A new report by the Pew Center on the States on the nation’s prison population has found 1 percent of all adults in the United States is behind bars. And that’s not all. According to Pew the national prison population tripled during the last two decades. Expenditures on correctional facilities went up up from $19.38 billion to $44.06 billion in inflation adjusted dollars.
See graphs below.
Download the report here.
Senator John McCain’s repudiation of right wing talk show host Bill Cunningham’s comments about Obama is an encouraging sign that the general election would be cleaner than either the GOP or Democratic primary. Cunningham repeated Obama’s middle name which is Hussein presumably to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. Many have praised the Arizona Senator, and rightfully so, for taking a fairly principled and unpopular position among conservatives in saying, “Whatever suggestion that was made that was any way disparaging to the integrity, character, honesty of either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton was wrong.“
But there’s possibly another reason for McCain to advocate for greater tolerance. According to the Politico, focus groups and polling done by Republican officials indicate there could be a huge backlash directed at the Republican nominee for unfairly attacking either a woman or a black man.
GOP officials are certain their words will be scrutinized ever more aggressively. They anticipate a regular media barrage of accusations of intolerance – or much worse.
They seem most concerned about Obama right now.
Of course there are those within the GOP establishment who think being too sensitive will endanger McCains chances. Tony Fabrizio, a Republican strategist told the Politico:
If we approach this campaign from the standpoint that we need to take political sensitivity training because one candidate is a woman or one candidate is black, I think we are approaching it from the wrong standpoint because that already handcuffs us…If McCain is afraid, or shies away from taking on Obama because that’s what they worry about, then they’ve lost the battle to begin with.
We’ll see how long the current consensus will last.
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When all voters are asked to look ahead to the general election, Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee, is seen as better prepared for the presidency, better able to handle an international crisis and more equipped to serve as commander in chief than either of the Democratic candidates.
NYT, “Polls show Obama Is Seen as More Likely to Beat McCain,” 2/26/08
In a funny and thoughtful post on Talking Points Memo, a reader-blogger argued that Democrats need to reframe the national security debate to be more about the economy and less about military affairs, particularly if they want to beat the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in November.
John McCain, born on a Naval Base, has often favored military action over diplomacy. Like it’s the only effective instrument handy.
It’s like they say. If all you have is a hammer, every solution looks like a nail.
Missing from the national security conversation is the economy. George Bush was [sic] recently suggested that essentially, the two have nothing to do with each other. He might be the only one who thinks that.
Today, economic power, in the long run anyway, trumps military power. And we’ve overstretched both. Foreign debt has never been greater. We’re living off China’s credit card. In fact, we’re their biggest customer. Saudi Arabia owns more of American interests than this administration would care to admit.
The blogger makes an excellent point in stating that “Today, economic power, in the long run anyway, trumps military power.” With Obama emerging as the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee he may need to adopt such a message. As of late, Obama has sought to court orphan Edwards supporters with his softer brand of populism, but has yet to emphasize the international dimension of economy growth, save his criticism of the off-shoring of American jobs.
But in his Foreign Affairs essay he does seem to hint at how climate change may in fact be the cross cutting issue that will drive much of his foreign and economic policy thinking. In the piece, and on the stump, he refers to how the threat of climate change can become a source of global and regional instability.
Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.
In the same essay he also highlights how climate change may present new economic opportunities too.
I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development….By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.
Of course, this is nothing new. Al Gore has been a proponent of this approach long before his 2000 presidential campaign, and so was John Kerry in 2004. But the difference now is that both the message and the messenger can get a fair hearing.
To be sure, neutralizing Sen. John McCain’s stature of being the security candidate will require more than a few robust policy speeches on going green. But if done well Obama could change the complexion of the foreign policy debate to shift away from war on terror and Iraq to a more cross cutting issue with a different kind of urgency. According to the economic plan on his website he will:
“… also enact bold new energy efficiency goals for buildings and appliances, which will both reduce middle class American’s monthly electricity bills and help jumpstart the construction and manufacturing industries. Additionally, the Obama plan will provide tax credits for locally-owned biofuel refineries – which have already started to strengthen the economic vitality of rural America.
