May 17, 2008
Let's count the states . . .
Posted by: Chris
Hopefully you didn't miss Jon Stewart nailing the shifting criteria by which Hillary Clinton is (still) claiming she deserves the Democratic presidential nomination. After showing several clips from early in the campaign in which she says "voters will decide," Stewart serves up more recent Hillary, haltingly saying, "Voters are an important part of the process."
If you missed it, the clip is at the end of the post; with the Hillary switcheroo about 1:50 in.
Another Clinton tactic, of course has been to push the Democratic Party to seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan, which held primaries in violation of party rules. Both candidates agreed, of course, not to campaign in either state, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.
Nonetheless, Hillary's latest formulation of the argument surfaced in her Indiana victory speech:
"It would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states," she argued.
This week, Katie Couric asked, "If Barack Obama declares victory, Senator Clinton, once he reaches that magic number of 2,025 [delegates], will you still hold out if Florida and Michigan have not been counted? "Absolutely," Hillary said.
Because that's not the right number. How can we have a nominee based on 48 states?
And yet that very same day, her excitable campaign chair Terry McAuliffe announced she was officially ahead in the "popular vote." How did he arrive at that conclusion? After noting that Clinton actually trails in four different methods of calculating the popular vote, CNN concluded:
The only scenario in which Clinton would appear to the lead is a fifth scenario that only counts primary states –- including both Florida and Michigan –- and excludes any votes cast in the party’s caucuses. In that count, Clinton currently holds a lead of about 225,000 votes.
Ahh yes. It would be "a little strange" to have 48 states pick a nominee, but perfectly valid to have 35 states pick the nominee, since the Clinton camp is excluding the 15 states that held primary caucuses.
And now, your Moment of Zen (with the Hillary switcheroo 1:50 in):
(Photo of Hillary Clinton in Bath, S.D., via Associated Press)
May 13, 2008
Dissecting West Virginia
Posted by: Chris
I'm not a snob. Really. I'm originally from Arkansas, after all, so I've felt the brunt of redneck jokes and the like. But now that Barack Obama has a mathematical lock on the nomination, it seems a bit silly for CNN's Bill Schneider to dissect the exit poll data from the Mountain State as if it were Iowa or New Hampshire (or even North Carolina or Indiana).
Up till now, Schneider has come up with only one data point from West Virginia that speaks to me:
Is Barack Obama's former pastor still an issue for voters? We asked West Virginia Democrats whether they think Barack Obama shares the views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Just over 50 percent say Obama does share Wright's controversial views while 47 percent say he does not.
Whatever you think about Obama's judgment remaining in Wright's congregation, etc., to believe he shares Wright's twisted values requires actual malevolence toward the Illinois senator -- or, more likely, a sense that "those people" are all alike.
One other West Virginia nugged, this via Politico's Ben Smith:
"I'm going to vote for the colored guy," said Henry Ford -- "no, not that Henry Ford," the 87-year old retired carpenter in the Napa Auto Parts hat pointed out. "I don't dislike her, but I don't think a woman can be president of the United States. I don't think she can handle the job."
Even Borat couldn't have said it better.
May 08, 2008
Don't cry for her, Democratic Party
Posted by: Kevin
The festering Clinton boil is finally being lanced within the Democratic Party, at least for this election cycle. It's a tremendous bit of luck not only for the party -- despite its idiotic blindness to this fact. It's a relief for the country, given the brand of politics that this couple would practice if it regained control of both the party and Washington.
I haven't written much since Hillary Clinton entered the fatal win-at-all-costs phase of her doomed presidential campaign a couple months ago, frankly because there wasn't much more to say. The ship would inevitably sink, it was just a matter of whether enough of the remaining idiots in her camp would get into the lifeboats and save themselves in time from the wake of her titanic disaster.
A lot of tripe is thrown around about gay Republicans in the gay media, and has been for over a decade. But not enough has been written about the toxic impact that Clintonism has wrought on the gay community and its political leadership. The cravenness of it, the poisonous combination of raising hopes with glistening promises, and dashing them at the first sign of political risk -- all the while shifting the blame to others -- has done more to destroy what was once a potentially powerful movement than anything a small band of hapless, closeted gay Republicans on Capitol Hill (now "cleansed" for the most part) could ever have done.
And if the rich content of her presidential campaign was any indication, Hillary Clinton would have been even worse for us as president than her husband. Unlike him, she didn't have the touch when it came to using the charming lie on gay rights. She speaks in half-tones, half-measures and platitudes with little heart in it, and made it fairly clear by the way her campaign did gay outreach that it was all about hack-o-rama appointments and personal ambition within the gay political community. Basically -- get on board, or be cut out. Very Karl Rove, and very lethal for those who sign up for it. I can attest to that personally, as can nearly every Republican of every stripe in politics right now.
