Tom Watson

The Two-State Handicap

Perhaps Barack Obama really is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime candidate who can get away with tossing two large swing states on the scrap heap, and whipping John McCain with one hand tied behind his hopeful back. But should he fail - and I remain petrified that he might - his campaign's decision not to find common ground on legitimate primaries in Michigan and Florida will be rightly seen as one of the great strategic blunders in Presidential political history.

Veteran New York muckraker Wayne Barrett has the definitive piece in HuffPo on machinations that led us to this strange 48-state strategy. Barrett's take: Republicans set it up, Dean and Obama fell for it (in their zeal to run out the clock on the reviled Clinton), and the rest is - or sadly may be - history.  Says Wayne:

In all the buzz about the media's pro-Obama tilt, its indifference to his resistance to including these states in the "actual" nominating process is its most disturbing favor, especially since this brand of "conventional politics," as Obama would put it, flies in the face of his contention that "the people" should pick the nominee. Obama's only proposal so far has been to split the delegates evenly, just like he and Michelle parcel out Christmas presents to their two daughters.

Of course, the column inches and moments of air time spent on how and why these two states and their 366 delegates have been banished adds up to less than the attention devoted to, say, the Wyoming caucus, where a 2,066-vote Obama margin gave him a big enough delegate boost to virtually cancel out Hillary Clinton's 329,000-vote margin in the five March races.

What's more, argues Barrett (he of the 30-year career exposing the vast patronage underbelly of New York politics), the Republicans set it all up - while the Hillary-hating media could only chant the idiotic playground song of  "rules are the rules." More from Barrett:

Imagining a convention without delegations from these large and politically volatile states has become the nightmare of every thinking Democrat. Polls indicate that a nominee who refuses to count the 1.7 million Floridians who voted in a level-playing field primary, or to find a way for them to vote again, will wind up wasting whatever time and money he or she spends there in the general election campaign. As close as the general election vote in Michigan has been in recent years, even a small margin of voters disgruntled by the state's Democratic lockout could push it into the GOP column. Obama's stonewalling about both states may offer short-term advantages, but two delegations denied seating because of his maneuvers may well be seen as contrary to his populist rationale now -- and crippling to his candidacy in November.

Ed Pozzuoli, the Republican chair of Broward County, recalls the Florida showdown of 2000, when he says Democrats taunted Republicans, insisting that they should "let every vote count." He gloats now: "I guess that's changed in eight years." He's hardly the only one chortling over the likely consequence of what he calls the "draconian" Democratic spiking of his state's delegation.

What started out years ago as Howard Dean's 50-state organizing strategy for the national party now looks like a 48-state electoral one. Michigan and Florida could become the Ralph Nader of 2000, the great regret that delivers the country once again to four years of darkness.

As I've written before, this is a stunning mistake by the Obama campaign; undoubtedly the McCain campaign is working already with the state Republican machines in Michigan and Florida on just the right tone of slogan, just the right video - all of them saying the same thing: the Democrats didn't want your vote. As commenter argent1 adds to Barrett's in-depth reportage:

The long and tedious nuts and bolts doesn't fit well with the "I want it Now" Obamelites. All those retired grandparents may go McCain in FL, and the blue collars of MI as well. The demonstrative snub by Obama and Co. will ruin his chances. Then we'll be hearing boo-hoo-hoo after November 4th trying to blame Clinton for not bowing out in April.

Hat tip: Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft, who also asks: do Clinton-haters "hate Clinton more than they care about the Democratic Party?"

Money and Blood

Last year, I wrote a post about Army Staff Sgt. Courtney Hollinsworth, a career NCO from my hometown of Yonkers, New York. Assigned to the 4th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kansas, Sgt. Hollinsworth was 26 and had spent nine years in the uniform in his country when he died during an attack by insurgents in Baghdad. He'd already done two tours - in Afghanistan and one in Iraq - when he was called up and did what soldiers always do: he went.

My post excoriated President Bush for his execrable and dishonest reasoning in a national speech, when he argued that this country has invested in the Iraq war and that the deaths of soldiers like Sgt. Hollinsworth argued for pursuing a “return on success.” In that speech, the President infamously promised to pass the war along to his successors: "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home,” he told the nation.

I'm as guilty as the next guy of focusing too much heat on this little intramural squabble of ours while the meatgrinder in Iraq turns on and on - but the great thing about a blog is the open channel of communications it can create, and the surprises it can hold in store for the even the most hard-boiled authors.

I got an email this week from Specialist Rangel, who served with Sgt. Hollinsworth on his first tour in Iraq. And with his permission, I'm sharing it with readers -  it's a soldier's-eye view of the political process that we all need to listen to from time to time:

Mr. Watson - I've read your work on SSG. Hollinsworth and greatly appreciate it. Hollinsworth was a personal friend of mine that I served my first tour in Iraq with and lived with him in Germany. Its sad to see these politicians bicker over human lives. Our service members have lost hope in our country. Most like me who joined to protect our great nation only fight for our brothers in arms now. America was built on bloodshed, now we must keep her alive and continue to bleed. It sucks, there is division within our country, money and blood. There are people who would do anything to attain the "American Dream" and there are those who go unnoticed that make the ultimate selfless sacrifice to give others that chance.