Senator McCain, of course, is not your average Republican climate change skeptic either. After all, he not only endorsed a cap and trade regime, but even went so far as to characterize it as “capitalistic and free-enterprise oriented.” He also co-sponsored a Senate bill in 2003 calling for reductions in greenhouse emissions.
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But politically McCain might be toned deaf to the current concerns of most voters. On January 27th, he told Tim Russert on Meet the Press:
SEN. McCAIN: But also, I believe that most Republicans’ first priority is the threat of radical Islamic extremism. Now, I know the concerns about the economy…
MR. RUSSERT: More than the economy?
SEN. McCAIN: More than the economy at the end of the day. We’ll get through this economy. We’re going to restore our economy, and many of the measures we’re taking right now–although it’s very difficult now. This transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism will be with us for the 21st century.
Obviously, the first priority of the President is to protect the American people from threats both foreign and domestic, but that’s not the only thing he does. Nor should that responsibility be carried out to the exclusion of all others.
Generating economic growth and protecting American jobs should also be considered a top priority because frankly the economy will not rebound by itself in a way that will fairly distribute wealth. Simply saying “we’ll get through this economy” does not exactly inspire a great deal of confidence on those who actually fear losing their health insurance or loss their jobs to overseas competition more than they do a senseless act of terror. This is not to minimize certain national security threats, as much as it is acknowledging that the voting public may be alarmed about staying in Iraq for 100 years, despite the fact that the war costs American taxpayers $2.4 billion a week.
So to the extent that national security concerns become an election issue, Obama should reframe the debate to be more about energy security so he can sell energy independence and going green as a security as well as an economic imperative.
If it is indeed Obama and McCain that face off this fall, it there will be a vivid contrasts on many issues, ranging from taxation to the war in Iraq to health care. But I predict the outcome of the election will largely revolve around who has the better policy imagination and vision, not just experience or mere inspiration.
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Of course, you had to expect it. After Barack Obama’s mailer in Ohio on Hillary Clinton’s position on NAFTA and health care got her riled up and knowing she is fading fast in the polls, a 2006 picture of Obama in traditional Somalia dress suddenly surfaces on the web.
What a coinkydink.
The Clinton campaign denies leaking the photo to the press and curiously accuses the Obama campaign for trying to “distract” the voters from the real issues in pointing the finger at them. That’s an interesting response.
But this is not the first time the Clinton campaign has been associated with fear mongering or race and ethnic baiting against Obama. A Clinton staffer was fired in Iowa after forwarding patently false emails about him growing up in a Madrassa. Another Clinton staffer brought up Obama’s drug use as a young person to persuade New Hampshire voters that he would be more vulnerable to Republican attacks than say the baggage burdened Madame Inevitable.
Andrew Cuomo, who endorsed Clinton, accused Obama of shucking and jiving on the campaign trial. Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Clinton supporter, tried to revive the already discredited notion that Obama grew up in a secular madrassa in Indonesia. Black Clinton surrogates, such as Ambassador Andrew Young and Robert Johnson have respectively raised questions about Obama’s blackness and again his drug use.
While it is true that because the Clinton campaign have a history of making ad hominem attacks, does not mean that they are responsible for releasing the picture in an effort to imply Obama is Muslim. But patterns are difficult to ignore.
Such mailers appearing just before an election are not new for the Clinton campaign. On the eve of New Hampshire primary the Clinton campaign circulated a mailer suggesting that Obama had a questionable voting record on choice issues despite receiving high ratings from several prominent choice groups.
These are the types of attacks Democrats usually received from Republicans, not Democrats on one another.
But this new pic is another new low in a campaign where so many Democratic voters seem to be so energized about picking a new nominee.
By the same token, however, the Obama campaign’s new mailer in Ohio attacking Clinton for supporting NAFTA and her position on health care doesn’t exactly live up to Obama’s rhetoric of a new politics. The mailer claims that Hillary Clinton said NAFTA was a boon to the American economy when in fact it was New York Newsday who characterized her position that way, not the New York Senator herself. For what its worth, factcheck.org claims that Clinton’s biographer wrote that she was against it. Obviously, Bill Clinton aggressively lobbied Congress to push the trade deal through over the objections of labor, but to my mind there is still no definitive proof that Madame Inevitable was offered full throated support for it. Spouses do disagree.
