The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Saturday, February 9, 2008

09 Feb 2008 10:53 pm

The GOP vs McCain

So John McCain wins the nomination - and to reward him, voters back Huckabee in Kansas, and CPAC endorses Romney in a straw poll. For good measure, Huckabee currently has a clear lead in Lousiana - with half the votes in. It cannot bode well for a nominee to have his own party reject him after he has won the race. I assumed the GOP would rally behind McCain in the end. I may have misjudged them.

09 Feb 2008 10:45 pm

The Scale Of The Win

This will be hard for the Clinton campaign to spin:

His winning margins were substantial, ranging from roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska to nearly 90 percent in the Virgin Islands. With returns counted from more than one-third of the Louisiana precincts, he was gaining 53 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for the former first lady.

Actually they do have spin:

The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads. The Obama campaign has spent $300,000 more in Louisiana on television ads, $190,000 more in Nebraska and $175,000 more in Nebraska.

So why didn't Clinton compete? As Ambers puts it:

Ordinarily, this would be a firing offense -- how dare they let a state go uncontested?

Two words come to mind when assessing Clinton's apparent strategy to wait the primaries out till bigger, more fertile states: Rudy. Giuliani.

09 Feb 2008 10:39 pm

Crushed In Washington

Two pictures from precinct 702 in Port Townsend, Washington: Clinton's supporters; Obama's supporters. This wasn't just a victory. It was a wipe-out. More feedback here.

09 Feb 2008 10:29 pm

Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana

Three solid wins for Obama. Check out the lop-sided victory in Washington. I can find only one jurisdiction that Clinton won: Douglas county, named after Lincoln's debate opponent. The landslide in Washington is probably because a lot of people had experiences like this one:

I live in a fairly liberal and affluent exurban community outside Seattle. I participated in our statewide Democratic caucus today. It was the first time in 24 years that I attended one of these events. I was not alone, as turnout was estimated at triple the prior cycle. My precinct was composed of mostly middle aged whites. A handful of African-Americans were there.

Obama received 80% of the vote and grabbed all the delegates except for one non-committed. Clinton did not secure enough votes for a single delegate to be sent to the next level. The few Clinton voters were older (60+) women who are either single issue voters of old Democratic times, or supporting Clinton because she is a woman. I feel bad for them because that first serious woman candidate has been Clinton.

Should we call a landslide of white votes for a black candidate an avalanche?

09 Feb 2008 07:15 pm

A Biometric Edge?

This is something I wasn't sufficiently aware of:

The Special Forces are also using some new techniques in tracking and targeting. Commanders won't talk about these new methods except in generalities, but one area of intelligence that's visible to everyone is the collection of biometric data. At a border post on the Iraq-Iran frontier, I saw an Iranian putting a finger to an electronic fingerprint device. At the Torkham Gate crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. officers told me they are monitoring Taliban insurgents using new systems known as BATs (for biometric automated toolset) and HIIDEs (for handheld interagency identity detection).

These intelligence tools are shifting the balance of fear -- making it more dangerous to join al-Qaeda, stay in its safe houses or meet with its operatives.

If technology can help police against terror without a large presence of occupying forces, perhaps the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can find a feasible way forward. But I wouldn't bet on it.

09 Feb 2008 06:09 pm

McCain Trounced

Kansas' Christianists do not seem aware that the race is over. This is not the Republican party that falls in line. It's a Republican party into very discreet factions. Huckabee has no reason not to maximize his delegate count and ensure he gets bragging rights as the runner-up:

"I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles."

He has a good line for everything.

09 Feb 2008 04:52 pm

A Poem For Saturday

From the Daily Dickinson:

How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.

09 Feb 2008 04:45 pm

The View From Your Window

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 10.55 am.

09 Feb 2008 03:45 pm

Upper

The Israeli military is thinking of keeping their pilots awake with Viagra?

09 Feb 2008 03:19 pm

The Naked Talk Radio Emperor

Joe Tobacco writes:

...talk radio does two things very well: It whips up rage about issues that are already disturbing the GOP base, and it ensures that stories favorable to the right, or damaging to the left percolate up into the traditional media. That’s it. No one ever anointed these talkers leaders of anyone, or anything…they simply assumed that mantle for themselves, and were shocked, shocked I tell you when CPAC rolled around, and they saw in the mirror that the mantle didn’t exist: They were naked.

