Will Anti-War Voters Give Presidency to McCain?

That is the provocative thesis of an article in AlterNet.org. The article is called "Looming Threat for Dems: People Against the War Prefer McCain as President" and was written by Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.

Professor Chernus examines several public opinion polls and finds that McCain is doing relatively well even though most Americans don't believe that the war will be ultimately successful. He also argues that these polls show that McCain is seen as better prepared to protect the nation against terrorists, which is broader than the war in Iraq.

Professor Chernus points out that over the last year the percentage of people who believe that the war is "going well" has increased. This is from the article:

Over the last year, the number who say the war is going well jumped from 30% to 48% in the LAT/B poll. The NYT/CBS poll records a similar jump since last June, from 22% to 43%. In the WP/ABC poll, the number who see "significant progress" jumped from 31% to 43% in just the last three months. That increase tracks very closely with the growing political fortunes of McCain, who was all but counted out last summer.

He also points out the results of a Rasmussen Reports poll concerning the famous or infamous 3 a.m. call ad that the Clinton campaign ran against Obama in Ohio and Texas. This is from the article:

Remember the "crisis phone call, 3 AM" commercial that the Clinton campaign used so successfully? Rasmussen Reports was smart enough to ask voters whom they'd rather have answering that phone: Clinton, Obama, or . . . McCain. The two Democrats got only 25% each, while McCain was way ahead with 42%.

None of this is to suggest that McCain will beat either Obama or Clinton. It does mean, though, that this is going to be a very tough race for Democrats. If Obama is the nominee, Republicans will use race to divide Americans. If Clinton is the nominee, then the Republicans will use gender to divide Americans.

It is unfortunate that while our two main nominees are attacking each other as opposed to having a presumptive nominee going after McCain and defining him before he gets a chance to define himself.

So Why Did Hillary Take New Hampshire?

That is the question that the political chattering classes are asking, following one of the biggest examples of polling failure since Dewey beat Truman in 1948. Was it her tears? Was it Barack Obama's rather peevish line about her being likeable during the last debate? Was it the presence of Bill Clinton on the ground in New Hampshire? According to Joshua Holland of AlterNet, the answer to all of those is "No." He attributes it to far more mundane factors: turn-out, organization, and Biden's supporters going to Clinton.

Now, the media has a vested interest in pushing the line that it was her supposed "tearing up" during a question and answer session in New Hampshire that made the difference. This is because it makes them look important and because it is an easy story to explain. It has good visuals, it has a narrative, and it encourages debate among viewers and readers. (Were her supposed tears genuine? Was this a planned stunt? Is she human after all?)

The points that Holland is making are much less compelling from a story-line point of view. Turn-out, organization, and Biden's supporters going to Clinton do not make for good television and do make for a pretty boring story. In the final analysis, though, campaigns are won far more often because of turn-out and organization than are won because of a "television moment", George Allen's defeat in Virginia notwithstanding.

So when you hear political pundits confidently telling you why Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire, just remember this: If they were so wrong about what was going to happen in New Hampshire, why should you believe them when they tell you what happened in New Hampshire?

Edwards Polls Best Against Republicans, Ignored by Media

Joshua Holland, in an article for Alternet.org, argues that John Edwards is the best candidate that the Democrats can nominate. He bases this argument on several polls which show that consistently Edwards beats all Republicans by the widest margins. The question then becomes: Why isn't Edwards getting much more media attention, given his relative strength in the polls?

Holland blames it on what he calls the "usual shoddy political journalism" that we get from most of our print and electronic media. He apparently believes that this "shoddy" journalism is a result of the media's fascination with process stories like who has raised the most money, has the most endorsements, and put together the most impressive organization.

Something else could also be at work and that is the fact that the nomination of either Clinton or Obama would be historic. No major political party in the United States has ever nominated either a woman or an African-American for president. Having the top two contenders be either a woamn or an African-American is, by definition, "news."

On the other hand, a major political party nominating a white male from the South for president is not news. It has been going on every since the development of the political party system in the U.S. Such a story has no political sex appeal. Therefore, there is not a lot of political journalists wanting to write or broadcast that story.

Could Bush Use Secret Service Records to Sink HRC?

AlterNet has an article out that raises the possibility that George W. Bush could use Secret Service records to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. The article points out that both Hillary and Bill Clinton are entitled to Secret Service protection. This means that where they go and who they meet are known to Secret Service agents. If Bush got hold of this information and if such information was embarrassing, it could be made public at a crucial point in the 2008 election, say after Labor Day, but before November?

The author of the article, Robert Parry, points out that Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush pressured State Department officials to examine documents relating to Bill Clinton's travels to the former Soviet Union when he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. The Bush campaign was looking for proof that Clinton tried to renounce his United States citizenship while he was in Europe and participated in anti-American rallies overseas while the Vietnam War was being fought. So the idea of using government documents to discredit political opponents is not new to the Bushies.

Of course, Americans would like to think that Secret Service agents wouldn't take part in such things, but during Bill Clinton's administration one of his earlier critics was a retired FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, who worked in both the Bush and Clinton White Houses. So, don't be so quick to discount Parry's thesis. After all, just a few short years ago most Americans would have assumed that the Attorney General would have no trouble denouncing torture.