I don't have much to add - "money and blood" pretty much says it all. Sometimes it's good to get one right across the chops.

Hillary's 'Right' to Continue

Nick Kristof is a brave reporter and a fine writer, but Melissa McEwen grabs him by his tin political ear and shakes him good and plenty:

Shorter Nicholas Kristof: Hillary's a bitch, and she only has a right to stay in the campaign if she behaves like a good girl. Also, the Clintons are an amorphous two-headed beast who are barely Democrats.

There is a fair argument to be made about the wisdom of a protracted primary battle if it continues to be as bloody as it has been (though I'm not sure how many people outside the blogosphere and punditry actually view it as all that bloody). But that argument can be made without pretending the Clinton campaign is the only one playing hardball, and it can be made without talking about the Clintons—who, despite one's opinion of them, have raised shitloads of cash and garnered lots of international goodwill on behalf of the Democratic Party—like they're unwelcome interlopers in the party, and it can most certainly be made without comments like: "If Mrs. Clinton can run a high-minded, civil campaign and rein in her proxies, then she has every right to continue through the next few primaries."

Why is it that Obama supporters in the media - even the ones we deeply admire - are so determined to ensure that Clinton supporters will never like their candidate, so determined to guarantee that many will stay home or defect in November? Lately, it seems almost like a mission.

The Off Season

Holgate, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

A few days in the quiet and near-solitude of an East Coast beach town in March is a tonic. Down along the Jersey Shore, the for-sale signs are as thick as the gulls, as the sub-prime collapse and sinking economy drives the mood to sell over-designed three-story beach shacks, all pastel awnings and soaring multiple decks. At the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge at the southern tip of this barrier island, the realty price is just right for early-arriving plovers - and you can still walk the beach, which closes to non-avians on April Fool's Day. The kids found some brilliant beach glass and shells, even as the wind seemed to slice across Holgate from the ghostly towers of Atlantic City to the south across the inlet. The boulevard is almost empty and the traffic lights are still on blink. Over by the bay, most of the boats still shiver under shrink wrap, and the fishing season is a month a way - the stripers may hit the surf around the time of the Pennsylvania primary.

You're Nothing to Me Now - Not a Brother, Not a Friend

With Democrats like Bill Richardson, do we need Republicans? On the Today Show, the former presidential candidate actually had the temerity to call for "unity" in the ongoing slog to a Democratic nomination - just two days after one of the great turn-coat performances in party history. Richardson, an ineffective and sometimes disinterested and disoriented candidate early in this race, turned his back on the political patrons who plucked him from semi-obscurity and endorsed Barack Obama - well after the New Mexico primary, when his imprimatur might actually have helped the Illinois Senator. Then he went against his national call of only a month ago for superdelegates to vote their states or districts: "It should reflect the vote of my state," he boldly proclaimed - way back then. Richardson now claims that because New Mexico was so close, he's free to abandon those much-ballyhooed principles (thanks to Jane Hamsher for repeatedly pointing this out). He then accused the Clinton campaign of engaging in "gutter politics" - which seemed to suit Richardson just fine when he was being appointed to a series of prominent positions - while simultaneously trying to claim he remains "very loyal to the Clintons." He then tried to extend that criticism of negative campaigning to the Obama campaign, even as he was endorsing it. The man actually believes he's now in the position to bring the two bitter campaigns together! What a strange mass of political protoplasm - equal helpings of rank opportunism and true cluelessness. So today, Paul Begala suggested that if you were hanging from a cliff you wouldn't want Bill Richardson to be the one holding the rope - this after his partner James Carville infamously ridiculed Richardson as a "Judas" during Easter week (he stood by it today). But Carville had it wrong - he picked a competent traitor. For all his faults, Judas got the job done. Bill Richardson is no Judas. No, no, no - he's Fredo.

Quote of the Day

"For the entire campaign I had thought [Obama] would be, but these last few weeks have me rethinking that. Her resilience and toughness [are] impressing me."

- Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican operative, in today's Washington Post on who'd be the tougher candidate versus McCain in November.

Postadelic

I've never been called blogalicious before, but if the shoe fits...

The 48-State Strategy

The worst possible news for Barack Obama's stirring and improbable reach for the White House broke this week, and it had nothing to do with an incendiary preacher on the South Side of Chicago. Rather, the brewing disaster for the Senator's presidential hopes comes from his own tacticians - the very strategists who are urging him to run out the clock, take a knee at midfield, and snub voters in two of the nation's largest swing states.

It's hard to even write these words: the Democratic Party is actually on the verge of blocking the participation in this historic campaign of millions of voters in Florida and Michigan. Read that back slowly, would you? Under the leadership of Chairman Dean and with the complicity of Obama's top advisors, the Democratic Party is close to adopting a 48-state strategy that will undoubtedly depress turnout for Senator Obama or Senator Clinton (or both!) in the fall.

In the words of Casey Stengel: "Can't anybody here play this game?"

Some Obama supporters will predictably talk about rules and punishment like Republicans defending the Rockefeller drug laws, but it just doesn't wash. To win against John McCain in the fall takes a savvy electoral vote strategy, and we cannot afford to write off Florida or Michigan for even a second.

