Hillary Mocks Obama, Lauds McCain

"Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience, and Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002."

—Hillary Clinton, March 7, 2008.

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Obama Wants to Raise Your Taxes

In the end I base my vote not on a candidate's race, gender, state or even whose wife or daughter is hotter, but on policy positions. Accordingly, here's one reason why an Obama administration should alarm investors and businessmen:

Obama plans to raise taxes on capital gains, dividends and corporate profits. He wants to hike estate taxes by 50%. And he wants to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes.

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The Daily Digest

Maureen Dowd reviews Rudy's performance at the recent NRA conference.

Shorter David Broder: Newt is good for America. Shorter Debra Saunders: But not as a politician.

Yesterday, the Council for National Policy issued a resolution that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate [i.e., Rudy] we will consider running a third party candidate.” The NYT's David Kirkpatrick reports (see also WorldNetDaily and Salon), "The group making the threat . . . includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for [the] written resolution."

George Will poses 17 questions for Obama. For example: "You advocate leaving in Iraq 'some' U.S. forces for three missions—fighting al Qaeda, training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. forces conducting those two missions. . . . What is your estimate of the numbers required by your policy? How, and in consultation with whom, did you arrive at your estimate? As to fighting terrorists but not insurgents—how would soldiers and Marines tell the difference? If, while searching for terrorists, they make contact with insurgents, would your rules of engagement call for a full-force response? You say all 'combat brigades' should be out of Iraq 'by the end of next year.' Even if al-Qaeda is still dangerous? Who, after the end of next year, will protect U.S. noncombat forces that you say 'will continue to protect U.S. diplomats and facilities' and to 'train and equip' Iraqi forces?"

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The Daily Digest

The school-choice movement has found a home in New Orleans, which, in the wake of Katrina, has become a magnet for innovation.

Michael Tanner paraphrases Randolph Bourne for Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson: "It's hard to be a small-government conservative while favoring more widespread military intervention. War is a big-government program.

Radley Balko explains to Rudy and Fred why you can't be both a federalist and drug warrior: "If ever there were an issue for which federalism would seem to be an ideal solution, it’s the medical marijuana issue, which touches on crime, medical policy, privacy and individual freedom—all the sorts of values-laden areas of public policy that states are best equipped to deal with on a case-by-case basis, and for which a one-size-fits-all federal policy seems particularly clunky and ill-suited."

Obama's new-media team is innovating with LinkedIn.

Alexa is no longer the gold standard for measuring Web site traffic. I prefer Compete.

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Obama Isn't Wrong

Obama advisor Samantha Power explains:

For years, conventional wisdom in Washington has said that the United States cannot talk to its adversaries because it would reward them. Here is the result:

• The United States has not talked directly to Iran at a high level, and they have continued to build their nuclear weapons program, wreak havoc in Iraq, and support terror.

• The United States has not talked directly to Syria at a high level, and they have continued to meddle in Lebanon and support terror.

• The United States did not talk to North Korea for years, and they were able to produce enough material for six to eight more nuclear bombs.

That said, Obama isn't necessarily right, either. The real debate, as opposed to the one playing on TV, about meeting with our enemies concerns two things: (1) Whether a presidential candidate should meet with our enemies himself or send an envoy, and (2) Whether he should set preconditions for the meeting.

What do you think?

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Barack Reagan

Kirk Dillard, the Republican minority whip of the Illinois state senate, illustrates the threat Obama represents to conservatives:

Obama can be to liberalism what Ronald Reagan was to conservatism, and that's a friendly face or likable personality that can move the country left.

Phil Klein, to whom Dillard gave the above quote, elaborates in a cover story for the American Spectator:

A quarter century ago, Ronald Reagan not only won the presidency, he won the argument, selling a generation of Americans on the virtues of individualism and limited government. Just as Reagan's sunny optimism portrayed conservatism in its most positive light, Obama puts a happy face on liberalism.

