Whew. It's been a long weekend over here at the Editors Blog as we all recover from our post-Scurvy Awareness Day hangovers. The problem with a Vitamin C overdose is that you can't get over it just by drinking lots of orange juice.

Anyway, apparently on her Stephanopolous-moderated town hall in Indiana this morning, Hillary Clinton just referred to anyone who knows anything about economics as "elites." As someone who once wikipediad "sunk-cost fallacy," I am indignant. Here's the quote:

"It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit..."

For the record, she was asked to name one credible economist who supported her gas-tax plan (the one that no one supports). And that was her answer. There are some occupations where I think it is acceptable to make sweeping character judgments of everyone in the field. The first job that comes to mind is bounty hunter, but I'm sure I could think of others. Academia, however, is not one of these. Experts in a field almost never come to universal agreement on matters. 1500 years after the fact, historians still debate whether or not Rome actually fell (let alone what caused such a fall). You will find "elites" on both sides of every major policy issue, from poverty to Pakistan. There's an institutionalized contrarianism as well, where experts will adopt a dismissed policy and see if they can make an argument for it.

And yet the Clinton gas-tax plan has managed to unite the entire field of economics against one policy proposal. It'd be like discussing creationism at a convention of biologists. I had thought for ages that John McCain's admission that he knows nothing about economics would make him the candidate who knows the least about economics, but now I'm starting to second-guess things.

This really shouldn't matter, because politicians pander all the time, especially on economic issues. But there's a difference between speaking to the audience on the trail, and actually introducing legislation that everyone agrees is really bad, just for a few meaningless votes.

Last point on this: Apparently later in the program, this happened:

Stephanopoulos turned the mike over to a woman who said she supported Obama and said she makes less than $25,000 a year.

"I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax," the woman said, adding: "Call me crazy but I actually listen to economists because I think they know what they've studied."

aww shucks.

Labels: Hillary, l337 hax0rz, pointless legislation

And so we beat on.

In the end, after the weeks of manufactured drama, negative ads, and cheap-shots at people who shop at Whole Foods, the Pennsylvania primary was ultimately as inconclusive as the long line of primaries that came before it. What was supposed to be the biggest thing to hit the state since the immaculate reception instead ended with a whimper, Senator Clinton's 9.3-percent margin of victory meeting expectations but failing to break the deadlock. Or at least that seems to be thinking.

The reality, I think, is a bit different, and goes back to something I wrote before about basketball teams' tendency to foul in the final minutes of games. Hillary cut into Obama's delegate lead a little bit yesterday, but much more important that is the foreboding road ahead, and the total number of delegates that were just taken off the board for good. In a vacuum, the win is a big win, but viewed in its proper context as her last chance to make up pledged delegates, it's a real blow.

All of which relates back, somewhat tangentially, to a column I have in Tuesday's Maroon about Obama's "brush your shoulders off" moment in North Carolina. While primary results and mundane controversies might dominate the airwaves and public discourse, their impact pales in comparison to the unspoken truths (i.e. delegate math, organization, money) that make an Obama victory all but inevitable.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary, Pennsylvania

Joshua Marshall doesn't like Hillary Clinton's new Harry S. Truman-themed ad, but I disagree. It's actually quite brilliant when you think about it: Clinton can say "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen," but there's no way Obama can turn that around without sounding just a little misogynist. If you thought bitter-gate was insufferable, imagine the fallout if Obama were to accidentally tell Hillary to "get back in the kitchen."

Labels: campaign ads, Hillary

One of the more frustrating situations for any basketball fan is the incessant fouling at the end of the games when the score is almost certainly out of reach. Down by, say, 11, with 40 seconds to play, the losing team will continue to foul and pray for a miracle no one really wants to see. The end result is that the final 40 seconds will last for about 40 times as long, with no real impact on the final result. Sometimes this extends even longer: Texas began fouling Memphis with eight minutes to play yesterday.

The problem is obvious: Fouling virtually assures the winning team of a steady trickle of points, meaning that even if the losing team hits its shots, it will take far longer to trim any deficit. For Texas’s strategy to work, they probably should have started at halftime.

