There is little doubt these days that Sen. Joe Lieberman is the most important man in the U.S. Senate. In a must-read Wall Street Journal interview he explains his objections to the public option and to ObamaCare more generally. As to the former, he observes:
It was always about how do we make the system more efficient and less costly, and how do we expand coverage to people who can’t afford it, and how do we adopt some consumer protections from the insurance companies . . . So where did this public option come from?. . . It doesn’t help one poor person get insurance who doesn’t have it now. It doesn’t compel one insurance company to provide insurance to somebody who has an illness. And . . . it doesn’t do anything to reduce the cost of insurance.
But it’s not just the public option. He’s not buying the supposed deficit neutrality of the Democrats’ scheme. He’s not buying that the Medicare cuts are for real or that the current bill will control costs. It sure sounds as though he’s going to vote to filibuster the sort of bill moving through the Senate. In short, Lieberman may be the only man, or at least the most resolute one, standing in the way of an atrocious government takeover of health care.
And on Afghanistan, Lieberman addresses concerns about the 18-month deadline to which many conservatives have objected:
But after probing Defense Secretary Bob Gates in a Senate hearing this week, he’s now more confident. “[Gates] compared it to the so-called ‘overwatch,’ which is really what we did in Iraq. As we felt the Iraqis were prepared to take over in certain areas, we pulled back but we didn’t pull out.” Mr. Lieberman believes this “pull back” is what begins in July 2011, and also felt he got assurances that it would start only in “uncontested” areas—and that there is no deadline for when all 30,000 troops must leave.
He cautions, however, that it’s up to the president to rally the country.
On these and other topics — Iran, the KSM trial, and the Patriot Act – Lieberman is once again front and center, arguing for a robust response to the threats America faces and opposing his Democratic former colleagues. One can argue it is only because the Senate generally depends on 60, not 51 votes, that Lieberman has such extraordinary and unique influence. But in truth, Lieberman has that influence because of the serious arguments he presents, his lack of political cant, and the moral clarity he brings to the debate. He has become the indispensable senator.
Matthew Yglesias, obviously, is no politician.
This is the best possible atmosphere to make a deal and that is what politicians do best.
Jim Jeffords only got a few milk subsidies, so this should pay out even better.
I’m sure there are plenty of declared super delegates that wish they had kept their mouths shut and sat it out.
The whole race has reached the point of diminishing returns. the more primaries they have the worse off the democrats. That is because they are allowing a sure loser to go on attacking their candidate for no clear reason, other than fears of nominating a black person.
Obama can’t win against McCain. Clinton is just letting it become self evident as the process goes on. Time is definetly not on Obama’s side, and this is the main reason Hillary keeps being pushed. The longer hes “exposed” (apparently learning about who’s the candidate and where he comes from is now a bad thing, according to the Obama playbook).
PA showed America that Obama is the candidate of te elite and the mass media. Just like the last debate “exposed” his political glass jaw.
The reason the superdelegates aren’t flocking to Obama is because he is a flawed candidate who has far less chances of winning than the media wants us to believe. Superdelegates like to be on the winning side, because then they get their promises fulfilled.
People who said they are tired of this and want SOME special folks to decide who should be in who should be out for the all the people are the TRAITORS of our Democracy!! Listen, there are states not voted yet, there are voters not even participated in the process and yet enthusiastic. AND, there are voters who voted are NOT COUNTED yet. They pay tax, they have voices and they are not invisible!
Luis Garcia, you are wrong bro plain and simple. The people and talking points you’ve been listening to are wrong too. This has become a slow bleed nothing more. Anyone other than a Clinton and former First Lady would be cut off by now by the media and the superdelegates. Pennysylvania’s pointless charade wouldn’t have even happened if Hillary hadn’t been given the respect and slack by the media, superdelegates and voters, her position in the party warrants. Bottom line truth though is she cannot win unless Obama completely self-distructs which hasn’t happened. If you remeber Bill Clinton won just fine while having legitimate directly linked financial and personal scandals. Obama’s manufactured problems are no deal breaker my man. No the truth is he will not get a certain percent no matter what because he’s black. He will not get Republicans who vote straight party lines. Race is unique to him and it’s a real challenge because he has a built in group that would vote for a dog before him. Despite voter ignorance and partisanship thought Obama will still be the next President and all you dopes will be left wondering how.
I am a Journalist from Iraq. i do support Hillary Clinton. I ask you superdelegated to choose her, because she is the candidate who can beat Mccain in the general election. People of Iraq Love Hillary because she is experienced and her supporters are experienced and not enthusiastic as Obama’s. back Hillary all.
