SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY 9,  2008

•   The AP has Hillary Clinton slightly ahead in the delegate count.  That may change in the next week, expected to be a very good one for Barack Obama.  There are a number of contests today, and most of them are in caucus states.  Obama does particularly well in caucuses, which tend to bring out the most ardent partisans.  The quote:

In Tacoma, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton alluded to the caucuses in Washington state tomorrow, telling an audience of nurses, “If this were a primary — if you could vote all day — I’d feel pretty good about it.’’

She, of course, was citing their work shifts and their worries about getting away from work around 1 p.m., when their caucuses start.

But she also might’ve been lamenting the fact that so far, Senator Barack Obama has done better in states holding caucuses, save Nevada. So far, he’s taken Democratic caucuses in Iowa, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Kansas and North Dakota (but not Arkansas, as previously written, a primary won by Senator Clinton). New Mexico, believe it or not, and we can believe it, given how close votes have been there for a few years now, is still counting and counting.

It won't get much better for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, when Virginia and Maryland hold primaries.  These are two important states, and are expected to go to Obama, based in part on large African-American populations.  The Clinton camp is playing down expectations and looking toward March 4th., when Ohio and Texas vote.  The large Hispanic population in Texas should lean toward Clinton.  Ohio is an industrial state, also good turf for Clinton. 

It wouldn't surprise me if the most important primary turns out to be Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22nd.  It's the last of the big northern states to vote, the states crucial to a Democratic victory.  If Clinton cannot take Ohio and Texas on March 4th, and Pennsylvania on April 22nd, she can be in serious trouble. Obama will make some psychological and numerical headway in the next few weeks, and Senator Clinton must counter that with some positive news of her own.  Pennsylvania can provide the last major test of both candidates.  If they are essentially tied before that primary, the Pennsylvania contest can become the equivalent of a nominating convention.

Again, the lingering issue is race.  There is already a tendency to write off Obama victories in states with large black populations.  And this is happening in the liberal party.  It is a Democratic nightmare, unanticipated even three months ago.

•   Investor's Business Daily, an exceptionally thoughtful publication, has published some tough questions for Senators Clinton and Obama, written by Larry Elder, the African-American commentator.  The best question for Clinton:

Sen. Clinton, you want to begin withdrawing the troops within the first 60 days of your administration, with all the troops out within a year. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker of the Baker-Hamilton report said that such a precipitous withdrawal in Iraq would create a staging ground for al-Qaida, increase the influence of Iran over Iraq and result in "the biggest civil war you've ever seen." What would you like to say to Secretary Baker? 

And the best for Obama:

Sen. Obama, you once said you understand why senators voted for the Iraq War, admitted that you were "not privy to Senate intelligence reports," that it "was a tough question and a tough call" for the senators and that you "didn't know" how you would have voted had you been in the Senate. And over a year after the war began, you said, "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." How, then, can you say that you consistently opposed the war from the start?

Well at least someone wants to ask some tough questions of these two.  Obama, especially, has avoided real scrutiny.  Some in the press want that to end.  Others, the kind who entered journalism to "make a difference," are perfectly content with "coverage" that advances their pet causes.

•   There are some things in journalism that are so breathtakingly bad, they cry out for public rebuke.  Susan Donaldson James publishes, on the ABC website, a political piece that can best be described as an example of adequate work by a tenth grader.  She writes of the JFK/Obama connection, already boring and overdone.  She says:

It's no accident the Kennedy magic has infused itself into the campaign of Barack Obama.

Theodore "Ted" Sorensen, the adviser whom John F. Kennedy once called his "intellectual blood bank," is lending his unabashed support -- and eloquence -- to the Obama campaign.

Oprah, another gushing Obama supporter, may have star power, but Sorensen has brain power.

Well, excuse me.   One, the Kennedy magic faded years ago.  Two, Barack Obama's policies bear no resemblance whatever to those of President Kennedy.  Three, Mr. Sorensen, who served Kennedy well, hasn't been a political player of import in decades.  Four, who cares about his unabashed support?  Five, suggesting that Oprah has star power, but Sorensen has brain power almost becomes a racial stereotype.  Oprah Winfrey is an astute, smart businesswoman.

