Senator Obama's naive, ahistorical, and unrealistic foreign policy viewpoints: His Achilles Heel for the November election

In Israel for the 60th anniversary celebration of its founding, President George W. Bush gave a speech in the Knesset, saying these words:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along . . . We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about what happened next:

Immediately, the Democratic party responded in outrage, insisting it was an unprecedented political attack on their presumptive nominee from foreign soil. Barack Obama himself said: “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack.”

Senator Joseph Biden called the president's remarks “bulls**t.”

The White House denied the remark was about Obama. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino responded, “I would think that all of you who cover these issues and for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case.”

The White House’s denial is believable, and the Democrats’ accusation is a distortion and a distraction. The commander-in-chief, believe it or not, might have been concerned with something besides The Situation Room running a clip of him hitting Obama. The presidency, you see, is about more than the spin-cycle, the next election, and even the next president.

The president could have been speaking of any number of Democrats. Say, Jimmy Carter, who in April, 2008 said: “Through more official consultations with these outlawed leaders [Hamas and Syria], it may yet be possible to revive and expedite the stalemated peace talks between Israel and its neighbors. In the Middle East, as in Nepal, the path to peace lies in negotiation, not in isolation.”

Or Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, freelance diplomat, who in December 2007 said: “the road to Damascus is a road to peace.”

Or, perhaps he meant Speaker Pelosi in April 2007: “I believe in dialogue. As my colleagues have said over and over again, unless you communicate, you cannot understand each other. You cannot reach agreement.”

Or maybe he meant recent Obama endorser and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who, according to his own press release in February of last year, believes “the U.S. should step up our diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria.”

Or Bill Richardson, who has said, about meeting with Iran and Syria: “They’re bad folks … But you don’t have peace talks with your friends.”

It could have been about Congressman Henry Waxman, who in April said: “A Democratic administration would go back and try to open that possibility up for discussions [with Iran] of a grand bargain of one sort or another ... Democrats would certainly have seen that as a missed opportunity.”

Or Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: “I can go to Syria. I can go to Iran and work to craft a path towards peace. And I will … How can you change peoples minds if you don’t meet with them?”

Or former Democratic presidential candidates and senators Chris Dodd and John Kerry, who met with Syria’s al-Assad and said: “As senior Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, we felt it was important to make clear that while we believe in resuming dialogue, our message is no different: Syria can and should play a more constructive role in the region … We concluded that our conversation was worthwhile, and that … resuming direct dialogue with Syria should be pursued.”

Or the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, from April 10: “[Diplomats] can deliver some pretty tough messages … You don’t begin with a president of the country, but you do need to talk to your enemy.”

You get the idea. The world does not actually revolve around Barackstar. It doesn’t even revolve around contemporary Democrats. There are two very different ways of looking at the world, represented by the two parties here in the U.S. President Bush, obviously, believes the other party’s approach is wrong. To say so, in his mind, was of historic importance, for obvious reasons. Obvious, at least, to any statesman who can see before and beyond this current election season. Thank you, Senator Obama, for helping make clear where you stand on that front.

Two different world views, for sure. John Podhoretz and Peter Wehner have more.

Ed Morrisey reports on what Obama has said on his own website and in political debates here. (And now Obama says this? Would that be change you can believe in?)

Power Line points out another significant and contradictory foreign policy position of Obama's here. Check out the photo at the bottom of the post and reflect on these words:

Commenting on the distinction that Obama vehemently observes between Iran and Hamas, Geraghty is unconstrained by the norms that Newsweek seeks to impose: "Obama contends a face-to-face summit with the guy on the left is long overdue; a face-to-face summit with the guy on the right is crazy talk."

Taking a further step back, recall Obama's NC victory speech when he said:

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

To which, Tom Maguire writes:

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).

So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies," although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation? Puzzling.

Power Line adds these additional words:

And the United States has been talking with Iran right along in any event. It's not for lack of communication that Iran has been conducting its war on the United States.

Michael Novak discusses the implications of Obama's world view.

Glenn Reynolds summed it up with this pithy statement:

MEMO TO THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN: When somebody condemns appeasement, it doesn't help things to jump up and yell "Hey, he's talking about me!"

I think Obama's views on this related set of foreign policy issues are his single greatest vulnerability in the general election. They are a vulnerability because they provide the clearest and deepest insights into his view of the world and human nature, at a time of an unrelenting global war against our country. And it is in the context of those insights about Obama's world view that it is possible to attach a related and unfavorable interpretation to his parallel relationships with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.

A GOP Veepstakes Aside

Many conservatives are swallowing hard and coming to accept that John McCain is the best option out there. But I wonder if that will change should Mike Huckabee become the VP choice. James Pethokoukis has the scoop:

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and defeated contender for the GOP presidential nomination, is currently at the top of John McCain's short list for a running mate. At least that's the word from a top McCain fundraiser and longtime Republican moneyman who has spoken to McCain's inner circle. The fundraiser is less than thrilled with the idea of Huckabee as the vice presidential nominee, and many economic conservatives—turned off by the populist tone of Huckabee's campaign and his tax record as governor—are likely to share that marked lack of enthusiasm. But here is the logic of picking Huckabee:

1) He is a great campaigner and communicator who could both shore up support in the South among social conservatives (Huckabee is a former Baptist minister) and appeal to working-class voters in the critical "Big 10" states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

2) As any pollster knows, voters search for candidates who "care about people like me," and Huckabee would probably score a lot higher on that quality than millionaire investor Mitt Romney. Plus, given all the turmoil on Wall Street, 2008 would seem to be a bad year to pick a former investment banker for veep.

3) Economic conservatives and supply-siders may balk, but the threat of four years of Obamanomics and higher investment, income, and corporate taxes might be enough to keep them on board.

Let me add that a top Republican political strategist told me about a month ago that he also believed Huckabee to be the leading veep contender.

It might seem like a smart political move in the short term as explained by Pethokoukis. However, should McCain go with Huckabee, setting him up as the presumptive heir, it would signal to conservatives that McCain was attempting to change the ideological foundation--and future--of the GOP from center-right to populist-middle. (Heck, he could go with Hillary Clinton and achieve the same thing). Of course, if Huckabee is the choice, I suspect that many conservatives will throw their hands in the air and just stay at home and McCain would lose anyway. We'll see.

