Obama, the Old St. Louis Courthouse, & the Dred Scott Decision

A reader sent us this picture and the following text in a email message. We thought we would share it with our readers.


The picture above (link provided) is from today's Obama rally in St. Louis. I guess the eye is first drawn to the sheer number of people. Impressive, I agree. But that's not the point of this picture to a historian.

If you look in the distance there, you can see a building with a greenish-copper dome. That's the Old St. Louis Courthouse. For years and years, slaves were auctioned on the steps of that courthouse.


The Old Courthouse used to be called the St. Louis State and Federal Courthouse. Back in 1850, two escaped slaves named Dred and Harriett Scott had their petition for freedom overturned in a case there. Montgomery Blair took the case to the US Supreme Court on Scott's behalf and had Chief Justice Roger Taney throw it out because, as he wrote, the Scotts were 'beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relat ions, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'


I found it rather uplifting that, 158 years later, the man who will most likely be the first black US President was able to stand outside this very same courthouse and gather that crowd. Today, America looked back on one of the darkest moments in its history, and resoundingly told Judge Taney to go to hell.

The Barack Obama Thirty Minute Special

In case you missed it, here is the Barack Obama 30 minute special that was on Wednesday evening. It is well worth the time it takes to view it.

Former GOP Senator Backs Obama

The online publication Politco is reporting that former GOP Senator Larry Pressler voted for Barack Obama and donated $500.00 to his campaign. Pressler was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate. The reason he gave for backing Obama was the economy. Here is a quote from the article:

"I just got the feeling that Obama will be able to handle this financial crisis better, and I like his financial team of [former Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin and [former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul] Volcker better," he said. By contrast, John McCain's "handling of the financial crisis made me feel nervous."

You can read the rest of the Politco article here.

Barack Obama Stands and Delivers in Denver

Now, that was one hell of a speech. If you missed it last night, please take the time to view it now. You will not be disappointed.

McCain Blows Off Iraq's Prime Minister Comments About Withdrawal Timeline

One of the interesting questions is how the Republicans are going to handle the statements of the Iraqi Prime Minister and other officials about wanting a timeline for the withdrawal of American troops. These comments, as we pointed out earlier, pose a real problem for Bush and McCain. Apparently the Iraqis want a three to five year timeline for withdrawal of American troops. Obama wants a 16 month timeline. What neither wants is what McCain apparently wants, an endless presence of American troops in Iraq.

Apparently the Republican answer is simply to ignore the desires of the Iraq government that American troops have died to help establish. John McCain, on a morning news show, blew off the Prime Minister's comments with the following phrase:
"Prime Minister Maliki is a politician." Translation, "I am not going to do what he wants, I am going to do what I want."

In a report dated July 9, 2008, Bloomberg News Service reported that the Bush Administration is rejecting the Iraqi's government demand for a timeline for the withdrawal of American troops. This is a quote from the article: The U.S. government rejected calls by Iraq to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country and said the planned reduction in force levels will be dictated by conditions on the ground.

After we were told that the Iraq War was about weapons of mass destruction, we were then told that the purpose of the war was to establish a democratic state in Iraq. Apparently, however, that only works if Iraq's "democratic" government agrees with Bush, Cheney and McCain. If it actually wants to act like a soverign nation, then it has to first get clearance from the United States.

Political Junkies and Sport Fans

Politics and sports, especially team sports, have a lot in common. Both involve competition. Both are covered by journalists who love the activity but cannot, or will not, play the game. Both involve teams, and both are closely followed by people who believe that they know more than the professionals.

Most bloggers, even ones who follow politics closely, have never run for office and/or managed a campaign. They don't have the practical experience of people who have done both. This makes them very similar to sports fans. How often have you heard a friend who is a sports fanatic tell you how stupid a coach is, or a team's general manager, or a player, or how bad their decisions were or are?

The same is true, of course, among political junkies. Most of the bloggers who follow politics on the Internet are passionate about their opinions. They want their side to win. As mentioned above, though, they don't have the practical experience of actually doing politics as opposed to talking about politics.

This was brought to mind by this post by Arianna Huffington. Here's a woman who has never managed a political campaign, has only run for office one time herself, and was soundly beaten. She is presuming to give advice to Barack Obama whose team just beat the Clintons and who has both won and lost political campaigns. Which one would you trust when it comes to knowing how to get elected?