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But that’s small potatoes compared to the Obama campaign mailer that misrepresents the Clinton’s health care plan as forcing the poor to buy into a plan that they could not afford. It is indeed reminiscent of the Republican attacks on so-called Hillarycare back in 1994. As factcheck.org notes the mailer fails to mention that both the Clinton and Obama plan, “would subsidize the cost of insurance for many, making it more affordable.” Some experts have also pointed out that despite the similarity of both plans, neither one are that specific enough to in who gets covered to definitively say who will be left uninsured and why.
Obviously, the pictures of Obama in Somalia, and other forms of implied defamation, are not the same type of attacks as the Ohio mailers, but they both may turn off voters. Ultimately, the politics of slander and demagoguery, and the politics of truth shaving will have lasting affects.
Those emails about Obama growing up in a madrassing are still floating around. Such personal attacks could divide the base and weaken either candidate heading into the general. And these negative attacks on Clinton’s position could very well undermine any real attempt to achieve any thing resembling universal health care. A Republican could just say even Obama does not support mandates and subsides for the poor. Plus, it only reinforces the belief among many skeptics that Obama is not really serious about health care if he is willing to play cheap politics with it.
There is no justice in compromising truth for political gain.
Correction: Its seems as if Clinton clearly said she supported NAFTA. In a 2002 speech before the Democratic Leadership Council she said: “The economic recovery plan stands first and foremost as a testament to both good ideas and political courage. National service. The Brady Bill. Family Leave. NAFTA.“
H/T: David Sirota
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On the campaign trail, Barack Obama is fond of invoking many of America’s greatest heroes and icons. He announced his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, the birth place of Abraham Lincoln, praising the nation’s 16th president wisdom and courage for understanding that we could not be a country that’s half slave and half free. His admiration for John F. Kennedy can be seen in how Obama has incorporated his famous maxim “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate” into his stump speech.
And when asked if his candidacy is in anyway too premature he says he believes in what Dr. King call the fierce urgency of now, or the belief that change for the better should not be delayed indefinitely. That is to say, it is entirely possible that one can be too late when waiting for the right moment.
Of course, each of those key figures in American history share one thing in common — they were all assassinated. Many of Obama’s supporters are acutely aware of this fact and have feared for his safety long before his win in Iowa. I am sure any black barber shop can inform you as to how certain people can carry out such a plan. Other supporters the Illinois Senator have chased those very worries out of their minds as soon as they creep in because they want to believe America is better than that.
One expert on assassinations in American history summarized the persistent worry among so many people in today’s New York Times:
“Barack scares those of us who think of the possibility of an assassination in a different way,” Mr. Posner said. “He represents so much hope and change. That is exactly what was taken away from us in the 1960s.”
This exactly the type of fear and set of anxieties that Michelle Obama has tried to quell several months ago.
Noting that Obama could be killed at the gas station does not offer me much solace, but I do understand Michele Obama’s point in saying that we cannot live our lives in dominated by fear. However, that’s not the same as acknowledging that threats to his personal safety not only exist, but also are much higher for him than other candidates because of how close he is to becoming the first African-American president.
Mississippi Congressman Bernie Thomspon reportedly took it upon himself to write to the Secret Service about wanting to see Obama security detail improved, considering the big crowds the Illinois Senator was attracting early on in the campaign. Rep. Thomspon told Jeff Zeleny of the NYT:
As an African-American who was witness to some of this nation’s most shameful days during the civil rights movement, I know personally that the hatred of some of our fellow citizens can lead to heinous acts of violence. We need only to look to the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 1968 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy as examples.
Perhaps Rep. Thompson’s views are much closer to those of most black folk in the country, but it may be the Obamas are concerned about the consequences of publicly acknowledging such concerns. It may embolden those who already issued threats to his life, or even result in pigeon holing him as a black candidate among certain voters since it would draw attention to say some white nationalist or terrorist group plotting to eliminate him. Either way those concerns stand in tension of his much more appealing message of hope which is responsible for so much of his cross over appeal.
But at the end of the day fear is a poor adviser. And again few have made this point more persuasively than Michelle Obama. In fact, as she pointed out in a speech she made in Western Iowa this summer it is indeed the politics of fear that has had a paralyzing effect in American political life this past few years that has led us to make some rather tragic mistakes.