So why I am talking about this? Because this has been Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy since Super Tuesday. There have been lots of shameless attacks (clearly not going for the ball), the scoreboard tells her she has no chance, and she’s airballed a few three-pointers. Yet she continues to foul, managing only to drag the contest out for far too long, and possibly inflict injury on the winner that could affect him in the next round.

And if you’re wondering, yes, Mike Gravel is Davidson in this analogy.

Labels: Hillary

If there is such a thing as the "Commander-in-Chief Threshold," I imagine one of the main criteria is that the President of the United States can never be shown up by Sinbad. In fact that's probably a prerequisite for most jobs in this country, including—but not limited to—meat packing and ice sculpting. Sinbad, for all his virtues, exists in large part so that we can feel better about ourselves. And that's what makes this whole Bosnia imbroglio so frustrating.

Since Alec last posted on this, old news footage has surfaced proving that not only was there no sniper fire in Tuzla, but that Hillary, Sinbad, Sheryl Crow, and Chelsea (ed note: !!) were greeted on the runway by an eight-year-old girl with a poem. You can watch it here. Duck and cover!

With her myth thoroughly debunked, Mrs. Clinton is now in the uncomfortable position of having to explain herself—a situation made even more uncomfortable by the fact that there is no logical explanation for the flap. I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it seems highly implausible that she had actually tricked herself into thinking that the eight-year-old girl with the original poem was actually shooting at her. Anyway, here's her explanation, and attempt to spin it as an endearing character flaw:

I just made a mistake. I had a different memory. My staff and others have all come together trying to sort out -- so I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human, which for some is a revelation.

Happens all the time.

Labels: Hillary, places that used to be in Yugoslavia, Sinbad

If First Kid taught me anything, it's that you never want to get Sinbad angry. He is 6 feet and 5 inches of pure power. Hell, the man has overcome death, you just don't mess with that.

But, that is what Mrs. Experience, Hillary Clinton, has gone and done. Hillary has been really ramping up her foreign policy experience lately and one key data point she has used is when she went to Bosnia in 1996:

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. "They said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said.

But, Sinbad describes the trip a little differently:

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the "scariest" part of the trip was wondering where he'd eat next. "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'"

...

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

Sinbad even gets this pretty good riff off on Hillary's stump speech logic:

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

In response, the Clinton campaign has gone after Sinbad, claiming he recounted the story differently in 2000. Maybe we need to hear Sheryl Crow's side of the story.

Crow, of course, was the third member of the famous diplomatic MOD squad that set things right in Bosnia.

Labels: Hillary, Sinbad

A while back we commented on an outrageously awesome Jimmy Carter campaign video in which he sat at his desk in the Oval Office, decked out in a gray cardigan, working into the wee hours of the morning because: "Even at the end of a long working day, there’s a new piece of legislation to consider, or one more phone call to be made, or another cable to read. A cable from the other side of the turning world, where the sun is shining, and something is happening."

It was wildly effective, and as a result, Carter was reelected in a landslide in 1980.

Fast-forward to February, 2008, and here's Hillary Clinton's latest ad:



...and for full comparison, here's Jimmy Carter's:


It looks like Hillary has really stumbled upon the recipe for success here.

Labels: campaign ads, Hillary, Jimmy Cardigan

We at the The Editors Blog like to give credit where credit is due. So rather than criticize Hillary Clinton for getting whalloped in South Carolina and then letting her husband offer up the equivelant of "they all look the same, anyway," I'd like to commend her for the manner in which she conceded yesterday.

Two weeks ago, I wrote this:

Through it all, the whole concept seems cruel and ritualistic: Not only do we force our second choices to actually abide by the election results, but we make them give a speech about it to boot. There is no easy solution to the concession crisis, but for entertainment’s sake, something must be done to break the trend. Anyone familiar with professional football understands that the sight of a sunglass-wearing star wide receiver blaming the media after a playoff loss is far more satisfying than having to sit through 20 minutes of an unsuccessful stump speech. Or perhaps the losing candidate should be forced to leave the state in shame, Real World–style, as dozens of cameras capture his final moments at headquarters.