Obama Believes in Recycling

... old political scandals.

Senator Barack Obama said today that a scandal from Senator John McCain’s past – the Keating Five – was just as relevant to the presidential campaign as questions about who Mr. Obama has associated with over the years.

In a news conference here, Mr. Obama was asked whether his campaign intended to raise the banking scandal from the 1980s, which Mr. McCain has apologized for. Every piece of every candidate’s public record, Mr. Obama said, is “germane to the presidency.”

Senator Obama became the presumptive Democrat nominee this week, surpassing Senator Hillary Clinton's regular delegate count and either narrowing or exceeding her superdelegate accumulation. And pollster John Zogby is now predicting that Senator Clinton will drop out of the race even before the remaining primaries are held.

Naturally, Senator Obama is turning to his general election opponent.

"November is a long way away", "a lot can happen between now and then" and "this promises to be a lively campaign". But this is a pretty boring item by which Senator Obama is kicking off his new status.

Differing Perspectives on America

Historian Dale Light offers an interesting summary of how the candidates and their supporters view the country.

One benefit of this interminable Democrat nomination process is that fundamental issues do get discussed -- no I'm not talking about health care, or foreign policy, or the war, or any of those other transitory things; I'm talking about things that really matter in the long run, such as how the candidates and their supporters see America.

By now it is clear that "Hillary!" and her supporters see America solely in terms of competing interest groups. This is pretty standard for mainstream Democrats, has been ever since the rise of the "broker state" concept in the Roosevelt years. It's a social science vision of the country and in terms of electoral politics it consists of identifying and pandering to a sufficient number of interest groups to accumulate a majority.

Tonight in his North Carolina victory speech, "O-ba-ma!" went out of his way to disparage that sociological approach to America, emphasizing instead common approaches to common problems. This is at first glance similar to the unifying nationalistic themes on which Republican candidates have run ever since the party's inception in the middle of the nineteenth century. But there is a significant difference. Republicans love the country for what it is and what it has been as much as for what it might be in the future. Obama, with his strong liberal and radical associations, focuses almost exclusively on negative aspects of the American experience, and talks instead about an ideal America that has never been, but which he promises to bring into existence.

I think he's being a little too rosy with his description of Republicans, but his point is that, all in all, Republicans are more apt to view the country as a whole--the history, the institutions, the traditions--as being a net positive. (I include conservatives with this group, but they also view government as being naturally, and detrimentally, expansionistic. As the last few years have shown, not all Republicans believe this, too). I also understand Light's point about the Clintonian factionalism, but we also have a long tradition of that in our politics, despite the express desires of the founders. Finally, Obama truly is a Progressive with a belief that a group of experts--with Obama in charge--can lead our nation to a virtual (or, to some apparently, a very real) Heaven on Earth. We just have to trust him.

His Speculation is Predicated on a Major Presumption ...

... namely, the quality of his own presidency.

From the Telegraph (UK):

Standing in his cowboy boots on the back of a 1941 Ford pick-up truck in tiny Zebulon (population: 4,329), Bill Clinton bestowed on his wife Hillary what he perhaps considers the ultimate accolade. She would, he stated gallantly, be an even better president than he was.

Magic Number

It looks like Hillary Clinton has the 10-point win that horserace analysts said she needed to keep going...

Camille Paglia is not Swayed by Hillary's Gender

Camille Paglia writes in yesterday's Telegraph:

All women, on pain of excommunication from the feminist claque, must now support Hillary. Never mind her spotty record or her naked political expediency. Any woman with the temerity to endorse Barack Obama (as I do) is condemned as a "traitor" to her sex. "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life," trumpeted Steinem earlier this year in an article promoting Hillary in the New York Times. Barriers of race, class or economics are waved away as mere frippery.

Paglia also points out that while Senator Hillary Clinton has made derogatory comments about certain "traditional" female activity or behavior

... Hillary's public statements have often betrayed an ambivalence about women who chose a non-feminist path. "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies," she sneered during Bill's 1992 presidential campaign. Then, defending her husband against the claims of a 12-year affair by Gennifer Flowers, Hillary snapped: "I'm not sittin' here like some little woman, standing by my man like Tammy Wynette" - a sally that boomeranged when Hillary had to make an abject apology.

she is not above deploying her feminine side when she herself is in a jam.

Losing ground with other core groups - notably her own cohort of upper-middle-class, baby-boom career woman - Hillary played the gender card to the max. When polling showed she had seemed too harsh to the caucus-goers of Iowa, she rolled out teary eyes for New Hampshire, which handed her a primary victory. Hillary will scratch, claw, and morph through every gender trick if it rakes in votes.

Her feminine side also came out during her husband's presidential campaign, as Christopher Hitchens pointed out, when questions arose about the 10,000% profit she made in cattle futures.

When asked how it was she couldn’t remember any of the facts about her infamous cattle futures trading, Mrs. Clinton replied, batting her eyelashes, that, Well, she was pregnant with Chelsea at the time and in such a hormonal state that it was very hard to keep track of such mannish matters.

Paglia makes the ultimate criticism of a woman who would wear the feminist mantle: that Senator Clinton's success is attributable to a man.

Whatever her official feminist credo, Hillary's public career has glaringly been a subset to her husband's success. ...

In Little Rock, every role that Hillary played was obtained via her husband's influence - from her position at the Rose Law Firm to her seat on the board of Wal-Mart to her advocacy for public education reform. In a pattern that would continue after Bill became president, Hillary would draw attention by expressing public "concern" for a problem, without ever being able to organise a programme for reform. ...

The argument, therefore, that Hillary's candidacy marks the zenith of modern feminism is specious. Feminism is not well served by her surrogates' constant tactic of attributing all opposition to her as a function of entrenched sexism.

Live by the Biography, Die by the Biography

Like other conservatives, I've been amused by how Saints Bill and Hillary have transmogrified into untrustworthy and selfish snakes-in-the-grass in the eyes of so many of their former water-carriers. Along the way, we've learned that those who were once part of the media conspiracy arrayed against them in the '90s are now taking their side against He Who Endures for Us All. But at least the bucket brigade has been consistent in one manner: in their world, traditional methods of assessing character weren't applicable to their favored candidate (Bill) then--shady land deals, extramarital sex and plain ol' lying--and they don't count now. Just look at the reaction in the press and amongst the Obama flock to the questions asked in the recent debate.

