“Dealing With Hamas”

During Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry not only underscored the need for greater engagement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also the counterproductive consequences of bombing campaign in Gaza.

Kerry noted:

I had the privilege of being in the West Bank the day — the morning after President Abbas was elected in 2005 and I met with him in Ramallah in that old headquarters and we spent some time together and he looked at me and he said, “You know, Senator, I know exactly what you expect of me. I have to disarm Hamas. Now, you tell me how I’m supposed to do that. I have no radios, I have no cars, I have no police, and Hamas has the ability to walk up to a door and deliver $20,000 value to somebody who’s blown up, widows or orphans of a family of a suicide bomber.”

They deliver the services and we, for years, have talked about the creation of a legitimate partner for peace and yet we’ve done almost nothing to fundamentally help them deliver that capacity.

So my hope is — I mean, I fear — I mean, Israel has all the right in the world and we are totally supportive of the patience they’ve shown, the forbearance, over 10,500 rockets, the fact that Hamas broke the ceasefire. We understand the need to deal with Hamas, but we also have to recognize the threat here that Hamas may, in fact, wind up being more powerful than FATA as a consequence.

If Hamas becomes more powerful as a result of Israel’s war in the Gaza strip, it only stands to reason it will be difficult to work around them politically. With thousands of Hamas rockets finding their way into southern Israel thus far, one can only dare to imagine how many they would fire if peace talks were conducted and they were not at the table.

Of course, this is further complicated by the fact that Hamas actually controls the government in the Gaza strip thanks to the Bush administration insistence that elections be held there despite warnings that the Western backed Fatah party would lose.

For her part, Clinton maintained that Hamas must yield to a variety of demands before Israel and the U.S. engage them in peace talks. “When it comes to non-state actors like Hamas, as I said at the very end of the morning session, there are conditions. Hamas must renounce violence. They must recognize Israel, and they must agree to abide by all previous agreements,” she told the committee,” she told the Committee yesterday.

I am not sure this is realistic these preconditions are  no matter how much the U.S. and Israel are committed to them. In my mind, the U.S. would have to redirect its energies toward weakening Hamas by persuading those in its political arm to side with other moderates living in the occupied territories and create another rival party or remake Fatah into a independent party that with real support.

Both of which would be difficult to do considering how Hamas has all the real fighters, which is all the more important in a time of war. Plus, with other countries in the region such as Iran in supporting Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian fighter group, the influence of Saudi cash, and possibility of rocket fire coming from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon all could make things instantly more volatile with or without new elections and with or without peace talks.

So the fact that we need “to deal with Hamas” becomes painfully clear with each passing year, and that may include doing so diplomatically. We may not need to widely advertise that fact, but we also should not completely ignore it either.

Sorting Out Preconditions

With President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to announce Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State this week, like many people I am wondering how their approaches will mesh. As former Secretary of State James Backer said on Meet the Press today there has to be a seamless relationship between Obama and Clinton on message, approach, and execution if its going to work.

Or as Thomas Friedman of the NYT recently noted, “Foreign leaders can spot daylight between a president and a secretary of state from 1,000 miles away. They know when they’re talking to the secretary of state alone and when they are talking through the secretary of state to the president. And when they think they are talking to the president, they sit up straight; and when they think they are talking only to the secretary of state, they slouch in their chairs.”

That said, few issues stand out more than whether or not the President of the United States should be willing to meet with dictators or authoritarian leaders without preconditions – a point of genuine disagreement between Obama and Clinton during the campaign. In the November 17th issue of the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza describes Obama’s reaction to the barrage of criticism from the Clinton camp and political pundits to his response to a provocative question in a July 2007 Democratic Presidential YouTube and CNN debate.

