William Katz: Urgent Agenda
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MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2008
11:44 p.m. ET: The proceedings for the night are over. I agree with Karl Rove, just on Fox, that tonight was a missed opportunity for the Democrats. There are questions about Barack Obama, and they have little to do with whether he loves his wife. They deal with whether he can be president. Those questions were just not addressed. Maybe they will be over the next three days, but I think it was necessary for the Dems to move the ball tonight, and nothing really moved.
Hillary speaks tomorrow night. We'll get a sense of how fractured this party is. That's when the action really begins.
11:07 p.m. ET: Carl Cameron, Fox News reporter, just noted that the speech Michelle Obama gave tonight was entirely different from the "tough" speeches she gives on the campaign trail. In other words, as we stated below at 10:54, it was mock sincerity. Well delivered. Even elegant at times. But not much there.
10:54 p.m. ET: Michelle continues. I try to be objective about these things, and certainly Michelle Obama has dignity and style. But, somehow, the speech is empty. You get the sense she doesn't mean it. When a good speech is delivered, the writing becomes transparent. This speech appears "written." You can almost sense the discussions in the room when it was put together. "We need a family reference here." "We need something about working people there." The speech is mock sincerity. Michelle constantly says, "Y'see..." Then, again and again, "Y'see.."
There's really nothing wrong with that, I guess. A lot of speeches like this are delivered, and there will be people moved by her comments. But...I see she's now finished...this wasn't about any kind of change or vision. This was a standard feature story.
10:42 p.m. ET: Michelle Obama is now speaking. Her objective, apparently, is to soften her image - no talk of this being the first time she's been proud of her country, no reference to her comment that America is a mean place. It's a soft speech, the kind of thing that might be written by the editor of Modern Bride.
10:03 p.m. ET: Karl Rove analyzed the situation at Fox. He downplayed the importance of vice presidential choices, saying they usually didn't make a difference unless the choice turns out to be a mistake. He felt Biden wouldn't wear well, and I tend to agree. There are loudness and ego factors that wear you down.
Rove also analyzed the polls, saying that it's the doubts about Obama that are suppressing his numbers, and that those doubts haven't been erased. It seems to me that's a key point: the Democrats seem unaware of how seriously Americans take the role of commander-in-chief, and Obama has yet to convince the country that he's ready for that job.
9:42 p.m. ET: Ted Kennedy has just spoken. He's clearly in poor health, but obviously it's an important moment for his party. But again, there is such a contrast between Ted and Jack, whom I remember well. Jack had a sense that America had a special place in the world. He'd studied history. He knew international danger and challenge. That all seems gone now. The Democratic Party seems smaller, and seems to have a smaller vision of the country.
Kennedy spoke about health care, but you kind of wonder where his party has been all these years. Wasn't this a big issue in the 1992 campaign, some 16 years ago? Someone should ask, and answer.
9:11 p.m. ET: It appears, according to CNN, that Ted Kennedy will speak tonight at the Dem convention. It had been a question mark because of his health. Of course, we can clearly feel for a man who may be facing death, but it still struck me that his brother, President John F. Kennedy, probably wouldn't feel at all comfortable in today's Democratic party, which has rejected virtually all of the JFK vision in foreign policy. Barack Obama isn't ready to "pay any price" or "bear any burden" in defense of freedom. He'd rather criticize his own country and declare it morally equivalent to some of the shady players of the world. But, of course, he's "progressive."
9:03 p.m. ET: Terry McAuliffe, former Dem national chairman, and a Clinton ally, is denying, on Fox, reports that Bill Clinton is upset over the way he's been treated by the Obama people. McAuliffe's nose is growing, and has just struck one of the cameras.
8:26 p.m. ET: Audience expert Frank Luntz, on Fox, just analyzed several ads running, one by Obama, the other by McCain. He concluded, based on study groups, that the McCain ad was far more effective. McCain now has a solid staff in place, and the job is getting done. He just has to sustain and increase the effort.
8:16 p.m. ET: I was just watching CNN's pre-game show from Denver. Talk about being in the tank for Obama. These guys couldn't resist describing every anticipated moment of tonight's proceedings as "emotional." Guys, just put it on the tube and let us decide what our "feelings" are. Okay?
