I totally agree with you on this and honestly don't see how its not coming up.

If Hillary gets the nomination, I don't think "It's none of your business" is going to defuse a reprise of all of the nasty things that Republicans are going to be throwing at her. And, yeah, to be blunt, they're going to be talking travel office files, Rose Law Firm, Lewinsky, pork futures, and geez that's not even the fringe stuff. I know there's a sense for Democrats that all of that is (White)water under the bridge but that doesn't mean the Republicans won't bring it up. They'll just bring it up in a "Do you really want to go through all of that again?" kind of way.

I'd almost like to see Obama say, "Okay, here's the deal, for one week we're going to go completely negative against Clinton just to show everyone what's possible. Yeah it's gonna be ugly and we don't want to do it, but for just one week here it comes. And then we'll go back to the high road." It'd be a hell of a week.

Posted at April 2, 2008 6:01 PM in response to A Divisive Way to Divide the Delegates

I totally agree. This has to be taken in the context of her substantial lead even just a week or so back. I would have like to have seen him win Texas last night, but either state was up hill all the way for him.

On a side note, I think it is interesting that he took Bell County, home of the Army's Fort Hood, and by a sizable margin. Apparently he's got some solid support from the troops and those that live and work with them.

Posted at March 5, 2008 9:54 AM in response to Obama Campaign: Hillary's Chance Of Winning Actually Decreased Tonight

That is just such a great photo accompanying the Richardson story about Clinton coming over to watch the Superbowl.

Clinton has this "My God, I could be in Manhattan watching the game with the swells" look on his face, and Richardson just looks so awesomely middle-class. The napkin under the class on the coffee table really tops off the tableau.

One way or the other on the politics of it, it is a great photo!

Posted at March 3, 2008 4:13 PM in response to Richardson Criticizes Hillary's "Red Phone" Ad Hitting Obama; Praises His Judgment

Both Obama and Clinton should be called out on the NAFTA rhetoric. The chances of either one "opting out" of the deal are minuscule. As Politico points out this weekend, both candidates seem to lose their fiery anti-NAFTA on the way from Ohio to Texas.

Overall it is a bigger problem for Obama than Clinton, not just because of the memo, and this has little to do with his "new style of campaigning" and more to to do with a new prospect of Left politics. He needs to be making an argument that the problem isn't the trade deal, but that Ohio's manufacturing base needs to be re-tooled for a different kind of economy - more service oriented, higher-tech, and more innovative. Its too late in the campaign now, but he should have challenged Ohio's manufacturers more, calling for more innovative union involvement in retooling, and more educational / university based cooperation with industry.

Posted at March 3, 2008 10:22 AM in response to Report: Memo Says Obama Adviser Did Say Obama NAFTA Talk Was Political

You might want to check out Robert Reich's take on this same idea:

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/02/is-america-turning-left.html

Posted at February 27, 2008 6:52 PM in response to A Quick History Lesson

I've got to say this kind of drives me nuts. Not Bill's piece, that I agree with. What drives me nuts is the poor understanding that people show of their electoral system.

The problem with third party candidates in the United States is related to the kind of system we have. As Bill pointed out, its a winner take all system. Its also known as "first past the post". That kind of system means that there can only be one winner to any political contest. Amassing as big a party as possible is the only way to win. Small parties have very little chance at winning so the incentive is to align your small party with a larger party. For larger parties the incentive is to appease the members of smaller parties and pull them into your party. Organizing a third party is simply unlikely to work unless one of the two major parties is in such disarray that you can effectively take their place.

If you want third or even fourth and fifth parties, you need to agitate for a constitutional change towards a parliamentary system based on proportional representation. There may be other ways that involve dual party endorsements like in New York, or building broad parallel organization that then turns into a party with ready-made strength. But even in those cases, under our current system you'd probably end up destroying one of the two current parties and creating a new two party system.

Posted at February 26, 2008 5:35 PM in response to Say It Ain't So, Ralph!

Truce or no truce I think this is a good post. One of the things about Obama that I've been particularly drawn to is his past as a community organizer. Partly that's because I've worked as an organizer myself and I appreciate what a tough and very particular job it is. Prof. Ganz does a good job showing what a difference being an organizer really means for the campaigns in terms of practice.

Posted at January 21, 2008 7:57 AM in response to Clinton, Obama, MLK: Leadership for Change?

I think Clinton's experience is over-rated, at least in terms of governance. As the AFP article points out, every President will deal with crises that cannot be foreseen. My impression of Obama is that he is less likely to lose his focus in foreign policy crisis and fall back on poll watching. I worry that Hillary won't necessarily keep her focus in terms of foreign policy.

That Clinton "urged her husband to intervene" in Rwanda doesn't necessarily mean that she had a well thought-out position on Rwanda or the genocide, only that she, like most observers wanted someone to do something. Being the First Lady she had the opportunity to urge the President to do something personally.

I think you should be much more reluctant to elevate Hillary's term as First Lady to a "tie breaker" in terms of experience. This idea that she and Edwards are somehow "tied" in terms of experience because of their time in the Senate strikes me as silly. Objectively, Obama has more experience as an elected official, having first been elected to office in 1997.

Posted at January 1, 2008 5:14 PM in response to No Time for Amateurs

But he could nominate the groundskeeper. He can nominate whoever he wants, but he doesn't he keeps sticking with Bolton. It actually doesn't make a lot of sense because there others that Bush could nominate, besides the groundskeeper, that would be just as ideologically problematic, but would have to be treated as a "fresh face" and be given the benefit of the doubt during the bipartisan honeymoon (ugh).

On top of it, had he let the Bolton recess appointment simply lapse, few would have noticed except for those of us who follow these things. For most voters it would hardly have been news.

For some reason or other, he's committed to Bolton, and only Bolton, for the UN. Honestly, my suspicion is its just personal loyalty / pigheadedness.

Posted at November 10, 2006 7:44 PM in response to Bush's Partisan Brand of Bipartisanship: The White House Obsession with John Bolton

Uh, yeah Reed, can you back this up a bit? Give us a little bit of sense that this is grounded in something other than rumours and speculation.

Posted at September 19, 2006 7:24 PM in response to What's going to happen?