Able Archer

Christopher Lasch on image and policy

“Success in our society has to be ratified by publicity. The tycoon who lives in personal obscurity, the empire builder who controls the destinies of nations from behind the scenes, are vanishing types. Even nonelective officials, ostensibly preoccupied with questions of high policy, have to keep themselves constantly on view; all politics becomes a form of spectacle. It is well known that Madison Avenue packages politicians and markets them as if they were cereals or deodorants; but the art of public relations penetrates even more deeply into political life, transforming policy making itself. The modern prince does not much care that “there’s a job to be done”—the slogan of American capitalism at an earlier and more enterprising stage of its development; what interests him is that “relevant audiences,” in the language of the Pentagon Papers, have to be cajoled, won over, seduced. He confuses successful completion of the task at hand with the impression he makes or hopes to make on others. Thus American officials blundered into the war in Vietnam because they could not distinguish the country’s military and strategic interests from “out reputation as a guarantor,” as one of them put it. More concerned with the trappings than with the reality of power, they convinced themselves that failure to intervene would damage American “credibility.” They borrowed the rhetoric of games theory to dignify their obsession with appearances, arguing that American policy in Vietnam had to address itself to “the relevant ‘audiences’ of U.S. actions”—the communists, the South Vietnamese, “our allies (who must trust us as ‘underwriters’),” and the American public.”

—Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1978)

More Obama innuendo

Is Hillary Clinton’s campaign responsible for circulating this photo of Barack Obama?

Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson says no (well, kind of, maybe, no):

Asked if the campaign had any role, Wolfson said, "No, not to my knowledge...I've never seen that picture before. I'm not aware that anyone else here has. I'm not aware that anyone here has circulated this e-mail."

It’s almost impossible to say at this point what happened. Even if you take Wolfson at his word, the Clinton campaign is thousands-strong, including full-time staffers, volunteers in every state, and surrogates in all sorts of elected and unelected political positions—and any one of them could be behind this without the executive-level staff and advisers knowing.

Whoever is responsible for circulating the photograph, though, had a very clear statement: this Obama is not like us.

It needs to be said this is pure nonsense. First of all, Congressional and executive branch delegations (the photo is apparently from a 2006 trip Obama made to Africa as a Senator) regularly engage in this sort of ceremony. Trading tokens of local culture is a diplomatic tradition which probably goes back to the first Homo sapiens taking a walk and finding another settlement of Homo sapiens.

Take a look at some of these photos:

That’s President Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Hu Jintao dressed in Vietnamese robes during an official visit to that country. Does this prove Bush is a secret Buddhist? Or Viet Cong? No, I don’t think you can draw either of those conclusions.

Here’s Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wearing a scarf over her head during a trip to Syria. Surely, if her sympathies are suspect…

Than so are President Bush’s, who is seen here laughing with an Arab and holding a sword.

Barack Obama is not a Muslim, no matter how many times Michelle Malkin insists it is so. I love how writers such as Malkin get to trade attitudes according to the latest petty scandal they are writing about. When a Republican is accused of something, all of a sudden Malkin finds her gumshoes and becomes determined to get to the bottom of the rumors and innuendoes and find the hard rock of truth. Then something like this comes up, and she’s eleven years old again: no matter how obvious it is she’s wrong, no matter how much contrary proof is offered to her to show she’s wrong, she thinks she’s right, because, you know, his name is Barack Obama… what the hell kind of a name is that? What a horrible life for a mind.

The intentional ignorance is astounding. Right now, my favorite thing is the way all the right-wing blogs are saying Obama is wearing “Muslim garb.” How stupid can you be? I thought these people were all experts on Islamofascism. Well, have they ever seen Ayman al-Zawahiri in an outfit like that? What about Ayatollah Khameini. No, they haven’t, because in the photo Obama is wearing clothing very specific to a certain part of Africa, and the reason he is wearing it is because that is where he is. You see, Bush and Obama have something in common: they both follow diplomatic protocol and gracefully accept the ceremonies they are made part of as representatives of the United States of America. To do less would be a real scandal.