Clinton's Caution Leading to Defense Industry Support?

Alternet, which is a website that complies articles from the left side of the cultural and political spectrum, has a story from the Independent newspaper of Great Britain about Hillary Clinton and the defense industry. This article points out that as of the date of the article more money had gone to Democrats from the defense industry than had gone to Republicans. This is a quote from the article:

Employees of the top five U.S. arms manufacturers -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon -- gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

This illustrates both the potential and the problem with a Clinton candidacy. The potential is that she may be the one Democrat who can tap into support from groups that traditionally support Republicans. Groups like executives from large corporations, the defense industry, the securities industry, and the insurance industry. The problem is that she gets this support because she doesn't challenge the status quo as far as the economy is concerned.

Somewhere I read that the Clintons who had worked for McGovern and seen him defeated, and who had experience in government in Arkansas are convinced that progressive change in America has to be incremental. This belief was only fortified by their experience during his presidency.

Clinton governed from a centerist position. He signed onto the NAFTA treaty. He restored fiscal discipline to the Federal government. He worked with the Republicans on welfare reform. Yet, for all that, he was hounded by the right-wing and had to fight off impeachment. One can only imagine what the right-wing reaction would have been if he would have tried to expand government programs to benefit the poor or reduce the influence of the rich on our goverment.

You can see the impact of those experiences on Hillary Clinton during her campaign for the presidency. She is very cautious in what she says, she doesn't take positions that are too far from the center, she is determined not to give the right-wing an opening to further distort and demonize her and her record.

In one respect this makes a lot of sense. There is a reason why she is leading the polls right now among Democrats. Her name recognition is one reason but another is that she is not giving the right-wing attack machine a lot of openings. The problem is, though, that if there is an opportunity to bring about real progressive change over the next four to eight years she may not, if she were president, recognize it.

Why Can't Ohio Do This?

If you click on the link in this title's entry, you can read a story that appeared on www.AlterNet.org about a college student in Maine who got the Maine state legislature to pass a bill helping students with college debt. This quote from the article illustrates how the program works:

The idea was fairly simple: help students pay off their debts if they stay in Maine. Last week, two years later, Bossie's work, along with those of other activists and groups, including the League of Independent Voters, bore fruit when Maine legislators passed the Opportunity Maine Initiative. The measure will give tax credits to help Maine residents pay off their student debt as long as they stay in the state. "Nontraditional" students returning to get their degrees would also be eligible for the credits, as would employers who pay off their workers' student loans as a benefit.

In the past we have thought that Ohio should adopt a program whereby it paid for the college tuition of students who went to college and agreed to stay in Ohio for a period of time after graduation. This program actually seems better because it is geared to those students who graduate. This avoids the whole problem about what to do with students who get the credit but don't graduate or who transfer to a school in another state.

So here's the question: why can't Ohio do something like this?

Fascinating Article About Hillary Clinton & Feminists on AlterNet

AlterNet has a fascinating article up about why some feminists who once supported Hillary Clinton as First Lady are bitterly against her as a Democratic Presidential Candidate. This is a quote from the article:

"I love [Hillary Clinton] so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her!" exclaimed Nora Ephron in a 1993 Newsday interview. Three years later, she told the Wellesley class of 1996, "Understand: Every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you." Come late 2006, however, Ephron was the one on the attack as one of the self-described "Hillary resisters" -- those who believe that "she will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe," as she wrote on her Huffington Post blog, "who believe she has taken the concept of triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't trust her as far as you can spit."

This rather dramatic change of heart encapsulates one of the great ironies of Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. Many of the very same feminists who were her most ardent supporters as First Lady are now fiercely opposed to her historic bid to become the first female President of the United States. The woman once described by Susan Faludi as a symbol of "the joy of female independence" now evokes ambivalence, disdain and, sometimes, outright vitriol. The right wing's favorite "femi-nazi" now has to contend with Jane Fonda comparing her to "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."

The article goes on to examine why some feminists are so down on the first woman to really be considered seriously for the nomination for United States President by a major party. Hillary Clinton is the first woman, as far as we can remember, who is leading in public opinions polls for the Democratic nomination less than 18 months from a presidential election. Note also that the concern doesn't seem to be over her electability, which is a concern a lot of Democrats have, but over her political positions.

It is really ironic that, as the article notes, on the one hand she is being called a "femi-nazi" by Rush Limbaugh and on the other hand she is being called a "sell-out" by people like Nora Ephron. The article also points out that this disdain for Clinton is mostly shared by more liberal women. This is a quote from the article:

So what's up with the Hillary-bashing? "Women don't trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her," wrote Susan Douglas in a May In These Times article titled "Why Women Hate Hillary." A month later, in her Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen declared, "The truth is that Senator Clinton has a woman problem."

Not exactly true, as it turns out. Hillary Clinton was the number-one choice of 42 percent of likely Democratic primary women voters in a recent Zogby survey, compared with 19 percent for Barack Obama and 15 percent for John Edwards. And her favorable rating among independent women is a whopping twenty-one points higher than among independent men.