CARTER II
Posted at 8:01 p.m. ET
The excitement builds in Denver. People pinch themselves, not quite believing that, in a little while they'll actually hear Jimmah Carter. Just the expectation of the man's wisdom is enough to take our breath away. And our country with it.
Not only that. If they play it right, the Dems may just be able to have...Carter II.
My Iranian pal Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi alerts me to a new column by the brilliant Middle East analyst, Amir Taheri. Taheri is thoroughly familiar with the foreign-policy record of Joe Biden. He finds much that is troubling. I suspect you'll be hearing about this from the McCain people:
BY choosing Sen. Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate, Barack Obama sent three messages. The first two are implicit admissions that Hillary Clinton had a point in the primaries. The third tells us more of what Obama means by "change."
Biden is supposed to make up for Obama's lack of the knowledge and experience needed to leader on national security and international affairs. And the Delaware senator, with his humble working-class origins, is also meant to reassure the "simple folk" that Obama seems to be losing.
But the third message is that "change" means a return not to the Camelot of President John Kennedy, but to the foreign policies of Jimmy Carter. For Biden, an early supporter of Carter in his quest for the presidency in 1976, shares the former president's view of the world and the United States' place in it.
Ouch. Can Taheri prove it? He claims that Biden "has been wrong on almost every key issue":
In 1979, he shared Carter's starry-eyed belief that the fall of the shah in Iran and the advent of the ayatollahs represented progress for human rights.
Throughout the 1980s. Biden opposed President Ronald Reagan's proactive policy against the Soviet Union.
In 1990, Biden found it difficult to support President George Bush's decision to use force to kick Saddam Hussein's army of occupation out of Kuwait.
A decade-plus later, the senator did vote for the liberation of Iraq from Saddamite tyranny. But as soon as terrorists started challenging the new democratic system in Iraq, he switched sides and became a critic of the whole war effort.
Hmm. No wonder Obama picked him. There's more:
For more than a decade, Biden has adopted an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamic Republic in Tehran, now emerging as the chief challenger to US interests in the Middle East. Biden's links with pro-Tehran lobbies in the US and his support for "unconditional dialogue" with the mullahs echo Obama's own wrong-headed promise to circumvent the current multilateral efforts by seeking direct US-Iran talks, excluding the Europeans as well as Russia and China.
That may be the most critical point. Banafsheh has repeatedly pointed out to me Biden's closeness with pro-mullah flacks in this country.
Had Biden had his way, "the Evil Empire" would still be around and Saddam Hussein still in power. The US would still be begging the mullahs of Tehran for forgiveness of unspecified "past sins" - and more American hostages would be seized in the Middle East while the mullahs celebrate their first atomic bombs.
By choosing Biden, Obama, the candidate of hope, has transformed his promise of change, into a back-to-the-future pirouette - back to Jimmy Carter.
McCain campaign, please note this. Make Biden a liability to Obama, one he doesn't need.
August 25, 2008. Permalink 
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New poll result, at 3:28 p.m. ET: A new Gallup/USA Today poll is the only one showing a major gain for Obama:
Obama holds a 47%-43% edge over McCain among registered voters and a 48%-45% edge among likely voters. Both leads are within the margin of error of +/—4 percentage points.
In the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll a month ago, Obama led McCain by 3 percentage points, but McCain held a 4-point lead among likely voters.
According to this poll, likely voters are now leaning toward Obama. Please note that the daily Gallup tracker - same pollster - shows the race even. So go figure.
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Line of the day, thus far, at 2:41 p.m.: From Nancy Pelosi, griping about the press's reporting on the Clinton/Obama chill: ''You know what? This is like a yesterday room,'' she told the reporters. ''We are going into the future. What did I walk into, a time capsule?''
Well, Nance, a lot of us feel that way every time we look at your party, and what it stands for. The sixties were forty years ago.
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From USA Today, at 2:35 p.m.: DENVER — Fewer than half of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters in the presidential primaries say they definitely will vote for Barack Obama in November, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, evidence of a formidable challenge facing Democrats as their national convention opens here today.
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TRACKERS
Posted at 2:21 p.m. ET
Both trackers are out for today. Neither has budged since yesterday, not a good sign for those Dems who thought they detected the wanting of Biden.
As reported earlier, Rasmussen still has Obama up three.
Gallup reports a tie, 45-45.
The Real Clear Politics average of Obama leads stands today at 1.6 percent. In other words, taking all recent polls and averaging them, Obama has a 1.6-point lead.