Indeed, her brand of politics seems to have divided the gay Democratic camp into two clear factions -- those who envy the Republicans so much that they want to emulate them (all the while bashing and personally destroying gay Republicans, interestingly enough, to cover their own shame), and those who are fed up with calculation and ruthlessness in politics that they are willing to try almost anything that is new and different. (A third, unregistered group simply has walked away and taken up new interests in frustration.)
From my vantage point here in South America, it is amazing how parallel the Clintons are to the political couple that is running Argentina at the moment -- Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. He was president last, and now she's president, while he is about to take the chairmanship of the main Peronist party. They, too, rail at big business, count on labor unions and blue-collar workers as their base, and spin all sorts of webs to scapegoat, capture and destroy all political opponents, from inside their movement or outside it. They, too, deflect any and all blame for their policies that do harm, and refuse to even acknowledge reality at most junctures. (Sound familiar?) They came from a backwater province in the south of the country, which Néstor ran as governor, and Cristina launched her own presidential campaign last year from a Senate perch she'd recently captured outside Buenos Aires city. But Argentina is sinking into, perhaps, its worst social, economic and political crisis since the nervous breakdown it suffered in 2001 -- completely at the hands of this self-obsessed, knuckle-breaking political machine government that the Kirchners are running. And Cristina, pig-headed to the end (The Economist says she lives "in the land of make-believe") is mobilizing unions to beat down protesters in the name of fighting big business. The galloping 25% inflation rate is something she blames on "greedy rich corporate owners" who won't voluntarily lower prices, raise wages, and pay for it all out of their profits. (It has nothing to do with her, of course, nor market economics.) She answers the new crisis with gimmicks (hello, gas tax holiday?) and populist rhetoric, not because she's incompetent. It's because the entire raison d'etre of Peronism - like it's North American cousin in Clintonism - is to win at all costs. To say anything, do anything, blame anyone, and never surrender to win out in the end, at the expense of anyone outside the walls of their marital union. Over the last half-century, it has destroyed a once powerful country, probably for good.
Ask any gay Hillary supporter to say, in plain words, exactly why Hillary would be best for the country. You will never -- I repeat, never -- get anything in response but platitudes mixed with venomous stabs at either Obama or the GOP or both. ¡Que peronista! And all her most prominent gay defenders are lifetime gay Democratic hacks simply hoping for a job. Period. They defend the Clintons in the face of the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and stand ready to defend them again to the teeth -- and the do-nothing Democratic Congress, and the "fight-on-the-ice" DNC -- should four or eight years pass without any movement on either under their watch. ("It wasn't the {lying, hypocritical} president's fault! It was [insert blame here]!") They are the worst detritus of the Bill Clinton era of gay Washington, and would bring a sense of blind loyalty to power more dangerous and insidious than the paradoxical, circus-freak brand that has been trotted out in hit pieces on gay Republicans who still love George W. Bush. Because it would have the air of respectability, and could not dare be questioned without reprisal.
So breathe easy, gay Democrats. Hillary is finally being shoved out the door by the length and breadth of the selfishness she represents. Whether it's soon, or after the inevitable rejection of her 900th attempt at game-changing party rules on May 31st (nuevamente peronista), it's been in the cards since February.
Whether you realize it or not, it's good for you. Embrace it. And get back to work in making your party something other than a gigantic waste of money, hope and effort.
May 07, 2008
Stay in, Hillary
Posted by: Chris
UPDATE: Marc Ambinder offers seven reasons for Clinton to stay in the race. No. 2 and No. 7 are similar to the points I make here; No. 3 and No. 5 make good additional arguments; No. 1 and No. 4 made me vomit a bit inside my mouth.
Also, Ben Smith reports that Clinton stayed positive in her West Virginia appearance today. Know hope?
After Barack Obama's impressive victory margin last night in North Carolina and a near-win in Indiana, it seems almost everyone not residing in Hillaryland has concluded the Democratic presidential race is over. I will even admit mild surprise (shame on me) when I read the Clinton campaign claimed today there had been "no discussions" about her dropping out, despite the prohibitive delegate math.
Late last night I actually thought Hillary might drop out, especially when Tim Russert (who flatly declared the race done in his view) reported that she had canceled morning talk show appearances so she could huddle with advisers. I was surprised by my reaction to that possibility, which was much more relief than glee. My reservoir of goodwill for the Clintons was sapped weeks ago by their duplicitous, scorched-earth campaign to build her up by tearing him down -- especially given her odds of success were already so long.
