Prediction: Obama Won't Pull It Off

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2008 Presidential Campaign Progress Report

1. The crucial event of the campaign, so far, was Obama's serious blunder in choosing Biden rather than Clinton as his VP. This gave McCain an opportunity he has capitalized on very well. Sarah Palin has given Republicans something to cheer about. 2. Obama's campaign lost its momentum as soon as McCain announced Palin as his running mate. But it had a serious problem even before that. The Democrats should have been polling very far ahead of the Republicans. They weren't. Somehow, they were failing to connect. McCain seems to be adept at sensing that and responding to it. 3. Without momentum, Obama suddenly ceased to look godlike. The Olympian stage set at the convention became a joke. I think Obama chose Biden because he assumed he was going to win, and he wanted the ideal candidate for governing. This is a plan for a superior administration. It is better than what I expect from McCain, which is that he will use Palin to win votes and appeal to people but will ignore her views on issues. But when Biden generated a yawn and the aura of invincibility faded, even some Obama supporters became concerned about his Jimmy Carter-like earnestness. His tremendous calmness suddenly began to look like weakness. Nothing succeeds like success, and suddenly Obama's campaign lost that prop. 4. Obama is losing because of the experience argument. Having Biden on the ticket just underscores the upside-down fact that the sage hand -- be it Biden, Clinton, or anyone else -- is playing second fiddle to someone who has little major-league leadership experience. I, myself, am not convinced that Obama would be a superior leader, though I do think he would be a visionary and intelligent chooser of wise policies. Palin is right: she does have more executive experience than Obama. It shows in their bearing. He is great at speeches, but he remains boyish, in a way that does not inspire confidence. 5. McCain appears to be turning talk about the economy, his weak point, into talk about oil drilling, where he has an advantage among voters who seek a simplistic solution. In this sense, Obama is playing with one hand tied behind his back, and he is almost strong enough to do it. Almost. But through the pollsters, the American people are telling him that, in politics, bullshit can grow legs and walk upon the earth. Nobody cares if McCain is grossly distorting things left and right. We already learned this from Reagan. What matters, it seems, is that McCain can keep it coming. You cannot debunk nonsense as quickly as the other side can churn it out. McCain could conceivably go too far, to the point of becoming a laughingstock. But the American people have a demonstrated tolerance for very high levels of nonsense. 6. Obama has tried, but has not been entirely able, to create a sense that he is running a class act, a campaign based upon the kinds of principles that America needs. He seems sincere in that effort, and it does resonate with many people. But as McCain's campaign keeps the punches coming, Obama seems to be getting dragged down to McCain's level. It is a common experience: someone wants to play fair, but then gets punished by an unfair blow, and suddenly it becomes important to just stay alive. Nobody can be perfect, and to the extent Obama espouses a principled approach that he, himself, cannot deliver to the satisfaction of all observers, he risks seeming pretentious and phony. National emergencies and international crises -- hurricanes, Russian invasions of Georgia, and the like -- seem to burnish McCain's standing. Just as in Russia, such events remind voters that they want a strong hand at the tiller, even if it happens to be a dangerous one. McCain is no more invincible than Obama. He seems especially vulnerable in the upcoming debates; he could come away from them looking very bad. But if McCain can survive the debates, he seems likely otherwise to deny Obama a chance to connect with voters on the level of thoughtful, long-term planning for the nation's best interests. At present, it seems that the debates offer Obama a last opportunity to avoid losing in November.