Further, if Obama does succeed in running out the clock - as his campaign is now clearly intent on doing - he guarantees that a certain portion of Democratic primary voters will never view his nomination as legitimate. He's giving ardent Clinton supporters an easy structural excuse to stay home. And he's playing directly into the hands of right-wing critics who will argue he's gotten a free pass on the back of fancy rhetoric, the moist media lovefest, and the clever exploitation of the Democrats' proportional delegate system. Craig Crawford has it right:

How amazing that Democrats have a frontrunner who is seemingly afraid to allow re-votes in Michigan and Florida. Or at least that is how Barack Obama is allowing it to appear.

Obama is all that stands in the way of letting voters try again in those battleground states. That’s probably a winning strategy for the party nomination. But the general election is another story.

And Jeralyn over at TalkLeft notes the rising anger over Obama's strange decision:

Barack Obama could care less about disenfranchising voters. That's his goal for Michigan and Florida and more than 2 million of the states' voters. Now, that's politics. And hardly the politics of hope or change.

So don't cheer the dough-headed decisions in Michigan and Florida, if you're an Obama backer. Obama needs those votes every bit as much as Clinton does, in my view. With proportional delegate apportionment, he'd get delegates in those states anyway - and just might get to 50 percent plus one for a true and valid nomination clincher. This way, he has to rely on superdelegates - and he leaves himself open to second-guessing as his poll numbers inevitably slip.

Right now, Team Obama seems very much like the underdog just "happy to be here" on Super Bowl Sunday - and it's a very bad turn for this race. By listening to consultants on Florida and Michigan, Barack Obama has made what is easily his worst tactical decision in an otherwise able campaign.

UPDATE: Chris Bowers, an Obama supporter, breaks it down - and argues that Michigan needs to vote. His take: Obama wants a floor fight in August in Denver.

This Time and Place

There are sites out there where the callous bashing of others down deep in the comments goes without notice, where voices are cut off and censored and bullied; this little site is not one of them.

This presidential race is a tough one on the left - a very tough one, to use a weak but available modifier - and passions are deeply stirred. Anger builds and spreads and steams over the side of the cup. And folks who might normally converse pleasantly about the general state of the world fling vituperation a bit too casually. At least for my taste.

So let's go open kimono on a few things around here. We haven't done that for a while, and there are lots of  welcome newcomers - some of whom are passionate Hillary backers, while others adore Barack. (Still others dig McCain or no one at all).

First, this is my blog - it's entirely an iconoclastic view, my own perception of reality. No one pays me to write it, and all editorial judgments are mine. You don't have to agree; indeed, agreement here is kind of rare. But let's try to argue about it with civility.

Secondly, I support Hillary Clinton for president. It's been that way around here for a year. I'm not part of her campaign, have never been paid a nickel for what I've written, and have nothing material to gain from my support. Further, that support is based on my judgment on who'd make the best president. I've tried to make the argument agreeably - sometimes, I've failed. Sometimes my candidate and her campaign have let me down. Many times, her grace and stamina have amazed me. And as of today, I believe she's the best candidate.

Third, that may change.

Fourth, I admire Barack Obama and have said it here many times. He is accomplished, a fine writer, and his heart's in the right place, as best as I can tell of a talented politician running for national office. Just because I'm pro-Clinton doesn't mean I'm anti-Obama. (By the by, I don't despise Senator McCain, either - more about that at some future date). If I fail to fall out in ecstasy over a particular political speech, don't count me as the enemy of hope. If he wins the nomination in Denver, I'll support the Senator for President.

Finally, about those comments. To my way of thinking, comments are the life's blood of a good blog. My posts are starting points for the conversation; sometimes they're full essays, other times the barest throat-clearing tarted up with a few links. I'm interested in what the small community of users has to say. I ask that you keep it civil, and generally you have for more than four years. (Though I've lost it a few times myself). I don't really police the comments, but I do wade in as much as I can. Let me repeat: keep it civil. Try to keep the name-calling off the forms (a little cussin' is a-okay with me). No libel. No threats. No bullying. There are some long-time regulars here, so if you're new, treat 'em like you'd treat Norm in the corner seat at that neighborhood bar you just walked into.

The rough-and-tumble of politics is welcome - I fairly revel in it. Indeed, I've taken vicious body blows here from some of my closest friends and relatives - and lived to respond. Across many of the more popular political blogs, the level of discourse has dropped to some rat-infested subterranean slime. Let's keep the drainage level higher here. Now let's get back to it. I'll start: Obama sucks. McCain's the anti-Christ. Go Hillary.

Son of a Preacher Man

Welcome to the big leagues, Barack Obama. Sure, the speech rocked - why, Andrew Sullivan gave it all of the movie ad exclamation points it needed in a single sentence: "...searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian!" He forgot only "thrifty, brave, clean and reverent."

And it really was as straightforward and unvarnished a statement as most national politicians are capable of delivering (for contrast, see Romney in the matter of Mormonism, 2007). Yet, it also opened the door to the kind of familial pop psychology by the right that has plagued Bill and Hillary Clinton for two decades. Much of the sophomoric Corner was kibitzing about whether Obama was toast or not - if that's political toast, butter me up some pumpernickel - but Kathleen Parker soon got down to the real truth:

What may be most telling about Obama's predicament may be found in his reference to his white grandmother — her fear of black men on the streets and her stereotypical remarks about blacks.