So what does Senator Clinton do? Not only does she pretend the primary never happened, but she bolted the state in anger, Real World-style. The polls had only just closed when Hillary boarded a plane for Tennessee. And when she got there, she started talking about Florida, and American Samoa, and everywhere else on God's little green acre except for South Carolina.

So a tip of the hat to you, Mrs. Clinton. It's nice to see someone reads my columns.

Labels: Hillary, Maroon column boost

From the Guardian (via TPM), comes this gem out of the mouth of an "unidentified Clinton advisor":

"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."

Oh?

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary

1.) Mike Huckabee told MSNBC this morning that "Fred Thompson needs some Metamucil." I don't think so highly of the Governor as I once did, but the fact remains that he can be pretty funny. The Metamucil line is good because it's fresh and because it will take Fred another week and a half to come up with a comeback. It also brings up an important point about Huckabee's candidacy: Jokes are almost never as funny the second time around. Invariably that wears off on the comic himself as well: If he has a good line in an interview, it might work its way into his stump, but the sense of timing is gone, and its told in a droning rhetorical fashion rather than a comedic one.

2.) Hillary Clinton's attempt to draw a parallel between the civil rights movement and the democratic primary might not be the dumbest move of the last month (I've reserved the top five spots for Fred Thompson), but it should certainly be part of the discussion. Rather than just reject the premise that Obama is in MLK's class, as she should have, she instead took on Dr. King himself, arguing that it was Lydon Johnson who was in the end responsible for the successes of the civil rights movement. In effect arguing that it was the experienced politician (her), and not the skilled orator/inspirational leader/freedom riders/everyone else basically that brought about change.

I mean, there are probably facts that she could have used to support that, but why would anyone in her right mind want to? It's one thing to try and burst Obama's bubble, but it's another thing entirely to put forth the notion, in the middle of an election, that the power to effect change is held by a select few--not ordinary people. So now, after unnecessarily attempting to rewrite King's legacy, her words may have prompted James Clyburn to break his silence and endorse the other guy.

Two other problems with her scenario: First, does she really want to compare herself to LBJ? There was that whole Vietnam thing, which as a particularly hawkish democrat, probably isn't the best association for Hillary to be making. Second, Obama is actually running for president, so if I accept the idea that inspiration is nice but presidents are stronger, why shouldn't I just pick the inspirational guy to be president?

3.) I was just thinking the other day about how badly we need another president incapable of distinguishing between Al Qaeda and the sovereign nation of Iran. At last night's debate, Fred Thompson said this about the Iranian speedboat incident:

"I think one more step, and they would have been introduced to those virgins they're looking forward to seeing."

Truefacts, Fred. Truefacts.

Labels: Fred, Hillary, Mike Huckabee, MLK, war on terror

Via Slate's excellent Trailhead: Apparently, the woman responsible for Hillary's near-waterworks two days ago ended up voting for Obama.

Pernold tells 630 WMAL she still voted for Barack Obama, because she had attended one of his rallies earlier in the week, and she claims Obama's stirring speech brought HER to tears!

Jeepers.

Labels: Hillary, tear-gate

Chris Cooper of the Wall Street Journal was at both the Edwards and the Clinton events that I discussed (here and here), and he has video. You can watch it here.

Labels: Hillary, John Edwards, New Hampshire primary

In 45 minutes, the 42nd president of the United States will take the stage here in Nashua to tell us why his wife, more than any other living American including himself, should be the next President of the United States. There’s a big campaign bus and colorful placards (free!) and a giant American flag and two full podiums in the back for the press—one for television cameras and one for all the rest. But I can’t stop looking at the scarves.

I don’t go for scarves, myself. I find them constrictive, and sometimes they rise up and get in the way of my mouth. But I respect their utility. Nonetheless, I don’t understand why an estimated two out of every five supporters at Hillary’s Hangar have them wrapped around their necks. The place is crawling with them. Green “AFSCME for Hillary” scarves. Candy-striped scarves. Blue scarves, red scarves, everywhere a scarf scarf. It seems like an odd way to support a candidate.

