Simmer Down Now.

“‘This is excruciating,’ says a member of the Clintons’ circle, who asked for anonymity. ‘But the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s worth it to tarnish himself a bit now to win the presidency.’” Word from Jonathan Alter’s inside sources is that top Dems, including Ted Kennedy and Rahm Emanuel, have angrily told Bill Clinton to put a sock in it. “When the former president called Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat gave Clinton an earful, telling him that he bore some blame for the injection of race into the contest…The Clinton camp now fears that Kennedy is leaning toward Obama.” For his part, Clinton is unrepentant, so expect more embarrassing shenanigans from the ex-prez in due course. “‘History will judge the impact on the Clinton legacy, not daily or weekly political reporters,’ says Matt McKenna, Bill Clinton’s press secretary.“

Update: “She’s got a record that she can run on. But I think it’s important that we try to maintain some — you know, level of honesty and candor during the course of the campaign. If we don’t, then we feed the cynicism that has led so many Americans to be turned off to politics.” On ABC’s Good Morning America, Senator Obama pushes back. “You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts — whether it’s about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit, and one of the things that we’re going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he’s making statements that are not factually accurate.“

Update 2: The Clinton campaign claims that noting that Bill Clinton distorts the truth is a “right-wing talking point.”. It’s also a fact. Is even the reality-based community “right-wing” these days?

Update 3: He has a dream…Now, Clinton is falling asleep in public.

Nevada: The House Wins…or does it?

CNN projects that Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada caucus. (At 90% and counting, we’re at Clinton 51%, Obama 45%, Edwards 4%(!))

Sigh. Well, to be honest, I don’t feel all that bad about this loss. I mean, Nevada would have been a great pick-up for Obama, but if he wins my home state of South Carolina next weekend — which is favorable terrain — we’re still going into February 5 with a 2-2 split. And given that things seem to have been shaking this way in past days, I’m heartened to see Obama managed to keep it relatively close against Clinton. Besides, while Senator Obama was apparently a star in Reno (Obama 46% — Clinton 31%), he lost big in heavily-populated Clark County (Clinton 55% — Obama 35%), which is usually most people’s experience in Vegas. So be it.

The biggest surprise here, frankly, is the Edwards collapse. Less than 5%? Still, I wouldn’t expect him to make any big moves until after South Carolina, if at all.

Looking at the CNN entrance poll numbers, the demographic breakdown remains very troubling. For one, the gender gap continues (Women: Clinton 52%, Obama 35%; White Women: Clinton 57%, Obama 28%.) For another, it looks like the Clinton-Obama generation gap has grown even worse. Note these dismaying stats:

Voters 18-29: Obama 57%, Clinton 30%
Voters 30-44: Obama 42%, Clinton 37%
Voters 45-59: Clinton 46%, Obama 39%
Voters 60+: Clinton 61%, Obama 28%

Voters under 45: Obama 48%, Clinton 34%
Voters over 45: Clinton 54%, Obama 33%

The affiliations:

Democrats: Clinton 51%, Obama 36%
Independents: Obama 46%, Clinton 35%

And then you get the race breakdown:

Whites: Clinton 52%, Obama 31%
African Americans: Obama 79%, Clinton 16%
Hispanics: Clinton 64%, Obama 23%

So — right now — it looks to be young people, independents, and African-Americans for Obama, with old people, Latinos, and white women for Clinton. Perhaps most notably, voters under 30 are breaking 2-1 for Obama, while voters over 60 are breaking 2-1 for Clinton. If that dynamic holds, it obviously favors Clinton in this primary season. (Although, if and when those young voters justifiably decide to turn against the process and stay home should Clinton win, given her campaign’s scummy tactics, it’s all around bad for the Democrats.)

Speaking of which, whatever the demographic breakdown, I have to think the Clinton campaign’s lowball maneuvering will redound badly against them as we move forward. Even notwithstanding last weeks’ race card wallowing and Giuliani-ish grandstanding, we now have attempts at voter suppression, more false mailers, blatant lying about Obama’s record, Yucca and otherwise, union-busting rhetoric, and even anti-Obama robo-calls. If we Dems aren’t going to take a stand against this sort of Rovian garbage within our own party, then we’ve absolutely no business bitching about similar behavior by the GOP.