Yes, that may be the most telling thing about the Senator's "predicament" - though many of us white middle-aged guys could be seen nodding their heads in shared experience. Thus committed, Parker blathered on:

He said he cringed, but I'm betting he did more than that. Those remarks had to cut deep. A young boy who looks different from his immediate family is going to have identity issues of much greater magnitude than your run-of-the-mill  "Who Am I?" questions all adolescents usually ask. His narrative of self-discovery and self-identification as an African American in Chicago begins there and the subtext is that his own source of emotional nourishment was polluted by a prejudice that was aimed indirectly at him. His grandmother — his surrogate mother at that point — rejected the black man he was becoming. The anger Obama heard in Rev. Wright's church may not have felt so alien after all.

Clever that. The angry rejected black man as presidential candidate. Always good for the polls. I wonder about Parker's own "Who Am I?" moment, what lacked in her own emotional nourishment. But what can you expect when you hang around the same back alley as John Derbyshire, who gave the short version of right-wing reaction:

Blame whitey, and raise high the red flag of socialism.

The best aspect of Obama's speech was its tone: quiet, dignified, ready for the long haul. Such stark contrast to the wild-eyed, full-on freak of some of his most ardent followers. In short - and to his credit - the Senator took it down a peg. Obama's speech, to my ears, wasn't quite the brilliant historic moment we'll no doubt hear about later tonight in MSNBC, but it did come with a distinct warning label for itchy Democrats : "no party will be destroyed in the making of this nomination."

UPDATE: I nominate Digby pal dday at Hullabaloo for best description of "how these things work in this endless campaign" - a masterly description of our bloggy sturm und drang:

I have a problem with these expected blog posts on expected speeches that the dynamics of 21st-century campaigns demand. This election has turned into some kind of bizarre series of rituals, like an season of Greek theater where everybody knows the plot and the audience is left to judge the work on the presentation. The parade of comment, counter-comment, conference call about comment, distancing from comment, and major speech incorporating remarks about comment is the real distraction in this campaign, diverting from a looming economic recession (a recession at BEST) and a tragic stalemate in Iraq. Rarely does anything good for the country come out of this exchange.

Furthermore, I'm sick and tired of this "action figure" conservatism where a bunch of stay-at-home bloggers decide for others what they should do in particular situations. "If I were Obama, I would have stood up during the sermon and fired a poison dart at Rev. Wright and talked about the need to cut the capital gains tax!" The imagined fantasies of these clowns resemble a Chuck Norris movie, when the realities involve far more Cheetos and nasal spray.

A Pity Beyond all Telling

This harsh race for the Democratic nomination has boiled well beyond the melting point of igneous rock, and today's meltdown - by the erstwhile king of the netroots bloggers, no less - is no cooler. Indeed, the intemperate screed launched by Markos Moulitsas, founder of the DailyKos, singed every Democrat who read it and had to give those of us who battle it out online a reason to pause (or in one case, to purr at a pat on the head). Put on your asbestos suits and read what Kos said about the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton:

She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.

This sad embarassment has me eager, nay, desperate for another path. I'm sick of fighting nasty Democrats 'round here. Besides, it's St. Patrick's Day and as MA Peel reminds me, "something in the Celtic soul that has a natural affinity for the complex and the poetic."

So we need a third way, and I don't mean Al Gore at the convention (though, for the first time I might welcome a compromise candidate in this mess) - I'm talking culture. The fab Ms. Peel, good Irish lass that she is, has a great up over at newcritics titled Irish Altered States. She plumbs the film Kings from Tom Collins, and the play The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson. Here's a taste, but head over and leave your thoughts:

Can all these Irish souls be in such constant pain that they need to be continously anesthetized? I don’t know if that’s how McPherson and Collins see it. Some of the characters dance around stereotypes, but then become more dimensional. As for the cosmic root of the drinking–the centuries of oppression idea is not so far-fetched. It’s certainly part of what created the Irish epithet: “their wars are happy and all their songs are sad.”

To someone on the outside, it’s hard not to see an underlying sadness in these daily lives, yet you admire them for getting on with it all, as best they can.

To those on the outside of this political blogging whirl, those of us engaged in the warfare of words must also feel some of that underlying sadness - the Irish of it. I do. Hence, the salve of skippy - the moral equivalent of a pint of Guinness on this fine evening.

