It's That Clinton Woman...

On another thread, Simon T has picked up on Ewen MacAskill's headline in The Guardian of London: "Clinton to Accept Offer of Secretary of State Job". So, in the spirit of proving that I'm only 2-3 steps behind the news:

MacAskill has apparently got an inside source but little else: the Clinton lead is only the first four paragraphs --- only the first two of which offer any signficant information --- of a much longer article focusing on Obama's meeting on Monday with John McCain.

That's not to say that the story isn't possible, even likely: the spur for the coverage in The New York Times is Bill Clinton's weekend declaration, “If [Obama] decided to ask [Hillary] and they did it together, I think she’ll be really great as a secretary of state,” and confirmation that Obama advisors are reviewing Bill Clinton's finances and international activities (for possible conflict of interest issues, not illegalities, immoralities, etc.).

The story, however, is still in the realm of speculation, built around whispers and winks. The lack of public statement gets turned into yet another confirmation that the appointment must be happening. As James Carville, Bill Clinton's former spin-meister, spins it this time, "A silent phone’s sometimes as much of an indication as a ringing phone."

Yes, there is drama in the possibilities but, for now, they are overshadowing significant developments. Say, for example, the rest of that Guardian story. The Obama meeting with McCain is a singificant and shrewd move by the President-elect to work for both the symbolism and substance of Republican support for his foreign policy. The McCain who existed before the Presidential campaign --- the one who pushed for limitations on Government "enhanced interrogation", for example, and who has called for the closure of Guantanamo --- would be a big asset for the Obama Administration. As the Republican Party goes through its self-critique, the GOP's key players will be in the Congress, and any bulwark against the red-meat Republicans who still want to inflict punishment on Democrats (and Russians and Chinese and Iranians and "terrorists") will be useful.

Speculate on what might happen? Sure. But one eye on what has happened is even more useful.

Palin 2012? Here's a Clue....

My relatives tell me of an interesting political development in Georgia (the American one, not the Caucacus one).

Because Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss failed to get 50 percent of the vote on Election Night, he has to fight Democrat Jim Martin in a runoff on 2 December. Since the swing of a Senate seat to the Democrats could be quite signficant, especially with the outcome in Minnesota up in the air, national politicians are doing some serious campaignin' for the candidates.

John McCain is due in Marietta, Georgia, today for a rally. Republican organisers also wanted Sarah Palin to journey to the Peach State, but she's turned them down. Apparently, she's "too busy".

Really? Sister Sarah certainly wasn't too busy for a series of nationally-televised interviews this week to give her definitive reading on the McCain campaign, and I bet she won't be passing on a high-profile appearance at the Republican Governors' Conference this weekend.

Fancy a good in-fight? Watch this space....

Fact x Importance = News (Nov 10)

Other stories that caught our eye last week:

• Barack Obama's election victory is already altering the tenor of Iraqi politics.


• An 'unknown "foreign entity"' hacked both the Obama and McCain campaigns' computer systems.


• Michael Lind thinks the US is witnessing the dawn of its Fourth Republic- though it may actually have begun four years ago.


• Cyber-terrorism in Pakistan could be punishable by death.


• The latest photograph of Kim Jong-il is probably fake.

Discuss these stories- and let us know what else we've missed- in the comments below.

The Inside Story of the Palin Nomination: Follow-up

Just before the election, Enduring America passed on some inside information about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential nominee. Apparently, it was a last-minute choice when McCain advisors blocked the selection of Joe Lieberman. The somewhat bizarre twist was that Palin came to attention in part because of Republican Party activists, notably those behind the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush years, who met her while on cruises in the Alaskan fjords.

Well, well: looks like we were on the mark. The investigative journalist Jane Mayer has now laid out more of the story on Democracy Now!.

There's an additional postscript that Mayer doesn't note. Apparently Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's foreign policy advisors, was fired from the campaign. The allegation is that he was leaking information to Palin about some of the opposition to her amongst other McCain staffers.

Significance? Scheunemann is a long-time foreign policy pal of the activists --- loosely, sometimes inaccurate known as "neo-conservatives" --- who were gung-ho for the Iraq War. Indeed, Scheunemann was at the head of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, formed in 2002. Before that, he had been part of the Project for a New American Century, signing their letter on 20 September 2001 to President Bush calling for swift action against terrorism, including regime change in Iraq.

Scheunemann has thus been in the same circles and shared the same outlook as William Kristol. Far from coincidentially --- at least in my book --- it is Kristol who has been Palin's biggest public cheerleader via his columns at the New York Times. And it is Kristol who was the channel for Palin's charge that McCain wasn't being negative enough on Obama, for example, bringing out the Illinois Senator's connections with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

The Real Story Behind How McCain Chose Sarah Palin

Amy Goodman: No matter who wins the White House November 4th, a group of prominent conservatives are planning to meet the next day in Virginia to discuss the way forward for the movement. And regardless of the outcome, Governor Sarah Palin will be high on the agenda. The New York Times reports if John McCain loses the election, Palin could emerge as a standard bearer for the conservative movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012, albeit one who will need to address her considerable political damage.

