Ukraine and Georgia to Nato?

A friend writes (after forwarding this article, discussing the Bush Administration's push to expedite NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia):

Not only does this alienate our European allies, who view us as crazy, but it also alienates (further) Russia--all the while knowing full well that Russia has Germany and Poland, amongst others, by the balls due to their gas and oil reserves. Then, in slightly different foreign policy contexts, we expect our European allies and the Russians to back us when negotiating sanctions against Iran and we expect NATO allies to put in more troops into Afghanistan. We can't even get our NATO allies to commit troops under fully NATO leadership without any conditions as to where they'll go and we expect to have their help if Georgia and Ukraine are invaded?

I agree that this is an absolutely terrible plan. There's no legitimate strategic reason to give a military guarantee to Georgia, particularly after the revelations that the events this summer were started by Georgia, and not by Russian aggression. They aren't strategically located, don't have any kind of natural resources, don't provide us with much in the way of military help, there's no significant ethnic Georgian population in the U.S., etc. Yes it's generally good to aid smallish, somewhat democratic countries against larger, somewhat-less-democratic neighbors... but let's look at the overall situation here. By far, it would be a greater moral tragedy for the U.S. to become embroiled in a war with Russia - in which hundreds of thousands could die, and the possibility of nuclear holocaust would be very real - than it would to allow Georgia to lose some chunk of its territory (largely filled with ethnic Russians) to Russia.

Not every land-grab by a larger country of a smaller country's territory is Munich all over again. Russia has no designs on world domination- they are simply looking to exert influence in their historic sphere of influence in the same manner that we've done in the Western hemisphere for hundreds of years and have continued to do in the recent past (see Panama and Grenada). I'm not saying I approve of Russia's actions, but that we need to think of them in a larger context.

I can see more reason for bringing Ukraine in- it's a more clearly "European" country and is accessible through Poland, an ally and a country supporting bringing Ukraine in. It also is a much more likely candidate for EU membership somewhere down the line. Georgia on the other hand is essentially down in the Middle East, and never has been traditionally part of cultural Europe. This is more an argument for slowly bringing Ukraine in, along perhaps with EU membership, over maybe a 10 or 15 year time-frame. No need to rush it.

Granted, Russia is going to be weakened in the forseeable future because of the declining prices for oil and gas, which should decrease its appetite for foreign adventurism. That's still not a good reason for pushing this issue now.

Our bailout dollars at work

Wonkette gets some suggestions from AIG's media relations department.

More Pirates

Now that the going ransom for ships seized by Somali pirates seems to be ~$1 million, it seems like there must be ways of fending them off. I would think that, for high-value ships (like the Saudi oil tanker), it would make sense to bring aboard a team of armed security guards who could stand around on deck conspicuously aiming their automatic rifles at anything that comes near the ship. A ship could take them on when it leaves port in the Gulf, and drop them off a couple weeks later at the Suez or in Capetown. The pirates seem to be operating purely for economic gain, so the mere presence of armed personnel would probably make it a lot less likely that pirates would take on a ship.

An interesting pirate-related point from my brother, who is currently on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea: although the Navy has a couple destroyers off the coast of Somalia, its official policy is that it is the responsibility of the country under whose flag a seized ship is sailing to deal with the pirates. Since no American ships have been hijacked, the US Navy is staying out of it.

Hillary

A number of people who were die-hard Obama supporters during the primary have expressed to me their concern or dismay that Hillary is to join the team as Secretary of State, given her behavior during the primary and her attacks on Obama's foreign policy experience. I think we can probably rest easy on that account, because whatever you make of Hillary's substantive ability to be Sec State (which I think is probably pretty high), the pick is political gold for Obama.

At the end of the rough primary season, after Obama backed his way into the nomination while losing Kentucky and WV spectacularly to Hillary, making her the VP would have been perceived as a move made out of weakness, i.e. Hillary forced Obama into making the pick. Here, after a dominating general election win, Obama is adding Hillary to his team from a position of strength. He could have had anybody he wanted, and he chose her.

Once she's in place down in Foggy Bottom, Hillary loses much of her political punch. She has limited ability to raise money for other candidates (and thus earn favors), and she'll be out of the country much of the time and won't be out giving speeches around the country.

She'll also be doing some heavy lifting getting us out of Iraq, and can be expected to shoulder some of the blame when that process becomes difficult, as it almost certainly will. Because of her reputation for hawkishness, she'll effectively shield Obama from some criticism from liberal hawks as well.

My gut feeling is that she'll be cooperative in the position, and will not undermine Obama. Hillary seems to have an innate sense of the importance of chains of command (which is partially why she seemed to take the candidacy of a 1st term senator so personally) and will I think be a pretty good team player. She also has a pretty big incentive to do so- if she causes problems at State, she will almost certainly be the one blamed by the press, and Obama can also always route around her by leaning on his NSA and Sec Defense (the way that Bush worked around Powell using Rice and Rumsfeld). As a very high-profile figure, Hillary is going to shoulder a lot of blame if Obama's foreign policy isn't successful, which puts a lot of pressure on her to work well with the Whitehouse.

Pirates

Matt Yglesias makes a good point about the Somali pirates:

At the end of the day it’s not easy to fight pirates at sea. The ocean is extremely large, boats move around, and circumstances are generally unfavorable to law enforcement. You need to fight the piracy on land. If you tried to run a pirate ring out of San Diego, you wouldn’t get very far — there are police in southern California. But Somalia has, obviously, been in a state of political chaos for a long time now. And when the country looked like it was heading for a measure of political stability under the Islamic Courts Movement, the US decided it would be smart to back an Ethiopian invasion-and-occupation of the country that ultimate wound up resulting in more chaos than ever. But whatever you think of the past, going forward you would ultimately want to solve this issue on land. In other words, by creating some kind of political stability in Somalia.

Shays for Sec. Transportation

Talking with a friend at work today, we kicked around the idea of defeated Congressman Chris Shays (R CT) to head up the Transportation Department. Shays is a moderate Republican, who gets along well with Dems in Congress. He's also been very active and knowledgeable about transportation issues, particularly the mass-transit infrastructure that's important to his former district in CT, and should be the backbone of an Obama transit agenda.

As a member of Congress, Shays has also been a transportation generalist, comfortable dealing with airlines, roads and mass transit, and would be skilled in working with both parties to implement an ambitious transportation infrastructure agenda.

It would be a great way to demonstrate bi-partisanship in the cabinet while getting a highly competent Secretary with lots of experience in the relevant issues.

Al Qaeda #2 Zawahiri recently released a recording mocking Obama as a "House Slave." I would imagine that this is pretty easy for Obama to shrug off, given that he's going to be President and Zawahiri lives in a cave... Richard Clarke has a better analysis of why Obama's election is making Al Qaeda cranky:

"Obama's election has taken the wind out of al Qaeda's sails in much of the Islamic world because it demonstrates America's renewed commitment to multiculturalism, human rights, and international law. It also proves to many that democracy can work and overcome ethnic, sectarian, or racial barriers.

"Obama's commitment to withdraw from Iraq also takes away an al Qaeda propaganda tenet: that the U.S. seeks to occupy oil rich Arab lands. His commitment to defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan also challenges their plans. Most of all, by returning to American values the world admires, Obama sets al Qaeda back enormously in the battle of ideas, the ideological struggle which determines whether al Qaeda will continue to have significant support in the Islamic world."

Megan McCardle on the bailout

Worth reading- Megan McCardle on the human cost of not bailing out Detroit.

Bailout, cndt.

A reader writes:

What do you do about the all the lost revenue for the gov't if these companies actually collapse? It may be worth saving these companies for $25B if the option is losing significantly more in lost tax revenue.