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On February 21st and 22nd of this past week, the United States government defended its human rights record regarding racial justice during the last 7 years before a United Nations expert committee in Geneva, Switzerland. The U.S. government’s periodic report on its spotty record of compliance with the International Convention to End all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) was closely scrutinized due to egregiously omitting or minimizing the impact of discriminatory it overlooked or willfully perpetuated.
Much of the racial discrimination in the wake of the 9/11 or during and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina violated international and U.S. law. Human rights advocates, for example, have pointed to how the U.S. devoted a mere single paragraph to Hurricane Katrina in its 124-page periodic report while also claiming the deaths of the victims was not due to “discrimination per se.” Unsurprisingly, the U.S. had nothing substantive to say about its flawed Katrina evacuation plan, or the NOLA housing crisis, or the depleted public defender system, all of which have disproportionately affected black people in New Orleans.
Nor did the U.S. report discuss in any great detail the racial dimension of it post-9/11 immigration policies. In particular, the U.S. government found a way to omit any mention of the Bush administration’s abusive detention polices and harassment by law enforcement of Latin American and Arab or South Asian immigrants, whether documented or not.
Yet few of us, including those in the American media, have given much thought to how in addition to outright violating U.S. domestic law these abuses also amount to human rights violations, such as the right to return, the right to nationality, and the right to challenge your detention. This is precisely why the United States should adopt a system where people are informed about their rights, why human rights should in fact be considered the cornerstone of democracy. Our sense of justice should go beyond the lofty rhetoric about how freedom is on the march that finds its way out of Bush’s mouth primarily when delivering a speech on Iraq.
Public education campaigns on human or civil rights simply don’t exist in the U.S., though the government would have us think otherwise. In a very confused passage of its U.N. report the government on the hand claims on page 15 that its citizens are well informed as to what their rights are by arguing:
Information about human rights is readily available in the United States. As a general matter, persons are well informed about their civil and political rights, including the rights of equal protection, due process, and non-discrimination. The scope and meaning of – and issues concerning enforcement of – individual rights are openly and vigorously discussed in the media, freely debated within the various political parties and representative institutions, and litigated before the courts at all levels.
But yet in another paragraph on page 16 after admitting so much subtle forms of racial discrimination still persist it conceded that not many people know what their rights are.
Subtle, and in some cases overt, forms of discrimination against minority individuals and groups continue to plague American society, reflecting attitudes that persist from a legacy of segregation, ignorant stereotyping, and disparities in opportunity and achievement. Such problems are compounded by factors such as inadequate understanding by the public of the problem of racial discrimination, lack of awareness of the government-funded programs and activities designed to address it, lack of resources for enforcement, and other factors.
So either the debate about what our rights are not terribly informative or American society is so beleaguered by racism that most of its citizenry are too confused to truly make sense out of them. Either way it does not sound as if we are that well informed about our rights.
(More after the jump.)
It amazes me what passes for news, especially once the mainstream media gets caught up in the horse race. This piece could have been done by a bunch of Hillary supporters.
The overall sentiment of this piece is not sound all that different from how Hillary Clinton tried to dismiss Obama’s spate of wins on the eve of the Chesapeake primary. According to CNN’s political ticker:
Clinton has publicly dismissed the caucus voting system since before Super Tuesday, seeking to lower expectations heading into a series of contests that played to Obama’s advantage. His campaign features what many consider to be a stronger and more dedicated grassroots organization than Clinton’s.
Noting that “my husband never did well in caucus states either,” Clinton argued that caucuses are “primarily dominated by activists” and that “they don’t represent the electorate, we know that.”
I wonder what the subtext here is all about.
Capturing and killing Osama bin Laden and the al Qeada network seemed like a no brainer after the 9/11 attacks. At first, the war in Afghanistan seemed to be aimed at precisely doing just that. In fact, several intelligence experts told the Atlantic Monthly in 2006 that in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of the Central Asian country the United States dismantled al Qaeda’s training camps, and disrupted its communications, travel, and money transfers. Al Qaeda was on the run. But then the Bush administration allowed bin Laden to slip away in the battle at Tora Bora.