Obama's Decision on Public Financing Attacks Media's Influence

Most media outlets that have commented on Obama's decision to foresake public financing have expressed disapproval. The editorial that the Washington Post ran, entitled The Politics of Spare Change, is typical. Also typical was the comments made by Charles Gibson of ABC News on the nightly news program for June 20, 2008, when he wondered if Obama's decision was "unfair" and whether Americans would disapprove because American voters want a "level playing field." (Interestingly we have never heard of such sentiments from Gibson when Bush was raising millions of dollars to run in 2000 against his primary opponents, or when right-wing 527s were impugning Kerry's military service in 2004. Apparently he is only concerned when Democrats raise a lot of money to take on John McCain.)

So why does Obama's decision cause such media concern? The media would have you believe that it is because it is concerned about the influence of big money in the political system, and that may very well be, but there are other reasons. One of them is the fact that the more money that a presidential candidate can raise to get his or her message out, the less influence the media has in the election.

When presidential candidates are limited in the amount of money they can raise and spend, it makes "free" media more important. There is an incentive for candidates to court media representatives to try and get free publicity.

This is because a political campaign is really an advertising process. Candidates have a message they want voters to hear and, hopefully, approve. If they are limited in what they can raise and spend on "paid" media, then free media becomes more important. If, however, they aren't limited, then paid media takes on more importance and free media loses importance.

From a candidate's perspective, free media is always more problematic than paid media because the candidate has much less control over free media. Thus, while there is an incentive to get free media, it always comes with a risk.

Look at it this way: The media is in business to make money. Media representatives work for profit-making organizations. It helps their employers if there is less competition from political advertisers because it makes their product, political reporting, more valuable. It also plays into their sense of self-importance.

Obama's decision affects the media's power and influence. Of course they aren't going to like it, and of course, they are going to tell you that their concern has nothing to do with their loss of power. They can say that, but we don't have to believe it.

We Won't Be Swift-Boated Again

Barack Obama's decision not to accept public financing of his presidential campaign means that it will be much harder to Swift-Boat his campaign. The reason is that his campaign will have the resources to immediately respond and won't have to wait for Federal funds to be distributed between the time of his nomination and the time of the election.

In 2004 John Kerry agreed to accept Federal funding and, once he was nominated, couldn't spend the money he had raised for the primary campaign on television ads. He had to wait until the Federal Elections Commission distributed Federal funds to his campaign. Not suprisingly, that was the the exact time frame of the supposed independent group, "Swift-Boat Veterans for Truth" ran their ads.

Now, because of Obama's success in raising money, that kind of tactic will be much harder to duplicate. Now, if those kinds of ads are run, Obama will have the resources to quickly respond. This is just one more indication that he has learned the lessons of the 2000 and the 2004 campaigns.

Barack Obama's Nomination: The Democratic Party Comes Full Circle

From the time of its formation until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic Party was the political opponent of the African-American community. Its leaders championed slavery in the 1800s and helped start the Civil War over the issue. Its leaders, after the end of Reconstruction in 1876, dominated the states of the Old Confederacy and passed infamous Jim Crow laws. Laws that promoted segregation and deprived African-Americans of their political and civil rights.

Things started to change with the nomination of FDR. African-Americans in the north began voting for a Democrat for president for the first time in their political history. This trend continued at the 1948 Democratic convention with the adoption of a civil rights plank in the Democratic platform and the walk-out of several Southern delegates led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

Even in 1960, however, African-Americans were skeptical of the Democratic nominee for president. While Kennedy did get around 60% of the African-American vote, it took Lyndon B. Johnson and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to convince African-Americans they could trust the Democratic Party.

During that process, the Democratic Party lost its hold on the states of the Old Confederacy. It saw the Republicans repudiate their own past and go from being the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Ol' Strom Thurmond. In so doing, the Republicans won 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. The GOP won these elections by combining the 11 states of the Old Confederacy with the farm belt states and enough border and industrial midwest states to win the electoral college.

It was fitting that a Democratic President be the one to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed, given the fact that for most of the preceding 100 years, Democrats had been the party of white racists. It is also fitting, however, that the first African-American candidate for president nominated by a major political party be a Democrat. This is because, since 1968, the Democratic Party has done the most to advance the political power of African-Americans.

In about 100 years, the Democratic Party has gone from being the party of white racists to the party that embodies the hopes and aspirations of African-Americans. Now we will see whether it can get Barack Obama elected president.

