SOVERN NATION

The Race Is On

2012-01-04T01:19:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure which overtime nail-biter was more riveting: Monday's Stanford-Oklahoma State thriller in the Fiesta Bowl, or Tuesday's crazy, razor-close Iowa Republican caucus. For Cardinal fans, the football game was certainly more heartbreaking. For supporters of all but two of the Republican candidates, Iowa was.

This kind of real human drama is what can make both politics and sports so compelling. Since primaries and caucuses became a regular feature of presidential campaigns, starting in Oregon in 1910 and really catching on for good in 1936, there simply has never been one like the Hawkeye Cauci we just witnessed. In the wee hours, CNN actually roused the two ladies in Clinton County whose sleepy, shaky vote tabulations, worked out live on the telephone, determined the outcome (and they immediately started trending on Twitter).

In case you went to bed before the final numbers came in, here they are:

Mitt Romney    25% (30,015 votes)
Rick Santorum     25% (30,007 votes)
Ron Paul    21%
Newt Gingrich    13%
Rick Perry    10%
Michele Bachmann 5%
Jon Huntsman 1%

Yes, folks, Romney won by eight votes. That is simply unprecedented in the history of American elections. Bush beating Gore by 537 votes in Florida in 2000? A veritable landslide. The Iowa result shatters the previous record for narrowest victory in a primary or caucus, held by South Dakota Governor Warren Green, who won his home state Republican primary in 1936 by 257 votes over Idaho Senator William Borah (they both lost the GOP nomination, though, to Alf Landon, who went on to crushing defeat at the hands of FDR).

The stunner here isn't just the closeness of this caucus, but which two Republicans came out on top. A month ago, this was a battle between Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul for the conservative soul of the Iowa GOP. Mitt Romney didn't intend to contest the caucus that intensely, not with social conservatives dominating the Iowa Republican Party and a sure victory awaiting him in New Hampshire. Rick Santorum was an asterisk in the polls. But with the collapse of first Herman Cain, then Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, Romney sensed an opening and began to pour resources into the state. Meanwhile, Santorum was plugging away, biding his time, staying true to himself and hoping the conservatives would eventually come to him. They did. Now both the Massachusetts moderate and the Pennsylvania conservative can lay claim to outperforming expectations and emerging from Iowa as the only true contenders for the nomination.

As I wrote Monday, Santorum is still a long shot, even with his out-of-nowhere surge in Iowa. Most American voters will react the way my wife did when she saw him on TV last night: "Rick who?" When they Google Santorum, the first thing they'll find will be the derogatory definition that's haunted him ever since his notorious comments about homosexuality in 2003. He has little money and no ground organization in the states ahead, most critically Florida. He'll get massive media attention now, and certainly an infusion of donations and volunteers, especially from those abandoning the Perry, Bachmann and Gingrich campaigns. He can consolidate the anti-Romney conservatives and present himself as the only viable alternative. He and Paul will gang up on Romney in this weekend's New Hampshire debates, while Gingrich spews venom at the frontrunner and becomes the bomb-throwing attack dog he swore he wouldn't be. But Santorum has to ramp up in a hurry, and while the party establishment rallies around Romney, the Pennsylvanian will feel the heat of Romney's Super PAC, which will educate Republican voters about some of his more extreme positions, arguing they make him unelectable in November, and he probably won't have the resources or campaign infrastructure to respond effectively.

Romney, in the meantime, is on the verge of becoming the only non-incumbent presidential candidate ever to sweep both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. It just hasn't happened before, and it's likely to give him powerful momentum heading into the Southern states, where he has trailed Gingrich in the polls (Romney's 25% is the lowest in history for an Iowa caucus winner, but he benefits from a perfect storm: first, a fractured field of conservatives who split the Iowa right wing, leaving the moderates to him, and next, a primary state in which he happens to be a virtual favorite son, thanks to his vacation home there and his familiarity as governor of neighboring Massachusetts). Santorum will try to take Newt's spot at the top in South Carolina and Florida, but it'll be a tall order, especially in the less conservative Sunshine State.

None of this means Romney coasts from here. Ron Paul and his fanatic base will stick around for a while. The Iowa outcome underscores that conservatives just can't stomach the wishy-washy Romney, whom many see as a robotic opportunist. Voters are clearly moved by Santorum's sincerity, by his emotional, populist appeal, by his air of authenticity. He's a smart guy and a terrific campaigner. His "victory" speech last night (delivered while Romney was pulling ahead of him for good) may have been the best I've seen so far this campaign season. It was heartfelt and real, and if that's his introduction for many voters, it will serve him well. Meanwhile, Romney stumbled awkwardly through his basic stump speech, his laugh lines falling flat like some bad Catskills comedian. The contrast between the Teleprompted Romney and the off-the-cuff Santorum will be even more stark in the days ahead.

Romney needs to break through the 25% ceiling that's kept him from pulling away from the flawed field of conservatives trying to chase him down. Electability is his trump card, and he's banking that, outside Iowa, more Republican voters prioritize beating President Obama over sticking with their core convictions. It's a cynical calculation but I think it's a winning play for Romney. He'll also be helped by a return to the focus on jobs and the economy, which weren't the central issues in Iowa, where the economy is relatively strong. The argument that Romney is the turnaround artist the country needs will resonate much more in the states to come.

Whatever lies ahead, this campaign is off to a much more rousing start than anyone anticipated, and the fun, and drama, are just beginning.

Chasing Shadows

2012-01-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

For 36 years now (my God, how could I possibly be this old?) I have been predicting the major party presidential nominees before the caucuses and primaries begin. Through some inexplicable confluence of luck, gut hunches (or maybe that was just something I ate) and complex planetary alignment, I'm 9-for-9 picking the GOP nominee. I'm only 7-for-9 on the Democrats - and I've got a two-race losing streak (yeah yeah, still living down that Howard Dean pick in '04 and smarting from that Hillary guess last time).

Past results are no guarantee of future success. The more "expert" I supposedly become, the less I seem to know - although I did predict John McCain's nomination while the rest of the punditocracy was still planning Rudy Giuliani's inauguration, so some of my fading instincts remain intact.

At any rate, it is the eve of the 2012 Iowa Caucus, which means it's time to resurrect the blog just in time to crawl out on a very shaky limb and make my quadrennial prognostications, whether I want to or not.

This time, the Democrats are easy. Despite those mystifying robocalls touting Hillary Clinton as a replacement candidate for Barack Obama, I will boldly and confidently predict that President Obama will win the Democratic primaries and be nominated for a second term. There. Snapped that losing streak on the donkey side (and I don't buy that Clinton-and-Biden-job swap rumor for a second, either. Sorry, Robert Reich, your trial balloon has just been popped).

As for the Republicans...well, the last 12 months might as well have never happened. A year ago, Mitt Romney was the frontrunner and the nominee apparent, and I've seen nothing to change that calculus. The most conservative GOP voters still don't trust him. Most of the evangelicals will never support him. But I still don't see a viable alternative for the Republican Party. Each of the more conservative candidates has taken a turn as the Not Romney, and each has faded as fast as he or she has risen. I'm puzzled by why it's taken this long for Rick Santorum to get his chance, and perhaps since his surge is coming last, he can actually parlay it into an Iowa caucus victory and a sustained spell as the Anyone But Romney candidate. Santorum's always been the longest of long shots - ultra-conservative, he couldn't even get re-elected in Pennsylvania so how could he win the presidency? - but he comes across as smart, sincere and committed. No one can question his conservative principles or his knowledge of the issues, which you'd think would endear him to the voters who matter most in an Iowa GOP caucus. Through every spasm of excitement about Trump, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, I wondered why Santorum wasn't catching fire with the right, and if he ever would. Finally, he is, and just in time for him to emerge from Iowa, improbably, in the top tier.

But even if Santorum or Ron Paul wins in Iowa tomorrow, it won't be enough to deny Mitt Romney the nomination. Neither of them can broaden his appeal beyond the party's right wing, and neither can plausibly move enough to the middle to defeat President Obama in November. The Republicans remain torn in the way that the out party always is: when the Democrats aren't in control, there's a fight between its liberal wing and the pragmatists who want to nominate a centrist who can win the White House (read: Bill Clinton). When the GOP is on the outs, it squabbles between the conservative purists and the nominate-an-electable-moderate crowd. In California, the conservatives consistently outnumber the pragmatists, which is why the Republican Party here is sliding towards irrelevance. The conservatives dominate the process in Iowa, too. But the national GOP establishment desperately wants to deny Obama a second term, so it is rallying around Romney now, trying to consolidate his support and present his nomination as inevitable. It probably is.

Romney, Paul and Santorum will all declare victory of sorts in Iowa, no matter who wins the most votes (or the most delegates, which won't be decided until much later in Iowa's nominating process). Either Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann probably will too - whichever of them runs fourth will pronounce him/herself this cycle's "comeback kid" and live, briefly, to fight on in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the rest will be mortally wounded and will bow out, followed soon enough by Jon Huntsman after he gets blasted back to Utah by Romney in the New Hampshire primary.

That will leave Romney as the mainstream establishment frontrunner, and Paul and Santorum to slug it out for the conservative mantle. When the campaign shifts to Florida at the end of the month, Romney's superior organization and financial firepower will win that state's winner-take-all retail TV ad war, and he will win again in Nevada a month from now to essentially end the race. The campaign to actually clinch the nomination will slog on, now that the GOP has changed its rules so that most states award delegates proportionally, but it will become a formality, and the Obama-Romney general election sniping will begin in earnest by Groundhog Day.

Which is apropos, since Mitt Romney has been looking over his shoulder at the shape-shifting shadow of "the conservative candidate" for more than a year now. Within a month, the sun will be shining brightly enough on his candidacy to spring him forward, into a fall fight with President Obama.

Tune to KCBS (740AM/106.9FM/cbssf.com) for returns from Iowa, with attendant analysis, and from New Hampshire next week. I will be blogging on a regular basis again now that 2012 is here and my Twitter novel is in the rear view mirror.

The Folding Tent

2011-09-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

Some quick notes after watching tonight's Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley...

There may be eight people running - and another one, Sarah Palin, still mulling a campaign - but this has quickly shrunk to a two-person race. It's Romney v. Perry, pure and simple. The other six candidates on that stage are no longer relevant and have zero chance of winning the Republican nomination.

Mitt Romney turned in another solid performance, as he usually does. He remains the smoothest and most polished of the GOP candidates. He's well-versed on the issues, quick on his feet and tough to rattle, although when the questions turn to topics with which he's less comfortable he has a bad habit of looking like he just ate some bad fish.

Rick Perry made a decent debut on the national stage, but between his deep-set eyes and that haircut he looks like a shady land agent trying to sell you a dry hole in West Texas. After a strong start jabbing Romney on job creation, Perry faded badly and was downright inarticulate at times. More than once, I found myself wondering what in the world he was trying to say during his stumbling non-answers to some of the questions. I do give him props (or, as Perry pronounced it, "propes") for standing up for HPV vaccinations for young girls, a program that's anathema to the conservatives he's courting. Perry firmly, and correctly, pointed out that HPV causes cervical cancer and that the vaccine prevents it. End of argument. Lance Armstrong has tremendous political influence in Texas and counts Governor Perry among the strong supporters of his anti-cancer platform there. It's a rare case where Perry embraces clear science over political ideology.

Jon Huntsman comes off as the most reasonable, sensible adult on the stage - which means he's doomed. He'd make a decent independent candidate but has no hope of winning a Republican primary. He's clearly pinning all his hopes on New Hampshire, where independents can vote in the GOP primary, but he isn't nearly conservative enough to carry this candidacy much further.

Michele Bachmann's reign as Flavor of the Month is over. She was a summer fling for Republican voters but the romance is done. The bigger her hair gets, the smaller her poll numbers. Perry sucks all the wind out of her sails. Watch her fade as Tea Party voters shift to the Texas governor.

Ron Paul's act has worn terribly thin. He's not as sharp as he was four years ago, and his anti-government rants have lost their fresh appeal. But now that the Republican Party will start awarding delegates proportionally, Paul may finally have something to show for his diehard following. If he can win 10 or 12 percent in some of the early states, he'll hang around for a while and build a small bloc of support.

Newt Gingrich - are you kidding? When does he come to his senses and end the delusion that is his campaign?

Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan started to sound like an infomercial. If we embrace his flat tax proposal, do we get a free pizza or maybe some garlic knots?

Finally, with nothing to lose, Rick Santorum actually comes across as an authentic, sincere voice. His defense of welfare reform was impassioned, compassionate and impressive. He was clear and thoughtful on immigration and the economy, too. But he's not electable, can't raise enough money and his natural constituency has already abandoned him for conservatives with more buzz, like Perry.

Bottom line: Perry lost some of his luster and Romney showed he's not about to shrink from the challenge of a long, drawn-out fight. He's a proven fundraiser and, despite the polls showing Perry pulling way ahead, must still be considered a co-frontrunner. Perry got the chance to back down from declaring Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" but instead repeated it and called the entitlement program a "monstrous lie." Those words will scare the moderates and independents Perry would need to win a general election, but more immediately they will worry the conservatives who want to nominate someone who can beat President Obama. Perry's trying to seize the right-wing mantle to win the nomination, but many of his positions - dismantle Social Security, the scientists are wrong about climate change, evolution is just another theory - are radical enough to make him unelectable, and that could convince Republican primary voters to come back to Romney as their best bet to recapture the White House.

Ronald Reagan remains the paragon of modern conservatism, but he believed in the "big tent" GOP, deficit spending and amnesty for illegal immigrants. If he'd actually been on this stage debating, instead of just appearing as a romanticized icon in a gauzy NBC tribute, he would have been ridiculed as some sort of weak-willed liberal. The challenge for this field is to be authentically conservative enough to placate the Tea Party and engage the evangelicals without alienating independents and sacrificing electability.

It's only September. They've got five more months, and countless more debates, to get it right before anyone even starts voting.

Meet the New Bums, Same As the Old Bums

2011-08-05T00:48:00.000-07:00

Judging from our latest CBS News-New York Times Poll, it looks like 2012 is shaping up to be the fourth consecutive anti-incumbent national election - with voters in their most foul mood yet.

The question is, which bums will they decide to toss out this time? And will it make any difference, or will the electorate be even angrier in 2014?

2006 was an historically bad year for incumbents: Democrats seized control of both houses of Congress from the Republicans, who for the first time in their history failed to defeat any sitting Democrats. Two years later, with President Bush's Republican Party branded "toxic," the Democrats completed their sweep, expanding their House and Senate majorities and electing Barack Obama president.

But voters quickly grew disenchanted with Mr. Obama and disappointed at the Democrats' failure to reinvigorate the economy. The anti-incumbency tide washed back on the Democrats in 2010, as they lost the House to the GOP and only narrowly clung to control of the Senate. Emboldened Republicans set their sights on reclaiming both the Senate and the White House in 2012.

Ah, but the pendulum of voter disenchantment swings heavily in all directions, and now it is taking steady aim at the head of Speaker John Boehner.

The new survey shows voter disapproval of Congress at an all-time high, a record 82%. Only 14% approve of the Congressional performance. Boehner bears the brunt of voter anger: 57% disapprove of him while a meager 30% think he's doing a good job. A record 84% are dissatisfied or angry with Washington. Even during the Reagan Revolution of 1980 and the Contract With America uprising of 1994, we didn't see voters seething like this.

That gives each party an opportunity for gain next year, but it also leaves both vulnerable to crushing defeat. The Democrats could wrest the House, and the Speakership, back from Boehner. But they could also lose their slim Senate majority to the Republicans, in which case 2012 would give us the Capitol Hill version of a house swap. That would leave things essentially unchanged, with each party controlling one house of Congress, which recent events have shown is hardly a scenario for constructive compromise.

President Obama is sailing surprisingly sanguinely above the chaos. Forty-eight percent approve of his performance, 47% don't. Forty-seven percent trust him more to handle the economy, while 33% have more faith in the Republicans. Right now Mr. Obama probably remains a narrow favorite for re-election, especially since his opponent seems likely to be either Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann (or possibly Texas Governor Rick Perry), any of whom will be a deeply flawed national candidate.

If the economy remains in a rut, and voter antipathy intensifies, one of those Republicans could oust Mr. Obama. The GOP could seize the Senate and maybe even hold on to the House. But right now these numbers point to serious trouble for Speaker Boehner and the Republicans, and a narrow escape for the president, especially if the economy finally finds its footing.

No matter what happens next year - and that election is still a l-o-n-g way off - it's hard to imagine the outcome effecting profound change in the way Washington works. Which means whichever party emerges on top will be feeling the voters' wrath again by the middle of 2013, as this cycle's challengers become the next one's incumbents, and the people get ready to toss the newly elected bums onto the growing pile of old ones.

A Slice of History

2011-06-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: The Sovern Nation has obtained the following exclusive imaginary transcript of this week's Pizza Summit meeting between imaginary presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. After wiping off the tomato sauce, we can reveal the conversation transpired as follows:

"Governor Palin, thank you so much for reaching out to me! It is a rare honor indeed for me to meet someone who has almost as much chutzpah as I do. Since Steinbrenner passed away, it's been lonely at the top."

"Oh no the pleaasure is mine, Mr. Trump. I have admired your work from afar for so long. As I drive around this great nation of ours, with its inspiring highways and truly awesome truck stops, visiting so many of our important and inspirational sites and monuments, I want to make sure I visit all of the things that make America the envy of the non-American, non-rich world. And you, and your hair, are at the top of that inspiring list."

"Well thank you, I have to say, I've always thought, there's room on Mount Rushmore for one more head, isn't there? Why not mine? I may have to buy the mountain though now that I'm not running for president. Although I could still run, you know. There's a lot of people out there trying to pull me back in."

"Yes, it's a wonderful feeling, isn't it? That's one of the things I want to talk to you about. I so admire the way you ran your campaign. The drama, the way you highlight the really important issues, the way you make fools of the media. I feel like I have so much to learn from you, as I make my way through this awesome nation, seeing so many of the founding sites where much of our inspirational and revolutionary history was invented."

"That's why I suggested Famous Famiglia, by the way, Governor. This is where they invented the garlic knots. I figure they don't have those in Alaska. We could have gone to Ray's but I've never figured out which one is actually owned by Ray."

"Yes, these are delicious. And what's on this slice here?"

"That's pepperoni. Fresh pepperoni."

"Oh! That's not an animal we have in Alaska, I don't think. I have had Moosearoni Pizza at Northern Slice in Wasilla but I think that's a different species. Like Mark Zuckerberg, I try not to eat meat I haven't killed myself but I am willing to make an exception while I visit the alien Godless cities of the Eastern Seaboard."

"Well this is some of the best in the city. I thought about taking you somewhere more substantial but that didn't seem your style."

"Oh no this is perfect! Light, simple, thin, not too heavy. And you can really taste the wonderful contribution of the legal immigrants who made this sauce, the rich flavor of the tapestry of that hard work and sacrifice they made to follow their dream but still follow the rules, work so ethically and with such a joy for freedom to come to this great America and slice this pizza."

"Oh is that what that flavor is, Governor? I thought it was oregano."

"Well I don't have too much more time, Mr. Donald. My bus is idling uptown. The media is waiting to see which historic inspirational site I will visit next. I sent out a tweet about the Battle of Yorktown but that was just a diversion. Did anything historic happen at Coney Island? I was hoping to try Nathan's."

"Forget about it! There's one around the corner. I will personally have some hot dogs delivered to your bus."

"Well that is so just wonderful of you. This has truly been an inspirational meeting. Do you have any other advice for me, as I resume my journey across this One Nation, Indivisible, Under God, except in certain sections of New York and San Francisco?"

"Yes, Governor. Try the meatballs."

Arnold Is Who We Thought He Was

2011-05-20T00:11:00.000-07:00

First, there were whispers on the campaign trail. Then came the murmurs and phone calls, from operatives for rival candidates. Finally, a full-throated news conference led by the Mother of All Media Moths, Gloria Allred. The word was out: Arnold Schwarzenegger was a serial groper, a philanderer, the Gropinator - he cheats on his wife and there may even be an out-of-wedlock child or two or three out there.

And the voters couldn't have cared less.

Wife Maria stood by her man, told California she trusted her husband, and that was good enough for the starry-eyed voters. Never mind that she didn't exactly deny the rumors and allegations; her love and loyalty clinched things for any voters who were wavering, and there didn't even seem to be that many of them. A Field Poll taken just before the recall election found only 19% less inclined to vote for Schwarzenegger because of the rumored extramarital affairs, while 77% said it mattered not one whit. In fact, more (26%) were given pause by the fact that he was a "Hollywood actor" than that he might be unfaithful to his wife.

The rabid leaders of the Total Recall of Gray Davis, blinded by ego and zeal, shrugged off the nascent scandal and plunged ahead with their misguided mistake.

Allred's involvement probably hurt, rather than helped, those trying to derail the Arnold Express. Many voters I talked to in the closing days of that 2003 campaign dismissed the tawdry talk as last-second dirty politics, Democratic desperation made even more suspect by Allred's media-baiting involvement. Quite simply, the electorate had already bought the image of Arnold as savior, the tentpole blockbuster action hero come to rescue California from its tired money-wasting ways. He was going to blow up the boxes, give them back their hard-earned cash and deliver action, action, action!

As it turned out, of course, Schwarzenegger governed much as the man he deposed did. The budget kept listing badly out of balance; few of the promised reforms materialized; the boxes are still there. The recall zealots soon felt betrayed. They played little to no role in governing the state, and the Governator quickly abandoned their core principles, if he ever shared them at all. They'd been snookered by a power lifter turned movie star, who let them lift him into power and then cast them aside like undersized dumbbells.

It's hard to feel sorry for the people who conned California into tossing out the governor they'd just re-elected the year before. But maybe we didn't do a good enough job explaining to the voters what we suspected during that brief circus of a campaign: that Arnold wasn't the breath of fresh air they sought, but just another hot air-spewing office-seeker, a musclebound political naif who had big dreams but lacked the skills to realize them.

Arnold seemed to rein in his libido once he became governor. There were no new rumors, no more scandalous whispers. Either his wife or the weight of his office, or maybe both, persuaded him to keep his hands to himself and his lust in check. Or so we thought. I had many opportunities to observe him up close and never saw the slightest hint of any impropriety, beyond his usual egomania and boorish, politically incorrect vocabulary.

But this week's bombshell announcement - and perhaps others to come, now that Schwarzenegger's been exposed - reveals that the governor simply fed his voracious appetite closer to home - in fact, right inside his home.

It's a sad affair, especially for Maria Shriver and the couple's four children, not to mention the son Schwarzenegger fathered with another woman. But it should hardly come as a surprise.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man with an ego that's even more overdeveloped than his pectoral muscles used to be. It's coupled with an intense desire for power and control, the costs be damned. I'm not playing armchair psychologist: I'm simply reporting direct observations. I've seen him marvel wistfully at the political power of others, and muse, only half-joking, about how great it would be to be a dictator instead of a governor.

On a trade mission to China in 2005, a cigar-savoring Schwarzenegger held court with those of us covering the trip, in a revealing, free-wheeling, half-hour conversation. He refused to let me record it for radio use, promising to give me a one-on-one interview a little later. When I pointed out it would save him time to simply let me tape the group chat, he blew some (Cuban, I might add) cigar smoke in my face and said "Don't worry about my time." Later, when it was time for our interview, he decided to go talk to some waiting TV reporters first instead. I feared he wouldn't return for our private sitdown. He insisted he would. "You promise?" I asked, and then, in my best imitation of his world-famous accent, I asked again, "You promise - you'll be back?"

He fixed me with a steely Terminator gaze and put his hand on my shoulder. I could feel his skull ring digging through my shirt. "I tell you what," he finally said. "I promise not to have you killed."

Sounded fair enough to me. I wasn't sure he was kidding. OK, so I was a smart aleck and probably deserved it. I sat down and waited. Eventually, he did return, as promised, and we did our radio interview, which went on much longer than scheduled. He even had to light a second Montecristo. He was gracious and charming while still being frustratingly vague and evasive. But it all happened on his terms, with Schwarzenegger firmly in control, while I fought off fleeting images of him snapping me in half and throwing me in the hotel pool.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is not one to spend much time worrying about the consequences of his actions, or their impact on other people, even those he professes to love. That should have been clear to the people of California a long, long time ago, and if it wasn't, it's certainly painfully so now.

Dancing on the Winds of Politics

2010-06-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

"What do I care what Jerry Brown thinks? What do I care about people dancing on the winds of politics?" - Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums

Three weeks after the fact, Mayor Dellums has finally responded to the derisive comments made in this space by former Oakland Mayor Brown (see "Run Jerry Run" post, below). Brown, a critic of Dellums from almost the moment the longtime Congressman took over at City Hall, told me (and a few other people) at Redwood Regional Park on May 29 that "Oakland could use a mayor; it hasn't had one since I left office." He referred to himself as "the last Mayor of Oakland."

I was surprised those comments didn't cause more of a stir at the time, but I suppose references to notorious Nazis tend to suck all the air out of the room.

The beleaguered Dellums held a rare news conference yesterday to finally reveal his plan to close a $31 million budget deficit. It was also the media's first opportunity to ask for his reaction to criticism from Brown, and others, who consider Dellums an absentee mayor, missing in action while his city drowns in red ink.

The often prickly Dellums, never one to suffer media fools, insisted he is the "master strategist" of Oakland, the fully in command CEO of the city, and hardly MIA, despite his frequent absences from City Hall and his failure to attend City Council meetings or participate in budget negotiations.

When Dellums was drafted to run for mayor, many a pundit wondered how the aloof and imperious retired Congressman would take to the nuts-and-bolts, fill-the-potholes duties of a big city boss. When I asked him that very question for a campaign profile piece during the race, he scolded me, telling me it was the wrong question, and that the most important issue was his vision for making Oakland a "model city." It turned out to be exactly the right question, and the answer is what many Oaklanders feared it was at the time. Not thrilled with their options, they put Dellums in office anyway, and I know many who deeply regret it. The two previous mayors, Elihu Harris and Jerry Brown, struggled to control the violent crime that has been Oakland's sad emblem for years. But at least they left a rich legacy of downtown renewal, new construction and a burgeoning arts and culinary scene. And they were very much hands-on chief executives, visible around the city, showing up at the scenes of major crimes and emergencies, becoming the face of the city they were elected to lead.

In contrast, Dellums has been a phantom. He had a burst of energy in his third year in office, but in this, his final year, that has dissipated. His legacy may well be one of debt and a decimated police force, gutted to keep the city's books in balance. Mayor Dellums insists he is focused only on doing his job, not the winds of political fortune - but that's partly because he knows he is just about done dancing, and there are no new partners waiting.

NB: I've got a stack of blog items piling up on the races for governor and senator, which I will try to get to as soon as the KCBS workload allows...

Sweaty Strangers

2010-06-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

"I'm sorry. I talked to the people at the Holocaust Center and they completely understand."

That is the first public, recorded comment by Attorney General Jerry Brown on the matter we blogged about last week: his likening Meg Whitman's mega-money campaign tactics to the propaganda techniques pioneered by Joseph Goebbels.

I was ready to let this story die, and frankly, I was relieved it was starting to blow over as a new work week dawned. Other media outlets have made much more of it than we have at KCBS. But then Brown made a campaign stop Tuesday at Microsoft in Mountain View, touting his new plan to create half a million green jobs and 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020. This was the media's first opportunity to question Brown since last week's Nazi controversy went nationwide. And so they did, in a post-speech gaggle (I wasn't there; the tape comes from my KCBS colleague Matt Bigler and from our CBS-5 TV newsroom). Earlier in the day, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement, denouncing Brown's comments to me as "deeply offensive and inappropriate," and calling on Brown to retract them publicly. He reacted with the aforementioned apology, although later his spokesman clarified that Brown was apologizing to the Jewish leaders for upsetting them, not necessarily for the comments themselves.

Asked by KTVU reporter Randy Shandobil, in a followup, if this means he doesn't regret making the remarks in the first place, Brown answered: "Well, I will tell you this. Jogging in the hills with sweaty strangers will no longer result in conversations. Mum's the word."

Can't say that I blame him. Except that answer is a little misleading. Yes, I was probably a bit sweaty, having ridden my bike about ten miles, mostly uphill, to that point. But I was not a stranger. Even though, as I blogged last week, Brown couldn't remember my name right away, he recognized me immediately, exclaimed "I know you" and, after I reintroduced myself, discussed the fact that I was a reporter at KCBS. So it's disingenuous for him to suggest that he got into all this trouble because he talked to a sweaty stranger. A sweaty reporter, maybe.

Brown's penchant for blunt talk landed him in some more hot water at the Silicon Valley event. Asked how he would cut state spending but still fund infrastructure projects and create jobs, Brown replied: "How do you do things without the money? It's very difficult, but I have a plan." After a pause, he joked, "I'll tell you after the election." That drew laughter from the audience but more fire from the Whitman campaign, whose spokeswoman, Sarah Pompei, said "this election and this issue are far too important for Governor Brown to continue to dodge questions, avoid specifics and shirk responsibility."

At Microsoft, Brown was whisked away by his handler as soon as the media questioning turned to the Goebbels incident. He's always been a little awkward - his late father, the legendary Pat Brown, used to lament that Jerry lacked the "human touch" and said it was daughter Kathleen who was really the natural politician in the family - but it struck me as odd how uncomfortable Brown was with the media who gathered around him in Mountain View. He seemed put off by the "gaggle," as we call it, of reporters and camerapeople who crushed around him. He complained about how "intimate" it was and said he had never been this close to so many reporters at once. Really? This, from a guy who's been winning elections in California for 40 years? You'd think he'd be used to that kind of close media attention. He'd certainly better get used to it, because this is already shaping up as an intense, hard-fought campaign, and it's likely there will be an awful lot of sweaty strangers crowding around, just waiting to see what he will say next.

The Right to Remain Silent

2010-06-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should carry Miranda cards to hand out to political candidates from now on.

Carly Fiorina sure could use one. She knows all too well now not to fiddle with her Blackberry and make disparaging remarks about her Republican ticketmate's campaign, or repeat one about her opponent's hair, while getting primped for a live TV shot before an open mike (not to mention a rolling video camera).

Jerry Brown could use one. He's got notoriously loose lips, but this time they got him in trouble (okay, I did), when he brought up Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels during a conversation with me about Meg Whitman's campaign, at a park in the Oakland hills (see "Run Jerry Run" post below if you somehow missed this brouhaha).

And I suppose I could use one, too. I thought long and hard before blogging about that conversation with Brown, and there was considerable deliberation and discussion about it within our newsroom, and with outside experts, before I finally hit "publish post," 11 days after Brown made the now-infamous Goebbels comment to me. I don't regret writing it, but I do know that it has hammered home that I have no desire, ever, to become famous. I don't enjoy receiving nasty emails, or seeing people misquote my blog, or mangle basic facts. It is surreal to look up at the airport TV and see one's name crawl by in the CNN closed captioning. I have no idea how so many news organizations and conservative radio hosts got my cell phone number. I have been on the wrong end of the news a few times before, and I never like it. I'm in the business of reporting the news, and bringing interesting stories to people, not becoming part of the news myself, and I am never comfortable in that position.

For the record, I would like to clarify a few points for people. I don't imagine this posting will be read by nearly as many as the last one, but for those who are still interested (and all of my regular, devoted readers - thank you for all the supportive comments!), here are the answers to some of your questions:

Yes, the conversation with Jerry Brown was on the record. Every conversation a politician or public figure has with the media is on the record, as long as the reporter identifies himself as such (which I did), and unless the newsmaker specifically asks before the conversation for it to be off the record, and the reporter agrees (Brown did not ask for it to be off the record).
This conversation did not take place last Sunday, as Brown's spokesman has said, and as others have reported. It took place on Saturday, May 29, over Memorial Day weekend. I did not give the exact day or date in my original blog, so it's my fault that the timing of the remark wasn't clear. I only wrote "the other day," and I mentioned that it was before the June 8 primary.
This was not a private, intimate conversation between just the two of us. As I mentioned in the blog, other joggers came in and out of the scene. At least one of them, a former neighbor of mine, overheard the entire discussion. At one point, Brown was holding forth before a group of five people. He's a public figure, running for public office, speaking publicly in a public place, which certainly makes his comments fair game for reporting.
No, I did not record the conversation, since I was on my bike and had no recording equipment with me. I did, however, realize the potential import of what Brown had said. I rode home immediately, going over his words in my mind, and wrote them down as soon as I got home. I have a damn good memory. I use it on the radio every day. More importantly, Brown has confirmed that the conversation took place, and admits making the comments. He only regrets them, and believes they were taken out of context.
They were not taken out of context. I'm not sure there's any context that would have made them acceptable to Meg Whitman. She probably would have publicized them even if I had provided ample historical and political context, and explained the entire history of Joseph Goebbels and his "Big Lie" propaganda technique.
I never wrote that Brown called Meg Whitman a Nazi, or compared her or her campaign to Nazis. I simply reported his words, in which he likens her advertising approach to the propaganda techniques used by Goebbels. I leave it to others to draw their own conclusions. I am not responsible for the headline-writing or media shorthand of other organizations. You never heard "Brown Calls Whitman A Nazi" on KCBS, because we never said it that way, and that's not how we operate.
My blog is quite different from what, and how, I report on the radio. It's sort of an Op-Ed column. It's written in a much more casual, impressionistic way. Sometimes it contains analysis, sometimes even my opinion. It is not an advocacy column; I don't ever take sides or make endorsements. Sometimes it just contains musings or items that don't really fit into what we do on the radio. Other times, it's designed to give our listeners some insight into what goes on behind the scenes, or add some color and detail that didn't fit into the tight time constraints of the KCBS news hour.
I have had many, many private or casual conversations with public figures and have never blogged about one before. I have never breached an "off the record" agreement, and I never would. In fact, Jerry Brown himself has said some rather interesting things to me over the years which I haven't bothered reporting, because I didn't consider them blog- or news- worthy. This one, I did - not because of the potentially incendiary nature of the Goebbels reference, but because I believed the blog would give my readers a sense of the Democratic gubernatorial nominee's state of mind. I would have written it even if he hadn't brought up Goebbels. In fact, it wasn't until the Whitman campaign read the blog and e-blasted that section to the world that anyone even noticed or commented on the Goebbels reference at all. I had dozens of reactions to the blog before that, all positive, without a single mention of Goebbels or Nazis.
No, I do not have a political ax to grind. I like Jerry Brown. I am not trying to destroy his campaign. I am not a tool of the right. My affection or disdain for political candidates does not affect what I report about them.

There are many lessons to be learned here. One is, you can never predict what will go viral on the Internet. Another is, if you're running for public office in the 21st century - watch every word you say, and where you say it. Just as the rest of us should assume that any email or text we send could end up being viewed by just about anyone, politicians should always assume that anything they say could be recorded or reported. Even a private conversation with a trusted advisor could end up in someone's tell-all book a year later, or used against you sooner than that when that advisor switches campaigns. Jerry Brown isn't the first to learn this the hard way; he's just lucky no one happened to whip out an iPhone or Flip camera and video our exchange, so the world could see him say those words, the way I reported them.

I don't usually use this blog as therapy, or to get things off my chest, but given the extraordinary nature of this situation, I really wanted to make a few things clear. Thank you for your indulgence.

Oh, and by the way, for the few who faulted me for not explaining every single historical reference in that blog - the "Miranda card" mentioned in this one's opening line refers to the warning card the police carry, so they can read you your rights, one of which is to remain silent. It's named for Ernesto Miranda. You can Google it.

Statements From Whitman and Brown Campaigns

2010-06-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

The campaign of Meg Whitman has issued the following statement in response to the comments made by Jerry Brown, quoted in my blog posting "Run Jerry Run."

"Just last week, Governor Brown promised he wasn't going to engage in mudslinging, but now he is comparing Meg Whitman to Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. Jerry Brown's statements comparing our campaign to a propagator of the Holocaust is deeply offensive and entirely unacceptable."

--Meg Whitman 2010 Campaign Manager Jillian Hasner

Jerry Brown's campaign spokesman, Sterling Clifford, confirms to the Associated Press that the conversation took place, describing it as "a discussion after a chance meeting while they were exercising. I wouldn't vouch for the accuracy of it, but I also don't want to dispute the accuracy of it. It was jogging talk taken out of context." He says Brown was not comparing the Whitman campaign to Nazis.

UPDATE: Friday afternoon, Jerry Brown issued the following statement: "I regret making the comments. They were taken out of context."

I stand by what I wrote, which is below, under "Run Jerry Run."

Run Jerry Run

2010-06-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

I ran into Jerry Brown the other day. Or, rather, he ran into me. Literally.

I was out for a bike ride in the Oakland hills and stopped at Redwood Regional Park to fill up my water bottle. Suddenly, up jogs Jerry, in his sweats, chugging along the trail. As he caught his breath and got some water from the fountain, I said hello. He recognized me but couldn't remember my name, something that has happened many times between us over the past 25 years. I reintroduced myself, and he asked me if I was still at KCBS. I said I was, and complimented him on his impressive fitness for a man of 72. He'd run perhaps a mile and a half from his house on Skyline Boulevard.

We proceeded to have a remarkable and revealing chat about his race for governor. As strange a human being as he can be, Brown is almost always open and forthright. He can veer into esoteric tangents, but he tells it like it is (or at least how he sees it) and rarely pulls a punch.

I asked him if he intended to debate Meg Whitman, once she locked up the Republican nomination for governor (which she did Tuesday night, trouncing Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner). He said he'd like to have "many" debates with her - and indeed, he has since formally challenged Whitman to a series of ten town hall-style debates (Whitman dismissed his challenge as "playing political games" and said Brown should lay out some detailed policies so they'll have something to debate).