If Obama was a white politician we wouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense. But because he’s black, and has a foreign-sounding name, the media repeats any libel about Obama and Islam and acts as though it is all part of due-diligence. It is not; it is abetting nativist slander. Obama is the most purely American political leader in a very long time. He used his mind and his natural energy and charisma not simply to build his own advantage, but to help his community and now his country. He rose from obscurity to be a leader, and in my lifetime he is the first such person who I feel is working not for his own glorification but rather to leave the country better off than he found it as a young man. His story is a microcosm of the American ideal.

The is nothing wrong with the photograph of Obama in Somalia. To me it shows he will be a dignified representative of his country to any part of the world. But the message implicit in the way the photograph was circulated today by a political rival—sotto voce and with a wink about this Obama fellow—is poison. If the Clinton campaign is responsible for this, whomever in the organization had knowledge of the plan to circulate the photo in such a way should no longer be hired by Democratic politicians. I think anyone with regard for that party would agree. If Clinton herself was aware of this, and approved it, I do not think I would be able to vote for her should she become the Democratic nominee. I see the difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party as clear as black and white, but there is no difference between a Republican leading by fear and hate and a Democrat doing the same.

Update

This photo is the strongest proof to date Obama is a secret cattle rustler:

Second Update

One more point on this topic. Implicit in all the whispering about Obama's supposed foreignness is that the man has something to hide, even if it isn't quite something so big as the right-wing margins of American politics seem to hope. But pause for a second and take a look at Obama's background. He has been a public person for his entire professional life. He was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was a professor at the University of Chicago law school, one of the best in the country. He was a community organizer in Chicago and was elected to the Illinois Senate.

Soon after, he was recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (at the time, headed by then-Senator and present New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine) to run for an open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, which was vacated by Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Although his Republican opponent's campaign infamously burned out and Obama ended up routing replacement-candidate Alan Keyes—who was actually a resident of Maryland until days before he announced his candidacy—when the DCCC recruited Obama to run, it had every reason to think he would be in for a tough campaign. If this is true, then presumably the DCCC did its homework and found nothing in Obama's past that would prevent him from running a statewide campaign in moderate-to-conservative Illinois. (Remember, his first book, Dreams from My Father, in which Obama unabashedly describes his origins and youth, was published in 1995)

As hard as it is for some people to imagine, it is more than likely Barack Hussein Obama is just another regular American Joe. It could be that the only way he's different than the great American rabble is that most of its members aren't smart and hard-working enough to do all the things he has in his young life.

—Douglas Carlucci

Corporate lobbyists run McCain campaign

The Washington Post explains the McCain campaign's connection to several prominent lobbyists.

The best part:

But even as [McCain chief political adviser Charles R.] Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.[Emphasis mine.]

So, while Mr. Black conducts his lobbying business from the campaign bus of the Republican candidate for President, he expects people to believe his lobbying career and his campaign work do not overlap? I guess he would say, Well, they don't know I'm on the bus. Rather a feeble excuse, considering he told the Washington Post about it. I suppose this wouldn't be quite such a big deal if the bus wasn't called the "Straight Talk Express."

—Douglas Carlucci

Money problems for McCain

John McCain has a big problem with the Federal Election Commission.

The Washington Post reports:

The nation's top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.

The prospect of being financially hamstrung by the very fundraising system he helped create is the latest in a series of bitter challenges for the presumed GOP nominee, who still faces a fractured conservative coalition as he assumes the mantle of party leadership. ...

But McCain's attempts to build up his campaign coffers before a general election contest appeared to be threatened by the stern warning yesterday from Federal Election Commission Chairman David M. Mason, a Republican. Mason notified McCain that the commission had not granted his Feb. 6 request to withdraw from the presidential public financing system.

