It's important that the administration take stock of the fact that Colombia's gains are America's gains. During her presentation, the Ambassador pointed out that over the last 10 years Colombia has been on a path to eradicate drug production, which - in combination with economic and legal reforms - has led Colombia out of a "vicious cycle" of drugs, insecurity, and poverty, into a "virtuous cycle" of security, investment, and economic growth. The remarkable transformation in Colombia's security situation is largely the result of a partnership between the U.S. and Colombia. The U.S. understands the benefits to be gained from having a strong, prosperous, and secure ally in Colombia, and has thus committed resources to help consolidate Colombia's hard-won freedom from violence and its economic prosperity. One can only hope that the next administration will remain invested in the security and prosperity of the Latin American region, continuing the partnership with Colombia and extending similar commitments in the rest of the region - recognizing that any instability in the region has repercussions in the U.S., and by the same token, the gains of its neighbors are the gains of the U.S.
Having worked in political communications for nearly two decades, I have been trying to avoid watching U.S. Sen. John McCain and his communications team and campaign as they have reverted from grown men and women into jealous, petulant children over media coverage of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
But it's like driving by a car wreck -- you try not to look; you do it anyway.
McCain's campaign reached a new low yesterday, sending a pathetic "valentine" to reporters that mocked them for being biased in their coverage toward Obama.
Check the love-o-gram out here:
To be sure, some reporters may be swooning. But this is pretty rich coming from McCain, who has long enjoyed a sweetheart relationship with starstruck reporters who saw the Arizona Republican as a "maverick;" who couldn't wait to board the Staright Talk Express; who caused candidate George W. Bush to whine that the media was biased toward McCain.
The critique of the news media is particularly striking coming from McCain, R-Ariz., who has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with journalists. In 2000 and 2008, his Republican rivals accused members of the media of being too close to McCain, and McCain once jokingly referred to the political press corps as "my base."
McCain and Co. are incensed at the coverage that Obama is receiving abroad. He is meeting with heads of state, is being received as a head of state and sounds like a head of state.
According to a report from the Chicago Tribune's Mike Dorning:
Barack Obama has three months to go before voters decide whether he will become president, but on Tuesday he adopted much of the pageantry of a leader on the world stage as he completed an official visit of war zones and met up with the considerable media entourage waiting to accompany him on a tour of foreign capitals.
Obama's trip put him among ancient ruins on a hilltop, fielding questions on international issues in an outdoor news conference with the backdrop a majestic view of Jordan's capital.
He dined with King Abdullah II of Jordan at his palace and was chauffeured to his departing plane by the king, who drove Obama to the jet's stairs in his Mercedes 600...
The day's events provided the imagery of a candidate appearing poised and confident in the international arena, with no major gaffes to further a story line of inexperience.
But wait? Isn't foreign policy supposed to be McCain's strength? What's wrong with this picture? While Obama is preparing to deliver what promises to be an historic speech in Berlin tomorrow, McCain was left home alone to talk about gas prices in New Hampshire. This from the man who admitted he doesn't know much about the economy? Yes, it's true. McCain has become a one-note Johnny. The only things he talks about are offshore drilling and gas prices, backed up by ridiculous, creepy and blatantly false ads like the one Jake wrote about yesterday.
Again, McCain's campaign fell back on bizarre attempts at pathetic humor, issuing press credentials for the campaign's Wilkes-Barre visit today that read: "McCain Press Corps: JV Squad. 'Left behind to report in America.' " The credentials were complete with a picture of the Statue of Liberty, according to ABC's Bret Hovell.
And McCain is still smarting from his rejected New York Times op-ed piece. The Politico reports that a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives is circulating a letter among his colleagues asking them to sign on to a missive he will send to the paper asking whether it will run an ad that includes the text of the rejected op-ed. The hope is that a third-party will pay for the ad. Stay tuned.
And speaking of the New York Times, I'll wrap up with an excellent article by that paper's Alessandra Stanley. Some of the funnier snippets, in case you don't have time to read the whole piece:
On Tuesday, Mr. McCain held a town hall-style meeting in Rochester, N.H. In the shadow of the ancient Temple of Hercules in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Obama solemnly described his vision for peace in the region while standing at a lectern, the Middle East sprawling out behind him. Reporters were cordoned in front of him like the White House press corps — except that an audio snag kept their questions inaudible.