I asked him how he could possibly compete with her vast campaign treasury - Whitman spent $71 million of her own money on the primary, and is ready to write checks for $80 million more to crush Brown. She also raised about ten million from donors, and there will be more where that came from, from supporters and from the Republican Party.

Brown boasted about his legendary frugality. "I've only spent $200,000 so far. I have 20 million in the bank. I'm saving up for her." It's true - his stay-on-the-sidelines, bare-bones primary run cost him almost nothing, at least in California political terms. But he also fretted about the impact of all those eBay dollars in Whitman's very deep pockets. "You know, by the time she's done with me, two months from now, I'll be a child-molesting..." He let the line trail off. "She'll have people believing whatever she wants about me." Then he went off on a riff I didn't expect.

"It's like Goebbels," referring to Hitler's notorious Minister of Propaganda. "Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world. She wants to be president. That's her ambition, the first woman president. That's what this is all about."

I pointed out that most politicians want to be president someday. Gavin Newsom, for example. "Sure, sure he does. But they can't control it. Look at Barack Obama, he got in and it's all out of his control. I wanted to be president. I ran for president three times, you know."

Uh, yeah, we know. No kidding, Jer.

At that point, some other runners stopped to say hello, recognizing Brown. I suggested it must be tough for him to get a run in, with people always wanting to talk to him.

"No, no one ever wants to talk to me. You're the oddball. You're the only one." He turned to the newcomers. "Hi, I used to be your mayor. I was the last Mayor of Oakland," a dig at current, less-than-constantly-visible Mayor Ron Dellums. "Oakland could use a mayor, it hasn't had one since I left office."

"You know," turning back to me, "we've got to do something about energy in this country. I just looked it up on the Internet. We only produce five million barrels of oil a day, but we consume 20 million. There's no balance there. We need a balance." He pointed to my bicycle. "People need to ride bikes, or walk more." Then he started saying something obscure about use value vs. exchange value. I told him I had no interest in exchanging my bike for anything, so therefore it only had use value for me. "Then that's subsistence. You believe in subsistence. But most people, they want exchange value, they want something in return for their goods."

He started musing about Whitman again. "She looks like an athlete. You think she's an athlete?" I said that she's certainly tall, towering above me (which isn't saying much). "Yeah," he said, "she could probably outrun me."

At this point, I had already stopped far longer than intended, and I told him I needed to start riding again. "What do you think," he asked me, "should I keep running? Should I go a little farther?" Why not, I answered. Go for it. "You've given me a nice little break here, " he said with a smile. I told him I looked forward to talking with him again, on the campaign trail next time, instead of on West Ridge Trail, or maybe on the panel of one of those debates.

"I feel recharged. I think I'll get back on the trail and run a little farther." And he trotted off, lean and frugal, with an awkward smile. "Let's see how far I can get."

Throw the Bums Out...Again

2010-05-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true. All those screaming pundits seem to be on to something: the electorate is in a damn cranky mood.

Can you blame them? Either they don't have jobs, or they know or love someone who doesn't. The economy is stumbling along like a toddler who got into the medicine cabinet. Ominous headlines warn of a looming global financial collapse. Volcanoes are erupting. Oil rigs are blowing up. The weather is weird.

All of which leaves us with an anxious electorate and a political landscape that's as unstable as that Icelandic mountain none of us can pronounce. The Tea Party candidate beat the Republican establishment candidate in the Kentucky Senate primary - but the liberal Democrat upset faux Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and the Democratic candidate beat back the GOP to take John Murtha's House seat there, so it hardly looks like a conservative tide is sweeping the nation.

No, I think it's authenticity that voters are seeking this year. They're tired of evangelical Christian congressmen who get caught having affairs with their abstinence advisers, "small government" Republicans who add billions to the federal deficit, and Democrats who promise big change but are afraid to do more than tinker at the margins.

All of which helps explain tonight's latest poll numbers from California. Pollster Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan, widely respected Public Policy Institute of California, has just published a survey that covers the major races in next month's primary. Here's some of what he found:

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman's support in the Republican primary for governor has plummeted, from 61% in March to just 38% now. Her lead over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has fallen from 61-11 then, to 38-29 today.

Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell remain locked in a dead heat, with Fiorina leading 25-23 for the Republican Senate nomination. But conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, as predicted in this space, is surging, and is now within shouting distance at 16%. That leaves a whopping 36% of the voters undecided.

As Poizner attacks Whitman, and she fights back, and the Republican Senate contenders squabble, the unopposed Democratic candidates are the beneficiaries. Jerry Brown has pulled back ahead of Whitman in a hypothetical November matchup, beating her 42-37 after trailing by five points in the last poll. He wallops Poizner, 45-32. Meanwhile, Barbara Boxer has regained the lead as well. She beats Campbell 46-40; she leads Fiorina 48-39; and she's ahead of DeVore 50-39.

The voters are overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 14, which would change California's primary system to a "top two" open primary. Sixty percent say they'll vote yes, and only 27% oppose it. This measure would bring a dramatic shift from the way we choose candidates now, essentially abandoning the age-old primary and general election system in favor of a June general election and a November runoff. But the voters are in favor of anything that will shake up the status quo and change what they see as a badly broken system.

Voters are split on what to do about California's budget crisis, whether to lower the two-thirds majority vote to pass a budget to a simple majority, whether to raise taxes or cut programs. But they do know that they don't approve of what's going on in Sacramento. Only 23% approve of Governor Schwarzenegger's job performance, and only 16% give the state legislature a good grade. Three-quarters want lawmakers to adopt pay-as-you-go budgeting, develop a two-year spending plan, and forfeit their pay when they don't get the budget done on time.

And finally, the fight over the November ballot measure to legalize and tax marijuana is going to be a doozy. Voters are split right down the middle: 49% love it and 48% hate it. Predictably, Democrats are solidly in favor while most Republicans oppose the idea. The Bay Area is the only part of the state where there's a majority in favor. This is shaping up as a really, um, high profile campaign. Democrats are counting on a high turnout among young voters (or maybe that's just a turnout of high voters) passionate about this issue to help push Boxer and Brown over the top in November. But would you really want to pin your hopes on the motivation of pot smokers? They could just as easily go sit in the corner or make an emergency run to the 7-11 as show up at the polls.

Now Baldassare recognizes that part of the dramatic erosion in Whitman's support is due to Poizner's attack ads, blasting the former eBay CEO for her ties to Goldman Sachs and her spotty voting record. His red meat rhetoric on immigration is hitting home. Less educated voters are turning from Whitman to Poizner, although curiously, so are the richer ones. Whitman had the airwaves to herself for months, and only in the last few weeks has Poizner begun to counter the record-smashing $68 million of personal wealth Whitman has poured into her campaign. But she's also suffering from the anti-establishment sentiment out there that is affecting all frontrunners, not just incumbents. Whitman has been on the air for so long, so often, that she's become the de facto nominee. Perhaps she peaked too soon - leaving an opening for the late-spending Poizner to mount an insurgency. He and DeVore both hope to ride that Tea Party tide to upsets in June.

It's still a long shot, for both of them. Whitman is still ahead by nine points, which would be a comfortable margin of victory. DeVore is still in third place, with two better-funded candidates to leapfrog. But with one-third or more of the voters still scratching their heads over whom to choose...and shaking their heads over the state of our country...both races remain, in Baldassare's words, "volatile and unpredictable." The voters know they want to send a message; they're still searching for the right messengers.

Click here to hear my entire 11-minute interview with Mark Baldassare about his poll results.

Three Days Can Change Your Life

2010-03-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

I didn’t really want to go. I mean, it was my idea, but I never thought the boss would go for it.

But he did.

On the eve of my departure for Haiti, I was nervous, anxious – hell, I was scared. I worried about getting sick, hurt, even killed. Plane crash, malaria, street violence – it all swirled around inside my head.

But the yellow band that never leaves my wrist says “Live Strong,” and I only agreed to wear it all those years ago because I always try to do that. Life is way too precious to waste even a single day, a lesson that has been seared into my being far too many times (I get the message, universe, you can stop sending it!). So there was nothing for it but to face the fear and get on the damn plane to Port au Prince.

As has been the case every other time I’ve felt this way – driving into a burning South Central L.A. the night of the Rodney King riots, riding solo across Dar Es Salaam to begin a bike trek to Kilimanjaro, heading into New Orleans the day the levee broke after Hurricane Katrina – I have come out the other side not just alive and kicking, but more alive than when I left, with a renewed and deeper appreciation for the goodness of humanity and my own blessed fortune.

I only spent about 75 hours in Haiti. I was embedded at a field hospital that opened the day after January’s catastrophic earthquake, set up by the University of Miami and Project Medishare. It’s on the fringes of Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport, which, in the first days after the quake, was taken over by the U.S. military and swarmed with camps of media, international relief groups and non-governmental organizations. They’re all gone now. The Medishare hospital remains, and it’s evolved into the largest hospital in Haiti, even though it’s still a collection of circus tents in a rocky and windswept field. Among other things, it has an air-conditioned operating room, a burn unit, and the first neonatal and pediatric intensive care units in Haiti’s long and unhappy history. It’s staffed almost entirely by American volunteers, with doctors, nurses and other medical personnel rotating in from all over the U.S., usually for a one-week tour of duty, though some stay longer.

An awful lot of living, and dying, was crammed into my brief stay there. It’s far too much to write about here (here are the six phone reports I did from the camp; next week we’ll air a special five-part series on KCBS and that will be posted on the website too, along with a photo essay and some video. A shorter version of the series will air nationally on the CBS Radio Network and its stations). But two moments will stay with me a long, long time.

Saturday night, there was a violent rainstorm. The wind knocked down a power line, which fell onto two young girls living in one of Port au Prince’s many squalid tent cities. The girls were rushed to the hospital camp, burned all over their bodies. The neurosurgeon bunking next to me was yanked out of the nearby United Nations bar, where he’d gone for some much-needed R and R, to try to save their lives. He did, at least for a little while. Early the next morning, he told me things didn’t look good, and they were likely to die. The girls’ parents hung around the camp, praying, getting counseling, hoping their daughters would pull through. Everyone else in camp knew they wouldn’t.

Monday morning, the younger of the two girls, maybe 12 years old, finally succumbed to the burns that had taken 75% of her flesh. At the moment she died, I happened to be in the PICU, standing next to the burn unit. The attending doctor only spoke English. The parents only spoke Creole. The doctor whirled around and cried urgently for an interpreter. There wasn’t one to be found. One of the doctors asked if I could translate for them. I grabbed Jean Fritz Saint Bien, a young Haitian who worked in the supply tent, and told him he had to interpret. He insisted that wasn’t his job and he wasn’t qualified. You have to do it, I told him. You speak Creole and you speak English. But I’m not an interpreter, he protested. You are now, I said, and I pushed him forward. Jean Fritz did his best, explaining in Creole that the man’s daughter had died. Perhaps he wasn’t as sensitive and artful as a trained grief therapist/interpreter would have been, but there simply wasn’t such a person available.

The father started wailing, a raw, piercing siren of sorrow. His anguished cries cut through all the other sounds of the bustling hospital tent. The mother began to babble. She was praying, shaking her head, repeating something over and over again in Creole about her daughter and Jesus. She staggered and was caught by two people in scrubs, who led her out of the ICU. We all started to cry. I turned to the girls’ father and said, in French, I am so sorry. Je suis trés desolé, je suis trés desolé. He was inconsolable. A volunteer forensic psychologist, who in the U.S. works with the criminally insane, arrived to provide grief counseling.

At some point I shut off my recording machine. I’m not sure when – I haven’t listened back to the tape yet. I really don’t even want to. I felt like I shouldn’t be there, that it was wrong for me to intrude on this horrible moment as a reporter. I backed out of the room, leaving Jean Fritz to interpret further for the doctors and the shrieking father. I’ve witnessed many, many tragic things in my career but this was one of the saddest. It was just one of several child deaths during the time I was in the camp, but I felt it to my core. Perhaps because it came after four nights of very short sleep, or because of the cumulative effect of the difficult conditions and several days of intense emotions, but for whatever reason, it affected me deeply.

I stepped outside, needing some air, even though the ICU is air conditioned and the heat outside was stifling. Ninety-five degree sunshine with 90% humidity felt more conducive to life at that moment than the chill of the burn unit.

About three minutes later my cell phone rang – it was time for my next live shot on KCBS. It was a tough one to do.

There were several orphans at the hospital, children who came in for medical attention whose parents had died in the earthquake. Three had healed well and become fixtures in camp – in fact, they’re all being adopted by a couple of the volunteers, a big-hearted husband-and-wife team who will be taking the trio home with them to America.

Then there was Kiki - a misshapen kid with some sort of physical deformity. At least he seemed like a kid - a closer look revealed an older face. He has a badly hunched back, and a short, crooked right arm with a stump where his hand should be. He lurches around camp with a limp. Kiki turns out to be 18, which makes him ineligible for adoption.

It's too bad, because he was about the sweetest, most loving guy in camp. He would come up and hug people spontaneously, hooking his handless arm around you in a tight, smiling embrace. I tried to talk with him, but his Creole accent was impenetrable to me, and we never got very far.

Each morning, Kiki would greet me with a big laugh and a warm hug. It weirded me out a little at first. But he just wanted some love. You're a hugger, aren't you? I asked him. Just like me. So we would have our little morning hug. When it came time for me to leave, Kiki was there, waiting. For some reason, I couldn't say goodbye. I wondered about his future. The other three guys next to him would all begin new lives in the United States. The little babies in the neonatal unit and the other orphans will presumably be adopted by someone. But not Kiki. When this camp shuts down in a month or so, where will he go? Will someone take him in? Or will it be back out on the streets? Haiti has some institutions for the disabled, but I shudder to think of what they must be like.

I didn't give Kiki a goodbye hug. I wanted to, but something held me back. A wave of guilt washed over me. I went back to the tent and collected my things. I tossed my bags into a waiting truck, climbed in and drove off. I looked in the side mirror and saw Kiki, sitting at the lunch table, alone, scratching his head with his stump.

I'll be thinking about Kiki, and the sobbing parents of those young burn victims, for a long, long time.

By the way, there's a second band on my left wrist now. It's teal. It reads "Project Medishare for Haiti." I think I'll keep it on for a while.

Money Talks

2010-03-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

If Meg Whitman were a character in a Doonesbury strip, she'd be represented by a giant dollar sign.

She's already spent more money simply introducing herself to California voters than any previous Republican candidate for governor has spent on an entire campaign. And there's about a hundred million more where that came from.

Last week though, all that money couldn't buy her out of the ignominy that befell her campaign when she cackled at reporters instead of answering our questions, at her own "open media" event in Oakland. National ridicule ensued. So when the California Republican Party opened its spring convention Friday afternoon in Santa Clara, Whitman raced about the Hyatt Regency to make amends, holding 80 minutes' worth of news conferences and granting interviews to all comers.

It's tempting to blame Whitman's media shyness on inexperience - except the rookie candidate has a vast campaign apparatus staffed by seasoned pols, many of them veterans of the Wilson and Schwarzenegger campaigns and administrations. Give them credit for coming to their senses and recognizing that freezing out the media is a bad idea, and that Whitman is sharp enough to hold her own with us.

So $ finally talked. And talked. And talked. And Chatty Maggie promises much more media access as the campaign goes on - at least until she wins the Republican primary over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. We'll see if the haughtiness returns if she advances to the general election against Democrat Jerry Brown.

Other notes from this weekend's GOPalooza:

BEST SPEECH: Carly Fiorina, hands down. Eschewing the podium and prepared text of her Senate rivals, the ex-HP CEO was the weekend's most dynamic speaker, delivering an Oprah-style oratory from an in-the-round stage. She was surrounded by "Carly for California" banners and dozens of young supporters in red "Carly" t-shirts. Fiorina worked from note cards (nothing written on her hand, as far as we could see) and pumped up the crowd with a high-energy speech.

WORST SPEECH: Tom Campbell. The former Congressman, law professor, business school dean and state finance director was dull and cerebral. He may lead Fiorina in the polls but he'd better step up his game once they start debating. This was supposed to be a delegate-inspiring call to action, not a Stanford lecture. The third Senate candidate, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, didn't do much better.

BEST NEWS CONFERENCE: Chuck DeVore. He's smart, funny and culturally literate. Unlike his convention speech, at which he sounded like he was delivering a history paper, DeVore's 45 minutes with the media were entertaining and revealing. Who else tosses in Monty Python and Woody Allen references? The conservative Orange County Assemblyman turns out to be a real wonk, sharp as a tack when it comes to politics, quick on his feet, personable and fun. And he let slip that he is an "increasingly distant" cousin of Jerry Brown. "My mom met him at a family event when he was 11. She says even then, he was weird."

WORST NEWS CONFERENCE: Carly Fiorina. Ugh. Whitman did an hour, then another one for 20 minutes. Poizner and DeVore each ran well over half an hour. Why? Because they all give expansive answers and delve deeply into the issues. Fiorina? Short, clipped answers. That don't answer the question posed. Forcing us to follow up and finally pry a sort-of answer out of her. And after ten minutes - she was gone.

RISING STAR: Damon Dunn. A star football player at Stanford, Dunn kicked around the NFL for a few years with four different teams, before going into the real estate business. He made a fortune and now's he a rookie in another contact sport, as a Republican candidate for Secretary of State. He's never even voted before, which won't help him get elected to the job that oversees elections in California, but he wowed the convention crowd with an electric speech. He has a moving personal story, sprinting out of Texas poverty to a Stanford scholarship and a successful business career, and his anecdote about training with Jerry Rice by climbing an impossibly steep mountain was the most memorable oratorical moment of the entire weekend. At 34, Dunn has a bright political future. Perhaps he should start at the local level - but when you see him running for governor in 2018, or 2022, or 2026 - remember where you first heard his name.

BEST FREEBIE: The holographic card slipped under hotel room doors by the College Republicans (who were a real force at this convention - young, chipper and fired up) that showed Tom Campbell morphing into a Demon Sheep. A close second: the lavishly packaged DVD of Fiorina's follow-up to the Demon Sheep video, the "Hot Air" ad that turns Barbara Boxer into a giant blimp fueled by her own hot air (which DeVore dubbed the "Hindenboxer" - I told you he was funny).

The dominant political theme over the weekend was red meat conservatism - tough talk on illegal immigration, cutting taxes, stopping what Campbell called the "soft socialism" of the Obama Democrats. But the overriding theme was money - Whitman's, Fiorina's, and Poizner's. Whitman, in particular, spread hers all over the Hyatt. She bought out Channel 32 on the hotel TV system, filling it with anti-Poizner attack ads, 24/7. She handed out CDs of those ads, and filled the hotel and convention center with banners, posters, stickers and various and sundry other assorted tchotchkes. Fiorina covered the walls with horror movie-style posters for her Hindenboxer ad. She paid for hotel rooms for her volunteers (DeVore charged that Fiorina also paid them $200 each to attend, which Fiorina's campaign vehemently denied. I asked a few if they were paid, and only one said he had been: "I think I'm voting for DeVore, but dude, 200 bucks is 200 bucks." Fiorina's press secretary said the kid was lying).

Their supporters slapped so many campaign stickers on so many surfaces that the hotel staff grew increasingly annoyed at having to scrape them off escalator railings and toilet stall doors. "I won't miss these damn people," one janitorial worker grumbled to me.

The California Democrats were noticeably absent from this convention - no rapid response team, no reaction at all to all the Dem-bashing. But they'd better take notice not only of the Republicans' sense that the tide is turning their way, even in California, but that it's a green tide, powered by a whole lot of $, and if Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer and their allies aren't able to respond in kind, they may well find themselves swamped by a surprising t$unami in November.

Crazy Like A Sheep

2010-02-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

Somebody flipped the "crazy" switch on California politics this week.
And you thought Massachusetts was interesting?
I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud while watching a campaign commercial. But Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO who's running for U.S. Senate in California, has produced the most unintentionally hysterical attack ad in recent history - maybe ever.
If you haven't seen the Demon Sheep yet, click here.
For months, Fiorina has been ignoring her Republican primary opponent, conservative Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, and focusing her fire on the Democratic incumbent, the always-vulnerable liberal lightning rod, Senator Barbara Boxer. But then Tom Campbell quit the race for governor and jumped into the Senate primary instead. Now Fiorina has a fight on her hands. Polls show Campbell has leapfrogged her among Republican voters, and the nomination is no longer hers for the taking (I'm not sure it ever really was, actually).
So how does Fiorina respond?
With this bizarre and extraordinary hit piece - which looks like either a Saturday Night Live spoof, a Monty Python outtake, or a Future Farmers of America video gone awry.
It comes complete with dramatic voiceover, sheep falling off pedestals, random barnyard animals skulking behind tax policy headlines and, best of all, a Fiorina staffer or some unfortunate actor wearing a sheep costume, bright red devil eyes and sensible shoes, crawling through a pasture pretending to be Tom Campbell. The "conservatives we admire" seem to be represented by cute, docile sheep, while Campbell's evil sheep might as well be named Damien.
Fiorina's point is that the ex-Congressman, ex-Berkeley Dean, ex-Schwarzenegger Finance Director is an "FCINO" (that's a new one on me), which stands for "Fiscal Conservative in Name Only."
Thank goodness she didn't slap him with the more traditional RINO label, or someone would have had to crawl around in a field full of rhinos.
Fiorina's campaign is certainly generating buzz with this web-only, more-than-three-minute spot - but maybe not the buzz she was looking for. Is that buzz the sound of wool shears?

The Fiorina camp isn't the only one going a little animal crackers this week. The California Democratic Party has launched a new website poking fun at her, called "Carly Failorina.com." The idea is to lampoon the Silicon Valley washout with tales of her business world failures. Except the website builds its premise on what a bad governor Fiorina would be - when she's running for the Senate. It took a few hours but the Dems have corrected their editing mistake.

On the campaign trail, Fiorina likes to deflect our questions about her stormy tenure at HP (when we're allowed to ask any) by pointing out how the company has rebounded, and claiming that she laid the groundwork for HP's current success. But the latest campaign finance disclosures show that her former colleagues don't seem to agree with her assessment. Hewlett Packard has given the maximum possible donation to the Boxer campaign - and many HP executives have made sizable donations to the Democrat too. There's only one Fiorina contribution listed from an HP employee - and it's for a measly 250 bucks.

And finally, there's the bizarre flap between the two remaining Republican candidates for Governor - state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Whitman campaign strategist Mike Murphy made the mistake of emailing a Poizner staffer with the pointed suggestion that Poizner drop out of the race, since Whitman is creaming him in the polls despite all the money Poizner, yet another candidate who got rich in Silicon Valley, is pouring into his sputtering campaign. "We can spend $40 million+ tearing up Steve if we must," Murphy warned.
Poizner responded by going public with the email, accusing Whitman's camp of extortion, and referring the whole matter to the FBI. To which Murphy responded, "I'm starting to worry about the Commissioner's mental condition."
It's not likely anything will come of the "investigation" into Murphy's threats - but it's certainly made the otherwise sleepy race for the Republican nomination a little more interesting to watch. We're supposed to be doing a debate between these two this spring - I can't wait for that one.

That sound you hear in the background isn't demon sheep baahing - it's Democratic candidates Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer cackling with glee. Whatever momentum California Republicans thought they'd gained from Scott Brown's Massachusetts Miracle has temporarily dissipated in a flurry of wild and woolly intramural attacks, that reveal how fractured the GOP remains between its moderate and conservative wings, and demonstrate how tough it will be to knock the Democrats off their power pedestal. They won't go like lambs to the slaughter.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with the Fiorina campaign. Deputy Campaign Director Julie Soderlund says the skulking demon sheep is actually "stock footage" (could it be stockyard footage?) from some past campaign, so no one knows who's actually playing the Campbell-in-sheep's clothing. Their ad guy dug that up from his archives. They can't say when it was shot, or for whose campaign. If anyone remembers that image from an old ad, let us know! She also insists the spot is not "unintentionally" hilarious. She says it was designed to be "funny and edgy and shocking" and to get people blogging about it. Mission accomplished.

Married To It

2010-01-31T17:12:00.000-08:00

I just spent two and a half weeks covering the federal trial in San Francisco on the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage. It was pretty exhausting stuff, given that it entailed eight hours in court, live reports on the radio almost every hour, and then another three or four hours of post-court news production each day. In fact, it has rendered me speechless: I have come down with a nasty cold that has robbed me of my voice. I sound like Don Corleone in "The Godfather." I am the Hoarse Whisperer. My only reporting recourse is to speak through my blog.

The trial was fascinating, maybe even historic. Time will tell. Here are some random observations and moments from the proceedings, that, in most cases, didn't make it onto the radio:

There were 23 lawyers in court each day, sometimes even more. The plaintiffs had a dazzling array of high-priced, high-powered lawyers with glittering resumes. The superstars, David Boies and Theodore Olson, were not working pro bono, as some assumed. They did reduce their rates, but they didn't take this case for free. The organization that brought the suit, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, raised millions of dollars to pay for it, from deep-pocketed donors like Rob Reiner, Steve Bing and David Geffen. Reiner came to court several times to observe the proceedings.

The other side had one powerhouse attorney, Chuck Cooper, and a phalanx of lesser associates, not all of whom seemed up to the task, quite frankly. They complained of being outgunned, and on some days, they were.

The lead attorney for Protect Marriage, the group that wrote Proposition 8 and put it on the ballot, is Andy Pugno. He didn't actually argue the case this time around, but he was the daily mouthpiece for the defendants. He's running for State Assembly in a Republican district in Sacramento this year. One of the defense arguments was that gays and lesbians have ample political clout in California and don't need judicial protection. Pugno better hope they're not as powerful as he made them out to be, because gay groups will be mobilizing to try to defeat him at the polls.

There was simmering tension between the two sides in court, and on long days, when folks were tired, there was some occasional sniping and snapping. But they also worked together in the spin room. Twice a day, attorneys for each side, and occasionally witnesses, would hold news conferences in the media center. First, the Protect Marriage team would slap its "Yes on 8" placard on the podium; then the American Foundation people would replace it with their sign. They stored them inside the podium, stuck to the wood with duct tape.

Funniest moment of the trial: In the middle of his lengthy, often painful crossexamination of defense expert David Blankenhorn, a staunch supporter of traditional marriage, plaintiffs' attorney Boies was ready to move from Blankenhorn's definition of marriage as a union of opposites to his contention that marriage is, by definition, a sexual relationship. "Now let's see if we can make sex boring," Boies quipped. To which Blankenhorn responded innocently, "Perhaps we can do that together." Everyone, including the judge and the authors of Proposition 8, laughed, long and hard. "No insinuations!" protested Blankenhorn, but it was too late.

District Judge Charles Breyer, who was instrumental in establishing the new media room at the federal courthouse, came down one day to check on us. Pleasant and amiable, he asked why I was always doing live shots on the phone and tweeting from the lobby, instead of from the media room. I told him the cell signal is shaky in there. Here's hoping he does something about it. He's not the chief judge, but his brother Steven IS on the U.S. Supreme Court, so he has a little weight to throw around.

Only one protester ever made it into the courtroom. He was carrying a Bible, and when he took a seat in one of the rows reserved for counsel, and started talking to the lawyers, he was admonished by the federal marshals. Then he started yelling "return the family to Jesus" and was dragged out of the courtroom and kicked out of the building. The next day, he came back. This time, they didn't let him in. He was stopped at the building's north entrance, and when he made a fuss, five Federal Protective Police officers swooped in. One put him in a hammerlock, another yanked his hands behind his back and cuffed him. He was wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and shorts on a wet, raw day. They confiscated his Bible but returned it to him after they booked, cited and released him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger tried so hard to stay out of the gay marriage debate. Twice, the state legislature legalized same sex marriage, and twice, the Governator vetoed it, saying it was a question for the voters or the courts, not the legislature. So the people finally voted, and then the courts got involved. That forced Schwarzenegger's hand, and he finally took a stand, opting not to defend the law. And now, if this lawsuit succeeds, he will go down in history as the "Wade" of same sex marriage - with Perry v. Schwarzenegger as the Roe v. Wade of gay rights, indelibly linking his name with the issue he had sidestepped for six years.

David Boies lived up to his reputation as a master cross-examiner. He grilled Proposition 8 proponent Dr. William Tam to a fine crisp. I thought maybe I should check for grill marks as Tam left the courtroom. I asked Boies if he had enjoyed himself, and he purred, "Ooh, that was fun. A good day, a good day. This is why I took the case. This is why I do this."

The defense carped about Judge Walker from the outset. He consistently ruled against them, in pre-trial motions and during the trial itself, and they seemed to think the deck was stacked in the plaintiffs' favor. But His Honor took great pains to appear even-handed, and, at the end of the trial, took the unusual step of coming down from the bench and shaking hands all around. He thanked and congratulated all the attorneys, said the youngest among them did a particularly fine job (I didn't necessarily agree), and said the "old hands" should be proud of how they've mentored the young'uns. The lawyers lined up and shook hands and traded pleasantries with the judge. It looked like the end of a hockey game. I kept waiting for the beefy Pugno to bodycheck Boies.

The plaintiffs, including AFER founder Chad Griffin and a gay couple from Burbank, celebrated gleefully the day the Supreme Court overturned campaign finance restrictions on corporations. Not because they agree with the decision - but because it was yet another 5-4 high court victory for their co-lead counsel, Ted Olson. "Do you really agree with this ruling?" I asked them. "It doesn't matter," one answered. "Boy, did we hire the right lawyer!"

And that's where they're resting their hopes. It's always risky to predict judicial outcomes based on what happens at trial (or even in an appellate hearing), but this was as one-sided a case as I've ever covered. The plaintiffs called 17 witnesses, the defense only two. The plaintiffs presented ten days of evidence to the defendants' two. The defense experts were eviscerated by Boies, and made as many salient points for the plaintiffs' argument as they did for their own side. Ultimately, though, this trial comes down to whether Chief District Judge Vaughn Walker thinks it was fair and reasonable for California voters to ban same sex marriage or not. If he was convinced by the plaintiffs that Proposition 8 doesn't meet the "strict scrutiny" test - in other words, the state doesn't have a compelling interest to keep same sex couples from marrying, and the law took away a fundamental right from a class of people who merit protection - he will declare the law unconstitutional. If he was persuaded by the defendants that there's a legitimate, rational basis for the measure, then he won't. But whatever he decides, the loser will appeal to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and the loser there will almost certainly seek relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.

That case will likely come up in 2012 or so (perhaps late 2011), smack dab in the middle of the next presidential campaign (which will be red meat for the Republicans and not good for Barack Obama). Justice Stevens, and perhaps Justice Ginsburg, will have been replaced by then by younger liberals. Assuming no changes in the conservative wing of the court, it's hard to imagine anything than another 5-4 vote in an Olson-argued case - but this time, to his detriment, to uphold Proposition 8. The plaintiffs are banking on Olson's conservative credentials (he was Solicitor General for President George W. Bush and beat Boies to win the landmark Bush v. Gore case that put W in the Oval Office) and his unparalleled won-lost record at the Supreme Court (he's now 45-12; no living lawyer has won or even argued that many Supreme Court cases) to carry the day when this case reaches Washington. They believe Olson will be able to sway swing-voting Justice Kennedy, and perhaps even Justice Scalia or Chief Justice Roberts, to produce a 5-4 or 6-3 vote in their favor.

But that's a long way off. Maybe this was all a big waste of time and money, a political publicity stunt with a preordained outcome. We'll be back in court for closing arguments sometime in March or April, and then a ruling from Judge Walker, maybe in May. And then we'll see where it goes from there.

I'd hate to think I lost my voice for nothing.

The Scott Heard Round the World

2010-01-26T22:37:00.000-08:00

Cambridge, Mass.

I'm writing this while on a long weekend trip to Boston. Forlorn Martha Coakley signs poke sadly through the snow on the frozen white lawns of Cambridge. From what I gather here, they seem to have been the extent of her U.S. Senate campaign. Stunned Democrats still wander about in a glum daze, wondering how in the world their five-decade liberal lion Senator, the champion of national health, is being replaced by a conservative Cosmo centerfold. And not just any conservative, but one whose raison d'etre in the Senate will be to kill the very bill for which Ted Kennedy fought so long, the one he died thinking would finally become reality.

That irony is not lost on the majority of Bostonians who voted for Coakley, only to see her swamped by the Tea Party-fueled insurgency of one Scott Brown, a Republican State Senator from Wrentham whose previous claim to fame was fathering Ayla Brown, an American Idol finalist a few years back (I thought she was a cute, pleasant lightweight, but as I recall, her undoing was her poor choice of the Natasha Bedingfield song "Unwritten," not the thinness of her voice. But this isn't an Idol blog, is it? So sorry).

There is much teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing among Bay State Democrats. But just as at Concord, 235 years ago and maybe 25 miles from here, this revolutionary moment reverberates far beyond the borders of the Commonwealth.

The Democratic majority, not to mention the president's agenda, is in deep peril. Losing the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey was one thing, but fumbling away the special election to replace Senator Kennedy, and with it, the party's 60-vote supermajority, is quite another.

By most accounts, Coakley ran a lazy, arrogant campaign. The White House saw the warning signs way too late. Scott Brown went door-to-door and diner-to-diner, capitalizing on voter anger over lost jobs, bank bailouts, mounting national debt and a still-sputtering economy. He may only serve two years in the Senate (he must run again when Kennedy's term expires in 2012), but that could be long enough to scuttle health care reform and block Obama's judicial appointees.

President Obama seems to have gotten the wake-up call. Early word is he will come out swinging in his State of the Union speech, and he's already retooling for the midterm elections, trying to reclaim the populist mantle himself. Perhaps this Massachusetts loss will be the kick in the pants he, and the Democratic leadership, need. Many progressives here think Obama's been too timid in his first year - too quick to placate Republicans in the name of bipartisanship, and too slow to pursue the real change so many Americans thought they were voting for in November 2008.

The historic nature of his majority seems to have been lost on Obama. He's a Democratic president, with an astounding 79-seat edge in the House of Representatives and the largest Senate majority in a generation. Not since the post-Watergate campaign of 1976, when Jimmy Carter took the presidency with a 61-38 margin in the Senate (there was one independent), have the Democrats enjoyed this kind of power. Carter squandered it. Obama is in serious jeopardy of doing the same.

Just one year into the Obama presidency, the Carter comparisons are already apt. George W. Bush barely won the office, twice (and really only once), and had the barest of Congressional majorities, but still rammed the Republican agenda through with a Damn the Democrats, Full Speed Ahead attitude. Perhaps it's time for Obama to abandon the genteel, don't-rock-the-boat demeanor of recent vintage Democrats and do some serious, bare knuckle brawling. I'm all for postpartisanship and changing the tone, but it's clear the GOP has no interest at all in playing that game. The Republican Party went all in on stopping Obama, no matter what, even if he discovers the cure for cancer and wants to give it out for free, and their nothing-to-lose obstructionism is paying off beyond Michael Steele's wildest dreams. Can you imagine if the Republican Party had the kind of power the Democrats have (or had, until last week's election here)? There would be no political pussyfooting, trust me.

We all know the kind of change Obama promised takes time. Fixing an economy that's this broken, winning two wars and passing an ambitious domestic agenda doesn't come quickly, and it doesn't come cheap. But Obama no longer has the luxury of time. It's started raining here in Boston, hard, and the warmer storm is melting the frozen Charles River. The ice is cracking, the current is moving again, and it isn't moving in the Democrats' direction.

Here Comes Obama

2009-09-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

Flash! Confirmed today that President Obama will pay his first post-election visit to San Francisco next month. He'll headline two fundraisers on Thursday, October 15th, both at the St. Francis Hotel. There will be your usual cocktail reception, followed by a bigger-ticket full-on dinner. The money will be split between the Democratic National Committee and Obama's own campaign apparatus, now known as Organizing for America (the successor to Obama for America).

It's possible Mr. Obama's first presidential visit here will actually happen a few days before that, because organizers of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Harding Park still hope he'll be here for the awards ceremony on Sunday, October 11. Former Presidents Clinton and Bush the First are supposed to be here for that. It seems unlikely that President Obama would come to San Francisco on the 11th, leave for four days and then come back, but maybe that can fit into his presidential schedule somehow.

Also interesting to note that he hasn't been here yet. By this point in his presidency, Bill Clinton had already paid about four thousand visits to the Bay Area. He came to California dozens of times as president, because Clinton knew all too well that Democrats can't win the presidency without carrying California, and that the Golden State's deep pockets are the best place to find enough loose change to build a campaign war chest. Perhaps Obama is taking us for granted? I would expect him to step up the frequency of his California visits as we get closer to 2012.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

2009-09-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

It was a stunning moment in the middle of last night's presidential address to Congress. As Barack Obama ran through the litany of untruths told by opponents of his plan to reform the nation's health care system (death panels, government-paid abortions, free medicine for illegal immigrants), Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted out "you lie!"

President Obama seemed stunned, not sure how to react. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's eyes shot daggers Wilson's way. Vice President Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama shook their heads in disapproval. Democrats drowned Wilson in a chorus of boos. It sounded like a backbencher being shouted down during Question Time in Parliament. His fellow Republicans gave Wilson scolding looks, and the conservative from Columbia, SC seemed to sense immediately that he had done something wrong.

Wilson apologized later, admitting his outburst was "inappropriate and regrettable." It was also unprecedented. Never in anyone's memory had a member of Congress heckled the president during an address to a joint session. George W. Bush uttered all sorts of things that we now know to have been completely false, and not once did a liberal Democrat stand up and call him a liar, to his face, during a nationally televised speech. Can you imagine the Republican outrage if one had? The drumbeats for resignation, impeachment, maybe even public hanging for treason would have been deafening.

