By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

When is mocking your opponent a good thing? According to HuffPo wire service selections, when you are Barack Obama. When is it a bad thing? According to Huff Po, when you are Hillary Clinton.

Any criticism of Obama's statements which do not take into account Obama's clarifications and explanations of what he REALLY meant are unfair personal attacks and the attacker is a "liar" who will say and do anything to get elected. . . . Obama's attacks are always fair and merited. . . .

More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Wolcott:

Perhaps the next time Beltway pundits are tempted to romanticize the blue-collar working man in all his rugged, unpretentious, Saroyan glory, they might want to remind themselves of some of the less savory baggage being lugged into the lunch room, i.e., an ample load of sexist bile:

"For a lot of blue-collar guys over 40, Hillary Clinton is a poster child for everything about the women's movement that they don't like -- their wife going back to work, their daughters rebelling, the rise of women in the workplace," says Gerald Austin, an Ohio political strategist. . . .

"People don't want to speak out against Obama because of the fear of being seen as racist," he says. "It's easier to say you want to keep a woman barefoot and pregnant....You can call a woman anything."

Yes, you can can call a woman anything if you're semi-comfortably sure of being able to get away with it . . .

The Democratic presidential primary has been fairly unconventional so far. The Boston Globe has an article today about what Ronald Reagan did in 1976 when he was losing big-time to Gerald Ford: He named his vice-presidential running mate. He came closer, but ended up not winning the nomination.

Despite naming Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania the would-be vice president to shore up support among Republican moderates, Reagan lost the delegate race by a little more than 100. But picking a vice president while trailing in delegates was a bold technique that some political analysts think might repeat itself in this year's tight Democratic race, the first since the Reagan-Ford contest that could go down to the wire in the same way.

....Selecting a popular vice presidential nominee could win over some superdelegates - uncommitted party leaders invited to the convention - while perhaps also attracting some voters in late primaries, analysts said.

The article considers whether this is something Hillary Clinton might do now. It mentions, as possible picks, General Wesley Clark and Bill Richardson.[ More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Whether fair or not, whether ultimately effective or not, if Barack Obama is the nominee, John McCain will call him inexperienced. That it has had limited effectiveness for Hillary Clinton does not mean it will not work for McCain. Obama's Media Darling status is critical here. Kevin Drum explains:

[T]he problem with Obama isn't that he's less experienced than Hillary, but that he's inexperienced, full stop. And again, like it or not, John McCain will certainly use that as an argument in the general election campaign in a way he couldn't against Hillary. Sure, he's got 25 years to her 15, but that doesn't matter. Beyond a certain point voters aren't interested in who's got more experience, and 15 years is well beyond that point. If McCain tried to paint Hillary as inexperienced, it would be a waste of breath. Nobody would buy it.

When I decided to vote for Obama in the primary I said I had decided it was worth it to roll the dice. But make no mistake: there really is a roll of the dice here. The American public hasn't elected someone with as little big-time experience as Obama in the past century (though we've come close with Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush). I don't think that will keep him from winning in November, but it's pretty clearly a real issue.

Yep.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Yes, I said it. And so did the NYTimes Ed Board:

Middle-class voters across the country are legitimately anxious. Tens of thousands of workers have lost their health insurance, while wages have barely risen. But blaming Nafta or any trade agreement only feeds misguided protectionist sentiments at home and strains already difficult relations around the world. It is also factually inaccurate. In a review in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that Nafta had slightly increased growth in the United States and that any disruptive effects on employment were small. Trade opens foreign markets for American producers and gives consumers more choices, while competition spurs productivity growth at home. If the candidates are not careful they will quickly pen themselves into dubious policy positions that they would have to follow, or flip-flop on, once elected.

Correct.

By Big Tent Democrat

Yes, I know this means SNL is so not cool anymore and that this is not funny and so on. Longer segment here. Now available at the NBC SNL site.

By Big Tent Democrat

Josh Marshall notes the obvious point to be drawn from these Survey USA polls:

The answers? Shockingly obvious: McCain crushes both (Hillary by 20%, Barack by 24%) Democrats in Alabama, while both crush him in California. To add another layer of symmetry, Clinton does 4 points better in losing in Alabama. And Obama does 4 points better in winning California.

