Election 2008

The media are awash with commentary after tonight’s Republican CNN/You Tube debate, most of it tactical parsing of what was said and who looked best saying it. To this observer, however, the real interest in this debate was the focus on illegal immigration. The first half-hour of the debate was devoted entirely to this one subject. Was New York a “sanctuary city?” Was Massachusetts home to six “sanctuary cities” — and a Governor’s mansion where illegals sometimes worked? Did Arkansas give “subsidies” to children of illegal aliens so they could go to college? Each of the top three Republican contenders had some explaining to do before a skeptical Republican audience. And the more each one — Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee — tried to depict his actions as vigorously against favoring illegals, the more chinks could be seen in his armor.

McCain, by contrast, defended his unpopular stand rather more convincingly. He said that he now realized that the borders had to be secured before the U.S. could offer illegal immigrants a deal. As an ally of the White House’s failed plan to offer illegals an accomodation, McCain was the only Republican tonight to mention President Bush favorably. At one point he said he was “saddened” by the tone of the other Republicans’ remarks. The illegals were also “God’s children,” he said.

What this should really tell us is that illegal immigration may be the trickiest issue of this campaign. Hillary got into trouble over her answer in Philadelphia on whether illegals should get drivers’ licenses; now it’s the Republicans’ turn to try to fashion a response that seems forthright without being jingoistic.

There is also the not small matter of how it plays in the Hispanic community — those whose documents now include voter registration cards. As Dan Schnur put it (quoted in last Sunday’s NYT), “a Republican who only talks border control or a Democrat who only talks about benefits and services for illegal immigrants are going to find themselves in a lot of trouble next fall.”

Duncan Hunter may vow to build 800 miles of border fence within six months of taking office, but no nominee will be able to base his immigration policy on simply keeping everyone out. Those 12 million immigrants who are here already, illegally, must either be integrated into society or sent home. How we handle this will tell us and the rest of the world what we are really like. A nation of immigrants — legal and equal — is the way it should be.

The Republicans take their turn answering questions posted on YouTube tonight, broadcast live from St. Petersburg, Florida.  We won’t be live-blogging like much of the blogosphere, but on the look out for discussion of the major international issues at play.

CNN has the story here.

From the right, Michelle Malkin will be live-blogging here.

You can see prep from Huffington here. 

Andrew Sullivan will be watching and posting here.

Wonkette will be mocking here. 

And…we’re off!

The candidates are scrambling for ways to differentiate themselves. Oprah and Streisand (and maybe even Powell) are just the beginning. With the national field wide open among Republicans and tight in Iowa for Democrats, all that’s left to talk about are (1) each other (see Mark’s post below), and (2) trivia.

So, this is where it gets exciting, folks! That is, if you’re into personal attacks that attempt not to sound negative, or even better, nuanced (for modern presidential campaigns) policy back and forths!

Actually, all jokes aside, perhaps this is the point where we start to hear real discussion of policy. Biden was off to the races yesterday with his comments on Iraq:

Yesterday’s attempt by John McCain and Rudy Giuliani to defend the Bush-Cheney troop surge in Iraq totally misses the point – and is misleading to the American people. Security in Iraq is better, thanks in no small measure to our troops. But there is no evidence – none – that the surge is succeeding in achieving its stated objective: to allow Iraqis to come together politically.

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Chris Dodd oppose the notion of permanent bases in Iraq (see earlier post for Senator Dodd’s comments). (hat tip: Oxblog)

Clinton wants an investigation into contracts awarded at the Department of Homeland Security:

to expand an investigation of federal contracting practices to investigate the practice of award fees by DHS, especially when it comes to no-bid contracts.

There’s negativity in the Republican race as well, though mostly between the Iowa front-runner Mitt Romney and the national front-runner Rudy Giuliani. Perhaps they will get down to basics during their CNN/You Tube debate tonight.

With scarcely a month of campaigning left before the Iowa caucuses, every day now brings new drama, real or media-inspired. Yesterday saw a new sharpness of tone used by leading Democrats and Republicans to describe their chief competitors. Hillary attacked Obama by name, and vice versa. Romney, Giuliani and upstart Huckabee also traded ad hominem attacks. The desperate urgency of these forays stemmed from the realization that, while neither party has reached a consensus on who it wants, in the course of a few short weeks at the start of next year, both parties’ standard bearers will be effectively chosen, once and for all. The vast majority of convention delegates will be selected by the time polls close on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

In other words, if you’re going to make a personal attack, better get at it quickly. So Romney chose to say that “(Giuliani) needs to go back to school” because he had his facts confused when it came to Romney’s record on crime in Massachusetts. Rudy countered that Mitt was very close to Ted Kennedy in his approaches to crime fighting. Hillary charged that Obama  had waffled on coverage in his health care plan, while CBS featured Edwards’ new “no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy” approach.