The implications of that could be dramatic. Last year, when McCain's campaign was starved for cash, he applied to join the financing system to gain access to millions of dollars in federal matching money. He was also permitted to use his FEC certification to bypass the time-consuming process of gathering signatures to get his name on the ballot in several states, including Ohio.

By signing up for matching money, McCain agreed to adhere to strict state-by-state spending limits and an overall limit on spending of $54 million for the primary season, which lasts until the party's nominating convention in September. The general election has a separate public financing arrangement.

But after McCain won a series of early contests and the campaign found its financial footing, his lawyer wrote to the FEC requesting to back out of the program -- which is permitted for candidates who have not yet received any federal money and who have not used the promise of federal funding as collateral for borrowing money.

Mason's letter raises two issues as the basis for his position. One is that the six-member commission lacks a quorum, with four vacancies because of a Senate deadlock over President Bush's nominees for the seats. Mason said the FEC would need to vote on McCain's request to leave the system, which is not possible without a quorum. Until that can happen, the candidate will have to remain within the system, he said.

The second issue is more complicated. It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan. While McCain's aides have argued that the campaign was careful to make sure that they technically complied with the rules, Mason indicated that the question needs further FEC review.

If the FEC refuses McCain's request to leave the system, his campaign could be bound by a potentially debilitating spending limit until he formally accepts his party's nomination. His campaign has already spent $49 million, federal reports show. Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.

"If in fact he is stuck with these spending limits, it would be a serious limitation on what he can do," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Finance experts compared the situation to the massive imbalance faced by Republican presidential nominee Robert J. Dole in 1996, when he was forced to contend with spending limits while his opponent, President Bill Clinton, was not.

Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who is McCain's top lawyer, immediately disputed the assertions in Mason's letter, saying McCain has a constitutional right to exit the federal program. He also dismissed the letter as unenforceable because the FEC lacks a quorum to resolve the dispute.

"We believe that Senator McCain had a clear legal right to withdraw from the primary matching fund system, and he has done so," Potter told the Associated Press. "No FEC action was or is required for withdrawal."

Campaign finance experts were split on how serious the FEC position could become. But several agreed that the matter would not be resolved by McCain simply ignoring the letter and plowing ahead.

"It's nice for Trevor Potter to say 'Buzz off,' but the campaign is going to have to respond," said Bradley Smith, a former FEC chairman.

"This is serious," agreed Republican election lawyer Jan Baran. Ignoring the matter on the grounds that the FEC lacks a quorum, Baran said, "is like saying you're going to break into houses because the sheriff is out of town."

This is a very big problem for McCain. He has to chose between curtailing his campaign until the Republican National Convention and breaking his agreement based on a very dubious premise: there's no one presently able to stop him from breaking the agreement. One of the big themes of McCain's political career is clean government and playing by the rules. This is a particularly inauspicious way to start the most important political campaign of his life. McCain is having trouble with the system of laws he wrote and to which his name is attached. He can't quite blame the "liberal media" for this one.

Update

Today is a bad day for McCain. After denying the substance of this Times story, Newsweek uncovers a deposition by McCain from 2002 contradicting the senator's denial:

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

One of the consequences of the media's slavishness toward McCain—no matter what he does, he'll always be a "maverick"—is that, really, we don't know too much about him. In a lot of ways, the McCain narrative doesn't add up. He's the scourge of big-money politics, yet his campaign manager is a lobbyist. He's a fiery opponent of perks for legislators, yet he's flown on a few corporate jets. Would not a lone wolf fly coach?

I think we're beginning to see McCain's biggest vulnerability as a politician: he's not nearly as pure as he's insisted he is, and he seems frequently overwhelmed by strong criticism. It was particularly foolish to deny something he had admitted to in a deposition. You'd think a Republican would know something like that could get you into big trouble.