Second, what do you do with all of the lost jobs? It is quite a leap of faith to assume that Asian car manufacturers will increase their manufacturing capabilities in the US; they still produce millions of cars in Asia and will likely continue to do so.

In response to the first issue (and part of the second), this could be an argument for government intervention to save any business- from auto makers down to local governments bailing out restaurants or other small businesses. The reason that the government typically does not spend money to bail out companies in order to keep those companies paying taxes is because, in the long term, the failing companies will be replaced by something else that will make up the tax loss. In the case of the auto companies, unless we're positing that this is a case of irreversible American decline, the assumption is that in a few years, new companies will emerge that will employ people who were working in the auto industry or who otherwise would go into the auto industry will wind involved in some other enterprise, which will pay them and which will pay taxes. We may not be able to envision that enterprise right now, the same way that we didn't know 20 years ago that tax revenues disrupted when the last American television manufacturer closed shop would be replaced by those from Dell or Apple or Corning (makers of the glass panels used in flat screen TVs). This is the basic creative destruction of capitalism, and while it may be painful and disruptive in the short term, it's the driving force of our economy.

I agree that it's unlikely that Asian car makers will use US plants to replace all of the cars taken off the market of the Big Three are liquidated. However, cars are bulky and heavy, and labor is a relatively small cost of production (this MIT study places labor at only 6.5% of MSRP for a car- although it does not break out health and retirement benefits). Transportation from Asia is costly, particularly to inland parts of the US where cars have to go by ship and then by inefficient overland transport in car carrier trucks. I have to imagine that building more plants in the US would be a more efficient strategy for Asian automakers. Granted, these jobs are not going to be as good as the UAW jobs in Detroit, because they're largely situated in the South, in right-to-work states where workers aren't unionized. Still, those jobs aren't paying peanuts- the average worker at a Toyota plant in Kentucky made $25/hour, which is $45k/year if those workers are getting 48 weeks of 7.5 hr/day shifts. It probably won't be the ticket to one-income family, middle-class bliss that UAW jobs were in their heyday, but it's more than many teachers, cops, etc. make.

The other point to note is that, even in the unlikely event that all three American automakers are liquidated in bankruptcy, there are still going to be a bunch of car factories sitting in cities that are filled with skilled car manufacturing employees. This is a situation ripe for some enterprising group of people to buy the plants, rehire the people and try their hand at succeeding where Detroit is currently failing.

I understand that this winds up being very painful and disruptive in the short to medium term for auto workers and the towns and cities where they live. That disruption and pain an be ameliorated by an influx of federal dollars- $25 billion buys a lot of generous unemployment benefits and subsidies to state and local governments- without keeping in business companies who make generally lousy products that don't make money.

Lieberman

Looks like Lieberman will remain as chair of the Homeland Security committee. My gut reaction was that for his disloyalty (particularly in painting Obama as a socialist and somebody who would be soft on terror) was such that he should be demoted or even kicked out of the caucus. On the other hand, if Obama sees fit to forgive the man, and thinks that it's in his (Obama's) best interest, and the party's best interest to keep him around, then I'm fine with the decision.

One issue that the left keeps bringing up is the fear that Lieberman will use the subpoena powers of his commission to probe into the administration and intentionally undermine Obama. First, I think that any attempt to do this would be incredibly unpopular- as Obama has reached in to spare Lieberman, and the press would harp incessantly on the disloyalty. The other point to note is that the committee as a whole, of which Lieberman is the chair, has delegated its authority to a permanent committee on investigations headed by Carl Levin.

I don't know a ton about how delegations of authority work in Senate committees, but it seems that Levin's subcommittee would get first crack at any kind of investigation, and that it might make it more difficult for Lieberman to run investigations into the administration on his own.

Teachers & Tenure

Michelle Rhee, a TFA alum and head of the DC school district, is trying to push through a measure that would end tenure for a number of teachers in her district. Her plan would allow teachers to opt out of tenure in exchange for a large salary increase (in some cases an increase of almost $40,000/year) to be funded by outside foundations. Teachers who want to keep tenure can do so, without getting the increase. The plan has been attacked by teachers unions, who raise the specter of principals firing teachers for political reasons.

I think she's right on about the need to remove tenure. It's really only there to protect bad teachers- not kids. When I was teaching, the loudest backers of the union and defenders of tenure were the terrible teachers. If principals try to fire good teachers for arbitrary reasons, they still have the union grievance process, and more importantly they'll be backed by other teachers and the parents of their students, who particularly in smaller districts with elected boards of education can bring enormous pressure to bear on a principal or board. Good teachers are also going to be in high demand, so even if some good teachers are fired for arbitrary reasons, they'll be able to get work elsewhere.

Moreover, plenty of other government employees are subject to arbitrary firings and make do- I don't see why we should have special protections for teachers, particularly when it's at the expense of large numbers of students.

Anti-Family in Arkansas

Obscured behind the news of the success of Prop 8 in CA, Arkansas voters approved a startlingly anti-family measure:

Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.

Friedman on the Auto Bailout

Thomas Friedman's op-ed today inches toward supporting an auto-industry bailout, with some conditions:

"In return for any direct government aid," he wrote, "the board and the management [of GM] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver - someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical - should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company. ... Giving GM a blank check - which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant - would be an enormous mistake."

I would add other conditions: Any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol.

Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn't need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he'd like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I'd bet it wouldn't take him much longer than that to come up with the GM iCar.


We should definitely not be bailing out the American auto companies. When gas prices went up and people wanted to buy more small cars, they couldn't even convert their SUV and pickup factories to make smaller cars (like Honda/Toyota could with their factories in Georgia and Kentucky), because of ridiculous union work rules and outdated equipment. The Japanese companies will continue to make cars in the US (and thus employ Americans, albeit at lower wages than they'd get as UAW members working in Detroit) because it's cheaper to make cars to sell to Americans over here than it is to make them in Japan and ship them. If the American companies fold, Americans will continue to buy cars, and probably will do so from Japanese/Korean companies making them in the US- so their factories will have to expand and hire more American workers (at least in the short term until Chinese and Indian manufacturers start cranking them out cheap enough to ship them here en masse). End result- not a big net loss to American workers if they car company they work for is owned in Japan or in Michigan.

I also think that the market can handle moving automakers to more energy-efficient means without doing it by government fiat. In fact, the market has been doing that- when oil prices went up, people started buying hybrid and fuel-efficient cars. GM/Ford/Chrysler didn't have those cars, or very many of them, so folks went instead and bought cars from companies who did. Propping up the very companies that have proved that, even with profit motive, they cannot competently convert to fuel-efficient or hybrid vehicles, is a bad move.

Also- Steve Jobs would probably be terrible at running the auto companies, unless people want to drive the Mac version of cars… something that would cost twice as much as a regular car and be incompatible with the roads that 90% of people drive on.

Veterans Day

In Flanders Field
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly S
carce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw The torch;
be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Advanced Citizenship

(via TNC)

Fred Phelps (of "God Hates Fags" fame) is back spewing hate- protesting at the Kansas funeral of Obama's grandmother, ostensibly because she raised him to be a baby-killer.

Maybe a bit cliche, this calls to mind the great lines from the end of "American President"-

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

Back

Sorry about the long hiatus- after the election I felt a curious lull in my need to write about things going on in the political realm. It was almost as if, after the momentous nature of the election, writing about rumors of who would be the next Secretary of Agriculture weren't really worth the effort. After a bit of a recharge period (and a hellish backlog of work at my real job) I hope to be back posting regularly, if perhaps not with quite the frequency of the period right before the election.

Poor W.

