Buchanan to the rescue!

You know things are bad in the media when it is Pat Buchanan that is defending the Democratic Party against allegations of racism! (transcript courtesy digby):

Buchanan: ...I think there's a lot of special pleading here, going on right now. All those races you mentioned were general election races. This was a race inside the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton benefited from a surge of women to her candidacy. Edwards collapsed. The Bradley Effect cannot explain why Edwards did so poorly when the pollsters said he was going to beat Hillary Clinton. I think the piling on by the media, and the gloating over her tears, and people thinking coming out of Iowa that you're supposed to coronate Barack Obama was a tremendous backlash among New Hampshire, voters and independents said you're not gonna impose your fellow on us, we'll choose our own, and the women said we're gonna go in there and we're gonna pick up Hillary Rodham Clinton and stop what's bein' done to her.

Matthews: You sound like Alan Alda Pat. Where's this new sensitivity towards women's aspiration coming from? Buchanan: Look I think the Obama spinners and the media are trying to explain why they have egg all over their faces. By doing this you are tarnishing Hillary Clinton's victory and tarnishing the Democratic Party as racist.

Matthews: No, no that's not what I'm doing here. I'm trying to explain.

Buchanan: Well, whoever's attacking this Chris, whoever says this was racism was tarnishing the Democratic Party and...

More from Digby:"The takeaway "insight" from this Hardball was that the Democratic race is now a battle between the racist old bitches and the sexist African Americans. Fabulous. (White men like Chris, you'll notice, are the only ones voting purely on the merits in this little scenario.)"

People are always looking for some nefarious reason for things not working out the way they expected. Why can't they just accept that maybe their expectations were wrong to begin with? (That's a rhetorical question dont'cha know)

And even more Digby: "But making a big deal out of The Bradley Effect will end up weakening Obama overall in my view. Pat Buchanan shockingly wasn't too far off in his assessment: if people begin to actually believe Obama can't win even in a Democratic primary, because of hidden racism, it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. I can't see why Obama's spokesmen would want to get this meme started. People who are on the fence could easily get the idea that it's not worth voting for him because the racists are all lying to the pollsters and he can't win."

This is a vitally important point that the Obama people have to be careful about. It is my understanding that Obama's polling among blacks in South Carolina jumped dramatically after his Iowa victory. Part of that was attributed to the theory that many blacks wanted to support Obama but just didn't believe he could get the votes of the white folks. His Iowa victory dispelled that fear and his latent support in the African American community responded.

Now, if the Obama campaign starts to seriously push the idea that the only reason they lost in New Hampshire was because of latent racism they will re-invigorate the fears of the AA community and undermine his unity message.

Message to Obama AND Clinton Supporters

Knock It Off!

Whither Ron Paul

Ron Paul finished a disappointing (for his supporters) 4th in New Hampshire, getting even fewer votes then Giulliani, who barely campaigned there. Given the strong libertarian sentimentalities in New Hampshire, he was expected to do at least better than he did in Iowa (where he got 10%). He failed to reach even that mark.

So what does Paul do now?

Jason Rosenbaum lays out two options for him: (1) go 3rd party and become a spoiler and forever destroy any influence he has in national politics (see Nader, Ross Perot, etc.) or (2) build a movement and become a reformer (see Howard Dean).

I think the latter would be the better option. Paul would have no chance of winning if he went 3rd party and he would just end up being accused of throwing the election to the Democrats (most likely) by the Republicans. The GOP would naturally hate him (even more than they already do) for this. But the Democrats shouldn't be to happy as a spoiled election damages the credibility of the Democratic President to claim any kind of mandate (see Bill Clinton circa 1992).

But Paul has tapped into a rich vein of libertarian sentiment in this nation that could become an active part of politics at both the local and national level, IF he decides to forgo the ego-soothing dreams of his own candidacy. Howard Dean did this after 2000 when he decided to run for DNC chair and laid the foundation for making progressivism a viable movement within the Democratic party. Paul could do a similar thing for the Republicans (though I have my doubts that he would have any hope of becoming RNC chairman).

I agree with Jason on something else. I would greatly enjoy a world in which the Democratic and Republican debates were mostly about progressive and libertarian principles. That would be refreshing.

Who do you trust?

You know what? I have no reason to believe that the Iranian side of this story. It is quite possible to believe that they faked this footage.

The truly sad thing is that I don't really trust OUR government's version of events either.

Addendum

BTW, I include a lot of liberal bloggers in that group of Clinton haters who keep propping her up by their own actions. A lot of liberal bloggers don't like Clinton (with good reason). But they are making the same mistake the Republicans made in the 90s.

Stop it.

That Old Clinton Magic

I don't see why anyone should have been surprised by what happened in New Hampshire. The Clinton's have always benefited from their enemies. Why? Because being a Clinton, for some reason, always drives said enemies bat shit insane (see Andrew Sullivan as highlighted in the previous post).

Think back to 1997 when the Lewinsky scandal first broke. Pundits were literally predicting that Clinton's presidency was number in weeks, if not days (Sam Donaldson specifically said this on This Week on that first weekend). That was until the first polling came out and Clinton's approval ratings jumped several points.

Those ratings stayed in the high 60s/low 70s range up until impeachment. Every single time the story took a turn for the worse for Clinton the pundits and his enemies would get all gleeful at the prospect of Clinton finally falling, only again to be foiled by a subsequent bump in the polls.

The most notable was right after the Grand Jury tape was broadcast and his enemies once again said, "Now, finally, Clinton will fall." Instead his ratings jumped as much as 10 points.

The People repeatedly refuted the enemies of Clinton if for no other reason than to go along with them would be to associate themselves with bat-shit insanity. The same thing happened, I believe, in New Hampshire. All the pundits and all of the Clinton enemies were predicting that this was finally the end of Clintonism. And, once again, The People defied the conventional wisdom.