Second Update

I get the feeling John McCain will rue this day. According to Reuters, he's not going to listen to the FEC:

[A]t a campaign stop in Indiana, McCain replied with a dismissive "no" when asked if he was concerned by the FEC's letter.

"It's not a decision. It's an opinion, according to our people," he said. ...

McCain opted out of the system earlier this month because he has nearly reached the FEC's $54 million spending cap for the primary season and expects to raise more money.

But FEC Chairman David Mason told McCain the commission may not approve the Arizona senator's request because four of the commission's six seats remain unfilled due to a standoff between the Senate and President George W. Bush.

Mason also said the FEC needs to review whether the terms of McCain's bank loan might have violated commission guidelines by pledging its expected matching funds as collateral. He asked for a reply by March 7.

The reason the FEC can do nothing, as the Post article explains, is that the Senate is refusing a request by President Bush to approve his nominees for the commission in a single vote. The commission now has only two members and it needs a quorum of four to act. The Senate wants to vote on each nominee because one, Hans von Spakovsky, previously worked for the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section, and several Democratic Senators, including Barack Obama and Russ Feingold, allege that his work in that office was focused on disenfranchising certain voters, rather than enforcing election laws. Spakovsky is also an opponent of the financing laws he would be responsible for enforcing.

McCain seems to be betting this situation will continue. He has already been rebuked by the commission's chairman, who is a Republican, and it would seem if the commission were to act, it would decide against McCain because he is very clearly contravening at least the spirit of the laws.

—Douglas Carlucci

McCain and lobbyists

The Times has an interesting article today on John McCain's relationships with lobbyists and influence-peddlers during his Congressional career. It includes the story of McCain and the Keating Five.

—Douglas Carlucci

We're desperate, get used to it

Barack Obama appears to have beaten Clinton by 17 points in the Wisconsin primary.

Yesterday, the Clinton campaign accused Obama of plagiarism. That didn’t work. Usually for a charge such as that to stick, the cheated writer has to feel, well, cheated. Obama was accused of stealing from his friend and ally Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts—who promptly and rightly dismissed the slander.

The accusation was more interesting for what it revealed about Clinton’s immediate strategy than for its substance. The plan, it seems, is to throw as much shit as possible to see what sticks to Obama.

It’s a pathetic strategy. I’m not naïve about politics; I know it’s a zero-sum game where you either win or go home, and no politician likes to go home. This is, however, a unique time for the Democratic Party. It is coming out of a span of eight years in which the opposition party, with the full support of its president, attempted to do everything possible to slander and discredit Democrats. The consequences for the country have been devastating. In this context, I question Clinton’s sincerity. If she’s really as upset with the Republican machine as the rest of the Democrats, why not show some grace, some notion that the party she is working for is worth more than her ultimate ambition? After all, if she loses to Obama, she won’t be exiled; she’ll go back to being the popular and powerful junior Senator from New York. That’s not so bad.

I like Hillary Clinton. I’m no fan of Bill, but I like Hillary. I did not vote for her this time, but, as I’ve said, I would (still) vote for her in the general election. But her conduct in the last few days has lowered my opinion of her. My complaint with Bill is that he always put himself before anything else. I had hoped Hillary would be more mature.

Et cetera

If you’ve noticed the new design, I hope you like it. I’ve had a hard time since I started this site finding a design I liked enough to stick with for more than a week, but I think this will the site’s look for a while.

Also, this is the ninety-ninth post at Able Archer, which means tomorrow’s first post will be the 100th Post! We’ll have a look back at Able Archer’s triumphs and controversies, as well as special guests John McCain; Barack Obama; the “Iron Lady,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; Tagg Romney; Regis Philbin; and funnyman Don Rickles.

—Douglas Carlucci

Clinton's desperation

Hillary Clinton’s chief spokesman, Howard Wolfson, called Barack Obama a “plagiarist” today. The charge: Obama uses some of the same phrases as his friend and supporter, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

Mike Allen of The Politico writes:

Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters.