You can't access Wilson's House website right now - it's crashed from excessive traffic. His Twitter feed has been overwhelmed. His Democratic opponent in next year's election has reaped $100,000 in donations overnight from outraged voters. Conservative bloggers have already launched a campaign to respond in kind, seeking donations to re-elect this "great American hero."

So, was the president lying? Or was Wilson?

For the most part, the facts are with the president on this one. Some fairly quick research and interviews after the speech last night clarified what's true, and what isn't.

First off, on the issue of health care for illegal immigrants: The 1018-page House bill specifically outlaws spending federal money to provide health care for them. It couldn't be more explicit. So when the president told Congress "the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," he was telling the truth, and not, as Congressman Wilson asserted, lying.

But - and there's often a but when you're dealing with federal legislation - there is nothing in the bill that would keep illegals from buying their own health insurance, and as Republican Congressman Dan Lungren of Sacramento told me last night, House Democrats killed a GOP-sponsored amendment that would require people to show proof of citizenship to obtain government health benefits. In other words, the reform plan excludes illegal immigrants from health care coverage, but it lacks an enforcement provision to make sure they don't get it anyway. That's a sore point for the GOP, and the source of Wilson's anger.

On other points of contention, President Obama stretched the truth a bit, mostly through sins of omission.

For example, he's changed his tune slightly on whether we'll be able to keep the insurance coverage we have now, if we want to. For months, he has guaranteed that those who like their current plans can keep them. Last night, his wording was different: "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."

That's true - it won't. But there's nothing to stop your employer from dumping its insurance plan, sending you out into the private market, or to a new insurance exchange, and possibly to a government-run option, if that idea survives the Congressional meat-grinder. There could be incentives in the legislation that make it more economical for companies to stop insuring their employees. The Congressional Budget Office projects that about three million workers will suffer that fate under the plan, as now written.

And what about the president's assertion that he "will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period" ? The president's first attempt at that line was interrupted by applause, so he said it twice. Both times, it wasn't 100% accurate. Well, he hasn't signed anything yet, so maybe he really means it. But it rang hollow, coming from a president who's already shown his willingness to increase the deficit at an exponential rate that would make even the Deficit King, George W. Bush, blush.

In fact, the CBO said the House bill would add more than $200 million to the deficit. But Pelosi and company dismissed that unbiased opinion, saying their bill would actually cut the red ink by $25 million. How did they reach that conclusion? They simply exempted about a quarter of a billion dollars that the bill spends on Medicare reimbursements for doctors. Even though Congress recently enacted "pay-as-you-go" legislation, requiring that all new programs be paid for, the Congressional negotiators made an exception for the reimbursements, and decided they don't have to be counted towards the total cost of the package.

Isn't that convenient? I think I'll subtract our mortgage payment from my expenses this month so that my bank statement can be printed in black ink for once.

On the hot-button issues, though, the president was telling the truth. There are no death panels in the health care bill. There is nothing in there allowing federal funding of abortions. The Hyde Amendment remains firmly in effect, and this bill does not repeal it. That won't stop his Republican opponents from saying otherwise as they try to derail reform.

The last ten minutes or so of this speech were as eloquent as any policy address you will ever hear. This wasn't an Inaugural Address; it was a nuts-and-bolts policy speech. Yet from the moment he brought up the late Ted Kennedy, Obama's rhetoric soared as movingly as ever. Singling out three iconic Republican Senators who'd worked with Kennedy on health-care issues was a particularly effective device. If you haven't read the text of Kennedy's deathbed letter to Obama about health care reform, click here. It will bring tears to your eyes.

It was a British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who famously declared that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics" (although Mark Twain is the one who gave Disraeli's line wider circulation). We've heard more than our fair share of all three during the health care debate, and we're likely to hear many more. Last night's breach of Congressional etiquette would have felt familiar to Disraeli, but for Americans, it was much too reminiscent of last month's occasionally raucous public health care forums. Here's hoping that Congressman Wilson's outburst shocks the country back into a sober, civil discussion of a critically important issue. Sadly, as Disraeli might say, that's not bloody likely.

The Lieutenant Governator?

2009-09-02T01:43:00.000-07:00

Just spent a long, late evening covering the special election in the 10th Congressional District, which sprawls across a gerrymandered swath of the East and North Bay Area. Our Lt. Governor, John Garamendi, won the Democratic nomination and Republican businessman-attorney David Harmer won the GOP nod. They'll face off in November, along with three minor-party candidates.

It's a safe seat for the Democrats, who enjoy a 47-29 registration advantage over Republicans in the district, which voted 2-1 for Barack Obama last November. And that sets up an interesting scenario for political junkies to ponder: Who will replace Garamendi as Arnold Schwarzenegger's second-in-command?

The LG is almost certain to win in November. Harmer is an attractive, sincere, thoughtful, articulate man - but he has almost no chance to snatch the seat from any Democrat, let alone someone as well-known and well-versed as Garamendi. Yes, Garamendi can be wooden on the stump - in fact, sometimes he's downright stump-like - wears his political ambitions on his sleeve (he's run for Governor HOW many times?), and flits to the nearest TV camera like a moth strapped to a light-seeking missile. But he really does know the issues better than anyone else, has tremendous experience on a wide range of public policy questions, and is a comfortable fit for the increasingly progressive district.

So it's safe to assume Mr. Garamendi goes to Washington this fall - giving Governor Schwarzenegger the opportunity to appoint his replacement. Under California law, there will be no special election to choose Garamendi's successor. Governors and Lt. Governors are elected separately in California, which is why we have a Republican in the big fancy office and a Democrat in the smaller one down the hall. But if the #2 job becomes vacant, #1 gets to fill it. Both the State Assembly and State Senate have to confirm the governor's choice, with only a simple majority required.

So whom does Arnold pick to serve the remainder of Garamendi's term, which runs through January 2011?

We have to assume he will nominate a Republican. Schwarzenegger remains one, although some in his party would say it's in name only. Under normal circumstances, legislative Democrats might be willing to confirm any reasonable choice (read: not a fire-breathing right-winger). But the circumstances aren't exactly normal, for a few reasons.

First off, we have a major statewide election next year. Might Schwarzenegger give one of the three Republicans running to succeed him a huge boost by elevating him (or her) to the Lieutenant Governorship? How about Tom Campbell, the governor's former finance director, not to mention ex-Congressman, State Senator, Stanford law professor and Cal business school dean? What about Meg Whitman, the ex-eBay CEO and frontrunning Republican gubernatorial candidate? Not likely for Whitman, although Campbell's an intriguing choice. Problem is, he may not be conservative enough to win the Republican primary, but he's moderate enough to win a general election, so Democrats probably won't want to give him any help.

What about one of the people who's already running for the number two job? Schwarzenegger could give a huge lift to Merced State Senator Jeff Denham, the leading Republican contender for lieutenant governor in 2010, who has a huge lead in money raised over the only other Republican candidate, his Senate colleague Sam Aanestad. State Senator Dean Florez heads the Democratic field, but there's no reason Schwarzenegger would pick him. But confirming Denham would damage their party's chances of beating him next year, so Democrats would probably nix that nominee.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger will find a caretaker, even a Democratic one, who would be palatable to the Democratic majority. Former Senate president pro tem Don Perata? He's running for Mayor of Oakland and recovering from prostate cancer, so he might be preoccupied. How about Willie Brown? He and the Governator had a cozy lunch last week in San Francisco, with Arnold tweeting out photos of the two and Willie gushing about their good time in his newspaper column. It would be a nice career-capper for the former San Francisco Mayor and longtime Assembly Speaker. But can you imagine the Republican outrage if Schwarzenegger actually put Willie Brown a heartbeat away from the governor's office?

The thing is though, while the vice presidency is famously not worth a bucket of warm spit, the Lieutenant Governor of California actually has some real power. He gets to chair all sorts of commissions and sit on various boards, including the Regents. One of those is the State Lands Commission, a three-member panel that consists of the LG, the State Controller and the Finance Director. Earlier this year, the commission voted 2-1 to block the Schwarzenegger-supported plan to allow new oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast. Garamendi was the deciding vote. So if the governor replaces him with a Republican, one presumably beholden to some degree to Schwarzenegger, that vote could be reversed, and just like that, whether the legislature likes it or not, say hello to oil rigs along Tranquillon Ridge.

You can bet that will come up when the Democratic leadership goes into the governor's office tomorrow to discuss which nominees might be acceptable.

And then there's Abel Maldonado. You remember him - he's the middle-of-the-road Republican from Santa Maria, who represents another ridiculously-drawn district in the State Senate, reaching all the way up to the southern tip of the Bay Area, who broke party ranks last winter and voted with the Democrats to raise taxes to balance the budget. He desperately wants to run for statewide office. His Republican colleagues consider him a traitor, and he's not their ideological soulmate. Democrats can't wait for him to leave the Senate, because they've been salivating over his district, which they consider ripe for turning. Snatching Maldonado's seat would give them a 26-14 edge in the Senate, just one short of that elusive two-thirds majority they need to raise taxes and pass budgets.

So. Let the wheels turn. May the Machiavellian machinations begin. Increase your majority in the Senate - or risk offshore oil drilling? These are some of the weights the Democrats will have to balance as they consider whom, and whether, to confirm. Schwarzenegger may find himself handcuffed by the legislative leaders, who aren't going to want to give anyone with real ambitions a big leg up. They will almost certainly urge him to name a placeholder - maybe someone like former Controller Steve Westly, although Westly still may have future designs on running for governor again himself someday.

I'm not placing any bets, and I'm not taking any either. And I've gone on way too long, so let's call it a night! By the way, I do have lots I'd like to blog about on the health care debate, and I know I haven't been a very active blogger lately, but remember, I micro-blog on Twitter all day, so you can always follow my tweets at twitter.com/sovernnation.

A Bear Market

2009-07-20T23:43:00.001-07:00

A few months ago, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stumbled across a grizzly bear while visiting Montana. Luckily for him, it was hollow and made of bronze. But still, it was life-sized, and reminded him of the great grizzlies that once roamed his beloved Golden State, so he bought it and brought it home to Sacramento.

The governor installed his new bear smack dab in the middle of the Capitol hallway, right in front of his office. This was good news for the Highway Patrol officers who guard Schwarzenegger's lair, since the bronze grizzly replaced them as the focus of visiting tourists' snapshots. It also made a nice bollard, adding another level of security outside the governor's office. And it gave the reporters who cover the governor somewhere to rest their microphones during his occasional hallway news conferences on the state budget crisis.

Today (and we use that term loosely since this very long day has about ten minutes left in it) was the last day of California's latest budget stalemate. As we staked out what would prove to be the final Big Five meeting of the crisis, the governor's staffers brought out a press pool, something we refer to as a "mult box," because it has multiple microphone outputs for the media to plug into, thus sparing the bear the indignity of all those microphones duct-taped to its bronze back.

It occurred to me that the bear could be put to better use as California struggles to balance its books. Why not carve a slot along its spine, and turn it into a Piggy Bear? (Or would that be a Beary Bank?) Certainly all those tourists who line up in the hall hoping for a glimpse of the Governator would gladly drop a quarter or two into the bear's belly for the privilege of posing with it. We could charge the out-of-staters a buck, or maybe even five; after all, they're freeloaders anyway, getting a free tour of our Capitol and occupying valuable hall space without paying any rent, all on the California taxpayers' dime.

Once the great beast proved his worth, the state Treasurer could securitize the bear, as California likes to do with all its longterm assets. Why, we could sell Bear-er Bonds. Perhaps Bear Stearns could handle that for us. After all, they pioneered those securitized asset deals, didn't they?

Oh wait. That got them in trouble. They went belly up - as extinct as the California grizzly.

Governor Schwarzenegger and his pals in the legislature found some other ways to balance the books, ending my five-hour reverie about the bear (who is still unnamed, by the way) by coming out of their meeting to announce a Deal At Long Last to erase the state's $26 billion deficit. It isn't pretty; they plan to slash $6 billion from K-12 education, $3 billion more from higher ed, more than a billion from the prisons, more than a billion from medical care for the poor, etc. etc. The governor gets to close some state parks (but thankfully, just a few), resume oil drilling from a single rig off Santa Barbara, tighten up on fraud and abuse in welfare programs, and raid the treasuries of California's counties to the tune of $4.3 billion. All of this assumes the approval of two-thirds of each house of the state legislature, some of whom have been known to hold this sort of budget deal hostage until the appropriate legislative ransom is paid.

If the deal does go through, it should allow the state to resume selling bonds, which would mean an end to the IOUs that have brought California international embarrassment for the last three weeks. It doesn't really mean an end to the state's financial crisis, since tax revenues are still declining, and the budget is likely to fall further out of balance before the year is out (think about this: already this calendar year, the state has had to cut, borrow or manipulate more than 60 billion dollars out of its spending plan - which is more than half the state budget).

Which means we're likely to be back in that hallway at some point this fall, sprawled across the marble floor, charging our iPhones and laptops on the taxpayers' electric bill, resuming our vigil as our fearless leaders grapple with yet another shortfall, and squabble over how to close it.

At which point I say, let's open up the bear market. Name that grizzly, saw out a slot in his back and put the California Golden Bear to work.

Otherwise, we could be bearish on California for a long, long time.

The Curious Case of Sarah Palin

2009-07-05T15:04:00.001-07:00

At least no one can accuse the Republicans of being boring anymore.

In a span of just two weeks, the Grand Old Party has shot off more political fireworks than a pyromaniac on Independence Day.

One after another, the rising stars of a leaderless party have gone supernova. Two of them have probably disappeared forever into political black holes. The third will continue to ping pong around some parallel universe, hoping her unpredictable trajectory finds its target at some point.

First, Nevada Senator John Ensign, the silver-haired son of the Silver State, a classic Central Casting presidential hopeful, revealed he had an affair with a married staffer, and got his mistress' husband a couple of jobs on the public payroll, too. Oops. Nevada is supposed to be a swing state...not just a swinger's state. So long, Senator.

Then, an even bigger bombshell - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's disappearing act, followed by his bizarre, rambling confession of an Argentinean love affair. Abdicating his gubernatorial responsibilities for five days was bad enough, but admitting to multiple affairs and not loving his wife anymore has doomed this Great Republican Hope (Rush Limbaugh kept muttering "He could have been our JFK!" What, did Rush already know about Sanford's philandering?).

And now, the Curious Case of Sarah Palin. She was born wacky and grows wackier right before our eyes - and all without benefit of digital effects. No one's ever accused her of being a conventional politician. Why should she start now?

Palin's startling decision to quit being governor two-and-a-half years into her term makes no political sense. To many Alaskans, her "explanation" that she doesn't want to be just another lame duck governor, "milking it," as she said, is a selfish affront. Many, many governors serve only one term - in some states, like Virginia, they do so by statute. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine were lame ducks from their first day in office; the Virginia Constitution forbids running for re-election. Should they have just resigned, then, rather than "milk" their lame duck status for four years? Arnold Schwarzenegger has a year and a half left in his second term as Governor of California, making him as lame a duck as Palin in Alaska. Can you imagine the uproar if he quit tomorrow, abandoning ship in the middle of a budget crisis? It's not likely he'd be applauded for his leadership and integrity, or for answering a "higher calling." Most voters expect their leaders to honor their oaths of office.

I don't buy the blogosphere's theories of some sinister secret that Palin's hoping to keep hidden by leaving office. Sure, she's under investigation for all sorts of alleged ethics violations, but Palin is nothing if not a fighter. She has shown that from the moment John McCain foolishly thrust her into the national spotlight. If that was all this was about, Palin would stand firm and punch back. No, I actually believe her when she says she's tired of the nasty focus on her family. It's also very much about money; Palin probably hopes that leaving office now will lower the volume on those ethics charges and slow the mounting cost of her defense. And I think she really does want to step back and marshal her resources for some sort of national campaign, perhaps as a highly-paid inspirational speaker for now, and then as a presidential candidate in 2012.

But Palin is kidding herself if she thinks her critics will simply go away once she's no longer governor. The spotlight's red glare just gets hotter when you run for president, and her irrational decision gives her enemies even more ammunition. If she can't even complete a single term governing the nation's least populous state, how in the world will she ask America to entrust her with the presidency? Didn't she owe it to Alaska to finish the job to which she was elected? Will she ever again be able to accuse an opponent of wanting to "cut and run" - from Iraq, or anywhere else?

It's one thing to decline a second term to pursue a national campaign; it's worked for many former governors, including Jimmy Carter. It's quite another to quit halfway through that first term. In fact, it's almost without precedent. A review of the National Governors Association's historical database shows that 205 U.S. governors have resigned their seats. Almost all did so because they were elected or appointed to higher office, such as California's Earl Warren becoming Chief Justice in 1953 or Arizona's Janet Napolitano quitting to become President Obama's Homeland Security secretary. About a dozen have resigned because they were indicted or under criminal investigation. Remarkably, New Jersey's gay Gov, Jim McGreevey, was the first to quit because of an extramarital affair; all the previous governors caught in (heterosexual) dalliances rode out the storm (a ray of hope for Mark Sanford).

But in that long, rich legacy of prematurely departing governors, not even the wonderfully named Alpheus Felch of Michigan or Archibald Yell of Arkansas slunk from office in as ignominious a fashion as Sarah Palin. One must go all the way back to California's very first governor, Peter Burnett, to find a chief executive who simply quit because he couldn't take it anymore. Burnett served barely more than a year in office before resigning in 1851 under intense criticism from the state legislature. Among other things, the governor wanted all black people expelled from California, passed a stiff tax on immigrants, and advocated the extermination of California's Indian tribes. While in the Oregon legislature, he had led the successful fight for that state's exclusion law, barring blacks from Oregon and mandating the flogging every six months of any who refused to leave. California lawmakers reacted to their new governor's State of the State address with howls of fury. Burnett was ridiculed in newspapers up and down the state. So he simply packed up and quit. This is the exclusive company in which Sarah Palin finds herself 158 years later.

(Burnett still got a street named after him: Burnett Avenue in San Francisco. Somehow I doubt there will be a Palin Place in Anchorage, or even Wasilla, anytime soon).

So while soon-to-be-former Governor Palin ponders her future and plots how to build a national campaign around defensiveness and victimization, the Republican Party is reeling, casting about for a leader, and staring at an awfully thin bench. Last year's also-rans, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, look awfully good right now. Newt Gingrich? Come on down and play savior. The governors McCain passed over to pick Palin - Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels - vault to the head of the pack. Even jolly old Haley Barbour of Mississippi, as unlikely an Obama opponent as you could ever envision, looks more and more viable for 2012.

Until the next bombshell goes off, that is...

Barry's Auto Repair

2009-04-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

President Obama slid out from beneath the rusting chassis of the banged-up Ford Explorer.
"Hey Geithner, can you pass me that pneumatic ratchet?"
"Which one is that again, Mr. President?"
A deep sigh.
"The one that looks sort of like a Jedi light saber, without any light coming out of it."
"Oh cool! That one! Sure, here you go, sir."
After some clanking and banging, the President pokes his head out again.
"I don't suppose you could hook up the diagnostic tester, could you, Mr. Secretary?"
"Um...how does that go again?"
Another deep sigh.
"You never learned any automotive engineering at all, Tim?"
"I'm sorry sir, they don't teach that at Johns Hopkins."
"Fine. I'll do it myself. Like everything else around here."
"Yes sir. Remember though, sir, what Jimmy Carter told you during the transition."
"And what was that, Tim?"
"That if you take on too much as president, they call you a 'micro-manager.' But if you wait until you get out of office to do that, they give you the Nobel Prize."
"Ah yes. Well, we need some hands-on government right now, Timmy, and I'm laying my hands on everything."
The president re-emerges from beneath the Ford, gets up and starts wiping the grease off his hands and face.
"Hey Emanuel! How does my schedule look for the rest of the day?"
"Well sir," says the Chief of Staff as he consults a clipboard, "we have two Buicks, a Pontiac, Bill Richardson's Camaro and Schwarzenegger's Hummer to fix. And then Ted Stevens just dropped off his Ford pickup. Very high mileage, lots of road salt corrosion. But I think we'd better squeeze him in. We owe him one."
Yet another deep sigh from the President as Rahm heads back out to customer service.
"Tim, do you think we made a mistake guaranteeing the warranties for all those American cars? When will I ever get to health care reform, or global warming?"
"No sir, I think we can handle it," says Geithner. "Right along with balancing every American's checkbook, doing their taxes, reorganizing their 401ks and hand-picking the boards of the Fortune 500. I have every confidence, sir. Remember," he says proudly, "I used to work at the IMF!"
"Yes, Tim, but how many times do I have to tell you," says the president wearily, "The one you worked for was the International Monetary Fund, not the Impossible Mission Force."
"Oh, right, sir. Sorry. Then why does everything I touch seem to self-destruct?"
The president gives him a blank stare as Emanuel rushes back in to the garage.
"Mr. President, Mr. President!"
"What is it, Rahm? An Iranian missile test? A dirty bomb? Another corporate titan caught with his bonus showing?"
"No sir. It's Ted Kennedy!"
"Oh my God! Is he..."
"Yes, sir. He just pulled in to the loading dock. Driving a 1967 Oldsmobile. Massachusetts plates. Says it has some pretty bad water damage. Wants to know if you could take a look - and is it okay if he pays cash?"

Obama, No Drama

2009-02-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Man, is this president disciplined.

Every politician is taught to stay on message. They should use a video of President Obama's first White House news conference tonight to teach fledgling politicos how to do it.

Not many presidents could speak for 60 minutes without making news beyond the purpose of the news conference, which was to push the economic stimulus package. Are you going to meet with the Iranians, Mr. President? We'll look for opportunities. Will you lift the ban on photographing coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq? That's something we'll have to look into. What's in your bank bailout plan? Well, I don't want to upstage my Treasury Secretary. It seems clear after just three weeks and one news conference that Barack Obama is going to run his White House the way he ran his campaign: a tight ship, disciplined from the top down, putting out fires as soon as there's smoke. That's not a bad template for organizational management, although the wild cards of unpredictable Washington politics and arrogance creep could corrupt it.

Every president establishes his own style. Mr. Obama's first news conference (which you can hear here) demonstrated how different his will be from the chief executives who've come before him, including but not limited to George W. Bush. Obama struck a professorial tone, giving long-winded answers that veered off into tangential cul-de-sacs but always found their way back to the main artery (that's a notable difference from Bush right there).

He was new at this, and so was much of the White House press corps. Many news organizations change their White House correspondents when a new president comes into office. These days, they often install the reporter who covered the winning candidate's campaign. So CBS News, ABC, NBC, the Associated Press and many others had correspondents there who had never played the supporting role at a White House news conference before. Some, especially on the print side, seemed nervous and tentative. We can only hope they find their voice quickly, and avoid melting into the same spineless blob that covered President Bush for most of his tenure. I want to hear challenging questions, designed to compel answers that tell me something I didn't know before. That's not so hard as it sounds.

President Obama could have been giving a constitutional law lecture. I don't know if they employ the Socratic method at the University of Chicago, but it sure seemed like it. Every modern president knows in advance on which reporters he will call, and in what order, and has certain organizations he's going to ignore. But presidents typically scan the room and find their desired target among the raised hands and pens. Not Obama. He simply worked his way down his list, even announcing the reporters' affiliations. "Jennifer Loven, AP?" Check. "Chip Reid, CBS?" Check. Whether a reporter had a hand up or not, if it was his or her turn on the list put together by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, he or she got the call. "Sam Stein, Huffington Post?" Check.

Wait a second - Huffington Post?

That's right, I believe this Sam Stein guy made history tonight, by becoming the first blogger ever called on at a White House news conference. Perhaps President Bush called on one once, but I don't remember it happening. President Obama actually called on a blogger who works for Arianna Huffington. And Mara Liasson from NPR. And good old Helen Thomas, now a columnist for the Hearst Newspapers. These are people whose probing questions had been left out in the wilderness to die for the last eight years (well okay, Bush called on NPR every now and again, but he banished Helen a long time ago). Now this is change I can believe in.

Even Mr. Stein's question about prosecuting members of the Bush administration with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn't faze the unflappable Obama. Nobody is above the law, the president said - but I prefer to look forward, not backwards.

I kept waiting for this scholarly president to ask one of the reporters to give the class the facts of Bush v. Gore, or maybe Roe v. Wade.

But I must confess I do miss the nicknames President Bush gave all the reporters. I wanted to hear Obama call out "Lefty? A question? What about you, Chickenhawk?" The closest we got was Chip and Jake, but those are actually their names.

Now let's see if the president keeps his promise of a news conference every week. We already know there was some puffery in the campaign rhetoric, but it would be refreshing for a candidate who pledges transparency and accountability to actually deliver some once in office. As long as he has something to promote, such as the stimulus package, we're likely to see him back at that podium, but don't expect anything surprising to come out of his mouth. He'll be on message, ticking off his points, completing his regimen. It might as well be one of his daily 60-minute workouts. Let's see how long it takes before the White House Press Corps gives him some heavy lifting.

Still Having A Ball?

2009-02-06T09:10:00.000-08:00

It took more than six years for George W. Bush to admit making a presidential mistake. It took Barack Obama less than two weeks.

This past week, we were treated to an odd sight in our newsroom. A glance up at the bank of TV screens showed President Obama on five channels at once - except this wasn't a State of the Union speech or some other live event broadcast on every network simultaneously. This was the evening news, on CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox. And there was the president, with the American flag strategically positioned behind his cocked head, with cutaways to a thoughtful-looking network anchor seated in an Oval Office chair, saying "I screwed up" and "It's my fault" and "I take full responsibility" to each one, over and over again (referring to Tom Daschle's tax problems and the withdrawal of his nomination at HHS). It was coincidence that every network aired its taped presidential interview at the exact same time; the rest was careful White House choreography. The exact same shot - almost identical words - given prominent placement by networks eager to trumpet their Oval Office access.

A student of history to be sure, President Obama is transparently determined not to repeat the mistakes of past presidents (even those who never admitted making any). Jimmy Carter was a notorious control freak; Barack Obama is delegating key White House tasks - not all of them, but just enough. Bill Clinton tackled thorny issues too quickly, without Congressional input; Obama's going slowly on some, and is involving Congressional leaders, from both parties, at every turn. President Bush - well, we all know what he did wrong, and in most cases, Obama's doing the exact opposite. A snarky Dick Cheney needled the Obama team this week for its multi-layered flow chart of many czars. You could almost hear the derisive collective snort from the Obama White House. The last thing they intend to do is simply photocopy the Bush White House Way and repeat it.

But that too could be a mistake. Surely, something must have been done intelligently in the Bush administration. There must be some systems worth replicating.

Well, maybe not.

So here was President Obama granting interviews, so early in his administration, taking the blame and moving on. Days before, he roamed the halls of the Capitol, meeting face-to-face with the loyal opposition, on their turf. It's certainly refreshing to have a seemingly candid, articulate, fully-functioning adult running our country. I'm still waiting for the news conferences he said he would have on a weekly basis. If you're keeping score, that may be his first broken campaign promise. He will finally have one, Monday evening, in prime time, no less. Let's see if he has another the following week.

As for the economy, well, so far, the only job creation has been at the White House. President Obama is cramming people into the West Wing. Do we really need a czar for this and a czar for that? Is his model Abraham Lincoln or Peter the Great? It remains to be seen if the Obama White House will be brilliant and efficient, or a top-heavy nest of sniping bureaucrats mud-wrestling for power. Then there's the stimulus package. Every liberal or Democratic interest group in America has emailed me, begging me to lobby Congress to pass it, and to make sure their pet project is included. If George Bush had proposed this package, would you support it? Is this the best way to spend our hard-earned trillions? More importantly, will it work?

We don't know, of course. We can only hope (unless we're Rush Limbaugh). I worry that it won't. I'm not a big fan of deficit spending. I don't believe in it in my own economy, and I certainly don't like it on the macro level. Bill Clinton's deficit reduction was, I think, the most significant accomplishment of his presidency. The red ink run up by the last three Republican presidents has been a nation-weakening embarrassment. But now Obama is poised not only to repeat that mistake, but to multiply it, with an annual deficit next year perhaps exceeding one trillion dollars. No nation can sustain that level of debt. I realize that in this instance, Obama's historical touchstone is not Lincoln but FDR, but unless there's a world war coming that we don't know about, there's no guarantee that we, too, can spend our way out of this economic collapse.

But then, we've got to do something, right? There seems to be agreement on that. As long as these moves don't turn us into the Weimar Republic.

Was it really just two weeks ago that I was crammed into the Newseum at the Huffington Post Ball on inaugural eve? That is hard to believe. There was an incredible air of hope and optimism and celebration there. Exuberant celebrities counted down at midnight to the end of the Bush Era, and the dawn of Obama Time. Bloggers and pundits and liberal activists partied shoulder-to-shoulder, jockeying for hors d'oeuvres and dancing the night away to Sting and Sheryl Crow and Will.i.am. They had shivered for 20 minutes on a long VIP line just to get inside. There was a jubilant Howard Dean, and a shimmying Demi Moore, with kids and Ashton Kutcher in tow, and a grumpy Robert DeNiro. Here came Don King's hair, and there went Dustin Hoffman and Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx (at one point, a friend pointed out that there were at least five Oscar-winning Best Actors on the dance floor). Ben Affleck grabbed a cheese puff from a passing tray. Vaguely recognizable TV stars mingled with CNN talking heads. I ran into one of our favorite Bay Area Congresswomen, Blue Dog Democrat Ellen Tauscher, with her new fiance. We bonded over our wedding plans.

At one point, the dance floor crowd surged into a previously off-limits area, and a tall, beautiful woman grabbed my hand and pulled me to safety. This woman is strong, I thought. Then I saw that her other hand was being pulled by her massive husband - Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker. We popped out into an open space, where paparazzi shouted "Forest! Forest!" (since my friends call me Forrest Gump, I of course thought they were shouting at me). Whitaker obliged, smiling and waving for the cameras. Somewhere there's a great picture or two of a beaming Forest Whitaker, his gorgeous wife and a short, startled-looking, bald guy holding her hand.

(Okay, those two paragraphs should satisfy those of you who have been begging for the HuffPo celeb ball report. You know who you are. To the rest of you, thanks for the indulgence).

That party was all about dispatching the sorry past and embracing the possibilities of the immediate future. You didn't really think it would be stumble-free, did you? Barack Obama already has to replace three of his original Cabinet choices, and as far as Congressional Republicans are concerned, the honeymoon is already over (if you have paid all your taxes, please send your resume to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Attention: Rahm Emanuel). Some form of the stimulus package will pass, festooned with Lord knows what. If it doesn't work, the bloom will be off Obama's rose before you can say "one-term president." I have been cautioning starry-eyed friends for two years that this man is not the Messiah. Clearly, he's learned from the past, but that's no guarantee that he's not doomed to repeat some of it anyway. Nobody said this would be easy, least of all him. Euphoria wears off, and reality sets in. Two weeks ago, Obama made history. Now it's all about creating the future, and that may take a lot longer.

The Difference

2009-01-22T13:29:00.000-08:00

Eighty-eight months ago, we were told that everything had changed forever in America - and nothing would ever be the same. We were at war. There was a new sense of national purpose, of shared responsibility. We'd all have to adjust to new security measures. It was the death of irony.

Well, nothing lasts forever. I never bought the death of irony – it was resurrected within days. President Bush frittered away the world’s good will and America’s collective willingness to sacrifice. Our national dialogue became even more partisan and mean-spirited than before. The economy collapsed – just as the terrorists who attacked us on September 11, 2001 intended.

The security measures remain, of course. I dutifully removed my shoes and coat this morning on my way home from covering the inauguration. I pulled my laptop from its cozy corduroy sheath. I padded through the metal detector in my socks. A sign announced that the TSA is exploring “Whole Body Technology” that could soon let us keep our clothes on at the airport (I thought “Whole Body Technology” was what helps me pick out the right sunscreen at Whole Foods).

Now, once again, everything has changed. Everything is different. For how long this time?

Like many of the million or two who crammed onto the frozen grounds of the National Mall, I am filled with hope. But mine is the hope that the American people won’t give up too quickly on their new president. A CBS News-New York Times poll on the eve of the inauguration found many Americans willing to wait for positive results from Barack Obama. They recognize that the United States has enormous problems, and the consensus in the survey was that it might take two years for Mr. Obama to get the creaking, leaking ship of state back on course.

But in a month, or two, or three, when President Obama’s First 100 Days have been televised, scrutinized and digitized, when the chattering class has picked apart the ins and outs and ups and downs and nits and bits of every presidential stumble and hiccup – and unemployment is still rising, and the stock market is still sputtering (or worse), and the troops are still in Iraq – how quickly will that patience wane?

The public has a short memory. It also has a short attention span. And it famously keeps its presidents on a very short leash. George Herbert Walker Bush went from a record 91% approval rating in the spring of 1991 – to summarily drummed out of office 18 months later. His son went from an approval rating in the same neighborhood after 9/11…to Tuesday’s ignominious departure, taken away by helicopter as tens of thousands below hooted and waved bye-bye to the most unpopular, and many would say the worst, president in American history.

You may say I’m a cynic. No - I’m as idealistic and romantic as any soul on this earth. I just also believe in pragmatic realism, and I come by it honestly. I have been a student of history and politics for more than 40 years, and it just doesn’t pay to burden a fellow human being with impossibly unrealistic expectations. Never forget that Barack Hussein Obama is just a man. He’s an uncommonly disciplined man, a very smart man, who is thoughtful and eloquent, not to mention handsome and tall, which never hurts when it comes to self-confidence and the ability to persuade others. But it is a rare soul who can fairly bear the burden of others’ dreams. Every generation or so, an extraordinary individual transcends our natural limitations: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela. But even among those, only Mandela lived to see his people enjoy the freedoms he helped them achieve.

Someday, perhaps Mr. Obama’s name will fall naturally at the end of that line. Most of us hope so. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t; he said on the radio this morning that he hopes President Obama fails, because he disagrees with his policies. At the moment, thankfully, he is an exception.

For some, Mr. Obama has already delivered. Janet Jones Kern drove from Farmington Hills, Michigan all the way to Washington to see Mr. Obama sworn in. She is white. In 1971, she gave birth to a biracial daughter. She was a single mom, raising a half-black child alone in the Midwest.

“I always felt alone,” she told me. “I endured a lot of hard times, a lot of pain and bias.” She eventually married a black man. Her daughter married, too, and had children of her own.

“But I always felt that the playing field wasn’t exactly level, and that I brought them all into a tough world. I just always felt this nagging doubt, that there was a deficit for my children and grandchildren. Now I feel validated. My little five-year-old granddaughter can look me in the eye and say, ‘Grandma, I’m going to grow up and become President of the United States of America.’ And for the first time,” she told me, in the cold shadow of the Washington Monument, “it’s really true! I just feel joyous. I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore, I feel like the whole world is with me.”

She didn’t have a ticket. She got nowhere close to the West Front of the Capitol. But, she said, “I’m just thrilled to breathe the same air as this man. I know it’s going to be long and hard and tough” for him to turn the country around – but for her, the difference is already real, and in her case, it will last forever.

The difference is already there for Nancy Pelosi, too. I’ve interviewed the Speaker of the House three times in the past ten days, the last time yesterday in her Capitol office. From her windows, we could see the presidential podium, the scaffolds, the chairs waiting to be taken down after the proceedings of the day before. We looked out along the empty Mall, to the Washington Monument and beyond, where so many people had shivered and cheered and cried 24 hours earlier. For Speaker Pelosi, the change has already come.

“I just can’t stop smiling. It’s an incredible thing!” She beamed at me. “No one knows better than I how important it was that we make this change. President Bush’s presidency wasn’t just one of missed opportunities,” she said, “but of making matters worse. Whether it’s the war in Iraq, the economy, the budget, the environment – you name it. He took us backward. When that helicopter went up yesterday,” referring to the Marine chopper that carried the Bushes away from the Capitol, “I thought – bye bye!”

And here she waved at the sky. “It’s like a ten-ton anvil being lifted from my chest.”

And did she feel even a single pang of pity for President Bush, as he sat on that stage listening to the new president trash the Bush policies? Uh…no.

“I don’t have to be concerned about what President Bush is thinking anymore. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. I don’t feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the one in six children in America who are living in poverty. I feel sorry for the people who have lost their jobs because of the economic downturn. President Bush? Goodbye!”

The change is also real for the African-American security officer who helped me find the Speaker’s office, after I got lost in the maze that is our Capitol. As he was walking me to the proper elevator, he suddenly started giggling.

“I know, “ I said sheepishly, “I’m an idiot. I went to the Senate side by mistake.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said with a smile.
What then?
“My president is a black man.”
And with a giddy guffaw, he pushed the elevator button and sent me on my way.

President Obama is already on his way, signing Executive Orders to close Guantanamo Bay, make sure American interrogators don’t torture terror suspects and freeze the pay of White House staffers. In the next few days, he’ll sign more, reversing Bush policies on abortion, ethics, maybe on gays in the military. These are things he can do with the stroke of a pen. Would that resuscitating the economy and ending two wars were that easy. Simple principle and belief aren’t enough to create jobs and restore lost wealth. For those who have placed perhaps too much faith in him, who have turned Barack Obama into a vessel for all their national aspirations, the wait for things to truly be different may take a little longer. They may end up disappointed when he can’t be everything they thought he was. Perhaps they should temper their hopes with a dash of reality, lest they be dashed completely if he fails to live up to those lofty expectations.

Diary of an Inauguration

2009-01-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

I know, you want to know all about last night's Huffington Post bash. Was that really only last night? Seems so long ago already...

