If train wrecks really happened in slow motion, observers might have time to note carelessness and irrelevance in the human actors involved. Metaphorical train wrecks certainly afford us such opportunities. The State Department bracketed a busy weekend for the Iran problem with a bit of both. In the daily briefing on Friday, spokesman Robert Wood responded to a point-blank question on why we are stretching out the time line on negotiations with this affirmation:
QUESTION: Then why stretch it out? I mean, isn’t it quite clear that they’re not going to do this?
MR. WOOD: Look, we are — we have said from the beginning, we’re willing to go the extra mile with regard to diplomacy. The President and the Secretary have been very clear about that. Iran has had plenty of time to consider this proposal. We still hope that they will reconsider and give the IAEA Director General a yes. But that’s up to Iran.
Iran had already, last week, given the IAEA director general a “no,” rejecting the P5+1 proposal to ship Tehran’s low-enriched uranium out of the country and offering a counterproposal: to exchange higher-enriched uranium for Iran’s current stock, simultaneously and inside Iran. In support of this negotiating ploy, the regime launched a major joint-forces exercise over the weekend, punctuating it with air-defense drills around the nuclear sites. In case the message was unclear, a senior Revolutionary Guard official emphasized the “deterrence power” of Iran’s ballistic missiles and threatened Tel Aviv with them. Meanwhile, President Lula da Silva of Brazil, with Ahmadinejad at his side, affirmed Iran’s right to civil nuclear technology and criticized “attempts to isolate Iran,” a condemnation that included the imposition of further sanctions.
So it’s not clear what gave Wood hope that Iran might reconsider. Monday’s laconic briefing from Ian Kelly projected a peculiar air of detachment, revealing mainly that there was no new policy guidance on Iran since Friday. There were some laughs, however. Kelly alluded, in suggesting that Iran seize a “fleeting opportunity,” to Friday’s thrice-repeated theme that the diplomatic window for Iran won’t be open forever. This led to a humorous exchange in which the word “fleeting” was suggested to amount to “new guidance.”
Surreal levity aside, Iran’s strategic wisdom in making a counterproposal, to which the P5+1 will have to take time in responding, has probably guaranteed that “fleeting” will not accurately describe the window bounded by negotiations. What the State Department has to show for eight years of business-as-usual negotiations is an Iran much closer to a working nuclear weapon. Robert Wood, in that sense, was exactly right: as long as we have a diplomacy-only approach, it is up to Iran. The only way to change that is to pose the credible threat of involving a different department of the U.S. government.
There are at least two respectable numbers-crunching blogger/pundits – Jay Cost and Patrick Ruffini – who when last heard from didn’t think the show was over for Hillary. Ruffini’s delegate math was last updated prior to Tuesday’s results, but I don’t believe that the Obama sweep altered the numbers so significantly as to invalidate them – until and unless the O-mentum shows up in the key Democratic voting constituencies that, according to Jay Cost’s statistical analysis , did not shift in some fundamental way on Tuesday, whatever the pundit hype might claim. As for the seemingly steep percentages that Hillary would need to achieve, the Democrats aren’t using a pure proportional system, so turning a 51 – 49 popular vote win into a 55 – 45 win or higher in terms of delegates may not be as difficult as it looks on first glance. Late wins in OH, TX, and PN would also strengthen her electability argument and improve general perceptions of her candidacy.
Still, imagining a Hillary comeback at this stage requires one also to imagine that her campaign suddenly develops and sustains a line of attack that actually threatens Obama. She and her surrogates have so far managed to go just negative enough, in clumsy fits and starts, to earn opprobrium without leaving any wounds. Turning from “I’m more experienced” to “he’s frighteningly inexperienced,” from “I can do the hard work” to “he’s an empty suit,” and from “I offer you substance not glitz” to “he’s selling you a bill of goods and we deserve better” isn’t much of a leap in logic, but it would have had to start earlier not to look desperate and divisive, harmful to the party’s November chances. When she had a lead, it would have shown killer instinct and have been confirmation of her toughness and desire. By now, as with any flailing candidate, her chances seem more to depend on external events than on anything she can do on her own.
It has been on article of faith on many on the right that Hillary must be sitting on oppo dynamite and a political cloak-and-dagger arsenal. To some, it may be difficult to accept that the wicked witch, if she possesses any effective spells, apparently lacks the evil will to employ them.
For someone whose MO has been ultra-contrived “chats” and journalistic IEDs, running herself ragged to pump the flesh at factory entrances, lunch counters, and 5 AM parking lots can’t be easy. She’s out of her league playing O’s game and she never developed a credible one of her own. Rough sledding for Hill.
