Marc notes that Clinton needs to raise big money off her win to get out of the red. Matt wonders, considering her recently disclosed $100 million fortune, why she can’t self-finance.
War Crimes
Megan argues that they are inevitable:
…when you choose war, you choose war crimes–and that this is true regardless of why you are choosing the war. You may be going to war for reasons that even the staunchest of libertarians would support, like defending your territory from violent attack. Just the same, if the war grinds on for any length of time, you will get people violating the Geneva Conventions, doing obscene things to enemy soldiers (dead and alive), and launching attacks that would horrify the population if they were watching a third party do them. By the time you’re a year or so into it, the public and the soldiers are reacting to the last attack and the mountain of dead, not to who started it. Dresden would have been unthinkable in 1939; by the time it happened, anything was justifiable if it saved Allied soldiers.[…]
The point is, these things are part of the cost of war, not of the cost of "wars started by the Bush administration" or "wars with bad motives" or "wars we don’t like".
I’m sorry but this is preposterous, uninformed, ahistorical. The United States has managed to go to war for two centuries without the president authorizing and monitoring the torture of prisoners. The Bush administration’s legalization of torture and withdrawal from Geneva is unique in American history. Yes, wars will lead to individuals committing war crimes in the heat of battle. Yes, it carries a horrifying logic. But an advance, pre-meditated decision by the president to engage in war crimes is new and unprecedented. Bush really is uniquely awful as a president in this respect: an indefensible war criminal, who has permanently stained the country he represents and betrayed the soldiers who expect decency and lawfulness in their commander-in-chief.
Ron Paul In Pennsylvania
Hats off to the rEVOLution: Ron Paul will come out of his home state with around 127,000 votes, giving him around 974,000 votes total for the caucuses and primaries that have wrapped thus far. He’ll undoubtedly hit one million for the whole primary season: More than Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or John Edwards.
Pennsylvania Reax
Marc:
If Obama keeps his pledged delegate lead to around 150, Clinton needs to win 70% of them on May 6 — and if not, 80% of them after May 6.
That’s more than next to impossible.
Obama supporters are already starting to spin to the effect that tonight changes nothing, that Hillary remains a huge underdog and she’s likely to pick up very few delegates tonight. All entirely true, which is why the damage done here to Obama is so needless. Obama supporters have to be crying on the inside.
She wins by 9.4% — a number Clinton supporters round up to call it a double-digit win, and Obama supporters round down for the opposite reason. Clinton’s victory was decisive and impressive, but the margin fits nicely into that middle ground. It’s big enough to give Clinton a boost, but not big enough to change the overall dynamics of the race. It’s big enough to keep the campaign going for quite a while, but not big enough to compel uncommitted superdelegates to get off the fence.
Regardless, Hillary’s vanity campaign will continue on, trailing in delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in enthusiasm and money, but not lacking in the firm resolve that only Hillary can save us all from our selves.
She will pick up an estimated 200K popular votes, cutting Obama’s overall popular vote lead to 500K.
If Hillary Clinton had fallen short of expectations, she’d be out of it. If she had exceeded expectations, there’s a real chance that things would shift in her favor.
Instead, she exactly matched expectations, and now the good people of Guam are about to get 24/7 political ads. Welcome to American presidential politics, Guam. Don’t worry, it will be over soon.
The Reality Of Oil
Peter Kiernan sorts through energy independence myths.
From Ohio To Pennsylvania
Obama’s spin:
Significant improvements over Ohio, especially among white men and seniors overall.
With voters over 60 in OH, Clinton won 69%, Obama got 28%. In PA, Obama earned 41% of the vote among voters over 60, and Clinton won 59%. The gap among seniors was cut by more than half, from 41 to 19.
Among white men, in Ohio, Obama got 39%, in PA, 46%. Clinton was at 58% in OH and dropped to 53% in PA. The gap narrowed from 19% to 7%.
The NYT vs The Clintons
It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind with they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.
The Near-Triumph Of Rovism
It’s worth recalling what this primary came to be about, because of a self-conscious decision by the Clintons to adopt the tactics and politics of the people who persecuted and hounded them in the 1990s. It was indeed in the end about smearing and labeling Obama as a far-left, atheist, elite, pansy Godless snob fraud. That was almost all it came to be about. It was the Clintons’ core message and core belief. And if anywhere would have proved its salience, it would surely have been beleaguered and depressed central and western Pennsylvania; and it would surely have worked with white ethnic voters over 50.
It did work, it seems to me. It will work, to some extent. It’s valid in the sense that Rove is not stupid. But it works less and less the younger the vote is; and it is obviously losing some of its divisive salience even among the older generation. It is fading as a tool. Used by Democrats, legitimized by Democrats, embraced by Democrats, the Rove-Atwater gambits have been paid the highest compliment by the Clintons these past few weeks. But a single digit win against a young black man in a polarized race suggests that this compliment was past its sell-by date. It was an act of desperation, and one last grab back to the past. It didn’t quite do what it was supposed to do. Nearly, but not quite.
The past is receding; but the future has yet to be born. This is hard labor. Necessary labor. But the direction of this country is clear, it seems to me. And heartening.
(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)
The Worst Of All Worlds For The Dems
Right now, the actual results suggest what I thought would be the worst possible result for the Democrats: a nine point win for Clinton. It doesn’t change the race’s dynamic or the math; but it will give Clinton just the tiniest sliver of an argument that she should not drop out. But what is striking in the exit polls is the polarization on three lines: gender, race and age. It was dead even with men; but a massive advantage for Clinton among women. The racial difference is obvious as well. But what really leaps out is age. Obama lost every cohort over 40; Clinton lost every cohort under 40. Race also affects the generations in turn: 67 percent of whites over 60 voted for Clinton – a massive 24 point advantage. Among the younger generation, there is much less racial polarization: under 30, whites split evenly. This is a fascinating result. It appears to me as the future struggling to overcome the past. On the process, I stick to my view that she needed double digits to have reason to stay in. Right now, she doesn’t have it. But she won’t leave. She will never leave. Ceding to someone younger is unthinkable to her. It’s a form of death for her.
But here’s what she does have: total shamelessness, and an absolute belief that she is the rightful nominee. Shamelessness: the appropriation of the message and even the words of her opponent; the portrayal of one of the most privileged and advantaged candidates in memory as an insurgent underdog; the eager embrace of the tactics – and message! – of the Rove right if it could help in any way; the picture of a candidate who saw a 20 – 25 point lead dissipate into single figures as a candidate for momentum. What sustains her is this deep, deep sense of entitlement and an absolute refusal to let the next generation take over. She will take this to the last day of the convention if necessary.
If Obama thinks he has a right to actually be nominated by the Clinton Democrats because he has won more votes, more states and more delegates, he is sadly mistaken. They will never let such a person win without a death struggle. And that is where the Democrats are now headed.
A Better Comparison?
A reader suggests:
The Right wing has Ann Coulter and Michael Savage. The Left wing has Ted Rall and Michael Moore.