But how can I blog about a silly, celebrity-soaked party after what we witnessed today? I think I'll make the HuffPo report tomorrow's postscript to this adventure. For now, I offer instead this blow-by-blow of today's incredible proceedings:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2009
(as prescribed by the Constitution of the United States)

1:45am: Glad I only had one vodka martini at the party, I finally get to bed, just a few short hours before it's time to cover the swearing-in of a new American president.

4:00am: Fifteen minutes before the alarm is supposed to go off, I get up, awakened by sirens and the sounds of police setting up barricades outside my hotel. Yes, I have only slept two hours and 15 minutes, and fitfully at that.

4:49am: I leave the hotel, stepping out into a police zone. The cops have blocked the front door of my hotel. I am forced to exit through the service entrance on a side street, weaving through the hotel kitchen on a route that reminds me too much of Robert F. Kennedy's last moments.

5:02am: Lugging two heavy bags of broadcasting gear, I board the Metro, bound for the Capitol. Luckily, the surging crowd is getting off at my station, not on, so the train isn't that crowded. Most of this pre-dawn throng is heading for the National Mall, not the Capitol itself.

5:22am: I exit the train and stroll up to the Capitol grounds. Hey, this is going great! Empty train, no delays, smooth sailing. I have been told by the Secret Service that I must be on site between 4 and 6am, for screening of all my equipment and to get in place on the Capitol's West Front. It is 22 degrees.

5:23am: Uh-oh. Everything grinds to a halt. I join the longest security line I have ever seen. It's mostly media, mixed with a large group of military medical personnel in camouflage. The queue snakes out the security trailer, down Capitol Hill, around a bend...it's at least two blocks long. Everyone is stunned.

6:28am: One hour and five minutes later, it's finally my turn to go through the magnetometers. The temperature has dropped to 20 degrees. We have all been shivering in the pre-dawn cold. Photographers mostly, from Time, Reuters, Agence France-Press, Polaris. Some have endured the delay in good humor. Others have not.

6:29am: An officer scans the bar code on my special inaugural credential. A friendly "blip" brings my name onto the screen of his handheld scanner. I am good to go. The photog behind me hears an unfortunate "bonk" sound instead - kind of like losing at Pong (dating myself, I know). He swears that youthful indiscretion was supposed to be expunged from his record! Can't they try again? After FIVE scans, the machine finally accepts him and he's cleared to photograph Barack Obama.

6:34am: After lingering in the heated security trailer as long as we can, we are finally chased back out into the cold by the Capitol Police.

6:35am: We cross the West Front onto the Capitol steps. Everything is in place for the inauguration. Rows of seats are set up behind the podium for members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and invited guests and dignitaries. I am shown to my seat. This can't be possible - I get to sit this close?

6:36am: Somebody pinch me. I have a chair, and a desk, with electricity, high-speed Internet and an ISDN broadcasting line. It is on an elevated platform directly to the right of the presidential podium, at the same height as the lectern. It is maybe 75 feet away from where Barack Obama will take the Oath of Office. The line of sight is unobstructed. I could hit the president with a snowball. Luckily, it isn't snowing. Yet.

6:37am to 11:30 am: The temperature drops to 19. With the wind chill, it feels like eight degrees. I can no longer feel my feet. The reporter to my right flees the platform with frostbite in his toes. He never returns. I wish I'd brought my other hat. And a space heater. And a blanket. And maybe some electrically heated down booties.

7:00am: My laptop shuts itself down and goes into hibernation. It becomes a block of iced aluminum. It stays that way for the duration of the inauguration. So much for blogging. So much for my high-speed DSL line. Guess I won't be writing my scripts on the computer!

7:01am: The ink in my pen stops flowing. It's frozen. Hmmm. Guess I won't be writing my scripts at all. I'll have to ad lib the rest of the day. It could be worse: two other reporters have their broadcasting gear freeze up. They are forced to report by phone the rest of the morning.

7:30am: We all decide to kill some time with a little breakfast. Except our energy bars, pastries and bagels have frozen solid. They would make nice doorstops. Or hockey pucks. They are like little carbohydrate icebergs. Our bottles of water have also frozen solid. They become weapons. The Secret Service considers confiscating them but takes pity on us. Some apply little hot pad toe warmers to the bottles, hoping to thaw them out so we can actually drink something over the next five hours. No such luck. I slap the toe warmers onto my feet. Unfortunately, this requires removing my shoes, which I think negates the positive effect of applying the warmers.

8:00am-11:30am: A vast throng fills the National Mall, from just west of us to the Lincoln Memorial, which is about two miles away. Every section between the Capitol and the Washington Monument is filled to capacity. Beyond that, some late arrivals fill in the spaces around the Reflecting Pool and at Lincoln's feet, but that area isn't completely full. We are given a preliminary crowd estimate of approximately one and a half million. It is an awesome sight. A slight turn to the right and I can gaze along the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, which is also lined now by the smaller parade crowd.

On the platform in front of us, senators and governors and former presidents begin to arrive. There's a large California contingent - Governor Schwarzenegger, former Governor Gray Davis, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. There's John Kerry talking with John McCain. Chris Dodd chats with his state mate, Joe Lieberman. Teddy Kennedy limps out to a big roar from the crowd. George H.W. Bush limps out too, looking surprisingly unsteady. Dick Cheney does him one better, coming out in a wheelchair after hurting himself moving out of the vice presidential residence. In a long black trenchcoat and black fedora, hunched in the wheelchair, he looks like the black-clad guy from Spy vs. Spy.

Below us, celebrities fill some of the next best seats. Don King, waving an American flag, holds court. His shock of gray hair isn't as tall as it used to be. There's Denzel Washington, and Beyonce, and Jay-Z and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

11:30am: The ceremony is behind schedule. Howard Gantman, longtime aide to Senator Dianne Feinstein, told me two weeks ago that Obama absolutely must be sworn in before noon, to comply with the Constitution. The oath is scheduled for 11:56. But here they are, running about 15 minutes late. Perhaps they'll push Yo Yo Ma back, or Aretha Franklin.

Nope. They continue with the program. Obama is sworn in a few minutes late. It doesn't matter - according to the Constitution, he becomes president at noon anyway, even though he hasn't taken the oath yet.

Random observations: President-elect Obama lost in apparent rapture as he listens to Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman play John Williams. Is he going over his speech? Pondering the import of what is about to happen? Simply lost in the music? Meanwhile, his wife gets up and fusses over the kids....President Bush fidgeting and smirking and shifting in his seat. He seems uncomfortable. Maybe it's the cold. Maybe it's that a million people booed lustily when he was introduced. Maybe it's because during his speech, Obama essentially denounces all of the Bush-Cheney policies and says we'll have no more of that. That's got to be tough for Bush to hear, sitting three feet away...Denzel Washington, in long coat and knit cap, suddenly leaping to his feet in the middle of President Obama's speech, and standing in rapt attention the rest of the way...and most of all, one to two million people, completely still and silent, even in physical discomfort, absolutely transfixed by the words of their new president. Most of the time, the only sounds are the military helicopters and the booming voice of Mr. Obama, ringing out in a slight delay across the Mall. People hang on every word. It gives me chills - or maybe that's just the numbing cold.

12:37 (or so - I can no longer operate my iPhone to tell the time, because you can't use touch screens with gloves on, and with the gloves off, my fingers aren't generating enough heat to activate the touch screen): It's done. President Obama and the new First Lady depart the stage. The podium guests discard their blue wool commemorative blankets. We on the media platform covet them but the stern regard of the Secret Service dissuades us from trying to snag one. I hobble up the steps behind the presidential platform, looking for the nearest bathroom. The walk brings some feeling back into my feet. A knot of guards stands between me and the Port-a-Potty.

"Do you think I can use that Port-a-Potty? Would that be okay? Please?" I beg the nearest one, a tall guy in a dark suit, wrapped in one of those blue blankets.

He looks at me in surprise. "Why, I think...Yes! I say yes!"

I realize this one is not with the Secret Service. It's the actor John Cusack. For some reason, he was seated on the main dais with all those politicians.

"Well, you would Say Anything!" He gets the joke. I ask him what's written on the souvenir blanket. "It doesn't Say Anything," he deadpans.

As I limp into the port-a-john, a military helicopter rumbles into the air from the Capitol's East Front. It roars right over my head. It is now-former President Bush and his wife Laura, leaving the Capitol. A rousing cheer goes up from the remaining crowd, as they realize the significance. I fumble for my camera to get a shot but my frozen fingers aren't nimble enough.

John Cusack leaves. Don King runs his hand through his hair and makes sure no one else wants to interview him. The Obamas have gone inside the Capitol, for a gala luncheon led by my senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein. The transfer of power is complete. As always, it's been orderly, peaceful, and rich with ritual and tradition. And, this time, absolutely extraordinary, both bone-chilling and spine-tingling.

It will take me two hours to trudge all the way back to my hotel, schlepping my heavy gear, due to road closures and an overwhelmed Metro. At 5:07pm, I am finally indoors for the first time in 12 hours. I put my laptop on the radiator. It thaws out and boots up. I massage my numbed toes. I get some hot soup, my first food since a yogurt while in the security line at 5:30am. It's been a long, exhausting, cold day, and I still have about seven hours of work to do.

I will never forget a single second.

On the Verge of History

2009-01-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

If I have felt anything like this before, I can't remember when.

The energy is palpable. The sense of euphoria, of optimism, of possibility, is coursing through Washington D.C. like fresh blood through the veins of a previously anemic man. Our capital city has come crackling to life. People are pouring into town by the hundreds of thousands, clogging the streets, thronging the monuments and memorials and museums, high-fiving total strangers and bursting into spontaneous whoops of joy.

Maybe this is how it felt when World War Two ended. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sailor bend a nurse over backwards and kiss her, hard, on the National Mall.

I arrived in Washington Sunday afternoon by Amtrak from New York. The train was packed, completely sold out, and except for the woman who got all in a snit when I politely informed her husband that he had taken my seat while I was visiting the snack car (somehow this was my fault?) and could he please relocate - everyone was in high spirits, unusually friendly and open and sharing. Can we help that passenger with her bag? Yes we can! Can we hold the door for an older couple and help them find seats? Yes we can! Can we share our stories of where we came from and why we're here and what being at the Obama inauguration will mean? Yes we can!

The Amtrak crowd spilled into Union Station to find Enrique Iglesias rehearsing on a stage in the middle of the terminal (at least I think that's who it was). The train station will host the Latino Inaugural Ball Tuesday night, one of about a dozen official balls around town. From there it was out onto the broad boulevards so famously laid out by Pierre L'Enfant more than 200 years ago. Now they are lined with portapotties and police barricades. Heavily armed cops in SWAT gear roam the streets. Helicopters chatter overhead. Emergency vehicles race past, sirens wailing. And through it all, the people come, smiling, laughing, chatting with complete strangers, riding a buoyant wave of Obamamania.

The Mall was a crush of people, from memorial to shining memorial. Lincoln gazed down from his throne on a crowd right out of "Forrest Gump." The red light high atop Washington's monument blinked upon maybe 500,000 people below, some of whom camped out for hours for free seats at the "We Are One" concert. They lined the sides of the Reflecting Pool; they spilled out onto Constitution Avenue. They clapped their hands and sang "Shout!" with a surprisingly ebullient Garth Brooks. They belted out the "oh, oh, oh, oh!" coda to "Pride" with U2. They wept as they rang out "This Land Is Your Land" with Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger, strumming a banjo as if he were singing "Little Boxes" to me back in the 1960s. Towards the end of the show, the President-elect strode onto the stage and told the adoring crowd "Anything is possible." Right now, right here, it sure feels that way.

P.S. I went to the California Gala tonight and have scored VIP passes to the hot-hot-hot Huffington Post party tomorrow night at the Newseum. There's lots to say about all that but somehow it feels trivial at the moment. We'll get to that next time.

Now What?

2008-11-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

At the end of the movie "The Candidate," after Robert Redford's character (Joe McKay? Mike McKay? Something like that) pulls off a huge upset and gets elected to the U.S. Senate from California, he turns to his handlers and asks, "Now what?"

We might well ask ourselves the same question right now. About President-elect Barack Obama, about the near-term fate of our economy and our country, and even, in my case, about my blog and the Sovern Nation website.

It's only taken me a week to get around to sharing my post-election thoughts. Election Night was a wee-hour blur of pizza slices and spreadsheet numbers and Twitter messages. The next two days were spent doing election postmortems, both on the radio and at a California Historical Society panel. I spent part of the Morning After in downtown Oakland, getting the reaction of older African Americans to the historic election of a black president. Then I knocked off our final parody song of the campaign, to the tune of "American Pie," with the as-usual off-key help of my newsroom buddies, Mark and Angela. And I've been really busy buying a house and planning my wedding - so no, I haven't had a chance for that post-election vacation just yet!

But now I do have a few moments to reflect on what we've all been through, and what it all means.

(Before I do that, though, a few quick housekeeping notes: The Election Night Live Blog was a great success, with 242 different people taking part in the online conversation. And I don't think more than five or six of them were related to me. Thanks to everyone who joined the fun! If you'd like to hear the audio recap of the general election campaign, a two-minute special sound piece I did that aired Election Morning, click here. You can hear the story about elderly African Americans reacting to the election here, and you can hear "Bye Bye to the Republican Guy" here - our biggest hit campaign song ever, with many complimentary emails and a couple dozen requests for copies).

So. Barack Obama beat John McCain. I know that I said he would, in my last blog, but that didn't reassure a lot of the anxious Democrats I know. They were, to put it mildly, freaking out. But this election just wasn't that close. I was way off on the Electoral College, but I did do pretty well on that popular vote prediction. I said Obama would win with 52.5% of the vote, and that McCain would get 46.5%, a six-point spread. The not-quite final numbers? Obama has 52.6%, and McCain has 46.1. That's as good as I've ever done at these things.

But I really didn't think Obama would roll up such a huge win in the Electoral College. I was sure the Republicans would pull out some of those too-close-to-call swing states, but instead they all went for Obama - except Missouri, which still isn't decided. McCain is winning the Show Me State by 5000 votes right now, but they still have thousands of absentee ballots to count.

Obama won North Carolina and Indiana by a single point each, Florida by two, Ohio by four. He carried Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada in double-digit landslides. In most states, either the polls were right, or they understated Obama's support. There was no Bradley Effect. The racist vote was swamped by the turnout of young people and black voters, and by the huge gender gap American women gave the Democrats. In retrospect, probably any Democratic nominee could have beaten John McCain, given the tattered economy and all the built-in disadvantages for the GOP. If she had beaten Obama in the primary, Hillary Clinton would be president-elect right now. In many ways, the Democratic primary was like one of those conference championship games in football that people call "the REAL Super Bowl," matching two top teams for the right to play a lesser-regarded one from the other conference. McCain was the weak sister from the patsy conference, and the Democrats the elite powerhouse.

It's no mystery how Obama won. He ran a first-rate campaign, the most disciplined and best-organized I've ever seen, avoided serious missteps, and stayed positive, upbeat and hopeful. When the economy collapsed, and McCain thrashed about, Obama remained cool, calm and collected. He reaped the benefit of the enormous antipathy the electorate feels toward the Republican Party in general, and President Bush in particular. And when he got the lead, he sat on the ball and ran out the clock, to borrow another football metaphor.

And now we will have our first African American president.

That still feels like an extraordinary thing to say. After a few months, when he's screwed up a couple of things and the economy is still sputtering and our troops are still in Iraq, people may start to forget that Barack Obama is a Black President, and will treat him just like any other beleaguered chief executive, and that is as it should be (of course I hope nothing at all goes wrong, but let's be realistic here!). But right now, Obama's election feels so deep and visceral and earth-shaking. I went out the next morning and saw people running for the bus, and rushing to catch their trains, and I thought, what are these people doing? Don't they know how different everything is today? How can they go about their everyday lives when something so profound has taken place?

Of course, in our day-to-day lives, maybe it's not that profound. If you didn't have a job a week ago, you probably still don't. If you were going broke last week, Obama's election didn't magically replenish your bank account. The president doesn't really have that much impact on us individually; your mayor or governor probably affects you much more.

But then there was the young black man who told me he's going to go back to college, because if Obama can win the White House, he can certainly get those last few credits. There was the middle-aged black woman who is suddenly inspired to finally start her own business. There was the 60-something Oakland street vendor, originally from Louisiana, who said "I finally feel like I have a place in society, that all of us matter, not just white folk."

In my neighborhood, there are only two people who routinely fly American flags from their houses on the Fourth of July, or Flag Day. When I went out last Wednesday morning to walk the dog, a few hours after Barack Obama was elected president, I counted six American flags fluttering in the November breeze on my street alone. Brand new flags, flown proudly, saluting the country that wasn't too afraid to take such a bold and giant step. I can't possibly feel what an African American must feel right now, looking at the handsome black face that will represent America to the world. But I can think back on three centuries of oppression, slavery and racial hatred, and marvel at how far we've come. Yes, we have a long way to go, but as Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared on the steps of the Montgomery County Courthouse in 1965, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

I can still remember asking my mother and stepfather in early 1968 whether Rev. King was going to be the next president. I had only known one, name of Lyndon Baines Johnson, but King was making as much news as any of the presidential candidates - McCarthy, Humphrey, Kennedy, Wallace - and a speech I'd seen him deliver on TV had given me goosebumps. I guess I was too young to understand that the White House was the exclusive province of white men. My eternally optimistic mom gave me a diplomatic answer, something along the lines of "I really don't think so, but you never know!" It was left to my much blunter stepfather to deliver the crushing blow: "What are you talking about? Quit your daydreaming. America will never elect a black president." A few weeks later, King was dead. We cried at school. There were riots in the streets. He was right, I thought.

It only took 40 more years, but I'm happy, for all our sake, to be able to say, finally, that he was wrong.

Obama Beats McCain

2008-11-03T23:13:00.000-08:00

There you have it - tomorrow's headline today. KCBS - where we report the news before it even happens.

I am going out on a not very precarious limb with my quadrennial presidential prediction. This is my 69th, and final, pre-election blog posting (I will be blogging live on Election Night, but that's another matter).

If I'm wrong, John McCain can wave my words in the air and crow with glee, but something tells me he'll have much bigger media fish to fry if he pulls off one of the biggest upsets in history and beats Barack Obama.

I've been predicting presidential results since 1972. Yes, I was only 11 years old, but somehow, something told me that Nixon would wallop McGovern. Maybe it was Walter Cronkite. Maybe it was my dad. Maybe it was Thomas Eagleton's shock therapist. I simply can't remember.

I have a pretty good track record - I've gotten seven elections right and only two wrong. But I have to warn all you anxious Obama backers that it's the last two in a row that I've blown. In 2000, I detected the weirdness in the air but I read it exactly backwards: I predicted that George W. Bush would win the popular vote but that Al Gore would capture the Electoral College. Oops. And then in 2004, I really believed that John Kerry would win Ohio, and thus the presidency, but it didn't happen that way. So maybe you'd better take my prognostication with a big rock of salt.

This time though, I can back up my prediction with some actual returns, even before most of us go to the polls. As is the tradition, the voters of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire have already voted and announced the results. Have you ever been to Dixville Notch? It's a tiny hamlet way up there in the Great North Woods of northern New Hampshire, where most of the town's 75 residents run a beautiful White Mountains resort called The Balsams. I went to camp not too far from there - which brings me to another Nixon reference, oddly enough. I still vividly remember August 8, 1974. The owner of the camp summoned all the older boys to his cabin. President Nixon was announcing his resignation on television, and the camp director thought at least some of his campers should experience this historic moment. As we boys quietly exulted in the end of the Nixon presidency, I looked over at the camp's owner - whose name has quietly faded from my aging brain - and was stunned to see him sobbing. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched his beloved president leave office in shame. "This is a sad day for America, boys," he kept murmuring. "Such a sad day."

Suffice to say, Dixville and environs are Republican strongholds, even to this day. The good people of the Notch almost always vote GOP. In fact, since 1960, only one Democrat has carried Dixville Notch, and that was Hubert Humphrey, who beat Nixon narrowly there in 1968 (I think our camp director votes in a different township).

Until today. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the first returns of the 2008 presidential election: in Dixville Notch, the vote, just past midnight, was: Barack Obama, 15; John McCain, 6; Ralph Nader, 1.

Now Dixville is no bellwether. As I said, it almost always votes Republican, with the exceptions of 1960 and 1968, which means in the last dozen elections the town has picked the winner seven times, and went with the loser the other five. But if Obama can win a landslide in the Notch, it doesn't bode well for McCain's chances across the Granite State.

This campaign has been a long, tiring, thrilling, fascinating, exasperating two-year slog. As Barack Obama said the other day, since this race started, babies have been born who have learned to walk and talk. Some of them have learned more about public policy in that time than Sarah Palin has. The candidates have spent more than a billion dollars, which is obscene. People have given their every ounce of energy for one candidate or the other; the 44-year-old state director of Obama's Nevada campaign collapsed and died of a heart attack yesterday, not long before Obama's own grandmother passed away, hours shy of perhaps seeing her little Barry become president.

For me, this campaign began in late 2006 - I think it was November, but it could have been October - when I interviewed the smart and lanky junior Senator from Illinois while he was on a book tour in San Francisco. Tall, thoughtful, deliberate almost to a fault - that was how I described him to my friends and family. Handsome, charismatic and obviously very intelligent - but damn, he stammers a lot, and seems to take an awfully long time coming up with those beautiful words.

Two years later, he's cut down on the ums and uhs, and he's also cut down every opponent in his path. Less than 24 hours from now, he will cut down the nets, to use a basketball metaphor, as he celebrates his election as President of the United States. He will be one of our youngest presidents. Only the third sitting Senator. Only the third representing Illinois (Lincoln and Grant precede him, although, like Obama, neither was born there; Ronald Reagan was, but ran as a Californian). The first Northerner since Kennedy (counting the first Bush as a Texan, not as the Connecticut Yankee he really was). The first Democratic President without a Southern accent since, again, JFK. The first president who is a graduate of Columbia University! (That's a tough one to believe, but it's true. Both Roosevelts attended Columbia Law School, and there have been quite a few Supreme Court Justices from Columbia, but Obama will be the first Columbia College grad to occupy the Oval Office).

And, of course, he will be the first non-white president. The first biracial, the first black, the first with African blood (as far as we know).

Barack Obama began his unlikely quest for the presidency with talk of hope, and change, and audacity. At times, his campaign has been anything but audacious. Certainly in its closing days he has played it quite safe. But he is going to ride that gale force wind of change right into the White House. We can't possibly exaggerate the social and cultural import of this moment. Tears of joy and pride will flow tonight in black communities across America. People will shake their heads in awe, even some of those who will have voted against him. Others will shake their fists in fear and anger. It will be up to Obama to prove them wrong, to win them over with his deeds, not his words, in the coming years.

Who in the world would want to be president right now? An economy in collapse, a world at war, a health care system run amok, overwhelming challenges in the fields of energy, security and finance.

Barack Hussein Obama, that's who. Someone asked him the other day what keeps him awake at night as the election approaches. "Not winning or losing," he answered with a smile. "Governing."

He's going to get his chance. It says it right here: Barack Obama 52.5%, John McCain 46.5%. Electoral College: Obama 291, McCain, 247.

That's my official prediction. I would give Obama 311, but Ohio has burned me before so I'm leaving it in McCain's column. I think this race has tightened in the closing days, so Obama doesn't get the landslide some are predicting. I think he could actually end up with 367 electoral votes, but that would mean sweeping most of those usually Republican battleground states. The final Gallup Poll predicts a 55%-44% victory for Obama. The final CBS News-New York Times pre-election poll forecasts a nine-point margin for Obama. I say it narrows to six in the end.

We will provide unprecedented resources at KCBS just so you can see if I'm right, or if you are, and what kind of history American voters will make this year (the first black president or the first female vice president? The oldest president? The first Vietnam vet?). Live coverage on the radio, of course, with non-stop results beginning when the first Eastern polls close at 4pm, plus interviews and analysis around the clock. You can listen to us in tinny old AM at 740 or now in lush stereophonic glory at 106.9 FM, or online at KCBS.com. We will have a beautiful red and blue Electoral College map on the website, where we will update the running vote totals once every 60 seconds, along with links to the results from every single county in every single state in America. I will be "live blogging," something I've never done before, on the Sovern Nation home page at www.sovernnation.com. I'll zap off a note or two whenever something meaningful happens, like when the pizza gets delivered to the newsroom or Obama wins Florida. I will post pithy comments from readers and listeners, too. You can follow along with KCBS on Twitter, with the latest delivered right to your cell phone, or however that Twitter thing works. And of course you can listen to any of our Election Night audio on demand on the website, too.

Tune in and hold on tight. It should be an amazing night. It's not often we can guarantee that an election will make history. This will be one you will remember forever.

www.sovernnation.com

The View from the Middle

2008-10-30T00:45:00.001-07:00

Where I live, the presidential election is settled. Barack Obama is poised to carry California by the widest margin in state history. The latest Field Poll gives him a 22-point lead over John McCain here, and if that holds, he will not only fare even better than former Governor and favorite son Ronald Reagan did in 1980 and 1984, but he will also surpass the record 18-point victory posted by LBJ in his 1964 landslide over Barry Goldwater.

But I have traveled all across the country during this campaign, and I know that Californians are not necessarily representative. I have talked with voters in 13 states, including battlegrounds North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and Nevada. Many of them have a completely different view of the candidates, and of this election.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, Democrat Jeannette Potteiger told me about her father, a lifelong Democrat who hasn't actually voted since 1972. This time, he's voting - for John McCain. Why? "He wants to vote against Obama," she told me. "Because Obama's black." Some of her friends in Milwaukee feel the same way. "They've actually told me they would never vote for a black man, so they're voting for McCain. It makes no sense, because they completely disagree with McCain on the issues, and they agree with Obama. It's sad, actually."

Nick Weinberger of Columbus, Wisconsin has encountered some of the same racism. He's a Republican who will vote for McCain. He scoffs at Obama's roots as a community organizer. "Come on. A city planner? What the hell is that?" He asked me. No, a community organizer, I explained to him. "Whatever. That doesn't qualify you for the presidency." On the other hand, he thinks Sarah Palin is "fun" and "a pistol." He, too, has friends and family who simply won't vote for Obama because of his race. He's heard friends go off on five-minute long racist tirades about Obama, full of racial invective I won't repeat here. "There's better reasons to vote against Obama than his skin color," Weinberger told me. He's especially concerned about Obama's tax and economic policies.

McCain's derisive attacks on Obama as "Barack the Wealth Spreader" do seem to be resonating with middle-class Middle Americans. Never mind that if Obama really were a Socialist, they'd be the ones who would benefit the most. Never mind that Obama's tax plan, as he describes it, would lower their taxes. Some are legitimately afraid he will come take their hard-earned pay, and maybe their guns too while he's at it. Others are looking for an excuse to vote against him. Some don't trust Obama, or believe him when he insists only those making more than $250,000 will have to pay more. Obama didn't help his cause by suddenly lowering that threshold in his infomercial last night, to $200,000. Joe Biden took it even lower yesterday, to $150,000, although that may have been a typical Biden slip of the tongue, not an articulation of actual policy. Obama would do well to suggest that if McCain doesn't want to share the wealth, then he must want to keep concentrating it. But of course, we all know how faithful candidates are to their campaign promises, so who's to say that a President Obama, with a filibuster-proof Senate and a 100-seat majority in the House, won't propose an entirely different tax plan?

You don't really have to go to Wisconsin, or North Carolina, or Virginia, to find racists who might vote for Obama if only he were white. We've got them here in the progressive, enlightened Bay Area too. Voters have expressed that kind of bigotry to my face, if not into my microphone. I did a story on it yesterday. I ran into Senator Barbara Boxer and she didn't particularly like it. "I was just listening to your comments about race. I hate stories like that," she told me. "You're just giving voice to racism." At first I copped out by saying, well, we have to do the race story. But then I defended it more legitimately. "Wait a second," I told her. "It's real. The racism is out there. It's a serious issue. You can't ignore the elephant in the room." Besides, it's a lot better to expose bigotry than to ignore it and pretend it isn't there. She didn't agree, saying we're just legitimizing the racism by airing it, and giving these people a forum.

It will be difficult to measure the impact of racism in next week's numbers, but if Obama doesn't win, you can bet plenty of pundits and pollsters will try.

Beyond the Midwest, and the Middle Class, there's another kind of Middle Earth in this election. It's inhabited not by hobbits in search of a ring, but by voters in search of a candidate. They are the middle-of-the-road undecideds. Some people find it hard to believe anyone could still be undecided. But they're out there. One Northern California voter told me, he's a loyal Republican who's fed up with President Bush and the GOP. He says his party abandoned fiscal conservatism a long time ago, and he's more moderate than the party is on social issues. But he's having a really hard time voting for Obama. He doesn't think the first-term Senator is ready to be president, and he's wary of his economic policies. So five days before the election, he just can't commit either way.

Then there's the Tennessee Democrat I met outside Lambeau Field in Green Bay. He really wants to vote for McCain, because he respects his military service and thinks he'd make a better leader than Obama. He swears he's not racist, but he's ready to jump ship from the Democrats this time because he says he just doesn't know where Obama will take the country. But he was absolutely appalled by McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, and now he's torn. Obama or McCain? He told me he probably won't decide until he steps into the voting booth.

On the coasts, the race is over. Obama will sweep the Far West, with the exception of Palin's Alaska and maybe McCain's Arizona (although if it's a landslide, Obama could even embarrass McCain in his home state). He will also carry the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine all the way to Virginia, and maybe even as far south as North Carolina. But the presidency will be decided in the great middle of the country, the places we fly over on Jet Blue. If big swaths of that map turn blue next Tuesday, then the racism won't have mattered after all. If they stay red, then we'll know that McCain's 11th-hour economic arguments and scare tactics - "John the Fear Spreader" - will have carried the day.

Fresh interviews, analysis, ballot measure stories and the latest polls, all at www.sovernnation.com

Time Stands Still

2008-10-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

My life is crazy busy. Yours probably is, too. Days whiz by. It's impossible to figure out where whole blocks of time go. Sometimes I yearn for the days when I had a mindless, menial job where I'd look up at the clock and watch the hands move in slow motion.

But with a week until Election Day, the presidential campaign feels that way all of a sudden. The campaign clock is M o v i n g. L i k e. T h i s.

Will November 4th never get here? We're in a holding pattern. The candidates are repeating the same arguments, over and over again. The polls aren't changing that much. The counting of ballots seems anticlimactic. The suspense is s-l-o-w-l-y draining out of what once was a scintillating race.

Candidates and their handlers know when they've lost. Despite his outward optimism, you can see that losing feeling on John McCain's face. He's going through the motions, but his campaign is collapsing around him. Sarah Palin is straining at the reins, already positioning herself for 2012. Her aides and McCain's are sniping at each other. She's ignoring the McCain team's instructions and talking points and veering from their prescribed message. The former Romney aides who jumped on the McCain bandwagon when their own man's crashed and burned are already undermining Palin, to bolster Romney's chances against her the next time around. The Republican National Committee is withdrawing advertising dollars from states where McCain can no longer compete, and is spending some instead in places he shouldn't have to defend, such as Montana. Some within the RNC are even debating whether that's good money after bad, and whether those dollars would be better spent defending imperiled Congressional seats instead.

Can anyone gaze into the future right now and really see John McCain standing on the steps of the Capitol, delivering that Inauguration Address on a clear, cold January morning? Or striding into the House Chamber to a standing ovation to give his first State of the Union speech? No, when you close your eyes and picture the next president in those defining moments - it's Barack Obama you see.

Does this mean it's really over? Well, no I suppose not. Something weird could happen. All the polls could be wrong. The country could be even more racist than we thought. Obama could admit he's a Marxist.

But reason and experience tell us that next Tuesday's results are all but set in stone now. This is shaping up as the biggest Democratic landslide in more than 40 years. The Democrats will have 58, maybe even 60, seats in the U.S. Senate. Nancy Pelosi will preside over perhaps a 100-seat majority in the next Congress. Barack Obama won't just win the presidency - he may have a mandate, or what passes for one in an era of bitterly contested, razor-close elections.

When this election began, each party's presidential candidate mapped out his path to victory. The problem for John McCain is that he's painted himself into a corner. He has only one escape route, and it's narrow, and daunting. He must hold every single state that George W. Bush won in 2004, and if he loses even one big one, or two smaller ones, then he must wrest Pennsylvania from the Democratic column. That's why McCain and Palin are spending so much time in Pittsburgh, and in the rural, rednecky areas between Philly and Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, new routes to Electoral College triumph are opening up for Barack Obama like spokes from a crossroads. His initial strategy was to defend all the states won by John Kerry four years ago, and somehow capture one of McCain's big ones, or two of his smaller ones. Now he's got multiple options: he could win Virginia and Iowa, and clinch the presidency. Or he could take away Ohio. Or maybe Florida, plus North Carolina. Or he could lose all of those, but win Indiana, Colorado and New Mexico. Or how about parlaying blood-red Nevada, Missouri, Montana and - gasp - McCain's home state of Arizona into a stunning victory?

Okay, if that last scenario happens, then it's a landslide, and Obama will have won every other state I just mentioned. Which could actually happen. Obama is comfortably ahead now in Virginia, Iowa, and, in some polls, Ohio and Indiana too. He's narrowly ahead in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, and he's catching McCain in Montana and Arizona. He's neck-and-neck in Florida, North Carolina and Missouri.

All that's left is for the Big Clock to strike Poll Closing Time one Tuesday from now. If Obama wins big, he could have more than 270 projected electoral votes once the polls close in the Mountain states - around 7pm California time, 10pm on the East Coast, even while Californians are still voting. If some of those Eastern states are too close to call, or if McCain closes the gap in the final days, then it might take another hour or two to settle things.

In the meantime, we will cover whatever developments there are, order the pizza for Election Night, put up our big maps, and wait.

It will all come too soon for John McCain. It can't happen fast enough for Barack Obama.

N.B.: You might want to check out our story about robocalls, their illegality in California, and the sexy one that's got a Bay Area Republican candidate for Congress in hot water. Also, the latest polls of course, updated every day, and much more at www.sovernnation.com

On Election Night, I will live blog as we go, with constant updates, results, calling of states, etc. - as soon as someone shows me how to do that!

The Governor's New Clothes

2008-10-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

Now we know, the chant was wrong all along. It should have been "Shop, Baby, Shop!" not "Drill, Baby, Drill."

So Sarah Palin, along with Todd and the kiddies, went on a little high-end shopping spree. A few of them, in fact. As our buddies at Politico first reported, the Republican National Committee dropped about $150,000 on clothes and accessories for the Palins, mostly for the hockey mom herself. That buys an awful lot of hockey sweaters. Big deal, right? They need new outfits for their turn in the national spotlight.

The rub is that Palin sells herself as a small-town everywoman, a middle class working mom who's one of us, a regular Joanie Sixpack. She mocks big city values with derisive scorn, and pokes fun at the liberal elite who think they're too good for the rest of us. So where did she shop? Target or K-Mart? Wasilla Navy Surplus? No, she stocked up on designer outfits at Neiman-Marcus, Bloomie's and Barney's. On the eve of the the September 11th anniversary, hubby Todd was getting new duds at Atelier New York, while Sarah was spending thousands at Saks Fifth Avenue. While I was dodging urine balloons from protesters in my scuffed chinos on the streets of Saint Paul, she was off on a spree at the Minneapolis Neiman-Marcus.

Most of the clothes were actually purchased for her, by a personal shopper working for the Republican National Committee. The new wardrobes were bought in New York City, St. Louis and Minneapolis - big cities all, at high-end department stores not found in the likes of Wasilla, or even Anchorage or Juneau, for that matter. I guess the fall moose-hunting garb at the local Fred Meyer wasn't snazzy enough.

It's also galling that the Palins would drop that kind of money on fancy new duds in the midst of a global economic collapse. It's insensitive, to say the least, and it borders on illegal, since candidates aren't allowed to spend campaign donations for their own personal use. But the money came from RNC contributions, not donations directly to McCain-Palin, which skirts that particular restriction and probably makes the purchases legal.

Hats off to the Politico reporters for poring over last month's campaign finance statements and discovering those expenditures. I've spent plenty of hours wading through those documents in the past and while they often contain interesting tidbits (hmm, that famous actor gave him that much money? hey look, a friend of mine made a donation!), the list of spending usually just runs to things like phone bills and TV ads. Although if you closely examine the just-released reports for the first two weeks of October, you will see that the McCain campaign spent more than $22,000 on a celebrity makeup artist for Governor Palin - almost twice as much as it paid its chief foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann (and a reminder: we have had a "Follow the Money" link to the FEC disclosure filings on our site for well over a year now, so you can always read all these reports for yourself).

And of course, every now and then, you strike gold with something like John Edwards' $400 haircuts.

And that's why I don't buy the McCain campaign's feigned indignation over this mini-scandal, or the complaints from the conservative talkers about the gotcha media's latest anti-Palin crusade. Their mocking of Edwards' haircuts was relentless; Rush Limbaugh still refers to him as "Breck Girl." There's no difference between the hypocritical Edwards preaching about poverty while getting overpriced coiffures and the hypocritical Palin splurging on Valentino. Or Cindy McCain telling voters her husband is the true champion of the middle class - while she's wearing a single outfit that's worth more than $300,000. Palin is complaining now that the fashion flap reflects "gender bias" on the part of the media, but it's certainly not sexist to point out the dissonance between what a candidate says and what she, or he, does.