This is Momentum?

Since March 1, 2008, there have been 12 primaries. During that period Clinton has won eight primaries while Obama has only won four. If you are an Obama supporter, this is not exactly how you wanted the primaries to end.

Information listed below was obtained from www.cnn.com. Only primaries in which both Clinton and Obama appeared on the ballot were counted. Florida fits into that category while Michigan does not.

If Clinton Loses, It Won't Be Only About Sexism

Campaigns are emotional things, not only for the candidates, but also for their supporters. When you invest time and/or money in supporting a candidate, and that candidate loses, it hurts. When the candidate is running for the presidency, a vote that political commentator Mark Shields once called "the most emotional vote in American politics", it hurts more. So it is understandable that Clinton's supporters are not happy with what seems to be her probable defeat for the Democratic nomination.

The bitter feelings were probably inevitable when the two front-runners for the Democratic nomination became Obama and Clinton. African-American voters have been, since 1964, the most reliable demographic group of voters in the Democratic coalition. They vote usually around 90% for the Democratic presidential nominee.

White women are the next most reliable group in the coalition. A lot of party activists are women. They do the work that makes the party competitive in a lot of races.

An Obama/Clinton confrontation meant that the historic opportunity for one of these groups to elect a president was going to be lost. Further, it could mean the loss of an opportunity that won't come again for a long, long time. Right now it is hard to imagine either an African-American candidate or a woman candidate for the presidential nomination that will have the opportunities that Obama and Clinton had this year.

Given all of that, it is understandable that Clinton's supporters are looking for an explanation for her possible loss. A lot of them blame sexism, especially from the media and also from the Democratic Party's leadership.

There is no doubt that in many cases Hillary Clinton has been treated in a condescending and sexist manner by the national media. There is also no doubt that Obama, like Clinton, has made comments that were inappropriate and unfortunate. Those two things don't mean, however, that Obama wins are only about sexism.

Here's what's not sexist. It wasn't sexism that made Hillary Clinton vote for the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. It wasn't sexism that made her campaign ignore the states that have caucuses instead of primaries. It wasn't sexism that allowed Obama's campaign to do a better job of mastering the rules of the Democratic Party, as this article points out. It wasn't sexism that caused her to allow Mark Penn to establish control of her message until it was almost too late. It wasn't sexism that made her make remarks about her appeal to "hard-working Americans, white Americans", comments that seemed to suggest that only "white Americans" are hard working. It wasn't sexism that made her talk about being under sniper fire in Bosnia or about the RFK assassination. It wasn't sexism that caused hundred of thousands of Obama's supporters to make small donations to help fund his candidacy.

The fact of the matter is that Obama ran a much better campaign than Clinton, which is why he has won more delegates than Clinton. She started out with more money, more support among elected Democrats and among Democratic Party leaders, better name recognition, and the advantage of having been through two national campaigns, plus a campaign in a very populous state. She also had a very dedicated group of volunteers supporting her. Even with all those advantages, however, she couldn't close the deal with Democratic primary voters. The cause of that failure lies more with her decisions than with sexism in the media or in politics.

Results of HIllary Clinton Survey

MCDAC readers responded to our survey on whether Hillary Clinton should drop out following the results of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. Our readers voted 56.1% to 43% that she should drop out. Less than 1% of those responding didn't vote. Below are some comments by our readers:

If she were considering the best interest of the country she would have already. No chance to win without foul play.

never give up

The delegate math says it is near impossible for her to win the nomination. For the sake of the party, she needs to gracefully step aside.

With as much grace as she can and start supporting Obama.

She fought the good fight, now it's time to exit and stop wasting money on a campaign she can't win.

Hillary Clinton is best qualified to beat John McCain and correct the ills that permeate this nation and lead this country to our former glory.

Keep voting for Clinton

I just cannot vote for Obama

Hillary has almost no chance and has damaged the democratic party with her negative comments and ads. She should drop out the sooner the better.

stay in there till the last dogs dead
i'm foh hillary, shes best for for the job
quit hounding her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She is not presidential material and has no experience in global affairs. Only knows old
Washington politics. Not a creative thinker.

Hillary Clinton is the only one who can beat McCain !

Her husband efficiently balanced the budget, she will also. So fear an October surprize: his VP sellection? Gov. Richardson, a loser choice.