Apropos of Jennifer’s question above (how will Obama hold his own against McCain) I just want to say that we’re going to be treated to eight months of polls like the AP one the other day, that showed Obama beating McCain by six points. The fine print tells all, though: AP sampled 20% more Democrats than Republicans!
Had they sampled and weighted more accurately (there is no way that Dem ID is 20% more than R ID, no way) my guess is McCain would have handily beaten Obama in this poll. It’s flawed anyway b/c it once again is a simple registered voter poll, not a likely voter poll, and in any event like most polls clearly oversamples places like NY and CA, two very blue states — so it tells us nothing about the electoral college vote, the only one that counts.
Which is why Rasmusen was able to “surprise” other pollsters by nailing the Bush-Kerry race on the nose. But leave aside polling technicalities for a minute. Jennifer is right: Hillary is hardly finished. A few late wins plus the Dems’ deviously complicated proportional-representation system plus a screaming floor fight over FL and MI…could well add up to a Hillary nomination. Remember when she was finished after Iowa?
Right now expectations are sky-high for Obama. The media are completely in the bag for him – ask Chris Matthews’ leg. A loss anywhere would be a crusher. And he really doesn’t have much of a lead in delegates to survive a rapid deflation of expectations. Stay tuned, folks, the show ain’t over.
Now on the GOP side, you may switch to another channel.
Her problem is that since Obama is pretty much as close to the far left as a national politician can get, she has to attack him from the right (i.e. why are you sending enjoys to Syria, how much will you health care plan really cost, etc.); but, in a Dem primary, this might not work.
Although I support McCain, I have a feeling that white lower middleclass and Hispanic voters in the three key states that Hillary must win (TX, OH, PA) may react against the Obama-mania sweeping the punditocracy. The latest polls from Ohio (cited above) show her well ahead of Obama, and the TV coverage of her rally in McAllen Texas shows emotional Hispanic women defending Hillary in almost tribal terms.
This is all to be expected. If Obama is using the black vote in that way, she should respond by playing her Hispanic card and daring the Democratic Party elites to go against the largest minority in the country, and a less polarizing one than blacks are.
Still, I think the lesson to be learned here is the futility of pandering. Bill Clinton put his office in Harlem (which Hillary lost soundly) and has spent years pandering to black “leaders” thinking that they would deliver the black vote to Hillary. In fact, the masses are not listening to these leaders. Hillary will get no more of the black vote in these primaries than Ronald Reagan did in his general election campaigns (10-15%). Reagan appealed to Americans on the basis of values and American national interest, not pandering to group preferences. The Republican Party has loyally supported Israel while losing the Jewish vote in almost every election. This is what people respect – principles, not sectarian pandering at the national level.
Her problem is that since Obama is pretty much as close to the far left as a national politician can get, she has to attack him from the right (i.e. why are you sending enjoys to Syria, how much will you health care plan really cost, etc.); but, in a Dem primary, this might not work.
Exactly. In a Dem primary ca. 1992 or even 2000, it might have worked just fine. It did work for Bill back in ’92, when there was enough of a spectrum of opinion represented in the Democratic Party, and enough of a will to run from the center following the Dukakis debacle and the rise of the DLC, for him to run to the left of Tsongas but the right of Harkin and Brown. He was also able to get pretty fierce in debates and on the stump without being seen as a “negative campaigner” (horrors!). We’ve actually seen Hillary attempt to run at Obama from his left – on choice, on health care – against a candidate who went to the mat in favor of “live birth abortion” in Illinois, and who, as we all know, can heal the sick and revive the dead with his touch.
The bright side for Republicans, as Mara Liaison put it yesterday on Special Report, is that in McCain we have a candidate with a legitimate chance to run a campaign from the ideological center. In a normal year, being able to do so would almost guarantee electoral victory.
It’s odd and interesting that even at the current heights of Obamamania, Chris Matthews’ messiah isn’t beating McCain by much in the matchup polls. When he does beat McCain, the pollsters have had to screw the numbers heavily towards Dems.
Yes, it’s a long time until November 4 and anything can happen and blah blah. But right now is the crest of the Obama wave. Even over on the NRO Corner, John Derbyshire admits that his wife is an Obama supporter.
But Derbyshire’s reaction is telling: “Great, honey. You write the checks at tax time. Or maybe all those folk out in the rest of the world will write them for us.”
Now Derbyshire is a confirmed Hispanic-basher who hates Bush and McCain, and has even ridiculed the Bush tax cuts. But even Derb is starting to wonder if his McCain hate – and a sit-out on Election Day – might come back to hit him right in the wallet. (Uh, Derb, it would. Obama and a Democratic congress would jack up your taxes within a month of Inauguration Day.)
If somebody like Derbyshire shows even the teensiest-weensiest signs of coming around when he realizes what Obama would actually do…hm.