A terse John McCain says Palin's outfits will be donated to charity after the election. His spokesman says "that was always the plan," from the moment the clothes were purchased. That doesn't really pass the smell test - not when the clothing designer at Saturday Night Live reports that Palin complained about the outfits he wanted her to wear on the show last week, insisting he dress her in something nicer.

My sources within the McCain team say campaign manager Steve Schmidt is absolutely livid over Fashiongate (just coined that, sorry), that he threw a fit over the tone-deaf blunder by the RNC. It shows a lack of coordination between the McCain money and the party's - even though the clothing purchases were disclosed under the "coordinated expenditures" of the committee's money. It's another example of the clumsy nature of McCain's campaign, which has lacked the top-down discipline and organization of Obama's all along.

I was going to write some more about the polls today, because we are absolutely inundated by them right now, but my fashion plate was too full to pass up. We do have a completely revamped "Who's Winning?" polling page, with a veritable cornucopia of survey data, graphs, charts, an interactive Electoral College map and poll analysis, all of which I am updating every darn day. And I promise to write tomorrow in response to all the questions I keep getting about how the various polls could be so wildly disparate.

But for now, the horse race takes a back seat to the clothes horse. The irony is that Sarah Palin is getting all these new clothes - just as more and more voters are realizing that she's not wearing any.

McCain's Economic Crisis

2008-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Now we know why America is running out of money:

Everyone is giving all of it to Barack Obama.

It's been an amazing 24 hours for the Obama campaign. First, he drew an incredible 100,000 people to a rally near the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Remember those amazing pictures of his big rally in Portland last spring? With 65,000 people or so along the river? He blew that away with even more people crowding along the Mississippi this weekend, and then drew another 75,000 to Kansas City. They say that as goes Missouri, so goes the nation. Well, Obama may just take the Show-Me State, and if he does, President Bush will be showing him in to the Oval Office.

Then, this morning, Colin Powell announced that he's endorsing Obama for president. This has been rumored for months, and we thought it might happen at the Democratic National Convention, but many prominent Republicans, including senior members of the Bush family (that means both Presidents Bush) had been imploring Powell not to go public with his support for Obama. He finally decided to, announcing his endorsement on "Meet the Press," and then, well, meeting the press, outside the studio, where he elaborated on his decision. Rush Limbaugh is already dismissing the endorsement, saying Powell is only backing Obama because they're both black, pointing out that he's never endorsed any "white liberal inexperienced politicians." But Powell says it's because he's disappointed in McCain's campaign, disgusted by the focus on Williams Ayers, appalled by the selection of Sarah Palin ("she is not ready to be president") and impressed by Obama's intellectual capacity and calm, thoughtful nature.

Colin Powell doesn't carry the weight he once did, but let's face it: he was the first black National Security Advisor, the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first black Secretary of State. If not for his wife's reluctance, he could easily have been the first African American Vice President, or even President. Not only is he a Republican, but he was the front man for President Bush's ill-advised invasion of Iraq. He's still enormously well-respected and influential. And while they're pooh-poohing it now, you can bet the McCain team would have loved his endorsement, and trumpeted it far and wide if they had gotten it.

So how does Obama top a record-setting rally and a headline-grabbing endorsement? With a simply astounding campaign finance report for the month of September. One day before it's due, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent us all a video e-mail, announcing that Obama raised more than $150 million last month. This, on top of the $65 million he raised in August, and the untold millions he's raking in this month, which won't be reported until after Election Day.

A month ago, after Obama pulled in that $65 mill for August, some worried that he would have trouble maintaining that pace. The Republican National Committee had matched him, dollar-for-dollar, that month. John McCain is limited to the $84 million he gets in public money, but the RNC can raise and spend freely, and it has. Obama would need to keep raising at obscene levels in order to compete with the entire Republican war chest.

He's done it, in breathtaking fashion. $150 million in a single month? Do you have any idea how off-the-charts ridiculous that is? Just to put it in perspective, I remember covering then-Governor George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000. I was at a Bush event when he went over the $100 million mark for his campaign, which was a new record. For his entire campaign, all two years of it. No one had ever approached that figure before. Four years later, Bush and John Kerry combined to raise and spend about $650 million. Obama has raised $215 million in the last two months, and will probably top $300 million, or even approach 400 million, for the final 90 days of the campaign. He should easily beat that $650 million record - all by himself.

Now while Democrats may exult in Obama's fundraising success, and do cartwheels every time they see yet another national Obama ad during a World Series or NFL game (spots McCain can't afford to match) or on a swing state TV station, I think this kind of spending is out of hand. It's made a mockery of the public financing law. Democrats can argue that the end justifies the means, and it's fair for Obama to say that he's not "buying" the election; the American people are. Most of his donations come from everyday citizens giving 50 or 100 dollars, not from corporate titans and powerful lobbies seeking influence. As long as Obama remembers who elected him (if he wins), and remains beholden to Joe Sixpack - um, I mean John Q. Public - then that money won't have corrupted anything. But there's still something terribly unseemly about spending that much money on a political campaign, especially at a time when it's so desperately needed for other things. Too bad Obama can't appeal to everyday Americans to dig deep to end poverty, help the homeless and feed the hungry, and then turn around and give all that money to charitable organizations. I suppose, in his own way, that's what he intends to do with it, if he makes good on his campaign promises. But I still find the whole concept of political fundraising distasteful and inappropriate, which is why I would love to see true public financing of all elections.

As for Joe Sixpack, in case you somehow missed the truth about "Joe the Plumber" (that he's not named Joe and isn't a licensed plumber, among other things), you can hear our report about that from last Friday here.

So, on a weekend when Sarah Palin went on Saturday Night Live to prove she gets the joke and can laugh at herself (the material was hysterical but I still think Tina Fey does a better Sarah Palin than Sarah Palin does), Barack Obama added still more resources to salt this thing away in the home stretch: Colin Powell's blessing and 150 million more of your hard-earned dollars. Crisis? What crisis? His challenge will be to figure out how to replenish everybody's wallets if and when he moves into the White House.

Plumbing the Depths

2008-10-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

"Good evening everyone, and welcome to the third and final presidential debate. Our first question is for Senator John McCain. Senator, what would you do about the economic meltdown and the credit crisis?"

"Well, Bob, let me just say, first off, that I know all of America joins me in turning our thoughts tonight to one person, someone who we're all deeply concerned about in this difficult time."

"Oh, you mean Nancy Reagan? Who's in the hospital with a broken pelvis?"

"No, my friends, I mean Joe the Plumber. His name is Joe Wurtzelburger. He's out there in Toledo, Ohio, wondering how he's going to be able to buy a small business, take over the plumbing business, if Barack Obama becomes president and seizes all of his bank accounts, and redistributes all of his wealth to less fortunate plumbers."

"I see. And on the credit crisis? Your plan, Senator?"

"My friends, the markets are clogged. The entire system is stuck. The credit system is simply jammed and stuck and clogged. And at times like these, when my opponent is turning to his socialist crony terrorist friends, like Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker, my friends, that's when we need the people who are the backbone of this economy, the very foundation of what makes us a great nation, to unclog those economic pipes, and that would mean, of course, my great dear friend Joe Wigglebasket, Joe the Plumber from Ohio."

"You would put this Joe the Plumber in charge of the economy?"

"I would, Bob, and here's why. Who better to take a wrench to the rusty pipes of our economy, to the festering septic tank that is Congress, to seal our leaky borders, than my incredibly close friend, I love him like a brother, Joe Whiffenpoofer, the plumber from Ohio."

"Um...Senator, before I give Senator Obama a chance to respond, is that your entire plan to jump start the economy?"

"Did you say jump start, Bob? Then in that case, I'd also like to give a shout out to Mike the Mechanic...."

And we'll let Saturday Night Live take it from there this weekend!

Wow, just imagine the field day that Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, David Letterman et al. are going to have with this Joe the Plumber situation. Just think of the blue jeans and butt cracks that we'll be seeing in late night skits the rest of this week. And all because John McCain needed some way to connect with the American people on the economy.

Now, I have to say, I actually think Joe the Plumber was an effective device for McCain in this debate. It allowed him to put a face on the impact of Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on the rich. It gave him a way to scare the undecided about what Obama might mean for their pocketbooks. But it would have helped if a) McCain got Joe's name right (it's Wurzelbacher, not Wurtzelburger); b) McCain had actually ever met the man he kept calling his old buddy and friend; and c) if Joe were actually a working class guy. He can afford to buy a business that makes about $280,000 a year? I think he's doing okay then. Besides, have you ever met a poor plumber? The guys who fix my pipes are making bank.

John McCain was definitely the aggressor tonight, which was no surprise at all. He still came off like your cranky neighbor, though. Instead of wandering around the stage, as he did at last week's town hall, he wandered around rhetorically, often starting an answer strong and then meandering away to some other point without ever completing the original thought. He also kept rolling his eyes during Obama's answers, which I found a bit annoying. But I thought, overall, that he performed a little better in this debate than the other two.

Obama, meanwhile, was his usual steady self, if a bit more defensive. McCain forced him to explain himself on everything from Ayers to Acorn to Abortion, but I thought Obama finessed those answers quite well. He comes off as calm and reasonable, and that, more than anything, may be why he's surged ahead of McCain in the polls. Right now, in a time of crisis, the American people seem to want calm and reasonable, not twitchy and tense. McCain's debate performances make you wonder if he's off his meds, and that's not the presidential demeanor most voters are seeking.

Still, the voter reaction to these debates baffles me a little. On substance, I thought McCain narrowly won the first one, I called the second one a draw, and I would say McCain won the first half of this debate and Obama the second half. But the polls keep showing really lopsided wins for Obama. That's rare in presidential debates; often, they are toss-ups. Our CBS News poll of 500 undecided voters gave Obama a huge win tonight, with 53% saying he clobbered McCain, 22% picking McCain as the debate winner, and 24% seeing it as a tie. The CNN poll of debate-watchers (not just undecided ones) had 58% saying Obama won, and 31% giving the nod to McCain. Those are landslide numbers. I think people are predisposed to like Obama more, and they're also turned off more and more by McCain's cantankerous nature and constant, sometimes condescending and sarcastic, needling of Obama. And the more people hear that Obama won, the more of them think he won, even if they didn't say so at first. That will reinforce the perception that Obama's won all the debates and probably add to his lead in the polls.

By the way, as I expected he would be, Bob Schieffer was terrific, learning from all the other moderators' mistakes, asking mostly excellent questions and following up effectively. Most importantly, he got out of the way and made himself pretty much invisible for nice fat chunks of the show, allowing the two Senators to engage each other directly and actually have a vigorous debate, instead of trading stump speeches.

There are 19 days, and counting, until Election Day. We'll see what the polls say in the next few days, but it doesn't appear this final debate plugged the leaks in John McCain's support. He's already abandoned ship in Michigan. Now the Republican National Committee is pulling out of Wisconsin and Maine. McCain is playing a defensive game, shrinking his efforts to snatch a state from the Democratic column to just Pennsylvania, where he's falling far behind, and New Hampshire, where he still has a chance. He's retrenching, concentrating his resources on holding on to the Bush states from 2004, namely Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. He's close to writing off Iowa. And Obama's actually winning now in almost all of those states. The latest poll I just saw from Virginia has Obama up by ten points there, which is simply astounding.

As Bob Dylan famously sang, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. William Ayers and his friends liked that line so much they named the Weather Underground after it. After this debate, you don't need a plumber to see that John McCain's campaign is circling the drain, and if he doesn't find the stopper...really soon...even old Joe What's-his-name won't be able to rescue him.

(To hear our story about Joe the Plumber (yes, including an interview with him!), about the debate in general, or to hear the other interviews we did afterwards, please click here. To see the latest polls (the national numbers and some state-by-state polls), please click here.)

Obama's Surge

2008-10-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

More than a year ago, John McCain told me, while visiting the Bay Area, that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war, and so he was stubbornly calling for a "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq - sending even more soldiers to fight a war that most Americans no longer supported, at a time when one of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, Barack Obama, was calling for the exact opposite - a timely withdrawal.

Just as stubbornly, Obama continued to oppose the surge even after violence in Iraq began to diminish - though that's not entirely attributable to the increase in American forces there. Obama still says the surge wasn't a good idea, and won't admit it's worked, something that infuriates McCain, who thinks he doesn't get enough credit from the media or voters for his lonely insistence that we send more troops to Iraq, not pull out the ones who were already there.

Today, the economy, not the war, is the overriding issue as we enter the home stretch of the longest, costliest presidential campaign in American history. And today, we can report a surge of a different sort, one that Obama can endorse, because he may ride it all the way to the Oval Office.

Many polls have been showing Obama pulling away from McCain, but our new CBS News-New York Times survey shows Obama rolling toward a victory of landslide dimensions.

Our survey unit polled 1070 adults, 972 of whom are registered voters, from last Friday through yesterday (Monday). Fifty-three percent of them say they will vote for the Obama-Biden ticket; 39% say they'll vote for McCain-Palin. Six percent still aren't sure. That gives Obama a whopping 14% lead. Just one week ago, our poll taken the day before the second presidential debate had Obama winning by just three points, 48-45.

What's happened since then? Well, the second presidential debate swung a lot of independent voters from McCain to Obama. People who were leaning toward McCain but weren't quite sure, have changed their minds, and now say they support the Democrat. Last week, McCain led Obama among independents, 49 to 39%. Now, Obama is winning the independent vote, 51-33. And more than 80% now say they've made up their minds for good, and won't change it again. That doesn't mean they won't, of course, especially if something dramatic happens in tomorrow night's third and final debate, but it bodes well for Obama and ill for McCain.

Digging a little deeper into the voter Q and A, we find that people are really turned off by McCain's and Palin's personal attacks on Obama. Twenty-one percent say they think less of John McCain now than they did a few weeks ago, citing his negative campaign and his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate. And McCain's criticism of Obama's relationships with former Weather Underground leader William Ayers and controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright don't seem to be having the desired impact. Eleven percent of those surveyed say they're bothered by Obama's association with Wright, nine percent are troubled by the Ayers connection, and four percent say they don't like that Obama is a Muslim (he's not; he's a Christian). But 56% say they're not bothered at all by anything in Obama's past.

Obama also holds commanding leads on questions about temperament and personality, ability to handle the economy, and understanding voters' problems - the very character and style issues that tend to decide modern American presidential elections. Fifty percent have a favorable opinion of Obama, and 32% don't. But only 36% like John McCain, while 41% look at him with disfavor. Only 32% have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin.

A few more numbers: 82% of Hillary Clinton supporters now say they will vote for Obama; Obama is beating McCain handily among men, women, moderates, and all ethnic groups except whites. But here's a wrinkle for you: McCain had been enjoying a significant lead among white voters - it was 15% just one week ago - but that margin is gone. In this latest poll, 46% of whites say they'll vote for McCain, and 45% will vote for Obama.

If McCain can't win the suburban, moderate white vote - and right now he's not - he simply can't win this election.

Obama is also gaining in the state-by-state battleground polls, building big leads now in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania and pulling ahead in New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and even Ohio, Nevada and Florida. If I haven't buried you in numbers yet and you want more, remember that I update the latest polling information every day, complete with brief analysis, from the national polls and the swing states, on our website at this link. It's like a mini-blog for junkies and wonks.

But these are just polls, you say. They're notoriously wrong. They don't mean a thing.

Ah, but they do. The science of polling is still not exact, especially when one of the presidential nominees is half-black. But it's been refined quite a bit since my Sociology 101 seminar back in college (not to mention since I did a remarkably unscientific survey of CBGB's patrons in 1978 for my high school sociology class). Just as an example, I point you to Gallup's Daily Tracking Poll, a survey we feature prominently every day on the Sovern Nation polling page. At this point in 2004, many polls had John Kerry leading, by between two and four points. The tracking poll had Bush winning, by five, and its final survey the day before the election showed Bush beating Kerry by two points.

Bush beat Kerry, by two and a half points.

Today, that poll has Obama up by nine over McCain. Not quite the margin CBS News has for Obama, but still reflecting a surge of support for the Democrat, a surge that Obama can enthusiastically embrace. With three weeks until the election, John McCain must fear he may just get his wish.

The Fire in the Belly Goes Out

2008-10-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's finally dawned on John McCain: he'd rather lose an election than lose his soul. After weeks of pandering, opportunistic flip-flopping and, worst of all, telling voters that an Obama presidency would be dangerous and risky, implying that Obama would coddle terrorists and may even be one himself, McCain, in a moment of sudden clarity, spoke the truth the other day.

Maybe you saw it, or heard it. If not, watch it here. For more than a week, ever since McCain and Sarah Palin ramped up the Obama-hangs-out-with-domestic-terrorist-William Ayers routine, the crowds at their rallies had been growing increasingly lynch mob-like, shouting out racist epithets and punctuating the candidates' references to Obama with alarming cries of "kill him!," "traitor!" and "terrorist!" McCain and Palin did nothing to calm their venomous fury. But on Friday, just as some anxious Republicans were encouraging McCain to go after Obama with even more intensity, the Arizona Senator finally stepped back from the abyss. Twice during a town hall event in Wisconsin, he not only refused to take the bait from voters, he actually set them straight, refuting their assertions that Barack Obama is dangerous and scary, and that he's even - gasp! - an "Arab," as one woman put it.

"No," said McCain. "Senator Obama is a decent person...and a person that you do not have to be scared, as president of the United States." Later he called Obama "a decent family man" and assured that woman that Obama is not an Arab. His audience didn't want to hear it. Some gasped in astonishment and cried out "What?" in disbelief. Others booed.

You can't really blame them. For weeks they've been told just the opposite. Had the McCain campaign not fueled the rumors, not spread the innuendo, not insinuated that Obama is some sort of radical socialist Allah-lover, then that belief would be confined to the online world of conspiracy theorists and lunatic fringe bloggers (I, by the way, consider myself a lunatic mainstream blogger, so there). So the McCain-Palin camp absolutely deserves some of the blame here, and their sudden shift leaves many of his supporters not sure what to believe.

It's a relief to watch McCain see the light, to see him remember how he felt in 2000 when he was savaged by the vicious, underhanded attacks of the Bush-Rove campaign machine. You have to wonder if, deep down, he's realized he is not going to win this election, and he'll be damned if he's going to go out with no class at all. Or, if, instead, he recognizes that he can't possibly win on character attacks, and that his only hope is to tack towards the high road and re-focus on the issues, in particular the economy.

I've been salivating thinking about this Wednesday's debate. Both Obama and Joe Biden had challenged McCain in recent days, telling rallies that if McCain had nasty things to say about Obama, he'd better look Obama in the eye and say them to his face on Wednesday, instead of skirting the sensitive issues when they're together and saving the vitriol for the campaign trail. But now, with McCain backing down, I wonder if the Ayers issue will come up at all during the debate. Unless Bob Schieffer asks about it, and even if he does, I have a sneaking feeling that McCain will go soft, and lay into Obama on legitimate policy differences instead. That won't be as entertaining, but wouldn't it be refreshing?

The problem for McCain, though, is that once again, he has undercut his own most effective argument. For months, from late in the primaries until the conventions, his case against Obama was built on the Democrat's lack of experience and readiness. It's a legitimate argument: Obama simply hasn't been in elective office that long, has a thin resume in the Senate, and was, at least initially, quite vague on many major issues. But then McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and there went that approach. Since then, his main thrust has been that Obama is naive, dangerous and untrustworthy; that voters don't really know who he is or what he would do; and that his questionable past associations raise real doubts about his true intentions for America.

Oops. Can't argue that one anymore either. Not when you just said "he's a decent family man" and that there's no reason to fear an Obama presidency. Now it's McCain whom voters aren't sure about. What does he really think? It's hard to know. The very same day, the McCain campaign released a new TV ad attacking Obama again on the Ayers issue, raising the same old fears about him and labeling him "too risky" to be president. At the end, McCain says, as always, "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message." Do you? Then why did you just contradict it in front of hundreds of voters?

Clearly, McCain is conflicted, or perhaps unable to rein in the baser instincts of his campaign managers. For a brief moment Friday, McCain veered toward sanity and reason, not toward saying whatever he must to win. McCain himself has said before that he always seems to sabotage his own political ambitions, that something inside keeps him from grabbing the brass ring, that in the end he tends to say or do something that keeps the biggest prize just out of reach. He may have just done it again, but at least this time, he really did put country first. We'll see if he stays on that path.

That One Won

2008-10-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

It happened in the middle of last night's second presidential debate. Barack Obama and John McCain were squabbling over who voted for what, when, on energy - an issue McCain returned to time and again, just as his running mate Sarah Palin did in her debate last week, apparently because the Republican campaign has decided it's their winningest issue now.

McCain, in a sarcastic, smart-alecky way, challenged the audience to guess who voted for what he called a "Bush-Cheney" energy bill, and who voted against it. Who voted for it? "That one," he said, gesturing toward Obama. And who voted no? "Me," McCain said proudly.

I sat bolt upright in my KCBS newsroom chair, where I was simultaneously watching the debate on TV, recording it in our digital audio system, logging the best sound bites and inhaling some excellent Szechuan food. I nearly spilled my black bean chicken.

"Did he just refer to Obama as 'that one'?"

Indeed he did.

It struck me as dismissive and disrespectful, but it is striking some African Americans as veiled racism. I'll leave it to others to decide that, but it was a moment that really stood out in the debate. It's become clear that McCain barely tolerates Obama, maybe not even as much as Palin tolerates gay people. He doesn't like to shake his hand, he barely looks at him during these debates, and the only time McCain even acknowledges Obama's presence is when he's scoffing at his experience and ideas.

But can you imagine the uproar if Joe Biden had referred to Sarah Palin as "that one" last week? There would have been howls that Biden was sexist and patronizing. Maybe it was an innocent turn of phrase, but I have a feeling this may be what everyone's talking about in the morning.

On substance, I thought this debate was essentially a draw. McCain had some strong moments (that one wasn't one of them), showed some initiative with that new mortgage buyback proposal, and wasn't quite as cantankerous as in the first debate. But Obama fared better in the town hall format than many people expected him to, parried McCain's thrusts quite deftly, and I thought looked far more relaxed and presidential. McCain seemed stiff and awkward as he lurched about the debate stage, while Obama was smooth and debonair. He has a disarming smile and a calm demeanor, while McCain comes off as irritated and a tad desperate.

And Obama succeeded in turning McCain's best lines against him. McCain had obviously practiced that quip about how sorting through Obama's tax plans is like "trying to nail jello to a wall," but Obama disemboweled it with his own comeback, telling McCain "the straight talk express just lost a wheel." When McCain returned to his signature argument of the first debate, that Obama just isn't ready to be president, the Democrat hit back with a dramatic list of McCain's most unstable foreign policy moments.

Obama clearly expected McCain to come out on the attack, as did so many pundits (not this one), because he beat him to the punch in the early going, using his very first answer to link McCain to the Bush economic policies. But, though he criticized Obama all night long, McCain didn't drop the gloves the way some thought he might, never bringing up William Ayers or Reverend Wright or any of the other Obama bogeymen that Sarah Palin's been flogging on the campaign trail lately. That kind of attack wouldn't have played well with the town hall crowd, and McCain was wise to avoid it. The problem for him now is, he didn't win this debate. The CBS News poll of undecided voters who watched it had 40% declaring Obama the winner, and 26% picking McCain. The rest thought it was a tie. A CNN survey of debate-watchers, not just undecideds, gave Obama a 54-30 landslide.

There were some other extremely encouraging numbers for Obama, and gloomy ones for McCain, in that CBS poll. Before the debate, 59% of those uncommitted voters thought Obama understood their needs and problems, and 33% thought so of McCain. After the debate? Obama's empathy index soared to 80%, while McCain's inched up to 44%. That says a lot about which man related more to the average viewer. Only 42% of these undecideds thought Obama was ready to be president going in to the debate; coming out, the figure is 58%.

So John McCain failed in his two central tasks: convincing voters Obama can't do the job, and that he, not Obama, feels their pain on the economy. Obama, on the other hand, closed the sale to a few more voters who weren't sure about him before. That means, even if this debate was a rough draw, Obama really won it, because McCain didn't score the decisive blow he needs to change the trajectory of this campaign.

And I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to Bob Schieffer in next week's final debate. Jim Lehrer was pretty good in the first one, Gwen Ifill was simply terrible last week, and Tom Brokaw was mediocre tonight. But Schieffer will be fantastic. Time constraints? Rules? One-minute rebuttals? Forget all that nonsense. Who cares about the format? The moderators don't even seem to remember what it's supposed to be half the time. The voters want real engagement on critical issues, not 90-second stump speeches with no follow-up. Just when a topic gets interesting, the moderator veers them off on a new course. That serves no one's interest. Let them have at it, for extended battle, on a few issues. Next week, they'll be sitting around a table with Schieffer, who brooks no nonsense on "Face the Nation" every Sunday morning. He knows exactly how to follow up, how to make someone answer a question, and how to slice through the garbage to the heart of the matter. McCain will be even more desperate, and he'll have no choice but to come at Obama with everything he's got. He might even rip off Obama's nicotine patch and call him a terrorist junkie. Now that one - I can't wait for.

New polls, post-debate interviews, video clips and even the entire debate, all available right now at www.sovernnation.com

Fit To Be Tied

2008-10-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

So, I was playing around with one of those interactive Electoral College maps the other day (here's a good one), and started creating what I consider an extremely plausible scenario. Here it is: John McCain holds almost all of the states that President Bush won in 2004, including the big ones - Florida, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and Nevada. At the moment, Barack Obama has actually pulled ahead in the polls in most of those states, but his leads are narrow, and you simply can't discount the race factor in most of those particular swing states. So I'm not willing to bet just yet that Obama will win any of those.

Just as realistic is the assumption that Obama will hang on to the battleground states that John Kerry carried last time - namely, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He's winning, but not by much, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but he's pulling away in Pennsylvania and of course, McCain is completely conceding Michigan now, which is an astounding development.

That really leaves only one swing state for McCain to turn from blue to red: New Hampshire. Obama's winning there too, but those "Live Free or Die" folks have a soft spot in their hearts for flinty mavericks, so let's say they pull the lever for McCain in the end and he swings those four electoral votes into the Republican column.

But I think Iowa, which went for George W. Bush last time, is just about in the bag for Obama, and he's got a real shot at flipping Colorado and New Mexico from red to blue, too. So Obama could steal three states from the Republicans, while McCain snatches just one from the Democrats.

Hmm, that sounds like it would be pretty close. So I clicked on the map to check that electoral vote total and - gasp! - it came out Obama 269, McCain 269.

Yes, that's right. A tie. And I wasn't even trying to create a tie - I was just plugging in what I thought was most likely on that particular day.

So what happens then? I knew the basics, but I pulled out the good old U.S. Constitution (you remember that - it used to be the governing document of the United States), and flipped to the 12th Amendment (and also the 20th) to brush up on some of the finer points.

You think Bush-Gore in 2000 was a national nightmare? Just wait for this one, folks. We'll make Kenya and Zimbabwe look like models of electoral stability. Here's what would happen:

First of all, the new Congress would be sworn in on January 3, 2009. Then the newly elected House of Representatives would choose between Obama and McCain for president. Each state gets one vote, regardless of size or number of Representatives. California gets one - so does Rhode Island, etc. Presumably, each state would cast its vote along party lines, based on which party has a majority of the state delegation. But perhaps some states would feel compelled to support whichever candidate carried that state. In any case, right now the Democrats control 26 states, the Republicans 21, and the other three are split, 50-50. If the Democrats increase their majority in November, they could have more than 26.

But a candidate needs to win at least 26 of the 50 states to be elected president, and the House only has until March 4th to get the job done. If Obama and McCain each got 25 votes - neither would be president.

In the meantime, the Senate gets to choose the vice president, independently of what the House does. So we could end up with an Obama-Palin administration (the mind reels....) or a McCain-Biden regime.

The Senate is split right now, 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans, but the two independents, erstwhile Democrat Joe Lieberman and Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders, caucus with the Dems, giving them a de facto 51-49 edge. The Democrats are likely to have at least 55 seats in the new Senate, so Biden would most likely be elected vice president (although, with Lieberman very much a pariah now among the Democrats, and an enthusiastic McCain supporter, a 50-50 tie would be a real possibility if the GOP somehow holds on to all its open seats).

So if Biden is chosen veep, and the House can't choose a president by March 4th....then Biden becomes president! If neither chamber can elect someone - then the presidential order of succession kicks in, which makes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the 44th president of the United States (one more caveat here: the House is empowered to pass a law designating someone else president if it so chooses, but if it can't even decide between Obama and McCain, that's not likely to happen).

So there you have it: an absolute mess that would gridlock government and plunge the country into a blistering partisan cluster@#$!.

Is it likely to happen? No. But it could. As we've learned the last few years, American presidential politics has become stranger than fiction.

In reality, in the few days since I started mulling this over, the tenor of the race has shifted, and Obama has opened up significant leads in even more of the red states. As of this writing, an Obama landslide looks more likely than this far-fetched tie scenario. But we've still got a month, and two more debates, to go, and Lord only knows what twists and turns are still in store.

For the very latest polls, and some analysis thereof, please click here. I will talk to you again after this next debate!

Governor Palin's Reading List

2008-10-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

Maybe you saw the last installment of Katie Couric's exclusive interview with Sarah Palin, in which Palin was unable to name what newspapers and magazines she reads on a regular basis. Through my contacts in Alaska, I have obtained a copy of Palin's secret subscription list, which I reproduce here for your benefit:

Mooseweek
U.S. Moose and Wolf Report
Hockey Mother Jones
Halibut Today
Un-Cosmopolitan
Drill Bit Quarterly
Good Iglookeeping
Better Homes and Icefields
Working Unwed Mother
The Wasilla Street Journal
The Midnight Sun-Times

and, of course, the National Enquirer.

I felt compelled to dig up this information after watching last night's vice presidential debate between Palin and Joe Biden. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly that Governor Palin doesn't have a very broad knowledge base. She does, however, have a full arsenal of doggone folksy expressions and a remarkable repertoire of winks and smiles.

One could argue that Sarah Palin won that debate, simply because she didn't embarrass herself with some obviously dreadful gaffe, and never had a desperate moose-in-the-headlights moment. On the surface, at least, she seemed to rediscover the frontier woman pluckiness that won the hearts of so many Middle Americans during the Republican National Convention.

One would be wrong, however. I refuse to lower the bar that low. I've watched the debate twice now, and I had to stop compiling my list of Palin's misstatements, factual errors, filibustering platitudes and evasive, time-wasting non-answers because it was giving me carpal tunnel syndrome. Biden had his share of b.s. too, misrepresenting some of John McCain's positions and some of his own, but by and large, he answered the questions, more directly than Palin, or for that matter, Obama or McCain did in their debate.

In fact, I think of the four candidates, Joe Biden has given the best performance so far, by far. He was uncharacteristically restrained and respectful. He stayed on point. He listened to the question, remembered to answer it, listened to his opponent's answer, responded to that, and demonstrated an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge, especially on foreign policy. On subtance, Biden won this debate in a crushing landslide. On style, Palin gets some points for her frisky country governor routine, but not enough to negate Biden's overwhelming advantage on everything else.

Last week, my take on the first presidential debate was out of sync with the polls. I thought McCain did well, and may have beaten Obama, by a narrow margin. But surveys showed most voters, especially the undecided, declaring Obama the winner.

This time, it turns out I agree with the voters. CBS News polled 500 undecided voters who watched the vice presidential debate. Forty-six percent of them say Biden won. Only 21% thought Palin did. The remaining 33% say it was a tie. CNN polled voters in general who watched the show, with 51% giving the win to Biden and 36% picking Palin, although by 54 to 36, those voters found Palin the more likable of the two.

In the CBS poll, 18% of those previously uncommitted voters now say they will vote for Obama. Ten percent of them have decided to vote for McCain. Fifty-three percent have a better opinion of Biden now, and only five percent think worse of him. Palin scored well in that regard too, with 55% saying they like her more now, but 14% say they like her less after the debate. And 98% see Biden as knowledgeable about important issues - only 66% say Palin is, although that's a huge improvement from the 43% who thought that about her before the debate.

Palin echoed McCain in her stubborn refusal to stop repeating false facts. She said U.S. troops are below pre-surge levels now. They're not - something you would think the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, whose son just joined those troops, would know. She said Obama voted to raise taxes on families making as little as $42,000 a year. That's simply not true. She kept calling the general in charge of American forces in Afghanistan "General McClellan." His name is General David McKiernan - which Biden must know, but to his credit, he never corrected Palin. That's an old habit of Biden's, something he's done since his first campaign for the Senate; when his opponent makes a mistake like that, he lets it slide, or even pretends he doesn't know the right information either, so as not to show up the other debater.

Palin, on the other hand, was quick to jump on Biden when he complained that the McCain-Palin energy plan is all about "drill, drill, drill."

"The chant is 'Drill, Baby, Drill,' Senator," she corrected him, seeming to savor the moment.

I thought the debate's most powerful moment came near the end, when Biden choked up while remembering the death of his wife and daughter, and near-death of his younger son, in a car crash in 1972. It seemed real, uncontrived, and it really connected with those watching, according to those voter meters CNN uses. From that point on, Biden was more forceful, as if he sensed the end of the debate was near and he was going in for the kill.

He got it, like a head shot on a moose in Denali.

Besides, I can't watch Palin anymore without thinking of Tina Fey. For me, the Alaska governor has become a caricature, and if she can't shake it, she's doomed.

I can't wait to watch Saturday Night Live this weekend. In the meantime, I'm sending Gov. Palin complimentary subscriptions to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Anchorage Daily News.

She may want to skip the section where they print the polls, though, because nothing happened in this debate to stop the McCain-Palin slide, or really to alter the race in any way. That burden falls on John McCain himself, in next Tuesday's town hall face-off with Barack Obama.

Ready For Round Two?

2008-10-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

If the election were held today, Barack Obama would win - but a lot of voters would be confused, since Election Day isn't until November 4.

Except - the election is being held today. And tomorrow. And for the next five weeks. That's because more and more states allow Early Voting, so people are already casting ballots in Ohio, Virginia, Georgia and other key states.

I can't imagine voting before Election Day. I want every bit of information before making my decision. What if a candidate is caught doing something horrible a few days before the election? Or dies? I see no reason to vote until I really have to.

Many undecided voters say they've been waiting for the debates to help them make up their minds. Well, the debates started last Friday - and it's clear which way those voters are breaking. This race is starting to jell now, and although it could certainly whipsaw in another direction at any time, it's becoming Obama's to lose.

I thought John McCain did very well in the first debate. Expectations were lowered by his schizoid behavior in the days before it, his will-he-show-or-won't-he soap opera and the "suspension" (such as it was) of his campaign to help address the financial crisis. But I thought he came out strong in the debate's opening moments, took the fight to Obama and displayed his impressive knowledge of the issues, both foreign and domestic.

Obama won by not losing, though. He held his own against McCain, made no glaring mistakes, and by the end of the evening, proved he belonged on the same stage as his veteran opponent, establishing his "presidential" credentials. Obama was far more gracious and respectful than McCain, who came off kind of like the cranky neighbor who always complains about your dog tearing up his garden. That irascible attitude seemed to annoy a lot of undecided voters, and Obama clearly has passed a significant hurdle with many of them this week: they've decided that he is ready to be president, despite McCain's rather pointed assertions to the contrary.

Our new CBS News-New York Times Poll finds that of those who watched the debate, 51% thought Obama won, and only 26% thought McCain did. Overall, including people who didn't see the debate but heard about it later, 41% said Obama was the winner, and 21% said McCain. Other polls support those findings. More importantly, voters in the swing states came to the same conclusion. In Florida, for example, where McCain has been holding a small but steady lead, the Quinnipiac poll found those who watched the debate scoring it for Obama, by a margin of 49 to 34%. As a result, Obama has surged ahead of McCain there, 51-43.

In Ohio, which has been a dead heat with McCain barely ahead, debate-watchers told the Quinnipiac pollsters that Obama won the showdown (49% to 33%), and suddenly, Obama has taken the lead in the Buckeye State, 50-42. There's a similar story in Pennsylvania, where Obama's lead over McCain had been dwindling. Now Obama is way ahead, by an astounding 54 to 39%. In Iowa, which voted for President Bush last time, Obama's got a 16-point lead now, according to the new KCCI-TV Poll. In Virginia, Nevada and bellwether Missouri, all swing states that were Republican red in 2004, Obama has caught and passed McCain.

It's not just the debate, of course. Voters think Obama is better-equipped to manage the economy, and they're also losing confidence in Sarah Palin. The more interviews she does, the more she sinks in the surveys. Palin's answers - on Russia, on the bailout, on the Supreme Court, even on what newspapers she reads - are dropping as many jaws as the opening scene of "Springtime for Hitler" in "The Producers."

One conclusion is inescapable - the pundits' opinions don't matter nearly as much as our critics think they do. The voters made their own judgment of that debate, regardless of what we professionals thought. Most experts I spoke with called it pretty much a draw, and many gave McCain a slight edge. But the voters gave Obama a clear victory. You can't blame that on the liberal media conspiracy.

There is deepening concern in the McCain camp. A whiff of desperation is creeping into their rhetoric. You can hear the panic among the conservative talk show hosts as they ratchet up their vitriol. They can feel this thing slipping away.

It isn't over, of course. Sarah Palin has a huge chance to redeem herself in Thursday night's vice presidential debate. Again, the expectations have been lowered, to a ridiculous level. If she's vibrant and sparkling, homespun and funny, zinging Biden with folksy Alaska one-liners, and can somehow muddle through the tougher fact-based questions with enough stock phrases about reform and change and shake-up, then she could surprise those who think she's just going to babble, drool, and spew non sequiturs until her head spins around and explodes. Joe Biden could call her "darling" and "sweetie," veer off on some long-winded digression about his childhood in a Welsh coal mine, and then reminisce about Abe Lincoln's TV appearances during the Mexican-American War. Barack Obama could show up for next week's town hall debate in a dashiki and bandoliers.