This fun to watch, keep the battle going, helps keep money spent now!

It really doesn't matter. Once again the D's have come up with two unelectable candidates. Either will be toast in November.

She made a valiant attempt, but it is time to go. She should go back to the Senate and take over as Majority Leader.

As her campaign grows more futile, she becomes more and more combative and ugly. Time to quit.

The situation is getting ridiculous. I feel pity for her. She seems obsessed.

We need to get this party united behind one great candidate. Let's stop picking on ourselves.

I wouldn't care if Hillary and Obama both dropped out of the race, human or otherwise.

I support Hillary it but appears the numbers are against her. Hillary needs to see the light and Obama to realize Hillary will guarantee his election

She should have dropped out long ago.

No way, Jose.If all votes are counted Hillary will win. We don't want to be short-changed or have a quick-change artist. We need Hillary.

It's time for Democrats to avoid attacks on each other, and to concentrate on exposing what can be expected from a continuation of the Bush policies.

We need to rally around our nominee now and focus on beating John McCain in November.

As much as I want her as our nominee, I don't think she is going to win. I believe our party needs to come together now or we may lose in November.

This is a hard one, but Obama seems destined. I just hope he can beat whiney McCain. An Obama-Hillary ticket might ensure that.

Enough of this we need one candidate

Sadly, she should so that the dems can begin campaigning to win the White House in November.

It's over, and she needs to face it.

I still think she is more trustworthy than Obama. I'll vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination. A vote for McCain is more of the same.

We have much work to do to unify the party and focus our energy on McCain and the General Election.

don't know what she expects to gain by staying, the contest is over. rush's dittoheads have propped her up lately but won't be there in november.

She's doing too much harm, seeming self-righteous, but injecting nastiness and divisiveness into this campaign.

She should drop out for the good of the party, although I doubt if that concerns her. She's entitled to the presidency, dammit! Bill promised her.


She is too polarizing to win in Nov. Obama has a much better chance in the general election. Waiting until August only benefits the Republican party.


Let them fight it out at the convention.


It's history in the making. A woman president and
a Democrat too boot. WOW


Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, hey hey hey, goodbye


But that would require her to care about someone other than herself.


Both are needed down to the wire. They may yet realize they need to give specifics and the cost of their platforms so Democrats have a real choice.


If she is honest about her desire to serve her party and nation, now is the time for her to say she and her supporters fought the good fight.


I want a woman in the White House. I continue to support her.


It is time to put things back together for the general election.


YES. YES. YES! She's destroying our Party and alienating Independents who are willing to vote for Obama.


I don't think she will, but I would very much appreciate it.


Vice President is not a bad thing. Look at Cheney -- he's been running the country for the past seven years.


She is better than Obama,she has more experiance than him and is better qualified for the job of running this country and she believes in GOD.........


Hell no! Her victories have come in big states we need to win. Obama wins only in small states or caucuses. Hillary is better candidate.


she only divides the party and helps the republicans. that is why russ limbaugh is supporting her.


Unless she can get committed super-delegates to reverse themselves, the result is a mathematical certainty.







Continue until she wins the White House!

I don't like Obama. In fact I can't even imagine us having a black President nor a black family in the White House. It isn't that I am prejudice.

It has been close , it will continue to be close, which can impact policy decisions and choices at the convention. we deserve a complete process.

She is a former Republican and a waffler.

This needs to be done in a manner that facilitates the unification of the Democratic part.

NO, HELL NO!

She should concede but be proud of what she accomplished. Obama should pick her as his running mate; Obama/Clinton ticket would be unstoppable.

Hell, no, she shouldn't go.

This should be a mute questions ~ she should have already dropped out.

I have been a Hilary supporter since day one, but things have not gone her way. We need a Democrat to win this election! Barack is our hope.

She is obviously a poor sport and a non team player. Why is she so hell bent on staying in? What is her hidden agenda? I do not trust her.

But it surely is much more interesting with her in there fighting and keeping McCain off the front page.

please. drp out. the majority of democrats want change.

We need Obama to unite the party. Hillary is polarizing - and mean.

There's a deeper agenda here. A Wellesley/Yale grad can easily read the tea leaves and still she remains. Battle for the party, maybe?

The race is too close to call. Should be more fun for the convention delegates to go beyond the 1st ballot.