Most Americans had never heard of Sarah Palin when McCain first announced her as his running mate back in August. Her national debut came at the Republican Party's convention in St. Paul, where she sought to cast herself as an antidote to the elitist culture inside the Beltway.

Gov. Sarah Palin: I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment, and I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.

AG: Governor Palin's sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington elite than her rhetoric suggests. That's according to an article in The New Yorker magazine by investigative reporter Jane Mayer. It's called "The Insiders: How John McCain Came to Pick Sarah Palin." Jane Mayer now joins us in Washington, D.C.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jane.

Jane Mayer: Hi, thanks. Good to be with you.

AG: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you tell us the story of the cruises to Alaska?

JM: The cruises. Well, Juneau, Alaska turns out to be a major stop for cruise ships that come through Alaska, and there are political cruises, in particular, that are run by the conservative political magazines that stop there. And so, when Sarah Palin was elected governor, she learned that a number of those Washington insider elite members of the media would be trooping through Juneau. And despite the rhetoric that she's got that is about, you know, sort of deriding them and saying she doesn't, you know, seek their approval, in fact, she invited most of them to lunch and to other receptions that she threw. She even brought some up on a helicopter ride to go see a couple sites in Alaska.

So, she was courting some of those Washington insiders. In particular, they were the pundits that work for the Weekly Standard magazine, which is Rupert Murdoch's conservative political magazine, and the National Review, the old conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley. So she made a great impression on some of these pundits when they came through. They enjoyed their lunches and receptions and went back and wrote fabulous stories about her, and this was one of the things that really got the ball rolling for her.

More on Democracy Now!

From the Archives: Assessing the US Election (5 September)

Flashback: This column originally ran on Watching America on our big-sibling site Libertas, just after the Party Conventions. Two months later, I think it stands up well. My only regret is that I didn't place that bet on Obama.

With the conclusion of the Party Conventions, we can finally get to the real campaignin'. Convenient then that the folks at the British-American Business Council asked me for a 500-word reading of who might be walking into the White House next January. In the end, fascination and a bit of obsession led to 1500.

In a nutshell: The first major clues will come next week after the big polling organisations use the Labor Day weekend to get a post-convention snapshot of the electorate. 

But Barack Obama, even at 9-4 on, is looking good value for a bet.

THIS IS THE DEMOCRATS’ ELECTION TO LOSE

Of course, the Republicans do not have the advantage of incumbency, as President Bush could not run again under American law. Equally important, it is a hard task to hand over to a successor --- since 1945, a Party has only retained the White House for a 3^rd term on 1 of 6 occasions. (George H.W. Bush was able to follow Ronald Reagan in 1989.) Given the unpopularity of the Bush Administration, the task is even tougher this time. That is why President Bush and his close advisors have been tucked away in the broom cupboards by the McCain campaign, with the President making a lacklustre eight-minute appearance on video and Vice-President Cheney holding court in Georgia --- not the American Georgia but the one halfway around the world.

The issues are running against the Republicans. Iraq has turned from immediate victory to extended, tiring nightmare to a conflict that most Americans would like to forget; the War on Terror hasn’t captured Osama; and Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and now the conflict in the Caucasus are confusing issues with no easy resolutions. Far more importantly, the US economy is faltering into possible recession, accompanied by a series of symbolic “crises”. Voters are worried about their pensions, their mortgages, and rising prices for food and energy.

A colleague captured the moment in May when he spoke for many comfortably middle-class neighbours: “We’re worried that our 411Ks (pension funds) have halved in value.”

In 2004 Bush offset accusations of economic mismanagement by playing the “national security” card. Even so, he barely made it back to the White House, surviving by the margin of a few thousand votes in Ohio. Four years later, waving the red flag of warning against terrorists and tyrants is an even riskier proposition.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY?

The Democratic campaign, however, has failed to capitalise on its opportunity; indeed, by mid-August, the Obama campaign was looking more than a bit jittery.

Obama, as an politician, as an orator, and, for some, as a visionary, played a blinder at the start of 2008. He captured the imagination of many current voters with his concept of “change”; more importantly, he brought in the largest number of new voters in recent history.

Then Hillary Clinton, seeing her grasp on the Democratic nomination slip away, counter-attacked. Using a pernicious tactic of guilt by association (and sneakily inserting the question of African-American “reliability”), she labelled Obama an extremist because of his church leader, Jeremiah Wright, and political activists such as the former ‘60s radical William Ayers. When Obama blocked this with an outstanding speech on race, she switched to the theme of her representation of the “working-class” (read whites) with their love of guns, church, and community.

