary and was loathed by a significant chunk of the liberal community. New Left radicals hated mainstream Democrats more than they hated Republicans.

In other words, this was the mother of all ugly, party-destroying campaigns. No other primary campaign in recent memory from either party has come within a million light years of being as fratricidal and ruinous. But what happened? In the end, Humphrey lost the popular vote to Nixon by less than 1%. A swing of about a hundred thousand votes in California would have thrown the election into the House of Representatives.

Nyhan counters:

This is all true, but it’s important to remember that Humphrey drastically underperformed in 1968 relative to what we would expect given the state of the economy at the time (a result that is often attributed to Vietnam War deaths). We can’t quantify what damage was done by the polarizing primary campaign, but it’s hard to see how it would help.

Democrats risk a similar scenario — a destructive primary campaign could turn a possible rout in November into a 50/50 coin flip a la 1968. And even if they do win, any significant reduction in the popular/electoral vote margin could have significant legislative and political consequences going forward.

A reader notes:

Are you listening to Harold Ickes on NPR "Talk of the Nation" today? He is saying that the distinction between pledged or "automatic" (as he is calling super delegates) is a "phony distinction" that the Obama campaign wants to put forward to serve their ends. That many of the super delegates are congressmen who are elected every 2 years. He keeps restating this "phony distinction phrase." I’m appalled and wanted to pass this on.

If you knew Ickes’ record, you would, alas, not be appalled. He has a Blumenthal-level of say-anythingness.

You can sense a change in the left-liberal blogosphere. They have now become quite virulently anti-Clinton. As often, Kos leads the pack. Part of me wonders whether the Clintons understand this. They don’t care much for the netroots, to put it mildly, and the large influx of new Obama voters and new small Obama donors into the Democratic party is terribly threatening to them.

So it’s win-win for them by going comprehensively negative on Obama. If they can throw enough dirt and fear in his direction, they could either win the nomination (by peeling off enough white ethnics and then talking the super-delegates into switching), or help McCain defeat Obama in the fall. Then they get bragging rights (we told you a black man couldn’t win), assume that McCain is a one-term president, and gear up for a second attempt at restoration in 2012, having consigned the Obama insurrection to history.

US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama speaks to the press on his campaign plane, on his way to Chicago, Illinois on March 5, 2008. By Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.

A reader writes:

While last night was disheartening, its a bit like losing a football game at the end of the season when you have mathematically clinched a playoff spot. Sure a win would have been nice, you always play to win. But everyone knows your going to the playoffs and your main goal is to try and stay healthy and thats what Obama will do.  Its the other team that tries trick plays and dirty tactics because their chances are gone.

"There are people — they say this about Bill Clinton — he might be the anti-Christ. Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?" – Glenn Beck to McCain ally, John Hagee.

This enchanting song about the circle of poo both reminds me of what politics is mainly about and cheers me up. Maybe it will cheer you up too. God knows from the email in-tray, you seem to need it. (Apologies; link fixed now.)

It’s called a Tenori-On an it’s only existed for a few months. Bjork has one. One user review:

"I don’t need to know anything about   music, I’m just pressing lights and buttons."

YouTube demo here.

He just declared that the Arizona senator will effectively be running for Bush’s own third term. Rich Lowry agrees:

Who does that sound like? A ‘compassionate conservative’ who wants to take on our enemies. It sounds like George W. Bush. … That’s obviously the way he views John McCain, as a successor to himself.

Four more years! If I were McCain, I’d be worried.

Pete Abel re-thinks small government:

Many of us have had a change of heart about government action when we encounter unexpected and otherwise insurmountable challenges. Consider the value that my friend, Dennis Sanders, found in Minnesota’s Medicaid program when he needed its assistance back in 1996. Or my experience, when I realized that had it not been for government action, our only child, who suffers from a severe case of Tourette Syndrome, might never have had access to the medications that help him lead a reasonably normal, productive life.

These cases and others suggest that “pure” libertarian conservatives are comprised of those who have not yet hit the brick wall of non-solutions; have not yet needed (nor had an opportunity to appreciate) just how valuable government “interference” can sometimes be.

On the other hand, despite the groups and individuals who have been helped by government action, I’m not ready to label myself a progressive. For every example of government doing good, there are multiple examples of government wasting precious resources and implementing counterproductive programs – failures that have been thoroughly documented by the likes of Barry Goldwater in 1960, Philip Howard in 1994, and Paul Ormerod in 2005.