Al Qaeda, along with the Taliban, soon took advantage of the Bush administration’s zeal in prosecuting a misbegotten and poorly executed war in Iraq to reconstituted itself in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Director of National Intelligence Mitch McConnell recently told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that al Qaeda has now mutated into a more sinister threat. Mark Mazzeti from the New York Times recounted McConnell’s testimony on February this way:
The director, Mike McConnell, told lawmakers that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, remained in control of the terrorist group and had promoted a new generation of lieutenants. He said Al Qaeda was also improving what he called “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.” — producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets.
This kind of threat assessment would lead most people to think that capturing or killing bin Laden , in addition to the new terrorist cells themselves, is a greater priority than it ever. Yet Lawrence Wright in the January 21st issue of The New Yorker found that not all experts within the government’s national security apparatus seem to disagree:
Moreover, there is the quandary of what to do with bin Laden if he was actually captured. Killing him would only insure his “martyrdom” and seal his legacy; putting him on trial grants him a priceless venue for promoting his cause and invites acts of terror in response, including kidnappings designed to ransom the Al Qaeda leader.
Wayne Murphy, the assistant director of the F.B.I. for Intelligence, told me that the radicalization of young Muslims will continue, regardless of bin Laden’s mortal fate. “In the end, I don’t know if the benefits of getting bin Laden would balance out,” he said. “And I don’t know if it buys us anything. Think about what we just went through with Saddam Hussein.”
So there you have it. According to the experts, capturing bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri just maybe a counterproductive proposition. We might just endanger the security of the U.S. and its allies because of the response it would inspire among a new breed of radical terrorists. Perhaps I am just missing something here, but I think its much better to destroy the al Qaeda leadership than to leave it intact indefinitely. Any aggressive act against them may bring about short term blowback, but chances are that its better than risking another 9/11 in the U.S. or elsewhere. This does not gaurantee the elimination of all or even the most dangerous cells, but it would be a serious blow to their infrastructure of support.
Resisting putting bin Laden on trail because it might serve as a propaganda or recruiting tool may be somewhat understandable, but entirely sensible. After all, bin Laden has the luxury of doing all that now, including releasing videos on the eve of U.S. elections.
Furthermore, these mixed messages just make it even easier for the Pakistani government to wiggle out of the responsibility of trying to capturing him either. Why would Pervez Musharraf help the U.S. in going after bin Laden if we are not serious about it ourselves. Lawrence Wright underscored this exact point in the New Yorker:
The United States has paid the Pakistani government more than ten billion dollars since September 11th for its help in tracking down bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders. But for the past four years the special relationship with Pakistan has been unproductive; in a recent interview with CBS, President Musharraf said of bin Laden, “We are not particularly looking for him.” John McLaughlin, the former deputy director of the C.I.A., told me, “It’s not too hard to figure out why we haven’t gotten bin Laden. We’re not there.”
All of this makes me wonder if we are not serious about pursuing bin Laden or the al Qaeda leadership why even bother calling it a “war on terror” in the first place, much less invoke 9/11 as a justification in other counterterrorism efforts.
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George Packer at Interesting Times tells us how he really feels about a possible McCain administration:
Republicans are trying to stay in power on a shrinking platform while mouthing stale slogans. President McCain would be more Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan—a last gasp, not a leap forward.
I wonder if Packer thinks less of McCain than he does of Jimmy Carter or vice versa.
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After comparing polling data on the eve of Super Tuesday and the actual election results, two scholars from the Pew Research Center concluded that race, due to the Bradley effect and the reverse Bradley effect, can exaggerate support for a candidate in either direction depending on the make up of the electorate.
Early analysis of primary counts and polling data from the final week of the campaign indicated that pre-election polls exaggerated support for Sen. Barack Obama in two states with relatively low black populations –California and Massachusetts. But the reverse was true in Alabama and Georgia, where blacks make up a larger bloc of voters. The same phenomenon is seen in the earlier primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Obviously, there is some truth to this. Many polls did have Obama beating Hillary Clinton by several percentage points (between 7 and 13) on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, and yet lost by 3 points. New Hampshire is more than 90 percent white.
In South Carolina, Obama led in the latest polls before election by 7 -15 percentage points, but in the end beat Clinton by a 28 percent margin. South Carolina is 29 percent black, which is more than double the national average, and 68 percent white. Plus, African-American voters make up more than half of all Democratic electorate. So it’s easy to see how New Hampshire demonstrated the Bradley effect and South Carolina the reverse Bradley effect.