On to South Carolina.

Update: Hmm, well that‘s interesting. After all is said and done, it seems Barack Obama actually won the Nevada delegate count, 13-12. “The math turns out to be a bit confusing, but the shorthand is this: The more populous Clark County, which Clinton won, awarded a even number of delegates, and Clinton and Obama split those down the middle. Meanwhile, the more rural areas, which Obama won, awarded an odd number of delegates, which gave Obama the edge. ‘We showed real strength statewide,’ campaign manager David Plouffe said in the call.” Well, ok then. That’s a nice gift, but the demographic concerns remain.

Update 2: How bad was the situation on the ground? Bad enough that Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is going on the record about it. At this point, widespread malfeasance by the Clinton campaign sounds eminently plausible.(And what the heck was Bill doing?)

Obama and Madison.

“Let the argument about the viability and practicality of Obama’s major message go forward. But as it does, even his critics need to acknowledge that he is not a weird historical aberration. His message has roots in our deepest political traditions. Indeed, it is in accord with the most heartfelt and cherished version of our original intentions as a people and a nation.” In the LA Times, historian Joseph Ellis (of American Sphinx, Founding Brothers, and His Excellency) argues Obama’s public interest message has roots in the writings of the Founders. “There are several passages in Obama’s memoir, ‘The Audacity of Hope,’ that suggest a familiarity with the founders’ legacy. He recalls teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago and always going back to ‘the founding documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution,’ which provide ‘the record of the founders’ intentions’ and ‘the core ideals that motivated their work.’”

The Meaning of Reagan.

If you haven’t been following the recent flap about Ronald Reagan among the Democrats, I’ve been covering it in the comment thread here. Basically, the point Obama was making to the Reno Gazette-Journal, which Clinton and Edwards have both since jumped on, is this: For all his lousy policies — and Obama has said before they were lousy — Ronald Reagan was without a doubt a paradigm-changing candidate in 1980. In that election, he encouraged many “Reagan Democrats” to switch parties to back his candidacy, thus forging a new coalition which enabled right-wingers not only to win most presidential elections since but to pass legislation that is more conservative than the mainstream. Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, on the other hand, was not paradigm-changing. He won a plurality of votes in a three-way race and, by 1994, was already on the defensive again.

So, in 2008, the Democrats can back a possible paradigm-changer such as Barack Obama, a candidate with considerable independent and crossover appeal who might well be able to forge a new progressive governing coalition (as Reagan did for the Right.) Or we can back a polarizing figure such as Senator Clinton, one whom almost half the country is already dead set against and who rests her appeal on repeating the same cautious, poll-tested GOP-lite centrism we had under eight years of her husband…assuming, of course, she can eke out a victory over John McCain or his ilk anyway. (And there’s John Edwards too, of course: While that’s definitely more of an open question, I made my Obama-over-Edwards case here.)

As I said in the comment thread linked above, when it comes to a choice between Clinton or Obama, it would seem a no-brainer, particularly when you factor in her campaign’s tactics of late.

Update: To help put the Clintons’ attacks today in perspective, a December 22 press release from Hillary Clinton lists Reagan among her “favorite presidents.” Oops.

There She Goes Again.

“She mocked our bill…She said, she’s been saying over the past couple of weeks, ‘You know, this bill doesn’t do anything. You know, it was just a little, symbolic bill. If Sen. Obama thinks that’s a big accomplishment, that’s his right.’ Keep in mind she had voted against some of the provisions that would have made it even stronger. So only in Washington can you vote to weaken a bill and then complain later it wasn’t stronger.”