Tracy Morgan's Sneak Attack on Obama

The somnambulist media took guest star Tracy Morgan's "defense" of Senator Barack Obama last night as an equal time gesture on the part of Saturday Night Live after Tina Fey's defiant "bitch is the new black" stand on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Not shockingly, they've missed the story. Ya see, Morgan's a comedian, fellas. He didn't come to praise the campaign of Senator Obama - he was openly mocking some of his supporters. Take his now-famous "bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch" line. The right-wing Chicago Tribune called it "a blistering (and funny) response to Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Barack Obama." Uh fellas, Morgan was satirizing some of the blatant sexism that suffuses much of Clinton's opposition - and quite brilliantly. You see, by referring to a still-revered female septuagenarian Democratic pioneer as "bitch" - by pretending to be an angry anti-feminist on SNL - Tracy Morgan was holding up a mirror to the hate, and he was nailing so many of the misogynists to the wall with the simple hammer of humor. Morgan took down some of the iron-my-shirt, likeable-enough, she-sipped-tea woman-haters in the crowd - and hard - while joining his good pal Tina in battling sexism. The great ones can do that. The Lenny Bruces and the George Carlins. But so many missed the message. Dudes, you ever hear of satire?

The Left Splits: Writers Flee DailyKos Over Clinton-Bashing

A writer's strike at DailyKos is the latest symptom of a fast-moving infection in the progressive blogosphere - the all-too-real political fissure driven by online bullying that shows no signs of healing by August. Does this virtual walk-out presage the real thing in Denver? Too early to tell, but the real anger among Democratic bloggers who do not ardently support Barack Obama swats down the dismissive conventional wisdom of "they'll come back in the end" - at least for now.

DKos blogger Alegre led the walk-out with a passionate diary that expressed the deep disappointment many Democrats who dare to support Clinton over Obama feel during this long and tumultuous cycle:

I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our on-line community has tried to accomplish in this world.  No more.  DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community. 

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution.  I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately.  I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT - is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.

The resentment among non-Obama backers is growing rapidly - you can see it in the comments here, and I can see it in my emails. There's a real split among party activists, and it's getting wider. Some of it is motivated by the media's love affair with one candidate - and hatred for the other; Keith Olbermann's embarassment drove many over the edge. But much of it comes from boorish, Stalinist behavior online - the kind of "you're either with us or against us" attitude we saw so much of when the Bush crowd was flying high. It's disturbing, particularly because so many of the targets are women. This is not the Democratic Party many of us have worked for; this is not the progressive blogosphere we've supported. Without blaming the worthy candidacy of Senator Obama in any way, this is not a progressive movement - it's a harsh, echo-filled politburo bathed in faux post-racial hosannas and the gauzy camera lens of "hope."

This is also the time to note the lack of leadership in the party. Howard Dean's no-so-subtle lean toward Obama is troubling; the empty coffers of the DNC are alarming. Chairman Dean's inability to lead real primaries in Florida (which now appears lost to McCain) and Michigan (which took matters into its own hands) shows a true dearth of leadership. Even with the incredible excitement over our candidates, he has failed the party's greater ambitions.

Sadly, the very comments on Alegre's strike post over at dKos - where leader Markos Moulitsas has become increasingly harsh in his attacks on Senator Clinton - prove her case for the walk-out. And thus far, 68 Kos writers have joined the strike (something of euphemism, since they don't get a share of the BlogAds take a the site).

Mark Ambinder and Jake Tapper have more. And don't ignore the mirror post at MyDD, where many of the ex-Kossacks have decamped for more balanced discussions.

It's 3 a.m. in America

A buddy of mine - we'll call him "Brendan" for the purposes of this discussion - is in the habit of messaging me with dire economic news on a regular basis. Often these days, it's oil prices or crashing credit markets or the collapsing dollar. Yesterday, it was the price of gold, which blew by its all-time high as investors sought that traditional safe haven in precious metals against catastrophic losses in other markets. "$1,000!!" was the flashing message on my screen.

So there I was at 3 a.m. last night, lying awake and looking at the ceiling. I don't know if the red telephone was ringing in the White House - I suspect they keep it on mute - but it was buzzing in the red-hot worry center cortex of my brain as three adorable children slumbered down the hall. And there are frightful buzzers and ring tones keeping millions of Americans up at night, as our economy nears collapse.

It's 3 a.m. in American alright - but the evil-doers aren't keeping us awake. The red phones are ringing across the nation in one giant, cacophonous margin call on our super-leveraged consumer economy. Something's happening in the world, and it's a slow-motion attack on the American middle class.

And as the Democrats slowly realize their primary season isn't yet over, the fraying economy is sliding its sorry carcass into the issue lead for the fall, clouding a choice that began under the gauzy billboard of "change election" and morphing this endless presidential slugfest into a "recession election."

The only change in this election is what's left of our shattered dollar.

Paul Krugman in today's Times says the current outlook appears "increasingly like one of history’s great financial crises."  Warns Krugman (who is not loved by the Obama campaign):

I used to think that the major issues facing the next president would be how to get out of Iraq and what to do about health care. At this point, however, I suspect that the biggest problem for the next administration will be figuring out which parts of the financial system to bail out, how to pay the cleanup bills and how to explain what it’s doing to an angry public.

Mark Ambinder wonders when the recession will finally make the front page in the electoral gazette:

When the rebate checks hit mailboxes and people discover that they'll be good for paying the difference between what gas costs now and what gas will cost this summer, what then?

When will the Democratic presidential candidates begin to acknowledge that the economic conditions may well delay universal health care and all of their other spending projects?