All three cable news networks carried Mr. Obama’s news conference live and in full. They showed only parts of Mr. McCain’s forum and focused mostly on his reaction to Mr. Obama’s statements. Even Fox News broke away from Mr. McCain midevent to cover the rescue of a bear cub wounded in a California fire and nicknamed Lil’ Smokey.
And more:
Touring ruins of the Citadel in Amman, Mr. Obama strode confidently with his jacket crooked over his shoulder in classic Kennedy style. He also practiced statesmanly restraint, telling reporters in Amman that he wouldn’t criticize his opponent while abroad.
Some images are so potent that Fox News, which hammers at Mr. Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience, uses its headline crawls as disclaimers: Shots of his arrival in Iraq were captioned, “Obama in Iraq: Second-Ever Trip There.”
McCain aides haven’t been nearly as creative on his behalf: their stagecraft has been notably unflattering to the candidate. While Mr. Obama was shown striding across military tarmacs and inspecting troops standing at attention, Mr. McCain on Monday was seen being driven around in a golf cart by former President George Bush in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Me. Later, the two men spoke to reporters side by side at a waterfront, and they looked more like fellow members of a Past Presidents’ Club than a party elder passing the torch to his political heir.
It has indeed been a bad press week for Old Man McCain. Even Lil' Smokey beat him out.
Austin, TX - The Administration agrees to a "time horizon" for removing our troops from Iraq. A senior diplomat is sitting down with an Iran nuclear negotiator. Secretary Gates publically calls for troops to be moved from Iraq to Afghanistan. The EPA releases a report confirming the very real and imminent threat of climate change. Bush agrees to cut greenhouse emissions at the G8. Taken together, this seems like an across-the-board repudiation of many fiercely held Bush Administation positions, all closely associated with the Vice President.
Where's Dick and his team of neocons in all this? There are of course many areas where the Administration seems deeply dug in, but change has come to the White House. Why, for what reasons, this is all happening now, it is too soon to tell. But change nevertheless has come to the White House in the final months of the Bush Administration.
1030am - Lots of talk here about Maliki's endorsement of Obama's timetable for withdrawal. What an extraordinary moment in what has been a remarkable political year, and what will no doubt be an important, even historic, trip abroad by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. Even Maliki has joined the neocon repudiation chorus.
1035am - Speaker Pelosi is doing a remarkable job here at Netroots Nation. I am very proud of her for recognizing the importance of this gathering, and her thoughtful and powerful presence here this morning.
1050am - Asked about her agenda, the Speaker said health care, her innovation agenda, infrastructure and green energy. And throughout her 10-ten talk, her language was modern, her understanding of the issues detailed, her ability to weave a narrative compelling. I'm not sure too many politicians of either Party could have done as good as a job as she is doing this morning.
1120am - Gore has arrived, and is just knocking the ball out of the park. He is as good as I've ever seen him. He has captured the room, and I have to believe has now officially engaged/involved the netroots in his crusade. This is an important day in the development of a national movement to solve the climate crisis.
Amazingly, Gore and Pelosi are now just sitting and taking questions. This has been a great morning. Kudos to Gina for her stage management of this powerful session.
NDN friend, frequent panelist and contributor Tom Schaller had an excellent op-ed in yesterday's New York Times. The op-ed, entitled, The South Will Fall Again, argues that the South will not be returning to the Democratic political fold anytime soon. Schaller, a very well-respected political scholar at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has wriiten extensively on this subject, including at length in his book, "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South."
Schaller is in good company.
As Simon wrote in January of this year in his essay, "On Obama, race and the end of the Southern Strategy," this election is the first post-Southern Strategy election since 1964. The Southern Strategy was the strategy used by Conservatives and the GOP to use race and other means to cleave the South from the Democrats. This strategy – welfare queens, Willie Horton, Reagan Democrats, tough on crime, an aggressive redistricting approach in 1990 – of course worked. It flipped the South (a base Democratic region since Thomas Jefferson’s day) to the GOP, giving them majorities in Congress and the Presidency. 20th century math and demography and politics dictated that without the South one could not have a majority in the United States. But the arrival of a “new politics” of the 21st century – driven to a great degree by the new demographic realities of America - has changed this calculation, and has thankfully rendered the Southern Strategy and all its tools a relic of the 20th century.