The Bradley effect refers to the phenomenon in which white respondents in opinion polls overstate their support for a black candidate relative to the final election results to avoid appearing prejudiced. Such outcomes have caught the attention of pollsters since Tom Bradley, a black politician, saw his “lead” in the 1982 California gubernatorial race opinion polls eviscerated on election night against his white opponent.
Pollsters and pundits have also observed the same effect in other regions and during different eras. As the phrase implies, the reverse Bradly effect refers to when support for a black candidate is understated in opinion polling data. (The understatement of support might be due to an under sampling of black respondents relative to white in opinion surveys.)
But neither the Bradley effect or its reversal explains why Obama defeated Clinton in Maine 59 to 40, a state that is more than 95 percent white even though Clinton had a sizable lead in Maine at one point.
Or why Obama beat Clinton in Minnesota (85 percent white and 4.5 percent black) by a more than 2 to 1 margin, despite trailing the former first lady in a poll fewer than 10 days before the election by 7 points.
Or why in Missouri, where polls had Clinton ahead by almost 6 points, but lost to Obama in a squeaker. Missouri is more than 82 percent white and 11.5 percent black. Missouri, Maine, and Minnesota demonstrate that even in states that are overwhelming white can often understate Obama’s support just as much as states with relatively high population like South Carolina.
This is not to say that the Bradley effect or the reverse Bradley effect does not exist or that Obama is somehow immune to either. It does, however, suggest that there is probably a more nuanced explanation for how race might influence election results.
John Derbyshire at the National Review‘s blog The Corner came somewhat close to explaining Obama pattern of success by the Illinois Senator does well:
In the places, black voters will turn out for him in droves [and in places where] people feel little racial tension, will take the candidate on his merits, and be pleased by his uplifting rhetoric.
However, in places where the proportion of black citizens is big enough to cause tension, but not big enough to swing an election, the white majority will not support Obama, and he will do badly.
The first part I think is true. The second not so much. As a reader of this blog noted in a recent email to me, “it seems clear to me that the data suggests when white voters feel on-the-ground competition between their candidate and the candidate of choice for minorities, white voters will choose the white candidate.” This of course speaks to the very local nature of racial tension in races involving candidates of color, particularly in contests for Congressional seats.
Its harder to make this point in state wide elections in states like Missouri, which is considered part of the upper South and the Midwest, and has enough black folk to sway an election. Hence why I take issue with the second part of Derbyshire assertion since it does not account for why Obama beat Hillary Clinton in Missouri, where the number of black folk there reflects the national average, helped put him over the top against Madame Inevitable. According to Derbyshire’s logic, Obama should have lost badly there. So why didn’t he?
I am not gloating about the experts being wrong so much as I am simply scratching my head at all of this trying to make sense of it all, just like they are.
Note: In a previous post I noted the non-existence of term describing a black candidate that significantly exceeds expectations in the polls on the eve of an election and win by a large margin. I obviously now stand corrected.
Note II: The reverse Bradley Effect actually refers to when black respondents understate their support for a black candidate so as not to sound as if they are supporting that candidate out of racial solidarity.
On Valentine’s Day we frequently hear relationship experts tell couples they need spontaneity to keep the flame of passion alive, communication to sustain the bonds of intimacy, honesty to promote mutual respect. But little attention is paid to the wisdom of the strategy of the wear-you-down-method.
What’s that? Simply put, it can simply be described as hard headed persistence in wooing a woman. Women beware! Some men can be frighteningly committed to this approach. And they do it because it works.
In her essay, “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” Lori Gottlieb Writing for March issue for the Atlantic Monthly, illustrated the cold realism inspired by the the wear-you-down-method.
Money quote:
Then there’s my friend Chris, a single 35-year-old marketing consultant who for three years dated someone he calls “the perfect woman”—a kind and beautiful surgeon. She broke off the relationship several times because, she told him with regret, she didn’t think she wanted to spend her life with him. Each time, Chris would persuade her to reconsider, until finally she called it off for good, saying that she just couldn’t marry somebody she wasn’t in love with. Chris was devastated, but now that his ex-girlfriend has reached 35, he’s suddenly hopeful about their future.