Several Obama aides believe that a crucial moment came after a debate sponsored by YouTube and CNN in July of 2007. During the debate, Obama was asked, “Would you be willing to meet separately, without preconditions, during the first year of your Administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?” Obama answered simply, “I would.” Hillary Clinton pounced on the remark as hopelessly naïve, and her aides prepared to emphasize what appeared to be a winning argument. Obama’s aides had much the same reaction. “We know this is going to be the issue of the day,” Dan Pfeiffer, recalling a conference call the following morning, said. “We have the sense they’re going to come after us on it. And we’re all on the bus trying to figure out how to get out of it, how not to talk about it.” Obama, who was listening to part of the conversation, took the telephone from an aide and instructed his staff not to back down. According to an aide, Obama said something to the effect of “This is ridiculous. We met with Stalin. We met with Mao. The idea that we can’t meet with Ahmadinejad is ridiculous. This is a bunch of Washington-insider conventional wisdom that makes no sense. We should not run from this debate. We should have it.”

Now of course saying that you are willing to meet with certain heads of state does not mean you in fact will choose to do so. But Obama’s response to it does reveal a real difference in opinion. I wonder how this will be massaged. That is to say, if Clinton is instructed to meet with Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Obama will her private disagreements, assuming she has any, become public? Or if they are never leaked to press will those leaders suspect that they can exploit whatever daylight may exist between the President-elect Obama and in-coming Secretary of State Clinton?

Perhaps, those questions will remain moot because it may be an option that Obama never truly chooses to exercise, whether Clinton objects to it or not.  For the most part, Obama and Clinton will most likely seek to exert pressure on certain leaders to at least give the appearance that they are negotiating from a position of strength rather than one of weakness or desperation, which is how some will try to portray it.

At any rate, I bet before taking the gig for top diplomat, Clinton had all sorts of preconditions for Obama and vice versa.

Advising Obama on that 3 am Phone Call

Journalists must be feeling giddy about the idea of reporting on the mere prospect of Senator Hillary Clinton serving as Secretary of State instead of writing stories on obscure beltway figures uttering cryptic remarks at ho hum press conferences on the minutiae of executing a brilliantly well run transition to power.

The junior Senator from New York has reportedly been sited in Chicago pulling up in her own two car motorcade preparing to meet with folks on what one Clinton aid described as “private” business. All inquires as to the nature of the trip have been directed not to her own communications staff, but the Obama transition team. Staffers on the transition team have instructed the media to take the rumor “seriously,” though have remained mum on the subject themselves, according to March Armbinder of the Atlantic.

So far three reasons have been posited for why the Obama team is seriously considering Clinton. One is the lack of enthusiasm for the shortlist of Secretary of State, Clinton’s experience on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, and, of course, because it fits in so well with the “Team of Rivals” narrative that the Abraham Lincoln obsessed Obama and his aides have tried to craft.

Interestingly enough, this is a notion that Obama has clinged to for a long while. In fact, even as early as December of 2007 Obama floated the possibility of having Senator Hillary Clinton as an adviser albeit in a tongue and cheek kind of way.

And in May of this year Obama would tease supporters and the media alike about the possibility of having Hillary Clinton serve in his administration.

I can tell you this. My goal is to have the best possible government. And that means me winning. So, I’m very practical in my thinking. I’m a practical guy. One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. Awhile back, there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called ‘Team of Rivals,’ in which she talked about how Lincoln basically pulled all the people he’d been running against into his Cabinet. Because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was, ‘How can we get the country through this time of crisis?’ I think that has to be the approach one takes to the vice president and the Cabinet.

So I guess the signs were always there. But that is not to say some in the Obama camp do not have their reservations. Marc Ambinder reports:

That said, there is no reason, other than speculation, to believe that Obama has suddenly warmed to the idea of putting a harsh rival into his cabinet; it’s not known whether Obama trusts Clinton; whether he trusts her managerial ability; whether they’ve reconciled personally; it is certainly true that many former Clinton aides are now working for Obama, including several of Hillary Clinton’s top policy advisers.

Well, I guess we are going to have to say tuned.

Are We Overhyping the Bradley Effect?

As Obama’s lead in the national and statewide polls swells, inquisitive and perhaps bored pundits are beginning to ask how much of that lead will diminish once certain white voters step into the both. That is to say, how much of Obama’s lead is vulnerable to the so-called Bradley effect, which occurs when white, and perhaps other non-black voters, overstate their support for an African American candidate as respondents in opinion polls.