Simon and Peter Leyden also wrote about winning the presidency without the South in their winter 2007 Mother Jones article, The 50-Year Strategy.
Most recently, NDN issued an important report, Hispanics Rising II, which presents critical voting and demographic data showing that southwest states with heavy Hispanic populations such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona could be the new key to electoral victory for the Democrats.
This is not to say that the South does not matter. As Schaller noted yesterday, Virginia is very much up for grabs. But Democrats should no longer pin any hopes on a region of the country that has been solidly red for decades when so many opportunities to recolor the electoral map are opening up thousands of miles away.
Today Gallup released another poll illustrating that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama continues to hold a substantial lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain among Hispanic voters. The results are virtually unchanged from the previous poll released by Gallup of Hispanic voters. Obama holds a 30-point lead in the latest poll that shows a 59-29 split among Hispanic voters. One of the intriguing trends from the poll is that Obama is leading McCain among all demographic categories of Hispanic voters, including conservative Hispanics. I have stated before that these polls should be especially troubling for McCain because he has already begun his Spanish-language advertising campaign for several weeks, while Obama has yet to begin his outreach efforts.
The importance of the Hispanic electorate was thrust back into the spotlight last week as both presidential candidates addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Obama and McCain sparred over the issue of immigration reform with Obama accurately pointing out that his position on immigration has been consistent while McCain continued to struggle explaining where he stands. NDN has cited repeatedly that McCain betrayed Hispanics and immigrants by abandoning his own immigration reform bill and walked away from the issue when his support was needed most. McCain continued his efforts to deceive voters during his speech at NALEO by stating that he would push for enforcement first legislation, and stating that he would support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Those two issues are not the same and McCain know this very well. McCain had the opportunity to clarify his position on immigration to some of the most influential Latino leaders, and he failed to do so.
Obama and McCain will have several opportunities to continue this debate. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) will hold its national conference next week in Washington, DC, and Obama will be addressing the organization. The following week the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) will hold its national conference in San Diego, CA, and both candidates will be addressing the organization. The spotlight on Hispanic issues will continue at least for the next couple of weeks.
Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used "political or ideological" factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.
The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year's scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.
"Many qualified candidates" were rejected for the department's honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, "constituted misconduct and also violated the department's policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations."
The shift began in 2002, when advisers to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft restructured the honors program in response to what some officials saw as a liberal tilt in recruiting young lawyers from elite law schools like Harvard and Yale. While the recruitment was once controlled largely by career officials in each section who would review applications, political officials in the department began to assume more control, rejecting candidates with liberal or Democratic affiliations "at a significantly higher rate" than those with Republican or conservative credentials, the report said.
The shift appeared to accelerate in 2006, under then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, with two aides on the screening committee - Michael Elston and Esther Slater McDonald - singled out for particular criticism. The blocking of applicants with liberal credentials appeared to be a particular problem in the Justice Department's civil rights division, which has seen an exodus of career employees in recent years as the department has pursued a more conservative agenda in deciding what types of cases to bring....
Of course, this single event cannot be viewed in isolation. Add to the mix the lying over Iraq,the incredible bungling of the reconstruction and occupation of Iraq, the systemic corruption of GOP politics, the lack of any kind of response to declining incomes and the struggling middle class, the complete botching of the Department of Homeland Security that led to Katrina, the degradation of the U.S. Census process, the now-accepted repudiation of the various Bush legal theories around torture, enemy combatants and habeus corpus, and the picture of the Bush era that emerges is a national party more concerned with its power, privilege and perogative than fulfilling its basic obligations to the American people and the common good (as I wrote recently it is this failure that is at the heart of the recent collapse of the GOP brand).
The challenge to the Democrats next year will be to uncover all the illegality and malfeasance of this era - as they are obligated to do - without appearing to be on a partisan witch hunt. The government must investigate and uncover, and inform, so as to prevent any thing like this from happening again.