It used to be that you took a measure of a person by looking at how they acted and with whom they associated. How else could you assess their judgment, prudence and character? But some began to think that it was an old fashioned way to judge people, especially if such close scrutiny brought up some, er, personal foibles that weren't very attractive to particular candidates (Bill, again).

So what to do? Why, instead of worrying about how a candidate actually behaves and treats others--you know, all of that real world crap--how about defining character by the policy positions someone holds. Heck, makes sense. If you're trying to tear down the religion and culture upon which the moral judgment (that ain't currently working for you, anyway) is based, then why not try to define a new morality based on your new touchstone: politics. All you gotta do is check off the right boxes and you're on your way.

But, this time around, that's caused a problem for the Democrats. Because Clinton and Obama have checked so many of the same boxes this has been a primary campaign where the candidate's nearly-identical political substance has been overshadowed by their personal styles and biographies. And it's in the latter where, to the non-wonk set, the real difference lay.

To date, Obama has benefited from the comparison of biographies and styles, mostly because we all know (too much) about the Clintons. Obama didn't have to do much to sully her with her own past; it was already known (if heretofore ignored back when she was one of the Elect). But finally, in an attempt to to get behind the Obama hagiography, an unexpected quarter of the media, ABC, decided to delve into some of his associations (Wright and Ayers) and comments ("bitter", "cling to"). When you run a campaign based on biography and rhetoric, you had better be prepared to answer questions about both. He wasn't and, despite the screams from the Disciples, this was all fair game and quite the norm. Just ask a Republican.

Mistaking Thoughtfulness for Misogyny?

Sir Elton, isn't it possible that some people oppose Senator Clinton's candidacy on the basis of issues and character and not because they hate women?

And how can we resist flipping it around? In the unlikely event Condoleezza Rice ever runs for office, will you support her or will you be a misogynist?

British pop star Elton John, playing a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in New York on Wednesday, said he was amazed at the misogyny of some in America and he hoped that wouldn't stop her being president.

At the fund-raiser which Clinton's campaign manager said raised $2.5 million, John said there was no one more qualified to lead the United States into the next era.

"Having said that, I never cease to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some people in this country.

A Hillary Update

Senator Hillary Clinton yesterday renewed her call for admission of the Michigan and Florida primary ballots.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday strengthened her pitch to allow disputed Democratic primaries in Michigan and Florida to be counted in the nominating contest, noting the vote totals had been officially recognized in each state.

"Some say their votes should be ignored and the popular vote in Michigan and Florida should be discounted. Well, I have a different view," Mrs. Clinton said at a rally.

Understandable, as the viability of her campaign is in danger without them.

Mrs. Clinton's latest comments came a day after Michigan Democrats announced there would be no do-over of that state's Jan. 15 primary, vastly dimming Mrs. Clinton's chances of catching Mr. Obama in the popular vote and in pledged delegates. Democrats in Florida had already announced there would be no revote there.

Simultaneously, Senator Clinton has been forced to drop another truth-challenged story she had been telling on the campaign trail.

For the past month, the New York senator liked to tell the tale of a pregnant woman who was denied health care from an Ohio hospital because she did not have $100 the hospital demanded to treat her. After being turned away, the woman was brought back to the hospital days later with severe complications. She had to be rushed to another facility for advanced treatment, but it was too late. Both the woman and the baby died, Clinton told her audiences.

For Clinton, the story was an example of how everyone should have universal healthcare. It is a powerful tale and always drew gasps from the audience.

The hospital, which was never named in Clinton's speeches, objected this weekend, saying it wasn't true and demanded that Clinton stop telling it. The O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio, told the New York Times that the woman was insured and was never denied treatment.

The Clinton campaign told ABC News today that the candidate heard the story from a deputy sheriff and had no reason to doubt the story. "If the hospital claims it didn't happen that way, we certainly respect that and she won't repeat the story," said Clinton spokeswoman Mo Elleithee.

If the phony story "was an example of how everyone should have universal healthcare", its expose is a reminder of one of the positives (and some would say, one of the weaknesses) of the American health care system: no one is turned away at the Emergency Room.

Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens examines the depth of the mendacity of her other tall campaign tale, that of landing under fire in Bosnia as First Lady.

The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. There are two kinds of deliberate and premeditated deceit, commonly known as suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. (Neither of them is covered by the additionally lying claim of having "misspoken.") The first involves what seems to be most obvious in the present case: the putting forward of a bogus or misleading account of events. But the second, and often the more serious, means that the liar in question has also attempted to bury or to obscure something that actually is true. Let us examine how Sen. Clinton has managed to commit both of these offenses to veracity and decency and how in doing so she has rivaled, if not indeed surpassed, the disbarred and perjured hack who is her husband and tutor.

* * * * *

Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States.

Obama and His Misguided Minister: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

In point of fact, if he were not running for President, Senator Barack Obama would have stayed.

From the AP:

Obama discussed his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on ABC's "The View," which was taped Thursday and aired Friday.

Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church," Obama said.

But Reverend Wright would not have retired over his own remarks if they had not been spotlighted by Senator Obama's candidacy. Nor would Senator Obama have objected to or distanced himself from the Reverend's remarks if he were not running for president. He would, to this day, have continued attending the church and endorsing Reverend Wright's odious remarks with his presence and even financial support. Only because the Reverend's remarks drew publicity followed by condemnation did Senator Obama distance himself from the remarks.

Barack Obama seems like a nice guy. But it is troubling that he has one set of standards as a private citizen and another as a candidate, especially when it comes to a serious mis-characterization of the country he wishes to lead.

Illegal View: Deja Vu?

The illegal accessing of official government files possibly for political gain?

Not good. Not good at all.

Well, it's a relief to know that the targets of this invasion of privacy - all candidates for the highly sensitive office of the President of the United States - are themselves above such scurrilous activity. Certainly this is not the reason that one candidate is hesitant to comment on this week's deplorable revelation.

"I expect a full and thorough investigation. It should be done in conjunction with those congressional committees that have oversight so it's not simply an internal matter," Mr. Obama told reporters.

Mr. McCain, who is traveling in France, called for an apology and a full investigation of the breach. "The United States of America values everyone's privacy and corrective action should be taken," he said.

