The Dish

A story from the antipodes:

When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Clinton’s leading fundraising chair:

"There’s a risk that if she isn’t invited on the ticket, Hillary’s political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he’ll need to prevail in November."

So it gets clearer that they’re bargaining for the veep slot. More straws in the wind here. But the money angle is an absurd lever. Obama’s money machine doesn’t need Clinton in any way. And the Democrats would be suicidal to turn off that spigot by handing the nomination to Clinton.

Nonetheless, the logic I laid out a few weeks ago still holds. The upside of an Obama-Clinton ticket would be considerable. I know I’ve been all over the place on this. My fear of an Obama-Clinton ticket is because of what I think of the Clintons. My interest in an Obama-Clinton ticket is because of what I think of the Clintons. They’re dangerous to Obama – the overthrown dynasts who are pulling a Richard II right now. But they’re just as dangerous in the tent and out of it. Obama needs to figure out which is the greater danger. I don’t envy him.

But when you think about it, the Clintons’ popular vote argument is not an argument for winning the nomination. You can’t change the rules in the fourth quarter. But it is an argument for the veep slot. Put this way, the dead-ender act is not so psycho. The Clintons, like it or not, do have a base in their party. They’ve been beaten but not destroyed. Obama has to do something about it.

There are a lot of voters in his party for his opponent. And the signals the Clintons have been sending are that they will not go easily. When Obama says, "I’m very practical in my thinking. I’m a practical guy," this seems to me what he’s thinking.

This really is the first major presidential decision Obama has to make. How he handles it, and what he decides will tell us a huge amount about the kind of president he would be. My hunch is that he will try to conciliate – and that, if he’s shrewd, that will be the theme of his campaign. A Clinton pick would instantly relieve the Democrats and create a demographic landslide potential for the fall. It would immediately force an entire army on the right, now making the Clintons’ arguments for them, to eat their words or find themselves praising the Democrat. It would reassure some voters that Obama has a running mate with more Washington experience. It would help the women’s vote.

One more thing: for Obama to pick Clinton needs to be – and be seen to be – an act of strength, not weakness. It must be diplomacy not appeasement. That requires some class on both sides. And so far, only one side has shown any.

A candidate creates an atmosphere, no? A round-up of pro-Clinton bloggers. Taylor Marsh:

Tumulty, like so many others, are ignoring Clinton’s only goal, which is to make the case to SuperDs that she would be the best nominee against John McCain, the traditional media, as well as the Obama blogs, are missing one of the greatest political dramas ever to unfold, second only to the 2000 election.

Clinton is campaigning on counting every single vote. But also that every Democratic delegate should be focused on who can win in November.

Obama is campaigning on disenfranchising voters so he can win, regardless of whether he’s got the strongest case for November, which he does not.

TalkLeft:

While the Obama blogs are having a conniption because Hillary Clinton is talking about counting the votes in Florida and Michigan, it remains striking to me that these same blogs have never expressed much concern about the Media’s disgraceful behavior in this campaign. Indeed, any mention of the sexism and misogyny in the Media and elsewhere makes them look down at their shoes, or worse, even defend the perpetrators.

Here’s a writer at No Quarter going after Josh Marshall:

One is immediately stumped when searching for words that aptly describe the bilge sinking the increasingly cumbersome and tedious vessels that comprise the patently venal fleet of Obamablogs. According to one writer who has a predilection for reinscribing misogynistic tropes in almost every essay he pens, Hillary Clinton is “[t]oxic,” for she has the temerity to situate the controversy surrounding the seating of the delegates of Florida and Michigan within the august traditions of Voting Rights and Civil Rights that define the modern Democratic Party

Wolcott:

I’m still for Hillary, though I recognize that the flag flapping above the fort is tattered and the time is drawing near for the bugler to sound the blue notes of valedictory.

Is Tucker going to make a run at the libertarian ticket? Go Tucker.

Obama in Florida:

Yesterday was not a good day.

"Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He’s a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush’s father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.

Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it," – John Hawkins, RightWingNews. La Malkin herself seconds:

They’ve learned nothing. Nada. Zippo. How about you?

Bainbridge:

I can’t think of anything more contrary to the spirit of Burkean conservatism than a search for the “next big thing.” Indeed, I would argue that a large part of the problem with modern conservatism is that Bush and the K Street Gang were more concerned with finding something big to do than with standing athwart history shouting stop.

Megan’s response:

…as a policy matter, conservatives need to figure out how they’re going to stop the juggernaut. Reagan did it with tax cuts, big increases in defense spending, and deregulation. The first two are pretty much out of the picture, and no one’s mounted a serious drive at deregulation for more than a decade. It would be nice if one could win an election on "Don’t just do something–stand there!" This would quite warm my little heart. But it doesn’t work. Conservatives need to figure out how they are going to roll back the bad ideas and prevent new bad ones from getting through. For that, they need a proposal a bit more eloquent than "Stop!"

My related thoughts here. At a deeper level, the betrayal of so many conservative principles by the Republicans under Bush and Rove means that whatever emerges from the ashes of conservatism will probably not emerge quickly. Obama’s redistributionist approach to taxes is galling; his insouciance toward the welfare state unappetising.

But his return to pragmatism and realism in foreign policy, his support for transparency in government, his less statist version of healthcare reform, his disavowal of torture and the overweening executive, his respect for the Constitution, and his potential for taking us past the post-Vietnam culture wars: these are definitely appealing to small-c conservatives after the last eight years. When you add to this the unknowable cultural impact of the first black president, the re-branding of the US in the world, and the new interest of a whole new generation in the fate of their nation, it doesn’t seem to me to be a "crazy left-wing" idea to be attracted to his candidacy. Gerson agrees:

The enthusiasm of many Republicans and conservatives to defeat Hillary Clinton would have come unbidden. Against Obama, it will come harder.

The only thing worse in politics than not having power is forgetting why you wanted it in the first place. My own sense is that the great debate about conservatism that is in its infancy would be more fertile out of power than in it.

A census of some of the best of America. And how moving that so many were immigrants:

At 7, Victor H. Toledo-Pulido was smuggled across the border from Mexico through rugged mountains into California. He and another soldier were killed in May 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle southeast of Baghdad.

"They judge us, and they say we just come to take their jobs and positions, but we also make sacrifices. Victor worked since he was little, in the fields and in restaurants," his mother, Maria Gaspar, said after the 22-year-old Mexican was killed in Iraq. "He was Mexican, but he thought like an American. And he gave his life for this country."

Dozens more were the children of immigrants, including Bunny Long, 22, a Marine lance corporal whose parents came from Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned them for four years in a labor camp.

"This is our home," his father, Sim Long, said after his son died. "I’m very proud that Bunny was able to give back to his country. Our country."

James Forsyth, perhaps a little excitably, reacts to last night’s Tory by-election landslide:

A few weeks ago, the idea that Gordon Brown would be challenged for the Labour leadership would have sounded as, if not more, absurd as the idea that the Tories would win Crewe and Nantwich with a majority of nearly 8,000. But now it seems possible if not yet probable. The number of Labour MPs who now look almost certain to lose their seat is more than the number needed to trigger a leadership contest.

Labour is now in freefall; it is hard to remember the last good week for the government and the public seem to have taken against Brown with a passion. Brown was hidden in this contest—his image was on everyone but Labour’s leaflets. That, obviously, could not be done in a general.

The Guardian panics:

In scenes reminiscent of New Labour’s byelection successes in the 90s, jubilant Tories in Crewe and Nantwich celebrated as their candidate, Edward Timpson, won with 20,539 votes, 49%. The result, on a high byelection turnout of 58.2%, was particularly sweet for the public school-educated Timpson, who brushed off Labour’s "anti-toff" campaign to secure the Tories’ first byelection gain since 1982.

By "anti-toff", read "anti-elitist." If this swing were duplicated in the next general election (which it won’t), the Tories would have five times the seats as Labour.

(Photo: Peter MacDiarmid/Getty.)