Tag: Michael Tomasky

Webb 2.0? | The Twenty.

“The symbolism of all this to average swing voters just seems to me too powerful to pass up. The GOP is going to hang the elitist tag on Obama, as they’ve always done in recent elections. It’s worked in the last two elections, and it might well work in this one. But it stands far less a chance of working if Obama has this ruddy-faced, shit-kicking, pugnacious, southern white guy standing next to him vouching for him.” The Guardian Michael Tomasky makes the case for a Vice-President Webb, while The Prospect‘s Ezra Klein (he should stay in the Senate), Slate‘s Tim Noah (he’s too volatile), and The Atlantic‘s James Fallows (he’d hate the gig) demur.

Update: Webb aside, Sen. Kent Conrad leaks that the Obama campaign is currently floating a list of twenty or so names for veep. He “told CNN that some of those on the list are ‘top officials now,’ others are ‘former lawmakers’ and others are ‘former top military leaders.‘”

The End is Nigh? | Being Hillary Clinton.

“‘I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind,’ the former president told Clinton supporters in South Dakota, ABC and NBC reported on their news websites. ‘I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,’ he added at the start of his stump speech.” There’ve been rumors floating around about Sen. Clinton’s speech in New York tomorrow, but has Bill let the cat out of the bag? One can only hope.

Update: Sigh…A Clinton spokesperson categorically denies an imminent exit tomorrow. In related news, New York Magazine’s John Heilemann and The Atlantic‘s James Fallows ponder what Sen. Clinton is thinking these days. Heilemann: “[M]y response is simple: She wants to be president. Duh. And if it ain’t gonna happen this year, then her central objective is to make it as likely as possible in 2012.” Fallows: “The Clinton team doesn’t worry about hurting Obama’s prospects of winning in the fall, because they assess those prospects at zero. Always have…So by definition they can’t be making things worse. It is like sticking pins into a corpse — you’re not really hurting it any more. And if these efforts in fact make Obama’s victory less likely — well, then, reality will conform to their preexisting view.“

Update 2: Word this morning is Sen. Clinton will in fact concede (sort of) tonight. “The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City…But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.” Update 3: McAuliffe says not so. Get it together over there, y’all.

Update 4: Well, for once McAuliffe was right — You can’t call that a concession. Sen. Clinton’s “un-concession” speech tonight in New York, delivered an hour after Sen. Obama had mathematically clinched the Democratic nomination, would’ve been stunning in its gracelessness, if it wasn’t so much in keeping with what we’ve seen all election season from her. Classy until the end.

Truman/False?

“The idea that Truman and Dean Acheson could be hauled out as exhibits for preventive war in Iraq against ‘abject pacifists’ such as myself made me feel that I was living in Oceania, and the Ministry of Peace had rewritten the textbooks to prove that the legacy of a president who rejected preventive war in fact constituted the best justification for it!” By way of my friend Mark, Peter Beinart and Michael Tomasky go toe-to-toe over the legacy of ’48 at Slate‘s Book Club. I’m inclined to agree with the latter.

Small-R Republic.

“What the Democrats still don’t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society. Indeed, the party and the constellation of interests around it don’t even think in philosophical terms and haven’t for quite some time. There’s a reason for this: They’ve all been trained to believe — by the media, by their pollsters — that their philosophy is an electoral loser. Like the dogs in the famous “learned helplessness” psychological experiments of the 1960s — the dogs were administered electrical shocks from which they could escape, but from which, after a while, they didn’t even try to, instead crouching in the corner in resignation and fear — the Democrats have given up attempting big ideas. Any effort at doing so, they’re convinced, will result in electrical (and electoral) shock.“

By way of The Late Adopter (whom y’all really should be reading), The American Prospect‘s Michael Tomasky makes the case for a Democratic turn towards small-r republicanism and a renewed embrace of the common good. This is the closest article I’ve seen in some time to my own thoughts on where the Dems need to go these days (and in fact sounds a lot like a side-project I’ve been working on in my spare time, which I’ll share with y’all more as it progresses.) “The task before today’s Democratic Party isn’t just to eke out electoral victories; it’s to govern, and to change our course in profound ways. I’d like to think they can do it. But the Democrats must become republicans first.“

Prospect Pop Quiz.

“For $800: DAILY DOUBLE!!!!: Thomas Edison is more famous, but this man’s alternating-current system actually won out over Edison’s direct-current variation.” [Think The Prestige…Nicola Tesla.] The American Prospect‘s Michael Tomasky offers up a Jeopardy-style cultural literacy test in American history and political philosophy. (Via The Late Adopter.)

An Interminable DeLay.

“[I]f DeLay goes, there will be people in Washington congratulating themselves on having been part of a system that, once again, ‘worked,’ fumigating itself of an intruder who went too far and didn’t accept the rules. Nonsense. The system isn’t working by a long shot. If the system had worked, DeLay would have been exposed long ago — first by the media, which would have done far more to reveal the ethical and procedural corruption of his regime, and second by moderate Republicans, who could have made a difference if they’d had the nerve, en bloc, to stand up and say something.” The American Prospect‘s Michael Tomasky explains the sad structural reasons why Boss DeLay has managed to stick around for so long.