In Admiration of John McCain

Last year, John McCain's campaign was dying. He looked like he was out of the race. He dumped much of his campaign staff and virtually started over. And you know what? Now he's the Republican candidate for president. He may not have much executive experience, but that's the kind of performance you'd expect to see from a CEO who comes in and turns around a failing corporation. I don't know if McCain will be able to stick around and manage the outcome very well afterwards, but he's a Comeback Kid, and there's a place for that kind of ability in the White House these days. This summer, Obama was soaring. He kept making those fantastic speeches. He kept talking about America's dreams and its best side. He appealed to the young. He beat Hillary in a way that left them both able to work together. He was uniting Democrats, he was uniting black and white, he was uniting young and old. While he was touring the world, John McCain was getting ridiculed for touring grocery stores. But McCain kept banging on the drum of experience, even though his experience is not ideally suited for the job. He caught Obama's attention, and eventually he spooked him. Obama chose an elder white male as vice president, thereby simultaneously alienating many of Hillary's followers and sending the signal that he needed support and guidance. Once Obama made that move, McCain was positioned to take the offensive in their chess game. He nominated Sarah Palin. Somehow, he appears to have survived the first potentially disastrous news about her pregnant daughter, her pork barrel spending, her ethics investigation. It seems he may not even have known about all those things. Apparently his gut told him not to care. He went with the big picture and, judging from the reaction to her speech at the Republican National Convention last night, it paid off. Call it luck, call it instinct. Maybe it makes no difference. The net result is, he is still very much in the game. In an election season when the Democrats should be utterly trouncing the Republicans, McCain manages to be very close to Obama in the polls -- especially when you consider the possibility, voiced by one recent commentator, that people do not always tell pollsters the truth in black-white election contests. There is a possibility that breaking even in the polls means that Obama is losing. John McCain has put up a very good fight. It is possibly the best fight that any Republican candidate could have put up. He should take pride in that. I do not think that McCain believes in all of the positions he has embraced this year. I think he has had to play a lot of games to keep alive his maverick image while simultaneously kissing up to the myriad Republicans he has offended. To take one example, I suspect that he was presenting his true views of evangelicals when he made those disparaging comments in previous years. To win, however, he has felt compelled to give them something to be excited about, and Sarah Palin has been just the person for the job. He will pay some attention to evangelicals if he is elected, but my guess is that he will be more interested in putting them back in the box after November 4. Obama is not the only one who wants to be a great president for all Americans. This past week, I came close to backing away from my previous bet that Obama would win. His vice presidential choice seriously diminished my confidence in him, both because I felt it was ill-advised and because I picked up on the lack of confidence that it represented. I leaned back the other way when I saw the initial difficulties Palin was having. Those may still haunt her. People are still sorting out all this stuff. It has been too much, too soon. I decided to stick with my original bet because I still think the economy will be the deciding factor, and I think Obama has the edge there. Seeing what a tremendous campaign McCain is running, however, I am not in a rush to label Obama the winner on the economic issues. McCain beat Obama at Rick Warren's church, by hook or by crook, and he really changed the game with Palin. He is a cunning old S.O.B., and he could do the same thing again, on economic matters. The fun part would be to try to figure out how -- to anticipate how he will make Obama look, once again, like he's standing still. John McCain is not waging an especially clean or admirable campaign. That early aspiration went out the window. Obama is by far the class act in this election. I hope he can stay that way. In the long term, it may be to Obama's advantage, or at least to America's, if he should prove to be the beautiful loser. Al Gore gave us some precedent for that. Of course, it would be even better if Obama became the beautiful winner, or if McCain would at least clean up his act. This post is not praising John McCain's views or behavior along those lines. But for purposes of fighting to win, he is doing a very impressive job, and I wanted to say so.