In a new stump speech, Senator Obama calls out Hillary Clinton for her evasions and mistruths on Yucca Mountain, the bankruptcy bill, the payroll tax cap, the ethics reform bill, and a host of other issues. “Obama then said he looked at what she said about the bill on the floor of the Senate and reports back that what she said was ‘this is excellent legislation and I’m proud to be voting for it cause this is really making progress.‘” To be honest, I’m feeling a bit pessimistic about the caucus tomorrow given the recent polls, but here’s hoping enough Nevada voters see through Clinton’s recent distortions to get seriously aggravated about them.

The “Visionary Minimalist.”

“Some of his policy proposals are bold, not incremental. His plan for energy independence, for example, is extremely ambitious…But Obama’s visionary thinking is not adequately captured in his policies. It is found instead in his insistent rejection of the standard political categories, in a way that recognizes their obtuseness, their debilitating effect on actual problem-solving, their tendency to entrench the status quo, and the violence they do to American pluralism and diversity.”

TNR‘s Cass Sunstein, a former academic colleague of the Senator from Illinois, makes the case for Obama as a “visionary minimalist.” (In many ways, this is similar to the argument recently made in Newsweek.) “‘Visionary minimalist’ may sound like an oxymoron, but in fact — and this is the key point — Obama’s promise of change is credible in part because of his brand of minimalism. He is unifying, and therefore able to think ambitiously, because he insists that Americans are not different ‘types’ who should see each other as adversaries engaged in some kind of culture war. Above all, Obama rejects identity politics. He participates in, and helps create, anti-identity politics. He does so by emphasizing that most people have diverse roles, loyalties, positions, and concerns, and that the familiar divisions are hopelessly inadequate ways of capturing people’s self-understandings, or their hopes for their nation.“

Nevada Judge: Casino Caucuses Cool.

Word comes down that District Court Judge James Mahan has rejected Clinton supporters’ late-entry lawsuit against the casino caucus plan decided last March. (By the way, for non RSS-readers, I updated down here about yet another angry outburst of misinformation by former President Clinton. The video of his latest sad rant is here, and the reason why it’s obviously deceptive malarkey is explained here.)

Leahy and Durazo Aboard.

“‘We need a president who can reintroduce America to the world – and actually reintroduce America to ourselves. Barack Obama represents the America we once were and want to be again.” Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont endorses Barack Obama. “Leahy likened his support of Obama to the 1968 presidential campaign, when as a young prosecutor he endorsed Robert Kennedy over Hubert Humphrey. ‘He was bringing us a sense of hope, bringing us together,’ Leahy said. ‘I know those are intangibles, but it encouraged me to go against the establishment in my own state, and go with Bobby Kennedy.’“

And another potentially big Obama endorsement from yesterday: Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor. One expert said of Durazo: “There is no person in all of California who could get more people out to the street to go do something, either to march or get the vote out.” “When she discussed her endorsement with her son Michael, a senior at Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, he urged her to choose Obama. ‘He said, “In the end, Mom, it’s the chance of a lifetime.” For him to say that means a lot. It’s true.’”

Another False Clinton Mailer.

Another state, another patently false mailer. According to TPM‘s Greg Sargent, the Clinton campaign has now blanketed Nevada with the negative mailer above, one which (once again) falsely distorts Senator Obama’s record. It reads: “Nevada families need to keep more of their hard-earned dollars not less…we need a president that will help hard-working families keep more of what they earn.”

It then goes on to read: “Barack Obama. A plan with a trillion-dollar tax increase on America’s hard-working families. Lifting the cap on Social Security taxes to send more of Nevada families’ hard-earned dollars to Washington. Senator Obama said “I think that lifting the cap [on Social Security taxes] is probably going to be the best option.“

So, what’s the problem here? Mainly this: Only somebody who hangs out with the monied likes of Robert Johnson all day could honestly think Senator Obama’s plan involves a tax increase for “hard-working families.” Let’s let Senator Obama explain it:

“Now there’s one more way of solving the problem. And that is raising the cap on the payroll tax. Now what that means is, currently, you only pay Social Security on the first $97,000 of income. Now it turns out that here in Nevada, 97% of the people in Nevada make $97,000 a year or less. So essentially, everybody except 3% — if this was a random sample of Nevada, there are only about 3% of you who make more than that, everybody else, you gotta pay payroll tax on 100% of your income.