Mrs. Clinton had not publicly commented by yesterday evening.

An Assassinated Mythology

The following passage from Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism struck me as relevant to the (thankfully abated) speculation of Barack Obama's assassination:

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. As if on cue, Dallas was christened "the city of hate." A young TV reporter named Dan Rather heard a rumor that some Dallas schoolchildren had cheered when they heard the news of Kennedy's death. The rumor wasn't true, and the local Dallas CBS affiliate refused to run the story. Rather made an end run around the network and reported the story anyway.

Rather wasn't the only one eager to point fingers at the right. Within minutes Kennedy's aides blamed deranged and unnamed right-wingers. One headline proclaimed the assassination had taken place "deep in the hate of Texas." But when it became clear that a deranged Marxist had done the deed, Kennedy's defenders were dismayed. "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights," Jackie lamented to Bobby Kennedy when he told her the news. "It's — it had to be some silly little Communist."

Or maybe not, the Kennedy mythmakers calculated. They set about creating the fable that Kennedy died battling "hate" — established code, then and now, for the political right. The story became legend because liberals were desperate to imbue Kennedy's assassination with a more exalted and politically useful meaning. Over and over again, the entire liberal establishment, led by the New York Times — and even the pope! — denounced the "hate" that claimed Kennedy's life. The Supreme Court justice Earl Warren summed up the conventional wisdom — as he could always be counted upon to do — when he theorized that the "climate of hatred" in Dallas — code for heavy right-wing and Republican activity — moved Lee Harvey Oswald to kill the president.

The fact that Oswald was a communist quickly changed from an inconvenience to proof of something even more sinister. How, liberals asked, could a card-carrying Marxist murder a liberal titan on the side of social progress? The fact that Kennedy was a raging anti-communist seemed not to register, perhaps because liberals had convinced themselves, in the wake of the McCarthy era, that the real threat to liberty must always come from the right. Oswald's Marxism sent liberals into even deeper denial, their only choice other than to abandon anti-anti-communism. And so, over the course of the 1960s, the conspiracy theories metastasized, and the Marxist gunman became a patsy. "Cui bono?" asked the Oliver Stones then and ever since. Answer: the military-industrial complex, allied with the dark forces of reaction and intolerance, of course. Never mind that Oswald had already tried to murder the former army major general and prominent right-wing spokesman Edwin Walker or that, as the Warren Commission would later report, Oswald "had an extreme dislike of the rightwing."

Amid the fog of denial, remorse, and confusion of the Kennedy assassination, an informal strategic response developed that would serve the purposes of the burgeoning New Left as well as assuage the consciences of liberals generally: transform Kennedy into an all-purpose martyr for causes he didn't take up and for a politics he didn't subscribe to.

Not For Nuthin' But...

I've been scarce around here lately, sorry about that. A couple quick things:

The RI Refrigeration thing is yet another manifestation of the frustration so many have with lax immigration policy. Personally, I think asking for an SS # crosses the line, but I'm not into engaging in such confrontation anyway. Not sure what purpose it serves other than fomenting the sort of tempest in a teapot we've witnessed. In the end, emotions got temporarily raised but the event is not going to change minds either way. Most immigrants aren't evil and most of those who want to enforce or toughen immigration laws aren't racist. Unfortunately, heated rhetoric is what gets the attention.

Apparently, Barack Obama regularly attended church, except for those times when his minister engaged in outrageous, anti-American hyperbole. And he never got wind of it until now. New politics?

Funny how so many progressives have finally realized how despicable the Clinton's are. I wonder if they'll be singing the same tune should HRC win the nomination? Yeah, right....

A Generous Offer Rejected?

Senator Hillary Clinton has proposed Senator Barack Obama for the vice presidential spot (with her as the presidential candidate) not once, but twice. And former President Bill Clinton has been talking up a Clinton/Obama ticket as "unstoppable".

Today, Senator Obama declined the number two spot, pointing out

With all due respect, I have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton. ... I have won more of the popular vote than Senator Clinton. I have more delegates than Senator Clinton. So, I do not know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who is in first place.

... oh, that's right.

Explaining Rhode Island to Outsidahs

For any national folks out there searching for an explanation of Hillary's Clinton victory in Rhode Island, forget about all of the identity politics stuff that the analysts are trying to foist on you. Here's all you need to know, starting with some wisdom from Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online…

The Clinton team reinforced the perception that Hillary is the closest thing to an incumbent the Democrats have.

This is not the year for incumbents. This is not the year for a candidacy whose central argument amounts to “it’s my turn”.

Then realize, despite the relevance of Goldberg's observation to other states, that Rhode Island is the state that in 2006 -- despite facing recurring multi-hundred million dollar deficits in the previous years -- re-elected an incumbent Governor and every incumbent state legislator who re-ran for his or her seat, regardless of their race, gender, age, or party.

Rhode Islanders don't do "change". They just expect it to happen. End of story.

Hillary's Delegate Deficiency

Using formulas and data provided by Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution, Slate has created a nifty delegate calculator.

[Pretty picture only; please click on the link to access the calculator.]

Slate's Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson have plugged in the delegates from states which have yet to hold their primaries and, at 4:36 this afternoon, concluded that

Even if Hillary Clinton wins tonight's primaries, she still has an increasingly difficult road ahead. Going into this evening's results, Clinton needs an average margin of victory of 16 points in every remaining primary to tie Obama's pledged delegate total. If Clinton wins by fewer than 16 points, then her job only gets tougher going forward.

And what about the super delegates? Until now, common wisdom had it that these would break decisively for Hillary. But this is no longer the case, in a campaign that at every step has failed to conform to expectations and sage predictions.

Currently, Clinton has a 44-superdelegate lead, according to CNN, but Tom Brokaw is reporting that Obama's campaign may be set to announce a 50-superdelegate envoy this week. That would make both candidates about even in superdelegates, which would make Clinton's climb even tougher.

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter availed himself of the calculator and went one step further.

So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February. Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people. Even coming off a big Hillary winning streak, few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do so. For politicians to upend what the voters have decided might be a tad, well, suicidal.

Clinton Wins Rhode Island...

...says WJAR-TV (NBC 10)...

...and WPRI-TV (CBS 12)...

...and WLNE-TV (ABC 6).

Huckabee Drops Out...

...according to CNN.