On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”

"When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader," said Wolfson.

Obama closely echoed a passage from a speech that Deval Patrick, now the Massachusetts governor, used at a campaign rally when he was running for that office in 2006.

The Clinton campaign circulated a pair of YouTube links of the two speeches on Sunday.

Here's Patrick at a rally for his gubernatorial campaign on Oct. 15, 2006, during the final stretch of his successful campaign against then-Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R):

“But her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is that all I have to offer is words — just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, [applause and cheers] that all men are created equal.’ [Sustained applause and cheers.] Just words – just words! ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words! ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words!”

Here’s Obama on Saturday night at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Founders Day Gala in Milwaukee:

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words! [Applause.] ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”

The New York Times also ran with the story today.

I think, as they say, Hillary Clinton has “jumped the shark.” I know that phrase is a little passé—but I’ve never used it before and it came immediately to mind when I read this.

Did she (or Wolfson) think: finally, we’ve got Obama pinned as a fraud! Are they so delusional? Moreover, Clinton has made it a point to crib some of Obama’s applause lines, as his campaign organization pointed out: “fired up and ready to go” and “Yes we can.”

Obama is something more than another candidate. He has come to embody the desire among a lot of people to atone for the criminal failures and paranoid malice of the two Bush administrations. Not many of those people are likely to be swayed by more paranoid malice.

If the Clinton campaign has been good at anything in recent weeks, it has been in providing perfect examples of what would be wrong with a Clinton presidency. If these are the people Clinton campaigns with, with whom will she govern? Take Mark Penn, her big-money pollster, who, after each Obama victory, has qualified the rival’s success. The conduct reminds one of certain habits of the Bush administration: fail, excuse the failure, pillory the opposition.

I did not vote for Clinton in the primary, although I intend to vote for her if she is the nominee. I like her, but I don’t like Bill Clinton. I’m starting to dislike her.

—Douglas Carlucci

Quote of the Year, so far

President Bush, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Committee, as quoted by the New York Times:

“Listen, the stakes in November are high,” Mr. Bush told the boisterous audience in Washington. “This is an important election. Prosperity and peace are in the balance.”

So he's really just not paying attention. That, or he got lazy and borrowed one of pop's speeches from 1992.

Claiming to represent "peace" is the real kicker. It is objectively true George Bush has not done a particularly good job of obtaining peace anywhere—Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Kenya: all have fallen into bloody conflict in the last eight years, with nothing but a weak and ineffectual response from Bush. But worse is the context; Bush is claiming peace is at stake in the same speech where he quite plainly announces that the Republican Party's electoral strategy will be once again to try to scare the public with the threat of permanent war, in the same speech where he insinuates, like the ridiculous John McCain and Mitt Romney, that the Democratic Party's plan is to surrender in the current conflict. If there is a fight in which to surrender, then what peace is there to lose?

Of course, politics—especially Republican politics—does not involve logical validity. Nor should one expect any sense to come from Bush anymore. And considering what is likely to happen in the next nine months, I shouldn't get too worked up about this relatively innocuous statement. Still, it's worth noticing just how little regard these people have for the sense and meaning of their words.

—Douglas Carlucci

Wish I was there

Debate Blooper:

Mitt says he “would have loved” to serve in the military. What? Mitt was exactly eighteen in 1965. This makes Mitt fitt [sic—ed.] to serve in the subsequent draft, as the war really got under way that winter. However:

As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960s, Mitt Romney received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon "minister of religion" for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years.

Before and after his missionary deferment, Romney also received nearly three years of deferments for his academic studies. When his deferments ended and he became eligible for military service in 1970, he drew a high number in the annual lottery that determined which young men were drafted. His high number ensured he was not drafted into the military.

The deferments for Mormon missionaries became increasingly controversial in the late 1960s, especially in Utah, leading the Mormon Church and the government to limit the number of church missionaries who could put off their military service. That agreement called for each church ward, or church district, to designate one male every six months to be exempted from potential duty for the duration of his missionary work.