The sub-prime crisis and it's massive fall out is moving up on the election scoreboard, as more Americans realize their economic futures are rapidly clouding; over at the DMIblog, Mark Winston Griffith has done some great reporting on the melt-down. The failure of Bear Stearns after 85 years is just another  threatening cloud, an indicator of a coming storm - one that's been on the fiery Jim Kunstler's Doppler screen for months. Kunstler has been warning of a massive American crisis and he's pretty hard core - here's a bit of his latest:

The US faces a pretty stark choice right now: it can let the losers take their losses -- both the big institutions who created and traded in fraudulent securities, and all the "little guys" who borrowed too much money trying to get rich quick, or trying to live like the millionaires they see on TV. We can let them go down, and suffer the consequences of their bad choices (and maybe prosecute some of the culpable bankers and corporate executives), OR, in an effort to let these losers off the hook we can wreck the whole machinery of capital by making our medium-of-exchange worthless.

The people in charge -- both in and out of government -- can't face the losses, so for now they've apparently decided to wreck the currency. The dollar has lost two percent of its value against the Euro just in recent weeks, as cheap loans from the Fed pour into the black hole on Wall Street (never to be seen again). Other soft-pedalers in the media claim that the financial markets have "already priced in" yet another expected .75-point interest rate drop by the Fed this week, but I'm confident that such a move will only accelerate the dollar's vanishing act.

I'll admit, it's hard to believe what's going on in the American finance sector. But incredulity in the face of a rare catastrophe isn't the same as pretending that it's not happening. A whole flock of black swans is flying in front of the sun. Don't expect to work on your tan this month.

In New York, you can feel the nerves - the big Wall Street failures, and the looming threat to all the services that support the financial sector, from the law firms to the ad agencies have the very streets themselves in a cold sweat. Everybody talks the economy, watches the Dow, complains about the dollar, and cuts backs on discretionary spending. There's a slow panic out there, and it's going to hurt the little guy in every corner of the country.

It's 3 a.m. and the red phone is ringing. Who will answer?

Empire Statehood

Sometimes, you can tell a lot about a guy by his sense of humor - or lack thereof. The incoming Governor of New York, young David Patterson of Harlem, the first African-American to serve in the chair of Clinton and Jay, Hughes and Roosevelt, Smith and FDR, Rockefeller and Carey had the line of the day when asked by a reporter if he'd ever patronized a prostitute.

"Only the lobbyists," he said.

And thus, got off to a very good start indeed.

Number 9 Dream

Nothing like a filthy sex scandal to set light to the media's puritanical tinderbox, and this time it's a trifecta: a crusading moralist, a Democrat, and a Clinton superdelegate. Yes, Elliot Spitzer's stunning fall this afternoon had the acceleration of a plummeting political suicide - one minute, it was an unconfirmed report on the Times' blog (and what does that say about deadline shifts in the digital age), and the next there were blind sources claiming the New York governor would resign momentarily. He did not, but may soon.

It all seemed remarkably well-coordinated, from the Times post to the leaked FBI affidavit to the rushed news conference, in which a pinched and dour Spitzer read a statement of regret while his wife stared at the podium and held back her tears. I suspect there's more to this story than we know tonight, but I also agree with Digby: talk of invoking the Mann Act over an expensive call girl's Amtrak ticket made the black and white B-roll of fedora-clad G-men run on that old reel-to-reel projector in my brain.

When you build your career as a self righteous crusader, you don't get the benefit of the doubt on stuff like this. But there are questions that should be asked. It is unusual to release the names of johns and it's weird that we still don't know why the feds were wiretapping on some seemingly inconsequential prostitution case in the first place. Is that something the feds spend a lot of time doing these days?

Of course, the requisite Clinton angle made the rounds almost as quickly as prurient photos of the human merch at the Emperors Club VIP website on cable - at The Field, for example, Obama blogger Al Giordano gloated that "at the moment when NY Governor Spitzer resigns, Clinton’s delegate tally will drop by one." One of his regular commenters, Mary in Seattle, pushed her belief in the audacity of hope a bit further: "The only good thing about the Spitzer deal is that some of the MSM will be rehashing the pecadillos of former politicians. ABC already is, and the last of the group is Hillary’s Bill. I don’t think this hurts, though don’t know if it helps either."

The only good thing indeed, the downside consisting of  a progressive agenda squashed, a career destroyed, a family broken, a state party without a leader - and as Chris Bowers noted, a Democratic presidential bench short one contender. But what the hey, it's good for Obama.

Elliot Spitzer came to office on a moderate platform, driven by a vague, advertising-hyped promise to change "everything." We've had a lot of big promises lately - and plenty of arrogance - but this seedy little chapter shows that mostly, the song remains the same.

The Few, the Proud...the Clinton Bloggers

A funny thing happened to my Lijit social search results (that little box to the right) - "Johnny Thunders" was replaced over the last eight weeks or so by "Clinton blogger." That means more people are coming here because I'm somehow perceived as a pro-Hillary blogger than as an aging fan of a long-dead New York glam-punk rocker. Where they get this notion, I'll never know. Funny how the world turns, but as Johnny might intone in a voice that, dare I say it, may have occasionally seemed shrill: "it doesn't pay to try, all the smart boys know why."