Thoughts on the election will be forthcoming when I have more mental energy for reflection. In the meantime, I'll criticize a hackish article in the Journal today whining about Bush's treatment by Republicans and Democrats:

The president's original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.
It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Well, you get blamed for the things that you do that are stupid. Miers was a terrible and unqualified choice for Supreme Court, and Alito was an intemperate, right-wing extremist. When you pick bad people and make bad decisions, you tend to be despised by your opponents and disappoint your friends.

Ohio for Obama. Game, set match.


And with that, I'm closing shop for tonight to drive back to NYC.

From Ambinder:

A very senior McCain aide just told me: "At this point, we need a miracle."

Georgia, where Obama has spent a significant amount of money advertising, goes for McCain. Chris Matthews just asked Axelrod about whether campaigning there was a "head-fake" to get McCain to spend resources there. His answer was that they wanted to run a broad-based campaign, and show that Obama was truly running for president of the entire country. An absolutley worthwhile endeavor, and if it could get McCain to expend some of his much more finite resources, so much the better.

Down in VA, with 45% reporting. However, the 3 NOVA counties are all reporting under 10%- and that's where Obama's votes are going to come from. Lead in FL seems to be holding...

Nets call Shaheen over Sunnunu in NH Senate- that's Dems +3 on the night. A couple almost-guarantees with the two Udalls in NM and CO, plus I can't imagine Begich not beating the convict in AK... so that puts us at a likely +6 before you start to think about Merkley in OR, Franken in NM... and Lunsford being close with McConnell in KY.

"Godless" Kay Hagan beats Liddy Dole in the Senate in NC.

Biden wins re-election... keep that seat warm for when Beaux gets back from his tour in Iraq.

With the big wins in PA and NH, I'll also note that Obama won all of Maine- the Northern CD was one that McCain was hoping to pick off by sending Palin up there to talk about moose hunting...

Obama's currently leading Texas... I understand that's not going to hold, but he's got a lead in Houston which I imagine doesn't happen that often- that was GHW Bush's hometown.

Jean Shaheen up by 12 in NH, not many votes counted yet but definitely a good sign.

Obama looking great on the I-4 corridor- big leads in Pinellas (Tampa) and Orange (Orlando), and keeping it close in Hillsborough. I'm feeling good about FL.

PA and NH for Obama.... and with big enough margins that the nets were comfortable calling immediately out of the gates. Good things. And a big mistake by McCain to spend the last week focused on PA.

Obama up by 8% in Pinellas County (Tampa) with over 60% counted. If Obama can keep that margin we've won FL. Typically statewide dems try to draw even there.

The black vote (via Ben Smith):

African-Americans made up 30 percent of voters in Georgia. In 2004, they represented 25 percent.

UPDATE: On the other hand, black voters make up 21 percent of the turnout in Virginia, unchanged from four years ago.

I've now heard the second time where the election workers in Philly opened the box containing the supplemental voter list after 7 pm, and it had names of folks who had been denied access to the voting machines. At some point it ceases to be acceptable to entrust the fate of the country to under-trained little old ladies.

Polls close in OH... you can hear the nation holding its breath.

Obama up 56-42 in Vigo County, IN with 91% reporting- Vigo has voted for the winner every election since 1892.

NYTimes is reporting some funky numbers in Pasco County in FL- 54k for Obama, 6 votes for McCain. Pretty sure this isn't right.

McCain up in Florida, Virginia and Indiana- but this is without Broward/Miami/Palm beach in FL, Northern VA, or Gary (Lake County)... so fear not.

Exits showing Obama doing significantly better than Kerry among white men:

Indiana: Obama 44 percent/McCain 54 percent (Kerry 34/Bush 65 in 2004)
Ohio: Obama 47 percent/McCain 51 percent (Kerry 43/Bush 56 in 2004)
Virginia: Obama 39 percent/McCain 58 percent (Kerry 27/Bush 72 in 2004)

Warner wins VA- one step closer to sticking Lieberman on the Ag committee.

VA too early to call, IN too close to call. Remember that Lake County (Gary area) didn't close until an hour later. If Obama's close in IN w/o Lake County, it's a really good sign.

NBC calls Kentucky for McCain, VT for Obama. Nothing unsurprising here.

From Ambinder:

I've checked in with the boiler rooms in both campaigns; they're doing they're own very sophisticated exit polls... Here's what I'm hearing: FL -- both sides say they're hitting their turnout goals...Obama may be exceeding his... in North Carolina, Republicans concede that Democratic turnout appears very high.... the same goes for Virginia.... in Pennsylvania, Democrats are confident that they're meeting their goals...Republicans are waiting for data.

Remember, Obama's state turnout targets are generally thought to be higher than McCain's....

Per the last post, if this comes down to litigation I feel really sorry for the junior associate who's stuck doing doc review on my handwritten incident reports. I couldn't even read them.

Line of the day- if this comes down to litigation, "provisional ballot is the new hanging chad."

Reminder on why no to take those exit polls too seriously: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/11/04/why-you-should-ignore-the-exit-polls-at-all-costs.aspx

VA, NC and the rest of IN close in 8 minutes. If Obama is up enough in any 2 of those 3 for the networks to call the states for him, he's won the election barring some massive catastrophe elsewhere.

Predictably we're losing by a ton in Kentucky (McCain has 68%), holding on to a slim lead in IN with ~60k votes in.

Just fielded a call where the pollwatcher reported that 2 GOP poll-watchers, one of them a 6'6" white guy and the other a black guy in drag were engaged in a shouting match with an assistant district attorney and the media just showed up. I prudently passed this call on to somebody else.

Huffpo has exits:

he states looking good for Obama:

Florida: 52 percent to 44 percent
Iowa: 52 percent to 48 percent
Missouri: 52 percent to 48 percent
North Carolina: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Hampshire: 57 percent to 43 percent
Nevada: 55 percent to 45 percent
Pennsylvania: 57 percent to 42 percent
Ohio: 54 percent to 45 percent
Wisconsin: 58 percent to 42 percent
Indiana: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Mexico: 56 percent to 43 percent
Minnesota: 60 percent to 39 percent
Michigan: 60 percent to 39 percent

The states where McCain is leading in exit polls:

Georgia: 51 percent to 47 percent
West Virginia: 45 percent to 55 percent

Our voter-protection boiler room in Philly handled 9,000 calls today- from voters trying to figure out how to vote, and poll-watchers with questions at various places.

Liveblogging 1

With one percent reporting, Obama ahead in Indiana with 56%

Call of the day

I'm handling calls from voters and poll-watchers, and just got a great one. Two voters need to vote at a school, but last week they got into a fight with a security guard at the school and have a restraining order keeping them 100 yards from the school where they're supposed to vote. After a a number of calls, we got somebody at the DA's office to say that they could temporarily violate the restraining order to go into the school to vote as long as they went one at a time.

PA update

Pollwatchers I'm talking to are saying that turnout in precincts in Philly is double what it typically is for presidential elections at this time of day. Granted this is in Philly... but still... double.

Voting the slate

For any voters in PA- there's a text message floating around claiming that voters in PA can't vote a straight Democratic slate or else Obama won't get their vote. This is a ploy by the GOP to prevent Obama coat-tails- voters can vote a straight slate without any problems.

Home Stretch: Ohio update

From Marc Ambinder:

Today as of 3 pm, the Obama Campaign gotv operation in Ohio knocked on 1 million doors, with another shift still to go.

That means that they probably had at least 20,000 to 40,000 volunteers out knocking on doors today.

One day short...

Joe Klein says it better than I could:

Word comes that Barack Obama's grandmother has died. The timing is ridiculous. But think, for a moment, if you will of Madelyn Dunham, a white woman from Kansas, strolling the aisle of a supermarket, or having lunch in a coffee shop, with her grandson--way back at the turn of the 1970s, when such sights were uncommon, even in Hawaii. Think about what her friends might have thought, or said, about her...situation. Think about what she poured into the child during the years when her daughter was in Indonesia and she was the closest thing to a mother that Obama had; think about the impact that she and her husband had on creating the man we've come to know, and the satisfaction she must have felt in her dying days.

Some politicians simply are larger than life. Their stories are the stuff of high drama. Over the past few days, I've been hearing about the high emotions out in the field, as volunteers flood Obama offices to help canvass--and, in some places, find they have to wait on line for a spot on a phone bank. It is almost banal at this point to say that this has been the most remarkable election I've ever seen. It's been a privilege to be a small part of it, to have had a ringside seat. And now, there is a sense that tomorrow will be the sort of day none of us ever forgets, one way or another--a day of reckoning, in the purest sense, when we will suddenly see ourselves and our country differently, for good or ill.

It will also be the first day that Barack Obama lives without the presence of the woman who was his surrogate mother. How sad for him, how remarkable that it would happen this way.

Home Stretch: Iowa update

A Canadian friend is canvassing in Iowa writes in writes that:

from the home stretch in iowa are looking positive. I think the promotion of absentee voting has been critical, and I have been chasing in ballots for the last two days.

Fivethirtyeight.com has Iowa polling at a composite 54-43, so it should be good to go, but it's definitely a good idea to chase down absentee ballots (as I know from experience in the 2000 Florida race). We're down to the wire, so anything we can do to lock down the states leaning Obama is time well spent.

Having Iowa solidly in Obama's column has been a big advantage over last cycle. Having the Kerry states plus Iowa puts Obama at 259, which means that to win we only need Virginia, Ohio, Florida or North Carolina (or gets a tie in CO), without having to rely on winning two of those states.

Don't panic

Tocus has been on how the race is tightening, but the thing to remember is that Obama is doing better right now (in state and national polls) than Bush in 2000 or 2004.

Dems run nasty ads too...

The GOP hasn't been the only party running really foul ads this cycle- this one in the Kentucky Senate race, gay-baiting Mitch McConnell, is one of the worst I've seen:

One good thing about the McCain campaign is that they have largely resisted the GOP's worst instincts to gay-bait- there could have been a lot of nasty ads about prop 8, nationalizing the California gay marriage issue. It's to McCain's credit that this hasn't happened, and to the discredit of Dems in Kentucky that they're running this nonsense.

Obama talks about his aunt

For folks who haven't been glued to the TV or internet lately, the big attack on Obama recently has been that he has a Kenyan aunt who has lived illegally in the US for some time. This of course ties into the general "Obama is not American" line of attack- and now smears him as either being or supporting illegal immigrants.

Obama with Katie Couric on his aunt, who is allegedly an undocumented immigrant (via Ambinder):

Couric: YOU HAVE AN AUNT WHO'S BEEN LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY APPARENTLY ILLEGALLY, AND YOUR CAMPAIGN SAYS ANY AND ALL APPROPRIATE LAWS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. SO WOULD YOU SUPPORT HER BEING DEPORTED TO KENYA?

Sen. Obama: If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We're a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn't lessen my concern for her, I haven't been able to be in touch with her. But I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law.

There's some evidence that the leak of the immigration status of Obama's aunt came from somebody in the Bush administration:

But note the way in which AP seems to have obtained the information. High up in the story, it reports:

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

In other words, it looks like someone in the Bush administration leaked the information, with the goal of throwing a last-minute wrench into Obama's campaign. And someone else confirmed it, with similar motives.

Home Stretch: Ohio update

Two Ohio polls today show the state tightening up. One has Obama up by 6, the other has McCain by 2 (although this poll has a small sample size, and the pollster- Mason Dixon, has shown a 2-3 point lean toward McCain, so this one might be more realistically thought of as even or a slight lead for Obama, with a 5-6 point margin of error).

On the GOTV front, I have a friend who's doing voter protection in Ohio, and he tells me that things look good around Kent and Toledo, but there are some reports of voter suppression efforts in Cleveland.

Dedication 2

Just spoke with a disabled Obama voter, who was worried because he can't stand for more than half an hour. He's planning to head down to the polls at 5 and bring a chair to sit in outside so that he's the first person to vote.

I'd be interested to see whether similar calls are coming into the McCain phones.

Dedication

I just got finished speaking to a woman whose sister has end-stage liver cancer, but wants to vote. Her sister entered the hospital last week with a fever, and has gotten steadily worse and is now essentially paralyzed, only able to communicate by blinking or nodding her head.

Her sister called the voter hotline hoping to be able to help her sister vote. Three calls later, and after talking to about 10 different lawyers here, the sister is going to print out an absentee ballot form with an attached section for voters who can't sign their own names, and a designation form that would allow her sister to designate her as an agent for election purposes. The sister is going to get these forms signed, have a doctor or nurse write a note attesting to the illness, and take them tomorrow to court in Philadelphia to try to get an absenteen ballot so her sister can vote for Obama.

Home Stretch- Scranton, PA

Report from my fiance's parents, who are volunteering in Scranton. A woman came into the Obama Scranton office this weekend reporting that two white men were going around housing projects and predominantly Hispanic and African-American areas, telling folks that due to high turnout their neighborhoods will be voting on Wednesday.

The Obama folks helped the woman put together a flier in English and Spanish reminding people that everyone votes on Tues, and urging them to call the Obama office and the police if they see the people who have been spreading the false information about voting.

Home Stretch: PA update

In the voter protection hotline call center, and it's fairly slow at the moment. Lit with the hotline phone number on it was spread all over Philly today, but I imagine many people will wait to call until Monday or Tuesday. It's a bit frustrating to be in here not accomplishing anything when I could be out knocking on doors or making calls. Yesterday in our downtime we called through the list of volunteers who were interested in driving voters to the polls, so hopefully the GOTV folks will have similar projects today.

In better news, Philly seems much more pumped about Obama than the city was about Kerry four years ago. Many more people seem to be wearing Obama buttons and stickers, and there are more signs in store windows.

Palin fooled by wily French Canadians

Palin was pranked by a Quebeois comedy duo, one of whom pretended to be Nicholas Sarkozy, and spoke to them for 6 minutes.

Early in the conversation, the fake Sarkozy tells Palin one of his favourite pastimes is hunting.

"We should go hunting together," she offers. "We can have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone."

Audette then jokes that they shouldn't bring Cheney on the hunt, referring to the 2006 incident in which the vice-president shot-and-injured a friend while hunting quail.

"I'll be a careful shot," responds Palin, who praises Sarkozy throughout the call.

"I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally, and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness," she says.

The faux Sarkozy also left some clues that he was not to be taken seriously-

He identifies French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday as his special adviser to the U.S., singer Stef Carse as Canada's prime minister and Quebec comedian and radio host Richard Z. Sirois as the provincial premier.

PA update

I'm doing mobile updating from Philly. We're in the voter protection call center, fielding calls from around the state from voters on questions ranging from "where do I vote" to "I'm a prerelease convicted felon in a halfway house, am I allowed to vote?". A bit slow now, but this weekend the campaign is dropping 5.6 million pieces of lit with the hotline number, so we'll be hopping tomorrow.  Pretty good way to make sure you get out your new voters.
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Home Stretch: Virginia Update

A guest post from my friend PB in Virginia:

First, in the city centers, Obama support is strong. In Charlottesville, at least, there is not a McCain sign to be found. But of course that's a college town. A friend works in Fairfax, and daily notices a trend in yard signs: Obama, Obama, Obama...turn onto rural route 17, and it's solid McCain. VA is the most purple state in the Union, but only from a distance. Red and Blue don't mix well down here. I think this is largely a consequence of Yankees moving in and voting blue; the "natives" are still solidly conservative.

Second, McCain's message is truly working among the Red crowd: they were (for the most part) quite convinced Obama is a socialist, and have taken his "spread the wealth" comment very seriously. The more astute among the guys I talked to (like my friend who used to work in the Bush 41 white house) are not worried that the socialist state is going to happen anytime soon--he realizes that Obama won't be able to wave a wand and make it happen, given the economy--but he is sure that a second-term Obama president with a strong mandate and an improved economy would try to socialize medicine, increase welfare, etc. They generally point to his history of making statements like that to show that his underlying desire is precisely that. Some were scared it will happen sooner rather than later, but the general feeling was that of fear that the nanny state is coming.

The question of taxes is charged, but admittedly somewhat skewed in this crowd: they are all farmer boys, but are also government contractors and former military. All of them own quite a bit of land and built and cultivated it themselves. Most actually do have a yearly income of over $250k and enough wealth to be upset about redistributions schemes. One told me "right now I pay more taxes than some people make. I pay more taxes than three families combined. Why is he coming after me for more? If this happens, I'm going to quit my job and retire. It's just not worth all the work." I know in the past you and I have talked about farm subsidies making hypocrites out of middle america when they attack government programs. This was not the case here, though, since none of them take subsidies.

Guns came up breifly, and probably only as a joke: "if he's elected, I'm hiding my ammo..." (This was a shooting trip so our guns were actually leaning on the porch railings with us while we talked). Everyone laughed, but I don't think they really think he's going to take anyone's guns away, but again their big concern was not Obama's first term, but his putative second, during which he would feel more confident that he could take a leftward turn.

I talked about voting for republicans for other offices, but the idea isn't popular in VA: they are all Warner fans (as nearly all of us are), but hope he'll be a moderate Democrat and block hard turns to the left.

The best conversation was in foreign policy, and here I wasn't even close to the expert in the room. My one friend in particular works in some capacity for the government that he can't tell us about, and as I said worked in the intelligence branch for Bush 41's White House. But his take on foreign affairs is this: He's scared of all of the candidates. McCain for being too stubborn and crazy, Palin for the liklihood that she would try to be too tough with no sense of nuance, Biden for generally being useless, and Obama because "he would be perceived as weak." The rest of the crowd agreed, at least with the last comment, but at this point the conversation turned to Palin.

She really is loved by many people here. Her message of "regular folks" is working well with "regular folks." She has in fact convinced them that knowing nothing about Washington is a qualification: she was described as "refreshing," "smarter than you think," "a real tough lady," a "victim of the press," etc. During the foreign policy discussion we mentioned how Reagan was both tough but also intelligently pliable: they felt she could do that too. (The fact that Reagan was also not an "expert" helped prove to them that it's possible to be a great foreign-policy leader with no experience). When I pointed out that I would be scared to have her across the table from Putin (bringing up how Truman was rolled over by Stalin at Postdam largely through inexperience), everyone agreed in theory, but pointed out that she would get good advisors to help her, and asserted that it would be better to have a bit of a loose cannon facing Putin than a man who might be weak and vacillating. Then they started saying "why don't you think she's qualified?" I said just listening to her talk and ramble told me she had no real ideas, just catchphrases. That got the conversation back on Obama: he has no real depth, he's just all nice words, and "I don't really know who he is yet, it's all just words with him." Some contended that they actually liked Palin over McCain, and wished she were heading the ticket; they pointed out that McCain was to some degree responsible for much of the mess in Washington, and they like the idea of fresh blood more than anything else. One argued that Palin was exactly what Jefferson wanted in a president: a regular person from the country who comes and goes without being stained by politics. I pointed out that what Jefferson meant by "farmer" was a "farmer" like he was; highly educated, polished, etc., not just anyone. After all, he called Jackson the worst possible choice for president.

That won that point, but I perceived the underlying reasons for these feelings, and here it is. I think that the Left is responsible for the attitude I saw in these men, along with geography and a sense of tradition. When TV pundits insult Palin (and I think with good right--but now I realize the effect it has), they are insulting these men, and millions like them. They are saying that they are not qualified to lead in a democracy. Many of them were veterans, and the insult stung deep. It is galling to these men, I perceived, to be told that people like them are unqualified by people who have never risked anything, or gotten their fingernails dirty. They also live in a world (I've pointed this out before) where your nearest neighbor is a mile away or more. Government is not a helping hand here; its a nosy neighbor. (I grant that farm subsidies make this picture complicated, but here it was not an issue). Rugged individualism isn't just a catchphrase with them--they literally carve their fields out of forests; I've helped them do it! They wonder "if I work so hard, and scrape so hard, why doesn't everyone?" Their fear of socialism, I'm sure, stems from the hatred of free-loading in a world where shirking of work cannot be hidden and is deeply resented.

In short, when they see Palin, they are willing to look past her incredible lack of qualification and say "at least she understands me; she knows what its like to be looked down on." That I am convinced is her appeal. It is irrational, I know, but then again what is, in politics? That is why the R ticket will pull well down here no matter what. It's all the more obvious in virginia, where a "regular guy" now sees McMansions and Beamers everywhere. They get a sense of satisfaction sticking it to "those people," who, of course, are sitting around in their living rooms with a sense of satisfaction about sticking it to the other "those people."

Now, at the risk of romanticizing all this, there is some fair hypocrisy. It is wrong to pretend Obama is all catch phrases and Palin is not. It is wrong to turn a sense of injury into a cause to else a president (in fact that is frightening, and isn't that what most of NYC is doing?). It is wrong to ignore qualification for a weak sense of "I feel like she does." Yes I have insulted Palin, but we should really ask ourselves why people like her: dig a little deeper and I see that she supplies a need in these people that Obama never can. The need to feel important.

I'm supporting Obama. But talking to these guys you can see why many don't, even if they don't realize why they don't. It's not going to be an easy win for him. I am a bit worried that the last minute decision won't be "he's black." It will be "he looks down on me."

That's my take.

The Home Stretch

As the election heads into its final four days, we're looking at a pretty good position for Obama. The McCain folks talk about how the race is tightening, and Drudge and Fox News cherry-pick the best poll results for the GOP, but thinks are looking pretty good.

The overall polling shows Obama up by about six points, which is slightly tighter than the 8 point lead he had last week.





Although the race has tightened slightly, there's no indication that McCain has done anything to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race that have been in play since the economic downturn began. Voters appear to be voting on the basis of the economy, and they prefer Obama's approach to McCain's.

In terms of field operations, I've written about how impressed I've been with the Obama offices in PA- their efforts absolutely dwarf what we put together in Ft. Lauderdale for Gore in 2000. In response, McCain is actually cutting back GOTV from the 2004 Bush operation:

The vaunted, 72-hour plan that President Bush used to mobilize voters in 2000 and 2004 has been scaled back for McCain. He has spent half as much as Obama on staffing and has opened far fewer field offices. This week, a number of veteran GOP operatives who orchestrate door-to-door efforts to get voters to the polls were told they should not expect to receive plane tickets, rental cars or hotel rooms from the campaign.



Most importantly, Obama has many more paths to victory than McCain. If you take Obama's baseline as the Kerry states plus Iowa, (which are all pretty much polling in double digits for him), he can win the following ways: win any one of VA, OH, FL or NC; or pick up any two of CO, NM, NV or MO (although getting NM and NV would put him at 269 votes, which would throw the race to the House- a win, but a messy one). So essentially, McCain must win VA, OH, FL and NC (all states where the polls show him behind or tied), and must win 3 of 4 of CO, NM, NV or MO. Even if McCain were somehow able to win PA, which is looking pretty unlikely, Obama could still win by picking up 3 or 4 of those 8 states.