Palin, Scandal, and Moral Superiority

I don't get it. Republicans spent eight years dragging the U.S. through the mud, in the name of getting to the bottom of whatever Bill Clinton had done and whoever he had done it with. Parents were furious that they had to answer their little children's questions about what a blow job was, and all the other stuff they were seeing on TV. The president, and the presidency, took virtually the entire rap for that goofy binge of prurient curiosity. Nobody was excusing Clinton's marital infidelity. But the Republican Party spent years on that and on every other mud-dredging scandal they could find, in the Clintons' personal and professional matters, going back years before they came to Washington, or even before Bill became Arkansas governor. Has anyone forgotten the huge flap over whether Bill had smoked marijuana, and his bizarre claim that he had not inhaled? Throughout recent decades, a huge chunk of America has smoked dope. Who in the world cared about that, other than the moral police of the right wing? So now we have suddenly come into a new age in Washington politics. It did not arrive in time to prevent the right from harping on Obama's fist-bump or his choice of church or his alleged connections with student protesters in the 1960s, when he was eight years old. But suddenly, lo and behold, we have what could be a trashy woman on the right, in the form of Sarah Palin and family, and all at once people are thinking that it's really not right to invade the private life of a candidate for public office. And I agree with that, with a caveat. The caveat is, don't lecture other people about proper morality or the superiority of your religious faith. Don't cover up the bare-breasted statue of Justice, John Ashcroft, when meanwhile your party's future vice-presidential nominee is baring hers premaritally. Don't suddenly discover that it is OK and wonderful for a child to have her own child, after all these years of complaining about single black mothers. Yes, definitely, let us do focus on the real issues in American governance. Let us, indeed, go back and reconsider the 1990s, give Bill and Hillary Clinton a clean slate, and properly excoriate those who made such political hay out of their self-destructive failings, so that our nation will learn something at last, and will not repeat the same mistakes a few years hence. Let's all finally recognize, for God's sake, that those moralistic conceits gave us George W. Bush; let us have a national retrospective soul-searching for the silliness that brought him instead of Al Gore into the White House. Let us hear people on the right -- especially those of the religious right who have long flaunted a most un-Christlike pride in their godliness -- finally confess their sin and seek to make amends for the terrible wrongs they have perpetrated throughout this country and abroad, in the name of a morality that they, themselves, do not necessarily observe. Let us take, together, kindly but seriously, that step toward a new and long-overdue age of rational politics. Until that happens, I say it's smoke. It's the same political fraud in a new guise: morality as defense, rather than morality as offense -- still used, that is, in a fighting mode, not humbly and self-critically. Yes, let us look carefully at the issues. Let us take a running start at them, beginning with 1992. When we see that kind of soul-searching among the so-called godly folk, then I will believe that enough has been said about the contrasts between Sarah Palin's alleged faith and her actual circumstances.

Here's the Deal: Barack, Hillary, and Bill

My speculation for the week: 1. Barack and Hillary are campaigning together. Hillary would not be doing this unless she already had a deal she couldn't refuse. When they sat themselves in easy chairs in Dianne Feinstein's living room, they got right to the point. Hillary would not be this happy with anything less than the vice presidential slot. Barack's promise is that, at the appropriate time, selected for maximum political advantage, he will announce her as his VP candidate. 2. Hillary is motivated to do everything in her power for her and Barack to win. That means bringing every last one of her supporters on board for Barack, if possible. That also means muzzling Bill. He has been very unhelpful for her in this campaign, especially when compared to what he could have done if he had been more focused. The deal is, Hillary is the VP candidate; she takes the spotlight off Michelle Obama; the Clintons' 1990s baggage is history; and Bill Clinton is not a significant part of the package. 3. Bill is motivated to mind his tongue and do what Barack and Hillary need. His motivation is that he will be Barack's first nominee to a Supreme Court position, or possibly some ambassadorship (to e.g., the United Nations). He probably got his pick, and he probably does want to be back in the game in some regard. He lies low now; he gets rewarded later.

It Might Be Hillary After All

I heard an interesting comment the other day. The comment was that, if we were starting the primary season all over again, Barack probably would not survive it. The reason, probably due to the Rev. Wright matter as much as anything, was that Barack was not going to be able to deliver states like Ohio and Pennsylvania for the Democrats.

I’m not too eager to see the Clintons back in the White House. Hillary will doubtless be a very competent president. It’s just that, every now and then, something comes back to remind me of that era. Today, it was Rwanda. Yesterday, in a conversation, it was the furniture-moving fiasco when they were exiting the White House. There was just too much of that sort of thing.

But whatever. It seems there is a good chance that, somehow, Michigan and Florida are going to weigh in on this thing; and given Hillary’s seemingly growing momentum, I expect they will favor her.