As if it wasn’t abundantly clear from the suit-wearing campaign aides, the setting—an empty airplane hangar—and the overly perky buttons that say “Hillary!” (as if she’s a shoe company and not the junior senator from New York), the scarves make it clear this is a different kind of campaign than Edwards’s. It’s just a different slice of the electorate—latte liberals, to be sure.

At around 9:00, Bill, Chelsea, and Hillary all walk on stage to blaring music and the din of supporters. Bill is clearly energized—campaigning is so much easier when you don’t have to campaign—and when he grabs the mic, he tells us that he has never been prouder of Hillary than he was after last night’s caucuses. It’s understandable that as her husband he might feel that way, but to paraphrase the candidate, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to think that Thursday was a good night for Senator Clinton.

Bill speaks very briefly and the audience eats it up. He could start picking attendees out one by one and laughing at their insecurities and the rest of the supporters would probably just smile knowingly and murmur to their neighbors “he’s got a point, you know.” Such is his charm.

Hillary’ rally has the feeling of a general election-style event, if such an affair is even possible in New Hampshire. Rather than dwell on Iowa, she makes it clear that this is a national campaign and that she is looking at the big picture. Specifically, that she is already battle-tested against the harshest Republican attacks, making light of the high level of scrutiny devoted to the Clintons during their White House years. More impressively, though, are the substantive elements of her speech. She carefully outlines her major policy proposals in health care and Iraq. She’s not a populist and doesn’t try to be; her strength comes in her practicality and ability take the audience through an issue step-by-step, mixing personal and political examples to support her arguments and relate it to whomever it is she’s talking to. In the right format she can be commanding; the whole event is like a “frequently asked questions” page on a website.

One more interesting distinction between Hillary and Edwards comes from her supporters. Whereas Paulie and company seemed to be having a blast warming up Manchester for John and Elizabeth (“We like Elizabeth, we like John. We want to see them on the White House lawn!”), the Clintonites struggle to come up with anything more creative than “Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!” The name Hillary should by no means be a hindrance to catchy jingles. Hillary rhymes with distillery, for example. What’s she brewing? Freedom! Or you could use “Hill” which opens up lots of things—Bill, chill, kill, ill, windowsill. I don’t ask for much.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Hillary, New Hampshire primary, scarves

Remember Sinbad?

The man whose rise to prominence enchanted America. Although his film choices were about as smart as Shaquille O'Neal, he was on a hit TV show and was probably a pretty good stand up comedian.

Also, you gotta respect anyone that was in Coneheads. I know I do.

Well, Sinbad's name is making it's way back into the news. No, not because of his erroneously reported death. Turns out Sinbad was a political player back in the 90s and did some work with the Clinton's that Hillary is playing up now (sort of).

Meredith Viera (of all people) makes the case:



Now, there is only one way to settle this issue: We need to hear Sinbad's side of the story. Just what happened in Bosnia? What did the Sinbad-Hillary team really accomplish?

On top of that, I want to see just how the Bosnia experience has shaped Sinbad's decision this year.

Obama and Hillary might have a lot of Hollywood backing, but Sinbad is more than your run of the mill Scarlett Johanson or Magic Johnson. His performance in First Kid demonstrates his knowledge of the White House and his embrace of technology shows he is a true 21st century candidate (take that Barack Obama). Hell, Sinbad has even managed to overcome his own death.

He also has real cross party appeal. Sinbad is the son of a preacher, has served in the military, and hates taxes so much that he doesn't even pay them (not even Ron Paul has gone that far).

(via)

Labels: Hillary, Sinbad

The hammer came crashing down on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) today, highlighted by this satisfying indictment. Truly, a great day for humanity.

I don't have much to say about Barry Bonds, except that he's the sporting equivelant of Hillary Clinton. Just as no one disputes Bonds's obvious talent as a ballplayer, few people dispute that Hillary could one day make a very effective Senate Majority Leader--It's a matter of whether or not you're willing to put up with all of the skeletons in the name of productivity.

Labels: Barry Bonds, Hillary