"[He has] perfect pitch, I think, for the mood of the country, which is a flinch from the rhetorical vitriol for the mood that is consuming this town, "George Will said of Obama on ABC's This Week. "He's a little like Ronald Reagan in this regard: Reagan used to drive people crazy, in the Democratic Party, because they'd say the public doesn't agree with him on this or this or this or this, and they vote for him. They voted for him because they said we like him, he's not off putting, he's not frightening. And I think this is another 1980."

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Obamamania

The latest pol in Ryan Lizza's hot chair—and the first to grace the cover of Esquire in 15 years—is Barack Obama, the "perpetually second-place Dem optimism junkie," as Wonkette puts it. Here are the key passages:

Why he's an anti-populist:

As he listens to their concerns and gently corrects them, or offers a contrasting view, it’s apparent that one of the biggest challenges for Obama in winning over voters like these is that there isn’t an ounce of populism in him. He is in many ways an antipopulist—measured and rational rather than fiery and demagogic. He never rails against big corporations or fat-cat lobbyists or George W. Bush, even though his stump speech is filled with critiques of all three. Most recent reform candidates have been populist reformers, and both John Edwards and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton are hitting populist notes in Iowa. But Obama seems to willfully resist the temptation to change his cerebral, sometimes off-putting style.

His primary challenge:

When they [Obama's pollsters] compared the percentage of Democrats who said they strongly approved of Obama with the percentage who said they would vote for him, they found that the latter number was significantly lower than the former. Inside the campaign, aides dubbed this “the Gap.” It was a sobering, hard number that quantified the difference between vague enthusiasm and actual votes. For Hillary Clinton, the gap is much smaller. The majority of voters who strongly approve of her also say they will vote for her.

His general challenge:

Pollsters are beginning to talk about Obama’s “beer problem.” Survey after survey shows that he appeals to the college-educated, “wine sipping” Democrats but isn’t reaching less educated “beer drinkers.” His aides explain away the polls, insisting that voters with more education are just paying closer attention to the campaign, and so therefore these numbers are actually good news—the more voters tune in, the more they will move to Obama.

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Why Can't Democrats Explain Their Opposition to Gay Marriage?

The Politico's Ben Smith reports from the latest Democratic debate:

Obama, like Clinton and Edwards, was unable to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage in principled terms, referring to it as a matter of "semantics." Obama cast his opposition as a matter of strategy and priority—he would not have advised the civil rights movement to make the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws a top priority in 1961, he said.

Clinton called her opposition "personal," but didn't explain it. And Edwards took back an earlier comment that his "faith" had led him to oppose same-sex marriage—but didn't elaborate on the source of his current opposition.

"Their reasons for opposing equality in civil marriage tonight became even less clear," Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said in a statement after the debate.

It's times like this when you gotta admire the forthrightness of Ted Kennedy, who, in reference to the Marriage Protection Amendment, thundered, "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple."

Rob Bluey goes into more detail here.

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Pot Does Not a Criminal Make

Until recently, Barack Obama, Al Gore, George W. Bush and Michael Bloomberg could not have landed a job at the FBI.

Now, recognizing the reality that sometime illegal drug use does not make you a criminal, the house that Hoover built has stopped disqualifying applicants who have toked up more than 15 times or tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.

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The Daily Digest

The invariably funny Dave Weigel live-blogged last night's Democratic debate. (Google, the debate's co-host, lavished some cool perks on the press pool.)

Obama is chummier and softer, but, as Jennifer Rubin observes, he simply cannot compete with Hillary's "experience, judgment and preparation. . .. All but the most rabid of the Democratic base I think will come to see that. So I would suggest that the GOP primary voters think long and hard about electability. Otherwise, we'll be debating whether First Gentleman or First Guy sounds better for Bill."

David Hogberg captures the state of Newt: "Newt is a great idea man. He provides the GOP and the conservative movement a wonderful service in that role. Why mess that up with a run for the Oval Office that would prove disastrous?"

Speaking of Newt, his new grassroots group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, which has seven staffers on payroll, is spending like John McCain, hauling in almost $115K last month but shelling out almost $415K.