What I think the Democratic party may be angling for is a graceful exit from Obama, at least for now. Give him eight years to become a seasoned veep, and everything will look different. But at the present, I think the party leadership may feel that an Obama vs. McCain race will be too close for comfort. Not so much because of the polls, but because of the perceived potential for liabilities and unknowns.

It also seems that Hillary is seen as more of a centrist than Obama, in the sense that some who are denied a chance to vote for her may defect to McCain, while a similar defection seems unlikely for most would-be Obama voters. Given what sounds like a growing sentiment at the moment, my odds on Hillary becoming the nominee somehow are up from 10% to more like 40%.

We'll know in a few days. If that meeting of delegates in late May doesn't produce an irrefutable conclusion for Obama, then my bet goes over the 50% mark. At that point, in other words, I'm thinking the tide will have turned.

Al Gore as Vice President

I don't know if Al will want the job. If he doesn't take it, he'll go the way of Colin Powell: someone who was in line for the White House, but who failed to stay in the limelight and therefore no longer has the chance. Al's environmental crusade is important and global, but it's everyone's concern now. Even as its frontman, I don't believe he will have enough visibility four years from now, or eight, to be in a position to run for president. Being vice-president again would be a been-there, done-that role for Al. But it would also put him back, a heartbeat away from the presidency, where he would have some advantages for environmental purposes that he will not have in the political wilderness, especially if he bargained with Obama for an express environmental portfolio. And in the keep-it-clean campaigns that Obama and McCain talk about, running as Veep might not sully Al overmuch. He could be bigger than the job without necessarily letting it diminish him. Al as vice president would bring some advantages for the Democrats. There would be, for some, the inevitability and historical factors: Al won it already, for chrissake, let him have it -- and hey, we can still have a whiff of the Clinton era without the Clintons. The white male voters who have not been too keen on Obama might find Al's portly presence reassuring. Finally, Al could play the role of the unifier, between the Clinton and Obama camps.

Catching Up: Best of 2004: November & December

Here's another installment in the continuing effort to distill the best postings from my personal mailing list. These are from November and December 2004. * * * * * The Cowboy

An old cowboy sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. As he sat sipping his drink, a young woman sat down next to him. She turned to the cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?" He replied, "Well, I've spent my whole life, breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, baling hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors, and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy."

She said, "I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women." The two sat sipping in silence.

A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?" He replied, "I always thought I was, but I just found out I'm a lesbian." * * * * *