ABSOLUTELY STAY IN THE RACE!I am so tired that the media and powers-that-be have been trying to push her out from the get-go.

My concern is that alot of Black people voted
for Obama simply because of his color. I think
Hillary should stay in and fight to the end.

Her own political future has more potential if she steps down gracefully now.

Her words and actions in the past weeks have shown her to be a politician of the old school--do anything to stay in office.

Hillary should immediately drop out UNLESS she can make a credible case, with real numbers, that she still has a chance to be nominated.

I applaud Barack & Hillary for engaging many new voters. Finish all 50 states, let the voter's voices be heard, even if she can't win the nomination.

News Coverage of Bush's Torture and Obama's Bitterness

If you go to the Google "News" page and type in the search words "Bush Torture", you will get about 4032 search results. If you type in the words "Obama bitter" you will get about 7796 search results. This gives you a rough idea of how much play Obama's ill-chosen remarks in San Fransico are getting compared to the fact that the President' of the United States may have personally authorized interrogation methods that are considered by the U.S. military to be torture.

Now, of course, there are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is that both the Clinton campaign and the McCain campaign are pushing Obama's remarks. If, for example, you add the word "Clinton" to the search terms "Obama bitter", the search results number 7118, whereas if you add "Clinton" to "Bush torture", you get 548 results. Adding the word "McCain" to the words "Obama bitter" and you get 5536 results. Add the same word to "Bush torture" and you get 544 results. This is a rough way of showing that both McCain and Clinton are going after Obama on his remarks. As any school kid will tell you, being in a fight where two are ganged up on one is no fun and, usually, the one loses the fight.

Apparently Clinton has decided that the way to get the nomination is to run the same kind of campaign against Obama that McCain will run against him in the fall: Push the theme that Obama is not really like "us", whoever "us" happens to be. This is the same theme that was used by Republicans against George McGovern in 1972; Walter Mondale in 1984; Micheal Dukakis in 1988; Al Gore in 2000; and John Kerry in 2004. It obviously works for Republicans. Whether it works for a Democrat to use against another Democrat is open to debate, but we will see.

Of course, one reason why it works is that the media never calls a candidate on its use. The media didn't point out in 2000 and 2004 that good ole' George W. Bush was the product of an upper-class upbringing whose father and friends bailed him out of every problem he ever encountered and who made millions off of Texas baseball by being a president's son.

Clinton might also get away with it. Run the words "Clinton millionaire" and you get about 119 search results. So, apparently, the media isn't going out and reminding voters that Clinton is a very wealthy person.

All of this is not to say that I think that Obama's remarks are not subjects of legitimate political debate. Since Republicans are certainly going to use them in the fall, we might as well see how it plays in the spring. I also happen to think that Bill Clinton's support of NAFTA and his activities with Monica Lewinksy are also legitimate subjects of political debate, and for the same reason. Republicans are going to use them in the fall and we might as well see how they also play in the spring.

The solution for Obama isn't to play defense, it is to play offense. What Obama should do is run a 30 second spot in both Pennslyvania and Indiana that says something like "I don't need to be lectured on elitism by a woman whose husband shipped millions of good jobs to Mexico by supporting NAFTA and who has made millions out of being married to that same man." My guess is that about a week of those ads would go a long way to stopping Clinton's use of his San Fransico remarks.

Why Obama Should Reject Public Financing

One of the debates shaping up between the McCain camp and the Obama campaign is whether the two candidates should take public financing. Obama signed a statement last year in which he stated that if the Republican candidate took public financing, so would he. McCain, who is at a tremendous fundraising disadvantage compared to Obama, has already said he would take such financing. Obama, however, who has shown a potential to raise literally hundreds of millions of dollars, is balking.

McCain intends to use Obama's reluctance to now take public financing if both of them are the nominees as a campaign issue. The media will help him. The reason why the media will help him is that the less candidates have to spend on their campaigns, the more important the media becomes. This is because if they had less money for paid media to get out their message, the more Obama and McCain would have to rely on free media. Free media, in the form of newspaper articles and electronic broadcasts, are controlled by the large corporations that dominate our nation's media. So it is not just their civic duty that leads news corporations such as the Washington Post to demand that Obama take public financing.

Obama is trying out a new argument to justify not taking public financing. He is pointing out that the Internet has created a whole new system of "public" financing because relatively small donors can help candidates raise millions of dollars online. This is a good argument, but there is a better one.