“By the time she turns 37,” Chris said confidently, “she’ll come back. And I’ll bet she’ll marry me then. I know she wants to have kids.” I asked Chris why he would want to be with a woman who wasn’t in love with him. Wouldn’t he be settling, too, by marrying someone who would be using him to have a family? Chris didn’t see it that way at all. “She’ll be settling,” Chris said cheerfully. “But not me. I get to marry the woman of my dreams. That’s not settling. That’s the fantasy.”
Now that’s what I call cold blooded calculation. I don’t condone it, since there are obvious flaws to this strategy, but you do have to admire his resolve, even if it distorts one’s sense of reality and comes at the expense of much greater fulfillment.
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Some in the mainstream media have questioned whether or not the youth vote will have an appreciable long term impact on the election. After all, they say, its really risky to rely on a segment of the population that’s much too distracted by Britney, American Idol, iPhones, getting the Wire on Demand, and Xbox 360.
But the Pew Research Center’s analysis of recent data clearly demonstrate that young people are in fact energized by this election cycle.
According to the NBC News exit polls, young voters’ share of the Democratic electorate on Feb. 5 was higher in nearly every state for which a good comparison with 2004 is available. In all of the 2008 contests for which exit poll data are available, young people have constituted an average (median) of 14% of Democratic primary voters, up from a median of 9% in the set of comparable contests in 2004.
The surge in youth turnout has occurred in a diverse collection of states, including those with large African-American populations (Georgia, South Carolina), those that are nearly all-white (Iowa, New Hampshire), and one with a large Hispanic population (California).
Youth turnout as a percentage of the total is up in states that voted at the very beginning of the primary process and for which the comparisons with 2004 are most apt (Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina), as well as in those where the 2004 comparison is to contests held in March of that year after the nomination was essentially settled (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York).
So who are these voters?
Beyond the vote, the exit polls on Super Tuesday point to interesting differences — and similarities — between younger and older Democratic voters. Young Democratic voters are considerably more likely than their elders to be Hispanic, and slightly more likely to be black.
They are more apt to say they have no religious affiliation (23% vs. 18% among those ages 30-44, 15% among those 45-59, 10% among those ages 60 and older), and more likely to say they are “liberal” in their political orientation.
Its seems as if young people generally, and young people of color in particular, are currently the ones creating the new progressive majority.
During the early 1990′s I was too busy listening to Brand Nubians, Das EFX, KRS-ONE, and Pete Rock and CL Smooth on Video Music Box in New York City to understand any of thing about how President Bill Clinton used race as apart of his triangulation strategy. But in the February 13th edition of The New Republic, Michael Crowley took hard look at Clinton’s uneasy relationship with African-Americans during his 1992 campaign and afterwards:
Back in 1992, the Clintons were decidedly not heroes to black America. Bill ran on a platform of welfare reform. He was tough on crime, and some felt he gratuitously supported the execution of the brain-damaged African American killer Ricky Ray Rector on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. When Clinton scolded the obscure rapper Sister Souljah at a meeting of Jesse Jackson Sr.’s Rainbow Coalition, Jackson called it a “Machiavellian” gambit for white votes. That fall, Clinton carried 82 percent of the black vote–a low sum compared to other Democratic nominees. (In 1988, for instance, Mike Dukakis carried 89 percent of the black electorate.)
Once in the White House, the Clintons continued to irritate African Americans.In 1993, they dumped their friend and Justice Department nominee Lani Guinier because of her ideas about racial reapportionment. By 1995, Jackson was complaining that Clinton had ignored civil rights issues and hinted at a primary challenge or independent presidential run. A major test came in 1995, when a Supreme Court ruling imperiled federal affirmative action programs. Under pressure from ascendant Republicans and his pollster Dick Morris, Clinton wavered, but ultimately he settled on his famous “mend it, don’t end it” formulation.
Read more here (subscription required).
Talking Points Memo is reporting that the Obama campaign circulated a flier on the eve of Super Tuesday primaries that sharply criticized Bill Clinton’s presidency for weakening the Democratic party’s working majority. It specifically points to the fact that after President Clinton’s two terms the Democrats had fewer governorships, and members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.