Late-Night Political News from About.com "John Kerry said yesterday, 'In an American election, there is no loser.' Uh, earth to John." --Jay Leno "There's a rumor that Attorney General John Ashcroft will resign before the inauguration. The White House feels that since Bush is going to swear to defend the Constitution, they want to make sure it's still around." --Jay Leno "As you know, Osama bin Laden has released another video. He bragged that he will 'bankrupt the United States.' And today President Bush said, 'two can play that game, pal.'" --Jay Leno "Down in Washington, D.C. today a man tried to climb the fence to the White House. Luckily the man was knocked over by fleeing Bush cabinet members." --David Letterman "Here's a late breaking bulletin from the Bush White House -- the White House Christmas tree has submitted its resignation." --David Letterman "This just in -- Yasser Arafat's funeral went well. Only 30 people died. ... Mrs. Arafat is so distraught she could barely shop today." --David Letterman "The temporary successor to Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, escaped a shooting by militants as he was visiting Arafat's grave. See, that's why he's called a 'temporary successor.'" --Jay Leno "Dan Rather announced he was leaving. President Bush said, 'I didn't even know he was in my cabinet.'" --Jay Leno "There is good news back home. Congress finally signed a bill completely reorganizing America's intelligence community. And all is took was three years of nagging from grieving 9/11 widows. Cause you know, it was a back burner thing for Congress. It ain't Freedom Fries, people." --Jon Stewart "Donald Rumsfeld held a question and answer session with soldiers on their way to Iraq and one soldier asked why a lot of their vehicles still don't have the proper armor and Rumsfeld said, 'You go to war with the army you have. Not the armor your wish for.' And then he got into his armored car and drove away." --Jay Leno "Senator John McCain thinks that congress may have to step in to control the use of steroids in sports. The Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig agrees. Is this congress' number one priority now? Baseball players. Did we win the war? How about global warming. Have we fixed that already?" --Jay Leno "After an attack at the American consulate, Saudi Arabia has renewed their fight against terrorism, and they're serious, this time they may actually stop funding them." --Jay Leno "President Bush announced that the new head of Homeland security is Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner. You can actually tell he's a New Yorker because now the color coded warning system will go from green, to yellow to orange to forget about it" -- Conan O'Brien * * * * * Great Quotes "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) * * * * * Borowitz Report Excerpts Breaking News CANADA REPORTS HUGE JUMP IN IMMIGRATION Over 55,000,000 Requests for Citizenship Since Tuesday Night Canadian immigration officials have reported a huge increase in the number of requests for Canadian citizenship in the past twenty-four hours, with over fifty-five million such inquiries pouring in since late Tuesday night. . . . Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said that he was "flabbergasted" by the fifty-five-million-plus requests for Canadian citizenship, adding that it was difficult to pinpoint the precise reasons for the staggering increase. "My only theory is that after many years of exposure in the U.S., hockey is finally starting to catch on," Mr. Pettigrew said. He cautioned, however, that it is impossible to know exactly what is sparking the sudden interest in America's frozen neighbor to the north: "People answering our immigration hotline say that it is hard to understand many of the American callers because they are sobbing uncontrollably." Breaking News GEORGIA SCHOOLS TO STOP TEACHING LAW OF GRAVITY Murphy's Law Could Be Next, District Warns A suburban school district in Georgia has thrown itself into the vortex of a legal controversy after deciding to stop teaching the law of gravity as part of its science curriculum. The Dunnsville Unified School District fired the first salvo in the ongoing debate over the law of gravity last year when it mandated that stickers be affixed to all science texts in the district's schools indicating that "the law of gravity is a theory, not a fact." District superintendent Charles Leverall said that initially it was not Dunnsville's plan to eliminate teaching the law of gravity altogether, but merely to inform students that there were other equally plausible explanations for why things fall down. Breaking News IRAQI ELECTIONS DELAYED TO ALLOW TIME FOR NEGATIVE ADS Swift Boat Veterans Parachute into Baghdad The Iraqi elections, originally set for January 2005, have been delayed six months to give the Iraqi people enough time to produce and air negative political ads, the White House announced today. * * * * * The Concession Speech John Kerry Should Have Given (abridged) [A note that I posted at the time: "This one is bitter, and I wouldn't have phrased it entirely this way, but it does make a point. My own view? Bush in 2004 means Hillary in 2008."] My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession. I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. ... I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. ... More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that. Healing? We, the [blue state] people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. ... And I make this pledge to you today: In the next election, there will be no pandering. Next time we will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don't. ... * * * * * Clippings In a recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the Atlanta-based federal agency said that bigger luggage is not the only thing weighing down airliners and causing them to burn more costly fuel. In fact, the CDC said, the average weight of Americans increased by 10 pounds during the 1990s - requiring an extra 350 million gallons of jet fuel to fly them around each year. SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 16 - In a case that has spurred intense soul- searching in legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who was arrested two years ago for selling small bags of marijuana to a police informant, was sentenced on Tuesday to 55 years in prison. The judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell of the United States District Court here, said that he pronounced the sentence "reluctantly" but that his hands were tied by a mandatory- minimum law that required the imposition of 55 years .... Judge Cassell said that sentencing Mr. Angelos to prison until he is 70 years old was "unjust, cruel and even irrational" .... The question of Mr. Angelos's sentence was at the center of a debate as to whether it was fair to send a minor drug dealer to prison for 55 years when a murderer, rapist or terrorist, according to the same sentencing directives, would ordinarily receive no more than about 25 years. [China] today has more church-going Protestants than Europe, according to several foreign estimates. Buddhism has become popular among the social elite. Beijing college students wait hours for a pew during Christmas services in the capital's 100 packed churches. American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization. The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities. ... Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half. Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. ... Some of the American decline, experts agree, is due to post-Sept. 11 delays in processing student visas, which have discouraged thousands of students, not only from the Middle East but also from dozens of other nations .... International students say it's not worth queuing up for two days outside the U.S. consulate in whatever country they are in to get a visa when they can go to the U.K. so much more easily. ... According to one survey, 56 million Americans say that nighttime pain interferes with falling and staying asleep. * * * * * Worst Political Quotes of 2004 "You bet we might have." —Sen. John Kerry, asked if he would have gone to war against Saddam Hussein if he refused to disarm "All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want to get to that extent." —California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the dangers posed by gay marriage "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." —President George W. Bush "I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it." —Sen. John Kerry, on voting against a military funding bill for U.S. troops in Iraq "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —President George W. Bush