Now, what I’ve said is that what we should do is we should adjust the cap, so that billionaires like Warren Buffett are paying more, because right now they’re paying a fraction of 1% of their income to payroll tax. And my answer is, that’s not fair. Why would we have the wealthiest Americans pay such a smaller percentage of the payroll tax when everyone else is
paying basically 100%?

So I propose raising the cap. We might exempt middle class folks for maybe $97,000 for up to $200,000; there might be some exemptions, but those people are making over $200, $250,000, they can afford to pay a little more on payroll tax. So this is what I propose, this is what Senator Clinton is calling a trillion-dollar tax cut on hard-working Americans.”

So, which is it, then? Does Senator Clinton think the top 3% of Nevadans represents the “hard-working families” of the middle-class, or is this another blatant attempt at misinformation disguised to confuse voters about Obama’s real record? If I had to guess, I’m thinking this is the latter, and it’s another disgusting, GOP-worthy lowball.

Back from the Brink.

Despite the best efforts of Tim Russert, who asked rinky-dink meta-questions about the past week for most of the first segment, the Democratic debate in Los Vegas was a pause for breath tonight, with Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton all going out of their way to dial back the heat and try to bridge the identity politics chasms that have yawned open of late. As such, with all three candidates on their best behavior and looking to avoid direct confrontations that might get nasty, it was the type of debate that made the party and all three contenders look good, but also probably didn’t change very many votes.

From where I sat — and this will surprise exactly no one — I thought Barack Obama came off the best of the three. He seemed gracious in his call to move past last week’s racial firestorm and deflected the — many — attempts by Russert to re-inject race into the debate. He offered the only funny moments of the evening (Brian Williams thinking he was in LA notwithstanding) and seemed convincing and natural. And, perhaps most importantly, he displayed a command of policy specifics and a capacity for nuance, which once again belies the argument that he’s just a oratorical Hope machine. He seemed, in a word, presidential. (Although I do wish, when asked when he’d first decided to run for president, he’d simply said “kindergarten.”)

John Edwards was as good and on-message as always, but it didn’t seem like he managed to do anything tonight that would be a game-changer. (Then again, in an atmosphere of such explicit convivality as tonight, Edwards’ central message — I will fight for you! — didn’t have much of a chance to gain traction anyway. That being said, he did manage to trump Clinton’s dubious “35 years of experience” claim by announcing that “for 54 years I’ve been fighting with every fiber of my being.” 54 years of fighting? Hey, let’s not forget those nine months in the womb, there.) Edwards also brought up one of the first campaign finance questions we’ve heard in awhile — one in which Obama announced he’d ultimately be for public financing, which made me happy — but due to the moderators not seeming to understand their own rules, it never got around to Senator Clinton, where it was likely — and should have been — directed.

Hillary Clinton came across better tonight than she did in New Hampshire, and, to her credit, she also did her part to uphold the truce (at least in public.) But — again, not a shocker here — I still found her dismayingly evasive on several questions: on Robert Johnson (do you believe his ridiculous clarification or do you think his comments were “out of bounds”?), on whether her opponents were qualified (she couldn’t just say yes?), on the bankruptcy bill (you voted for it in 2001 but was glad it didn’t pass?), and of course, on the politics of fear question, to take a few examples. But, as always, she had done her homework, she smartly went after Dubya a few times, and she had the talking points ready to attack on the Yucca Mountain question. (Without meaning to dismiss the important issue at hand, it’s safe to say “Yucca” is apparently Nevadan for “ethanol.”)

So, at any rate, I’d say Obama came off the best tonight, but Edwards and Clinton were both solid as well. (And I would presume supporters of the other two candidates would say the same, with perhaps the names rearranged.) More than anything, tonight was a chance for tempers to cool and for the party to show it was ready — despite the best efforts of Mr. Russert — to discuss matters of substance again. Still, with Nevada this Saturday and South Carolina right around the corner, I wouldn’t expect the next debate to be so congenial.