Meanwhile, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s assertion that Hillary had been “the face of the Administration on foreign affairs” when her husband was in the White House, led to a variety of critical pokes, including from Bill Richardson, who of course had an official role as (Bill) Clinton envoy and U.N. Ambassador.

So much for name calling and hyperbole.  When Obama announced that Oprah Winfrey, America’s most successful female celebrity, would campaign for him in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it came as a relief.  In the midst of the latest name-calling, perhaps calling on Oprah is the best name calling of all.

Lots of big foreign relations news out of the White House today: there’s the preparation for the Annapolis summit that begins tomorrow and the requisite releases after meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian Annapolis conference participants, plus the agreement signed with Iraqi leaders that would layout long-term plans regarding the U.S. role in the country.

Thus far we have not heard too much from the candidates as to a potential post-war strategy for Iraq. But now that President Bush has set a standard (and in all fairness, in a document agreed to by the Iraqi government as well), we should start to see reactions from the candidates and discussion of the changes to come if the Dems have their way and remove the majority of troops from the country in the near future. TPM has Chris Dodd’s take on permanent bases in Iraq here.  How long before the Marshall Plan references become commonplace?

We’re back on-line (after some server trouble) at just the point when the candidates have to pause briefly to allow the voting public a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving. The candidates may not be thankful, but the public surely is. For a day we will be without new polls, candidate debates or spin. It’s a good time for taking stock, which is, after all, a big part of Thanksgiving.

We’re in a strange place right now in terms of the campaign and foreign affairs. None of the candidates – in either party – thinks the Iraq war has been conducted well, none thinks that the decision to go to war (based on what we now know) was wise. But no one (except Joe Biden) has articulated a strategy for what should happen in this critical country after American troops begin leaving, probably sometime before next November. The military “surge” seems to be working, for which we should all be thankful, but where is the political “surge?” The only public action in Washington last week on Iraq was inaction, as both the Senate and House left town without passing funding for the troop deployment.

In a post after last week’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, I compared it to professional wrestling – a kind of political “smackdown.” For a couple of news cycles afterward, the talk was about Hillary having picked herself up, then came polls that showed Obama for the first time with a five point lead in Iowa and closing the gap in New Hampshire. The tighter the race gets, the less it will be about issues and the more it will be about perception. This is the province of the campaign ad, and a slew of them have just been introduced into the airwaves of Iowa and the early primary states. I recommend you watch Giuliani’s muscular pitch or Hillary’s tough talk on energy. But resurgent Mike Huckabee’s hard-hitting promo takes this all to its logical (ridiculous) conclusion. Watch it before sitting down to your turkey dinner, but after you’ve had a drink.

After dinner, you might listen to a discussion by two prominent pundits, Mark Halperin (ABC) and John Harris (Politico), who spoke last week before the San Francisco World Affairs Council. You can listen to it here. To whet your appetite, I will list their shorthand descriptions of the three top Democratic candidates, as they viewed by the “filter” – political professionals and media pundits: Clinton – “warrior”; Obama – “interesting, frivolous”; Edwards – “phoney.”

Enjoy your turkey!

The terms alone seem somewhat innocuous in isolation, but the recently released report from the CSIS Commission on “Smart Power” portends that phrase–”smart power”–as potential replacement for foreign policy theories of years past.

The report sets out a new approach to foreign policy that combines the merits of both hard and soft power (coincidentally eminent political scientist Joseph Nye of soft power fame and Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell, headlined the Commission). [Paraphrasing here,] they outline the following as the key components to exercising “smart power”:

• Increase policy emphasis on “alliances, partnerships, and institutions”
• Fund more devotedly global development, with particular emphasis on public health
• Improve public diplomacy–especially youth–initiatives
• Further international economic integration (and extend benefits of trade to all)
• Advance technological innovation to fight issues of climate change and energy dependence

Ambitious, and convenient. As the Commission admits in its introduction, they do not intend to tackle the issue of Iraq, but instead to lay out a broader suggestion for the next Administration or even the current, should they be interested. While some would consider Iraq as the most complex and pressing issues facing the next Administration, the group thought it either too controversial or difficult to take up in their proposal.

The public relations campaign that CSIS unleashed has extended to quite a range of media, and therefore comment, in both the blogosphere and in print. Just yesterday the Financial Times gave a luke-warm review of the concept in an editorial, prompting international affairs contributor and blogger Gideon Rachman to point out that a reevaluation of the funding for the diplomacy initiatives might be in order indeed:

The State Department’s budget is $10 billion a year. The Department of Defence’s annual budget is $460 billion - plus, at the moment, a further $200 billion a year for the Iraqi and Afghan wars. The entire State Department costs less to maintain than just one of the US’s eight carrier battle groups.