A Bet: It's McCain in the End

So John McCain will be the Republican candidate for president. He will face either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. My early bet is that he will beat Hillary, if she is the candidate, but that he will be beaten by Barack, if he is the candidate. I say that because people are increasingly sick of the Clintons. Not everybody, not by a long shot. But the Clinton campaigns in South Carolina and Florida provided vivid reminders of dirty old politics. Both McCain and Obama show at least the potential to be better than that. In that sense (given my previous speculation that Obama will be the candidate), I am betting that the better person will win, in both the primary and general elections. If the Democratic candidate is chosen by superdelegates, as appears increasingly likely, then I am betting that some who have committed to Clinton will find a way out. There is not a "best" candidate. Obama seems to be best at re-enfranchising the younger generation. McCain seems likely to be the best candidate for restoring confidence in the economy -- the sense, that is, that a strong hand is at the tiller. Clinton will embody issues that resonate with women. These are examples, of course; each candidate has other strengths as well. Among those various strengths, I suspect the crucial one will be the economy -- the sense of uncertainty, that is, and dread of hard times ahead. Winter will be coming in November. My early bet is that his strength will be most appreciated on Voting Day.

Early Bet: It's Obama

South Carolina's Democrats vote today. Both Hillary and Barack are playing politics as usual. But I think Hillary has more to lose. It is not in her interest to have Bill so prominent, nor to be so divisive and negative. On both counts, she reminds voters of the 1990s. That is probably intentional. Many Democrats, myself included, think Bill Clinton was a very competent president. But the prospect of taking the nation back in the direction of old-school politics is not appealing. I wish Barack had Hillary's experience and poise. But even as he is, he stands more clearly for change, and that's going to resonate, in South Carolina and beyond. My early bet is that the Clintons' behavior, in New Hampshire and South Carolina, will ultimately be a weight upon them, and that Barack will come out the Democratic party nominee. I think the nation might be better off with a choice between two heavyweights -- Hillary and John McCain -- in November. But I fear it may well be an entirely different and, in some ways, less promising choice between Obama and Romney.