In a piece entitled “Funny Numbers” The New York Times quotes Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, who warns us “How much we are under-representing people who are intolerant and therefore unlikely to vote for Obama is an open question… I suspect not a great deal, but maybe some. And ‘maybe some’ could be crucial in a tight election.”

Maybe. Just maybe.

Funny, how even as Obama’s lead grows we still need to be alarmist about how he might actually be losing.

Interestingly enough, the piece goes on to make a subtle distinction between what may appear to be manifestations of the Bradley effect and the phenomenon of racial polarized voting. The latter occurs when in a given election whether its for the head of the school board or the presidency people vote for candidates of the same race often in an effort to protect themselves from perceived threats to their own political and social power as people living in racialized communities. This part may be the hardest to capture because of on going on the ground dynamics.

Who knows if some older white people while standing on line to vote will be so annoyed by a group of black college kids wearing one of those bootleg Obama t-shirts and decide to pull the lever for McCain instead?

I suppose we could speculate about such things all day, but one of the benefits of the almost endless Democratic primary contest is the wealth of data we have from numerous head to head match ups between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The data compiled in the table below by the good folks at FiveThirtyEight.com is of polling within the last 2 weeks before that state’s primary as averaged out by pollser.com. A close reading of the data reveals that there is little proof of the Bradley effect harming Obama’s chances against Hillary Clinton. In fact, more times than not, Obama outperformed the polling estimates. This is almost as true in states where he won as it is of states where he lost.

This is not to say that race is not a factor. But it is to suggest that race plays a far more subtle role in voting than the media likes to admit. Regionally, Obama more than outperformed his polling average in the South, which in part is due to a great deal of support from black voters. But he also enjoyed some of his greatest support in overwhelming white states such as Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin, where he blew away his initial polling averages.  In states with very few black voters racially polarized voting does not seem to have much of an impact, whereas its a different story in more diverse states where black folk approach or exceed their national averages, such as states like Ohio and Texas.

(H/T: FiveThirtyEight.com)

Did You Really Have to Fact Check That?

While most of us were reveling in Senator Hillary Clinton’s thundering and memorable speech at the Democratic Convention last night, the good folks at the New York Times thought it was a good idea to fact check her paraphrase of the great abolitionist Harriet Tubman. In a post provocatively titled “Did Harriet Tubman Really Say That?,” Sewell Chan contacted a few Tubman scholars about whether or not that famed New Yorker actually said as Clinton noted in her great speech:

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

In short, the scholars said no, but its an understandable and very forgivable mistake, considering how so many people have attributed that same paraphrase so often to Tubman for so many years.

In fact, one scholar said in an email message to Chan that “I researched this years ago and determined it came from a juvenile account of Tubman’s life sometime in the 1950s.” But that “in all fairness to Senator Clinton and others who use that quote, few outside of the small circle of Tubman scholars know that the quote is not actually attributable to Tubman.”

Now, as much as I love a good diligent fact check, I do have to admit this Chan’s post is going to be forever associated with an otherwise marvelous and gracious speech by Senator Clinton.

Call me a sucker for poetic specifying, but I think politicians, especially when they invoke the celebrated efforts of truly heroic figures should be provided a little latitude. This is particularly true of Senator Clinton who did a great job of trying to persuade her supporters to get behind the party’s nominee.

At any rate, I have to ask did that really needed to be fact checked?

Dude Give it Up

Howard Wolfson, Fox News contributor and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign spokesman on the alleged poor timing of the reporting of the Edwards affair:

“I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

[Snip]

“Our voters and Edwards’ voters were the same people,” Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. “They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama.”

Dude its not about you.

Wanted and Desired

Threat Level is reporting that the McCain campaign has newly acquired the domain name ClintonsforMcCain.com in an attempt to appeal to frustrated and disappointed Clinton supporters. Apparently, this is part of the 2012 strategy of some of her supporters.