Romney's home state was Michigan, making his 4-D exemption as a missionary all but automatic because of the relatively small number of Mormon missionaries from that state. It might have been more difficult in Utah, where the huge Mormon population meant that there were sometimes more missionaries than available exemptions. Most missions lasted two and a half years, as Romney's did.

Remember how Republicans slandered John Kerry, who volunteered to serve in Vietnam? Mitt Romney was actually in France.

—Douglas Carlucci

McCain keeps cool, Giuliani loses it

The King-who-never-was has failed. Rudy, you were born out of time. I wonder if you can still charge tens of thousands of dollars for your speeches about 9/11 now that you’ve given away so many for free.

In other Republican news, senator John McCain is slowly wrapping up the Republican presidential nomination. (McCain still sits in the Senate, so he deserves to be called senator, unlike Mitt Romney, who is no longer the governor of Massachusetts and so can no longer be called governor, and Giuliani, who despite leaving office in New York in 2002 is called mayor by serious television journalists; please remember, Mr. Russert and Mr. Blitzer, there are no titles of nobility in the United States. When you leave an office, you shed its title.) McCain is not winning without trouble; the far-right scream-blogs and Rush Limbaugh are tearing into him, and even G.O.P. spokesman Neil “Chamber of Commerce” Cavuto—that’s what I call him—dedicated a prominent portion of his Fox News show to a couple of McCain critics, including Representative Tom Tancredo. The criticism is based on two things: McCain’s “open borders” policies and his failure to support President Bush’s tax cuts, of which the right are as proud of as a prized pig. If the Republican coalition agrees on one thing, it’s that taxes always should be lowered; it’s like how everyone in the Democratic Coalition feels bad about poverty, the notion is at the very root of the organization.

Even a minor cleave into the Republican Party could cause its candidate to lose the election. Democrats are ferocious; they can’t wait to get to the polls and see what kind of kick they can give to the Party of Bush. Including the many nominal Republicans and unaffiliated voters who feel the same way, the Democrats probably already have a national majority. (This is an estimate based on a lot of reading and observation; I can’t quantify or prove it.) If just a million or so Republican voters stay home on election day it would ensure a Democratic victory.

McCain has a lot of work to do. Because of his reasonable approach to tax cuts—he won’t eviscerate the budget without figuring out first what’s going to happen to government programs, which is unbearable timidity for the Republican Party’s Club for Growth generation—McCain’s primary enemy is the worst possible: the Republican finance establishment. The Bush-Walker wing hedged its liability when it loaned the Republican Party to the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1990s by maintaining control of the party’s biggest publications and think-tanks. One wonders how the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the National Review, Reason, and the Weekly Standard will react to one-half of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance team as the Republicans’ standard-bearer.

His problems among commoner Republicans are enough as it is without this conservative opinion-machine set against him. An endorsement from the New York Times is not the sort of thing that wins elections in the states where the Republican Party built its electoral base. There has also been a prominent streak of nativism in the last several years, and in the party that has absorbed immigration paranoiacs McCain’s name is mud.

A lot of people are saying one thing would unite Republicans behind McCain: Hillary Clinton. I would tend to agree, but with caution. As I have said, it will not take a large number of dissidents to disrupt the Republican coalition this year. I am sure, as Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talkers have anticipated, there are many Republicans who would rather relish four years of criticizing President Hillary Clinton than tolerate a moderate Republican in the White House. One despairs. Even in painful and obvious atrophy, the far-right still manages to manipulate both parties’ political considerations.

I think Mitt Romney is done. He was either going to fill the role of anointed Republican left vacant by Bush’s abysmal vice president, or he was going to fail. He failed. No one wanted to buy what he was selling—probably because no one knew exactly what he was selling; he just kept assuring everyone it was what they wanted to buy.

—Douglas Carlucci