Sapping the Know-Nothings

To some degree, it's often the case that the media hypes the youth vote — the excited kids who show up for the rally but not for the vote. Still, it seems likely that the unique factor in this election will be the "know-nothing vote," by which I mean kids and other generally uninvolved, uninformed Americans who flock to the personality cult of Barack Obama. As Rhode Islanders are particularly well positioned to appreciate, that's a very dangerous force.

I'm sympathetic to the strategy of allowing a Democrat candidate to hold the reins for a few years in order to heat the crucible in which a stronger, more conservative Republican Party can be formed, and were the presidency the sole question mark, I might sway that way. But there will be candidates further down the ticket whom we can't afford to watch washed away. We mustn't underestimate the extent or longevity of the damage that a too strongly Democrat government can do in just a few years.

So the question is: Which Republican candidate will drain the know-nothing force to a greater extent? My gut says McCain. One could argue that Huckabee will excite more conservatives, who might otherwise be demoralized and stay home, but I haven't seen much evidence of a conservative rally behind him. On the other hand, McCain will surely keep national security central in the general election while, at the same time, reminding some moderates that the Democrat candidate (whether Obama or Clinton) is farther from center.

It's not a very uplifting or optimistic reason for picking a candidate, but the times are what they are.

Dave Talan: Why I'm Supporting Mike Huckabee For President

The Republican Party has an embarrassment of riches, when it comes to choosing our nominee for President. Every one of the candidates on our GOP Primary ballot on Tuesday is outstanding, and deserves our support in November if he is running against Hillary or Obama.

Senator John McCain is a war hero, and a respected and principled leader. Congressman Ron Paul has contributed to the discussion of the proper role of government in today's society. Ambassador Alan Keyes is a passionate spokesman for protecting life and family. Dr. Hugh Cort is a knowledgeable author about national security and terrorism. Governor Mitt Romney (who is still on our ballot) did a fine job running our neighboring state. And the candidates who are no longer in the race (Fred Thompson; Rudy Giuliani; Duncan Hunter; Tom Tancredo) made us proud to be Republicans.

But I have decided to support GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE for President on Tuesday. Let me tell you about some of the reasons that I LIKE MIKE.

* GREAT COMMUNICATOR. Nobody is better than Mike Huckabee at explaining our Republican issues to the general public, in ways they can easily understand and support. If you close your eyes when you listen to Mike speak, you would swear you were listening to Ronald Reagan.

* GENUINE AND SINCERE. I have had the chance to talk personally with Mike Huckabee the 2 times he has been in Rhode Island: last June when he spoke at the Health & Fitness Fair at R.I.C.; and last Monday, when I was able to ride with him all day to the 10 events he went to in our state. In person, he is the same honest, passionate, funny and compassionate man that you watch on TV. What you see is what you get with Mike Huckabee.

* CARES ABOUT ORDINARY PEOPLE. I am the GOP Chairman in Providence, where I live on the poor side of town. Most of my neighbors are Blacks or Hispanics, many of them 1st-generation immigrants. All of the GOP candidates agree on most issues. But I admire Mike Huckabee's emphasis on remembering that the people served by our government are "real human beings". In his career as a minister, and as Governor & Lt. Governor for 12 years, Mike Huckabee has helped ordinary people to deal with day-to-day problems. This is a pretty good background to bring to the Presidency.

* GET GOVERNMENT OFF OUR BACK. Mike Huckabee's plan to abolish the income tax and the IRS is just the change we need. (He would replace it with a sales tax, where people of all incomes would pay no more than what they do now.). Too many decisions in our lives now are based on how tax policy affects them. Under President Huckabee, we will make decisions based on what is best for us as individuals and as citizens.

Let me respond to some questions that people have asked me.

"Isn't this race already over? Why doesn't Mike Huckabee just quit?" The race is not over until some candidate wins 1,191 Delegates, which nobody has done yet. Only 5 months ago, John McCain was dead in the water, and people suggested he get out of the race. To his credit, John McCain refused to quit, and kept on fighting. Now Mike Huckabee is doing the same, and is fighting for what he believes in.

"But isn't Mike Huckabee hurting the eventual nominee's chances of winning in November, by continuing this campaign?" The GOP convention isn't for another 6 months. The election is still 8 months away. If Mike Huckabee quit now, before anybody had clinched the nomination, then the Party's nominee would disappear from the news until September. Just ask Rudy Giuliani what happens when you are out of the news for just 2 months. Mike Huckabee's positive campaign helps whoever the GOP nominee turns out to be (hopefully Mike himself) by continuing this race.

So, if you believe as I do, that MIKE HUCKABEE is the best man for the job of President; and that MIKE HUCKABEE has the best positions on the issues; then join me in voting for MIKE HUCKABEE on Tuesday.

Dave Talan is the chairman of Providence's City Republican Committee.

Insight from a Chronicler of Obama's Rise

Todd Spivak was a local reporter for a small newspaper in Chicago when Barack Obama first came onto the scene. In this story, he describes how both he and Obama came of age in their professions at about the same time and, more importantly, gives his perspective on the rise of Obama from legislator to Presidential candidate in 7 years. (For more on Obama's early years--and some of the contacts he made--read John Fund's latest in the WSJ). Here are some extended excerpts from Spivak's story.

First, on his perception of Obama, then and now:

My view of Obama then wasn't all that different from the image he projects now. He was smart, confident, charismatic and liberal. One thing I can say is, I never heard him launch into the preacher-man voice he now employs during speeches. He sounded vanilla, and activists in his mostly black district often chided him for it.

On Obama's record as an Illinois legislator and how he went from greenhorn legislator to candidate for Senator of Illinois.

When asked about his legislative record, Obama rattles off several bills he sponsored as an Illinois lawmaker.

He expanded children's health insurance; made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families; required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent; and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects.

And the list goes on.

It's a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama's seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative ­achievements.

Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government....Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor [became Illinois Senate majority leader]....He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's ­kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio ­program....

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law — including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.

It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics — and he couldn't have done it without Jones.

Before Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was virtually unknown even in his own state. Polls showed fewer than 20 percent of Illinois voters had ever heard of Barack Obama.

Jones further helped raise Obama's profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news ­headlines.

For instance. Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a Chicago nightclub. Both stories had received national attention and extensive local coverage.