As one commenter noted on a Cliniton campaign blog, “We just re-registered as an undeclared party and will not vote for Obama. If you do not get the nomination this time, you will be a shoo-in in 2012 after the Democratic Party takes a huge beating in November.”

But there are also some who are taking the cynical calculation a bit too far. Threat Level quotes another commenter this time on a McCain campaign blog as saying,

McCain needs is a pick a centrist with a good history on women’s issues. If he promises not to pick a Court Justice to overturn Roe vs. Wade, he will easily pick up a majority of Clinton supporters. The DNC thinks it can treat a woman with great disregard without penalty. They think they will keep the women’s vote merely by the threat of more Supreme Court Justices that want to overturn Roe vs. Wade. McCain prove them wrong!

And just think not too long ago, certain Democrats ridiculed the Southern poor and other so-called Reagan Democrats for voting against their own self interest by supporting Republicans.

Unleash the Crazies!

Eve Fairbanks at The Plank provided an account of the frenzied madness created by the pro-Hillary protesters outside of the Washington Marriott today where the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee members met to hammer out a deal to seat Florida’s and Michigan’s disputed state delegates.

Howard Dean may hope that the “healing will begin today,” but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe: a universe in which one of the big lawn rally’s speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of “promoting equality and fairness for all”; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, “Howard Dean is a leftist freak!”; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads “At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen” and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball.

“They almost made me cry this morning when they told me to get out of there,” the blond Sinclair–who’s looking roly-poly and giddy in a blue-and-white striped shirt with a pack of Marlboros protruding from the breast pocket–says, referring to several nervous protest organizers who tried to evict him when he first showed up at the rally site early this morning carrying a box of “Obama’s DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS: Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex” fliers. Since then, though, he goes on, “I have been totally surprised by the reception I have received!”

The Obama campaign wisely instructed supporters to not to hold protests of their own thereby providing an unobstructed view of pro-Hillary delirium.

Update: Campaign unleash the crazies has a spokesperson.

An Evolution

So we went from

To this

And then this

And now we have this

But honestly, I am not surprised about the John Edwards endorsement. After all, he practically admitted voting for Obama during an MSNBC interview when he unintentionally said he voted for “him” and not for “her” in the North Carolina primary.

“You’re saying that this candidate you voted for will be the candidate that you potentially endorse, that it looks highly likely, if I can use your words?” she said.

“I’d say that’s very likely,” Mr. Edwards said.

“Okay, well, I’m close, I just need to find out who Elizabeth voted for,” Ms. Brzezinski said, referring to Mrs. Edwards.

“I just voted – I just voted for him on Tuesday, so–,” Mr. Edwards said.

Then David Schuster, another MSNBC host, interrupted: “So it was a him or a her that you voted for?”

Mr. Edwards backpedaled a bit, saying, “No, no,” and laughing.

Clearly, this must have been in the works at least before to the North Carolina primary, if not weeks prior to that contest. More and more the aura of inevitability surrounding Obama is slowly but surely asserting itself.

McCain Unsure If Condoms Help Prevent H.I.V

From the NYT Caucus blog in March 2007. Just priceless.

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

And who’s out of touch?

Ho Hum Victory

After capturing 67 percent of the vote compared to only 26 for Obama in the West Virigina Democratic primary contest last night, Senator Hillary Clinton vowed to fight on and on and on and on.

According to Patrick Healey of the NYT, Senator Clinton seemed to minced no words about her quixotic quest in her victory speech.

“There are some who have wanted to cut this race short,” Mrs. Clinton said at a victory party in Charleston, W.Va., where the crowd at one point chanted, “It’s not over!” “I am more than ever determined to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard.”

But then this begs the question of what metric is left to demonstrate her viability for the nomination? She’s significantly behind in pledged state delegates(1352 to 1418), in popular votes, and won fewer states than Obama (28 to 16) has overtaken her in Superdelegates (265 to 282), and a mountain of campaign debt to pay off.