The challenge for a possible President Obama will be to lift up this broken national capital and culture and create a climate and a politics that will allow the American people to have a government again as good and as fair and as smart as they are themselves. For those who have not been here in DC in recent years, it is hard to overstate how broken Washington has become, and how hard it is going to be to get it moving forward in a way that will allow us to tackle the great challenges ahead of us. But creating a politics that will help usher in an age of progress is what is required now, something Obama seems intent on bringing about, and is certainly something we focus on here every day at NDN.
Last week, I was fortunate to join a dicussion about the swing states and various other issues that might come up during the 2008 general election that was coordinated by Salon. Today, they uploaded the podcast of that discussion as well as the transcript. The panel was moderated by Tom Schaller and included Paul Maslin and Ross Douthat. It was a great opportunity for NDN to talk about the changing demographics and how they might impact the election, and the growing impact the the western states will play in determining the next President. Click below to listen.
The hallmark of this election cycle, at least on the Democratic side, has been the emergence of bottom-up politics, much of the time focused around the internet and social networking sites. On facebook.com, a supporter created Barack Obama group has over 500,000 members, and he currently has over 900,000 supporters.
The Republicans have been a little slower to get the message on the value of bottom-up politics. Their most recent facebook.com group epitomizes their top-down approach. Entitled “Republican National Committee - Official Group,” it was created by the Director of RNC eCampaigns, and the results are not promising. As of this posting, the group boasted 13,186 members, 11 videos, all posted by the same administrator, and this ambitious group graphic:
Facebook.com is only one example of the facility with which each party uses new political tools, but it is safe to say that the GOP has a lot of catch-up to do if they really value their online presence.
Update: The politico.com printed a story today by Ben Adler entitled "Can McCain compete with Obama online?"
"It's the difference between a horse and buggy and a NASA space ship," said Phil Noble, a veteran of Democratic campaigns and the founder of the nonpartisan political news site PoliticsOnline, comparing the campaigns’ respective approaches to technology. "Obama has given people the tools to create and run their own campaigns," Noble continued. "McCain is still a command-and-control, top-down candidate. Part of it is the difference in age."
For more on the candidates and technology, check out Maggie Barker's recent post on John McCain's computer literacy (or lack thereof).
In a piece in the Washington Post today, Marcela Sanchez discusses U.S. Senator Barack Obama's "Clues for Wooing the Latino Vote." Ms. Sanchez discusses the point made in NDN's report on Hispanics Risingthat the harsh tone of the immigration debate on the part of Republicans has been perceived by many Hispanics as anti-Hispanic as opposed to anti-undocumented, and has thus cost Republican candidates votes - and elections - since 2006. However, Ms. Sanchez makes a distinction between the perception of John McCain and that of the Republican Party among Latinos; based on Sen. McCain's current stance on a number of issues, I do not see such a distinction.
As Marcela Sanchez cites herself, the polls show Sen. Obama ahead of Sen. John McCain by at least 62-29 percent. She argues that many of those Latino Obama supporters might be in States that are traditionally Democratic, however, the polls are taken at the national level. While it is true that Hispanics are definitely not monolithic, the fact is that most Hispanics are concentrated in the Southern and Western swing states, and Florida:
Ms. Sanchez posits that it is in these states, New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado,"where McCain could connect with enough Latinos to make a difference." I disagree for one main reason - Sen. McCain could not even win Latinos in his own home state, where about 30% of the population is Hispanic. In the 2008 primary elections in Arizona, the exit poll datashowed 68% of all Hispanics who voted cast their vote for a Democrat, and only 32% voted for a Republican. John McCain's share of that 32% was 21.76% of the entire electorate. This is particularly dramatic because when he ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Sen. McCain was able to secure 72% of the Hispanic vote -
that is a fifty percent drop in votes from the Hispanic community of his home state in just four years. Which begs the question - who is really in the tougher spot with Latinos? The
candidate who won his Senate election with 82% of the Hispanic vote in his own state and currently has a lead of over 30% among Hispanics nationally? Or the candidate who has lost fifty percent of the Hispanic voters in his own State who supported him in 2004? Mind you, this is not to say that it will not be a challenge for both candidates to secure the Hispanic vote, nor is it a matter of favoring one candidate over another, it is a matter of wanting to encourage the media and readers to provide a more detailed analysis and not buy into sound bytes.