I spoke to Jones earlier this week and he confirmed his conversation with Kelley, adding that he gave Obama the legislation because he believed in Obama's ability to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans on divisive issues.

On how Obama served his legislative district:

On the stump, Obama has frequently invoked his experiences as a community organizer on the Chicago South Side in the early 1990s, when he passed on six-figure salary offers at corporate law firms after graduating from Harvard Law School to direct a massive voter-registration drive.

But, as a state senator, Obama evaded leadership on a host of critical community issues, from historic preservation to the rapid demolition of nearby public-housing projects, according to many South Siders.

Harold Lucas, a veteran South Side community organizer who remembers when Obama was "just a big-eared kid fresh out of school," says he didn't finally decide to support Obama's presidential bid until he was actually inside the voting booth on Super Tuesday.

"I'm not happy about the quality of life in my community," says Lucas, who now heads a black-heritage tourism business in Chicago. "As a local elected official, he had a primary role in that."

...Obama's aloofness on key community issues for years frustrated Lucas and many other South Siders. Now they believe he was just afraid of making political enemies or being pigeonholed as a black candidate. Lucas says he has since become an ardent Obama supporter.

"His campaign has built a momentum of somebody being born to the moment," Lucas says. "He truly gives the perception that he could possibly pull us all together around being American again. And the hope of that is worth the risk when you look at the other candidates. I mean, you can't get away from old school when you look at Hillary."

...Though it didn't make national news, Obama inflamed many residents in his old state Senate district last March when he endorsed controversial Chicago alderman Dorothy Tillman in a runoff election.

Flamboyant and unpredictable, Tillman is perhaps best known for once pulling a pistol from her purse and brandishing it around at a city council meeting. The ward she represented for 22 years, which included historic Bronzeville, comprised the city's largest concentration of vacant lots.

Just three months before Obama made his endorsement, the Lakefront Outlook community newspaper ran a three-part investigative series exposing flagrant crony­ism and possible tax-law violations that centered on Tillman and her biggest pet project, a taxpayer-funded cultural center built across the street from her ward office that had been hemorrhaging money since its inception.

The series won a national George Polk Award, among the most coveted prizes in journalism. Not bad for a 12-page rag with a circulation of 12,000 and no Web site.

On some of Obama's campaign tactics:

Obama has spent his entire political career trying to win the next step up. Every three years, he has aspired to a more powerful political position.

He was just 35 when in 1996 he won his first bid for political office. Even many of his staunchest supporters, such as [Timuel] Black [historian and City Colleges of Chicago professor emeritus who lived in Obama's state Senate district], still resent the strong-arm tactics Obama employed to win his seat in the Illinois Legislature.

Obama hired fellow Harvard Law alum and election law expert Thomas Johnson to challenge the nominating petitions of four other candidates, including the popular incumbent, Alice Palmer, a liberal activist who had held the seat for several years, according to an April 2007 Chicago Tribune report.

Obama found enough flaws in the petition sheets — to appear on the ballot, candidates needed 757 signatures from registered voters living within the district — to knock off all the other Democratic contenders. He won the seat unopposed.

"A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career," wrote Tribune political reporters David Jackson and Ray Long. "The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it."

On the early strain of Obamamania

I moved to Springfield in early 2004 to work for the Illinois Times, where I covered Obama's U.S. Senate bid.

My first assignment was to profile Obama, who was largely unknown in central Illinois.

In fact, at that time just four years ago, Obama was still largely unknown even in his own community.

I followed Obama one wintry morning as he visited several black churches on Chicago's South Side urging people to vote for him in the upcoming primary. Congregants greeted him with lukewarm applause.

I noted in my article that one lady sitting in a pew beside me was noticeably impressed with the young man, and asked to borrow my pen. She wrote on her church pamphlet, "Obama, March 16," then underlined the date.

Over the years, most of my interviews with Obama were conducted by phone. So it felt good when he immediately recognized me and shouted my name from the end of a long, empty hallway inside the church after his speech.

After all, I admired the guy — and still do.

We shook hands and walked outside together. I asked some questions and snapped some pictures before a dark-blue Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows whisked him off to another congregation less than a mile away. I followed behind in my beat-up Oldsmobile.

My story ran on the cover of the Illinois Times. The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought it was fluff. Obama's own public-relations flack could have produced something comparable.

At the time, the Illinois media had fallen head-over-heels in love with Obama and his squeaky-clean image. "As pedigrees go, there is not a finer one among the Democratic candidates," the Chicago Tribune gushed in its endorsement.

On deciding to clear his conscience, doing a more thorough report on Obama and suffering the consequences.

"He's been given a pass," says Harold Lucas, the community organizer in Chicago. "His career has been such a meteoric rise that he has not had the time to set a record."

A week after my profile of Obama was published, I called some of my contacts in the Illinois Legislature. I ran through a list of black Chicago lawmakers who had worked with Obama, and was surprised to learn that many resented him and had supported other candidates in the U.S. Senate election.

"Anybody but Obama," the late state Representative Lovana Jones told me at the time.

State Representative Monique Davis, who attended the same church as Obama and co-sponsored several bills with him, also did not support his candidacy. She complained of feeling overshadowed by Obama.

"I was snubbed," Davis told me. "I felt he was shutting me out of history."

In a follow-up report published a couple weeks later, I wrote about these disgruntled black legislators and the central role Senate President Emil Jones played in Obama's revived political life.

The morning after the story was posted online, I arrived early at my new offices. I hadn't taken my coat off when the phone rang. It was Obama....

He said the black legislators I cited in the story were off-base, and that they couldn't have gotten the bills passed without him.

I started to speak, and he shouted me down.

He said he liked the other story I wrote.

I asked if there was anything factually inaccurate about the latest story.

He repeated that his former colleagues couldn't have passed the bills without him.

He asked why I wrote this story, then cut me off when I started to answer.

He said he should have been given a chance to respond.

I told him I had requested an interview through his communications director.

He said I should have called his cell phone.

I reminded him that he had asked me months ago to stop calling his cell phone due to his busier schedule.

He said again that I should have called his cell phone.

Today I no longer have Obama's cell phone number. I submitted two formal requests to interview Obama for this story through his Web site, but have not heard back. I also e-mailed interview requests to three of his top staffers, but none responded.