I am sure the Clinton camp is aware of all this. How could they not? Even long time Clinton loyalist James Carville conceded that Obama is very likely to be the nominee. She fought tenaciously, if not nastily, but at this point I say go knock yourselves themselves out. Drink some whiskey. Got hunt. Chat about health care with some folks at the Ohio and Kentucky border and just chillax.

Plus, with Kentucky on the horizon perhaps she can go out on a high note and make the most of these ho hum victories.

Superdelegates and Yet Still in College?

Its fair to say that most of us, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent, consider the very notion that some people within the Democratic party get to be Superdelegates rather absurd. Its just seems silly that such public servants, most of whom were elected, should hold so much sway as to who gets the nomination.

But if that wasn’t bad enough some of those Superdelegates are not even elected officials. In fact, some of them are Democratic party activists who are still in college.

Consider Lauren Wolfe of University of Detriot Mercy and Awais Khaleel of University of Wisconsin at Madison. Both of whom, by virtue of being president and vice president, respectively, of College Democrats of America, are Superdelegates.

And apparently they made an appeal to their peers for some guidance as to who they should they endorse in
a recent YouTube video.

Watch it.

Wow. College pizza looks the same everywhere. I guess thats why I only eat real pizza when I am in New York City. Just saying….

At any rate, it seems as if the coed Superdelegates got their wish….and then some. According to Threat Level at Wired, the two have been inundated by thousands of email and Facebook messages lobbying them to choose one over the other.

Jason Rae, 21, another Superdelgete still working towards completing his undergraduate degree, and Obama supporter, also wrote an open letter lobbying in an effort to persuade his fellow coeds to support the Illinois Senator. That too was done in conjunction with Students for Obama one of the many forces behind the Obama campus insurgency.

For those wondering, according to the WSJ, Wolfe, Khaleel, and Rae complete the trio of Superdelegates still in college.

Needless to say, these kids got it made. I am sure they could use some of their leverage for a nice gig in the White House or Justice Department or at least some decent pizza in New York or a steak dinner in DC.

(H/T: Sarah Lai Stirland at Threat Level)

Between Graciousness and Bitterness

Dan Balz of the WaPo accurately captured the Obama’s campaign essential dilemma regarding how to handle Senator Clinton’s eventual exit from the race.

Obama advisers are watching and waiting. They are concerned that Clinton appears ready to continue challenging his strength against McCain. Inside the Obama camp, there is consensus that she should be given time to ease down from the intensity of recent months and to make a transition to more positive campaigning.

They do not want to do anything to antagonize her by calling for her to get out or by questioning her motives for staying in. But they are reluctant to sit back in the face of attacks, and they are not happy with some of the things she has said in the past few days.

So as settled as the outcome of the Democratic race may seem by the delegate math, it is far from over in the potential consequences for the candidates and the party.

I wholeheartedly agree. I really don’t want to hear Clinton say that there is “a pattern emerging” of her getting more “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” than Obama in recent contests, especially given that an organization she and her top advisers are align with tried to suppressed black vote in North Carolina and elsewhere.

Needless to say, it just sends the wrong message to voters and engenders more bad blood.

More negative campaigning could fracture the Democratic party in ways that only serve to highlight the worst of so-called identity politics.

On the Exit Polls in Indiana

Senator Barack Obama’s lost in a squeaker in Indiana should provide some encouragement to the campaign. Here are a few stats I found fairly interesting in the exit polls.

Obama lost to Hillary on registered Republicans and Democrats, 52 to 46 and 53 to 47, yet won independents and others, 49 to 51. This worries me a bit because while its encouraging to see that Obama can still bring new people into the process, I wonder if it means some people are still too resistant to the change he wittingly or unwittingly represents to some people or if its just that still has trouble solidifying the Democratic base around him due to other issues.

Of course, it would be useful to know how many of the folks who voted for Hillary last night will vote for Obama in November versus John McCain. But that’s a related yet separate issue for another post.