Or, on a more serious note, there could be a major terrorist attack, or some other foreign policy emergency that undermines the voters' emerging confidence in Obama's readiness. And, of course, there is the potential racism factor, which could subtract five to seven points from what Obama's getting in all these polls, and that could swing enough of those battleground states back to McCain.

But for the moment, the narrative of this election is being set - and it's setting in Obama's favor. We'll see if The Great Debates, Round Two - Biden vs. Palin - does anything to keep the cement from hardening.

Suspended Animation

2008-09-24T17:01:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't blogged for a week, but I suspended my coverage of the campaign due to the economic crisis. Other bloggers put themselves first; I put my country first. How can I be blogging, in a fog of self-indulgence, when highly leveraged financial institutions run by altruistic billionaires are crashing all around me?

Now I return from my self-imposed exile, only to see John McCain stealing my idea. In case you haven't heard, McCain announced today that he will suspend his presidential campaign (after another 24 hours of speeches and appearances) to focus his energy on solving the Panic of 2008. Sadly, this would mean postponing Friday's much-anticipated debate with Barack Obama, but hey, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

(Truth be told - I was off in Wisconsin and Illinois, on a very fun sports junket with three colleagues, watching the Chicago Cubs clinch a division championship, the Green Bay Packers get whupped by the Dallas Cowboys, and Magic Slim and the Teardrops blow the roof off a blues club in the Windy City. I also spent some time interviewing voters in the swing state of Wisconsin - fascinating, revealing conversations that will air later this week and next, and about which I will blog in a day or two).

So what's the truth behind McCain's latest bold maneuver? Is he really as selfless as he claims, willing to lose an election to save an economy? Or is this a cynical ploy, designed to back Obama into a corner and reclaim the mantle of the maverick?

One thing is certain: we have yet more proof that John McCain is never afraid to throw long. At the low point of his campaign, when Obama was riding a glorious post-convention surge, McCain went to the far end of the Republican bench and plucked Sarah Palin from the wilds of Alaska, stunning the pundits and producing a surge of his own, vaulting him right back into the lead. Now, with the polls showing Obama pulling away again, with the economic distress depressing McCain's support and pushing the Democrat back up by six to ten points, McCain goes deep again. This time, he boldly proposes putting politics on hold, postponing Friday's debate, and challenging Obama to put country first, as McCain always promises to do. Is it risky? You bet. Is it a mistake? It may well be. Does McCain really want to send voters the message that he can't handle his Senate duties and run for president at the same time? Is anyone in Washington really clamoring for McCain and Obama, neither of whom has been a leader on economic issues in the Senate, to come rushing back to the Capitol and solve this crisis? Is the Senate going to be so busy on a Friday night re-working the bailout proposal, that the two presidential candidates can't spend a few hours in Mississippi debating foreign policy and national security?

As of this writing, the Friday debate goes on, as scheduled. Obama responded with the obvious line of reasoning: we need to debate now more than ever. It may be appropriate to tone down the partisan bickering in time of crisis, but the American people only have six weeks to make a critical decision, and it's even more important than it was a few days ago that the rival candidates put their policies on the table for all to see. He resisted the impulse to take a nasty jab at McCain's apparent inability to multi-task, though he did say, gently, that "America needs a president who can do more than one thing at once."

The darkest view of McCain's gambit could be that he's not ready for Friday's debate. It's the presidential campaign version of "the dog ate my homework." In this case, the economy ate my debate prep. The paper is due in two days and McCain just realized he hasn't memorized the names of all the new world leaders yet. But maybe this is what's really behind it: It's a clever ploy to buy more time for Sarah Palin. Yes, it all comes back to the Drilla from Wasilla. The McCain campaign is going to suggest moving the first presidential showdown to next Thursday, replacing the one and only vice presidential debate, which would be postponed to some unspecified date, later in October. That would give Palin a few more precious weeks to do her own homework. The Obama camp is not likely to bite though, so expect the debates to go on as planned.

Which means the Republicans will again be able to denounce Obama as a selfish Messiah who values his own ascent more than the economic well-being of the hard-working American middle class. But that's not likely to stick. Moving your presidential campaign to Washington, in the midst of an economic crisis, isn't ending politics as usual; it's as naked a political move as you'll ever see. Remember the last time a presidential candidate used a national crisis as an excuse to seek refuge from a rough campaign? His name was Jimmy Carter, and his "Rose Garden strategy" during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980 backfired miserably. Suspend the campaign? Just long enough to delay the debates? McCain may need another kind of suspension - of the voters' disbelief - for this one to work.

Listen to McCain's announcement, Obama's response, and Katie Couric's exclusive sit-down with Sarah Palin tonight, along with the very latest polls (Fox News puts Obama ahead too, not just ABC), all on www.sovernnation.com

That's the Ticket

2008-09-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

So, Tina Fey made a triumphant return to Saturday Night Live this weekend to deliver a dead-on caricature of Sarah Palin.

Now, it might be time to bring back Jon Lovitz and his Pathological Liar routine...to skewer John McCain.

I strive for non-partisanship in this blog. I call 'em as I see 'em, and I try to afflict both sides, no matter my politics or theirs. This is not an advocacy site - I'm a political reporter and I try to offer insight, analysis, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life on the campaign trail, all with a healthy side of humor. So let me say up front that every presidential campaign takes liberties with the truth. They all distort, and bend, and exaggerate. They take things out of context, and they take their rival's offhand comments and harmless jokes and blow them out of proportion. The Obama campaign is as guilty of that as any I've seen.

But the McCain campaign is going way beyond that. This campaign isn't just fudging a little bit. It seems to actually be lying, and it's rare that we in the media say such a thing. And the worst offense, to me, is that when it gets caught - the McCain-Palin campaign denies that it's lying, and keeps repeating the lies.

You don't have to take it from me. Maybe you think I'm part of the liberal media conspiracy. You can take it from Karl Rove, or from the Wall Street Journal. Look, if they accuse John McCain of lying in his campaign ads, it's probably true, right?

The saddest part of this is that it's coming from John "Straight Talk" McCain, a man who has always claimed to place his honor and integrity above all else, at least in his political life. Has he sold his soul to become president? Is he so close to tasting the ultimate political success, that he's letting his campaign managers run roughshod over the truth, his reputation be damned? Has McCain decided the end justifies the means, no matter how low and nasty?

Here are a few of the lies that bother me the most:

McCain, on the stump, cackles with glee as he tells a roaring crowd about his running mate, Sarah Palin, "I love that she sold the governor's plane on eBay! And she made a profit!"

THE TRUTH: No she didn't. Palin did put the jet on eBay, but nobody bought it. The state ended up selling it through a traditional broker, and at a $500,000 loss.

McCain, on The View last week, insists that Palin has not asked for or accepted any federal earmark spending for Alaska while governor, only while Mayor of Wasilla, and that she vetoed pork-barrel bills as governor.

THE TRUTH: Palin has requested almost $200 million in earmarks for Alaska this year, and that's on top of the $256 million in pork she snagged from the feds last year. That gives Alaska, far and away, the most federal earmark dollars, per capita, in the nation. But Palin herself keeps repeating, on the stump and in her lone interview so far, that she is "against earmark abuse."

Palin has also used that same tired line about the Bridge to Nowhere - "I told Congress thanks, but no thanks" - so many times now that even she isn't delivering it with the same conviction.

THE TRUTH: Palin campaigned for the $223 million bridge, fought for the money from Congress, and lobbied to get the bridge built. After the project became a national symbol of earmark abuse, Congress killed the proposal - and then, and only then, did Palin switch her position and oppose the idea of the bridge. She still took the money, though, and spent it on other projects in Alaska.

But the McCain-Palin campaign's lies go way beyond Palin's record. They also show up in the attack ads slamming Barack Obama. One cited Obama's "lipstick on a pig" quip - which came in the midst of a discussion of McCain, President Bush and economic policy - and, with the words "Obama on Sarah Palin" across the TV screen, asserted that the Democrat had "smeared" Palin. McCain finally admitted yesterday that he did nothing of the sort, and that Obama didn't really call Palin a pig. But will as many people hear his retraction as saw that ad?

Another ad takes Obama's committee vote in the Illinois Senate for "comprehensive sexual education" for children - specifically, a plan to teach kindergarten kids how to recognize and report inappropriate touching in case someone tries to molest them - and twists it into something sick. The ad claims that Obama wanted to teach little kids about sex, before teaching them to read, and therefore Obama is "wrong for your family."

McCain and Palin also keep lying about Obama's tax proposals. The Republicans are used to blasting Democrats as "tax and spend," so maybe it's a reflex response; they don't actually read the other guy's plans, they just assume he wants to raise everyone's taxes. But I've read two different independent, nonpartisan, objective analyses of Obama's economic plan so far (I won't ruin them for you by giving away the ending), and both concluded roughly the same thing: that Obama's plans, as outlined, would result in lower taxes for 80 to 90% of Americans. Not higher. Lower. But McCain and Palin keep telling voters that Obama will raise their taxes. How many people will actually read those plans to learn the truth? Very few. Most will simply nod their heads and assume the war hero is giving them the straight dope.

And therein lies the danger. McCain is either poorly informed, extremely confused, or dishonest. Maybe he thinks that he can just keep repeating the lies for seven more weeks and no one will notice. But people have noticed. So he really should stop. Because too many people believe the lies. Do we want this election decided by dishonesty? Don't we want the best person with the best ideas to win? Shouldn't each side present its vision for the future to the country, which will then pick the one it likes best? That's what democracy is all about.

Otherwise, John McCain will start telling people his running mate is....um....Morgan Fairchild! That's right! I met her while moose hunting and asked her if she wanted to be vice president! And if he repeats that one enough, people will soon forget all about this Sarah Palin person.

Hey, that's the ticket!

P.S. I learned today that the phrase "lipstick on a pig" was first coined by our old friend and KCBS colleague Ron Lyons. The first confirmed usage of that expression was in 1985, on the radio in San Francisco, by Ron, describing the Giants' plan to spruce up Candlestick Park, since their plan to build a new ballpark was going nowhere at the time. Those who knew Ron will immediately recognize that it sure sounds like one of his folksy, earthy expressions. But I had no idea the etymologists gave him official credit for that one. Ron, you can take your rightful place in the cultural pantheon now. We miss you.

Tough Sledding

2008-09-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin made her unscripted debut tonight on ABC News. Those who already love her will probably think she was smashing, but anyone viewing her performance objectively will probably come away deeply concerned, if not aghast.

Deprived of the witty, biting speech she's been delivering in one form or another for the past week, Governor Palin had to rely on her own knowledge and political instincts. Generally speaking, the latter did not fail her, but the former came up woefully short.

Charlie Gibson grilled a nervous Palin on foreign policy and energy. Tomorrow, his series of interviews continues, presumably on domestic issues and questions about her family, and her record in office. I thought he was tough and persistent, in a calm, understated way, but certainly fair.

It became clear, fairly quickly, that Palin really is in over her head. She displayed little grasp of major international issues, even the simplest ones. Admittedly, American foreign policy is incredibly complex, but one would expect the governor of our country's vastest state, one that borders two foreign countries, to know the basics. Having traveled with Governor Schwarzenegger to both China and Mexico, I can guarantee you he knows far more about foreign affairs than his Alaskan counterpart does, and less than five years ago, he was a Hollywood actor (of course, he was born in Austria, which gave him a head start).

What stunned me the most was that Governor Palin had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was. It seemed as if she'd never even heard of it. Granted, most Americans probably couldn't explain it on demand, either, but they're not governors and they're not running for vice president. I'm sure most American high school students could though, since they've probably had to write about it on social studies tests, just as we had to explain the Monroe Doctrine or the Truman Doctrine once upon a time.

Considering that President Bush outlined his radical shift from previous American policies of deterrence and containment - to one of unilateral, pre-emptive strikes - in a major speech to a joint session of Congress after the September 11th attacks, a speech that millions upon millions of Americans watched, I was flabbergasted to see Sarah Palin stare blankly at Gibson when he asked if she agrees with it. She stammered through an answer that laid her ignorance bare, to the point that Gibson finally had to explain it for her. The McCain spinmeisters can play this however they like, but few unbiased viewers will see it their way.

Now, in all likelihood, most American voters probably won't be bothered by Palin's shaky answers on this and other key questions (when asked by Gibson what insights into recent Russian policies Palin has gained from Alaska's proximity to Russia, the governor gushed, "They're our neighbors! You can actually see Russia from some of the land in Alaska!"
Maybe she mind-melds with potato farmers while gazing out from the Aleutians towards Kamchatka). The voters already inclined to like Sarah Palin don't care about the Bush Doctrine, haven't met any foreign heads of state either, and probably don't have passports. They will respond to her confidence and spunkiness, and will probably get mad at Charlie Gibson for being mean to her. So it remains to be seen if media criticism, and the negative headlines that will no doubt be generated by the blistering attacks I assume the Obama campaign will unleash tomorrow, will dull any of Palin's sudden sheen.

In fact, the timing of this may work against Obama, because he plans to start ignoring Palin, and to refocus his campaign against McCain. Now the next 24 hours will be dominated by reaction to the Palin interviews instead, not to mention the landfall of Hurricane Ike.

But any American who cares about this country should watch these interviews, with deepening worry. Palin came off as an ill-informed hawk, someone who will be forced to rely on the knowledge and judgment of others when it comes to critical matters of national survival. That sounds an awful lot like the president 80% of the country thinks has done a terrible job, and considering that Palin's being advised by some of the same architects of his foreign policy - the one she'd never heard of - it's going to take more than lipstick for the McCain campaign to pretty this one up.

Let's Get It Started

2008-09-06T09:41:00.001-07:00

Fifteen hours after the gavel came down, ending the Republican National Convention, bits of confetti bearing tiny images of John and Cindy McCain were still fluttering from the rafters at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Work crews clambered along the trusses and scaffolds high above the convention floor, dismantling lights and other equipment, and knocking leftover confetti clumps to the ground in gentle flurries of red, white and blue.

Outside, a big crane took down the bright red "CNN Grill" sign from the restaurant across the street, replacing the original "Eagle Street Grill" sign in its place. The giant Fox News video screen was packed away, and torn oversized posters of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity lay in the damp streets, run over by forklifts and flatbed trucks.

The parties are over. Now the real race begins.

And it begins, essentially, right where it left off two weeks ago: in a dead heat.

CBS News polled voters before the Democratic National Convention, and found them favoring Barack Obama, 45% to 42%. After Obama's wildly successful Denver convention, he had stretched his lead to 48-40. But after Sarah Palin's ecstatically received acceptance speech Wednesday, CBS found voters equally divided, 42-42. The Gallup Poll's daily tracking gave Obama an eight-point lead after his convention, 49-41. In the latest Gallup survey, he still leads, but only by four points, 48-44.

Some other interesting numbers: Barack Obama's acceptance speech a week ago was the most-watched convention speech in American history - but just for one week. John McCain tied that record Thursday night. Obama had more than 42 million viewers, far more than the finale of American Idol or the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Sarah Palin came close on Wednesday night, falling just a few hundred thousand short of Obama's audience. But McCain caught Obama in the ratings race Thursday, with a larger viewer audience on the commercial networks but a smaller one on PBS, ending up with the same 42.4 million pairs of eyeballs that Obama had (well, maybe not the exact same eyeballs but the same total number of them!). And, on average, more people watched the three main nights of the Republican convention than the four nights of the Democratic one, even though there are millions more registered Democrats in this country than Republicans, and the RNC was interrupted by Hurricane Gustav.

This means that yes, there is unprecedented national interest in this presidential election. People are tuning in, and not just based on their own ideological point of view. They want to know what these candidates are all about, even if they've already made up their minds. They are intrigued by Sarah Palin, and they want to know more about where Obama and McCain stand on the issues.

For the third presidential election in a row, we have a race that is ridiculously close and endlessly fascinating. It didn't used to be this way. But Bush-Gore, Bush-Kerry and now McCain-Obama have captivated the nation, and here's hoping that translates to record turnout in November, too. (I never quite understand why people don't vote; I have never failed to cast a ballot in a primary or general election since I turned 18. If you care, then you should vote. If you don't help choose your leaders, then your answer to whether your taxes should go up or down, your schools should get better or worse, or your nation should go to war or not, is a shrug of the shoulders).

The presence of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin on the tickets this fall should boost that turnout. Obama will obviously galvanize African Americans, and, presumably, younger voters, although we expect their numbers to rise every four years and they rarely do. Palin will motivate the GOP's conservative base, and should bring more women to the polls, but so far she seems to have activated the bases of both parties. A lot of Hillary Clinton supporters and other Democratic women are absolutely appalled by Palin. That CBS News poll found 69% of Hillary supporters saying they plan to vote for Obama now; it was only 58% a week ago. And Obama brought in a record $10 million in donations in the 24 hours after Palin's big speech, a simply stunning amount, while the Republican National Committee took in only one million (as of Friday, McCain can no longer raise money, since he is accepting public financing of the general election campaign, but the RNC can still fundraise on his behalf. Obama reneged on his earlier pledge and bailed on the FEC money, so he's free to raise, and spend, as much as he wants).

Palin may wear thin on the campaign trail, or she may become America's Sweetheart. Some people in Alaska hate her but most seem to love her. Voters may not care about the truth behind some of what she said Wednesday night (that governor's plane she "put on eBay"? Nobody bought it. The state ended up selling it through conventional means, and at a loss of half a million dollars. And you already know that she supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, and that she sought millions and millions of dollars in pork-barrel earmarks as both Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska). Many Democrats seem oblivious to what Obama really intends to do as president, other than "change" things, whatever that means. Will we really get more substance from these candidates in the next 59 days, or will this devolve into another superficial, personality-driven beauty contest?

One thing seems clear: Governor Palin isn't running for Miss Congeniality this time (that's what she got in the Miss Alaska Pageant in 1984). She's an Alaska-tough, bare knuckles brawler, and if the Democrats are smart, they will essentially ignore the fact that she's a woman, and treat her like one of the boys. If they handle her with kid gloves, they're doomed.

I still think this race comes down to McCain vs. Obama, not Palin vs. Obama and Biden. The debates will be huge, and we never know what completely unanticipated moment or event could turn the election one way or the other. A terrorist attack, another international incident, an awkward slip of the tongue by Obama, a stiff moment on the stump by McCain, some candidate's impolitic utterance caught on a blogger's videocamera...who knows what surprise lurks in the shadows of this campaign? We do know that the Obama organization is as sophisticated as any we've ever seen, and the election may well be won by whichever side mounts the best get-out-the-vote operation.

It will be exciting, and it will be close. As President Bush might say...Bring it on.

The Barracuda Strikes

2008-09-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

I watched Governor Sarah "Sarah Barracuda" Palin deliver her speech last night from the middle of the California delegation, down on the convention floor. Most absolutely adored it. A couple thought she went too far with the snarky, biting sarcasm. But there's no question she absolutely wowed this crowd - and most of the media watching it here.

Funny thing; yesterday the McCain campaign hated all of us. Now they're quoting us. The RNC blasted out an email highlighting the mainstream media's rave reviews of Palin's speech (CBS, CNN, ABC, The New York Times - "simply brilliant," "a star is born," "electrifying," "a force to be reckoned with") - one of those "What They're Saying" press releases. As my managing editor quipped, "I guess they like the media elite now!"

The Republicans seem to have turned up the air conditioning in the convention hall today - the better to freeze our elite little media typing fingers. I sat down with Katie Couric for an interview over lunch today (she had a green salad with lots of strawberries and craisins in it - what is a craisin anyway?). She was shivering, all bundled up in a shawl. It could be part of the GOP's anti-media conspiracy. Maybe they'll turn up the thermostat now that we all have crushes on Sarah Palin. Or maybe the colder air is to keep everyone awake during John McCain's FIFTY-FOUR MINUTE acceptance speech. That length could be a big mistake for the sometimes excitement-challenged McCain.

So, what did you think of Palin's speech? I thought it was very well-written, as expected, and delivered quite well, again, not surprising. Palin was calm, relaxed, comfortable and charming. She's a natural on the stage, Reaganesque almost. The four days she spent holed up at the Hyatt Regency here with speechwriter Matt Scully and other McCain campaign staffers obviously paid off. Expect her to repeat some version of that speech from New Hampshire to Nevada over the next two months. She's obviously quite comfortable in the traditional running mate pit bull role - does that mean she'll stop wearing lipstick? She could put Obama and Biden in an uncomfortable position. If they attack her, the McCain-Palin campaign cries "sexism!" If they lay off, she punches them in the face (rhetorically speaking). But if her snidest moments grated even on some of the GOP loyalists in this hall, imagine how they might irritate the suburban Democrats and independents McCain needs to win. Her Fargo-voiced hockey mom routine could wear thin out on the campaign trail.

I ran into McCain, with his wife Cindy and Joe Lieberman, in the bowels of the arena a few minutes ago. He had just done his walk-through on the stage; I was on my way back from lunch. I got stopped in a corridor by the Secret Service, and then along came the McCains with Senator Joe. I did not hear Lieberman telling the presidential nominee there was still time to reconsider his running mate selection. McCain flashed a smile and asked how I was doing. I said fine, asked him how he was doing, and whether he's ready for tonight's big speech. He said "sure, ready to go" and gave me a big thumbs up. Unfortunately, I had left my recorder upstairs while buying a club sandwich, but it was such a brief encounter I probably wouldn't have gotten any worthwhile audio out of it anyway.

The Palin frenzy on the Internet has gone viral. How many times have you received the PhotoShopped picture of Palin in a stars-and-stripes bikini wielding a semi-automatic weapon? (it's not really her, sorry guys). How about the email from Democrat Ann Kilkenny of Wasilla, talking about Palin's record there? (that one is real; the New York Times interviewed her and she's an actual friend of an actual friend of mine in Alaska). Maybe I'll send along some excerpts from that one next time if I have time...

By the way, Obama is holding his lead in the polls...even through three days of the Republican Convention. BUT...and it's a big but...the latest Gallup daily tracking poll (Obama still ahead, 49-42) was completed before Sarah Palin's speech, so it doesn't reflect its impact. In tomorrow's numbers, we'll see if Sarah Barracuda took a bite out of Obama's support.

I had more to say but now I have to run...just got a Secret Service alert about a huge war protest...demonstrators are "massing" outside and will attempt to block delegates' buses from getting here to see McCain...media warned to heed police instructions and not get caught up in the dragnet of ruffians and scoundrels (not us; the protesters)...and look out for flying bags of urine....I will get back to you later!

Shoot the Messenger

2008-09-03T15:31:00.001-07:00

That would be me, and all my colleagues here. All 16,000 of them.

Yesterday, the Republicans had Talking Points. Today, they've got angry words. Tomorrow, they may break out the sharp sticks. Or perhaps they'll borrow the bags of human waste the protesters are flinging at people, and throw them at us. Except they might hit conservative talker Sean Hannity, who's sitting right behind and above me, and that would be tragic, so we're probably safe.

Privately worried about the implosion of John McCain's vice presidential pick, and the way the Sarah Palin Story has been playing across the country, the Republican Party launched an all-out offensive today against The Media. People hate us anyway, so we're easy targets. The high-level surrogates spread out across the Twin Cities like a flock of angry parrots, armed with loaded words like "sexist," "offensive," "disgusting" and "woman-hating." Orrin Hatch showed up at the California breakfast and read us the riot act. He told me that questioning Palin's experience or record is "dismissive of women." Former Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina denounced us all for portraying Palin as a "showhorse instead of a workhorse," saying we've described her as a "nice little girl...a good cheerleader." If anyone can find a clip where any of us said anything of the kind, please forward it to me.

Over on Fox News, the anchors are clucking sympathetically, asking supposed Hillary Clinton-supporting Democratic women to explain for viewers how deeply offended they are by the Palin-bashing, and how Sarah's going through exactly what Hillary suffered.

Personally, I find sexist (and offensive) the assumption that any close examination of Palin's record has something to do with her gender. With the exception of the pregnant daughter scandal, Governor Palin is being treated exactly the way Dan Quayle was when George H.W. Bush sprung him from obscurity (where I believe he now resides again) back in 1988. It was the same sort of feeding frenzy - who? is he qualified? he's how young? what about this Vietnam scandal? - born of the presidential nominee's desire to choose a next-generation running mate, to shake things up with a surprise pick who would broaden his demographic appeal. That's exactly what McCain did, so he can't really be surprised by the reaction. Palin's record, and her lack of experience, are absolutely fair game. Barack Obama's are too, but he's been running for president for two years, and has been vetted by the American people. A majority of the largest political party in the country has decided he's fit for the presidency. In November, the rest will weigh in. But no voter has had a chance to evaluate Palin yet, and it's our job to dig up as much information on her as possible, to help them make an intelligent assessment. The good, the bad, the moose-slaughtering...whatever's out there.

Now I've heard the backstage buzz here, and I've talked with some Republican operatives off the record, and many of them are as bothered by the Palin nomination as the most ardent Democratic blogger. They see it as purely political, cynical pandering even, and they think McCain may have just lost the election. So, in classic GOP style, they're going on the attack - and it may just work. At the very least, it will buy them some time, close the gap in the polls by a point or two, until Palin gives her speech tonight, which I wager will be quite good and delivered well. Then McCain goes for the jugular tomorrow night, and they bring this race back to a statistical dead heat, at least for a few days. In the meantime, they are force-feeding the governor through a giant policy hose, and they will hope she digests as much as she can before her first news conference (exactly when will that happen?) and her debate with Joe Biden, which is a month away.

Palin's speech was written by Matt Scully, a Christian conservative vegan animal rights activist who used to write for Bush and Cheney and now works for McCain, so we'll have to see how he squares his own attitudes on the human place in the food chain with Palin's. I hope he didn't squat on the grizzly bear skin on her office floor when he was showing her the rewrites, or it might have put him off his tofu.

Speaking of food, for some bizarre reason, the RNC instructed the operators of the Xcel Energy Center not to open the concession stands in this arena. Monday, the union-operated stands were closed for Labor Day. Yesterday, they opened a single hot dog stand. Today, more of them have finally opened, maybe because of the growling stomachs of the delegates, staff and media who don't have access to the luxury corporate smorgasbords or the network TV mess halls. But didn't the GOP see the long lines of Democrats snatching up pizza and nachos at the Denver convention? I thought Republicans liked to make money - I don't understand why they've kept the concessions shuttered until now.

I ended up wandering the streets and buying a chicken gyro from a man who moved here from Kurdistan. He's one of eight Kurds in the Twin Cities. He was a chef for American troops in northern Iraq during the first Gulf War, and when they left his country, he was allowed to come with them to the United States! He settled in Saint Paul (he couldn't really explain why; it wasn't the appeal of deep snow and he's not a Minnesota Viking fan), but I am grateful that he's here to feed me some delicious Greek salad and pita. He says he first opened his restaurant as "Kurdish-Turkish-American Food," but when no one ever came in, he switched it to a "bistro," serving chicken fajitas and gyro. Business is booming.

One other quick note - I met Samantha Bee of Comedy Central's Daily Show today. I missed her last week, when I met her unfunny male colleagues in Denver. I stumbled across her while she was interviewing the Reverend Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, who I've interviewed over the years in California about gay marriage and the like. She was gracious, friendly and sweet, and genuinely pleased when I told her how much I like her work. The reverend had no idea who she was, and when I asked him how his interview went, he told me "I think she has an agenda." Oh, Lou, you have no idea! The bit will air tomorrow night (thursday), and I have a feeling Samantha is hysterical in it.

Not that I'm calling her a showhorse or anything. Oh wait, that may be sexist. I have to go turn myself in at the Bad Media office down the hall. See you later.

Palin in Comparison

2008-09-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

I went over to the Ramada Inn near the vast Mall of America today, where the Alaska delegation is staying. There I found Alaska Republicans who absolutely adore Sarah Palin. The chairman of the delegation, Anchorage businessman Chris Nelson, says Palin is resilient, tough and often underestimated. He accuses the media of piling on with outrageous stories about her past, and thinks there will be a voter backlash against the media and in favor of Palin.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee stopped by Radio Row and told us all the same thing - that the media should be embarrassed about the way we're covering Palin, and her daughter's pregnancy.

Another Alaska delegate told us Palin's family troubles are just that - family matters - and neither relevant to the campaign nor anyone else's business.

Then I obtained a copy of the confidential "Republican National Convention Talking Points" memo that was distributed to all the Alaska delegates. No wonder they all sound the same - they were all carefully instructed to tell us the exact same thing. The memo urges Alaska delegates to "STAY POSITIVE when talking with reporters" and to emphasize that Palin "brought change and new energy to the Office of the Governor...she will bring this same new energy to the Presidential ticket." It continues with three bullet points about energy, and Palin's experience with energy resources in Alaska. And a second page tells delegates to say that Bristol Palin's pregnancy is "a personal issue for the family" and that media should "respect the family's privacy."

The memo also addresses corruption in Alaska and the challenges facing the state GOP. The best lines are about indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, the dean of Senate Republicans, who's in deep trouble this fall as he runs for re-election against Democratic Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage. That's one of the seats Democrats are confident of snatching from the Republicans in November.

Here's what the delegates are supposed to tell us if we ask about Senator Stevens:

"Ted Stevens is our guy."
"He is the only person, except Governor Palin, who can beat Mark Begich in November." (The party was considering dumping Stevens and running Palin in the primary to replace him, but obviously abandoned that strategy).

And here's the kicker:

"As long as does not receive jail time he is legally capable of serving."

Indicted? Convicted? Hey, as long as he's not behind bars, he can still proudly represent Alaska in the Senate.

Now, in the interest of equal time and fair play, I have to report that I chatted with a TV cameraman from Anchorage. He has covered Palin for about five years, and says she was absolutely, positively pregnant last spring, and he has no doubt that little Trig is really the governor's son. He, too, heard the rumors that Bristol was really the baby's mother, but he says he saw Governor Palin throughout March and April, and says unless she was wearing a fake belly to perpetrate some elaborate cover-up, she was definitely with child. He says she was certainly showing signs of pregnancy in her seventh and eighth months, even though she doesn't look it in all those photos on the Internet. That's good enough for me; he seemed quite credible, so I think we have to accept that Sarah Palin really has five kids, and that Bristol is pregnant now with what will be the gov's first grandchild.

The cameraman also described Palin as friendly, open and pleasant, and said she was always ready and willing to welcome media to her office and do interviews. Suddenly, though, he says, that's all changed. The McCain campaign has clamped down and taken control, and she's been completely inaccessible here. The TV shooter believes Palin might make a fine vice president or president someday, but says she's in way over her head right now, and is clearly overwhelmed. We'll see how she performs tomorrow night.

ODDS AND ENDS FROM THE RNC:

Denver was overrun with button vendors, T-shirt stands and the like, all hawking vast quantities of creative Obama merchandise. Here? Hardly any McCain-Palin vendors. I found one souvenir stand in the arena, with a pathetic selection, and have yet to see a single vendor on the streets outside. Where are all the souvenirs? How will I maintain my button collection? The entrepreneurs are missing the boat here, because these delegates are enthusiastic and they have money. I suppose this could be construed as evidence that there's much more of a populist groundswell for Obama than for McCain, and that the vendors just don't see a market for McCain buttons, because trust me, those guys are bottom-line only types, and couldn't care less about the politics of a candidate if he or she can move merchandise and make them some money.

The protesters were out in force yesterday, with thousands of people blocking buses, clashing with riot cops, and getting pepper-sprayed. Today, there are hardly any. But we've just been warned by the Secret Service that they have "credible evidence" that the anarchists and anti-war groups outside are planning to target the media, and that we should exercise extreme caution. We're told that they have bags full of urine and feces, and plan to fling them at us, and that they may attack "news media personnel or property." My hunch is that they're more interested in targeting Fox News or CNN than little old KCBS radio, so I'm really not too worried. Besides, maybe this is just a ruse to jaundice our view of the demonstrators.

According to the daily Gallup tracking poll, Barack Obama is maintaining the bounce he got from last week's Democratic convention, despite, or maybe because of, McCain's selection of Palin as his running mate. After Obama's speech, the Democratic nominee opened up an eight-point lead in the poll. It dipped to six points Saturday, the day after Palin's debut, but is back up to eight points today. And notably, for the first time, Obama has hit the magic 50% mark. He leads McCain, 50-42; until now, his best showing was 49-40. We'll see if the lead holds as the Republican convention gets back on track. Tonight, President Bush will address the delegates by satellite from the White House, for about eight minutes, outside of prime time. Then it will be Fred Thompson and then, Joe Lieberman, with a hot rumor that Old Joe might announce he's switching to the Republican Party. Tomorrow night, Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani will speak, and then Thursday, McCain gives his acceptance speech. All of that should eat into Obama's lead, and, barring any more Palin bombshells, I will be stunned if Obama's still eight points up by Friday.

On the other hand, we've just heard that Bristol Palin's baby daddy, high school classmate Levi Johnston, is being flown out here for his future mother-in-law's big speech tomorrow night, so that he can be part of the family portrait, and if that doesn't bring out the paparazzi and keep the Palin preggers story alive, I don't know what will...

Signing off for now...

The Amazing Mrs. Palin

2008-09-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

Last year, I watched a six-part British TV production on PBS called "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard." It was about a suburban supermarket manager who's fed up with corrupt politics and decides to stand up against the system. She stands for Parliament, forms a new party - consisting mostly of women - and somehow, against all odds, wins the election and becomes Prime Minister. Her oldest daughter has trouble coping and causes a scandal by posing nude for a magazine. Her blue-collar husband also chafes at his wife's newfound celebrity and power, and admits to a sordid money-laundering incident from his past.

The sudden emergence of Sarah Palin reminded me of Ros Pritchard, from the fairy tale rise of the feisty mom-turned-politician right down to the wayward teenage daughter. And Palin's story is dominating the Republican National Convention so far here in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

These delegates absolutely adore Sarah Palin. They were already confident about beating Barack Obama in November, and the addition of Palin makes many of them downright cocksure - they've got the winning ticket in McCain-Palin.

"Wait until the country gets a load of Sarah Barracuda," longtime Republican strategist Mary Matalin told me today, using the nickname the governor earned as a scrappy high school point guard. "She's going to wow everybody on Wednesday night." But on Monday, the "wows" were in reaction to Palin's bombshell announcement that 17-year-old unmarried daughter Bristol Palin is five months pregnant, and as a result will marry the baby's father, a boyfriend identified only as "Levi."

Palin said she's "incredibly proud" of her pregnant teen, and "even prouder" at the prospect of becoming a grandmother at 44 (never mind that she preaches abstinence and opposes sexual education in the schools). But she only went public about her daughter's condition because of the barrage of rumors on the Internet - at Daily Kos, Atlantic Online and elsewhere - that Bristol is the real mother of Palin's newborn son Trig. The speculation centers on Bristol's five-month absence from school last winter and spring because of "mono"...the fact that no one even suspected Governor Palin was pregnant until she announced it in March, when she was seven months along and showing no signs of pregnancy...on photos that show Bristol sporting what could be a "baby bump" last winter while Mom was as svelte as ever...and on the way Palin gave birth to her premature son with Down Syndrome. The governor was in Texas to speak at a conference when she said her water broke. Rather than rush to the nearest high-risk maternity hospital, the 44-year-old mother of four, going into labor one month early with a chromosomally mutated fetus, decided to deliver her keynote speech, then board a plane back to Alaska, fly eight hours while in a labor that no one on the plane noticed, land in Anchorage and then drive all the way back to Wasilla before delivering Trig at her local hospital.

I am told by obstetricians that this is beyond ridiculous, medically insupportable and probable cause for a malpractice suit.

Suffice to say that there are those at this convention - they are not delegates - who find the pregnancy of Palin's daughter a tad on the suspicious side. By backdating Bristol's pregnancy to April, it becomes almost impossible for her to be Trig's true mother. She's not expected to give birth until after Election Day. But many observers here note that Bristol's being with child still doesn't explain away all those other odd circumstances from Sarah Palin's last pregnancy.

As far as the Republicans are concerned, this is Internet conspiracy talk - and they suspect the Obama campaign of spreading it. Obama denied that flat out today, and angrily said he will not tolerate any attacks on any candidate's family, especially the children. He said all the right things and seemed sincere.

Sincerity is what some critics think Palin lacks, and there will be enormous pressure on her when she accepts her vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. If she is engaging, forthright and personable, addressing the questions about her head-on, she could emerge from this convention as a formidable partner for McCain in the general campaign. If she falters, appears defensive or out of her league, or if there are any more sordid revelations, she could doom the ticket, or even be pulled from it by McCain. She hired a lawyer today to handle her end of Alaska's "Troopergate" investigation; her husband admitted a DUI conviction from 22 years ago. What's next? She hangs upside down in the rafters of the Juneau capitol during Alaska's long dark winters?

As I wrote the other day - and I've heard this echoed by several knowledgeable talking heads here in St. Paul - we underestimate Sarah Palin at our own peril. She is obviously a talented politician. But there's more to her than meets the eye. People roared during her introductory speech the other day when she announced that she had told Congress "thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere," the pork barrel project that's become emblematic of wasteful earmark spending.

The truth? She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. She campaigned for it when she was running for governor. She went to Washington to lobby Congress for more money for it. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin pulled the plug on the bridge only when Congress balked at its rising cost - and she still took the $225 million from Washington. She simply used it on other projects, to the great dismay of the people in Ketchikan who would've benefited from the bridge - and is now building a "road to nowhere," which was supposed to connect to the bridge, which isn't being built. But if Alaska doesn't build the road, it will have to give back the $25 million for that portion of the project, so Palin is building the road anyway.