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How Obama Counts to 258,000

In the first six months of 2007, 258,000 people—more than a quarter million—have donated to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Since none of the other candidates in either party has claimed more than 100,000 donors, Obama's roster is a remarkable record.

But the NYT uncovers a caveat: unlike the calculations of every other campaign, this number is not limited to actual donations, but includes paraphernalia sales, like Obama T-shirts, baseball caps and buttons.

Muddying the waters further, the Obama campaign has not disclosed how many donors have exclusively contributed in this way.

Is this gaming the system, or innovative bookkeeping? You decide.

Update: Seems like it's truth in advertising. According to Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer,

These purchasers are donors, and the law requires that we treat them as donors, which is indeed what they are and how their monies are used. There is no "trick" involved. People who support Obama would like something to show their support, a hat or T-shirt: this is a way that small donors in particular can show their support and still contribute to the campaign. Most of these donors have contributed again… and again. We are proud to have them. Campaigns that don't expect to have this level of interest among small donors tend to outsource their campaign material sales to vendors. For example, the Clinton campaign has contracted with Financial Innovations to sell their paraphernalia. Financial Innovations makes all of the profit from those sales and takes the loss if no one buys the materials. To our knowledge, the Obama campaign, because of the tremendous grassroots enthusiasm, is the only campaign to feel they could generate sufficient interest in T-shirts and other materials to not contract with an outside vendor.

Furthermore, Pfeiffer says, people buying campaign paraphernalia (mostly T-shirts) account for "less than 1% of our donors," and more than half of those who bought such items subsequently gave to the campaign in the traditional way.

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Elephants Chase Donkeys

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Tech President Standouts

Earlier this week, USA Today ran through the highlights:

• Obama used the Web to organize a national "walk for change" day. His campaign says 10,000 people canvassed neighborhoods across the country Saturday to build local support networks.
  

• Hillary is asking online voters to pick her campaign song. Her latest video shows comical clips of what she ironically calls "truly wonderful" suggestions (singers wailing "metal girl" and "bring sexy back"). "I'm so gratified that all of you thought this was such a wonderful idea," she says, followed by clips of men calling it "ridiculous" and "insulting."
  

• Romney's adult sons write a "Five Brothers" blog that reinforces the former Massachusetts governor's "family values" theme.
  

• McCain posted his college basketball picks during the NCAA tournament's March Madness, urged supporters to submit theirs and offered a free campaign fleece to the best prognosticator.
  

• Biden uses video clips at www.headtohead08.com to compare himself with rivals on issues.
  

• Edwards and Dodd offer RSS feeds of their campaign-event calendars.

Then there's Ron Paul and Fred Thompson.

Update (6/18): The Boston Globe adds its take (and introduces an interesting word, velocious, the adjectival form of "velocity").

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The Daily Dose

Tonight, from 8 - 9 pm EST, the GOP's 10 presidential candidates will debate one another at the Reagan library in California. Watch it live on politico.com. During the daytime, if you're in DC, you might want to swing by the Press Club for a conference on the "Failure of Conservatism."

Without bias and with thorough reporting, Micah Sifry examines the Obama MySpace scandal. My take: the concern of Obama's team that an independent fan, rather than the official campaign, controlled Obama's most-popular MySpace page, was very legitimate. But Obama's team was myopic in refusing to compensate Anthony, given (1) how trivial $40K is compared to the cost of traditional consultants; (2) how much Anthony had done for the campaign; and (3) how the resulting stories would predictably look.

I'm generally skeptical of the next big thing (e.g, QubeTV and Hotsoup). If done right, however, the resulting product can bear out the hype (e.g., Digg, Twitter, Rudy on Your Blog, Hot Air). Indeed, even though online political discussion is oversaturated, Time's Swampland blog, Politico.com, NYSunPolitics.com and the NYT's Caucus blog—all of which began in 2007—have all been quite successful. The common denominator is not deep pockets but a tech-savvy team. With that in mind, I'm expecting big things from TheAtlantic.com and American Solutions. (Related: David All explains why the walled-garden approach, as embodied in QubeTV and Conservapedia, is bound to fail.)