But I also know her candidacy has been as important and inspirational for many of her supporters as Obama's has been to his. Whenever this "long slow bataan march," as Jon Stewart called it, finally comes to an end, one side or the other -- ok, we know which side at this point -- is going to be deeply disappointed. Whatever I think about the Clinton campaign, and it isn't much, I respect the impact a loss is going to have.
The other reaction that surprised me is that, now that the nomination is a lock for Obama, I don't really see the urgency for Clinton to quit the race. Obama will have sown up the pledged delegate majority by May 20, after the Oregon primary, and the superdelegates should follow in short order.
There is a big "if" to that sentiment, however. If Hillary could manage to stay on a largely positive message like the one she delivered last night in Indiana, she could run out the clock with dignity in much the same way that Mike Huckabee did on the GOP side. She would still preserve the possibility of an Obama meltdown, lobby behind the scenes to seat Florida and Michigan, and make all the fear-based, subtly racist, overtly classist arguments she wants in private to the superdelegates.
But she would have to step back from the onslaught of negative advertising and speechifying that paints Obama as an elitist Dukakis clone out of touch with average Joe. Otherwise she's establishing once and for all that she places her own ambition and sense of entitlement outweigh the good of her party or the very common folk she talks so often about wanting to help.
Yeah, I know, there's about as much chance of that happening as Hillary pulling out the nomination.
(Photo of Hillary Clinton giving Indiana victory speech via New York Times)
April 18, 2008
Trolling for Catholics, dissing gays
Posted by: Chris
Pope Benedict's visit to the U.S. this week coincides with the closing days before the crucial Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania, where Catholics are expected to cast about one-third of the votes. Many of those Catholics are the same working class whites that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are competing so vigorously to win over.
As a result, you would expect both candidates to do a bit of papal pandering, looking for whatever edge they can find going into next Tuesday's ballot. That said, neither candidate even acknowledged Benedict's aggressive political role in challenging any sort of legal recognition of gay relationships, not to mention his vocal opposition to abortion rights and the Vatican's maddeningly unethical challenge to condom distribution in the fight against HIV.
Both statements are in the jump to this post in full, but these excerpts are representative.
First, Obama:
At a time when American families face rising costs at home and a range of worries abroad, the theme of Pope Benedict’s journey, "“Christ Our Hope," offers comfort and grace as well as a challenge to all faith communities to put our faith into action for the common good. It will not only be Catholics who are listening to the Holy Father’s message of hope and peace; all Americans will be listening with open hearts and minds.
Now, Clinton:
We are blessed to receive a visit from His Holiness, Pope Benedict, to the United States this week. Not only is he the spiritual leader of America's great Catholic community, he is a strong and effective voice for the cause of peace, freedom, and justice as well as the fight against poverty and disease. … His apostolic journey is built on the theme of Christian hope, and as he has said, the Gospel message is 'deeply rooted' in our country. We all pray that he will have a safe and successful visit to America, and that everyone will find inspiration in his presence and his words.
Of the two, Clinton's is particularly appalling, with the astonishing acknowledgment of this pope as "a strong and effective voice for the cause of … freedom and justice," not to mention praising his "fight against … disease."
Even setting aside the Vatican's shockingly immoral handling of thousands of child sexual abuse claims -- covering up claims, shuffling pedophile priests to new dioceses, then blaming homosexuality when the scandal blew up -- the Catholic leadership, and this pope in particular, is hardly a champion for peace or a warrior against disease.
Shame on Hillary Clinton for saying so.
(Photo of Pope Benedict XVI and George Bush via Times Online)
Maybe ABC did Obama a favor
Posted by: Andoni
As I wrote yesterday, I was dismayed
with the display of gotcha journalism at Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia.
However, after thinking about this for awhile and listening to the reaction of voters, friends and bloggers, I think it's quite possible that ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson actually did Barack Obama a favor. No, I'm not bullshitting.
Consider the following:
- Obama was pummeled by Gibson, Stephanopoulos, Clinton and by proxy the Republican attack machine, and yet he left Constitution Hall alive and standing. This goes a long way toward answering the question of whether he can take it or not.
- The debate was sort of like a surgical procedure honing in on multiple abscesses. The infections were incised and drained and we ended up with a lot of pus all over the floor. This procedure substantially immunizes him should the same vile bacteria decide to invade again.
- People say that he is not vetted, but Wednesday night went a long way towards answering that charge.
- Finally, it exposed Hillary for her true self. The voters have a clear choice: go back to the politics of division, personal attack, and distraction, or choose Obama and try to move to a new level of politics of addressing problems honestly without needless distractions.
I can’t wait to see what the voters of Pennsylvania decide.
As I have said before, should there be an upset in Pennsylvania next Tuesday, Hillary's overreach on the “bitter” comment will have been a turning point. Now I think the attack machine on display at Wednesday’s debate may be a tipping point. We'll see.
Finally, check out this HuffPo post that puts into clearer context all of Clinton's criticism of those remarks by Obama about small town working class whites.
April 17, 2008
Giving ABC News some feedback
Posted by: Andoni
I am so angry over how bad last night's debate was that I am writing a letter to the president of ABC News. Here is the address in case others also wish to write:
David Westin
President, ABC News
7 West 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
If you wish to call to complain, use the number I suggest below because the normal customer relations line (818-460-7477) is overwhelmed, and you won't be able to get through. What you do is call the ABC News Radio number in the box below and ask for ABC News Television. They patch you right through. And you actually get to talk to a real person!
212-456-5100
(Ask for ABC News Television)
Dumbing down politics by sound-bytes (II)
Posted by: Andoni
In the spirit of my post about hating 30-second sound-bytes and going around the MSM that feeds them to us to get more information from sources like YouTube, I have been looking for the entire transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s "bitter/clinging" remarks in San Francisco.
I have found countless transcripts of the sentence in which he uses the words “bitter” and “clinging” and several sources that give the entire paragraph, but I have yet to locate the whole speech he gave at that fundraiser.
What I did find is a report from someone who was at that fundraiser who describes the setting, the entire speech and the events surrounding Obama’s comments. I think his account of Obama’s speech at that fundraiser is worth reading because it gives a fuller picture of what happened --- in contrast to MSM sound-bytes.
Just keep in mind that this was an Obama fundraiser and this account is from someone supporting Obama.
Help an irmão out…
Posted by: Chris
For a political junkie like me, it's a bit painful to miss something as important as tonight's (last?) Democratic primary debate. Since we only get CNN down here in Rio, I was left to follow the live-blogging of others. From what Andrew Sullivan, Marc Ambinder and others have said, I didn't miss much.
What did you think? Help a brother (irmão) out!
April 14, 2008
Dumbing down politics by sound-bytes
Posted by: Andoni
I hate 30-second sound-bytes in politics. I would argue that they don’t serve America well, but I also realize there’s not much I or anyone else can do about it. Unfortunately, these snippets of information and opinion have become a big part of our political discourse and often determine who is elected president. I would blame sound-bytes from giving us George W. Bush, for example, rather than Al Gore.
The most recent example of how sound-bytes serve the public poorly is from San Francisco, where Barack Obama told supporters that he encountered "bitter" people in small town Ohio and Pennsylvania who were "clinging" to guns and religion because of their difficult economic situation.
That sound-byte from San Francisco does not reveal the depth with which Obama has thoughtfully considered this issue.
The question is whether YouTube and the Internet have helped us evolve to the point we can get around these sound-bytes to see for ourselves the full statement or what a person’s position really is? Are we seeing the dawn of a new era of politics don't rely on the 30-second bytes the MSM chooses for them?
For America’s sake, let’s hope so. The results next Tuesday in Pennsylvania will offer some indication.
April 13, 2008
Hillary's 'bitter' faux pas
Posted by: Andoni
Barack Obama has gotten a lot of heat for telling a San Francisco audience that when he was in Pennsylvania’s small towns he encountered voters who were bitter. He attributed that to their repeated disappointments from politicians and the government making promises but never following through.
Sensing a gaffe, Hillary Clinton jumped, accusing Obama of elitism and saying he was belittling and out of touch with the working class. Clinton was playing the same old game of politics that she and Bill perfected.
As someone from Pennsylvania, I would argue that Clinton’s move was a big faux pas. What she has shown is that she is the one who is out of touch with these people, not Obama. Should she lose Pennsylvania, we will look back upon her move as the turning point for this happening.
I am from Western Pennsylvania, returning home several times a year, so I know this area well. It is impossible for someone to visit the small towns in Pennsylvania, such as Altoona, Johnstown, Greensburg, and Beaver Falls, and not detect bitterness, anger and disappointment. If you miss these things, you are either deaf and blind --- or simply not listening to the people.
What’s surprising is that Hillary Clinton is supposed to be the candidate of these blue collar workers, the ones who have seen their jobs and health insurance disappear. If she has been through these small towns and all she sees are strong, hardworking people with a rosy outlook, she isn't attuned to what they are saying.
How can someone who claims to be for these people visit with them and talk with them and not pick up on their anger, bitterness, and hurt. I think Pennsylvanians will soon wake up to the fact that she hasn’t been listening to them, and when they do that they are going to conclude that she really isn’t fighting for them and that she is phony.
Obama's response to her “out of touch” criticism is remarkably good. Score another round for the “new politics” of honest discussion as opposed to the old attack politics of triangulation and obfuscation.
April 11, 2008
Some gay straight talk from Obama
Posted by: Chris
Barack Obama's wide-ranging Advocate interview posted yesterday confirmed again that he "gets it" on LGBT issues while avoiding the temptation to pander.
Asked what gays can "reasonably expect" to enact in an Obama administration, the Illinois senator set the bar higher for himself than Hilllary Clinton has thus far, including
- repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell"
- passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
- extending domestic partner benefits to gay federal employees
Clinton has committed to those same items, along with ushering through the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Most importantly, Obama also said he was "very interested in making sure that federal benefits are available to same-sex couples who have a civil union."
Advocate News Editor Kerry Eleveld took that to mean repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, but it's actually much more sweeping. DOMA only blocks federal recognition of gay marriages, at this point are limited to Massachusetts, but says nothing about civil unions. That leaves the field open for Congress to extend to gay couples in civil unions all the federal rights and benefits of heterosexual marriage.
Given that two-thirds of the public either supports marriage or civil unions for gay couples, Obama's proposal is a clever way of extending vitally important federal rights while recognizing the states' prerogative to decide what relationships to recognize. The real question is why we are hearing innovative proposals like this from presidential candidates and not from our own movement leadership.
Along with the savvy legislative agenda, Obama craftily navigated several P.C. minefields. On ENDA, he said he supports trans-inclusive but says enacting it would be tough. "Obviously, my goal would be to get the strongest possible bill," he added. So why isn't that likewise obvious to HRC and the United ENDA crowd?
On gays in the military, Obama avoids the doodoo Al Gore stepped in back in 2000, when he said opposition to the policy would be a litmus test for any chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Obama has the advantage of eight more years of social acceptance within the military, but nonetheless gets it right:
I would never make this a litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Obviously, there are so many issues that a member of the Joint Chiefs has to deal with, and my paramount obligation is to get the best possible people to keep America safe. But I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy … That doesn’t make us more safe, and what I want are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are making decisions based on what strengthens our military and what is going to make us safer, not ideology
On marriage, Obama declined to take the bait on advising the movement to press for civil unions rather than full marriage equality:
I don’t ask them that. Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, "Wait your turn." I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, "Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom."
So I strongly respect the right of same-sex couples to insist that even if we got complete equality in benefits, it still wouldn’t be equal because there’s a stigma associated with not having the same word, marriage, assigned to it.
Not only is that respectful, it's the first time I've seen any viable presidential candidate state so succinctly the case for gay marriage over civil unions. Clearly Obama gets it, even if he's "operating in a broader political and historical context," as he puts it.
Eleveld also manages to elicit more background from Obama about where he personally traces his comfort level on gay issues; mostly from his mother's general tolerance and an openly gay professor.
Obama's weakest moments were at the beginning and the end of the interview. He defended his inaccessibility to the gay press as a general campaign bias in favor of "general press" or "specialty press." There are a number or problems with this, not the least of which is the frequent criticism of Obama as a feel-good candidate full of generalities.
Sticking with mainstream media interviews only perpetuates that, since reporters with a general audience rarely plum the details of specific issues like gay rights because they are covering the field. The Advocate interview, as well as several of Clinton's gay press chats, demonstrate how the specialty press will ask important detailed questions that the broader media will miss. Obama should embrace the opportunity to get into specifics, since the reach of the Internet opens even specialty press interviews to a much broader audience.
I'm also not buying the unsolicited analogy Obama made between ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin and his own pastor Jeremiah Wright. Obama argued that both were examples of the importance of opening the tent wide enough to embrace those who disagree on specific issues. Fair enough, as far as that goes. But Wright was removed from any official role in the Obama campaign, while McClurkin was invited to perform at official campaign events.
A more consistent approach would have been to either banish both
from any official campaign connection, or leave them both be while
distancing himself from their more radical views. Only the politics of
the moment explains the disparate treatment and Obama would be better
served simply acknowledging as much.
The Clintons' pants on fire again
Posted by: Andoni
I’m so over the Clintons and their followers making politics nothing but a series of purposeful misstatements and lies. That seems to be the only way they know how to do business, and I don’t want to go back to those days with them in the White House.
Here are some the latest examples of the Clinton modus operandi. Yesterday Bill Clinton was trying to defend by revision his wife’s various statements on her sniper fire visit into Bosnia. In the course of his revisionist statement, he euphemistically makes eight false statements … or in plainer English... he tells eight lies. ABC’s Jake Tapper exposes them here.
Just a few of the lies: Bill claims Hillary only told the Bosnia story once, that it was at 11 p.m. (she was tired), and she quickly corrected the story -– all whoppers! Then he goes straight to victimhood, claiming that the media is picking on her.
Increasingly desperate Clinton surrogates are every bit as willing to engage in “bend the truth” politics, repeating something untrue or unproven often enough so that people eventually think it is true. Take the column by Peter Rosenstein in today's Washington Blade:
Rosenstein’s topic sentence/thesis is, “It is amazing that Barack Obama supporters continue to excuse his connections to anti-gay figures, yet attack Clinton for hers.” As apparent proof, he cites two previous Blade opeds: "It's still the audacity of hope" by David Pitts, and "An unfair assessment" by your's truly. The trouble is neither of these cited articles says anything attacking Hillary for her anti-gay supporters (his thesis). And Rosenstein says nothing in the rest of his essay to support his opening claim.
The politics of misstatement and lying certainly flow downhill in Hillaryland. How do these people think they can get away with this? Don't people remember Bill Clinton wagging his finger saying, “I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
Repeating a lie often enough and authoritatively enough, hoping people think it is true, is no way to run a country. After 15 years of this type of dishonest, duplicitous politics, I look forward to a new era of forthright leaders.
April 10, 2008
Obama's gay press snub? (II)
Posted by: Chris
Politico bit on the "Obama-gay press snub" story, and the story by Carrie Budoff Brown does a nice job of covering the field:
With a decent story for Obama to tell, gay editors from Dallas to San Francisco to Boston have been left wondering why Obama doesn’t take it directly to their publications, as Clinton has done with increasing frequency since Super Tuesday.
“It doesn’t seem to match what he says at these other events,” said Cynthia Laird, news editor at the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco. “It is very disappointing to me.”
The reason for Obama’s distance is unclear. In keeping with his campaign’s managed approach to the media in general, Obama has communicated with the gay press on his own terms, placing ads in local gay newspapers and writing op-eds. And with more interview requests than Obama can fill, aides likely do a cost-benefit analysis of each media outlet and the audience it reaches.
She notes that some gay press entities are asking to be treated like MSM without observing the same rules of objectivity and neutrality -- the complaint I've registered here.
Responding to the Politico piece, the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder suggests the gay press take a chill pill:
Arguably, it is more important for Obama to speak about gay issues to general audiences than it is for him to speak about gay issues before gay audiences.
That's mixing apples and oranges, actually. I would agree that Obama talking about gay issues to mainstream audiences is more important in determining whether he's genuine in his support for gay rights, rather than viewing us as just another special interest. But that's a bit beside the point concerning the gay press snub. These brief encounters with mainstream audiences do not allow for the kind of in-depth questioning that comes from a "specialty press" interview.
The gay community has been plagued since Bill Clinton by Democrats with campaign bromides who don't deliver in office. The long primary campaign season is an ideal time for those generalities to be fleshed out into policy details. Candidates may have limited time, as Ambinder points out, but over the many months of campaigning there ought to be a spare 20 minutes here and there to get down to specifics.
That said, even as an alum of the local gay press, I don't buy into the idea that it's a snub of "the LGBT press" if a candidate only talks to the Advocate. The local gay press shot itself in the foot with the Resnick and Segal hijinks of this campaign season, but there are plenty of local LGBT publications -- the Washington Blade, Southern Voice and (most of) the other National Gay Newspaper Guild papers, certainly -- that employ quality journalists who can conduct a proper, probing interview.
The point is whether the tough questions get asked and answered. In Obama's case -- between the HRC-Logo forum and the two Advocate interviews -- I would say they have been.
April 09, 2008
Clinton's future 3 am phone calls
Posted by: Andoni
Apparently the Clinton campaign is having trouble paying its bills. In fact, the University of California-Davis says the campaign still owes $5,496.75 from January. Other California universities report the campaign owes them money, too. UC Davis says that if the bill is not paid by May 10, it will turn the account over to a collection agency.
Keith Olberman wryly suggested that Hillary's 3 a.m. phone calls might start coming from collection agencies.
Obama sits for second Advocate chat
Posted by: Chris
Barack Obama has apparently done another interview with the Advocate, which should settle some of the criticism he's received of late for limiting gay press access.
He did sit down for the Human Rights Campaign-Logo forum and was the first to accept the invitation. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and most of the other Democratic presidential contenders did as well. Obama also talked to the Advocate during the whole Donnie McClurkin flap, though the interview was limited to that subject.
Since then, Clinton talked to the Advocate, the Washington Blade, did a joint interview with the Dallas Voice and two Ohio gay papers, and last week talked to the Philadelphia Gay News. PGN, in particular, took umbrage that Obama declined to be interviewed, publishing a half-page of blank white space on the front page to reflect where his Q&A would have been.
PGN Publisher Mark Segal also took Obama to task on the editorial page, never revealing that he was an early Clinton supporter, having donated $1,000 to her campaign in early 2007.
The Advocate interview should be up on the publication's website by tomorrow, according to a report in the Dallas Voice, and Obama campaign spokesman said it had been arranged before the whole PGN flap.
April 06, 2008
Accessing those 1,200 federal benefits
Posted by: Andoni
Last week on Chris Mathews’ Hardball College Tour at West Chester College, Barack Obama was asked by a gay student if he supported civil marriage for same-sex couples. Obama answered that he did not support gay marriage but rather “strong civil unions,” where all 1,200 federal benefits of marriage are bestowed on gay couples in civil unions:
Similarly, in her interview with the Philadelphia Gay News, Hillary Clinton said she would like to “extend the same access to federal benefits across the board” to couples in civil unions or domestic partnerships. She wasn’t as definitive as Obama and she didn’t reference the 1,200 benefits, but she did lean in the direction of wanting federal benefits for gay couples.
My first thought as a guy person in a same-sex binational relationship was whether whoever was compiling this list of 1,200 benefits had included immigration rights on it. And then I wondered who is keeping this list anyway?
A quick email to Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, got me a list of those 1,200 benefits, compiled by the General Accounting Office. To my relief, immigration is listed (Category 6, page 7). It also got me an interpretation of these benefits from the Freedom to Marry website.
So with two presidential candidates who want to extend federal benefits to legally partnered same-sex couples, the question is how best to do it? Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act? That will only benefit the people in Massachusetts, where same sex marriage is legal, but not those in Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, California, Washington, Oregon or the District of Columbia -- all of which have some form of civil union or domestic partnership.
Can federal benefits be extended to same sex couples in states that have partnership laws by simply passing a federal law mandating it? What about DOMA?
As a non-attorney, I would argue that repealing DOMA, passed way back in 1996, is unnecessary. A new federal law recognizing gay partnerships for federal benefits would conflict with DOMA but be more recent -- the more recent federal law would govern. Still, for married gay couples in Massachusetts, DOMA would have to be repealed.
Whether I'm right or not, it's passing strange that with two presidential candidates publicly advocating federal recognition of gay couples, we have not heard anything from our national organizations about how best to get the ball rolling.
HRC, NGLTF, Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, Lambda Legal? I’m calling you out here.
This is a big thing Obama and Clinton are proposing; a huge deal. I'm dismayed that no groundwork is being laid by our national leadership.
April 03, 2008
Hillary's latest gay press chat
Posted by: Chris
UPDATE: At the end of the post.
Hillary Clinton has once again granted an interview with the GLBT press, and the Philadelphia Gay News has done everything it could to reward her for the effort -- from a redesigned website that features the interview before the rest of the site, to a front page print edition that includes a segment of blank white space to reflect Barack Obama's failure to face questioning.
Unfortunately, like the Blade and Gay People's Chron before it, PGN did not come to the table with completely clean hands. The interview -- and all the website and print trimmings -- were the handiwork of PGN publisher Mark Segal, who has already donated $1,000 to the Clinton campaign. Has the gay press joined Fox et al in completely abandoning the idea of neutrality? At least the Blade editor's endorsement was public record; Segal doesn't disclose his Clinton ties to readers.
The interview itself makes little news, asking two or three different ways whether gay couples should get equal federal legal recognition, something Clinton (and Obama) has been on record supporting for almost a year now. I was pleased to see that one of those repetitive questions was pegged to immigration rights, to which she responded:
I think that that’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve got to contend with. Even states that have civil unions, domestic partnerships or even marriage laws are running into roadblocks with the federal government when it comes to federal benefits and privileges. Of course, immigration is a federal responsibility and I am going to do everything I can to eliminate any disparities in any benefits or rights under our law at the federal level so that all people will have available to them every right as an American citizen that they should, and that would include immigration law.
There was no follow-up about why, if she feels that way, that Clinton (like Obama) has failed to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act, which would do just that. Despite all the questions about federal recognition, Segal and his co-questioner also failed to ask why Clinton supports repealing only half of the Defense of Marriage Act, when Obama supports full repeal. Considering it's the only actual policy difference between the two on gay rights, the omission is pretty glaring.
Several of the questions displayed a poor understanding of the law, like asking if she could simply wave away "Don't Ask Don't Tell" with an executive order or a "signing statement." No, she explained patiently.
In a humorous aside, Hillary backed away from promising she would march in a Gay Pride parade as president -- do we really still crave affirmation that much? -- blaming it on the Secret Service, as if the Commander in Chief answers to them. The questioner praises her for marching in our parades as First Lady, though she only did so once -- in June 2000 in New York City -- when she was kneedeep in her campaign for the U.S. Senate there.
The highlight of the interview, and the only real news, was an excellent question about what Clinton would do as president in response to governments -- from allies like Egypt and Iraq to enemies like Iran -- that treat their own gay populations brutally. Her answer was strong:
I would be very strongly outspoken about this and it would be part of American foreign policy. There are a number of gross human-rights abuses that countries engage in with whom we have relations and we have to be really vigilant and outspoken in our total repudiation of those kinds of actions and do everything we can, including using our leverage on matters such as aid, to change the behavior so we can try to prevent such atrocities from happening.
The State Department already documents human rights abuses against gays around the world and it is the basis for asylum claims under existing law. But a proactive president like Clinton describes could be of incalculable benefit to gays abroad.
UPDATE:
Mark Segal, the PGN publisher, is digging himself deeper into the credibility hole. Here's an exchange of an interview he gave to the Philly Daily Examiner:
You guys seem to really be behind Hilary …
I did not say we are behind Hilary. I’m personally on the fence. The space was left open to show that we are willing to feature him equally.
You could cut the suspense with the knife, trying to figure out who Segal/PGN will endorse -- there is no separation between editorial and sales since Segal runs roughshod over both. The only real question is whether he'll come clean with readers that all his shenanigans this week were behind a ruse of objectivity, given his previous $1,000 donation.
April 01, 2008
Obama knocks the socks off NYC gays
Posted by: Andoni
"I've been to many events over the past 10 years of candidates running for office. This was the most forthright, eloquent, and detailed stuff I've heard from a politician [regarding gay issues]."
That's according to Corey Johnson, one of the hosts of a Barack Obama fundraiser held the other night at the apartment of GLSEN founder and executive director Kevin Jennings -- right in Hillary Clinton's home turf, New York City.
According to those present, Obama took on some of the toughest issues on the gay legislative agenda in his remarks without prompting and spoke with detail and candor that those in the audience were not used to hearing.
On marriage equality, Obama again said he favored civil unions at this time, but left the door open for marriage at a future date. On the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, he said he supported a transgender-inclusive ENDA but did not think the votes were there in the Senate for that version of the bill.
What surprised me was that Obama's speech was on gay issues and yet most of the questions following his 30-35 minutes of remarks were on non-gay issues. To me that means that he must have nailed every gay issue that was on peoples' minds or they wouldn't have switched to non gay issues during the Q & A.
Obama repeated that his top three priorities if elected will be to safely extricate the U.S. from Iraq, pass affordable health care legislation and address greenhouse gases and the environment.
March 25, 2008
Debunking the new Clinton metric
Posted by: Chris
Setting aside the obvious desperation of the Clinton campaign's search for some measure of primary support she can use to poach superdelegates (and now even pledged delegates), their latest metric just doesn't add up.
Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who is backing Hillary Clinton, argued over the weekend that we ought to be looking not at pledged delegates or superdelegates or number of states won or popular vote or electability or even national polls -- since all of those favor Barack Obama -- but at the electoral votes available in the general election from the states she has won.
The New York Times and other MSM applied the Bayh approach and show Clinton in the lead:
So far, Mrs. Clinton has won states with a total of 219 Electoral College votes, not counting Florida and Michigan, while Mr. Obama has won states with a total of 202 electoral votes.
The math problem with that conclusion is that it counts two states -- Nevada and Texas -- where Obama actually won more delegates, even though Clinton won more votes. Accounting for those two states, the electoral total would be:
- Obama: 241
- Clinton: 180
So for Bayh's metric to work for Clinton, the argument would have to go something like this: Democrats ought to nominate the candidate who wins states representing the most electoral votes, with "wins" referring to the popular vote in each state, without regard to whether the state held caucuses (Nevada) or a mixed primary-caucus contest (Texas).
It does have the elegant logic so common in self-serving Clintonian logic.
March 23, 2008
Where's the 'sharp contrast'?
Posted by: Chris
The headline this Easter Sunday in the non-denominational Christian Today reads, "McCain's pastor a sharp contrast to Obama's," but that conclusion doesn't bear up to scrutiny:
John McCain's Phoenix pastor, Dan Yeary, is a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist who opposes abortion and believes homosexuality to be a biblical sin, but says Christians have an obligation to love such sinners.
That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the US Republican presidential candidate firmly i