Hillary and Mitt: Studies in Political Sincerity

I met Mitt Romney in 1983 or 1984. I was working at a law firm on Wall Street, and he was looking to set up a venture capital limited partnership. I was a junior attorney, specializing in writing the agreements that the members of such partnerships would sign. Our firm helped him set up Bain & Co., which has helped him to become a richer man; I contributed to writing the agreement that created that firm. He didn't make much of an impression, one way or the other. He was your usual Wall Street Gentile -- tall, handsome, rich. I guess he made an impression, in that I do have a vague recollection of him, which is more than I can say for most of the people I met in 1984. I guess at this point he falls into the same category, in my mind, as Gary Hart, the ultimately scandal-plagued Democrat who was running for president around the same time, whose hand I shook at the Hoboken train station one day. Is Mitt Romney an honest man? A rationally (not necessarily politically) conservative judgment would be that we cannot know for sure, for lack of solid evidence; a rationally liberal judgment would be that he is not. On the rationally liberal side, we have some evidence. During the current presidential primary contest, Mitt has made a series of statements that make him sound like a liar, and a poor one at that. There is also the evidence from wealth -- the sentiment that, behind every great fortune there is a great crime. Also, whatever the media say about Mormons, in my own experience Mormons (including particularly those who live on the East Coast) are not more honest (in the simplistic sense of the term) than other people of conservative lifestyle, though they may be somewhat more inclined to pat themselves on the back for it. If anything, the implausibility of the Mormon scriptures would incline me to think that Mormons may be somewhat *less* preoccupied with truth than the average person. But I recognize that there are different kinds of Mormons, and that not all of them have a fundamentalist's orientation toward, or familiarity with, those Scriptures. What I would conclude, about Mitt, is that a rationally liberal argument for his insincerity might draw support, but not convincing support, from the fact of his Mormon roots. The rationally conservative argument would be that it may be possible to prove that he is dishonest, but doing so would require more than the occasional screwup in the heat of a political campaign. I noticed an article, in the New York Times the other day, by a guy who used to drive Mitt around. This guy was convinced of Mitt's honesty. His article called to mind that cynical saying, "Sincerity is the main thing: if you can fake that, you've got it made." A great many people are honest when they think God or someone else is watching them. The question is whether they would behave the same way, over a period of time sufficiently long to forget about God et al., if they came to believe that nobody at all was watching them, and that their handling of a certain opportunity was not even a moral test. That may never happen, if they are religious or if they spend their lives under a political spotlight. Indeed, they, themselves may not even know whether they are honest, though surely they will have an opinion on the question. So what should we conclude? In this primary election contest, this week, in Michigan, John McCain stood up and, in a painful exercise by his so-called "Straight Talk Express," told the voters of Michigan that their jobs were gone and would not be returning. This was not consistent with the dream, and McCain surely knew it. Regardless of whether he "is" an honest or straightforward person, he seems to have decided -- in this campaign, and evidently long before it -- that what works for him, personally and/or professionally, is to work toward providing people with a relatively close approximation to his actual understanding of things, in that small minority of human experiences when it behooves him to express his thoughts. John McCain probably will not, and possibly should not, be sharing his innermost "truths" with us. But on the relative and limited scale just described -- up here on the tip of the iceberg, as it were -- he seems to have understood that his Straight Talk Express would be derailed if he fibbed to the people of Michigan, and so he did not. Therefore, he lost Michigan. We have yet to see whether his gamble pays off in a backlash, in other states, against the politics-as-usual that prompted Romney to declare, in Michigan, that he would not accept the defeat of any American industry. Romney, not being a stupid man, surely realized that it's not his call -- that the defeat of American industries will be determined by factors beyond his control. But that is not what he said. And it is this instance that raises, in my mind, a question of sincerity sufficient to prompt the writing of this posting about him and Hillary. The Hillary connection has to do with the Show of Emotion. In New Hampshire, just before the primary election, Hillary -- for the first time of which I am aware -- showed, in public, a sign of what is stereotypically treated as a trait of women: she got emotional. Not very emotional. There did not appear to be any actual tears. But her face and voice were those of a woman who is getting a bit choked up. It seems that female voters loved this, and in my opinion they should; I've seen Bill get misty-eyed often enough, by now, to have a legitimate curiosity as to what Hillary would look like in that condition. It doesn't seem fair that political contests and power are such that she dare not -- not, anyway, until she