It's a shame really, because there are many legitimate reasons to not want Clinton to win the Presidency. But those reasons will never get a fair hearing so long as her opponents repeatedly rub their hands in glee whenever it looks like she is on the ropes.

You want to stop Hillary Clinton? Then stop celebrating her "death" before it has actually happened.

It's really that simple.

Feel Her Fury!!!

Andrew Sullivan:

My fear is that if you merely wound her candidacy, you are in danger. The Clinton machine is now poised to pull every partisan lever and deploy every cheap tactic: the gender card, the elderly card, the 527s, the teachers' unions, AFSCME, the Human Rights Campaign, the super-delegates, and the core Democratic base. This is always about the Clintons.

So, in Andrew's eyes, women, the elderly, 527s, teachers, AFSCME, HRC, the super-delegates, and the core Democratic base are all robotic appendages of the Vast Clinton Political Machine. Considering that that group makes up about half of the country you have to wonder why no one else has noticed that this country is overrun with Stepford Clintonites.

And let's be clear about what else Andrew is saying. The women for Hillary? The elderly for Hillary? The 527s for Hillary? The teachers for Hillary? The service workers for Hillary? The gays for Hillary? The super-delegates for Hillary? The core Democratic base that is for Hillary? They are all, each and every one of them, nothing more than "partisan, cheap tricks".

While the women, elderly, 527s, teachers, service workers, gays, super-delegates and core Democratic basers who are for Obama are, of course, the hope for our future!

Does Barak Obama really want a guy like this supporting him?

Tweety Effect

Brilliant!

I’m not sure that it applies here, given the complicating factor of gender bias, and what we can now call “The Tweety Effect,” where the misogyny of a talking head in the MSM so enrages a demographic that they go out and vote in a manner that will put egg on the face of the talking head.

Whither John Edwards?

With his third place finish tonight I think the only role left for Edwards in this race is as King maker. He doesn't have enough support to win it and I doubt he will be able to overcome the "2-person" race narrative that will dominate from here on out.

But, in a close fight between Obama and Clinton, Edwards 10-15% would be enough to tip the scales in either person's favor.

(Ezra has more)

Iowa a lousy bellweather?

h/t Ezra Klein who links to this by Emily Thorson:

The TV coverage I've been watching has implied that New Hampshire is a crazy comeback surprise and Iowa is somehow the "real" result. I think they're wrong. Iowa is the anomaly, because of the bizarre public forum that is the Iowa caucus. You know why Hillary does worse in a caucus? Because women who are leaning Hillary go to the caucus with their husbands, and he says "Let's go for Obama" or "Let's go for Edwards" and she says "Well, all right then" because she doesn't want to spend the next hour sitting alone in the Hillary group. I've sat through a caucus. This is how it works.

I think Emily is really on to something here. The Iowa Caucuses, because they come first, are somehow given a special place in the discussion of electoral politics. But really, how often have they matched the results of the rest of the nation?

And my wife just made an excellent point to me when I read the above to her: What about people who simply don't want to express their political opinion in public? A lot of people don't like talking about politics, even if they feel strongly about it. A lot of people simply don't like speaking out in public at all. The Iowa caucuses are tailor-made to discriminate not just in the way Emily says but also against those who don't want to or can't (for practical reasons) participate.

I am actually a very social person as well as very political, so a caucus sounds like a lot of fun to me. But a lot of people don't like it and will never like it and thus Iowa is simply not representative of this country and is a poor bellweather for American politics.

One bad effect of tonight's results

Mark Penn has been given a second life.

Reality comes knocking

Watching the results tonight I find myself empathizing with Obama supporters whose stomachs must have dropped to the floor when the first trickle of results were posted (and the rest of the evening just got worse).

You see, I was a big Dean support in 2004 so I know full well the feeling of a tidal wave of change approaching the political shores in this country, only to see that wave fizzle.

Of course, this race is far from over and Obama fans have nothing to despair about. But New Hampshire was a wakeup call for them: this isn't going to be as easy as Iowa made them think it might be. They are actually going to have to work for it and I fully expect they are up to the challenge.

Congratulations to Clinton for defying ALL the expectations (even her own). If there's one thing I still appreciate in this world its having all the gas bags put in their place (and, sadly, I must include a lot of the Democratic blogosophere in that group).

She's still my third choice. But the efforts of her and her supporters (and the supporters of all the other great Dem candidates) makes me feel good about Democracy.

McCain Hug = Lieberman Kiss

I tell you, if McCain gets the nod, we MUST blanket the country with this image. I'm glad to see dailyKos has already started.

Kumbya The Borg?

I'm all for reaching common ground. But I think it behooves us to realize that, for some people, there is no such thing as common ground.

I believe in paying attention to the concerns of people who oppose your policies. I even believe in helping them out where your policies might hurt them egregiously.

But believing that a "common ground" always exists between any parties in a dispute is the essence of "Kumbaya".

And really, we're not talking about finding "common ground" with other people (the leaders of corporations). We are talking about finding "common ground" with non-human entities (the corporations themselves). Our current business culture is set up to encourage the idea that business leaders must adopt the soulless aspect of the corporation if they are to meet their fiduciary duty to the stockholder. It is a system tailor made to strip whatever vestiges of humanity still exist in business leaders (not for anything has negotiating with corporate leaders been compared to negotiating with The Borg).

Thus, finding "common ground" with some business leaders would be like negotiating with aliens who want to eat our brains. There's not a lot of "common ground" there.

If we want to end this vicious cycle then we must end the idea that corporations have any inherent rights. It is that idea that makes it so difficult to make reasoned decisions about the economy.