09 Feb 2008 02:28 pm

Video Games As Literature

A reader writes:

I'm not opposed to viewing games as art -- they should be treated as such. If Andy Warhol is art, then computer and video games are art. But making the leap to this is a mistake:
"We need more real writers getting involved in making video games, not fewer. The results could be astounding. It will happen. Elitist suspicion of a new way of storytelling will only last so long, and I doubt the next generation of writers, who grew up on the likes of Beneath A Steel Sky, would have so many prejudices. Heaven only knows what a great writer could do with this new format. I can't wait."
I am a 'real writer'. I was a member of the WGA for a decade. After that I worked in interactive for a decade, as a freelance writer and game designer. I also wrote a number of papers on the critical problem in interactive entertainment, which has nothing to do with art and everything to do with what interactivity is and is not. After a solid ten years of trying to raise the level of discourse about the integration of narrative and interactivity I simply stopped trying. Why?

Continue reading "Video Games As Literature" »

09 Feb 2008 01:52 pm

Unanswered Questions

Matt has a list of questions neither candidate has fully answered. I guess we can only argue about health care mandates for so long.

09 Feb 2008 01:27 pm

"The Myth Of A Maverick"

Matt Welch talks about John McCain.

09 Feb 2008 12:54 pm

Costco Politics

Tish Durkin's 2001 Atlantic article explains what makes Clintonian politics so intellectually exhausting:

...wandering through the campaign of Hillary Clinton—and through the time of Bill Clinton—resembles nothing more than wandering through an intimidatingly huge, bright, overstocked American supermarket, the kind that gives Third World immigrants palpitations from the varieties of mayonnaise alone. In World o' Clinton as in Food King there is, of course, much that is undeniably good: Choice! Abundance! Comfort! And yet in both places there is a sense that something is not entirely as it seems; that all those labels and colors and bargains cannot be quite real; that one's whites aren't really getting so much whiter, or one's brights so much brighter, as everyone seems to be insisting. What are pressingly referred to as "the issues" not only are test-marketed but also come in convenient, individually wrapped form, like Kraft Singles. Or, perhaps, one might think of them as "issue-ettes": they are to real issues as towelettes are to real wash towels—better than nothing, no doubt, but only barely related to the thing that is truly wanted. [...]

I, for one, do not blame the Clintons for pulling American politics into the gutter (it's been there before—if, indeed, it has ever been out). But I will never forgive them for turning American politics into a Costco. Politics should have clear, or at least visible, edges, where the views of Candidate A end and those of Candidate B begin. Instead, in the world that the Clintons certainly found but then proceeded to perfect, Candidates A and B take the big questions, saw off the more dangerous edges so as not to cut themselves, and then whack each other in the head with big, steady planks on which every normal person would have to agree (Prosperity with a purpose! Working families! Save social security! Whose rally is this, anyway?). This is no way to have a lively conversation about anything, let alone a fight about the future of the country.

09 Feb 2008 12:50 pm

Artist Or Ape?

Who created this? Take the test. My score was 83 percent.

09 Feb 2008 12:45 pm

Face Of The Day

A policeman reacts to a barrage of rocks being thrown towards him by anti-government demonstrators near the home of Iftikhar Chaudry, the country's deposed Chief Justice, on February 9, 2008 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Police used water cannons and tear gas to repel demonstrators as they attempted to march to the home of the former Chief Justice who has remained under house arrest since November last year. Pakistanis will go to the polls later this month after months of political and civil turmoil. By Warrick Page/Getty Images.

09 Feb 2008 12:09 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I know you feel quite strongly that if McCain were to become President that the US would stop the heinous practice of torturing detainees. I disagree, and submit two arguments to bolster my assertion:

1. McCain gets a lot of credit for the anti-torture bill. But when Bush eviscerated it with a signing statement McCain uttered nary a peep of dissent. Cynics, like me, argue that like many of McCain's so- called "maverick" positions, his stand on torture is something he's willing to pay lip-service to prop up the idea that he's his own man. But underneath that he doesn't care to push the issue for fear of alienating the torture-loving base. I think his willingness to backtrack on a number of positions (see Falwell and Roberston for another example), shows that there simply is no mettle to the man.