John — if you’re really a reporter, you need a good editor. In addition, the views of Iraqis are irrelevant in this election, but I’d like to see the evidence for your statement.
On to the main point of the post: it’s time for the Dems to reform their disastrous reforms. The way delegates are divvied up is ridiculous. They got lucky in 2004 when Kerry quickly emerged as the frontrunner with no serious challengers after Super Tuesday. Moving to a winner-take-all system, and dumping the superdelegates, is the only way to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
The only question is whether “journalist John” is a real Al-Quaida operative trying a pathetic manipulation of the US left, or rather a sock-puppet imitating an Al-Quaida operative.
Jon S. – I wonder if you realize that if the Democrats had a winner take all system, Hillary would be the nominee? I agree with you, the proportionate system should be dumped.
This kind of pandering is exactly what corrupts our system. Because politicians believe that the money they harvest from us in taxes is theirs to distribute as if they had created it from thin air. There needs to be a new perspective for the 21st century. Government has been enabled, by We the People, to require an IRS form 1099 when we take any risk that generates cash. Those that are consumers of our tax dollars, in whatever form, need to also get their cash consumption noted by a 1099. Government redistributing income must be followed with a form noting the income receipt!
1099 for All
The “Winner Take All” system (that and his brother and katherine harris, the traitor) is what handed Bush the victory in 2000, despite the popular vote. We -want- this? Really? Are you people serious? Democratic means that people vote and a majority rules. Not some made-up number of “electoral college” members or “delegates.”
Obama still has the popular vote and the delegate count.
I don’t understand this Obama electibility arguement at all. Think about it. 80% of Americans think we are on the wrong track after 8 years of a Republican administration. GWB has one of the lowest approval ratings in history. McCain has been joined at the hip with GWB on economic and foreign policy. Either Clinton or Obama would win in a cakewalk by relentlessly framing McCain as a third GWB term. Does anyone really think rural blue collar Pennsylvanians would sit home in November, or vote Republican. Makes no sense and I don’t beleive the supers will buy it. HRC needed an overwhelming victory in Pa and did not get it. North Carolina will go big for Obama and mostly restore the pre-Padelegaqte and pop. counts. The supers should jump to Obama now so the Dems can end McCain’s free ride.
Luis Garcia, check out just how many supers have “flocked” to Obama since the Feb. 5 contests compared to Hillary. I think it’s approximated 60 to Obama and 2 to Clinton. So I guess it’s how you define the word “flocked.”
Journalist “John” is “right on” with his analysis. If the Supers had really been interested in doing what was good for the Democratic Party, they would have alreally “flocked” to Obama far before now. As it is, we’re damaged badly, and why? Because of the Clinton machine and their desire to win at any cost and the supers inability to get over thenselves and their self importance. It’s too late.
It’s over, I think anyway. I, for one, will not vote for Hillary regardless. She’s unethical, a liar, changes colors like a chamaleon (sp?), has huge negatives and will definitely lose in the fall. She and supers have blown our chances once again. Thank you very much.
It’s time for the Superdelegates to endorse Hillary. She is the only one who can beat John McCain in November. She has proved that by winning the right demographics and the right States. There is nothing else to ask. Go Hillary! Our next President.
Jon S: You are an arrogant fool. You need an editor as much as John, the only difference being that you write in your native language and he doesn’t.
Obama’s legislative record will label him (mostly accurately) as a far-left ideologue (strike one) – who has not bothered to develop any of the important presidential capabilities (executive, economic, foreign policy, military, or even business) except “speechifying” (strike two) – and is embedded in a church-full of racist, anti-American bigots (strike three).
The attack ads practically write themselves. E.g., “…far-left elitist “stealth candidate” – camouflaged behind sweet, empty, ‘cotton-candy rhetoric’”.
Obama’s McGovern and will suffer the same fate.
“It behooves those people to have this go on as long as possible, because that is how they are going to get the most goodies.”
True, but the author overlooks the fact that Hillary also has the FBI files containing “raw data” that she stole from Justice in the earl ’90s. If she gets desperate, she’ll take out a couple of visible superdelegates and make sure the others know what happened. That’s why she’ll stay to the very, very end.
blah blah blah… All this hoopla.. the time and money wasted.. all your bloviating and the nominee will be settled by a few bigwigs in the party brokering a deal behind closed doors. Democratic process my ass….
Iglesias should stick to covering Iraq and avoid punditry on superdelegates whom he obviously does not understand.