For all the talk of 50 state strategies, this general election will be won or lost in the same states as in 2000 and 2004 - Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. While Obama may win Virginia and Iowa, that equals 19 electoral votes. He ain't winning in the South. Neither is Hillary, except for Arkansas.

It is great that Obama has energized Dems in Utah, Idaho and Alabama, but that is not going to be where he will be fighting in a general election. Which is why it would be nice if Obama could demonstrate an ability to win a big contested state like Ohio or Pennsylvania in the primaries. This is still where Presidential elections are won or lost.

(Updated to include video). Comments now closed.)

Do not miss the You Tube of Tina Fey's commentary on Saturday Night Live last night when it comes out. It was incredible. My DD has a rough transcript of the last part.

Tina Fey:I want to say something about those calling Hillary a b*tch...

Yeah, well she is...So am I, so is she (pointing at Weekend Update news host Amy Poehler.) Deal with it.

B*tches get sh*t done (Amy says yeah and starts nodding her head in rhythmn and saying more yeahs,uuh huhs and a you go girl.)

Like back in grammar school, they could have had priests teaching you but no, they had tough old nuns who sleep on cots and can hit ya and you HATE those b*tches. But the end of the school year you sure knew the capital of Vermont

So come on....Its not too late Texas and Ohio, get on board... B*tch is the new Black!

More...

The Washington Post examines Barack Obama's prospects in November of winning the red states.

While Obama has shown an ability to reshape voting patterns, his record in the primaries suggests that he still has a ways to go in making significant inroads in Republican states.

The red states where he has won have tended to be in the Deep South, where victories were based on overwhelming support from African Americans, or in mostly white states in the Midwest and West, where he relied on a core of ardent backers to carry him in caucuses, which favor candidates with enthusiastic supporters. He has not fared as well in areas that fall in between, with populations that are racially diverse but lack a black population large enough to boost Obama to victory.

Tennessee is an example of the possible limits to Obama's broader appeal:

The New York Times reports on Barack Obama's campaign event in Austin, TX.

A touch of cockiness is discernable in his manner now; he is like a gambler convinced his every dice roll will come up double sixes.

He enumerates his critics' complaints about him. When he gets to "I'm not tough enough" he adds,

“Listen, I’m a black guy named Barack Obama running for president. You want to tell me that I’m not tough enough?” He smirks. “Shoot.”

[More...]

I guess Obama supporters don't support the right of other groups to get a message out to voters. (Background here.) Via the Wall St. Journal:

Three supporters of the Illinois Democrat mailed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission today charging that the pro-Clinton organization is violating election laws.

This is designed to create negative press for Hillary. How do we know that?

It is highly unlikely that the Obama supporters will get what they want from the FEC any time soon. For one, the FEC is notoriously slow. It took three years to settle similar complaints lodged against independent political entities that ran advertisements in the 2004 election.

For another: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Chris Bowers, Obama "defends" liberalism. But Chris notices that Obama does not, um, actually defend liberalism:

How, exactly, is this considered defending the liberal label? I looked around for a transcript to see if there were other parts of the speech that I missed, but I was unable to find one. So, looking just at what NBC reporter Aswini Anburajan transcribed, I fail to see how this is in any way defending the "liberal" label. In fact, the transcription indicates that Obama is actually taking some of the more popular positions often associated with being "liberal" in America, and defining those positions as "common sense" instead of as "liberal." Further, in so doing, he appears to be defining himself as something other than a liberal. Overall, not only is that not defending the liberal label, but it seems to be draining the common American usage of the word liberal of many of its most positive aspects, and then distancing himself from being labeled a liberal. So, he distances himself from the term, and then makes the term seem even less appealing. How Aswini Anburajan interprets this as defending "liberal label" is beyond me.

How about that Chris? I am shocked that Obama denigrated liberalism. Aren't you? My question is how did Obama decide to discuss this anyway? What was that about?