Is Fred Thompson a real celebrity? James Poniewozik, Time's TV and media critic, thinks he's merely famous-for-Washington: "[H]e's not even of the level of celebrity that Ronald Reagan held before he became governor of California. . . . Law & Order is a popular show, of course—decreasingly popular, but still—and people have seen his movies, but he doesn't exactly move magazine covers. He's more what Fametracker.com refers to as a 'Hey, It's That Guy': an actor recognizable for establishing a niche, in his case, the president / authority figure in TV and movies. [Update: In fact, he was a Hey, It's That Guy.]"

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Those Poor Romney Staffers

John Edwards's $400 haircuts are by now yesterday's news, thanks to the Times's David Kirkpatrick, who brings such scrutiny, for the first quarter, to the full field (Slate's John Dickerson provides a cheat sheet):

Romney, who is by far the richest candidate, was stingiest with his staff members’ salaries, often having them fly discount airlines and stay in accommodations as humble as a Super 8 Motel in Parsippany, NJ. “We put a premium on efficiency,” said spokesman Kevin Madden. Recalling a trip for the campaign's official announcement in Michigan, he said, “We tripled up in a hotel suite—one of those cheaper ones.”

McCain’s campaign, which is burning through money, of which it has the least among the GOP frontrunners, had the highest-paid staff of any campaign in either party. Nine earned more than $25,000, including strategists Michael Dennehy, whose $51,925 made him the highest-paid staffer on any campaign, and Terry Nelson, who raked in $36,173.

Giuliani, the capitalist candidate, boasts the best-paid top staffers: seven exceeded the $25K threshold, and campaign manager, Mike DuHaime, garnered more than any of his counterparts ($44,375).

Hillary remunerated only three employees more than $25,000 (the real prize being working in Hillaryworld), but reported $154,000 in unpaid bills to her media adviser, Mandy Grunwald, and $277,000 to her main political adviser, Mark Penn.

Obama’s only aide to net more than $25K was his grossly undercompensated finance director, Julianna Smoot. She made $26,099 and oversaw $24.8 million in primary fund-raising.

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Obama vs. Hillary in the Money Primary

I’ve always found John Heilemann’s articles to be sharp and interesting, somewhat like the old David Brooks. He files his reports for New York magazine on national politics, and has a knack for showing rather than telling. Here’s an except from his latest story, on the money chase between Obama and Hillary:

"The most gratifying thing about our fund-raising success isn’t the bottom line,” [Obama’s chief campaign strategist, David] Axelrod says, “but the number of people who have contributed and the number who are small contributors. The people we’re targeting are new to this; they’re not constrained by old loyalties. There’s a lot of energy in that world, and it gives us enormous potential to grow.” When I ask if he’s implying a contrast to Clintonworld, Axelrod offers up a pointed aperçu: “There’s a difference between grabbing low-hanging fruit and planting trees.”

Obama’s finance people know that historically the second and third quarters have seen a falloff in contributions. But whatever happens next on the money front, the political implications of Obama’s first quarter are already set in stone. The central question about Obama is whether, for all his charisma and star power, he may simply be a flash in the pan. And that question remains largely unanswered. He has yet to demonstrate anything approaching depth on any area of policy. He has yet to articulate a compelling vision of America’s place in the world at a time of clear and present peril. For many people, even those inclined to favor him, he remains something of a cipher. And he has yet to be tested under fire or to prove that he has the fortitude required to withstand the rigors of a presidential campaign—which Clinton has been and does in spades. But Obama’s performance in the money primary does demonstrate that he can build an organization, in a breathtakingly short time, that can go toe-to-toe with hers. And that is no small thing. “As someone new to the presidential process, there was a question of, ‘Can he hack it?’” says Axelrod. “That question has been answered.”

Update: The NYT plays copycat: "Donors Linked to the Clintons Shift to Obama."

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