It’s all about the money. Each U.S. election cycle confirms it, this one more than ever.
Of course when talking about money, how can one NOT talk about superdelegates, those most predictably pecuniary beings in American politics? When the media says that superdelegates will be taking a hard cold look at the situation before they make their decision, it generally means they will be pulling out their calculators and dealing in cash.
The dynamics of the superdelegate decision-making process is simple. Obama has money to share (at the moment) and neither the Democratic Party nor the DCCC nor the Clinton campaign do. Howling Howard has done such a stunningly incompetent job of raising money for the Democrats that he also needs that Obama pot of gold. Now. Badly.
At this point, the superdelegate has something to barter for a seat on the gravy train: his endorsement. It will be worth even more later on, as long as the golden goose keeps laying and the contest stays unresolved. We’re talking about the presumably most skilled politicians in the party. You think they don’t know exactly how to milk this for their campaign chests?
Give Obama time. He talked himself into it and he will talk himself out of it. Obama is cintrived from start to finish.
Florida Girl Says:
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 AM
“Jon S. – I wonder if you realize that if the Democrats had a winner take all system, Hillary would be the nominee? I agree with you, the proportionate system should be dumped.”
And if it was the other way, you would argue for the system the wy it is now. But guess what, the way it is, is the way we are working with. Ultimately, Obama will win. Hillary is just on life support……………….
Arguing that Obama can beat McCain is simply not a method by which Obama can beat McCain.
For all of Obama’s lead in pledged delegates, 90 percent of those pledged delegates were won in caucus states, where, in most cases, voters only come out in single digits, and when if five percent of the voters come out to vote, it is considered a massive turnout. In these states, the nominee is chosen largely by the local political activists, the local political elite, and the most affluent members of the community. While no one is excluded, the caucus process, in these times, is so inconvenient for working class. blue collar, and voters with children and families to come to, that they make up a much smaller percentage of those who select the nominee than they make up of the general population. They are a last vestige of the sort of system by which the Democrats chose a candidate in the late sixties, seventies, and well into the 1980′s. It was the party elite and political activists who decided who would become the nominee.
Mr Obamas base resembles the Democratic Party that sent many Democrats into the arms of Ronald Reagan, to become the “Reagan Democrats” Obama’s base. Still largely the African American vote, and those who earn more than 75,000 dollars a year. Even when Obama won the “Potomac Primaries” the assertion that the media made that Obama was cutting into Clintons base falls apart under closer scutiny. Sure he got more working class voters and women than previously. But in D.C. where the median family income is 98,000 dollars a year, Virginia, where is is around 70,000 a year, the Northern Virginia Suburbs of Washington DC being some of the wealthiest communities in America, and finally the poorest of the three Potomac Primary States, Maryland, with a median family income of 65,000 a year, makes these states very atypical of middle class America, where the median family income is about 48,000 a year. States like Ohio, where Clinton won handily have a median family income lower than the national average. The median family income in Ohio is around 44,000 a year.
Out of all the states which Obama won, he only polls higher than McCain in only a handful of them. By not even the most extreme stretch of the imagination, can anyone see Obama defeating McCain in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah, and those other very, very Red States that have given Obama his pledged delegate lead. Obama will win those few states, like his own home state, Vermont, Wisconsin. But by and large, polls of most of the other states he won show McCain ahead of Obama by double digits, many by more than 20 percent, a few in the high twenties.
Like most recent elections, this one is going to come down to a few states, by some analyses, five or six states, by others three states, with as few as 32 electoral votes undecided.
For example, polls in Florida, which is one of those make or break states, the average of polls for a McCain/Obama race shows McCain winning by 11.3 percent. which is way beyond the margin of error for all of the polls involved. When this is a McCain/Clinton race, the same polls show McCain winning but only by three tenths of a percent, which basically means that Clinton and McCain are in a dead heat for that state. Obama has engendered a lot of ill will by being very wishy washy about the situation regarding that states primary vote, and Clinton has greatly benefitted by supporting the voters of that state and their insistance that their vote be counted. Again all the arguments that this will not have an effect in November are basically demolished by every poll taken since January when Democrats had a decisive lead over every potential Republican nominee.
Ohio presents an even better case for Clinton. In a Mc Cain/Obama race in that state, McCain leads Obama by 2.6 percent in the average of recent polls. This is just a point within the margin of error for the polls in that state. On the other hand the average of the same polls shows Clinton beating McCain by 5 points, which is just ont point beyond the margin of error for those polls. That is to say, that McCain is clearly ahead of Obama by a significant amount in Florida, while Clinton has less of an uphill battle against McCain in Florida, if she has an uphill battle at all, because the race is so close in the most recent polls.