Strong stuff.
Now, I don’t know if this mailer was actually released by the Obama campaign. I only saw this pic on another blog, not with my own eyes.
But if it is indeed from the Obama campaign, it might be cause for concern. Drawing attention to how polarizing a figures the Clintons are may be an effective campaign strategy, though albeit an old criticism, but I am skeptical that this tactic will attract a substantial amount of support for Obama. After all, people still fond of Bill Clinton and his presidency despite his aggressive campaigning for Hillary and negative attacks against Obama. In other words, many Democratic voters still like him, even if they don’t like her. In fact, some people may even vote for her because they find the so-called “two for one option” so enticing.
More importantly, attacking a fellow popular Democratic, even if its warranted, might actually undercut Obama’s message of being an above the fray, and a visionary candidate that can unite the party and the country. Again, I don’t know if this was ever produced by the campaign itself, but its certainly worth paying attention to. And I don’t just mean whether or not the Obama campaign will own up to it, but because of what the message conveys about electability and achieving a governing majority.
During the course of his campaign, Obama has framed the discussion of electability to be about more than who will be the more successful nominee in November. He has emphasized the need to embrace a “new politics” by making the case that he can enlarge the Democratic party’s majority by attracting new voters into the process. By implication this means if he is at the top of the ticket in November, more people are willing to vote more Democrats into office nationally. The intimation here is that anti-Hillary sentiment will have a negative cascading affect on other Democrats running for office elsewhere in the country, especially those in purple or red states and districts. Obama is not alone in this criticism.
In a piece published in the New Yorker months before the 2006 mid-term elections, Jeffrey Goldberg asked two Democratic fund raisers in Missouri about how other Democratic candidates would fare elsewhere in the country if Clinton were the nominee and they said:
[W]hen asked if Clinton should be the Party’s nominee, Shields said, “That would be a hard one.” The outgoing executive director of the Greene County Democrats, Nora Walcott, was more direct. Though she said she was to the left in the Party, she feared that Clinton’s liberal credentials would alienate Missouri voters. “You’ve got to tell the people in Washington not to nominate Hillary,” she told me. “It would do so much damage to the Missouri Democratic Party.”
Not exactly flattering. On the other hand, considering that Obama just edged out Hillary Clinton, 49 to 48 percent in Missouri, on Tuesday, that assessment may or may not all that accurate. In any case, this wider larger notion of electability should be more widely debated since we are in the thick of the primary season.
We just might learn something what this word “electability” really means.
A cursory glance at the results from February 5th Democratic primary contests reveals some really encouraging signs for the Obama campaign, especially in seemingly unlikely places of the country. He won 60 percent of the vote or better in Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, and North Dokata. (I would add Alaska too, but its a poor example considering how few votes were casted there.)
To her credit, Hillary Clinton did win convincingly in many states across the country, most notably in California where Obama devoted considerable resources to challenge her, but she only broke 60 percent in Arkansas (69 percent).
Lets see Bill Clinton compare those numbers in both fairly racially homogeneous and diverse states to how Jesse Jackson performed in 1984 and 1988.
Obama also beat Clinton in a number of squeaker contests too such as Connecticut (51 to 47 percent) and Missouri (49 to 48 percent). (New Mexico due to a storm has had to close its polling stations early and is still in the process of counting ballots.) I have not seen the exit data yet, but this is most definitive indication that Clinton’s commanding lead in the national opinion polls has been eviscerated.
That said, Obama is still behind in the delegate count. The Associated Press says Hillary has 845 to Obama’s 765. CNN calls it for Hillary by even wider margin 783 to 709, which is a tally that includes pledged state delegates and superdelegates. My sense is that there is some fuzzy math going on here, but I don’t have the time to work all these numbers out myself.
At any rate, its now safe to say that Obama’s appeal in breath and depth seems to measure well very well with Clinton’s name recognition. But there is no doubt that the Obama campaign needs his message to penetrate the Latino and Asian ethnic media markets out west and elsewhere. The Clinton campaign has capitalized on their superior outreach to yellow and brown communities, something that has been in the works for quite some time.
At the same time, I am left wondering how much better Obama would have done provided Edwards dropped out sooner, especially since Obama has won in 13 out of the 22 states last night.
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