This is why I always tell everyone - Obamamaniacs, people who swoon over Arnold Schwarzenegger, those who thought Sarah Palin was a MILF and now think she's about to become a GILF - that you have to peel away the layers on these politicians to find the truth. There's always more there than you think. Few of them are as squeaky-clean as they seem. The breath of fresh air sometimes hides a nasty stink.

It will be up to the voters to decide whether they're bothered by a teenage pregnancy in the governor's family. Perhaps a little sex ed in the home would have done Bristol Palin some good. I know Alaska has the lowest population density in America, but it's not the Palin family's personal responsibility to fill in all that open space.

Republicans here don't care about any of this. They see Palin as the godsend they need to stop Obama. Right now, the voters at large aren't sure. As we fill in more of the blanks about her in the days ahead, we'll find out whether McCain pulled a rabbit out of the hat - no pregnancy pun intended - or made a rash, ill-informed decision that will haunt him, and the GOP, for the next eight years.

Palintology

2008-08-29T13:05:00.001-07:00

Wow, did John McCain really just pick Tina Fey as his running mate?

Oh wait, that spunky, bespectacled woman with the upswept hair is actually Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. The people at Saturday Night Live must be doing cartwheels right about now.

McCain dropped a big fat news bomb right on top of Barack Obama's post-convention bounce this morning. Talk about a buzz kill. We all knew his vice presidential pick was coming today, but everyone expected Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, with Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman as the dark horses.

But there was a filly most pundits forgot about. We did blog about Palin back in May (check the archives), but I took her off my list later as too young and inexperienced, and tainted by an abuse of power investigation, which is still ongoing. My colleague Marc Sandalow, formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle, is the only one I know who still thought she had a shot at the veep spot. She was so little-known that McCain's press secretary, Tucker Bounds, still can't pronounce her name. He keeps calling her PAL-lin, but it's PAY-lin, like Michael Palin from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

So here's what I know about Sarah Palin: she's 44, married to a fisherman/oil field worker (very Alaska), and has five kids. They have the unlikely names of Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. I have no idea what's going on there. She's a pistol-packin' hockey mom (soccer moms die of frostbite in Alaska; they have hockey moms instead. Also, ice-fishing moms). She likes to hunt and eat moose. She could probably teach Obama and Biden how to handle a gun. She favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and could probably do it herself, with her husband. She just had her fifth child last spring, and little Trig has Down Syndrome, which means he's probably incredibly sweet and loving, and she's a seriously devoted mother.

(Although - and will this become an issue in the campaign? - how in the world is a mom with a four-month old, with Down Syndrome no less, going to campaign full-time for vice president for the next two months? Who will take care of that baby? Dad and the four older kids? Will America, for the first time ever, see a candidate for national office tote a newborn around? And how can the McCain campaign afford all that jet fuel bringing Palin back and forth from Alaska?)

More about Governor Palin: She is staunchly anti-abortion, pro-gun rights, devoutly Christian and is quite conservative. She was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska - it's REALLY small, I've been there and that's like being mayor of oh, say, San Bruno? I believe Wasilla has about 5000 people. Her family makes up seven of them.

She's been Governor of Alaska for less than two years, riding into office on a wave of anti-corruption sentiment up there. But she's caught up in her own little ethics difficulty. Her sister had a messy divorce from an apparently bad dude, who was a state trooper. Someone on Palin's staff called the state public safety commissioner to get the trooper fired. Palin's husband may have placed a call too. The commissioner refused, so Palin fired him. Now the state legislature is investigating whether she did anything wrong. She denies any knowledge of the phone calls.

If you saw her speech, you know why she's been considered a Republican up-and-comer. She's charming, personable, feisty and has a great backstory. She also has a classic northern accent, which sounds like a Minnesotan who went out moose-hunting and strayed a little too far. She pronounces nuclear "nook-u-lar," which always drives me crazy, but hey, it worked for President Bush.

OOPS: Gotta run, they're boarding my flight home from Denver. I will finish this post when I get home tonight and then send it out!

OKAY, I'M BACK. Ahh, home sweet home. Looks like I missed a heat wave in the Bay Area....But now back to our blog:

So. Sarah Palin. A game-changer for McCain. A guarantee that America will make history this year, with either our first black president or our first female vice president. Stop and take that in for a moment. 2008 really will go down in history, and we're all witnessing it.

But in the next 67 days, will Palin prove to be the clincher for McCain...or will she turn out to be a huge mistake? She seems a little over her head, but underestimate her at your peril. Sure, she has no national or foreign policy experience, but her oldest son is about to go fight in Iraq and she commands the Alaska National Guard (what exactly do they guard? the caribou herd from Russian invasion?), and that definitely counts for something. She can answer any questions about her lack of experience with a pretty powerful retort - hey, I'm raising five children while governing the largest state in the Union, what in the world could be harder than that? Joe Biden is likely to say something extremely, inadvertently sexist during their lone vice presidential debate. He probably can't help it. McCain certainly just guaranteed the highest veep debate ratings in history - and thank God we've been spared a Biden-Romney dronefest.

Palin could siphon off just enough disenchanted Hillary supporters to swing a state like Ohio or Florida to the Republicans. She will certainly galvanize the party's conservative base, who will lap this pick up. She checks off more boxes for McCain than any other possible choice - working class, likes guns, pro-life, a mom, Christian conservative, union member, humble roots - check, check, check. But let's see how the perky routine holds up on the grand stage. She could start to grate on people a bit with her frontier mom routine and that irritating accent. Do you think Hillary Clinton is fuming right now at the prospect of this Alaskan upstart usurping her rightful place in history? Yah, you betcha.

THINGS I HAVEN'T HAD TIME TO BLOG ABOUT YET:

Getting stuck on the jam-packed convention floor just before Hillary Clinton's speech, and finding myself smushed against Spike Lee, then trudging shoulder-to-shoulder with him from the California delegation all the way to New Jersey, while dozens of people snapped pictures with him.....

Wandering the corporate suite level, which was awash in Senators, Governors, lobbyists and titans of corporate America, not to mention food far superior to what we proles were getting...

Discovering the 1000 free bikes available to ride around Denver during the convention, complete with helmet and lock, that you could leave at one of seven parking lots when done. The bike pared a 35-minute shuttle bus and hike across town for Clinton's meeting with her delegates, to just four minutes...and they'll have the bicycles in Saint Paul too!...

Interviewing Barack Obama's 84-year-old godmother in the front row of the Invesco Field crowd...asking Jesse Jackson for some perspective on Obama's historic nomination - maybe the only guy who, when you ask, Did you ever think you'd see a black man nominated? has a different answer - as in, yes, 1988, when I was running...

And so much more...maybe later this weekend....time for some sleep now!

A Stack of Blog Items a Mile High

2008-08-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

My apologies for not blogging since Tuesday. When you work 16-hour days for radio and TV, the Internet is the first casualty. Or something like that!

Oh wait...I can't blog now either. A CBS News runner just came with my floor pass - I have a 30-minute window to run down to the field, interview people and get the lay of the land here at Invesco Field at Mile High (where the Broncos play). It's my only chance for a couple hours to go down there...so I will be back next hour to really fill you in!

Okay, I'm back. Whew. This has been a whirlwind week. I could blog for days - so many things I haven't had time to talk about on the radio, or even here.

Here's a brief sample:

Making the transition the Pepsi Center to Invesco was no simple feat, for anyone involved with this production. The technicians started working at 2am, moving everything over here and setting it all up. Just as we were all settling into a routine, figuring out short cuts to move around the convention hall and the like, we were uprooted and had to start all over. They moved the media here in a convoy of buses, but rather than wait in a long bus queue at the Pepsi Center, I caught a Democratic National Committee shuttle downtown, which went directly to Invesco. That is, as directly as the Secret Service would allow, which was about a mile away. When I got off, I found that I had to enter through a special media security entrance - except the Secret Service wouldn't allow anyone through on foot. So I backtracked and flagged down one of the special Press buses, and the driver was kind enough to let me on.

Upon boarding, I discovered I had gotten on the bus for Obama's traveling press. So suddenly, I was on a coach full of finely coiffed network correspondents, tough-as-nails network cameramen, and reporters from all around the world speaking everything from French to Japanese. But when the bus reached the Secret Service barricades, it was stopped cold. Two agents climbed aboard and asked if we all had credentials. We did. But it turned out the bus didn't have the proper pass, and neither did the driver. The agents said we'd have to wait for a supervisor to come and clear the bus, bring a credential and have the bomb-sniffing dogs work it over. Or, they said, we could get out and hike the last half-mile or so. That was just fine with me, since I only had about 25 minutes at that point before my next live shot, and I needed to be inside the stadium. But the network crews had huge amounts of gear, and none seemed too eager to hike in the hot midday sun.

I got off, left them behind, and made it in, just in time. For all I know, they're still waiting for the hound dogs.

Speaking of hounds...the scene when Hillary Clinton released hers...I mean, released her delegates...was amazing. She convened a special meeting of all her delegates at the Colorado Convention Center, a sprawling facility across town from the Pepsi Center. Most of the 1900 Clintonistas poured in, jamming the room. They brought friends and family and other interested parties along with them, joined by maybe 300 media, again from all over the globe. I was stuck on the platform between a Hassidic reporter from Orthodox Jewish Radio (or something like that) and a woman from Radio France. As I was plugging into the audio box, I recognized the woman in front of me. She looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place her. She exclaimed, "Oh my God, you're..." then looked at my press pass to get my name. It turned out to be Liz Moore, who lived down the hall from me in my college freshman dormitory. We didn't have time to catch up, but we reminisced for about 30 seconds and then focused on the bedlam at hand.

Hillary Clinton came in to a roar from her delegates. She thanked them, and then said, in keeping with tradition, that as the losing candidate, she was releasing them from their commitment to vote for her on the first ballot. They were free to vote how they saw fit, however their heart and conscience dictated. She had already cast her ballot, for Barack Obama.

The delegates screamed "No! No!" and many started to weep. Eventually, many of them did vote for Obama, and later that evening, Clinton herself interrupted the state-by-state roll call on the floor and called for his nomination by acclamation. Now he's the Democratic nominee for president. But wait, it's time to go back to work! More blog soon...

I promise.

Altitude Adjustments

2008-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

It must be the altitude.

That's everyone's excuse for everything here at the Democratic National Convention. Tired feet? Hot and sweaty? Parched throat? Having hallucinations about giant blue donkeys and red elephants on the street? Oh wait - those are really there.

We're only a mile high, which is less than going skiing at Tahoe. Maybe the fatigue and the thirst are actually from working 16-hour days on four or five hours' sleep, which is what almost all the media types are doing here in Denver.

I thought I might be suffering some sort of heat stroke when I ducked into a downtown restaurant today, seeking succor, and ran smack into Susan Sarandon instead. "Is there bottled water here?" I asked her. She smiled quite sweetly. "Yes, I'm sure there is. Ask over there," she said, pointing to a scantily clad hostess. I thanked her, spun around and stumbled into actress Anne Hathaway, actor Josh Lucas and director Spike Lee. Was this a political convention or the Vanity Fair Oscar party? It turns out it was a luncheon thrown by the Congressional Black Caucus, or maybe it was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It was one of those groups with lots of C's in the name. I got my water, went back out into the blinding sun, and nearly got flattened by a shuttle bus. Someone handed me a free burrito and a "Burritos for Obama" t-shirt. Someone else gave me a "Listen To Your Mama and Vote for Obama" fridge magnet. I stuffed all my swag into my bulging pockets and staggered towards the convention center. It's about a 20-minute walk in the mountain sun from where the light rail lets you off.

The burrito was delicious. If I keep walking this much, the t-shirt will fit by the time I get home.

I've learned the hard way that it pays to bring outside food to this convention. Since it's in a sports arena, the only food for sale is arena concession stand food: nachos, pizza, churros, hot dogs, donuts. I managed to find a small iceberg lettuce salad with no dressing yesterday. So today, I bought a delicious pesto chicken/fresh mozzarella sandwich and some tarragon chicken almond salad at a gourmet market nearby. That, plus the burrito, should get me through another marathon day.

It's a green convention, which means they emphasize recycling and such. They actually have garbage monitors who stand by the bins, trying to figure out whether your cardboard french fries box is compostable or not. A glance inside the barrels reveals utter confusion. Plastic bottles mixed with trash; paper Coke cups - oops, I mean Pepsi; it's the Pepsi Center - piled on top of non-recyclables. One big melting pot of trash. This is the party of diversity, after all. And as far as I could tell, it all ends up going to the same place anyway.

But then efficient staffers run around bringing us printouts of every single speech. Sheaf after sheaf of impenetrable remarks by the Chicago City Clerk and the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Corrections for American Samoa. Never mind that we get them by email, too. I try to wave off the runners and tell them I don't need the handouts, but their feelings seem so hurt that their only task - performed quite well - is so unappreciated, that I take them anyway. These texts pile up at our feet, until someone crumples them up and takes them away. We've been encouraged to throw them in the recycling bins, but they're already full of Pepsi cups and cold French fries.

Not to mention those water bottles. We're consuming a lot of water, since it's so hot and muggy. I think I lost three pounds of water weight just walking through all the security checkpoints, which are more like X-ray-equipped saunas.

I didn't know the insides of my elbows could sweat that much. Must be the altitude.

Rocky Mountain Highs - And Lows

2008-08-25T16:05:00.001-07:00

The first of many brief posts over the next four days in Denver...

I have arrived at the Democratic National Convention, and so far the nightmarish logistics outweigh the excitement and fun. I'm sure there will be some fun at some point. At least I hope so.

It's 85 degrees, with 85% humidity. Denver doesn't have enough hotel rooms, so the 15,000 media, 5000 delegates and party officials, and thousands of other people here are spread out across 50 miles of Colorado. I'm about 15 miles away as the crow flies - about 75 minutes, as the light rail/shuttle bus/walking reporter crawls.

The security is intense, as you might imagine, and it's a long walk from anywhere to anywhere else - slowed down by metal detectors and big crowds.

The layout in the Pepsi Center is less than ideal, but hey, this is why they pay me the big bucks, right?

On the fun side, I did go down in the elevator with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, who greeted me like a long-lost friend. Not recognizing him, I was confused and asked if we'd met before. He took off his sunglasses and introduced himself, praising KCBS and said he knew our station well, and that we run a solid news operation. This brilliantly disarming move kept me from sharing my honest opinion of his radio show. I asked him how he was doing here so far, and he muttered something about trying to avoid the liberals. I wished him luck with that.

Then I literally ran into the entire "Daily Show" political team - all four of Jon Stewart's reporters - taping a not especially funny bit about how the food vendors in the arena are trying to outgreen each other (the pretzel stand recycles; the nacho stand has green salsa, etc.). I thought I would do a funny bit with them for the radio, since I did that at the last convention (GOP in 2004) with then-Comedy Central correspondents Mo Rocca and Stephen Colbert. The new guys? Not so funny. When the camera was off, they were as grumpy and stone-faced as all the other hot, sweaty, tired-legged media. Rob Riggle - I think that's his name - swore into my microphone. I guess I won't be using that on the radio!

I have scored some excellent Obama-Biden buttons for my collection, not to mention a pack of Obama playing cards - the kind of thing you only snag at a convention.

Maybe Hannity will want to play a little Texas Hold 'Em during some interminable speech by the assistant state treasurer of Iowa later.

I'll get back to you.

Biden His Time

2008-08-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

That text message you were waiting for from Barack Obama came while you were sleeping, if you live on the East Coast - and maybe even if you live in California. Lucky for you, the Sovern Nation never sleeps (well, it just seems that way).

Just after midnight Pacific time, it jingled my iPhone: "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."

The news actually leaked out about two hours earlier, when first the Associated Press, then the New York Times and CNN, and finally, CBS News, quoted anonymous Obama campaign sources as saying the Delaware Senator was Obama's vice presidential pick.

It's hard to imagine that such a carefully controlled campaign could let something this important trickle out, but if the leak was intentional, then the Obama camp really bungled this one. Many of those who signed up for the text were already getting irritated by the drawn-out running mate drama. Imagine how they'll feel when they wake up in the morning to learn that they were NOT the first to know, as promised by the Obama campaign.

The text alert campaign was a shrewd move, allowing Obama to stockpile even more email addresses and cell phone numbers - which are already being used to solicit even more campaign contributions. Having joined the Obama email list a long time ago, to keep up on the campaign's activities, let me warn the newbies: you're in for almost daily pleas for money. Every new twist in the race becomes an excuse to hound supporters for cash.

But that brilliant marketing ploy could backfire, if some of those supporters feel cheated by the way this went down. And the Biden pick itself could boomerang, too.

Joe Biden is a gifted politician. I first met him 30 years ago, near the end of his first term in the Senate. We were both freshmen - I in college, he in Congress. At the invitation of my professor, he came to talk with my foreign policy class. He was already becoming a highly regarded Senate expert on foreign affairs, and he held us in rapt attention. At the end of the allotted hour, we were still thirsty for information. He glanced at his watch, took off his tie, rolled up his sleeves, and told us, "What the hell, I've got nowhere else to be. I'll stay here as long as you kids have questions." And he proceeded to stay long into the night, maybe three hours more, discussing the nitty-gritty of the international issues of the day, which at that time included South African apartheid, the Cold War, looming changes in Iran, and, as always, the Middle East.

I remember thinking, "Man, this is one ambitious politician. Who comes hundreds of miles north from Delaware to spend an evening talking with out-of-state college kids? We're not even his constituents." There was only one answer: a guy who plans to run for president someday. Which he did, ten years later. And again, 20 years after that.

The remarkable thing is that when I interviewed him for KCBS during this 2008 campaign, Biden remembered that long, wonky evening in Providence back in 1978. At first, I thought it was just a bit of Biden bluster, but he recalled specific details that proved he wasn't bluffing.

Now he will be the Democratic nominee for vice president, perhaps capping a career of outstanding service in the Senate, where he has become one of its most knowledgeable and venerable members, outranking even John McCain. Biden brings a lot to the ticket - Washington experience, foreign policy expertise, gray hair and gravitas - all of which Obama is sorely lacking. He can counter some of the doubts about Obama's readiness, and there's no doubt he will be a pit bull on the campaign trail when the Democrats need one. Being from Delaware doesn't help, but Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, so he might help swing that state to Obama. He is Irish Catholic, from a blue collar background, and has a moving history as a devoted family man who's overcome personal tragedy.

But he brings a lot of baggage along with all those international frequent flier miles, and I don't mean the kind they charge you $25 to check now. Biden's two presidential bids failed miserably. He's been caught embellishing his resume and plagiarizing. His gift of gab sometimes extends to a bit of the blarney - and take it from me, when you talk that much, you will inevitably open mouth and insert foot. I will be stunned if Biden doesn't commit some verbal gaffe at some point this fall. He already embarrassed himself by describing Obama as "articulate and clean" at the start of this campaign. His selection could be taken as tacit admission by Obama that he needs help running the country from someone with more seasoning. And Biden's presence on the ticket neutralizes Obama's ability to attack McCain as a Washington insider who's part of the problem - since he just chose a running mate who's been in D.C. even longer than the Republican nominee.

As I wrote last month, Obama-Biden sounds an awful lot like Osama bin Laden. How long will it take for the conservatives to start mocking the Democratic ticket as "Obama bin Biden"?

Joe Biden is Barack Obama's version of Dick Cheney - an eminence grise who can balance his relative youth and inexperience. But if Obama represents change and newness, why, when making his most important campaign decision, did he emulate President Bush? That's not exactly taking the country in a new direction.

Ultimately, running mates don't typically matter much. The choice of Biden gives the Republicans some new ammo, but if he's an effective campaigner - and we already know he can be funny, forceful and smart in debates - he may help more than he hurts. If McCain chooses Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, as expected, then the veeps are probably a wash. The race will still be a referendum on Barack Obama. If the American people are comfortable with him, he will be president. But if and when he says he will deliver his State of the Union message by text, I want to read it first on my cell phone, not in the Washington Post.

Currying Favor

2008-08-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama blew through San Francisco last night, one last time before next week's Democratic National Convention in Denver. And while he was here, he blew away the all-time single-event presidential fundraising record.

Obama raked in an astounding $7.8 million during three hours at the Fairmont Hotel. A million-dollar haul is good for one of these stops; two million is a great night. But almost eight million? That is simply astonishing. One could argue this wasn't a single event; the Illinois Senator went from room to room, knocking off two VIP receptions and a gala dinner in the Grand Ballroom (heirloom tomato salad, lavender salt-crusted beef tenderloin and carrot cake mousse, if you must know). But it was still a one-stop haul that dwarfed anything any other candidate has ever done high atop tony Nob Hill, or anywhere else in America for that matter.

Much of the money was sucked out of the deep pockets of about 200 South Asian and Asian Pacific Islander donors. It was an elegantly dressed crowd, with some of the women in beautiful saris. They certainly looked like they could afford the $14,000-a-head ticket.

Yes, you read that right: 14k per person. You could get in for a mere $2300, the federal maximum contribution to Obama's general election campaign. But that only got you that plate of beef and a chance to see the candidate deliver his usual stump speech. For the extra $11,700 - most of it going to the Democratic National Committee - you could shake hands with The Man himself, exchange a few words, and pose for a picture.

We've all heard Obama adopt a Southern drawl when campaigning in Alabama, or sound like a brother from the hood when he's back home in Chicago. But he struck quite a different tone in the VIP room with the Indian and Pakistani crowd.

"I not only think I'm a desi, I am a desi," he told them, using a Hindi word, derived from the Sanskrit, that means a person of South Asian descent. In India, it also can mean local, or indigenous. "I'm your homeboy." He told the well-heeled donors that he became an expert at whipping up dal during his freshman year at Occidental College, where his roommate was from Pakistan. "But someone else made the naan," he joked.

Well, he's certainly learned how to make bread since then.

There's nothing wrong with trying to connect with a crowd. I do the same thing when I interview someone. I try to find something we have in common, so that we click and become comfortable. I've lived in six different states, have eight far-flung siblings, and have had a pretty full life, so there's usually some sort of connection to be made.

But Obama's getting awfully close to pandering to some of these audiences, especially when he's asking for their money. Now he's a South Asian homeboy? Last time I checked, he's half-Kenyan, half-Kansan. Yes, he was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, but that's not exactly Mumbai. Technically, Indonesia is part of Southeast Asia, although since it's in between South Asia and the Pacific Islands, I suppose I should cut him some slack, given the diversity of this particular audience.

I just find the whole campaign fundraising thing unseemly, and the ingratiating tone doesn't make it any more attractive. And I wonder whether Obama should be describing himself as a "South Asian homeboy" at a time when the conservatives are putting out best-selling books portraying him as an un-American, Arabic-speaking, closet Muslim, radical. He needn't deny his heritage; he should embrace it. But that doesn't mean pretending to be all things to all people.

Do they even know what dal is in Iowa or New Hampshire?

He'd better hope swing voters don't select "naan of the above" in November.

Veepstakes Part II

2008-08-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

The buzz is building. The four-year wait is almost over. The network TV coverage is about to begin.

No, not the Summer Olympics. I'm talking about the national political conventions, which have been stripped of most of their relevance and news value but remain compelling theater for true political junkies.

This time around, Barack Obama and John McCain are threatening to suck the last bit of drama out of their parties' quadrennial confabs by naming their vice presidential selections ahead of time. That doesn't usually happen; in some years, the running mate choice has kept convention-goers guessing right up until the moment of nomination, on the convention's second night.

But with McCain and Obama jockeying for whatever advantage they can get - and with the convention schedule compressed this year, and competing with the Olympics for attention - one or both of the candidates may seek an early August boost by ending the suspense and picking a running mate early.

We already vetted McCain's potential choices a while back, although you can add late-breaking rising star Eric Cantor, a Jewish, conservative Congressman from Virginia, to McCain's short list. Now it's time to break down Obama's possible veeps:

THE VIRGINIANS: Barack Obama is no dummy. He's studied the electoral map and he sees an awful lot of red in between the blue coasts. He knows that this election is all about him - he has said as much - and that unless he pulls a Thomas Eagleton or Dan Quayle out of his hat, his vice presidential choice is not likely to make a huge difference. So he'd like to find someone who can help him put a little blue in the heartland, whether it's Virginia, Indiana or Colorado. He knows that if he can just move one or two states into the Democratic column, he can win the White House. And that's why he's looking so hard at Virginia, a solidly Republican state in recent history, that is becoming more and more Democratic. It's elected two consecutive Democratic governors, and one U.S. Senator, and may elect a second Democrat to the Senate this November. And all of those Democrats have been considered by the Obama camp for the vice presidency.

One of them, former governor Mark Warner, is not a serious contender, since he's running for a Senate seat that the Democrats need to capture. Another, freshman Senator Jim Webb, seems to have taken himself out of the running, and, despite his experience as Navy Secretary for Ronald Reagan, probably isn't seasoned enough politically for Obama. That leaves Governor Tim Kaine, who may well be the frontrunner now. Kaine was Mayor of Richmond, was elected Lieutenant Governor, and then succeeded Warner as governor. He's only 50, has no military and little foreign affairs experience, and doesn't really bring the gray-haired gravitas many observers think Obama needs on the ticket. But he and Obama are said to be simpatico, and like Obama, he's a Harvard lawyer with Midwestern roots, who has lived abroad. His selection could give the Democrats a ticket like the 1992 team of Clinton and Gore - two smart, next generation, up-and-comers who appeal to young voters and independents. Kaine has some pluses - born in Minnesota, raised in Missouri, went to Harvard Law School, is fluent in Spanish - and some minuses: he's Catholic and has a fairly short government resume. Plus, the Republicans could knock an Obama-Kaine ticket as a couple of brash Ivy Leaguers. But the more you look at Kaine's background, the more he clicks as a potential partner for Obama.

BAYH-PARTISAN: Somewhere in my campaign button collection, I have some old Birch Bayh for President pins from 1976. One of them reads "I'm Bayh Partisan." Barack Obama may be, too - because he is strongly considering Birch's son Evan for the vice presidency. Evan Bayh (he's actually Birch Evan Bayh the third) almost ran for president himself this year, but bowed out at the last minute. He's a former Governor of Indiana who is now in his second term in the U.S. Senate. He's a Clintonesque (Bill, not Hillary) centrist, who would be a safe, maybe even boring, pick. But if Obama wants to play it by the book, Bayh could be his man.

THE VANQUISHED RIVALS: Hillary Clinton? Since she represents New York, I'll sum up her vice presidential prospects this way: fuhgedaboutit. Ain't gonna happen. Bill Richardson? He makes a lot of sense on paper - Latino, seasoned, excellent foreign policy experience, from a swing state - but as Richardson proved in the primaries, campaigns aren't run on paper. He ran a terrible, clumsy campaign, so there's little reason to think he'd be any more effective as Obama's running mate. John Edwards? Been there, done that. That leaves Chris Dodd and Joe Biden - and word has it they're both on Obama's list. Dodd would make a great vice president; he comes across like your favorite uncle, a sweet, genuinely caring man. He's got loads of experience, gray hair, young children and is fluent in Spanish. But he also represents Connecticut, and it's hard to see how that helps Obama get elected president, and I don't think he'd be comfortable in the role of vice presidential attack dog.

Biden would love to be vice president - let's face it, Biden would love to be ANYTHING if it means attention and an invitation to speak - but he wouldn't add much to the ticket. Delaware is a tiny state that is safely in the Democrats' column, and despite Biden's 30 years-plus of foreign policy expertise, he wouldn't move voters in the South or the Mountain states. I see him more as a potential Secretary of State for Obama, but sources insist he's under serious consideration as another "safe" alternative to Kaine, and has made the short list.

DARK HORSES AND WILD CARDS: This list could go on a long time, but I'm in danger of becoming a Joe Biden speech, so we'll try to keep it brief. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is pushing nine-term Texas Congressman Chet Edwards, but that's because she wants a House member to get some consideration. There's no reason to think he's on Obama's list. Obama has examined some generals, including Wesley Clark and James Jones, but all indications are he's moved back toward choosing a conventional politician. Obama is said to like Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius, who has raised her profile in recent years and could run for president herself someday. She is 60 years old, in her second term, and has proven adept at attracting crossover voters. If Obama decides he wants a woman - one not named Hillary Clinton - Sibelius could be the choice, but that could also alienate Clinton supporters who will see the selection of any other woman as an affront. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has also been mentioned, but choosing her would give the governorship there to the Republicans, and Napolitano has said that no one from the Obama camp has contacted her yet, so she seems out of the running. There was some early talk about Sam Nunn - isn't there always? - but that's faded now, as has speculation about Missouri's freshman Senator, Claire McCaskill.

There are also a few governors said to have been considered, but at this point, if the vetters haven't asked for financial records and the like, they're probably out of the running, because Obama only has three weeks left to make his decision. Those governors include Ohio's Ted Strickland (an early and avid Hillary supporter, which makes his selection unlikely), Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell (Jewish and given to speaking bluntly and honestly, which makes him a long shot) and Colorado's Bill Ritter, mainly because he governs a state Obama wants to snatch from the GOP.

So where does that leave us? I will go boldly out onto a limb that someone can saw off later this month, when I'm proven completely wrong. I claim no track record for predicting running mates, but here goes: Even though I'm intrigued by the Eric Cantor candidacy for McCain's veep slot - attracting Jewish voters who are nervous about Obama could help McCain win Florida, Pennsylvania or New Jersey - I think McCain will go with Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. And I think Obama's whittled his list down to Kaine and Bayh. "Obama-Kaine" does sound like some sort of numbing agent, but "Obama-Bayh" would present some intriguing song possibilities. And besides, "Obama-Biden" sounds too much like "Osama bin Laden."

Feel free to post your own suggestions below. And check back in three weeks to tell me how wrong I was...

How Wrong Can I Be?

2008-07-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

Very wrong, if John McCain chooses Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal as his running mate.

I'm just back from two weeks' vacation, in Montana and San Juan Island, Washington. It's risky to take a break during the presidential campaign, but I figured it was fairly safe to split during what's typically a July lull. For a fortnight, I focused on trailheads, not talking heads. Trekking poles...instead of tracking polls.

Of course, I couldn't escape the campaign entirely. San Juan Island is mad for Obama, as is much of the Seattle area. So is Missoula, maybe even enough to offset the red-state mindset of the rest of Montana. That's one of those typically Republican states that Obama's targeting, and with good reason. Montana's governor and both its U.S. Senators are Democrats now, and the place is still buzzing about the huge crowd that turned out for Obama a few days before I was there (for more on red states turning blue, listen to our most recent campaign song).

I came back in time for Obama's Grand World Tour, with all its breathless media coverage. John McCain is trying, tirelessly, to steal as much of Obama's thunder as he can, with daily campaign events and intensifying criticism of Obama's Iraq policy. There's even speculation that McCain will try to trump Obama by announcing his running mate this week, although it now appears that may be a ruse, and that merely floating the rumor was enough to swipe a few headlines from Obama.

(By the way, both Barack Obama and John McCain sat down with Katie Couric for interviews this week; the Obama one featured lots of hemming and hawing but the McCain one made news. You can hear them right here.)

Which brings me to Bobby Jindal. I left him off my list of 22 potential McCain running mates a few blogs ago, because I just don't take him seriously as vice presidential material yet. He's too young and inexperienced, and nominating him would deprive McCain of one of his strongest potential arguments against Obama - that he's not ready to be president. A McCain-Jindal ticket would be a bold stroke, and if McCain is determined to make one, his list of viable options is short. Jindal could get the nod by default. The Republican field of potential veeps is dominated by old white men, and the women on the list all have flaws, too (Sarah Palin of Alaska isn't seasoned enough; Kay Bailey Hutchison may be over-seasoned).

Jindal is a solid Southern conservative with a fascinating personal story. But he's only 37, and has been a governor for all of seven months. He has ten years' prior government experience (as a two-term Congressman, four years running Louisiana's health department, and two years in President Bush's Department of Health and Human Services). But does all that add up to an Oval Office-ready resume? John McCain has said he will choose a running mate who's ready to be president from Day One, in case something happens to the soon-to-be-72 McCain. I just don't see how Jindal makes that grade, even if Rush Limbaugh has anointed him the "next Ronald Reagan."

The campaign will shift back into high gear in the next few weeks. Both candidates will focus on choosing their running mates. There will be much pre-convention jockeying, and then we will have the conventions themselves, later than ever before, and closer together, too. Six weeks from now, we will be measuring post-convention bounces, and then we should get a better sense of just how close this race will become. I think it will be our third straight nailbiter, although some observers point to signs of a potential Obama landslide.

See? Another chance for me to be embarrassingly wrong, in public.

Spare Some Change?

2008-07-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

As even a casual observer of the 2008 presidential campaign knows, Barack Obama is running as the candidate of change. I've written before in this space about how that in itself is nothing new: John Adams ran on the same platform. So did Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, for that matter.

But there is a gnawing fear in the hearts of some progressives that Obama won't really be the once-in-a-generation transformational leader they'd hoped - that they're being set up for colossal disappointment. "We think he's Bobby Kennedy," a veteran Berkeley progressive fretted the other day. "But what if he's just another DLC Democrat?"

She was referring to the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist "New Democrat" faction that produced "Third Way" Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, and profoundly influenced Tony Blair in the UK. As far as progressives are concerned, if you're in the DLC, you might as well be a Republican.

The DLC is getting behind Barack Obama now, by default, if nothing else. The Clintons, if we take them at their word, would still rather see another Democrat in the White House than another Republican.

But it's Obama himself who's alarming the left. First, he reneged on his earlier intention to accept public financing for the general election, becoming the first major party candidate to do so since the system was put in place after Watergate. Then he agreed to vote for the FISA amendment bill, which means the telecommunications giants will be immune from lawsuits for participating in warrantless government wiretaps.

Those two moves make Obama seem an awful lot like a conventional politician, not an "agent of change." They should actually reassure all those rabid conservative talk show hosts who fear he's out to destroy America - because it could turn out he's just another willing cog in the corporate political machine. But Obama needs to be careful not to alienate that young, idealistic army of his - he needs them to win in November.

The decision to opt out of the public financing system was disappointing for some, but really, it should hearten Democrats who watched in frustration as Al Gore and John Kerry frittered away their natural advantages with inept fall campaigns. Barack Obama is doing what he has to do to win. He may well be asking himself, "What would Karl Rove do?" The answer, of course, is, take the money and run. Obama's ahead of John McCain in the polls now, by as much as 15 points if you believe the Newsweek poll (I don't). McCain will have $85 million to spend in the last two months of the race, the money allotted him by the federal funding system (that three bucks you probably don't check off on your tax return). Obama could either have that same amount - fair enough - or he could have $250 million, the amount he can probably raise from his and Hillary's donors. Hmm, tough decision, huh? This was a choice between progressive principles, and pragmatism and ambition. Guess who won? Obama took some heat for a few days, but who can really blame him? Now he can compete in all 50 states, with paid staff everywhere, something McCain simply can't do. Obama can inundate voters in swing states with a volume of TV ads that McCain won't be able to match. And he even turned his controversial decision into yet another fundraising opportunity, sending out a video by email with a pitch for new donations (and I've gotten two more since then, from his campaign manager, David Plouffe, asking for still more money, money, money).

Instead of criticizing him for going back on his word, those Republican talk show squawkers should admire Obama for applying free market principles to his campaign. Is he a socialist who wants to dismantle capitalism? Apparently not, at least not until he gets himself elected. Which might reassure some on the right. It's scaring some on the left, who aren't sure what they're getting now...and what kind of change, if any, an Obama presidency would really bring.

FOOTNOTES: I sat down last week with former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, to talk about his new inside-the-Oval Office expose, "What Happened." You can hear some of it here
along with excerpts from Obama's speech on patriotism, and stories on his rapprochement with Bill Clinton, and the energy policies of Obama and McCain, among other things.

An Early Stumble

2008-06-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

My favorite quote from the campaign trail this week:

"I'm not hiring a vetter to vet the vetters."

Barack Obama said that, after the Wall Street Journal reported that longtime Democratic insider Jim Johnson, hired by Obama to lead his search for a running mate, had gotten some sweetheart home loans from collapsing subprime lender Countrywide Financing.

Johnson ended up resigning from Obama's veep committee. The news that the presumptive Democratic nominee hadn't properly vetted the man who would be vetting his vice presidential choice makes some Democrats even more nervous about November than they already were. Obama has called his choice of a running mate "the most important decision" he'll make before Election Day. Yet he's already botching it. Jim Johnson seemed like a safe choice for the assignment; after all, this guy is the consummate Washington insider, and he performed the exact same task for Fritz Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.

Hmm, maybe that's part of the problem. First of all, Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro, though seemingly inspired at first, ended up being more problematic than helpful. Kerry's choice of John Edwards made little difference in that campaign. But why is Barack Obama, who's supposed to be new, fresh, different and exciting - a candidate who says he embodies change so much all by himself that he won't actually have to make any if he's elected - turning to an old D.C. hand like Jim Johnson? Is he trying to pull a George W. Bush, who sought to make up for his own lack of experience and gravitas by leaning on GOP wise head Dick Cheney (so much so that Cheney himself got the number two slot)? There's nothing wrong with seeking sage counsel for such a critical decision (although I will argue in a later blog that it's really not so critical, from a campaign standpoint, as everyone thinks). But come on Obama, if you really want to be different - THEN BE DIFFERENT. Let's bring in Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam to be in charge of vetting. Or maybe a Vietnam Vet who came home and became a veterinarian. The more Obama makes this kind of mistake, the more he'll seem like just another politician, and the less the voters will believe his advertising.