But it gets worse.  Consider this:

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- when Sorensen was 34 -- he penned the letter to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that historians say saved the world from nuclear destruction.

I'd be happy to be corrected, but I know of not a single historian who has ever made such a statement.  I was in the CIA during that crisis, and it wasn't a letter that saved the world from nuclear destruction, it was reasonable diplomacy backed by the United States Navy. 

The piece goes on and gets to the required snide remarks about President Bush, from the mouth of that self-same Sorensen.  The president, we are reminded, is stupid and doesn't speak well.  In the past, the public was reminded that Lincoln and Eisenhower were stupid and didn't speak well.

This is useless journalism.

•   As if to remind the writer of that piece about the dangers of arrogance, Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in Time, cautions that the Democratic Party may be descending into overconfidence.  Many in the party seem to feel that this is their year, and that nothing will stop November's inevitable result.

Of course, there are plenty of examples in our history of presidential candidates who thought the election would just be a formality.  President Charles Evans Hughes thought so in 1916, and President Thomas E. Dewey was already looking at new White House china when he was electorally inconvenienced in 1948.  Ponnuru writes:

The primaries are pushing the Democrats too far to the left on some issues. And that's not the only way they're hurting the Democrats' chances. Neither Clinton nor Obama is entirely to blame for the racial overtones of the primary campaign, but they make the problem of patching the party together harder.

The point is not that liberals are doomed. It is that political trends can reverse, and quickly. In March 1991, the first President Bush had a 90% approval rating. The next year, he got only 37% of the vote. Republicans thought they had secured a permanent majority in 2004, only to see it collapse. Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate Democrats, didn't think his party would win a majority in 2006--and then it did. The liberal moment may turn out to be just a moment.

From his mouth to you-know-whose ears.

•   There are also other problems the Democrats must worry over.  Gerard Baker, once of Britain's most astute observers of American politics, writes of  the Obama Democrats and the Clinton Democrats, and finds them worlds apart, and hard to bring together:

Among voters whose voting choice is not based on identity politics, Mr Obama's supporters are the latte liberals. These are the people for whom Starbucks, with its $5 cups of coffee and fancy bakeries, is not just a consumer choice but a lifestyle. They not only have the money. They share the values.

They live by all those little quotes on the side of Starbucks cups about community service and global warming. They embrace the Obama candidacy because to them he transcends traditional class and economic divides. He is a transformative political figure - potentially the first black man to be president - and is seen as the one to revive America's faith in itself and restore America's status in the world. For these voters the defining emotion is hope.

Mrs Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin' Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks - double-top, no-foam, non-fat lattes and the like. Not for them the bran muffins or the biscotti. They are the 75-cent coffee and doughnut crowd. For them caffeine choice doesn't correlate with their values but simply represents a means of keeping them going through their challenging day.

In other words, it's between the limousine liberals and the working stiffs.  Think back to the sixties.  These groups despise each other.  Many of the working stiffs became Reagan Democrats, and could easily become McCain Democrats.  Many of the limousine liberals just got better limousines, although they do fancy the environmentally friendly new cars, if only they had a decent grade of leather.

•   Finally, I don't want to ruin your weekend, but I must sadly report a new and grave threat to the values of privacy and dignity that we hold dear.  It turns out that wills written by England's royal family may not remain private for long.  I know you're shocked.  I know you're outraged.  But restrain yourself just long enough to study the matter.  The story in London's Telegraph tells us:

The Royal Family's right to keep their wills secret could be overturned after a court victory for a man who claims he is the illegitimate son of the late Princess Margaret. 

Jersey accountant Robert Brown, 53, believes he could be the love child of Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend - who had an ill-fated romance with the Princess - making him 12th in line to the throne.

Oh, that's just too juicy.  Read the story.  What really got me was this:  This Townsend guy had a failed romance with the princess, and wound up 12th in line to the throne? 

And they criticize our system?

At least we have a Constitutional line of succession, and it has nothing to do with sex.  I mean, Monica didn't become Lady Lewinsky.

Be back later.

Posted on February 9, 2008.