I also found it odd that voters who had some college or an associates degree voted decisively for Clinton, 58 to 41, yet Obama won those who actually had a college degree 53 to 46. This statistic alone makes me want to send every child to college. Its also strikes me as highly peculiar that such as deviation should exist among people around the same education level.

As expected Clinton destroyed Obama among the 65 and older crowd, 71 to 29, but he did beat her among those aged between 40 and 49 by a comfortable margin, 48 to 52. This is a good sign that Obama can close the age gap against Hillary even in an overwhelming white state after the Rev. Wright controversy.

A little bit of the familiar and the surprising came through on the key issues too. For those who ranked the war in Iraq as their top issue, Obama beat Hillary 54 to 46. That’s to be expected though I think he should have beat her by a wider margin on that score. Perhaps, it reflects the fact that Obama during the last few weeks has not had a chance to underscore Hillary’s vote for war, and her meager concession of regret for doing so only under fierce criticism by the liberal left and once it became clear that it was a clear impediment to her success.

For those who said the economy was the biggest issue Clinton beat Obama 54 to 45. This is surprising to me, especially given her obvious knee jerk pandering by teasing voters with her gas tax holiday proposal, an idea she appropriated from McCain. Perhaps, Obama should have emphasized how Clinton’s position on this issue spoke to policy and character differences a little more. It was a dumb idea that no economist supported and it definitely speaks to the whole she will do anything to win meme.

More importantly, in the minds of many people the economy and the war are inextricably linked. If Obama could remind people of the opportunity costs lost due to spending money on the failed war in Iraq, means less funding for SCHIP or less than robust tax breaks for middle class folk or less funds for federal student loans, then he could at least narrowed that gap a bit. The war in Iraq needs to be recasted as an economic issue, because if it works against the Clinton campaign it will certainly work against McCain in the fall.

Interestingly enough, Obama and Clinton basically split those who said health care was their top issue, 51 to 49. This is an indication that Obama is starting to make head way with many of his smaller town hall style policy discussions with ordinary folk who want to hear him make his pitch on the specifics, particularly folk with real needs. It also means that people are beginning to associate Obama with one of the staple issues of the Democratic party. If this holds up in the remaining contests, health care, along with his opposition to the war in Iraq, could be his ticket to solidifying the Democratic base in November.

As far as the racial and gender breakdown goes. Some of it just does not seem right to me. I don’t know how it all breaks down within the Democratic electorate in Indiana, but the state’s overall population is more than 88 percent white and nearly nine percent black. By contrast, white and black folk are about 66 percent and 12 percent of the national population, respectively. So, that means we have an overrepresented white population and an underrepresented black population in the Hoosier state.

Yet Clinton creamed Obama among whites 61 to 39 while he won the overwhelming majority of the black vote at 92 to eight. But even if we concede that black folk will be overrepresented in the Democratic electorate is it possible that he managed to create a photo finish ending in Indiana with those kind of numbers? I am by no means a statistician, but this makes me wonder how reliable some of the exit polling data is making conclusive judgments on racial polarized voting patterns.

Or maybe I am just missing something.

If I have time during the next two days or so, I will take a look at the North Carolina exit polls.

Gas Tax Fodder

What happens when those who claim to represent the party of ideas collides with those eager to pander? Well, you scapegoat the experts naturally.

Senator Bob Menendez drinks the Kool Aid too.

Interestingly enough, when Senator Clinton said that Obama’s plan was not universal and that her plan in fact was she regularly cited health care experts and economists as a way of substantiating her claim. Here is what Senator Hillary Clinton said in her debate with Senator Obama back in February of this year only a few days shy of the Ohio and Texas primary.

And unfortunately it’s a debate we should have that is accurate and is based in facts about my plan and Senator Obama’s plan, because my plan will cover everyone and it will be affordable. And on many occasions, independent experts have concluded exactly that.

And Senator Obama’s plan does not cover everyone. It would leave, give or take, 15 million people out. So we should have a good debate that uses accurate information, not false, misleading, and discredited information, especially on something as important as whether or not we will achieve quality, affordable health care for everyone.