The piece also describes Sen. McCain as a, "a key sponsor of legislation creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants," with, "a good track
record with Latino concerns." I beg to differ - the story that is clear as day, but for some reason seriously underreported, is that John McCain was once a leader on the issue of immigration reform, but when the going got
tough last year - once he decided to become a Presidential candidate - that took importance over his duties as Senator and he stopped attending the high-level meetings and brainstorming sessions that were necessary in order to get this difficult legislation passed. There is agreement among many in the offices of key legislators and advocacy groups that were there on the ground during the immigration debate: when the going got tough on immigration and other issues important to Latinos, John McCain was no longer in sight.
Some individuals mentioned in the article differentiate between Sen. McCain, the candidate, and his political party; they attribute his declining popularity to the negativity associated with Republicans, but believe Sen. McCain can remain above that sentiment as he, "will remain sufficiently moderate on immigration,despite some politically expedient tips of the hat to certain segments of the conservative base." I would say his actions have been much more than "a tip of the hat"- there is no difference at this time between John McCain and his political party. He is the Republican Party and he has shown this by certainly not being "moderate" on the issue of immigration. He has actively spoken in public rejecting and denouncing the trailblazing immigration legislation of which he was once a sponsor. Maybe because it is a sad story to tell, but I find that this story is not told.
Our report agrees with the conclusion in this piece that immigration is an issue that mobilizes Hispanic voters; however, I would not say that Hispanics are not supporting John McCain as part of a "protest vote" against his party; while that might be the case in part, it is a protest vote against the way John McCain's position has, in no uncertain terms, flipped on the issue of immigration. As much as his campaign or the media may try to deny it, there is no denying the facts, as reflected in an excerpt of our Hispanics Rising presentation:
You'll note that one of these slides cites to Meet the Press; at the time this blog was being drafted to post, a man that I look to as an example of the type of professional and person I can only hope to be, Tim Russert, passed away. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
Normally I focus on green issues, but I want to post this morning about something equally important.
America's resilience shone through the important decision of the Supreme Court yesterday to restore the right of habeas corpus petitions to Guantanamo detaineees. In one more sign that the long, dark night of the Bush era is coming to an end, the Court rejected the Administration's suspension of civil liberties for detainees and its legal theory that because Guantanamo lies ninety miles off the coast of Florida, it is exempt from US law. In an opinion likely to be ready by many law students in future course on Constitutional Law, Justice Kennedy laid out strict conditions for invoking the suspension of habeas corpus clause in the Constitution--namely that Congress must find that rebellion or foreign invasion is actually underway--a line in the Constitution that the Administration and Congress had chosen to gloss over.
Why care about habeas corpus? The Latin words may sound unfamiliar to the Ipod-acclimated ear, but, in essence, they mean that people arrested have the right to a trial. Countries that don't have what Britsh jurists dubbed the "Great Writ" can arrest someone and that's the end of it. The person disappears. Without the right of court review there is absolutely nothing to prevent Soviet-style "disappearances" of people down the memory hole beyond the reach of relatives, lawyers or a court. Thus while on one level, the writ is just a piece of paper that a judge issues asking that a prisoner be brought before him for a hearing, practically speaking it is the guaranty of rule of law, freedom and the separation of powers. For this reason, the right of habeas corpus is the only right mentioned in the Constitution itself--as opposed to the Bill of Rights--which was adopted later. The Framers grasped its importance.
It should be deeply gratifying to people that cherish freedom that five of the justices grasp it as well. Justice Kennedy peering deeply into the history of the writ in his opinion, wrote that the political branches "must not have the power to switch the constitution on and off at will."
Yet in equal measure as his opinion was heartening, the minority opinion was distrubing. Judge Roberts, in describing habeas corpus as just a "procedural" matter argued this is all much do about nothing.
We should be mindful as today's New York Times notes, that the Court's margin was only 5 to 4.