Let's be clear: Hillary has a "feminist problem," and more so with those who lean left.

This problem, by the way, is not unique with Hillary Clinton. One of the enduring problems for most Democratic candidates since the internal party split over the Vietnam in 1968 has been the fact that often liberal activists seem to prefer candidates who are right on issues as opposed to those who can actually win elections. This split led to the bitter divide of 1968 and the primary challenge to Carter from Kennedy in 1980. Interestingly enough it didn't lead to a primary challenge for her husband from the left in 1996, even though some liberal activists were disenchanted with Clinton over welfare reform in 1996.

All candidates are like houses when you are purchasing a residence: All of them have some attractive qualities and all of them have some qualities that you don't like. In the end you make a decision over which candidate has the most attractive qualities compared to the qualities you don't like. There is no such thing as the perfect candidate and every candidate has some problems when exposed to intense media scrutiny.

New Report Claims that Right-Wing Talk Radio Dominance Results From Concentration of Media Ownership

AlterNet has an article out concerning a report issued by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press about why talk radio is dominated by right-wingers. This is a quote from that article:

The report contrasts the amount of right-wing talk -- nine out of every ten hours broadcast on talk-radio is exclusively conservative -- with a talk-radio audience that, according to Pew Research, identifies itself as follows: forty-three percent of regular talk radio listeners are conservative, while "23 percent identify as liberal and 30 percent as moderate." In other words, fewer than half of those listening to some of the most feverish voices on the right are themselves self-identified conservatives.

So why is this happening? According to the AlterNet article it is because of concentration of ownership of media outlets. The article notes that the report found that when media outlets are owned by women and minorities, such outlets are much less likely to just have right-wing talk radio. As the article noted:

An analysis of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations found that stations "owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows." In contrast, "stations controlled by group owners--those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market--were statistically more likely to air conservative talk." Markets that aired both conservative and progressive programming were "less concentrated than the markets that aired only one type of programming and were more likely to be the markets that had female- and minority-owned stations."

What the article points out is that large media companies who own a lot of media outlets have a financial interest in promoting a political philosophy that worships the so-called "free market". It has a disincentive in promoting a political philosophy that looks at the airwaves as a public trust. This translates into supporting conservative talk radio even in markets where progressive talk radio has been a market success.

The article's authors also point out that, contrary to what right-wingers like Michelle Malkin are saying, the report does not call for a re-enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine. What it calls for is, from the viewpoint of media companies like Clear Channel and Fox, much more radical and that is limiting ownership of radio and television outlets. Such ownership was limited back in the 1950s and 1960s, but over the last three decades the FCC and the Congress have allowed companies like Clear Channel to buy up literally thousands of media outlets. If you are interested in the media, check out this Alternet Article.

AlterNet Article on How Iraqis React to Iraq-Korea Comparison

If you click on the link in this entry's title, you can read a fascinating article on how the American press didn't bother to call up Iraqis and ask them how they felt about Tony Snow's Iraq-Korea comparison. You may remember that Tony Snow revealed that President Bubble-Boy analogizes American military involvement in Iraq to American military involvement in Korea. This apparently means that he sees American troops in Iraq for at least the next 50 years.

AlterNet decided to do what the American media wouldn't do and that was contact Iraqis to see what they thought about this idea. Their reaction was unequivocal: this idea sucks. Here is a quote from the article about the reaction of a pro-American member of the Iraqi government:

Sanger might have called Dr. Alaa Makki, a senior official in the reliably pro-occupation Iraqi Islamic Party, for his reaction. We reached him in Baghdad, and he was taken aback to hear of the talk coming out of the White House and the Pentagon. "I haven't heard about this," he said, "and I'm very surprised they'd make such statements without consulting with the Iraqi side." After asking us to send him copies of the statements made by the White House and the Pentagon, he told us that his party is "against leaving any permanent bases in Iraq; in fact, we are for setting a timetable for a complete withdrawal of the MNF from Iraq." That was, again, a representative of the pro-occupation Iraqi Islamic Party.

What this article points out is that the American news media sees the question of how long American troops should be in Iraq only from the perspective of Washington, never from the perspective of Iraqis. The article's authors have a theory about why this is so. Here is a quote from the article:

But they didn't make those calls, and that's an important part of how consent for throwing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars into an occupation of a distant land is manufactured here at home: It starts with the assumption that the story of the U.S. "intervention" in Iraq can be told by talking to military analysts and "senior administration officials" in D.C., but without ever hearing from the people living on the fringes of the American Empire. It not always intentional; it's a facet of our media culture: You talk to "serious" analysts in Washington if you want to be seen as serious yourself.

The media culture in America is partly responsible for the tough questions not being asked of Bush before he started this war. Now that same media culture is partly responsible for the tough questions not being asked of the Bush Administration as it continues that war. At least one American reporter should have asked Tony Snow this question: "What makes you think that the Iraqis want us to stay in Iraq for the next 50 years?"