Although I'm feeling (knock on wood) confident, that doesn't mean that this is a foregone conclusion. Obama's GOTV model requires volunteers to knock on millions of doors and make millions of calls in the next four days. I'm leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow morning to put my legal skills (such as they are) to work doing voter protection, and trying to sneak in some time knocking on doors. I also hope to duck out on Monday afternoon to do my favorite thing in politics- roadside visibility (e.g.- waving signs) during rush hour the day before an election.



I'll be doing my best to post on what's happening in Philly, and I have friends and colleagues who will be campaigning in Scranton, Louisiana, Ohio and Virginia- so I'll get their on-the-ground scoops as well. I'd love to post information from any of my readers during the next couple days. The word from ground-level is often better informed than what you can find in the press.

3.5 days until the polls open...

Security Theater

Jeff Goldberg shows what a joke airport security is, and the extent to which it's entirely designed to make us feel like we're secure, while not in fact doing much at all to stop terrorists:

As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver’s license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schnei­er had made for me. I told the document checker at security that I had lost my identification but was hoping I would still be able to make my flight. He said I’d have to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived; he looked smart, unfortunately. I was starting to get genuinely nervous, which I hoped would generate incriminating micro-expressions. “I can’t find my driver’s license,” I said. I showed him my fake boarding pass. “I need to get to Washington quickly,” I added. He asked me if I had any other identification. I showed him a credit card with my name on it, a library card, and a health-insurance card. “Nothing else?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“You should really travel with a second picture ID, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“All right, you can go,” he said, pointing me to the X-ray line. “But let this be a lesson for you.”

Obama variety half-hour, reviewed

All in all I thought Obama's infomercial last night was pretty successful. To the extent that McCain's "spread the wealth" mantra is coded language for the idea that Obama is going to take white folks money and give it to welfare queens, this ad was a great prophylactic.

Focusing on people who are being hurt by the economic downturn- not because they're lazy or ignorant or made foolish choices- but through bad luck or because their part of the economy isn't working right any longer, makes it clear who the beneficiaries of any "wealth spreading" would be. The people highlighted last night were folks who worked hard and did their best, but were being let down by their health, the economy, or their employers. I think for anyone who watched last night, it's a tough sell to think that redistributing a bit of wealth from somebody making $250k to these folks is something to be afraid of.

Murtha wants $50

I just received the following email from John Murtha's campaign:

Dear Friends,

After decades of fighting for this country and our troops, I am up against the right-wing attack machine again. Because of my work to end the Iraq war, they have thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars behind my opponent, who lives in Virginia with his family, not in my district in Pennsylvania. Now, I am suddenly being outspent 3 to 1. They are up to the same old tricks, "swiftboating" me again as they did two years ago. So I am asking people who have stood with me on Iraq to stand with me again to stop them in their tracks. Can you chip in $50 for me and a few other candidates at the link below?

Maybe it's because of the work he did to end the Iraq war... but maybe it's because he keeps going on TV and calling the voters in his district rednecks and racists...

Obama variety half-hour

Tonight at 8 we've got a half hour of "Barack Obama: American Stories" ("all new" NBC helpfully explains), which supplants the usual Wednesday 8:00 lineup of Bones, Knight Rider and The New Adventures old Christine.

I haven't watched any of these shows and thus can't really comment on whether their fans will be upset that their TV watching schedules are being disrupted. I could imagine a die-hard Bones fan settling in to watch her show, and then being somewhat annoyed that it's been bumped for an Obama commercial. I'm interested to see what Obama does with the time to make any negatives from the show-bumps worth it. One of my colleagues suggests a sports montage with inspirational music, since everyone loves a sports montage. I think maybe a half-hour preview of the Harry Potter movie that was scheduled for this Christmas and then got moved back to next summer, if "brought to you by Barack Obama" would be a big winner.

"His Choice"

Obama is up with a new ad that directly raises, for the first time, the problems with McCain's Palin pick:




I think this is a pretty hard-hitting ad, and using McCain's own words makes it even more so. But really, is it wise to make this kind of move with less than a week left? It seems like Obama basically needs to keep making the points he's making, get the GOTV operation in gear, and run out the clock. This ad feels a little risky... not sure how many people need this point directly made to them (as the media's done a pretty good job of making it) and runs the risk of a backlash. These guys usually have good instincts, but I'm not sure about this.

Team of Mavericks has some teamwork issues

From Rob Draper at GQ:

On the other hand, it had to be hard for Sarah Palin—who has achieved all she’s achieved with a highly personal touch—to take all this ridicule under an enforced gag order. After being introduced to the world as one of the “Team of Mavericks,” she’s admonished not to be one. She’s being called out by some McCainites for not cleaving to all of the senator’s positions. The Republicans who fawned over her superstar looks are now shocked—shocked!—to learn that her much-admired wardrobe has been purchased with RNC funds. I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech.

Seriously, he snubbed her on the bus? Well, at least the campaign is graduating from the nursery school of "Joe the Plumber" and "Tito the Builder" into middle school...

Barkley 2014

Charles Barkley has declared his candidacy for the governorship of Alabama in... 2014? Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems like a bit of a wait. Bob Riley, the current governor, is up for re-election in 2010 (if Alabama governors can run for a 3rd term). So presumably Barkley plans to run against a 4th term Riley, or whoever beats Riley?

Why the race would be worth following?

He added that his native state could only improve. "We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere," Barkley said.

And the show has reached a new low (pt. 2)

Mitch McConnell's campaign is apparently filing charges of petty larceny against his Democratic opponent, Bruce Lunsford, after Lunsford confiscated a small tape recorder that a McConnell staffer hid in Lunsford's podium during a recent debate in an attempt to record any soto voce comments made by the Democrat.

Progressive Conservatives

David Brooks' op-ed piece this weekend on McCain's failure to reach out to the centrists is required reading for anyone interested in American politics. Ignoring Brooks' assertions that McCain would be an "outstanding president," there is a succint summary of a centrist governing philosophy that can really drive the Democrats (and the nation) forward, and is steeped in pragmatism:

There are two major political parties in America, but there are at least three major political tendencies. The first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using government to maximize equality. The second is free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting government to maximize freedom.

But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility. This tendency began with Alexander Hamilton, who created a vibrant national economy so more people could rise and succeed. It matured with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Republicans, who created the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act to give people the tools to pursue their ambitions. It continued with Theodore Roosevelt, who busted the trusts to give more Americans a square deal.

This is a governing philosophy that understands that our duty to each other is to make sure that everyone is at roughly the same starting line, not that everybody has to finish at the same place. It understands that we can't let children lose their opportunity in life because of the failures of their parents.

I think Brooks and I might part ways on the level of government activity necessary to enhance social mobility, particularly with regard to the kind of investments we need in education to put kids from poor families on the same footing starting out in life as those from more wealthy families. Ultimately the more the country coalesces around this kind of governing philosophy (and leaves fights over "spreading the wealth" and "welfare queens" back in the '80s), the better off we'll all be.

Hat tip to TS on Facebook for bringing the piece to my attention.

Joe the Congressional Candidate

Briefing Room reports that Sam "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is mulling a run for congress in 2010, and already has up right-wing talk radiatrix Laura Ingraham volunteering to do his PR. The depressing thing is that, after seeing the general congressional bafflement at the economic crisis, electing somebody who doesn't know the difference between net and gross income probably would not seriously decrease the overall economic competency of the House.