2. He hasn't uttered a word about the recent admission that the government has waterboarded, won't investigate whether or not it's a crime, and will do it again. Face the facts Andrew, he might say he cares, and in his own cowardly heart he might really care, but he has neither the will nor the inclination to stand up and be heard when it's most important. As long as he scores points he's quite happy to lose the battle.

09 Feb 2008 11:06 am

A New Iraqi Law

, Iraq">

The Onion explains:

In The Know: New Iraqi Law Requires Waiting Period For Suicide Vest Purchases

09 Feb 2008 09:12 am

Rowan Williams, Theocon

The full text of his speech defending religiously-based, communitarian law against the secular liberal state can be read here. It strikes me as the point at which Christianists and Islamists intersect. Although the lovely English term "a complete wally" seems equally appropriate. Ruth Gledhill sees the theocon overlap:

A few days ago, the Archbishop argued also for the abolition of the blasphemy law - as long as it was replaced by something even more severe. People should be punished for daring to voice thoughts that were hurtful to others, he said, even when that hurt was unintentional. Now it seems he wants women, children, all of us in fact, to have to kow-tow to some of the strictest, harshest and most draconian laws dreamed up by any religious system, ever, anywhere in the world.

The most persuasive half-defense of Williams can be read here. I don't think it's possible to defend a kinder, gentler sharia against the secular rule of law. But then I'm a secularist.

09 Feb 2008 08:37 am

The End Of The Chair

The Supreme Court of Nebraska, the last state to use electrocution, ruled the practice unconstitutional yesterday. From Justice William Connolly's opinion:

We recognize the temptation to make the prisoner suffer, just as the prisoner made an innocent victim suffer. But it is the hallmark of a civilized society that we punish cruelty without practicing it. Condemend prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes. And the evidence clearly proves that unconsciousness and death are not instantaneous for many condemned prisoners. These prisoners will, when electrocuted, consciously suffer the torture that high voltage electric current inflicts on the human body. The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts intense pain and agonizing suffering. Therefore, electrocution as a method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Nebraska Constitution.

Friday, February 8, 2008

08 Feb 2008 07:49 pm

The Conservatism Of McCain

His environmentalism is proof:

Self-proclaimed conservative purists attack McCain for his vote to block drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. It was for this affront that Romney labeled McCain as being outside the conservative mainstream. Once again, it was McCain who was true to conservative principles and Romney who was off-base. Barry Goldwater, the founder of the modern conservative movement, devoted an entire lengthy chapter in his book "The Conscience of a Majority" to "Saving the Earth". Russell Kirk, one of conservatism's leading scholars, wrote: "the modern spectacle of vanished forests and eroded lands . . . is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors."

08 Feb 2008 06:18 pm

The Gay Primary

, Gay Rights">

Chris Crain tells us to be leery of exit polls:

While gay voters in places like New York and San Francisco may feel the luxury of looking past gay issues in the Democratic primary, those issues hit much closer to home in those states that lack any state or local anti-discrimination laws and where anti-gay bias is a more common occurrence.

I certainly don't feel that luxury. I know what life is like for gays who live in my native South, and I've seen firsthand how the issue can rip apart families and friendships. And laws like the Defense of Marriage Act have a direct impact on my life, since my partner and I cannot live together in the U.S. because of it. It makes a real difference to me that Barack Obama favors full repeal of DOMA and Hillary only half, and because she has consistently tried to defend the nefarious law signed by her husband in 1996.

Exit polling of gays is rarely done outside of New York and California because the sample is presumed too small. As a result, we get a skewed look at what GLB voters really think about these candidates.

08 Feb 2008 05:35 pm

Iran's Opposition

Barred from "elections". A brief round-up of blogger reactions from the region here.

08 Feb 2008 05:16 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

"If I'm going to vote for someone solely on the basis of what they say when speaking to the voters, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will get my vote. At least they have a message and a direction," - Michael Reagan, Ronald's son, with some constructive advice for McCain.

08 Feb 2008 05:02 pm

Face Of The Day

An Iraqi Shiite man uses his mobile phone to record the speech of the cleric as he attends Friday prayer in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City on February 8, 2008. By Wissam Al-Okaili/AFP/Getty.