But enough of lyrical asides from Max's Kansas City circa 1979, and on to more pressing matters. "Clinton blogger," eh? Well, I guess it's fair. And come to think of it, being a somewhat prominent Clinton blogger puts me an elite group - fewer in number, I suspect, than the roster of drummers employed by the Heartbreakers in their, uh, heyday.

To be a Clinton blogger in the progressive blogosphere is to be hated, shunned, passed without notice in the street. We sit home on Friday nights, cursing at Chris Matthews and being censored by Al Giordano for commenting too often in a field of swaying Obama supplication. We're not welcome at all the best dKos parties - if we show up, we're cursed with the universal epithet of those who challenge the Obama hegemony: "troll," they call us. Sometimes "f'ing troll." We're Rovian in our embrace of the monster, closet Bush backers and much worse - Lieberman types! Oh, the pain. The pure pain. I can't stand it. Makes me want to quit, embrace that messianic goodness, and stand down - for the sake of the party, of course - from any pursuit of a Clinton presidency.

Or perhaps...not. Looking over the (all-too-short) lineup of Clinton bloggers is enough to stiffen any political  spine. We don't have numbers, but we do have quality. And with seven weeks to go till Pennsylvania, it's worth a little time to look around the room. There's Taylor Marsh, of course - unapologetic, in your face, deeply annoying to those who decry "the Clintons." Why, her very name launches vast armadas of angry commenters, her very name has become almost synonymous with hard-fisted Clinton blogging. We like her out front, in other words.

And look, we've got James Wolcott - the intellectual equivalent, according to some recent Pew research, of a combined 14,392 DailyKos Obama diarists. (I must note: he'd probably disapprove of the label "Clinton blogger" but we have to stretch things on our roster at times and he did coin the memorable phrase: "so shun me, I voted for Hillary," which has pretty much become our rallying cry - the T-shirts are on order). Then there's Big Tent Democrat and Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft - absolutely fabulous analysts and media critics. We'll include Lance Mannion, who has never named his choice but makes the always curious decision to actually defend Hillary Clinton in multiple posts - yes, he's one of us. Blue Girl, of course, and in Ohio too - so very crucial.

Let's not forget the prolific Riverdaughter, a feminist of wide-ranging abilities who always seems to nail what's so important about the typical Clinton voter (hint: they work, and they work at hard jobs). Our circle is made richer by the addition of the indomitable Shakespeare's Sister, a former Edwards blogger and all-around blog-whoring (her term, don't shoot me!) maestro.

Who else? John Amato at Crooks and Liars - playing it fair these days makes you a Clinton blogger. Fred Wilson and Jeff Jarvis? Well, they voted for her and actually admitted it in public. Joe Gandelman? An always moderate voice who seems to lean her way (I could be wrong). Jon Swift? The rare righty who doesn't hate Hillary. And I'm thinking Jane Hamsher leans our way. And Jessica Valenti. Digby too. And hey, maybe Tina Brown?

Heck, that's a team. Who else qualifies? I know I've missed someone. Let me know! You may qualify for a limited edition Peter Daou bobblehead doll.

UPDATE: The suggestions are flying in - can't believe I missed some of these, since I read 'em all the time. how about these fine, brave souls: eRiposte and Jeff Dinelli at the Left Coaster and netroots pioneer Jerome Armstrong and Todd Beeton at MyDD. Let's not forget Pamela Leavey, Larry Johnson, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Lane Hudson, Perez Hilton, Susie Madrak, the Daily Howler and and everybody at Hillary's Bloggers.

UPDATE II: They keep rolling in; we do like to stick together. Many more to add to the roster (can't believe my addled state to leave off some of them). There's savvy   Anglachel and The Redstar Perspective, not to mention the ever-vocal NYC Weboy. Lots of great perspective at The Hillary 1000, too (though we're a blogger or two short of a grand). Let's not forget the fierce Blue Lyon and the The Reclusive Leftist, and the growl of Mojave Wolf. Keep 'em coming and add these good people to your feedreaders and blogrolls.

UPDATE III: What a list, and it keeps on growing. More in a moment. But I'd also like to make an observation from visiting these great blogs - most (not all) of what we're calling Clinton blogs are really progressive political blogs, left of center and run by political realists. They are in the main, not hysterical about Hillary Clinton's opponent - indeed, many is the kind word to be found about Barack Obama. I'd venture this is the obverse of the more vocal Obama blogs, where the opponent has been cast not as a valid if secondary Democratic choice for president, but as a monster and far worse. OK - to add to the list (and I'm addled for having missed some): Adorable Girlfriend and her buds at Republic of Dogs bring the attitude. The RealSpiel is a real find, and we certainly leave out the amazing Bartcop. Let's not forget the noble Donna Darko, nor the important voting bloc over at MOMocrats. And even in the darkest depths of Mordor (spring, 2008 version) a little light can always be found in the charming personages of Alegre and BrownSox. And let's all add the feisty Delilah Boyd and Sugar N Spice to our blogrolls as well, along with outspoken I Have an Opinion and the cringing but proud West and Divided. Save room there for the elegant Democratic Wings and the erudite Progressive Involvement blogs. Old favorites Feministe and Susie Madrak have been suggested, and will indeed be noted, as has blogging buddy Dave Johnson, who usually plays it down the middle - and should receive our praise and linkage.

