“Democrats have Mr. Romney squarely in their sights”

According to Michael Shear at the Caucus (NY Times), the Romney camp is justified in asking if the Democrats are nervous:

It appears the Dems have decided Mitt  Romney will be their Republican opponent in 2012:

Republicans are heading into an intense period of presidential campaigning as their candidates jockey to be the party’s nominee next year.

But Democratic leaders appear to have already decided who will win that contest: Mitt Romney.

In the last several days, President Obama’s political allies have made a series of attacks on Mr. Romney’s character and record, virtually ignoring the other Republican candidates and the continuing primary campaign.

It is as if the Democrats have fast-forwarded to the spring of 2012.

In a new Web video released Friday morning, the Democratic National Committee continued to hammer Mr. Romney for referring to the president’s proposed payroll tax cut as a “little Band-Aid” for the middle class.

“Fifteen hundred dollars might be a Band-Aid to Mitt Romney,” the video says. “But to a middle-class family, fifteen hundred goes a long way. Mitt Romney, he’s wrong for the middle class.”

Read more:

Tina Brown: The Falsehood of Obama Campaign’s Charge of Racism Against Bill Clinton

God knows I’ve referenced often enough at Katalusis Princeton historian Sean Wilentz’s repeated debunking of the Obama campaign’s attempts to smear Bill and Hillary Clinton as racists. Yet I thought I’d never see the day when another prominent old media/new media writer would actually speak the truth on this particular issue.

Tina Brown at the Daily Beast chides Obama for his beer diplomacy scheduled today with Professor Gates and Police Officer Crowley and suggests the current president might benefit from the political skills of former president Clinton in attending to a more pressing matter - legislating a decent health care reform bill.

Ms. Brown writes (emphasis mine):

It looks like Obama would rather live on cheeseburgers than let Clinton get into the act on health care—or on anything else, for that matter. Maybe he thinks there’s no stage big enough for both these two Mount Rushmore megastars and never will be. Despite surface cordiality and self-restraint for Hillary’s sake, the former president’s wounds from the harsh charge of racism on the campaign, a falsehood on which Obama created his "post-racialism" campaign, remain deep, and they are not assuaged by the coolly minimal lip service a still mistrustful Obama pays to Bill’s presidential wisdom. “Sure, he calls me every few weeks,” the former president told a person I know. “But it feels as if, you know, he’s just checking a box.”

Isn’t this the racial reconciliation that should be taking place over a beer at the White House?

Good question, Tina.

The Obama Machine’s Unscrupulous Attacks on Sarah Palin

At a news conference today, Barack Obama responded to questions pertaining to the announcement of 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. Bonnie Kapp at Fox News reports:

‘“I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics,’ the Democrat said forcefully. ‘It has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a VP. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories,’ he continued.

‘“The candidate who himself was born to a teenage mom, reminded reporters, ‘You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and you know teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.’

‘“When asked about an ‘unnamed McCain advisor’ accusing the Obama campaign of spreading despicable rumors surrounding Bristol Palin online, Obama interrupted the reporter mid-question. ‘I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us,’ he said directly. ‘Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that - they’d be fired,’ he added.

“With that, Obama boarded his airport-bound bus to head to Milwaukee for a rally.”

As I’ve noted many times before, Barack Obama claims he's a new kind of politician and that his campaign is above the usual mudslinging tactics. At the same time, he has consistently failed to take any responsibility for the behavior of his left-wing netroots supporters that I call – with good reason - his online shock troops. As Naomi Klein points out, the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the like are all integral parts of the Obama machine.

Obama’s netroots supporters display no moral scruples whatsoever in their attempts to destroy anyone they perceive as their idol's adversary (click here to see what I mean). They did their utmost to destroy Hillary Clinton and ever since Sarah Palin was introduced, they’ve gone all out to take her down, including spreading the malicious rumor questioning the four-month-old Trig Palin’s parentage.

But here’s the deal: Barack Obama has posted on the Huffington Post. He’s well aware that he has long been the candidate of choice on this far left Web site. With the Obama campaign’s Internet savvy, he’s got to know what the blogs are saying. On several occasions, including his acceptance speech, Obama has called out the Republicans for running a dirty campaign. Never once have I ever witnessed the One lecturing his own supporters for resorting to hate-mongering tactics that arguably exceed anything right-wing extremists are capable of producing.

It’s time for Barack Obama to step forward and rebuke his online shock troops for their barbaric behavior. Until then, Obama’s claim to transcend the old politics will ring completely false.

A Third of Obama’s Record-Breaking Haul From Big Donors

Back in June, Barack Obama reversed his earlier pledge and became the first major party candidate to reject public financing. The Democratic presumptive nominee justified his decision by claiming the system was broken and pointing to his 1.5 million donors, most of whom give small amounts.

But the startling headline in today’s NY Times reads: In Obama Campaign, Big Donors Are a Major Force. The article reveals yet again that Obama is not the representative of the new politics that he claims to be. Rather he is one of the most skillful old-style politicians to step on the national stage in recent years, and he has long been adept at influence peddling and courting large donors.

According to the Times article:

(Bold emphasis in material quoted from the Times is mine.)

In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far.

But records show that one-third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more: a total of $112 million, more than Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries, raised in contributions of that size.

Behind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama “bundlers,” fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more. Many of the bundlers come from industries with critical interests in Washington. Nearly three dozen of the bundlers have raised more than $500,000 each, including more than a half-dozen who have passed the $1 million mark and one or two who have exceeded $2 million, according to interviews with fund-raisers.

While his campaign has cited its volume of small donations as a rationale for his decision to opt out of public financing for the general election, Mr. Obama has worked to build a network of big-dollar supporters from the time he began contemplating a run for the United States Senate. He tapped into well-connected people in Chicago prior to the 2004 Senate race, and once elected, set out across the country starting to cultivate some of his party’s most influential money collectors.

He courted them with the savvy of a veteran politician, through phone calls, meals and one-on-one meetings; he wrote thank-you cards and remembered birthdays; he sent them autographed copies of his book and doted on their children.

The fruits of his efforts have put Mr. Obama’s major donors on a pace that almost rivals the $147 million raised by President Bush’s network of Pioneers and Rangers in contributions of $1,000 or larger during the 2004 primary season.

Read more:

Is the DNC Still Paying Howard Dean $100,000 per Year?

Posting at Heidi Li’s Potpourri this morning, Heidi Li wants to know whether or not DNC Chair Howard Dean (see above) is still getting paid $100,000 per year, since it appears Dean has turned over many of his responsibilities to Barack Obama’s aides.

Read more here.

Catch Up Time at Home in St. Paul

I made it back to Minnesota yesterday around noon after attending my family reunion in northwestern Ohio and spending several pleasant days at the country home of my niece and her husband. We rose at 4:00 a.m. yesterday to make my early morning flight to Chicago and then on to Minneapolis-St. Paul - I was pretty drowsy by the time I got home.

I didn’t spend too much time on my vacation following news reports of Obama’s trip. Interesting to note that despite all of the adulation Obama received from the media, RCP’s latest national average shows the rock star candidate with only a 4.2 lead over McCain.

For those of you who have been following the Denver Group’s efforts to keep the Democratic primary democratic this August, Heidi Li’s Potpourri this morning provides the essential convention rules going forward:

“The Call to the Convention serves as a blueprint or governance document specifying how the convention will be convened and what will happen there. The first parts deal with how people other than superdelegates (or as they are officially called "automatic delegates) can qualify to become delegates to the National Convention. The later sections specify how the Convention is to operate.”

Read more here.

The Heads of Obama’s Base About to Explode!

Photo credits: MSNBC

Obama’s sudden metamorphosis from rock star idol of his extreme left-wing base, anchored in the blogosphere at big-name sites like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, to Mr. Flag-Waving Average Guy sauntering down the center line of the roadway to Denver has left his most dedicated supporters in disarray.

At the Huffington Post this morning, Allison Kilkenny is taking no prisoners. She leads off her piece titled ironically “Pray Yourself Better: It's The American Way!” with these words:

“Ideological contortionist, Barack Obama, marches toward his personal goal of causing one million progressives' heads to simultaneously explode.”

Kilkenny points to Kos:

“He {Obama} obtained an essential first step toward this aim when he capitulated on FISA, a move so contradictory to the core of the Progressive movement that outraged midget, Markos "Dailykos" Moulitsas, yanked a generous contribution from Obama's bony fingers as punishment for the sneaky, immoral maneuver. Moveon.org was also unhappy with Obama, all of which brings to mind the ancient expression: If You Wrong The Progressives, Protect Your Crotch.”


Kilkenny’s litany of Obama’s sellouts continues:

“These burns aren't going to heal any time soon. John Kerry turned out to be an empty shell of a candidate, but Barack Obama had real potential, or so the Progressives thought. They sunk their time and money into Obama, and as thanks, he turned around and bit the hands that fed him.

“Selling out his Progressive base on FISA was bad enough, but then Obama followed up his gradual tumble toward triangulation when he recently vowed to expand Bush's faith-based programs.

“Defenders of Obama's latest selling-out point claim churches are an essential party of American society because the institutions provide basic services like feeding the poor. Except, churches have no business substituting for the government in anti-poverty campaigns.

“If churches hold the occasional bake sale to help the Harper family pay for Little Matty's liver transplant, that's all well and good. However, any politician seriously claiming churches should substitute for government programs needs to have their head examined. It's the job of the state to care for its citizens, namely because the state is Constitutionally secular, forbidding government agents to deny care on the grounds of theological loyalty.

“In a way, asking the church to step up and care for the poor in lieu of a comprehensive, meaty welfare program is like abandoning the American post office in favor of using FedEx. It's yet another dig at the innards of the American infrastructure. It's yet another way to privatize a normal function of the government. Of course, in this case, it's selling out pro bono because the church claims to operate without the explicit intent of profit. I guess we're not counting those basket donations...

‘“Even if Obama proposed the expansion as an accessory program where the church just gets to ‘come along for the poverty ride,’ the idea is still worse than dumb, it's downright insulting. When will a progressive candidate have the courage to admit they have no business dictating moral values? When will a progressive acknowledge that triangulation brought us to this place, where the American people have no bargaining chips left? They're poor, they're losing their jobs because of triangulating land mines like NAFTA, and those jobs are not coming back. They have no health care, their food and environment are poisoned, and Barack Obama tells them to go to church and pray for a miracle.

“And that's the progressive talking. Just imaging the steaming pile of shit resting on John McCain's tongue.”

Kilkenny’s not having any of Obama’s excuses:

‘“The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone,’ Obama explained when confronted by foaming-at-the-mouths Progressives.

“Um, what? So let me get this straight: We pay taxes for a government unable to do its job. We elect representatives, like Barack Obama, to overhaul a broken system that has abandoned its own constituents, and instead of creating a bold, radical agenda, Obama perpetuates the status quo. Obama chooses to invest his trust in the church instead of in the political system that has invested in him this great and rare opportunity to fix an ailing society. He chooses to entrust a brothel of fairy tales with the safety of the people instead of a responsible, secular government.

“What the hell is he thinking? Unless there's a business model somewhere where "priest molestations" plus "dangerous ignorance" equals "profit" that I don't know about, this appears to be yet another grave error from the Obama camp.”

Nor is Kilkenny having any excuses from a few hangers on among progressives:

‘“More surprising than Obama selling out his progressive base is the stubbornness with which some progressives have reacted during these gradual moves toward triangulation. One such supporter explained to me, ‘You can't drive the bus without the keys,’ meaning Obama is just faking his way into the White House with these ‘moderate’ moves and bushels of ‘compromises.’

“But this kind of logic ignores Quid Pro Quo, where Wall Street lobbyists, who have sunk nearly twice as much money into Obama as they have McCain, will demand favors in exchange for their generosity.

“Obama is already in debt, but the progressives seem to think he'll experience a kind of miraculous spell of transubstantiation during his inauguration where his past corruptions will turn into delicious wine and universal health care. It ain't, as they say, gonna happen, folks. At least, it won't happen without the motivation of a seriously pissed-off base.

It should be obvious by now that believing Obama was the second coming was misguided faith on the part of progressives:

“Of course, the motivation of his pissed-off base was supposed to have been what was going to keep Obama on track in the first place. With that not working, progressives have few options left, and their trust is waning in the last great savior for the so-called progressive movement.”

More on Obama’s Sellout to the Right

Now here’s an admission we all need to hear; it’s from Stephen Ducat, posting at – of all places – the Huffington Post:

“OK, we all knew, deep down, that our wondrous golden boy of change would one day reveal his feet of clay. What most of us did not anticipate was just how easily they would fit into jackboots.”

In case you missed it, Ducat’s “golden boy” is Barack Obama, and there’s more to follow on the candidate recently transformed from “change you can believe in” to “whatever change it takes to win.” Here Ducat takes on conventional wisdom, the well-known enemy of progressive thought:

“There has emerged a conventional wisdom among progressives that is not entirely wrong about why Obama has so readily embraced police state surveillance, and why he felt compelled to express his solidarity with Scalia, et al, on the death penalty. As the thinking goes, these moves are simply the expectable, if disheartening, political positioning typical of Democratic presidential candidates, once they enter the general election campaign.”

Ducat continues with a likely GOP ad that would have attacked Obama had he not suddenly shifted to the right:

Low, rumbling, ominous music gradually increases in volume as a solemn voice that oozes manly gravitas announces, "Barack Obama voted against a bill to that would help our intelligence agencies detect terrorist plots against our nation before they can be carried out. Why does he want to protect the privacy of Al-Qaeda's phone calls more than he wants to protect Americans from Al-Qaeda? [Cut to an image of a World Trade Tower falling.] Barack Obama doesn't want the death penalty applied to criminals who sexually assault and brutalize little children. Why does he care more about child rapists [cut to image of a swarthy unshaven convict doing the perp walk] than he does about their victims? [Cut to an image of doe-eyed little blond girl with tears rolling down her apple cheeks, as she lies in an oversized hospital bed holding tightly to her teddy bear.] Barack Obama and his friends at the ACLU care about terrorists and rapists. Vote for John McCain. He cares about us." [As reassuring music swells, cut to an image of a younger looking, photo-shopped McCain in his crisp Naval officer's uniform. One arm is around a child, the other rising in a determined salute to the flag.]

Calling Obama out for his “limited ability to exercise moral leadership,” Ducat offers an alternative ad from the progressive perspective:

The 30-second ad opens on a scene in a middle class suburban kitchen. A mother is speaking on the phone. Her voice is muffled and is drowned out by an intermittent electronic beep, along with the sounds of someone frenetically striking a computer keyboard. The screen quickly splits in half to reveal the woman's nine-year-old daughter speaking by cell phone to inform her mother that she is ready to be picked up from the school bus stop. The screen is then split in thirds to reveal a man wearing headphones sitting in front of a computer typing notes, obviously monitoring the mother-daughter conversation. Behind him is a massive warehouse filled with computers and scurrying NSA technicians. This image then takes up the entire screen. The voiceover says, "Republicans, like George Bush and John McCain, have taken away our freedoms, invaded our private lives, and made us less safe." We then quickly see a succession of images -- a scene from Iraq that features a burning American tank, a scene of grenade launchers being placed into a packing crate, a scene of an unguarded American port where uninspected shipping containers are being off loaded, and finally a scene of a car with blacked out windows slowing down in front of an unsecured nuclear power plant. A window rolls down. A hand holding a camera reaches out to snap photos. Then the car speeds away. The voice over then concludes, "Protecting America means preserving our rights [cut to an image of the Constitution in which the camera scrolls down the Bill of Rights section], along with defeating terrorists." The last image is a scene of Barack Obama standing up and pointing toward a large map of some unidentifiable part of the world. Below him is a large conference table of twenty or so advisors who are listening with rapt attention.

So far so good, but then Ducat concludes: “In spite of his limitations, there is too much at stake to not work hard to make sure Barack Obama moves into the White House. And, once there, we must hold his clay feet to the fire.”

I repeat: Folks, we are not stuck with this obviously flawed candidate; the delegates still have to vote in Denver on August 27.

Keep Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot!!

Note: To read Ducat’s article in its entirety, Google the title: Understanding Obama's Recent Right Turn+Ducat+Huffington Post (Sorry, I don’t link there).

Hillary’s Private Conference Call to Campaign Donors

TPM’s Greg Sargent reports highlights of Hillary Clinton’s conference call this morning to her donors.

According to Sargent who listened in on the call, Sen. Clinton:

Once again asked her supporters to get behind Barack Obama;

Invited supporters to assist her with her campaign debt, but did not request help in repaying her personal loans:

Suggested that she would be addressing problems with the media's campaign coverage in the future.

I applaud Hillary’s intention to step forward and take a leading role in addressing the blatantly good-old-boy media coverage of women candidates in the political arena. If she doesn't accept the challenge, who will?

Sunday, May 25, latest polls: Clinton, McCain, Obama

Gallup: Clinton leads McCain and Obama

Clinton leads McCain 49-45.
McCain leads Obama 47-45.

Rasmussen:

Clinton leads McCain by 3
McCain leads Obama by 2

Newsweek:

Clinton leads McCain 48-44
McCain and Obama tie 44-44

The Actions of Obama’s Advisers Raise Questions About Obama

Photo credits: AP

In today’s Boston Globe, Peter Canellos highlights Barack Obama’s recent difficulties in keeping his advisers on message:

“But if there was a warning for the Obama campaign {in the Samantha Power incident}, it was not about the dangers of negative campaigning. It was about the importance of having a consistent message and an effective chain of command.

“Power was the third Obama adviser to stir up a cloud of dust in recent weeks by apparently substituting his or her own views for Obama's: In addition to the "monster" comment, made to a Scottish newspaper, Power told the BBC that Obama's plan to withdraw all troops from Iraq within 16 months was subject to change once he took office.

“Susan Rice, another foreign policy aide, committed the misstep of opining that neither Obama nor Clinton was ready to handle a 3 a.m. phone call announcing a foreign policy crisis. Rice probably meant that no one can be fully prepared for the burdens of the presidency, but John McCain was only too happy to jump on her words and announce that he, at least, feels up to the job.

“Perhaps most damaging of all, Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist advising Obama, apparently sought to reassure Canadian officials in the days leading up to the Ohio primary that the senator wasn't really as critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement as he sounded on the stump. A memo produced by the Canadian consulate in Chicago suggested that Goolsbee felt the heated antitrade rhetoric was ‘political maneuvering.’”

Canellos suggests, “The actions of Obama's advisers raise as many questions about Obama as about the advisers.”

Explaining further, Canellos writes: “'Message control’ is a common catchphrase among political consultants, but it is crucial to governing as well. And when recent administrations have had problems with message control, it has usually signaled some sort of weakness in the boss”

To read more, go here.

The Obama Campaign’s Destructive Tactics

Photo credits: Associated Press File Photo

In an article in The New Republic today, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz explains how Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton. In the process, Wilentz addresses an issue related to one that I raised in a previous post, that is “the gap between Senator Barack Obama's promises of a pure, soul-cleansing ‘new’ politics and the calculated, deeply dishonest conduct of his actually-existing campaign. But it remains to be seen whether the latest ploy by the Obama camp--over allegations about the circulation of a photograph of Obama in ceremonial Somali dress--will be exposed by the press as the manipulative illusion that it is.”

Noting the media’s complicity in the Obama campaign’s destructive tactics, Wilentz states, “This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama's supposedly uplifting campaign.”

Read More

Sean Wilentz is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (Norton).