Obama slipped up, notably through an off-the-record talk in San Francisco noting that said love of guns and church could be distractions from economic worries. What was needed was a full presentation of those economic worries and some ideas for dealing with this, but Obama --- short on policy as opposed to vision --- didn’t deliver.

While this didn’t deny the nomination to the Senator of Illinois, it offered a liferaft to the Republicans: “culture wars”.

RELEASE THE CULTURAL HOUNDS

Throughout US history, it has been an electoral tactic and a feature of political life to hold up the threat of the “un-American”. Since the 1960s and especially in the last twenty years, that “un-American” tag has been slapped on certain issues, such as immigration and, after 9-11, “national security”. Those issues, however, may not prove long-term vote-winners. The Republicans, for example, have relegated immigration as a campaign theme in the face of a sizeable backlash against anti-immigrant rhetoric and a very sizeable Hispanic-American vote. And, in contrast, to recent campaigns, they are no longer bashing “gay rights” and even the possibility of same-sex marriage.

So the culture war is one best fought against caricatures: “angry leftists” who would support enemy governments and terrorists, “extremists” like outspoken feminists and African-American activists, and “elitist liberals”. It is this war that underlay both the choice of Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee and her acceptance speech, which mobilised the Republican Convention, on 3 September. While unsubtly trying the tactic of a woman will vote for a woman, the Republicans can also position Palin as the small-town Mom who is “one of us”. This in turn means she can cut loose on those who not “part of us”, the working-class, church-loving folk of America.

WILL IT WORK IN PEORIA? PROBABLY NOT

The Democrats yet again failed to slam the door on this Republican strategy. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention was great on style, which in turn gave a significant “bounce” both in polls and in registration of voters, but short on an approach to economic and social issues. Failing to even note the economic gorilla in the room, the Federal budget deficit, he relied on general platitudes about taxing fat cats (while cutting taxes for the small business and working man) and making American health care and education the best in the world.

But, with the Palin strategy, the Republicans have probably handed back this gift. If the Democrats have failed to put forth key issues, McCain will not be able to avoid them. Palin’s importance, after the press gets over the beauty-queen, Hockey Mom novelty, lies in her political stances. She’s staunchly anti-abortion, for the teaching of creationism, very much for guns, and sceptical of environment and energy-control measures to the point where she denies that global warming is a man-made phenomenon.

This will all come out, Simply put, elections are not won by appealing to the activist edges of American politics, which is often your base Party support, but to the centre. George W. Bush made that play in 2000, even as Vice President Cheney hovered behind him, with the spin of “compassionate conservatism”.

The hope for the Republicans is that McCain could balance Palin by putting forth his own centrist position. Indeed, in style, he did so in his acceptance of the Republican nomination with a low-key speech calling for an end to partisan rancour. However, he did not do so on issues. Absent was any reference to his earlier stance that climate change must be addressed. Absent was his centrist position on an acceptance, rather than a stigmatising, of immigration. Absent was his now-distant call for an end to US torture of enemy suspects.

And absent was any semblance of an economic strategy. Of course, that’s because there is no easy fix to the mess --- national and global --- that has been stirred up since 2001, but McCain has also been brutally honest about his own weakness in grasping and dealing with economic concepts.

Which brings out the curiousity in McCain’s speech. Far from praising the Bush Administration, he came to slay it. His speech was an effective dismissal of President Bush for his failure to bring together the Republican Party and “America”. So, he said, I can be the guy to heal the divisions.

McCain and Palin, the “outsiders”, running against “Washington insiders” who include their current Party leaders? Palin the red-meat-huntin’-chewin’-spittin’ activist alongside McCain the maverick moderator?

In a campaign where the key issues cannot be addressed (by the Republicans) and apparently will not be addressed (by the Democrats), I think it’s a gamble that fails.

DOING THE MATHS

The saving grace in evaluating the curiosities of the campaign is that the maths, if not the US electoral system, are much simpler.

Of the 50 US states, 34 (as well as the District of Columbia) are pretty much “locks” for one candidate or the other. That in turn means Obama has a grip on 183 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory; McCain has 142.

Obama’s lead seems secure in four states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon) which the Democrats carried in 2004 and one (Iowa) which they lost. That’s another 55 electoral votes, for a total of 238. The possible slip-ups are in Michigan (17 votes), which has been a tighter race than the Democratic victories in the last two elections (but where Obama’s lead has been increasing), and in New Hampshire (4 votes).

What does this mean? If McCain cannot pull Michigan or New Hampshire into his column, then the Republicans have to avoid any unexpected surprises (keep an eye on Missouri). They not only have to hold the “Big Two” that put Bush into office both in 2000 and 2004 --- Florida (27 votes) and Ohio (20) --- but also almost all of the following: Nevada (5), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Virginia (13), and North Carolina (15).