Thus far, the naming of Biden and the start of the convention hasn't had much effect. We won't know the full impact, though, until after the convention closes Friday.
August 25, 2008. Permalink
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NOTE, AT 9:31 A.M. ET: First tracker of the day is out. Rasmussen shows no change from yesterday, with Obama up three. Apparently, the selection of Biden has had no significant effect in this poll.
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BULLETIN, AT 9:12 A.M. ET: Reader Howard Lohmuller alerts us to a new CNN poll, just posted, showing the race tied, with Obama down seven since the CNN poll last month. The key point: The poll was taken after the selection of Biden. Guy did a lot of good, didn't he?
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WE LOVE IT, WE LOVE IT
Posted at 6:00 a.m. ET
Starting right out with some convention viciousness - knives, words, jealousy. Who could ask for anything more?
The Politico reports high tension between the Obama and Clinton camps:
DENVER — As Democrats arrived here Sunday for a convention intended to promote party unity, mistrust and resentments continued to boil among top associates of presumptive nominee Barack Obama and his defeated rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
One flashpoint is the assigned speech topic for former president Bill Clinton, who is scheduled to speak Wednesday night, when the convention theme is “Securing America’s Future.” The night’s speakers will argue that Obama would be a more effective commander in chief than his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Are they going for laughs on this, or what? Apparently, Bill feels dissed because he wanted to talk about the economy.
This is an especially sore point for Bill Clinton, people close to him say, because among many grievances he has about the campaign Obama waged against his wife is a belief that the candidate poor-mouthed the political and policy successes of his two terms.
Some senior Democrats close to Obama, meanwhile, made clear in not-for-attribution comments that they were equally irked at the Clinton operation. Nearly three months after Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the nomination contest, these Obama partisans complained, her team continues to act like she and Bill Clinton hold leverage.
Do you think they'll fight in the aisles? E-mail me if it starts. I want to tape.
One senior Obama supporter said the Clinton associates negotiating on her behalf act like “Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific still fighting after the war is over.”
A prominent Obama backer said some of Clinton’s lieutenants negotiating with the Obama team are “bitter enders” who presume that, rather than the Clintons reconciling themselves to Obama’s victory, it is up to Obama to accommodate them.
In fact, some senior veterans of Clinton’s presidential campaign do believe this.
“He has not fully reconciled,” said one political operative close to the Clintons, “and he has not demonstrated that he accepts the Clintons and the Clinton wing of the party.”
Does anyone think of the country here? I mean, you know, an occasional thought?
While the Clintons have a relatively easy job in Denver — to deliver gracious speeches and accept what are likely to be loud cheers from their supporters — it is “Obama who has the heavy lifting” this week, this aide said.
This is because large numbers of Clinton backers — 30 percent in a recent ABC/Washington Post poll — are still not backing Obama over McCain.
They've seen Obama up close. Maybe that's the problem.
Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, said his boss "looks forward to making the case that Barack Obama is the best candidate to restore America's standing in the world."
I'm sure he can't wait. Just counting the hours.
Let the chill begin. I want to see the looks on all those faces. And I hope someone has a hidden camera to catch the look on Michelle Obama's face during Hillary Clinton's six-hour floor demonstration.
August 25, 2008. Permalink
THE BOUNCE
Posted at 5:57 a.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal takes a very pragmatic look at a word you'll be hearing constantly this week - bounce. It has a revered place in politics. Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute has studied the subject:
A new study by Ms. Bowman finds that, generally, bounces have "tended in the past to evaporate very quickly." Even more discouraging, Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis all had higher bounces than their opponents but ended up losing in November. Jimmy Carter had a higher bounce than Ronald Reagan in 1980. He lost.
Still, campaign staffs are paid to orchestrate a succession of bounces all the way to Election Day. This year presents special challenges. Each party's veep announcements and conventions will be happening in almost overlapping news cycles. Plus, cautions Ms. Bowman, the American people "have been paying a lot of attention to the Olympics and may want to turn off the television set for a week."
Polling may be difficult at times:
Pollsters also face their own headaches this year. Kathy Frankovic, who runs polling for CBS News, notes that there'll be only a "three-day gap between the two conventions," separated by the Labor Day weekend. "Polling over Labor Day Weekend is always a problem. We confront more than the usual number of people who don't respond or can't respond. People are away from their homes, heading back from summer vacation, or preparing their children for the start of the school year."