Maybe he'll call the day after this story runs. I'll get to the office early just in case. And this time I'll have my recorder ready.

Change You Actually Can't Believe In

One hears it all around, from radio-show hosts to blog commenters to acquaintances, or perhaps feels it personally: the hint of a sense that maybe Obama's worth a try. Oh, there are rationalizations, whether a cynical desire for entertainment, a curiosity over dice to be rolled, or even a scheme to let the whole unsustainable bomb of left-drifting government policy explode in his face, rather than a Republican's. Some such considerations have merit (I'm particularly susceptible to the anybody-but-Hillary ploy), but let's not proceed blindly.

It's become the common wisdom that Obama is all rhetoric, no substance — like those Bill Clinton SOTU addresses that promised everything to everybody — but one can fill in his blanks. From his op-ed in yesterday's Providence Journal:

We also have to be clear that the American dream must never come at the expense of the American family. But even as politicians in Washington talk about family values, we haven't had policies that value families. As the son of a single mother, I don't accept an America that forces women to choose between their kids and their careers. That's why I'll expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover millions of additional Americans. We need to make sure you can take leave to care for elderly parents, and to join school activities with your kids.

We also need to expand paid leave. Today, 78 percent of workers covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act don't take leave because it isn't paid. And this has a far greater impact on families with less income and less savings. To make sure our system is fair, I will press states to adopt paid-leave systems, and set aside $1.5 billion to fund the start-up costs and help states offset the costs to employers. And I'll require employers to provide all of their workers with seven paid sick days a year, because you shouldn't be punished for being sick.

With this, we have a taste of the socialist change promised by Candidate Barack: Government burdens sold to the masses at the expense of their employers, favoring the accommodation of poor choices (such as single motherhood), rather than encouraging citizens to change the culture to be more conducive to family life.

The result, which we can predict with near certainty, will be almost the opposite of that intended. Single mothers who are established in their careers won't miss quite so many dance recitals, but young families will find themselves locked in intern limbo (as is happening in France). Public union workers won't even have to negotiate for the benefit of paid time off for parental care, but more average Americans will have to work harder for less money and die before they get to retire.

I'm sure Obama's rhetoric has a universally soothing tone as it flows from beginning to end through the loudspeakers — especially with the distraction of feeling part of a happening — but slow it to a stop, and we can see just how damaging his reign could be.

Interesting

I just deleted two identical comments — one each on the latest posts here and on Dust in the Light — peddling the conspiracy that Barack Obama is a packaged "product" of powerful corporations with Republican ties, with the objective of building a nuclear power industry across the nation.

That may be the first political attack spam that I've noticed as such.

Anybody know Karl Rove's IP address?

A Nunu Testament

Mark Shea pens some gospel truth:

1:11 Blessed are those who Believe, for they shall say, "Yes We Can!"
1:12 Blessed are those who say, "Yes We Can!" for they shall audaciously Hope.
1:13 Blessed are those who Hope, for they shall speak of Change.
1:14 Blessed are those who speak of Change, for they shall Get Fired Up.
1:15 Blessed are those who Get Fired Up, for they shall be baptized with the Spirit of the Age.
1:16 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst during long rallies, for they shall drink the waters of Evian and I shall not lose my photo op.
1:17 Blessed are we. For we are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the Change that we seek.
1:18 Blessed are you, when men shall question you, and ask specifics, and seek all manner of policy detail for clarity's sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for so persecuted they the vague-minded which were before you. They shall drag you before TV cameras and microphones, and ask all manner of questions about specifics and you shall give testimony to me before the kings of the earth. But he that remains vague until the end shall receive a great reward in the Administration that is come.

Of course, the germane question is for which gospel this is truth.

Four Interesting Things Said by Mike Huckabee at his Rally in Warwick

On the connection of the pro-life position to the American founding…

There are many of us across this country not into the pro-life movement because of the politics of it, but into the political world because we believe that being pro-life is one of the most important ways in which we affirm what our Founding Fathers' believed. Listen to what they said when signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They made a pretty bold and audacious statement. They said "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"…

Now, the idea of everyone being equal was dramatically different from what the rest of the world was practicing. It was such a radical idea because, up until then, there were variations in people's perceived worth and value. With the signing of that document, they established a government unlike any other that said that no person was more valuable than another, which meant that no person was less valuable than another. What that still means, after all these years, is that where we live, what job we have, our abilities, or our disabilities do not factor in to who we are in terms of our worth as a person. And at any point in our personhood, our value is equal to that of anybody else...

On how a pro-life culture stands in stark contrast to our Islamofascist enemy (and kudos to Governor Huckabee for his willingness to use the term Islamofascism)…

Contrast this to the Islamofascists. Theirs is a culture in which it is OK to strap a bomb on to your own child, and send that child into a room like this and detonate it in order to make a political point. Ladies and gentleman, I prefer a culture of life.

On his basic defense philosophy…

As Commander-In-Chief, I am going to make sure that America has the most prepared, well-equipped, well-trained, well-financed army Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, so that nobody on this earth would want to engage us in a battle, because they would know that the outcome would be determined by the quality of the forces we have in place to overcome them.

And on the logic of a consumption tax system over an income tax system in a globalized world…

A table built in Rhode Island has a 22% embedded cost from the government, for every unit that is built. If that same table is built in China…it's not taxable when it's being made, and it’s not taxable when it comes to this country. And we wonder why American made things are struggling?

Mike Huckabee on School Vouchers

I was able to attend Governor Mike Huckabee's Rhode Island press event last evening, immediately preceding his rally in Warwick. During the press conference, Russell J. Moore of the Warwick Beacon broke a chain of horserace and identity politics questions being asked by other reporters to -- get this -- ask an actual question about policy, inquiring about Governor Huckabee's position on school vouchers…

Governor Mike Huckabee: I think [vouchers are] a state issue. And the only thing I believe is that the Federal government shouldn't tell a state whether they can or can't do. If a state believes vouchers will improve educational opportunities for it students, they should do it. So I'm for them, if that's what a state chooses to do. What I don't want is a Federal mandate telling a state it has to have them or that it can't have them, because that is not a function or role or right of the Federal government.

Anchor Rising (Er, perhaps shouting out a bit louder than is normally done at a formal press events. Retroactive apologies for being a surly New Englander): How about a judicial ban?

MH: Pardon me?