Syria

The AP is reporting that over the weekend US forces launched an attack into Syria using Army Helicopters:

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

The attack came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq

A Syrian government statement said the helicopters attacked the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown and fired on workers inside, the statement said.

The government said civilians were among the dead, including four children.

A resident of the nearby village of Hwijeh said some of the helicopters landed and troops exited the aircraft and fired on a building. He said the aircraft flew along the Euphrates River into the area of farms and several brick factories. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Now I realize the Syrian government is totally perfidious and is trying to use this attack to make us look bad, and that government is the source of the news about the dead civilians and children.

On the other hand, we're going to need Syrian government cooperation as part of some kind of regional concert to keep the situation in Iraq reasonably contained as we draw down troops, and this sort of attack isn't helpful. I understand that we want to protect our troops in Iraq, and stem the flow of foreign fighters and materiel into the war zone, but I have to imagine there are better ways to go about it than this.

I don't see why we couldn't have predator drones or a geosynched satellite keep an eye on the farm that we targeted, and then hit the fighters when they crossed into Iraq, thus not having to actually fire weapons in Syria. I'm by no means a soveriegnty absolutist- I have no problem with targetting bin Laden in tribal areas of Pakistan, because that's where he's holed up. On the other hand, breaching sovereignty carries a cost, and if we knew that bin Laden was routinely crossing into Afghanistan probably the thing to do would be to wait until he gets out of Pakistan to hit him. Unless there were significant caches of arms at the targeted Syrian farm, or some reason that the farm itself needed to be destroyed, why not just wait until the guys we actually want to kill (and we want to kill them because they're going into Iraq) actually go into Iraq?

"I'm going to test them"

From the Chicago Tribune:

McCain, meanwhile, seized on remarks by Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, about the possibility an international crisis if the junior senator is elected, as the world tests him, just as John F. Kennedy was tested by the Cuban missile crisis.

"They may want to test Sen. Obama. I've been tested," McCain said. "I'm going to test them. They're not going to test me. The next president won't have time to get used to the office."

McCain isn't really making sense here. Presumably the sentence "the next president won't have time to get used to the office" applies equally to both McCain and Obama, as to my knowledge McCain has not spent any time as President.

And what does he mean by "I'm going to test them"? He's going to test the world's patience by starting another unilateral war?

Lieberman on Palin

While campaigning in Connecticut, Lieberman was asked if he thought Palin was prepared to be president. His answer (via Halperin):

"thank God she's not going to have to be president from day one. McCain's going to be alive and well."

This does not inspire a lot of confidence...

First personally observed election screw-up of the cycle- the New York City Board of Elections yesterday sent me two absentee ballots.

I imagine that if I were to fill them both out and send them in that somebody would probably disregard the second one... but if the responsibility for disregarding the second is in the hands of the same folks who are supposed to make sure that only one ballot gets sent out in the first place...

VP Choices

A friend writes:

I was thinking about who the worst VP nominations were in history. Seen as an early test of a nominated candidate's likely governance, VPs have rarely been make-or-break. However, some have stood out as horrible. A VP nominee's job is to get the candidate elected. In my lifetime, I came up with a few who failed miserably, but first, Sarah Palin.

It is hard to know right now whether she helps or hurts McCain. Certainly, from my vantage point, she is an atrocious choice. But if McCain loses as expected, I don't think it is because of her. I think McCain would have lost anyway, and the worst she did was increase the margin in a few states. McCain threw deep on third and long with a minute six, and it was an interception. It happens. Could have been the hero, doesn't make him a goat. If McCain wins, Palin might be the best pick ever. He trailed without her, and she clearly lit up the base. If somehow that translates into a victory, she can take credit for being herself, and he can take credit for picking her.

There's still a difference between a good throw on third and long and a lousy one. McCain failed to adequately vet her, and things like the troopergate scandal and her dismal knowledge of non-Alaska policy should have been dug up beforehand. To twist the analogy a bit, the Palin pick was perhaps an interception because McCain threw off his back foot and failed to read the coverage.

The third worst might be Ferraro. Mondale didn't have a chance against Reagan in 1984, but she didn't help at all. I have a soft spot for her because of her Pepsi commercials, but her husband's troubles were such an issue that the ticket didn't even carry New York.

The second worst VP choice in my lifetime is probably Tom Eagleton. He was unfairly railroaded for going through electroshock therapy, but hey, McGovern should have known it would be a problem and not put him in the spotlight. I'm not sure McGovern could have won anyway (incumbent president, Watergate handicap), but Eagleton made sure that any hope was completely doused.

Easily the worst choice in my lifetime was Martin Stockdale. Perot had persuaded people he was real, just quirky. People wanted to believe in him. But when that doddering old man wandered out on stage, Perot was immediately and permanently suspect as batshit crazy. I'm not sure Perot really could have won with a different choice, but it became impossible with Stockdale.

I was 12 when Perot ran the first time, and my parents are pretty dyed-in-the-wool dems, so I largely absorbed their belief that Perot was a nut. I actually remember watching the Stockdale debate and wondering how Perot was able to convince an admiral to run with him...

Clearly an arugula-eating, pointy-headed elitist

Obama meets with ESPN's Rick Reilly for some fantasy football:

Then Sunday came. Man, did he get lucky. The guys he made us choose—Brees and Portis—went nuts. The guys I wanted, not so much. We finished 32,190th for the week. But wait! That put us in the 81.2 percentile, which means we beat four out of five teams!

Of course, he already knew. Because, like so many Americans, he was checking the fantasy stats all day, even while he was supposed to be prepping for his final debate. He e-mailed to say he wished he had followed my advice on Berrian (who smoked Marshall), but he was "pumped up" about our numbers.

Real Americans have the RNC buy $150,000 in Clothes for them at Saks

Politico is reporting that the RNC has paid over $150k to outfit the Palin family in clothes, including:

bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

A potential problem for Palin- this looks like it violates Federal law.

2 USC 439(a) deals with prohibited uses of campaign contributions by Federal Candidates (which includes candidates for VP). Subsection (b) of that section states the following:

(b) Prohibited use.
(1) In general. A contribution or donation described in subsection
(a) shall not be converted by any person to personal use.
(2) Conversion. For the purposes of paragraph (1), a contribution
or donation shall be considered to be converted to personal use if the contribution or amount is used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign or individual’s duties as a holder of Federal office, including—
(A) a home mortgage, rent, or utility payment;
(B) a clothing purchase;
(C) a noncampaign-related automobile expense;
(D) a country club membership;
(E) a vacation or other noncampaign-related trip;
(F) a household food item;
(G) a tuition payment;
(H) admission to a sporting event, concert, theater, or other form of entertainment not associated with an election campaign; and
(I) dues, fees, and other payments to a health club or recreational facility.

UPDATE:

(via Politico)

Campaign finance laws prohibit candidates from spending donor cash to their authorized personal campaign committee on costs “that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign,” including clothing, vacations and gym memberships.

But the law does not prohibit such expenditures by party committees, and Congress has killed legislation to expand the personal use ban to those and other types of political committees.

It's important to read the job description BEFORE you apply

A couple years ago when I interviewed for a summer associate position at the New York office of a law firm called Linklaters. I had looked briefly on their website, and had noticed that they had a project finance practice. When I met with the partner with whom I was interviewing, he asked me what I liked about the firm, and I talked for about 10 minutes about how I was interested in project finance, and they had a great practice in that area, etc. etc. At the end of this, he stared at a spot on the wall slightly to the left of my head and told me that project finance was out of their DC office, and that they didn't do it at all in New York. Needless to say the rest of the interview was pretty short.