It's even harder on election day, Kathy. Then you'll see a lot of people who haven't lived on this Earth for years turning up at the polls in places like Chicago and St. Louis.
And their votes will be counted, and counted, and...
August 25, 2008. Permalink
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2008
BIDEN FROM ABROAD
Posted at 7:34 p.m. ET
I've written here before that foreign journalists, usually British, often have a clearer view of our politics than do American writers. Here's an example, an assessment of Obama's choice of Biden, by William Rees-Mogg in The Times of London:
Joe Biden has one crucial qualification to be the next vice-president of the United States, at least in the eyes of Barack Obama. He is not Hillary Clinton. Mr Obama has made the opposite decision to the one made by another young and relatively inexperienced Senator in 1960. John F.Kennedy distrusted and detested Lyndon Johnson, but he asked him to become his running- mate in the election because he thought that Johnson would help to deliver the Texas vote. He did, and Texas was one of the key states that took Kennedy into the White House.
Senator Biden is no Hillary Clinton; he presents no threat though little promise to Mr Obama. In the primary elections, Mrs Clinton gained 18 million votes. Among women she had a devoted following - and who still believe she should have been the candidate. If she had been on the ticket, she would have brought a lot of votes with her, as did Johnson. In rejecting her as his running-mate, Mr Obama has taken the risk that his margin of victory might be wiped out.
Well stated. I'd have one little quibble: Hillary would have cost some votes as well, so we really can't predict the outcome had she been on the ticket.
This was, no doubt, a difficult choice. If Mr Obama had chosen Mrs Clinton, the Clintons might have overshadowed his campaign. Their baggage, particularly Bill Clinton's past scandals, might have been embarrassing. Like Johnson, Bill Clinton is a big political figure. One can understand that Mr Obama wanted to emphasise that he was his own man. Yet in rejecting Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama may have lost the White House. Many Democrats do believe that.
The key point he makes is that Obama was not capable of choosing someone as large, or larger, than he is. Kennedy could do it. He swallowed hard, as I recall, but did it.
And the writer has another problem with Biden:
In 1987 Joe Biden was already a senior member of the US Senate. He held the post of chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Senate committee that has to approve nominations to the Supreme Court. On July 1, President Ronald Reagan announced the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court...
...Two months before the hearings even started The New York Times reported Mr Biden as saying that he “would oppose the nomination and would lead the fight in the senate”. He had not yet heard any of the evidence. He subsequently published the Biden Report, which again misrepresented Judge Bork's legal position; it is a merely partisan document. On October 23 the Senate rejected the nomination. Whoever else got justice, Judge Bork did not.
This won't be a big issue with most Americans. But it could rally McCain's conservative base, which regards the Bork rejection as a defining moment in the building of the conservative coalition. It could also upset some Catholics. Biden presents himself as a good Catholic, but opposition to Bork was based heavily on Bork's anti-abortion views. As the writer concludes:
Mr Biden's nomination as vice- president may or may nor reignite this issue. Yet Mr Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987; he did play a leading part in a grossly unfair campaign against the nomination of Judge Bork; he does exploit his Catholic religion as part of his political appeal. His handling of the Bork nomination was an abuse of office for which he has never apologised.
All right, let's see how far this goes. I haven't seen the Bork issue mentioned yet in any American paper, but I suspect it's coming. It's entirely legitimate.
August 24, 2008. Permalink
TAKE NOTE!
Posted at 5:08 p.m. ET
This just in: For those of you slackers who think this week's Democratic convention is just another political meeting, Nancy Pelosi wants to set you straight. This is about the future of civilization itself. It's about our world, and whether it will survive. It's about...I can't go on. Let her speak for herself:
DENVER -- For those who thought this was just another election, Nancy Pelosi says to wake up: the planet is at stake in the choice between Barack Obama and John McCain.
"We've got a planet to save. Nothing less is at stake other than civilization as we know it today," the California Democrat and speaker of the House told reporters Saturday afternoon in assessing the election and the nominating convention taking place here over the next week.
Subliminal message: "John McCain, planet wrecker!" She goes on, her deep wisdom obvious:
She said Mr. Obama's new running mate, Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr., was a good choice because he melds Washington know-how with an outsider's view. She pointed to his daily commute by train from his home in Delaware to Washington as evidence he is still a man of the people.