Obama should simply say that he is not going to allow the Republicans to "swift-boat" him like they did John Kerry. If they try, he is going to have the resources and the will to fight back. Then, he ought to point out how Fox News used the whole controversy over Rev. Wright's comments in a sermon given a relatively long time ago to attack his patriotism. He could also point out that given the reluctance of the American news media to denounce lies spread by other media organizations, he has to have enough money to beat back such attacks. When asked what has changed since he signed the agreement last year, he can point to Fox's coverage of the whole Rev. Wright situation.

Now, that also won't convince the news media, but we think it sounds better to the average voter and also makes the media aware of its own complicity in such attacks. One thing that he cannot do is give in to the pressure to accept public financing. Democrats are going to need every advantage they can get to beat John McCain, especially given his support among the news media.

New Ohio SurveyUSA Poll Shows Clinton Doing Better Than Obama Against McCain

SurveyUSA has a new poll out that shows Clinton beating McCain in Ohio while Obama loses to McCain in Ohio. The results make sense when you consider that in the recent Ohio Democratic Presidential Primary, Obama only carried four counties: Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamiliton, and Montgomery. He lost other large counties including Lucas, Lorain, Summit, and Mahoning. This poll is also consistent with other SurveyUSA polls showing that he has also lost ground in Missouri and Kentucky.

While winning Kentucky is not essential for Democrats, winning either Missouri or Ohio would be extremely helpful in winning the electoral college vote this fall. The last two elections have been very close in the electoral college and in both elections Bush carried both states. If Democrats had carried Ohio in either 2000 or 2004, Bush would have lost those elections. If Democrats had carried Missouri in 2000, Bush would have lost that election. If Democrats could carry both states in 2008, it would be impossible for McCain to win the electoral college, assuming that the other states break the way they did in 2000 or 2004.

These polls show that the controversy over Rev. Wright's sermons are hurting Obama with white voters. Whether the damage is permanent is another question. It will be interesting to see if polls taken after Obama's speech in Philadelphia show him bouncing back.

View and Read Obama Speech on America and Race

The Obama campaign has posted both the text of his speech on race given yesterday and it has also posted a video clip of his speech. It is a very powerful speech. It addresses the issue of race in America. It deals with his background as the product of both the white and black culture in America. It is well worth the time it takes to both watch the speech and also read it online. It can be viewed here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords

Rasmussen Reports Running Daily Presidential Primary Tracking Polls

Rasmussen Reports are running daily presidential primary tracking polls and posting them online. The daily poll on the Democratic Presidential primary vote is showing a definite tightening of the race between Clinton and Obama. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wonders if this is the first evidence of the effect that the revelations about the retiring pastor of Barack Obama's church are having on the race.

Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Makes Case for Clinton Being the Stronger Candidate

Jonathon V. Last is a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist who has a column called "One Last Thing" in that paper. A reader recently sent us a link to a column in the Sunday, March 9, 2008 paper in which he makes the argument that Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate that Democrats can nominate to run against John McCain.

Here is the essense of his argument:

Obama's support comes in large part from reliably Republican states such as Idaho, Utah, Georgia and South Carolina. Democrats have no chance in those states come November. Meanwhile, Clinton will have won at least eight of the 11 largest states, including must-win battleground states such as Florida and Ohio (and Pennsylvania).

Remember, too, that Obama's coalition is composed of more reliably Democratic base voters: African Americans, voters making over $100,000, and young voters. These are groups that Democratic candidates carry most easily. If Clinton is the nominee, she can take these groups for granted.

By contrast, Clinton's coalition - women, older voters, whites making less than $50,000, Catholics, Hispanics - would be McCain swing voters in a race against Obama. Obama hasn't been successful in wooing those voters yet, so it's unclear why anyone would believe he will finally carry them (and then defend them from a very appealing McCain) in November.

In other words, if you look at the underlying fundamentals of the race, and not just the theoretical polls, Clinton can make a strong case that she is the candidate better suited to challenging McCain and winning the White House

Of course, his argument assumes that Clinton holds the African-American vote and the vote from younger voters. It may be that an increasingly bitter primary could erode her support among those two voting blocks. Still, the argument is an interesting one and is well worth the time to read it.

Are Clinton's Attacks on Obama Destroying Dem's Chances if Obama Wins Nomination?