Earlier this month at Government Executive Greg Grant looked at the implications such a plan would have on the organization of the federal government (which are extensive), and there’s plenty more commentary at FP’s Passport or at the Commission’s own blog, csissmartpower.org.

The lexicon was crafted quite wittily (who wouldn’t want to be have power or intelligence, or both, associated with them?). As the campaigns progress, we can expect to hear more of the “smart power” theory: it’s easy to say and easy to advocate. In the end, the concept has influenced the dialogue and given some academic/think tank credence to a moderate proposal for future foreign policy, and such overtures do little harm.

Our political contests borrow heavily from military vocabulary: “campaigns” are waged in “battleground” states, “attack” ads “target” key opponents, and so on. Since 2004, we even have an opprobrious tactic — “swiftboating” — drawn from a synonymous naval vessel.

But on this Veterans’ Day, we are reminded that there is very little military experience — except for John McCain’s — among the current Presidential candidates and their lieutenants. Our most notable military hero in public life, McCain is the only candidate who can speak of deploying American forces with a credibility borne of his own personal experience. However, due to the unpopularity of the Iraq War and his strong support of it, this turns out not to be much of an asset. Without a very strong showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina, this survivor of the Hanoi Hilton will be an early primary casualty.

On Veterans’ Day, the candidates automatically focus on helping veterans. Hillary has a campaign video featuring endorsements from veterans, Romney a campaign speech pledging benefits for vets, and Edwards a talk promising new support for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Obama has a pro-vets activity scheduled as well.  But don’t look for this focus to last beyond today’s news cycle.

Hillary’s approach to foreign affairs and security as campaign themes seeks to position her between — as she would have it — Bush’s rush to use military force and Obama’s rush to talk to dictators. She will continue repeating, as she puts it in her Foreign Affairs piece, that the military is “but one element in a comprehensive strategy.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ skirmish at last weekend’s big Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines showed that the five speakers (Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Dodd) are sharpening their rhetoric on other topics in preparation for the next campaign battle — the debate on Thursday in Los Vegas. The long, positive, cover stories on Obama that have appeared in the last week (NYT Magazine, The Atlantic) are another indicator that Obama’s forces are winning over the media — at least for now.

There are a number of wounded candidates on the presidential battlefield: Giuliani from the Bernie Kerik indictment, Thompson from lackluster campaigning. On the Democratic side, Richardson’s emphasis on his years of experience in elected and high-level positions has not gained him any points in the polls. In both parties, it is the real survivors, the candidates with the most years of experience — McCain, Biden, Dodd and Richardson — whose future now seems most in doubt.

It’s a rite of passage for the candidate. Tim Russert’s Sunday morning mainstay Meet the Press, notoriously, forces the Presidential hopeful to be accountable not only for his/her positions on the issues, but to have a retort that would satisfy Russert on any and all controversies in which the candidate has been involved. The setting–from the rapid-fire questioning to Russert’s extensively research and brad-ranging discussion topics designed to foce the candidate to the defnsive–is a necessary evil for any Presidential candidate. But if able to master the format, Russert offers candidates the opportunity to explain, sometimes in great detail, their positions and thinking on issues.

Over the past months, the show has featured many of the Republican and Democratic candidates. Today in the hot seat was Senator Barack Obama:

Full video interview

(more…)

• Rudy Giuliani received an unexpected endorsement on Wednesday from Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson. It shocked many watchers of the Republican campaigns, but Hugh Hewitt at Townhall isn’t convinced that it matters. Many of the leading Christian conservatives have elected to support different candidates in the party, signaling a general discontent among the Republican base.
• Giuliani and McCain have been sparring over the issues of torture and immigration (via Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report and others).
• Ron Paul was able to raise over 4 million dollars in one day through an online ad campaign referencing Guy Fawkes day.
• HRC has had a week of bad press (Hotline, subscriber-only). Rs ask: is this the beginning of her downfall?

San Francisco – The local elections held yesterday in many communities scattered across the United States are a useful reminder of the American adage that “all politics is local.” As Erin points out in her post below, a Republican governor was re-elected (Mississippi) and another defeated (Kentucky) for very specific local reasons.

In Virginia, meanwhile, Democrats won control of the state senate – partly, an affirmation of local trends.

Since I moved from Virginia to San Francisco two years ago, I have a vivid impression of how different local politics are across the United States.

Here in San Francisco, origin of the Republican epithet “San Francisco values,” our mayor was re-elected yesterday without opposition, despite a scandal in his personal conduct earlier this year that would have caused most U.S. communities to turn against him.

These differing local values complicate the national campaigns of the candidates for both the Republican and Democratic Presidential nominations. Republicans in South Carolina have different priorities from those in New Hampshire, and Democrats in Iowa often have different perspectives from those in California.