By the way, I was curious about the etymology of this particular meaning of the word "vet" (it's meaning number three in my OED). It turns out it comes from the Latin word "veto," which we all know - as in, checking someone out thoroughly so you can veto the choice if you find anything bad. Such as a cozy Countrywide loan or three on their balance sheet.

Check out the latest polls on our website. Obama is pulling away from McCain in all of them, although that may just be the post-primary, Hillary-endorsed-him bounce. We'll go into some greater detail on the polls in our next post, unless something else leaps out of my brain first. Also, speaking of brains, give yours a tickle by trying this week's trivia question. The answer may surprise you!

History, As It Happens

2008-06-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

The poet and critic Matthew Arnold once famously described journalism as "literature in a hurry." Sometimes, I also like to think of it as history, as it happens. There are moments during this long, fascinating presidential campaign when it strikes me that I do actually work for a history company - except, lacking the perspective of decades, or even centuries, I study events in the moment, and then disseminate my findings almost immediately.

And who said, when I got that history degree, that the history firms weren't hiring?

It might be easy in the raucous tumult of the 24-hour news cycle to overlook the historic importance of Barack Obama's Democratic primary victory. Don't let it get lost in the sauce. I hope you'll put your own cynicism, weariness or politics, whatever they may be, on pause, to savor and appreciate just what we are witnessing in 2008.

Obama isn't just the first black nominee. He breaks the 220-year hammerlock on presidential candidacy by white men of Northern European descent (and all Protestant, too, with the notable exception of JFK). His ascendancy opens the door for Italian-Americans, women, Jews, Latinos, or any ethnic, hyphenated American. Obama may not win, but his nomination means there could be a President named Cuomo, or Feinstein, or Martinez, or Jindal. This goes way beyond the color of his skin, to the very essence of what America means.

It has special resonance for me, too. Yes, I am as privileged a white man as you'd ever care to meet, incredibly fortunate to have been born free, white, male and American, probably in the top point one percent of the planet, socioeconomically. But I grew up in a civil rights household, with my father deeply involved in issues of race and discrimination in the 1960s. He was part of the legal team that successfully sued the United States on behalf of the syphilis victims of the Tuskegee experiment. As soon as I was old enough to read, I was stumbling across NAACP Legal Defense Fund briefs and Thurgood Marshall opinions and slave memoirs. When we moved to Wisconsin, where we were among the very few Jewish families, I experienced anti-Semitism that left me forever sensitive to prejudice and discrimination. I still recall the shock of my sixth-grade classmates, back in New York City, when I stood and delivered my book report on the 1860s diary of a slave woman, right after Tracy Present gave hers on "Stuart Little" (I won't even get into the jawdropping reaction to my short story about the beating death of a sharecropper's son for stealing food, which, needless to say, stood in sharp contrast to my friend David Grossman's story about Boris the talking spider).

Every presidential election is pivotal and historic. The 2000 race was described as "the most important of our lifetime." So was the one in 2004, being the first after 9/11. But 25 years from now, at whatever KCBS radio and KCBS.com become by then, some future instant historian will be assigned to do an anniversary piece on that groundbreaking campaign of 2008, when a lanky guy named Barack Obama became the first presidential nominee who wasn't an Anglo-Saxon white dude. Maybe that reporter will go back into our archives and pull some of the sound we've been posting on this website. You can say you were there, and you heard it live. As it happened.

The End Times

2008-05-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

How will Hillary Clinton devise an exit strategy for Iraq when she can't even come up with one for the Democratic primary campaign?

Yes, the Apocalypse nears - the last days of the bruising, interminable nomination battle between Clinton and Obama. The signs are everywhere: renegade preachers causing hell for candidates of both parties...earthquakes, tornadoes and cyclones...Hillary Clinton raising the specter of assassination...even a DNC Rules Committee meeting televised live on CNN. Surely, the end is near. And then what's a pundit to do?

But before we get to the blog...here are some things you may have missed: Our most recent song, "Torn Between Two Democrats," about those conflicted, undecided superdelegates...John Edwards endorsing Obama....John McCain campaigning in the Bay Area....Nancy Pelosi telling San Francisco reporters the Democratic nominee will be chosen by the end of next week...and President Bush sitting down for an exclusive interview with our CBS Radio White House correspondents, Peter Maer and Mark Knoller (hmm, that link seems to have disappeared, we'll work on that).

And now back to our blog.

It's over, Hillary. She knows it, too. Save your irate emails, Clinton supporters, I'm not taking sides, I just call 'em as I see 'em, and what I see here is a presidential nominee named Barack Obama.

Look, when I went out on my quadrennial limb six months ago, I said Hillary would be the nominee, and you all know how it pains me so to be wrong about something. Sigh. I guess it has to happen sometimes, even if it's only once every four years.

Clinton is still making blustery threats about taking her delegate fight to the credentials committee, or even the convention floor in Denver, but I really think that's just empty straw-grasping. She's a clear-eyed, pragmatic politician, and she well knows that to scorch the earth of the Democratic Party in a futile tantrum would be to close the White House doors to any future Clinton presidency...at least until Chelsea turns 35. No, after the DNC decision on Michigan and Florida this weekend - giving Obama delegates from Michigan that he never even won - her best bet is to accept the inevitable, endorse Obama this Wednesday and hope he puts her on the ticket.

As for Obama - he's turning into a regular gaffe-a-minute George W. Bush. Did you catch his Memorial Day act? His Auschwitz mistake made national headlines - but it was his Sixth Sense moment that made me gasp. Yes, he told a veterans' group in New Mexico that his uncle had been among the first American troops to liberate Auschwitz. Well, it turned out to be his great-uncle, and it was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. The GOP jumped all over him on that one, pointing out that the Soviets, not the U.S. Army, had liberated Auschwitz. A Republican spokesman even wondered if Obama's great uncle had served in the Red Army (yes, he's descended from Communists too, not just terrorists!)

I can forgive Obama a slip like that. Family history often gets distorted or misremembered over the years, although it would behoove him to get his death camps straight. For decades, I've been told that my lefthanded cousin Hank Sovern was an undefeated pitcher for the Yankees' AAA team, on the cusp of big league greatness, when World War Two broke out. He traded his pinstripes for GI khakis and never pitched again. Except, I can find no record of him in any baseball record book. So who knows? If I ever run for president, I won't bring him up.

But Obama's real jawdropper came earlier in that same Memorial Day speech. He began by saying "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes – and I see many of them in the audience here today – our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

Oops. Do you feel that chill in the air? BARACK SEES DEAD PEOPLE. Not a huge surprise, since he's from Chicago, where dead people are the key to winning an election. Apparently, as many Americans do, Obama confused Memorial Day - a tribute to those who give their lives in military service, dating back to the Civil War - with Veterans Day, which salutes living former soldiers and sailors, replacing the Armistice Day that began after World War One. His scripted speech didn't include the parenthetical about seeing fallen heroes in the audience. Apparently, he ad libbed that. Something tells me he didn't write this speech himself!

Now we all make mistakes. I made the mistake of underestimating Obama, and overestimating America's racism, when I predicted Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. We've all seen Hillary commit one faux-pas after another, and John McCain, too, pretty much on a weekly basis. But if President Bush said the things Obama said last week, the late-night comics and the pundits would have been merciless. Don't let your Obama love blind you to his flaws. He's still a politician, folks, and a fairly novice one at that.

And while I'm calling 'em as I see 'em...I covered John McCain's latest Bay Area campaign swing the week before last. No flag pin in his lapel. In fact, I've covered him at least five times in the last year, and not once have I seen him wear a flag lapel pin. Never. For that matter, I've never seen one on Hillary either (not in person; I have seen them wear them during debates or televised speeches). So why is Obama held to a higher lapel pin standard? Someone needs to start circulating pictures of ALL the candidates, sans flag pin, on the Internet.

And an odd tidbit from that McCain event: his press passes had "Visit to the United States" printed on them. Were these left over from some foreign dignitary's junket? Is McCain actually from Albania or something? Is what we've suspected all these years, true - that the Bay Area really IS the real America, and all those flyover heartland states are some bizarre foreign hinterland? The campaign staffers shrugged, and had no explanation. As the Apocalypse nears, maybe McCain is hoarding resources, and is bumming leftovers from the Pope's recent visit.

The devil is always in the details...

P.S. Here's the link to Obama's Sixth Sense moment, on YouTube.

For our great new trivia question, click here.
For the latest polls, click here.
For more video, audio, etc. click here.

Taking Stock

2008-05-06T22:01:00.001-07:00

From the birthplace of stock car racing - the land of NASCAR, Billy Graham and Carolina pulled pork - we offer these late-night musings on the presidential race...after spending a whirlwind 60 hours on the North Carolina campaign trail:

Barack Obama won handily here. It looks like the final margin will be about 14 points, roughly half of what his lead once was, but significantly more than the late polls suggested he would get. The turnout was astronomical, more than 50% higher than the previous record. Black voters, who traditionally don't go to the polls very much here, turned out in staggering numbers, and more than 90% of them voted for Obama. He claimed his victory with a rousing speech that was focused more on the fall campaign against John McCain than on the dwindling battle with Hillary Clinton.

Clinton held on to a razor-thin lead in Indiana - as of this writing, just 23,000 votes ahead out of more than a million cast - but CBS News, alone among the major news organizations, called the race for her early, and she accepted the win with a victory speech of her own (five hours later, the other networks and AP finally ratified her win, and that breeze you just felt was someone in the CBS exit poll analysis department exhaling in relief).

Clinton's speech seemed a tad disingenuous to me - "it's full speed ahead to the White House"? - delivered with husband Bill and daughter Chelsea smiling wanly behind her - but what else is a candidate in her position to do? With only four weeks and six contests to go, she might as well stay in to the end at this point, and hope another Obama stumble or some change of heart among the remaining superdelegates somehow vaults her to the nomination.

Realistically, Clinton didn't get what she needed tonight (last night, at this point). She had hoped for a more decisive win in Indiana, and a close finish here in North Carolina. The Clintons spent a lot of time and energy in the Tar Heel State, sensing a chance to narrow the gap with Obama, and forcing him to campaign more here than he'd planned to. But instead of building on her Pennsylvania momentum, she will wake up in the morning further behind in the delegate count than she was before these two primaries, with precious few delegates still in play. It's as if Obama were ahead by a touchdown with seven minutes to play...and he just kicked a field goal, and now the clock has wound down to the two-minute warning. It will take a Hail Mary and then some for Hillary to win now.

SEEN AND HEARD ON THE CAROLINA TRAIL:

Carolinians are sweet, generous, friendly people - churchgoing folk who are unfailingly polite and pleasant. When I asked a voter if one calls a person from Charlotte a "Charlatan" - he took no offense, laughingly telling me, uh, no, we are "Charlotteans" (pronounced Shar-luh-TEE-ans). I passed a Baptist Church whose marquee read "Yes! A Liberal Church!" The studio I borrowed at our local CBS Radio affiliate was plastered with Bible verses and inspirational sayings. Let's just say that "Our Daily Bread" and "Bible Study Primer" are not on the shelf in our San Francisco newsroom...

Race was definitely a factor here, and from what I can gather, in Indiana, too. Sixty percent of the white folk voted for Clinton. Very few would admit to me that race influenced their decision, but when pressed, it was clear that it did. One 76-year-old independent voter insisted she's not racist - but then said she voted for Hillary Clinton because "we have to keep the White House white." What does that mean? "Well, let's keep America, America. If Obama is the president, it wouldn't be the White House anymore, would it? That's not racist, is it?" When gently told that some people would think it is, she said "well, I want change - but not that drastically. I just want things to be the way they've always been. Is that racist? It's the White House, not the Black House." She said she would be voting for John McCain in November, no matter who the Democrats nominate. I think voters like this are in the minority, but they may well pose a problem for Barack Obama, when he tries to take that checkered flag in the fall - which, last time I looked, was black and white.

Running Mates, For Real

2008-05-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, we joked last time about some goofy running mates for John McCain, as he begins what he calls his "embryonic" journey towards nominating someone for vice president. Now, who's really on his list...

But first, this brief disclaimer - I am in New Orleans right now, doing some Hurricane Katrina follow-up, and having a grand old time at Jazzfest, which the Big Easy is finally doing up in style again, almost three years after Katrina. The music has been sensational, the weather occasionally stormy, the partying severe. Stevie Wonder put on a show for the ages yesterday. Assuming I am fully recovered by tomorrow night, I am off to North Carolina to cover the primary there, so tune in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for coverage on KCBS (or listen at KCBS.com), and keep your eyes on the website for updates and blog posts.

Now back to John McCain. I must say there's too much to blog about during this campaign, and it's tough to keep up - we could talk today about Jeremiah Wright, or McCain and whether the Iraq war is all about oil - but I did promise some insight into the second slot on that GOP ticket, so here goes:

From what I've been able to gather, McCain has about 20 people under consideration, and they fall roughly into three groups: Vanquished Opponents, Esteemed Colleagues, and Longshots.

VANQUISHED OPPONENTS: These are the people McCain bested for the Republican nomination. They are:

MITT ROMNEY - He's campaigning hard for the job. Romney plans to run for president again, in 2012 if the Democrats win this time or if McCain wins and serves just one term, or in 2016 if McCain is a two-termer. Romney is back out on the stump, raising money for McCain and lobbying his delegates to back the Arizona Senator instead. He went to Nevada last week on McCain's behalf. He would love to be McCain's running mate, and would probably satisfy many of the conservatives who want one of their own on the Republican ticket.

MIKE HUCKABEE - An even better choice as far as some conservatives are concerned, Huckabee is anathema to others who don't like his tax and immigration policies. He brings a nice Southern balance, is a strong, folksy campaigner, and certainly meets the experience bar, which is critical to McCain, given his age. But there are a lot of negatives there, too, and the Democrats would pounce on Huckabee as too extreme to be president if anything were to happen to McCain.

RUDY GIULIANI - It's hard to imagine McCain choosing Giuliani. He brings more baggage than he's worth and the conservatives would howl. But sources tell me he's on McCain's list anyway, even though he's more likely to be considered for Homeland Security Secretary.

That brings us to the ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES:

McCain's Veep is most likely to come from this group. It includes Senators, Governors and one former member of the House:

JON HUNTSMAN, JR. - The governor of Utah, Huntsman was a strong early supporter of McCain, and has campaigned for him in the Intermountain West. He's only 48 and he's a Mormon. He has strong conservative and business credentials but critics would question whether he's really ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

CHARLIE CRIST - Florida's Governor came late to the McCain bandwagon but has raised his visibility and helped McCain hold off Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani in the Sunshine State. He'll be 52 this summer, a nice balance to McCain's age, but conservatives think he's too moderate. He's got a strong government resume, and is likely to run for president himself someday, whether McCain picks him this time or not.

SARAH PALIN - The GOP would love a McCain-Palin ticket, to counter whichever history-making nominee the Democrats select. She's the up-and-coming, 44-year-old Governor of Alaska. She's bright, personable and popular. The problem: she's only 44 and she's from Alaska, for heaven's sake. That doesn't really help McCain geographically, and two years as governor and a term before that as Mayor of Wasilla don't exactly make her Oval Office-ready. Plus, the cost of all that jet fuel taking her back and forth from Juneau would bankrupt the campaign.

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON - Near the top of many pundits' lists, simply because she's a woman, from the South, with significant experience. But at 65, Hutchison may be too old. She benefits from the Republicans' lack of strong female contenders , though, and after 15 years in the Senate, McCain can make the case that she's ready to be his backup.

ROB PORTMAN - Who? Don't count this guy out. Rob Portman represented Ohio in Congress for 12 years, then filled two key posts for President Bush: director of the Office of Management and Budget, and U.S. Trade Representative. That gives him strong skills in two key areas. Despite all that experience, he's only 52 and has a bright political future. He's a rock-ribbed Cincinnati conservative and is tight with the Bush family. Nominating him for vice president would please the right wing and help McCain carry the battleground state of Ohio.

MEL MARTINEZ - Martinez could be very near the top of McCain's list. He is 61, Cuban-born, conservative, served in President Bush's first Cabinet, and is the popular junior Senator from Florida. He's got three very strong pluses in his favor: he's more conservative than McCain, is Latino, and has the right blend of relative youth and experience. Nominating Martinez would let the GOP make some history of their own, with the first Hispanic national nominee - unless the Democrats nominate Bill Richardson for VP a week earlier.

BILL FRIST - The former Senate Majority Leader from Tennessee flirted with a run for president this year but decided against it. He's as conservative as they come, and would certainly satisfy the party's right wing. He's experienced, young enough at 56, but may be pondering a run for Governor in 2010 and a future presidential bid of his own. He alienated some of his own party near the end of his Senate term and might not mesh with McCain.

MITCH MCCONNELL - He's a little old at 66, but well-regarded within the party, having risen to become Senate Minority Leader. The voters don't know him, but running mates are often plucked from relative obscurity, so that doesn't matter much. Kentucky's probably safe for the Republicans, but McConnell would help McCain appeal to the deeper South.

KIT BOND - Bond seems too old to me, at 69, but he's from the swing state of Missouri, and as a U.S. Senator and former Governor, has the right mix of experience to succeed McCain, if necessary. It's more likely McCain will choose someone in his (or her) mid to late 50s - old enough to be ready, young enough to run on their own after McCain is done.

JIM DEMINT - Both of South Carolina's Senators could be in the running. DeMint will be 57 this fall, served in the House before getting elected to the Senate, and is to the right of McCain - but also has a history of making some controversial statements that will be resurrected if he's the vice presidential nominee.

LINDSEY GRAHAM - South Carolina Senator Graham is powerful and high-profile, has military experience and is from a key Southern state. He'll be 53 this summer. You can bet he's working hard behind the scenes to get on the ticket with McCain.

TIM PAWLENTY - The governor of Minnesota, which has become a swing state, Pawlenty is only 47 but was an early and enthusiastic supporter of McCain's presidential candidacy. I met him when we were traveling with Governor Schwarzenegger in China - he seemed awfully young to me (gee, he's the same age as I am!) but was friendly and personable. Choosing him would be a reach - he's white, Catholic, and won't help McCain in the South.

HALEY BARBOUR - Really? Haley Barbour? It's hard to imagine McCain nominating him, but Barbour has transitioned well from partisan boss of the Republican Party to Governor of Mississippi. He gained widespread praise for his response to Hurricane Katrina - especially contrasted with what happened in neighboring Louisiana - and at 60, he's the right age. He's very conservative, and very popular across the Deep South.

MARK SANFORD - He's only 48, but the Governor of South Carolina checks off a few boxes for McCain. He's from the South, he's a solid conservative, but he's also thoughtful, popular and occasionally a bit of a maverick, like McCain. He didn't endorse McCain until late in the game, but that probably doesn't matter. He's considered a rising star in the party.

LONGSHOTS:

CONDOLEEZZA RICE - Forget it. Condi's coming home to Stanford, to teach and resume her role as an occasional guest expert on KCBS. Who would give that up to run for vice president? Yes, she's a black woman, but she's too closely tied to the Iraq war, and has never held elective office. Too many negatives for McCain to take that risk.

COLIN POWELL - Nope. If Powell and his wife ever decide they're ready for a run, it will be for president, not McCain's second slot.

MIKE BLOOMBERG - I don't see it. Again, why would someone like Bloomberg settle for the vice presidency? He would alienate the conservatives, and while a short Jewish billionaire from New York would make history, he wouldn't help McCain win the election.

JOE LIEBERMAN - An intriguing pick, Lieberman could help McCain form a "unity" ticket, though he's left the Democratic Party and become an independent. But voters might see Al Gore's vice presidential pick as a retread. It's more likely that Lieberman would be Secretary of Defense in a McCain administration.

ELIZABETH DOLE - It's too late for Dole. If she weren't a woman, she wouldn't even be mentioned. She's got the name and the pedigree, but she'll be 72 this summer - she's a month older than McCain!

So there you have it. Are you still with me? This post was necessarily long, and though I intended it to be fairly comprehensive, there could still be a dark horse out there that's not on this list. Look for McCain to name his running mate sooner rather than later; he won't wait until the convention, in late August. I expect him to make the decision in mid-June, after all the primaries are over, so that his choice can get out there and start attacking the presumptive Democratic nominee, who should be known by then.

See you next week from North Carolina.

Running Mates We'd Like To See

2008-04-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that John McCain is considering ousted Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Or, more precisely, some of Fiorina's Silicon Valley buddies are floating her name, even though she has as much chance of becoming McCain's veep as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright does of becoming his White House chaplain. A more likely scenario is that Fiorina is thinking about running for governor of California in 2010 - as is former eBay boss Meg Whitman, another Valley Republican interested in inheriting Gov. Schwarzenegger's moderate GOP mantle - and she's trying to raise her profile.

McCain says he has 20 names on his vice presidential list, and from what I've been able to gather, Fiorina is almost certainly not one of them. She's never run for elected office, she has no constituency, her truncated tenure at H-P ended in scandal and shame, and she's not nearly conservative enough to satisfy the national Republican Party's right wing. Granted, she's probably as ready to be president as Dan Quayle was, but since McCain himself has said out loud that he will be especially careful about picking an impeccably qualified running mate because of his advanced age and health history, it's beyond conceivable that Fiorina could be a legitimate candidate. Besides, her real name is Cara Carleton Sneed Fiorina. Would that even fit on a button?

But as long as we're tossing out preposterous long shots for the number two slot on the GOP ticket, I've got a few ideas of my own:

ROBERT BYRD - The nonagenarian U.S. Senator from West Virginia (yeah, that's right, he's almost 91 now) is already President Pro Tem, so he's third in line for the presidency (behind Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi), so why not kick him up a couple notches for old time's sake? He voted against the Iraq war, he's a Democrat, he's certainly experienced - talk about a national unity ticket. And who else could make John McCain seem like a frisky young'un?

PAULA ABDUL - Now, here's a woman with a national constituency. Carly Fiorina, eat your heart out. She's female, sort of a minority (Syrian/Canadian/Jewish), and you can't deny she'd bring in the youth vote. Unfortunately, 13-year-old girls can only vote for the next American Idol, not the next American President. But Abdul helps generate 30 million votes a week, which is way more than you can say for anyone else on McCain's list.

DICK CHENEY - Hey, why not? If it ain't broken, don't fix it. No need for movers or redecorating. And in case anything happens to McCain, we already know that Cheney is qualified to run the country - he's been doing it for eight years now.

But seriously folks....Next Time: Who I really think is on McCain's list.

Keystone Kops

2008-04-24T16:44:00.001-07:00

So, as expected, the Pennsylvania primary was anticlimactic. When I told some colleagues that I'm going to Charlotte to cover the North Carolina primary, they asked why I wasn't going to the Keystone State first. My reply: Hillary's going to win Pennsylvania by somewhere between five and nine points, which means nothing will change, so what's the point? The race won't end in Pittsburgh, or Pottstown, or even Punxsutawney. But Clinton's Waterloo could come May 6th...in Waterloo, Indiana. Or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Because if Obama takes both Indiana and North Carolina (the largest remaining states), the battle really is done. This nomination is firmly in the hands of the superdelegates now, and if Obama can deliver a knockout blow, the remaining undecided ones will flock to him, and put him over the top. If he can't....then Hillary has at least some faint hope.

(By the way, Clinton won Pennsylvania by nine points, not ten, at last count, despite what you keep hearing from most media. I don't think it makes much difference, but I'm a stickler for accuracy. She will end up with a net gain of 10 to 12 delegates.)

The hot phrase of the moment is "closing the deal," as in, Obama can't do it. I must have missed the mass directive instructing all pundits to use those words, but it's just as well, because I think it's off the mark. Obama isn't attracting the white, blue-collar voters, but you know what? He wasn't winning them in January or February either, when he was sweeping one state after another. The only place he beat Clinton among that demographic was in Wisconsin. All that's happened is, the states where Obama had a natural advantage, he won...and the ones where Clinton did, she won. And that's still happening. It's just that we've reached a string of northern industrial states whose electorate breaks nicely for Hillary, so that's slowed Obama's momentum and allowed some worrisome doubt to creep into the minds of nervous Democrats.

The bigger problem for Obama right now is that as the campaign wears on, his luster wears off. He's been dragged right down into the gutter, which is never a good place for golden boys to be. It's hard to position oneself as a fresh voice of change, when you're busy picking off the bits of mud and flinging them back at your opponent. If the Democrats had winner-take-all primaries, Obama's 11-state late-winter run would have locked up the nomination, and his image would have survived intact. Now it's all flying elbows and locking horns, as he tries to hold off Hillary and keep those superdelegates flowing steadily into his column. And meanwhile, the Republicans, and the Clinton camp, have succeeded in raising a lot of questions about Obama, and planting some very dangerous seeds in the voters' minds: he's a radical, with radical friends...he's not one of us...who knows what he really wants to do to this country...why, he may even be French!

Assuming he still gets the nomination, Obama will need to reinvigorate his base: wealthier, better-educated whites, black voters, young people and first-time voters. He will have to generate a massive turnout, to overcome the negative portrayals and Internet rumors that will swing many Americans, who pay only passing attention to facts and details, to John McCain. And if he can't do that, then those battleground states where Clinton has beaten him - Ohio, New Mexico (Florida and Michigan, too, though Obama didn't compete in the "primaries" there) and yes, Pennsylvania - become deeply problematic for the Democrats in November.

Bitter Aftertaste

2008-04-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

A few postscripts to last week's bitterness and guns controversy, before we move on to Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary...

First of all, I was inspired to write a new parody song for the radio about all this silliness, so I corraled the Not Ready for Drive Time Singers and we banged out "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," which aired on KCBS Friday. No complaints so far, and one listener even made a video for it! Coming soon to a YouTube near you.

Second, like many viewers, I was absolutely appalled by that debate on ABC News last week. There's no professional rivalry involved; I will cheer any network that does a good job on a debate and jeer those who don't, regardless of my own affiliation (I actually think the Fox News questioners have done the best job in this year's debates). CBS hasn't hosted one yet, so we'll see how Katie Couric does next week in North Carolina.

But I was stunned by the line of questioning by Charles Gibson, in particular. I had to report on this debate for KCBS, so I recorded it and then relayed what was happening. The first 45 minutes were about Obama's various and sundry controversies, with some token pressure on Hillary Clinton every now and again. It took that long for a substantive issue to come up, which I found ridiculous. Obama's San Francisco comments, his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Hillary's faulty memory on Bosnia are all legitimate matters to be asked about, but come on. They are not the most important issues for most voters. Halfway through the debate, I felt like taking a shower. Gibson and George Stephanopoulos NEVER asked about jobs, or health care, or education, or the environment. What a waste of time.

For Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, that debate was the last straw, and he endorsed Obama Friday. This was a really tough decision for Reich, who's been living and teaching in Berkeley the last few years (I run into him at the Whole Foods every now and then). He talked about it with KCBS anchors Melissa Culross and Jeff Bell.

Finally, it wasn't widely reported except on the Internet, but Barack Obama did make essentially the same point he made at that San Francisco fundraiser...four years ago, on the Charlie Rose show on PBS. I heard some commentators warning last week that Obama says one thing in public, and quite another privately to his "elitist, Chablis-sipping buddies in San Francisco" (Chablis? Viognier, maybe. Pinot noir, definitely. Never Chablis, not in the last 20 years or so anyway).

But the only thing new about Obama's now-infamous remarks was the wording. Listen to what he said on national TV back in 2004, when he was talking about the economically dispirited people of Gaylesburg, Illinois. He said they take comfort in hunting, and going to church, and the traditions that are meaningful to them, and he agreed with Rose that they won't vote for a party that condescends to them and doesn't appreciate the importance of those traditions. So he wasn't secretly revealing his true attitudes to those San Francisco liberals, after all. He was just putting some old Chablis in a new bottle. You might not like the taste, but you can't say it's a new vintage.

Clinging Bitterly to My Blog

2008-04-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. My last blog post was three weeks ago.

Yes, I have been derelict. I spent much of my childhood in a small Midwestern town, so I have been very busy building an anti-immigrant fence around my compound in the woods, growing increasingly bitter, clinging to my guns and religion and xenophobia, the only solace I know in this ever-darkening economic climate.

But I have come out of my bunker, because Hillary Clinton has invited me for a shot and a beer, before we go on a church-sponsored hunting trip.

Yes, this is the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Barack Obama is being pilloried as an elitist, patronizing liberal, while Hillary's suddenly a gun-toting, whisky-swigging woman of the people.

Hmm, last time I checked they went to Harvard and Yale Law Schools, respectively, and I could have sworn Clinton just released tax returns showing her and Bill with over $100 million in income since 2000.

Yes, Barack Obama shot himself in the foot last week in San Francisco (if Hillary had been there, I'm sure she would have done the honors with the gun her grandfather gave her as a child). We all make mistakes; no one has blundered into more tactless, awkwardly-worded gaffes than I, as anyone in our newsroom who has enjoyed watching me try to explain what I really meant can attest. But this one has the Republicans chortling with glee. While Obama is busy trying to fend off Clinton, John McCain can start identifying the Illinois Senator in a negative way, with his own ill-chosen words. Hillary's already running a new TV commercial highlighting Obama's gaffe. By the time Obama locks up the nomination, many voters will already have "elitist" and "out of touch" branded into their brains, the way they thought "flip-flopper" and "windsurfer" when they heard the name John Kerry in 2004.

There's a lot of truth in what Obama said at that fundraiser in Pacific Heights last week. I have the audio of it, but it's so hard to understand I don't think it's worth posting the link here. You've read it by now anyway, right? Small-town voters are bitter after years of economic hardship and government inattention, so they cling to their guns and their religion and their antipathy towards people who aren't like them. Is that condescending and elitist? Or is it a frank assessment of America in the 21st century? The powers that be don't want someone telling the people the truth; they'd rather distract Americans with mock outrage, much as they accused anyone who dared question the government's response to 9/11 of being an unpatriotic traitor.

But Obama's words weren't artful. He's right; he could have said it a lot better. "Clinging" to their guns and religion? Ouch. That offends. This is a perfect example of why I predicted last December that Clinton, not Obama, would be the nominee. He's just not experienced enough to avoid these kinds of mistakes, and he's going to make more, folks. By the time November rolls around, assuming Obama still gets the nod, McCain will have a stack of these to use against him. Luckily for him, McCain steps in it now and again, too. We'll just have to see who the mess sticks to, and which of the nominees has teflon shoes.

Obama's stumble reminds me of the 1982 New York governor's race, when three-term Mayor Ed Koch was a heavy favorite to move up to Albany. Until, that is, he lamented the "sterile" nature of life in upstate New York, ridiculed small-town women for wearing gingham dresses, and complained about how unhappy he would be living in the boonies. That doomed his candidacy, and Lt. Governor Mario Cuomo came out of nowhere to upset Koch in the primary, and go on to serve three terms as governor.

There are a couple of other things about this that bother me more than Obama's words, though. First off, I know that many bloggers consider themselves "journalists." But it would be completely unethical, and maybe illegal, for me to infiltrate a private event, record it surreptitiously, and then report what I heard. And that's just what a Huffington Post blogger did to Obama in San Francisco. We have to identify ourselves as reporters, we can't record someone without permission (unless they're in a public place with no expectation of privacy, certainly not the case at a private home where invited guests have paid $2300 apiece to be there), and we cannot obtain information under false pretenses. In this age of cell phone videos and around-the-clock webcams, candidates should probably assume anything they say anywhere could be recorded. But still, Obama was speaking candidly with a small, private audience of campaign insiders and supporters. Those words were not for public consumption, and now he is consumed with defending them.

But Obama put himself in this position by being there in the first place. I "covered" his visit to the Bay Area last Sunday. He made four stops - all private, attended by paid donors, who coughed up anywhere from $1000 to $2300 for the privilege to hear him speak. He spent a full day here, and did not meet a single person who didn't pay him first. No voters, no reporters, no real people on the street. No interviews, no news conferences, no public speeches. The media coverage consisted of standing outside, interviewing the rich people who were going inside, and getting long-lens shots of Obama from across the street. And now, the Obama campaign has sent out an appeal for more donations, appealing to supporters who are outraged by the criticism of his remarks to dig deep and help him respond. All the campaigns do that now - they turn every attack or controversy into an opportunity to solicit more money: "Isn't this terrible? Won't you help by sending us $25 today?"

I'm fed up with the big money that drives presidential politics. If Obama, Clinton and McCain want to convince us they're in touch with the common folk, then they should start spending some real time with them. Let's face it, all three of them are elitists. They are very rich, high-achieving Americans. If they weren't, we wouldn't elect them president, would we? Isn't that the point of an election - to choose someone from the top tier to run the country? Do we want Hillary's beer buddy in the Oval Office? Or do we want a highly educated, successful person to run the government? So all three should stop pretending they're down in the gutter with the rest of us (okay, I admit it, I have risen from my humble Midwestern upbringing to become one of the elite, too) and become who they are. Stop pretending you're just like everyone else - and start caring about everyone else instead. FDR didn't try to hide his patrician roots - but he genuinely cared about the common man, and his policies reflected that.

At least Obama was trying to tell the truth in that mansion last week, and in his comments since. If we see him out hunting next week, between church services, with a six-pack in one hand and a shotgun in the other, then the Democrats are in deep trouble come November.

QUICK HITS: Okay, so I'm a little rusty; this rant rambled a bit. But I'm pleased to announce that the RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Awards have recognized some of our earlier work. KCBS just won four regional Murrows (the Western United States) and one of them is for Best Broadcast Website, for KCBS.com, including Sovern Nation. And another one is for Best Feature, for the first parody song we did in 2007, "Super Cali Tex Illistic Yorkizona Docious," about Super Tuesday. I will proudly call myself an award-winning singer-songwriter now. Thanks to the Not Ready for Drive Time Singers for making it, well, sing. Now we're nominated for the national Murrow awards. Stay tuned.

I think there's definitely a song in Obama's bitter words and Hillary's Bosnia snipers, among other things. I'll work on that and get back to you...

Shades of Gray

2008-03-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

After the nonstop voting frenzy of February and early March, the first days of spring have felt like the dog days of this presidential nominating season: kind of sleepy, a bit of a lull between primaries, not so much to blog about. Each day does seem to bring another little twist or blip, whether it's John McCain's gaffes in Iraq, or another advisor to Obama or Clinton shooting from the lip. But without a looming primary or caucus to drive the election calendar, some of the pressure and tension is off. Obama has even gone off to St. Thomas for a few days of vacation. McCain is back here in California, raising money and laying the groundwork for a November run at our 55 electoral votes.

We filled some of the down time with our latest campaign song, "Crocodile Barack," and in case you missed it on the radio, well, there it is, just click on that handy link. (For that matter, if you somehow didn't hear our Hillary Clinton song, here's that one, too).

The major campaign event of the month turned out to be the Jeremiah Wright controversy, which broke while I was off for a little break of my own, in Yosemite. Rev. Wright has been on the political radar for many months now, and some of the Hillary Clinton supporters who criticize us for alleged Obama favoritism had been forwarding links to me, with some of his more outrageous statements. But once videos of some of Wright's fire-and-brimstone started running in heavy rotation on the cable news channels, Obama had no choice but to address the words of his longtime pastor and spiritual mentor.

Obama's speech in Philadelphia was brilliantly written, I thought, and much has been said and written about it elsewhere. It was really more of a scholarly talk than a traditional campaign address: long, slow, thoughtful, laid out in a linear and logical way. It could have been a summation in a legal case, except for the absence of an emotional appeal to the jury at the close. I know people who think it was the greatest speech they've ever heard, but let's not get carried away. I don't know that I would call it Lincolnesque. At 37 minutes, it was 18 times longer than the Gettysburg Address. But it was deeply personal, and so much more reflective than a typical political speech. It also disabused me of a notion that's been kicking around my brain for a year or so now: that Barack Obama reminds me too much of George W. Bush.

Before you scoff loudly at that idea (maybe it's too late), consider the parallels. In 1999, while covering the presidential campaign of then-Governor Bush, I found him to be a reasonably pleasant guy whom many voters found inexplicably (to me) charismatic. He was a man of limited government experience, relying heavily on his personality and likeability, who avoided reporters at all costs and whose policy details were as thin as his resume. Does that sound familiar? When I covered Obama in late 2006 and early 2007, he steered clear of the media, gave vague speeches full of platitudes and lofty catch phrases, avoided answering specific policy questions, and leaned mostly on his status as a fresh face and celebrity author. At the California Democratic Convention last spring, Obama was the only one of the eight presidential contenders who did not hold a news conference or conduct any interviews. He's made himself more available as he's fleshed out his positions and gained more experience, both in government and on the campaign trail, but he's still the only major candidate this year who hasn't done an interview with KCBS.

But that speech on race has changed my thinking. Can you imagine President Bush giving a talk like that - not to mention writing it himself? What would he say? "I am the son of a rich, powerful white man...and, um, a rich, powerful white woman, too." Obama's words reflected deep contemplation, and an intellect able to translate that soul-searching into powerful speech that seemed honest and real. Bush sees everything in black and white; Obama offered us shades of gray. That kind of nuanced thinking is rare in national politics. But the world isn't black and white, and it's refreshing to hear a presidential candidate choose candor over demagoguery, especially on a subject as critical to America - and so close to my own heart - as race.

QUICK HITS: Bill Clinton returns to the Bay Area to address this year's state Democratic convention, this Sunday in San Jose. Let's see if he gets mad at us again, or brings his sax this time...John McCain holds fundraisers Wednesday at Pebble Beach and the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton...What do you think of Bill Richardson's new facial hair? I think the Van Dyke gives him a more Latin look, and makes him look a little more manicured, which could work to his advantage if he's Obama's running mate...but we'll save that V-P analysis for later in the campaign.