08 Feb 2008 04:01 pm

The Unemotional Case For Obama

A meme is developing is that support for Obama is all emotion, fantasy, hysteria, etc. There's no question that the emotions behind Obama are powerful. And any fool can see why. His oratory does what oratory should. He is the greatest public speaker in American life since Reagan. And the shame and demoralization of the Bush-Cheney years - when we launched a war with reckless indifference to planning it, when we tortured prisoners and called it "enhanced interrogation", when we saw a government rendered so utterly useless that a hurricane made the US look like the third world, when conservatives added $32 trillion to the debt of the next generation, when a president made sophomoric jokes about not finding weapons of mass destruction he leveraged American global credibility on ... if you don't feel emotions in wanting to put this disgrace of an administration behind us, then you are not being rational.

But the strongest case for Obama is not emotional; it is as coolly rational as he is. I tried to express it in my "Goodbye To All That" essay. On the most critical issues we face - Iraq, the war against Jihadism, healthcare, and the economy - he makes more sense as a president than Clinton. And when you watch the knee-jerk opposition to him, I think it is actually more emotional and less rational than the support for him. Fear is more emotional than hope.

And defending Clinton on the grounds of "experience" and "substance" is a fairy tale on both counts, if you pardon the expression. Her legislative experience is one term longer than Obama's (and that's if you don't count Obama's state legislative record), is notable mainly for its uninspired diligence in constituency work, and on the most important issue of the day, Iraq, simply wrong. Her main executive branch experience was destroying a historic opportunity for healthcare reform through arrogance, secrecy and over-reach. Her "substance" claim is just as phony. There is no detail in her policy apparatus that isn't matched by Obama's. But you've heard a lot from me on this. Here's a video that shows a conservative cynic being slowly and rationally disarmed by the logic of young, shrewd voter.

A vote for Obama is a vote for reason over sentiment. Check it out:

08 Feb 2008 03:54 pm

Not Another Cheney, Please

Michael Graham wants McCain to pick a running mate who can win an actual state in the fall.

08 Feb 2008 03:40 pm

Bill Says He Gets It

He finally realizes that he was once president of the United States. He calls it "a very valuable lesson." I think the lesson he really learned is that his sleazy tactics didn't actually work. When dealing with sociopaths like Bill Clinton, it's important not to fall into the trap of thinking they are capable of moral self-evaluation. But they are capable of rational self-interest. If it becomes the Clintons' self-interest to smear other Democrats in future, they will not hesitate for a second to do so.

08 Feb 2008 03:35 pm

After Copying Obama's Message

The Clintons now adopt Joe Trippi's fundraising advice.

08 Feb 2008 03:33 pm

Healthcare Mandates

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Tyler Cowen is impressed with the arguments against them made by David Cutler, Obama's chief healthcare adviser. I'd point out something else about this rare Clinton-Obama policy difference. Obama is the more pragmatic and centrist of the two on this matter. The notion that he is the more liberal of the two is not a very enlightening analysis. In general, they represent different strands of liberalism, and it's reflected in their campaign rhetoric. Obama tends to emphasize people's ability to help themselves and their capacity to do so independently of government. Clinton tends to emphasize the neediness of people for government support and help, and she's much more comfortable with coercive government action.

It's "Yes, We Can," vs "I'll Take Care Of You."

And that's why a simplistic Obama-is-a-leftist critique won't work as well as some seem to think. He's a liberal, but a reconstructed one. He's the kind of liberal who sees dependency as a problem not a solution. And he's not a statist in the way previous liberal generations have been. He actually listened to and absorbed some of the conservative critique of liberalism these past two decades. And he has changed not just to protect his right flank.

08 Feb 2008 03:31 pm

Loony Right Watch

When reality begins to intrude, they just seal it off. So Norman "What's A Kurd Anyway?" Podhoretz gets a small fortune from Powerline. And crazed nutjob Ace Of Spades gets CPAC's blogger of the year award.

08 Feb 2008 03:22 pm

Half A Million In Parking Costs

Clinton rivals Bush in keeping the purse-strings tight.

08 Feb 2008 03:20 pm

McCain-Romney?

Victor Davis Hanson proposes a ticket. A couple of thoughts: McCain despises Romney; the country finds Romney almost as distasteful. Campaigns do help you figure out whether a candidate has that hard-to-define factor of popular appeal. K-Lo doesn't understand this, because she's in a cocoon. But Romney doesn't work. No one's buying it.

The Republican party today reminds me of the British Labour party in the early 1980s - rewarding its most unhinged activists, punishing its most appealing leaders, and circling the electoral drain, without even fully realizing it. If you want an image and a sound to illustrate this - listen to the boos for McCain at CPAC:

08 Feb 2008 02:55 pm

Why Romney Failed

David Frum says it was because he became the candidate to continue Bush's legacy. And even Republicans don't want that. I think that's part of it. But his obvious inauthenticity was more important; and the bigotry of Southern evangelicals. Frum tolerates this sectarian bigotry when it's directed at gay people - that's how you win places like Ohio in 2004 - but when it hurts a phony Republican multi-millionaire, it's distressing.

08 Feb 2008 02:35 pm

The View From Your Window

Kittery Point, Maine, 8.49 am.

08 Feb 2008 02:06 pm

Here Comes The Sun

Climate change CO2 skeptics have long argued that the sun's cycles are the most potent influence on the earth's climate. More research is surely a good idea:

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Could the sun give us time to solve global warming?

08 Feb 2008 01:24 pm

McCain, Obama, Clinton

The current polling shows that Obama is easily the stronger candidate against McCain in the fall. It's McCain 46; Clinton 46. And McCain 41; Obama 48. The difference? Obama wins the independents against McCain (48 to 36) in an almost mirror image of the way McCain wins independents against Clinton (49 to 39).

08 Feb 2008 01:09 pm

Obama and Virginia

Josh Patashnik does for the old dominion what Robert Johnson did for Maine. Why do we assume these are natural Obama wins? The current polling, on the other hand, is here. And it seems to back Obama.

08 Feb 2008 12:58 pm

And This Is The Modern Bit Of The Middle East

, Law and Government">

News from Dubai:

A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison. Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai's main airport.

A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

08 Feb 2008 12:46 pm

Biofuels

Almost a case-study in unintended consequences.

08 Feb 2008 12:32 pm

Barack X

In asking ourselves why Obama is doing so well among the young, I found this 1999 Ted Halstead Atlantic article prescient:

Three quarters of Generation X agree with the statement "Our generation has an important voice, but no one seems to hear it." Whatever this voice may be, it does not fit comfortably within existing partisan camps. "The old left-right paradigm is not working anymore," according to the novelist Douglas Coupland, who coined the term "Generation X." Neil Howe and William Strauss, who have written extensively on generational issues, have argued in these pages that from the Generation X perspective "America's greatest need these days is to clear out the underbrush of name-calling and ideology so that simple things can work again."

If Xers have any ideology, it is surely pragmatism. In an attempt to be more specific Coupland has claimed, "Coming down the pipe are an extraordinarily large number of fiscal conservatives who are socially left." The underlying assumption here is that the Xer political world view stems simplistically from a combination of the 1960s social revolution and the 1980s economic revolution. This kind of thinking has led some to describe young adults as a generation of libertarians, who basically want government out of their bedrooms and out of their pocketbooks. As it turns out, however, the political views of most Xers are more complex and more interesting than that.

Is Obama fiscally conservative? Not in the way I'd prefer. He'll spend too much. But for those of us conservatives who still believe - sorry, NRO - that the government should balance its books and not promise any more than it can realistically provide, Obama is far more fiscally conservative than Bush Republicans. He is at least cognizant that money doesn't grow on trees. McCain helps narrow the choice - he's one of the few fiscal conservatives who walks the walk. But McCain is just generationally off for the Obama generation, I suspect. I love the guy, but I'm the old guard now.

(Photo: an Obama rally last year in Washington Square Park, New York City. By Emmanuel Dunand/Getty.)

08 Feb 2008 12:00 pm

Tattooing For Your Health

The tat-gun turns out to be the ideal vehicle for delivering DNA vaccines.

08 Feb 2008 11:55 am

"I want the man to hope all over me."

Joel Stein is both embarrassed and seduced by Obamania.

08 Feb 2008 11:28 am

Dobson's Spite

With almost comic timing, he endorses Huckabee. Do these people not see how absurd it is that they represent in any way the message of the Gospels?