A friend of ours sent this article that appears on the New Republic's website. Entitled "Go Already", the author, Jonathon Chait, makes the argument that the campaign Clinton is waging against Obama will really hurt the Democrats' chances of winning the White House if he is the nominee.

This is from the article:

That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would need to win with superdelegates. But, with most superdelegates already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining ones by a margin of better than two to one. And superdelegates are going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate lead the size of Obama's. The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her. Hence her flurry of attacks, her oddly qualified response as to whether Obama is a Muslim ("not as far as I know"), her repeated suggestions that John McCain is more qualified.

He makes the argument that if she spends seven weeks attacking him in Pennslyvania, a swing state in the fall, it will hurt his chances of winning that state in November. He raises the question of whether the Republican Party could have carried Florida in 2000 if someone had spent seven weeks attacking Bush that spring. Here is how Chait puts it:

Imagine in 2000, or 2004, that George W. Bush faced a primary fight that came down to Florida (his November must-win state). Imagine his opponent decided to spend seven weeks pounding home the theme that Bush had a dangerous plan to privatize Social Security. Would this have improved Bush's chances of defeating the Democrats? Would his party have stood for it?

A problem that Clinton has is that, in the past, the Clintons have appeared willing to jeopardize Democratic chances of winning elections if it meant that they would win themselves. Robert Reich wrote a recent article for AlterNet in which he laid this tendency right at the doorstep of Hillary Clinton. Here is how he put it:

I suppose I should not be surprised. If Hillary Clinton has experience in anything, it's in fighting when cornered. When Bill Clinton lost his governorship, it was Hillary Clinton who commissioned Dick Morris to advise the Clintons on a no-holds-barred campaign to retake the governor's mansion. At the start of 1995, when Newt Gingrich and company took over Congress and the Clinton administration looked in danger of becoming irrelevant, it was Hillary Clinton who installed Dick Morris in the White House, along with his sidekick Mark Penn, to "triangulate" by distancing Bill Clinton from the Democratic Party and moving the Administration rightward. (When Morris was subsequently discovered to have a penchant for the toes of prostitutes the White House dumped him but kept Penn on.) And now Mark Penn is the "chief strategist" of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Like Chait, he also points out the harm such a "scorched earth" policy could cause:

The sad news is that whether the Clinton scorched-earth strategy ultimately succeeds or fails, it will have caused great harm. In the unlikely event it succeeds, the result will be a shame and not a little ironic. Barack Obama has breathed life into the Democratic Party, and into American politics, for the first time in forty years. Not since Robert Kennedy ran for president has America been so starkly summoned to its ideals; not since then has America -- including, especially, the nation’s youth -- been so inspired.

The Clintons would prefer to write off Obamania as a passing fad, but the reality is that idealism and inspiration are necessary preconditions for positive social change. Nothing happens in Washington unless Americans are energized and mobilized to make it happen. Hillary Clinton's tactics are the old politics the nation is recoiling from -- internal division and national fear. This only serves to deepen Americans' cynicism about politics, and makes social change all the harder to achieve.

There is a tendency among some Clinton supporters to write off any criticism of her, especially if it is made by men. Reich, however, is a former Secretary of Labor for Bill Clinton and Jonathon Chait is no left-wing crazy. When people like Reich and Chait start suggesting that Clinton's campaign style is doing more harm than good, it is time to listen.

All of this is not to say we believe that Clinton should drop out. She has a right to campaign for President up and until Obama gets enough committed delegates to clinch the nomination. What she doesn't have the right to do is damage the Democratic Party's chances of winning in the fall. This election is too important to some of the most vulnerable members of our society for her to take that approach.

Clinton Wins Medina County in Primary

Hillary Clinton took Medina County last night, winning the country by a margin of 19845 to 12319. In percentage terms, as between Obama and Clinton, Clinton won the county by a margin of 61.6% to 38.4%.

Medina County is in two Congressional districts, the 13th and the 16th. The 13th district part of Medina County is composed of Hinckley, Brunswick, Brunswick Hills Township, and Liverpool Township. Clinton won that part of the county by a vote of 64.61% to 33.95%. She won the 16th district part of the county by a margin of 58.59% to 39.72%. (The Medina County Board of Elections counted votes for John Edwards in both parts of the county.)

This is a pretty impressive win for Clinton in Medina County considering that in two presidential campaigns her husband never carried Medina County.