Will someone tell Nancy that Delaware is right next door. Nance, if he represented Colorado, would he be on that choo-choo? Nance? Did you hear the question?
"Joe Biden is the all-American boy," she said in a luncheon for reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
And John McCain is...?
They should send Nancy away for a week - maybe to Afghanistan, where she can meet all-American boys, and girls.
August 24, 2008. Permalink
TRACKERS
Posted at 3:24 p.m. ET
Both trackers are out for the day, and they diverge. But we stress again, we're dealing with small changes, inside the margin of error.
As reported earlier, Rasmussen has Obama up three, 48-45, the largest advantage he's had since July.
But Gallup reports a dead heat - each candidate at 45 percent.
An ABC/Washington Post poll released today has Obama up four.
We've pointed out that the daily snapshot isn't very important. It's the trend over time that counts. Even that caveat has to be viewed with caution, however, It's likely that Obama will get a bump in the polls from this week's Democratic convention. The key will be whether he can maintain it, historically unlikely, and whether McCain gets a similar bump from his convention next week.
Voters, in the last month, have been reluctant to change their views. The next two weeks will determine whether either candidate goes into the home stretch with any real advantage.
August 24, 2008. Permalink
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UPDATE AT 9:33 A.M. ET: The new Rasmussen tracker released minutes ago shows Obama with a three-point lead, the largest lead he's had in that poll since late July. The result is consistent with an ABC News/Washington Post poll just released showing Obama up four. This is probably the start of a convention bounce.
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MIRACLE WORKER
Posted at 7:55 a.m. ET
We are now into day two of the wanting of Biden. The national transformation since his selection is truly amazing, isn't it? Crime is down. Peace is breaking out. Women who had trouble conceiving are now pregnant. It's remarkable what happens when you have an experienced man on the scene.
As a matter of fact, the best for Joe Biden is behind him. He's been selected. Now it will be a steady downhill ride into obscurity. Quick: Who was John Kerry's v.p. pick in 2004? Did you take more than three seconds to answer? It was, of course, John Edwards, family man.
How should the McCain camp react to the Biden selection? Ideally, McCain should do something dramatic. The Obama pick was pedestrian. It was poll-driven, a bit of a problem for a presidential candidate who says he'll do things in a new way. Biden's entire reason for being on that ticket is to counter the perception that Obama is weak on foreign policy. He is weak, and he'll stay that way, Joe or no Joe. McCain should now try to be the real agent of change, of political revolution. He should be the man of the future by making an imaginative choice for vice president. I doubt if he will, but it would certainly electrify things if he did. Someone out of the blue, preferably a woman. I say that from a purely political vantage point. Obama's convention is made no more interesting or exciting because of Biden. McCain should turn his into a major show, and create a major name.
August 24, 2008. Permalink
THE MOUTH THAT POURED
Posted at 7:53 a.m. ET
You've all read by now that Senator Biden has some kind of problem that manifests itself in a torrent of words flowing from a smiling mouth. My friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, whose knowledge of Iranian issues is encyclopedic, points out that some of those words have been disturbing to people who care about the plight of Iranians under the mullahs, and about the international maneuverings of those same mullahs. For whatever reason, Biden has consistently shown a blind spot to the reality of Iran. He has downplayed the Iranian nuclear threat, maintained cordial relations with the mullahs' front men in America, and urged that we take care of Iran's "emotional" needs.
The Republican Jewish Coalition issued a statement saying this about Biden and Iran:
In 1998, Sen. Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise. Biden was one of the few senators to oppose the bipartisan 2007 Kyl-Lieberman Amendment labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. In a December 2007 debate, Biden said "Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America." On MSNBC's "Hardball," Biden said he "never believed" Iran had a weapon system under production.
The McCain troops should move quickly to confront Biden on this issue. They should confront him during the Democratic convention, forcing him to explain why he's been so soft on a regime that even Europeans believe is a rogue outfit, and dangerous. Force He has a tendency to get arrogant and petulant. Get him to show that side of him.
Much is being made of Biden's "experience" in foreign policy. Now McCain should throw Barack Obama's own words right back at him - that it's "judgment" that counts. And McCain should question Biden's judgment on Iran.
August 24, 2008. Permalink
"What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion."
- Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
of The New York Times.
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