On the other hand the same can be said in Ohio. Clintons lead in Ohio is enough to cause McCain to have to fight a lot harder to win that state than he would with Obama. He is ahead of Obama in Ohio, he is behind Clinton.
In Pennsylvania, Obama is ahead of McCain, by the same amount that McCain is ahead of Obama in Ohio. That is to say that they are again neck and neck. A Clinton/McCain race in Pennsylvania has Clinton ahead by 6.1 percent. This again is an amount that is beyond the margin of error, which means this is another state McCain will have to fight a lot harder in if Clinton is the nominee.
In these three swing states, a fight against Obama is much easier for McCain than a fight against Clinton.
No matter how enthusiatic Obamas supporters are, there are a lot of Red States that may be unsatisified with Bush, but not enough for those states to turn Blue in a wave of Obama intoxication. There are some states where for the majority of people, the words “Change and Hope” are four letter words. While some conservatives want change, its not in the direction that Obama supporters want. If they want change, its more towards the conservative, not towards the kind of change Obama is talking about. To many of those conservatives, George Bush was not a conservative. They still believe in cutting taxes, and government spending and since George Bush didnt do that, they want change, but towards a more conservative govenrment, not towards a more liberal one.
Right now there are about 38 electoral votes in states that are considered “toss ups” That is states that are not designates as “safely” in the hands of a party, “likely” meaning they are most likely to vote for a party, or “leaning” which means that it might be possible for them to go one way or the other, but one party is more favored than the other.
The four toss up states are Colorado with 9 electoral votes, Nevada with five, New Hampshire with 4, and finally Ohio, with 20.
With these four states, recent electoral history puts 3 out of 4 of them into the hands of Republicans. Ohio is the biggest prize, and a win here gives McCain the election.
There are also other states where McCain is closer to winning than any other Republican has been in years, like Pennsylvania.
The math for the general election is not in Obamas favor. McCain will have a much easier fight against Obama, and he has several options to win the election. There are a handful of states that Clinton is ahead of McCain by a good margin, where Obama is not, and this gives McCain more choices and ways by which he can win the election in the electoral college that exist with an Obama nomination that are not there under a Clinton nomination. That is he can lose Ohio if he picks up Pennsylvania and vice versa. But with Clinton, she is far enough ahead to make this far less possible.
Obama has yet to show that he can win in these swing states. He begs the question when he says “Can anyone imagine me losing New York or California to McCain”. He knows the answer is no.
But he avoids the question of “can anyone imagine me losing Pennsylvania to McCain” The answer to that is pretty much yes. And it is for two or three other states that are necessary to win the election in November.
The ABC debate showed that Obama is really not prepared to face the sort of questioning he will face against the Republicans in a general election. And for all Obamas complaining about those questions, they were basically fair questions. Questions that the cable media was avoiding hitting him with. The worse part is that Obama was not prepared for the obvious. A president has to be not only prepared for the obvious, but prepared for the not so obvious.
Avoiding the issue like Obama did is something a president cannot do in a crisis. Avoiding another debate in North Carolina simply adds to the impression of wimping out on the part of Obama. It makes him appear weak, and that is something that will also be exploited in the general election
follow up question to:
Why can’t Obam win Pa?
Since the super delegates have waited this long, what happens if they intend to support the candidate with the largest popular vote?
guam could very well provide the margin that puts Hillary over the top.
If I were a super delgate?
I cast my vote early, or I cast it when the voting is done. How many superdelegates did obama get in the dead period? Why so few?
Hillary will win the nomination.
Obama is all duck and no dinner.
THis is almost too much fun to warch-the party that screamed about letting every vote count, as if constitutional democracy was simple plebiscite, subordinates its selection process to a secretive elite, innocuously called “superdelegates” and the lemmings march along.
No wonder Thomas Nast represented this party with a jack*ss.
Why is it that someone like Ray (post #5) says Obama will not get a certain percentage of votes because he is black and it is a real challenge to him because there is a group that would vote for a dog before him. Such hyperbole doesn’t add much to the debate, but — is it not equally true that there is a certain percentage of blacks that would never vote against a black man running for office, no matter who his or her opponent is. It truly is a two edged sword. Judging from Obama’s white liberal base, race is truly immaterial to a very large number of white people, so stop playing the race card, Ray.
Well said, finally a good report on this stuff