08 Feb 2008 11:26 am

Mental Health Break

A cleaned up count:

08 Feb 2008 11:25 am

Peggy Gets It

Couldn't agree more:

Mrs. Clinton is losing this thing. It's not one big primary, it's a rolling loss, a daily one, an inch-by-inch deflation. The trends and indices are not in her favor. She is having trouble raising big money, she's funding her campaign with her own wealth, her moral standing within her own party and among her own followers has been dragged down, and the legacy of Clintonism tarnished by what Bill Clinton did in South Carolina. Unfavorable primaries lie ahead. She doesn't have the excitement, the great whoosh of feeling that accompanies a winning campaign. The guy from Chicago who was unknown a year ago continues to gain purchase, to move forward. For a soft little innocent, he's played a tough and knowing inside/outside game.

08 Feb 2008 11:14 am

The Clintons' Media Strategy?

, Media">

A reader writes:

For what it's worth, my theory about the strategy behind the tears in New Hampshire, moist eyes in New Haven, and the whole act of appearing cash-strapped after Super Tuesday is not that these acts themselves will inspire sympathy among voters. Rather, her campaign is trying to bait the media into pronouncing Hillary "over" and THAT will inspire a backlash among voters who feel that Hillary is being treated unfairly.

The media took the bait in New Hampshire, but not in New Haven, and I think they swallowed the $5 million loan story as well.

And I did too, dammit.

08 Feb 2008 10:54 am

Obama and Maine

Why are people expecting him to win there? The demographics are decidedly Clintonian:

Maine’s white Democrats are disproportionately ethnic and working-class—demographic groups critical to Clinton’s triumphs in New Jersey and Massachusetts. They’ve tended to dominate Democratic primaries, as well. In 1996, former governor and congressman Joe Brennan ran for the Senate—fresh off not one but two losing campaigns for governor (1990 and 1994). It was clear that he had no chance of victory if he were nominated, but he prevailed anyway, thanks to overwhelming backing from older voters and French-American voters in the Lewiston-Auburn area. (Brennan then lost in the fall to Susan Collins.) Six years later, the reformist state senator who had lost to Brennan, Sean Faircloth, ran for the seat vacated by Baldacci; despite attracting the endorsement of the 2nd district’s most famous resident, Stephen King, Faircloth lost the primary to Mike Michaud, a pro-life Democrat and former millworker. Michaud endorsed John Edwards for President; he hasn’t made a new endorsement. (The state’s other congressman, Tom Allen, is running for the Senate, and has said he will remain neutral in the primary.)

08 Feb 2008 10:34 am

The Web Primary

, Web/Tech">

The Republicans should be worried if this is the future of campaign fundraising. Ezra Klein elaborates:

I don't actually think Barack Obama's remarkable advantage in small-donor fundraising is all that inexplicable. As a Dean Campaign alumn, I'm contractually required to believe that raising tens of millions from small donors is an internet-based phenomenon ... Obama's site gets way more traffic than Clinton's (and both get way more traffic than McCain's -- he's that little mustard colored line near the base of the graph). And with way more web traffic comes a way larger e-mail list, and with a way larger e-mail list comes more donors who eventually succumb to a fundraising appeal and donate $20, and when they do that, it becomes far more likely that they'll do it again, as now they're invested in the campaign. Add in that a pretty high percentage of Obama's voters are fervent backers, rather than soft supporters, and you have a recipe for some impressive fundraising.

Matt adds:

Obama beating Clinton this badly is pretty much expected -- it falls out from the differing demographics of their bases with Obama doing better among younger people, better educated people, and wealthier people, all webbier groups. John McCain's pathetic performance seems noteworthy -- is he just exclusively the candidate of the elderly?

08 Feb 2008 10:18 am

The Fluid Electorate

Michael Barone is always worth reading. I think he's wrong in prematurely judging the surge a success, but this is an interesting insight:

Somewhere between Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and the bombing of the Samarra mosque in February 2006, I believe we entered a period of open-field politics, in which voters and candidates are moving around -- a field in which there are no familiar landmarks or new signposts.

Those were the headline stories that showed that government was broken at home and that the Iraq occupation would be for ever. Voters want a competent government and no Mesopotamian empire. Who can give them both?

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Friday, February 8, 2008

Andrew Sullivan

Dish Prep