AR: What if a court says you can't have vouchers?

MH: It depends on why they said it. If it is because it creates a racial imbalance or some issue that goes to the heart of the constitutional question, then the courts would have to be followed. But I don't know about any case like that, I didn't confront that in Arkansas.

Now, at a mainstream press event, I don't expect a candidate to be in full wonk mode, but I found this answer to be unsatisfying. It is true that the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2002 in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that there are no federal grounds for blocking voucher programs, even when vouchers are applied to religious schools, but there is still much that will be litigated with respect to vouchers. The year after Zelman, the State Supreme Court of Colorado struck down a voucher program that had been approved by the legislature on the grounds that it violated a state constitutional provision on local control. And, at the beginning of 2006, the State Supreme Court of Florida used even vaguer language to strike down an "opportunity scholarship" program, on the grounds that the state constitution requires that education be "uniform".

It may be legitimate to say that cases like the recent Florida and Colorado cases shouldn't involve the Federal government, but that's different from taking the position that there are no court issues involved. When the well-financed, well-organized opponents of vouchers take to the courts to block programs passed by state legislatures, would a President Mike Huckabee use the bully pulpit (and maybe support the writing of a Justice Department amicus brief or two) to support giving parents the maximum resources for finding the best education for their child, or will he be OK with an education policy that tells teachers and students that their job is to meet federal goals (Governor Huckabee is a proponent of No-Child-Left-Behind) while limiting them to a narrow range of means deemed allowable by judges in the name of "uniformity"?

Plus, there is still at least one remaining issue with vouchers at the Federal level, the so-called "Blaine amendments" written into the constitutions of 36 states that expressly ban the public financing of religious-based schools. New Hampshire's provision provides one of the most direct examples…

. . . no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools or institutions of any religious sect or denomination."

(Incidentally, Rhode Island is one of the states that doesn't have a Blaine amendment, which would make implementing a voucher plan easier here than in other states.) Does Governor Huckabee believe that vouchers are a cut-and-dried federalism issue when their implementation is blocked by state constitutional provisions that mandate discrimination on the basis of religion?

Unfortunately, Governor Huckabee's squishy answer on the subject of vouchers reinforces the idea that if elected President, he is not someone who will be an innovative policy guy. Yes, I know he's in favor of a national sales tax, but say that his tax plan, which is a longshot at this moment in history whether it's a good idea or not, fails to win Congressional approval. What comes up next on President Huckabee's domestic agenda? De-centralizing things so that people have maximum freedom to use their tax dollars as they see fit, however they are collected? Or is he more of a Rockefeller Republican than his blue-state critics give him credit for, someone who is satisfied with saying, well, with a good guy like me in charge, we can make big bureaucratic government work! Mike Huckabee has to show a little more creativity on policy to convince conservatives that his positions don't tend towards the latter.

I hope that the Governor's supporters will take this as a constructive criticism, as Governor Huckabee could be a figure who could help unite the different wings of the Republican party -- if he is truly open to the full range of conservative ideas on domestic policy.

Hillary Campaign to Cicilline: Just Raise Taxes!

Because the Providence firefighters had promised to picket Senator Hillary Clinton's Rhode Island event this weekend over their lack of a contract with the city, her campaign has asked Mayor David Cicilline not to attend the event.

But before dropping that bomb on His Honor, Hillary's campaign suggested as an alternative that the Mayor of the capital city of the fourth highest taxed state simply give in to the firefighters' demands.

My own view of the "dispute" between the Mayor and Local 799 is that it amounts to play-acting by David Cicilline, who believes that this stance will confer upon him the title "Champion of the Taxpayer". He is mistaken. It is clear that Providence needs to make some adjustments to its budget. But such adjustments must be across the board. The Mayor has, instead, selected a very short list of line items to adjust. This is not only ineffectual but unfair. Further, if, as the Mayor contends, there is room to negotiate within the firefighters' contract (which there may well be), then there is also room for negotiation in a city contract ten times larger - the teachers' contract. The Mayor has not seen fit to look for such flexibility in the latter case, only in the former, which involves a far smaller block of municipal employees and, accordingly, a much smaller block of potential political supporters. For these reasons, it is difficult to be impressed by his production "starring" the firefighters.

At the same time, the philosophy espoused by Senator Clinton's campaign - "just cave" - in addition to not being very sensitive to taxpayers, is the very one which has led to Rhode Island being the fourth highest taxed state in the country. Roland Benjamin has an excellent post today about the extravagant proposals Senator Obama has made while campaigning. Following upon the advice by the Hillary campaign to the Mayor of Providence, it appears that these two Presidential candidates are in a race to see who can spend down the taxpayer's wallet the fastest, one with expensive proposals and the other with an irresponsible approach to the negotiation of government contracts.

Obama's Effect on Race Relations

A few weeks ago, Dan Yorke brought one of his coworkers (a sports guy) into the studio to discuss his Massachusetts primary vote for Barack Obama. That coworker characterized himself as the only non-racist person he knew and sought to explain why it was appropriate to look at Obama and see only a black man who would help to advance race relations in America.

Dan posed the question of whether that approach to voting was racist. To those who'd say "no," because the vote wouldn't be motivated by the candidate's race so much as his effect on a particular issue of defining import in this country, I'd ask whether the same would hold true for somebody who voted the other way for the same reason. That is, would it be racist to vote against a black man simply because the voter believes that doing so would exacerbate race relations?

John Derbyshire offered some thoughts in this line over in the Corner, yesterday:

... Imagine an Obama presidency overwhelmed and floundering, like Carter's. There are enough issues, domestic and foreign, coming down the pike to make this very possible — you know them, I don't need to enumerate. Black Americans will of course go on voting for the party of a black president regardless. Nonblacks will flee from the Democrats in droves, though. A Republican landslide in the 2010 midterms (think 1994); a clear GOP victory in 2012 (think 1980).

By that point the Democratic Party might be nothing other than the party of black Americans. To the degree that black and nonblack Americans get on with each other at all, it is largely thanks to the coalition of black citizens and nonblack liberals and interest groups represented in the national political life by the Democratic Party. A permanent sundering of that coalition would be greatly to America's peril. Black Americans would be shut out of our political life.

Plausible? More to the point, even assuming it's plausible, would it (of itself) justify an anti-Barack vote?