With our Presidential E-Day – Election Day – just one year away, the candidates are now struggling to win the hearts and minds of primary voters in specific state environments without contradicting their “national” message. This was Hillary Clinton’s problem last week when she was asked about drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, a proposal favored by most Democrats in New York, but unpopular at the national level.

For the next sixty days, we can expect to see candidates trying to calibrate their statements on national and international issues in light of the viewpoints of voters in Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire – the first three states with official primaries or party caucuses. Not an easy task, given that national debates and polls will be conducted at the same time. Add to this the fact that the major candidates have to speak at fund-raisers in the major media markets, the chances are great that many will be caught in contradictions – a “gotcha” moment, as Hillary puts it.

For all the recent talk about the races being boring or predictable, we’re looking at a very volatile period ahead. A week ago, no one would have predicted that Hillary would take a major dip in a national poll, or that niche candidate Ron Paul would raise a record $4.2 million in one day on the Internet.

All politics may still be “local,” but that definition could be about to change.

It’s Election Day in some states, and early numbers have the expected victors on top:

• Governor Ernie Fletcher of KY has lost to his Democratic opponent, Steve Beshear, despite having routinely attempted to energize the conservative base.
• In Mississippi, Republican Haley Barber seems to be the last man standing in the wake of Katrina.

Normally mid-cycle elections help to read the pulse of voters in the respective regions. Unfortunately, given the scandals in KY and the Katrina fall-out, neither of these cases say much of anything substantial, other than signaling the official end of the Rove era, now that a Democratic governor has been reinstated in a formerly-D stronghold like Kentucky.

It’s no secret that since 2000, the Democratic base has been on the West and East coasts, nor that the concentration of American wealth lies in the major cities, many of which also happen to be on the coasts. As Michael Franc, writing in Monday’s FT, would have it, while the South went “red,” Democrats failed to adapt their message to the new reality: that now their principle constituency includes the most affluent of Americans.

He makes an important, if apparent point:

Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

Certainly Democrats did not count on the sorry state of the economy or a mandate to increase taxes in November of last year, as they swept the leadership of both the House and Senate. While the war in Iraq captured the mind of most voters in 2006, who is to say that much of this discontent did not stem from financial concerns, i.e. that Bush policies, the War in Iraq among them, raised the national debt and struck fears up Wall Street.

A year later, the Democratic Congress, by some accounts, has even lower approval ratings than President Bush. Franc (full disclosure: he is a vice president with the Heritage Foundation in Washington) suggests Democratic voters will not stand for fiscal badgering for long: in time, he says, they will respond and limit the extent to which they—the upper echelon—must carry the tax burden.

As context for the internal Democratic Party dialogue, these demographic figures are quite relevant when it comes to trade and other fiscal issues. One wonders, however, which came first, the politics or the wealth.

Humor in politics has its uses, and if the latest polls on the national mood are any indication, the American public may be looking for a little comic relief. Over the weekend, the ABC News-Washington Post poll dissected the national consciousness and pronounced us mainly pessimistic – about Iraq, about the economy, about all the big issues.

The campaigns, instead of gloom and doom, are looking for ways to lighten up. On Saturday Night Live, the Obama camp scored a coup by having their candidate appear in a skit skewering Hillary Clinton. The hilarious results worked well for Obama, as did an accompanying skit (in which Obama did not appear) that ridiculed the other Democratic candidates as it depicted them in preparation for last week’s debate.

The remarkable phenomenon is that more American voters may be tuning into satirical views of the candidates and their positions than to the real thing. Last week, Stephen Colbert, who parodies right-wing positions on his TV show, tried to register as a Presidential candidate in South Carolina. When this effort “failed,” it gave him an opportunity to protest his exclusion in mock seriousness.

Ever since the 2000 elections, in which Al Gore’s campaign persona was widely seen as overly serious, campaign managers have looked for ways to make their candidates appear witty and self-deprecating. This year it began with Hillary’s video on her Web site that quickly moved to You Tube. Rudy Giuliani showed this weekend that Republicans are also looking for a laugh. (Given the latest polling data, they may be in the doldrums and need some humor.) On a stage in New Hampshire, before a partisan crowd, he too impersonated Hillary, depicting her answer regarding drivers’ licenses, given at last week’s debate, as an example of her failing to speak clearly on the issues.

In the coming weeks the candidates may focus on reasons for pessimism, but in ways that make the other candidates — if not the issues themselves — seem funny.

Benjamin Barber, Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow at USC’s Center for Public Diplomacy, is well known for his trenchant analysis of civil society in the United States and his view of America’s “brand,” or image. In this interview, made several days before Karen Hughes’ announced resignation, he comments on the state of the “brand,” particularly overseas. Hughes, a close associate of President Bush, had been responsible at the State Department for efforts to improve America’s image through public diplomacy. Audio clip coming soon.