or someone manages to make it seem normal for female politicians to express emotions that their male counterparts can safely express. I'm not sure how far we want to go down that road -- do we want male politicians, breaking current taboos, to feel comparably free to express violent rage? But we aren't there yet; and for present purposes, Hillary did tread onto some new ground there, and good for her. The question remains, however, whether that was a cynical move. Did Hillary, becoming desperate about pundits' predictions that she would lose New Hampshire by double digits, decide to undertake a bold experiment? She has shown such steely self-discipline, for so long, under such pressures and national spotlights, as to suggest that she probably did not show that bit of emotional upset by accident. A possible difference between her case and Romney's is that, if he is speaking cynically, he is doing so to convey a belief about something that ain't so, whereas Hillary's emotional moment, if somehow artificially contrived, seems likely to have taken us a bit closer to something that *is* so. Hillary Clinton has had grounds to cry, and to receive the nation's sympathy in the process. And not just in the receding past, when Bill was being himself. Crying about losing in New Hampshire, had she done so, would have been reasonable, and would have brought out sympathy in some who might not previously have considered themselves capable of being sympathetic to Hillary Clinton. Of course, it would have prompted disgust in others, and rightly so. Hillary Clinton is a woman who could lead the nation in a nuclear war. Let's keep it that way, at least until she ceases to be responsible for the fates of constituents. I don't know that a question about her hairdresser was the best moment to let her hair down, if you will. But it may have been sufficient for the purpose. My guess is that Hillary, alone or in consultation with Bill or other political advisors, have surely recognized that this Iron Lady routine is not always playing well. Certainly there has been a great deal of discussion, among the leading strategists within her campaign, on the question of whether and how she might reveal that she is actually a human being, to the extent that she is. (Disclosure: I will probably vote Democrat, but am presently undecided as to the specific candidate.) My speculation is that the discussion, in Hillary's head and/or among her advisors, came to the conclusion that all she really needed to do was, at some point, to take a deep breath and confront the unknown. She just had to let herself think of a certain thing -- possibly, but not necessarily, the question that was put to her -- and doing so would choke her up. It would be a gamble, and she would have to take it, and see what happened. It seems fair for Hillary to have decided to let us know that she is (probably) a human being, and that she gets upset too. It seems fair even if she decided to do it when the cameras were rolling, under conditions that she considered favorable for purposes of helping her to win the New Hampshire primary. I do not know of any candidate in this election who has forsworn the use of emotion, if emotion will help him/her win. It is also OK with me if she uses her gender -- the power of a lady's tears, as someone put it -- to counteract the gender disadvantage of being a woman in what has been a man's world (speaking, specifically, of the presidency). It does not seem likely, at present, that she will overdo it. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are politicians. As such, they will lie, they will fake sincerity, and they will otherwise mislead people. It is a requirement of their job. They must be able to please everyone, which is the ridiculous expectation we place upon our political leaders. They must also be able to play poker with the bad guys. We may not think it would be appropriate for your minister to tell you that you're a pig-headed idiot, even if that is what s/he is thinking, and in this sense we permit your minister to mislead you. When your wife asks if a certain dress makes her look fat, we know the proper answer. It's a question of honesty, of course, but it's also a question of priorities, and of being able to lie well when circumstances require. Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes hurting someone is just not within the realm of reasonable reactions. That said, John McCain's approach is more palatable to me, partly because I want to believe that some members of the political class are actually reliable, and partly because his approach seems more workable as a practical matter. If Mitt Romney cannot lovably deceive the people of America, I honestly don't know if he will have what it takes to bargain with the Chinese. Michigan bought his line; but despite his expenditures, Iowa and New Hampshire didn't, and I think a lot of others won't. By similar values, at present, Hillary is the Democratic candidate I would consider most likely to perform well in an extremely difficult role. Her claim of experience resonates with me. I won't vote against her just because she probably manipulated people with a show of emotion. It didn't look fake -- which is to say, she was doing a good job of being a politician and, at the same time, was bringing us closer to the truth (i.e., that she has feelings), rather than further away from it. McCain, in his own very different way, seems to be making the same calculation: that he has to be the straight-shooter, even if it hurts him in some states, because that's what will help him win; and in making that judgment, he, too, may help voters to become more acquainted with the realities.