I was reminded of this when reading an item today describing how Sarah Palin answered a third-grader's question about what the Vice President does with the following:

That's something that Piper would ask me! ... [T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Now, if you went to the wikipedia site for "Vice President" you'd notice that it says that the VP "presides" over the Senate. However, you'd think that somebody actually running for VP would have read a little bit farther down the page to note that presiding over the senate is not actually at all the same as "being in charge" of the Senate.

You would also think that, given how much time Palin spends bashing Harry Reid she would have some idea of what it is that he does.

Ahh, bucolic Wasilla

The Daily Show's Jason Jones, live from Wasilla... (via Andrew)

More classy Republicans

More goodness from North Carolina (via Matt Yglesias)- Republican protesters line up to heckle folks who are lined up to vote early at a polling place.




North Carolina law, at § 163‑166.4, specifies a 25 to 50 foot buffer zone around the outside of a polling place where no electioneering activity can take place. Outside of that zone, there must be an area "where persons or groups of persons may distribute campaign literature, place political advertising, solicit votes, or otherwise engage in election‑related activity."

I wonder if the legislators drafting that section envisioned "election-related activity" to mean a big group of white people screaming at a line of black voters that their preferred candidate is a terrorist...

At what point does this cross the line into legitimate voter intimidation? Also, anybody want to take the over/under on how long it would take the police to bust up a large group of blacks hassling voters in a white area of North Carolina?

Classy

Not content to hunt wolf cubs from airplanes, right-wing malcontents have decided to go after bears:

Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police. “It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head,” Johnson said.

This is on top of recent reports that at an Obama rally in North Carolina, 30 cars had their tires slashed.

I remember this kind of ugliness from the 2000 recount. I was working in Ft. Lauderdale organizing volunteers for rallies and as observers for the recount, and on several occasions volunteers with whom I was working had their tires slashed. This kind of ugliness bred the "Brooks Brothers Mob" that shut down the counting in Miami over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's bad stuff. Can you imagine being a parent who brought a kid to a rally only to find your tires slashed? Or being a college freshman who finds a dead bear draped in the logo of the candidate you support? These actions hurt real people, and if anybody is tearing away the fabric of democracy, it's those who perpetrate, incite and condone actions like these.

"What if he is?"

Obama ran into some nasty and wildly uninformed folks at a diner in North Carolina today, including a Diana Fanning, who chanted "socialist, socialist socialist" at him when he entered. Fanning refused to shake his hand, and then demanded to know Obama's thoughts on a favorite trope of right-wing paranoia, the "North American Union:"

Fanning asked Obama about a North American union, and Obama responded: “Well, you know, I am opposed to it if it were happening. But it doesn’t seem to be actually be happening. The truth of the matter is there is no plans. I’ve talked to a lot of people, including folks down in Texas. There’s no plan to create a common government between Mexico, U.S. and Canada. That’s just not … that’s just not happening. I know some people have been hearing rumors about it. But as far as I can tell, that’s just not something that’s happening. We would never give up our sovereignty in that way. Any other questions?

In an interview, Fanning said, “I still think he’s a closet Muslim.”

Fanning must have missed Colin Powell's powerful words on this topic this morning:

And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Anti-American

While McCain and co. are busy attacking Obama for being "anti-American" because of his various associations (whose extreme views Obama has repudiated), McCain skates by untouched despite his close relation to Nixon-era felon G. Gordon Liddy. From the Chicago Tribune:

In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year.

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

During the Nixon era, Liddy broke into the DNC office at the Watergate, planned to kidnap leftists in 1972 to keep them from disrupting the GOP convention, and planned (but never executed) the murder of a columnist critical of Nixon. More recently, Liddy gave instructions to right-wing extremists that they should shoot federal agents in the head, saying:

"Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."

These of course are obviously pro-American "principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," right?

Pro-America parts of America

Sarah Palin, yesterday in North Carolina:

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation,"

As someone who apparently is the "worst of America," living in a "large city" with apparently lazy, non-patriotic, anti-Americans, I'll note that none of my relatives or friends has ever been part of a secessionist political party.

The Freak Show starts

Fivethirtyeight.com reports on automated voter contact phonecalls ("robocalls") being employed in Western Pennsylvania:

Over in Indiana, PA and Northern Cambria, PA, volunteers fielded complaints of a massive wave of ugly robocalls both paid for by John McCain's campaign and those paid for by third parties. The third party call was interactive, and purported to be from Barack Obama himself. The call starts out reasonably, and then "Obama" asks what the listener thinks is the most important issue. Whatever the response, "Obama" then launches into a profane and crazed tirade using "n***er" and other shock language.


This is the Republican party descending into the worst of freakshow politics. Republicans like to talk about how Obama is anti-American, but what does it say about a party's view of America that it believes that Americans will fall for this kind of garbage?

Naval war with Iran

Robert Kagan writes about the difficulties in engaging Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf.

Many folks don't remember (I didn't until reading about it recently in Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies) that we fought a limited engagement against conventional Iranian naval forces between 1982 and 1987, when they were attacking Kuwaiti flagged ships carrying Iraqi oil. We beat them soundly, and they've learned some new tricks since then.

Iran now fields two navies, a conventional force and a naval arm of the Revolutionary Guards ("IRGCN"). The IRGCN has over 20,000 ideologically committed sailors who have been trained in asymmetrical warfare, including kamikaze style attacks. Tactics used by the IRGCN include swarming larger ships with small, quick-moving craft bearing rocket launchers and torpedoes, as well as packing such ships with explosives in order to ram larger craft. The Iranians also have extensive knowledge of the islands and coves in the Gulf, particularly those in the narrow Straits of Hormuz at the southern end of the gulf (check out the map to see how much Iranian territory there is surrounding the Gulf).

According to Kagan, recent simulated war games dealing with a battle between swarming small Iranian ships and a force of American ships ended with simulated losses for the US greater than those in any naval battle since Pearl Harbor.

The US Navy is developing a Littoral Combat Ship, a smaller, shallow-draft craft for use in narrow, shallow waters like the Persian gulf, but we're many years away from having enough of them to make much of a difference.

Full article is worth a read- and it's important to remember that, although our military is by far the best in the world, it's not always going to be the best at every type of combat in every single situation. The question is not whether we could eventually beat Iran in a naval war- of course we could. The problem is that in the short-term, our forces could take unacceptably high losses. A blind faith that our military is "the best in the world" should not overshadow the fact that our power in some cases is limited.

Maybe if my parents chaired the Senate Commerce Committee I could get cell reception when I visit them

My parents live in some kind of weird cell-phone dead zone, where nobody can ever get reception. It seems to be a pretty local phenomenon, because I can get a signal if I go upstairs into one of the bedrooms, or out to the driveway. On the other hand, if my parents chaired the Senare Commerce Committee this wouldn't be necessary because they'd be able to get Verizon (which to put a cellphone tower in the yard, like John McCain tried to do.

Ohio catastrophe averted

This morning the Supreme Court overturned a decision by an Ohio court that would have required the election department in Ohio to begin a massive program to provide local voting officials with information about voters whose information in their database doesn't match information in other state databases. To accomplish this would have been a massive undertaking- restructuring the state's voter database system- while early voting was already going on.

The initial decision had come in a case where the Ohio Republica Party had brought suit against the Secretary of State, and SCOTUS today ruled that the ORP had no standing to sue, which is consistent with all other interpretations of the Help America Vote Act ("HAVA"), under which the suit was brought, which have found that HAVA creates no right in individuals or political parties to sue. To have ruled otherwise would have allowed any political party to seek temporary restraining orders against elections officials, setting the stage for significant voter-suppression activities as folks tried to gum up election departments on the eve (or apparently even during) elections.

Text of the SCOTUS decision is here.