Off the Mat

Chris Matthews' jaw hung in slackened misery during the wee hours of last night as the numbers dripped in from Texas, and he struggled to combine syllables into words and words into sentences. I don't blame him. Matthews and his chorus was dumbfounded by one of the great comebacks in American political history - one that rivals John McCain's rise from his electoral grave of last summer.

Let's look at the scope of Hillary Clinton's victory. She'd lost 11 straight contests to Barack Obama, the most beloved candidate in either party since at least the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan and possibly since FDR's reelection in 1936. Obama's campaign outspent Clinton in Texas and Ohio by four to one, according to some estimates. His field operation was the stuff of organizing legend, and his big rallies made hers seem like church suppers. His online fundraising doubled hers. He led in all the national polls, and her leads in those big states had evaporated. Her imminent departure from the race was declared.

Hillary Clinton was laying on the canvas and the ref was pretty much at nine.

But she got up. She won by three points in Texas, 10 in Ohio, and by 18 in Rhode Island - all of these were surprisingly large margins. On March 1, Clinton was eight points behind Obama in the Gallup national daily tracking poll. In the March 4 poll she is four points ahead - and that's before her bounce from last night.

As great a candidate as Barack Obama is - and man, he is something - Hillary Clinton is his equal in many ways, mosts obviously in her ability to take a punch. She ran a great technical campaign in the last week - tough, but not vicious, and she made herself available to the voters through her SNL appearances. This was all accomplished while virtually the entire national press corps tried to push her toward the exits.

Yet last night, Obama had Clinton just where he wanted her - bruised and dismissed by the media. He had a month's worth of momentum, one of the great months in presidential electoral history. She was waiting to be put away.

And for the third time in this long, long fight - he swung and missed while she connected. What a race.

So we're in for it - a historic ride, possibly to Denver and the convention. A lot of panic everywhere in certain circles about this close race somehow destroying the party and annointing McCain. I think that's silly - this is great for the party. But Kevin Drum provided some much-needed perspective about the most vicious Demcoratic nomination battle in recent decades:

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.

If long, bitter, primary campaigns really destroy parties, then Humphrey should have lost the 1968 election by about 50 points. "Bitter" isn't even within an order of magnitude of describing what happened that year. And yet, even against that blood-soaked background, Humphrey barely lost. This suggests that if primary divisiveness has any effect at all, it must be pretty small.

The Cut of Tim Gunn's Jib

Quick programming note: tonight is the final installment of our liveblogging series of Project Runway - that fab fashion realityfest -  so be sure to join Claire and Jennifer over at newcritics for the big soiree. It's Posh Spice night, but our crowd is a lot friendlier than Mrs. Beckham. That's 10 eastern, 9 central on your television dial.

Pour Another, My Friends, Pour Another

Quote of the day, straight from a very high ledge packed with Obama-rooting national media types:

I just had a Jager shot, and hope to get drunk very soon. So this is my last post of the night. Here's what I'll do in the morning: find out who won the most delegates in the March 4 states, and check someone else's math (yes, I'm not going to get it wrong myself) to see who subsequently has the numbers to win. And then take a deep breath. And say what I think. Right now, emotion clouds the mind. Oh, and Jager.

That's young Andrew Sullivan in the august Atlantic, just trying to get himself through another political night. More later, my friends, on last night's somewhat shocking results - and where we go from here. But the short version is this: what fun. What great fun.

Finish Line, or Far Turn?

The media is nudging Hillary Clinton toward the exit, even though it will impoverish their cash-starved sales departments - so deep is the Clinton hatred in the press that they root against a continued Democratic race that would be golden in this recession-driven advertising slump. Look, there's Andrea Mitchell predicting Hillary's imminent departure.

Across the blogs, doe-eyed Obama supporters, so new to this messy "democracy thing" whisper about "party elders" pushing Clinton from the race. They won't stand for a continued race now that John McCain awaits, will they?

The answer is "it depends." If Clinton has a strong showing tomorrow (and the polls are decent for her) in the second super Tuesday, my view is she will remain in the race at least through Pennsylvania a month from now. And those urging an exit forget one thing: it's her call. Entirely. You think she'll listen to Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry at this stage? Guess again.

As hard as it is for Clinton to overcome Obama's 100-plus pledged delegate lead in the coming weeks, it's equally as difficult - if not more so - for Obama to find a path to 2,025 delegates, the number needed to clinch the nomination.

And here's the kicker - it's good for Democrats. A Hillary-Barack race that goes to the convention is a bonanza not just for the media sales departments (who will be rooting against their Obama-worshipping colleagues in the newsroom) but for the Democratic Party and for the progressive cause. The fickle, often-bored electorate is excited about this race - why go dark for several months? Further, why give McCain and the Republicans equal time?

An ongoing Clinton-Obama race also sharpens the issues and the candidates. I say: make 'em defend their positions, and make 'em hang left - not tack to the right, as Obama has started to do once he became convinced this nomination was in the bag.

Finally, keeping hope alive in Clinton land means keeping my hopes alive for the best possible Democratic ticket featuring the best two candidates of this long, long cycle.

Political Video of the Year

And it ain't close: