Could it get any uglier?

An Obama adviser apologized on his blog over the weekend for commenting that Bill Clinton was hurting the Democratic Party and leaving "a stain on his legacy much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica's blue dress."

Most primary voters are partisans. And the worst thing for a partisan is to think that a party candidate seems like he or she should be in the other party. This is exactly what's happening--first Geraldine Ferraro sounded like Rush Limbaugh, then Obama's camp sounds like Ken Starr.

What we are witnessing is the Democratic party hardening into two bitterly-divided camps. We are also witnessing an unambiguous McCain advantage from all this. When his folks unleash all the powers of hell upon the head of whoever's the nominee, they can just say, "As Sen. Obama/Clinton was saying about Sen. Clinton/Obama..."

A blogger for African Path blames Hillary for the Dems low showing against McCain.

Carville called Bill Richardson "Judas" for endorsing Obama, and Richardson responded by condemning "gutter politics."

The superdelegates are in a bind after the Obama speech, since they do not want to antagonize the black constituency.

Meanwhile, the luster of the party continues to take hits with the Spitzer and Kilpatrick scandals.

Let the caucuses begin

Caucus time!

The weather is not inclement, so heavy turnout is likely tonight. That favors Obama and Huckabee, who win a higher % of first-time caucus-goers.

Thompson has denied that he will drop out and support John McCain if he gets less than 15%, but the report has a ring of truth to it.

There's a fascinating report of deals going on on the Democratic side from Fox News. Kucinich has pledged his caucus-goers to Obama, should his supporters fail to reach viability. The report says that Biden and Richardson have also pledged their supporters to Obama as well. They deny it. But Obama could gain through the realignment process.

The old saw is that there are three tickets out of Iowa, win, place or show. But all along I've been wondering about a factor that I haven't seen reported on until today in the Politico. And that is the following: in this first primary contest without a clear front-runner for both parties in the modern era (meaning, no incumbent or Vice President successor). What's the media play going to be? There can't be multiple stories. There's really only one story.

Here's Roger Simon:

Even second place sometimes is not good enough in Iowa. Ask John Edwards. He came in second here in 2004 and expected that “bounce” to help him win in New Hampshire. But it didn’t.

Why? The media had a better story. They had Howard Dean’s scream.

As Edwards’ then-campaign manager Nick Baldick put it: “Instead of headlines that said, ‘Kerry Wins, Edwards a Surprising Second’ it was all about [John] Kerry winning and the Dean speech. We were the seventh paragraph. That did not give us a New Hampshire bounce.”

The same thing happened in 1988 when the big story was Pat Robertson's strong second-place finish, and Dick Gephardt's win on the Democratic side was ignored.

Simon continues:

Edwards might face the same problem this time. If he comes in second and Barack Obama comes in first, the headline could be: “Obama Wins, Hillary Third.”

That's right. Edwards needs a win. So does Huckabee. I heard a reporter on CNN a few hours ago say that "Romney has the most to lose" and that's just totally false. Romney can weather a loss; Huckabee cannot. Heres' a report from Time:

[T]he simple fact remains: The outcome in Iowa may very well determine Huckabee's fate as a presidential candidate. With a first place showing, he will fly out of Des Moines tonight as a political golden boy, who beat the odds by taking down the massive political machine of Mitt Romney, without any real money or organization. If he comes in second, however, he risks being sidelined in the Republican contest by the coming fight between Romney and John McCain in New Hampshire on January 8, which will likely carry over to the Michigan primary on January 15.

This framing works best for Huckabee if he is able to pull off an upset. A second place finish, which only a few months ago would have been considered a major victory, would now likely result in legitimizing the big-spending campaign of Mitt Romney, who led the polls in Iowa for months, largely because of his ability to lavish the state with money. By all rights, Huckabee would proudly continue his campaign to South Carolina, which will vote on January 19 and should be receptive to his down-home, conservative appeal. But the chattering classes will dog him for weeks; Iowa, after all, is a state teaming with evangelical values voters. Over and over again, Huckabee, the former Baptist pastor, will be asked the inverse of Frank Sinatra's famous lyric: "If you can't make it here, how can you make it anywhere?"

Obama in Iowa

According to the latest WashPost-ABC poll, Obama and Hillary are neck and neck. Here's the second choice of Iowan Dems who support the minor candidates (Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich):

Barack Obama 37
Hillary Clinton 31
John Edwards 26
Other (vol.) 0
None of these (vol.) 1
No opinion 4

This is important because it is the minor candidates who will fail the viability test.

New Hampshire Dem Poll

USA Today is reporting this week that Bill Richardson is making a "big jump" in NH polls, and that Hillary's lead is narrowing.

This is a news agency in desperate need of a story. All the changes in the poll are within the margin of error. This means that there really is no change at all. The poll was only of 389 democratic voters in NH, so the margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 points. NH polls are typically under 700 in their sample size. This means a larger margin of error.

This Richardson surge is meaningless. Richardson is running to be vice president. If he was running to be president, he wouldn't be all things to all people.

Democratic Debate Reflections

I watched the whole CNN debate last week and here's my thoughts. Hillary was the winner, regaining her footing in front of a sympathetic crowd. Edwards didn't do too badly. Obama was a mess. He utterly lacked all good political instincts on Wolf Blitzer's round-the-podium's yes-or-no conclusion question on driver's licenses. Obama said he was for it in the last debate. He was clear about it. He could have easily have kept his answer brief. I was stunned and appalled at his digging his own grave as he temporized and mangled what should have have been a no-brainer: cut your losses and say "yes." Obama looked way to cerebral, and after that I have to seriously question his political instincts.

Hillary at that point looked triumphantly down at his battered bloodied corpse. What a triumph for her. But Obama had a really nice put-down in the second half of the debate on the Social Security question. Hillary really didn't have an answer. I was surprised that that moment did not get a whole lot of reaction in the talking-head post-debate analyses.

Richardson continued to be a buffoon. Edwards looked a lot more presidential to me. A win for Hillary, though, on the "slinging mud" line against Edwards.

Republicans jump all over Hillary

Hillary's stumble at the end of the last debate was bad. Here's the Republican reaction:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Suddenly, Republicans scent blood in the water, as a media storm rages over Democratic pace-setter Hillary Clinton's first stumbles of the 2008 White House race.

The New York senator's previously near-faultless campaign hit a hitch at a debate on Tuesday night, over her halting answers on illegal immigration, and the release of her papers dating from her husband's White House terms.

Republican White House hopefuls Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney joined a feeding frenzy sparked by Democrats John Edwards and Barack Obama, hoping to please anti-Clinton conservatives and hurt a possible 2008 rival.

"I've seen Hillary, you know, do a southern accent in the South and talk like a New Yorker in New York and take two different positions on Iran and six different positions on Iraq," former New York mayor Giuliani told Fox News.

"But I never saw her take two different positions in one minute in front of the same audience."Romney also mocked her. "I watched her dancing around the issue. I thought I'd tuned to 'Dancing with the Stars,'" he said on Radio Iowa.

"She just wanted to have it both ways," said the ex-governor of Massachusetts, himself no stranger to charges of political reversals.

Hillary took two different positions on illegal immigration in one minute, yes. This makes her look silly, yes. But it's going to take more than that to move her poll numbers. People are not going to abandon her over one mistake.

Hillary better watch it though. The way these things build is through a totality impression, a host of things makes a candidate fit a certain image. Bush 41's playing golf with bad economic news being reported the same day, Gore's idiosyncratic debate performances, Kerry going windsurfing after he won the nomination. The blow of the last debate landed on Hillary, but there's another round, and she can absorb it by not goofing. Her last goof was right at the end. A two-hour debate; that's so fatiguing. I'm not blaming it on fatigue, I'm just pointing out how hard it is to run for president. She's the front-runner, so she has to be perfect.

Not goofing up is so hard, but it's required for a front-runner. This is why Richardson will never be the front-runner for more than a weekend.

Hillary fighting a close race

Mark Mellman from The Hill has a nice summary of why the Democratic race is still up in the air. Here's his conclusion:

Questionable polls, the possibility of a close race today, late-deciding voters and events yet to unfold combine to create real uncertainty about the Iowa outcome — and that means the race for the nomination is far from over.

I've talked about voters deciding late before. High School students don't write thesis papers over the summer; they do it when they have to, when they're forced to, when there's a deadline. Voters do the same thing. If I don't have to decided who to vote for for three months, why decide now? It's perfectly rational behavior.

As far as the polls go, Mellman is referring to the very low turnout in the Iowa. I've mentioned before that turnout last time for the Democratic caucuses was 6% of all registered voters! People do not want to admit that they probably aren't going to vote in the caucuses, so it's impossible to weed out the population who is really committed to going.

It's a close race because it's not like Hillary has no competition. Both Obama and Edwards want it. And Biden, Dodd, and Richardson are likewise Presidential material. Hillary has an edge, but she's not leaving anyone in the dust.

Iowa is more important than ever because of the uncertainty of the primary calendar. Why spend money where there are question marks on whether it will make a difference? Spend it on Iowa, since you know winning there will have a huge impact. And if Hillary doesn't win Iowa, this is wide open. If she wins it she locks it up, according to Mellman, and I think he's right.

State of the race

From super-blogger Chris Bowers comes the above charts on the state of the race so far. A couple notes. First of all, Romney should be considered the front-runner, not Giuliani. The national polls don't matter, and Romney can finance his own campaign to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, so the cash on hand is no impediment for him. Wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Romney would have a huge edge on Giuliani. Secondly, Obama is making inroads in Iowa at the expense of Edwards. Hillary's lead in Iowa could change as the campaign steps up, and as Obama starts spending his cash. These races are up in the air.

Democratic debate reflections

Tim Russert excels at making Bill Richardson look like a fool, and he didn't disappoint in the last democratic debate. In the opening question about Iraq, Russert complained that Richardson was not answering the question. The litany of Richardson gaffes Russert listed in the middle of the debate recapitulated the miserable Meet the Press interview that Richardson bombed, with some new juicy blunders added to the list. Richardson stumbled over an answer about "delivering" in which it was unclear exactly what he was going to deliver. Then he tried the same line about change and experience; it got a light laugh, but we've heard this one before. In the question on fiscal solvency Richardson gave the typical politician's answer--"Oh, we can grow our way out of any trouble"--and Russert not only nailed him down on this answer but then gave Edwards a response, who argued in favor of telling the American people the truth.

Obama's small swipe at Hillary, "Your health care fight was lonely because you shut out potential allies," was the sound bite of the evening but it was so light a jab that it seemed like my advice to hold off the attack was similar to his own game plan. But it was a definite poke to the gut, and Obama's stepping up the attack, perhaps. We'll see if he does this gradually--that would be a smart move. In other words, he starts out with a "new tone" message, but little by little chips away at Hillary until it's all-out war. That way, it's not a one-hit wonder and the hit does not have to be a KO. Hillary can recover from one blow, even if the press like a pack of hounds joins in the carnage. She's too good. If this Obama attack is the beginning of a trend, if he really wants to be president, we're in for an interesting ride. It's clear that Hillary wants to be president, but that is not always the case for all or even most candidates. Howard Dean for example did not want to be president. Most candidates run for self-promotion, or to make a point.

Health care debate reflections

Some reflections on the Democratic debate on health care in Iowa this past Thursday...

Joe Biden has an effective answer on the first question, and it's praised by Edwards in his response which followed. Dodd also chimes in after Clinton's answer with the same message: it's about leadership, who can bring people together, etc. All jabs at Hillary's closed-door meetings in 1993, but without mentioning her by name. Biden follows up on the leadership theme throughout the debate, doing very well referring to his own experience.

Biden and Richardson talk about home care of elderly relatives and Hillary joins in; with the baby-boomers retiring this will become an economic necessity. Edwards has an impassioned plea for taxing work and capital gains the same, at least, and it gets a nice audience response, as does his plea for reality-contact that universal care will be very expensive and his joke that Hillary's plan is the same as his--the split-screen on this last one showed Hillary's stone-faced expression. Edwards is scoring some points here. Later on he had a proposal to treat bonuses and golden-parachutes for CEOs the same as workers' pensions.

Hillary's response points to her first attempt as the vanguard that moves the sticks as far as Democratic positions go. She's right that there's a huge difference on health-care with the Republicans. Biden gets a laugh with his desire to raise obscene amounts of money like the other candidates, and his jabs at Richardson's experience. Biden wants reality-contact with the need for a chunk of Republicans to go along with the plan of any Democratic president. Richardson gets laughed at for being unable to answer with a yes or no. Later on he is laughed at for, as Biden put it, "When in doubt, blame President Bush." Biden's constant joking about Richardson running to be Secretary of State is funny because it's so true, and Biden can do it without seeming nasty because he's doing the same thing. Biden could actually be president, while Richardson doesn't have a chance.

The debate was good for Biden and Edwards, neutral for Dodd and Clinton, and bad for Richardson.

Obama strong in latest debate

I agree totally with CQ Politics' analysis of Obama's performance in the Iowa debate. Craig Crawford writes:

Barack Obama might be inexperienced, but when it comes to debating he appears to be a fast learner.

Yesterday’s Democratic debate in Iowa, aired nationally on ABC, showcased the Illinois senator facing attacks from rivals with a dose of humor and a knack for the well-aimed counterpunch. At the peak of those assaults on his lack of experience, Obama deflected with a laugh line, saying, “To prepare for this debate, I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair.”

But he also effectively hit back at his more experienced opponents, noting that most had supported the war in Iraq. And he provoked applause from Democratic partisans in the debate hall with a telling observation about the pitfalls of experience: “Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.”

After a shaky start in the debating game, Obama is getting better. Returning pointed attacks with laugh lines and applause cues is a clear sign of progress.

At the same time, Clinton was also very strong. These two are leaving the rest of the field behind.

I don't agree that Richardson was a standout. At one point in the debate he tried to joke about all the misstatements he's made recently in his campaign, but then he tried to turn it into a positive by saying he's not a "scripted candidate." This rang hollow to me. His misstatement in the last debate was not about not being scripted, but was basically a really dumb mistake. But he did avoid any new mistakes, did have a one-liner about combining change and experience (though you had to see this one coming), and was more aggressive on troop pullout of Iraq. So he did help himself marginally. But he did not shine.

Richardson's gaffe in the last debate

The video below shows a terrible misspeak on the part of Bill Richardson in the last Democratic debate on LGBT issues, when he said that being gay was a "choice." Here's his attempt at damage control:

After the forum, Richardson’s campaign issued a statement “clarifying” his answer and emphasizing his past support of gay civil rights issues.

“Let me be clear — I do not believe that sexual orientation or gender identity happen by choice,” Richardson said in the statement. “But I’m not a scientist and the point I was trying to make is that no matter how it happens, we are all equal and should be treated that way under the law.”

Richardson has since said he did not understand the question and was tired after flying from New Hampshire to California to participate in the forum.

During an interview with Michelangelo Signorile for a satellite radio show after the forum, Richardson asked that he not be judged by one mistake.

“You can judge me by words — words that I’ve apologized for — that’s fine,” he said. “I just want to be judged by what I’ve done. I’ve been actionable, I’ve delivered for the gay community and if the community, you know, just feels that these stupid words that I said that I apologized for is the basis for judgment, that’s your choice.”

A campaign for national office can end with a slip--ask John Kerry ("stuck in Iraq" ended any presidential ambitions he had for 2008) or George Allen. But for good reason: as President, using the right words is vital. A slip or misstatement or poorly phrased comment can have such a wide impact, such as President Bush's use of the word "crusade."

Clinton's running-mate?

An interesting exchange yesterday with Dan Balz at the Post's politics hour.

Los Angeles, Calif.:

While Gingrich predicts (perhaps prefers is more accurate) Clinton-Obama, wouldn't a far better Democrat ticket be Hillary Clinton for president and Bill Richardson for vice president? First, adding Obama to the ticket wouldn't increase Black votes (Hillary does quite well among Black voters herself). Adding Richardson likely would significantly increase Hispanic votes for Democrats and set-back Republican efforts to attract this demographic. Second, while White voters say in surveys they can accept Obama, a big question is will they do so on Election Day (recall there never was a Governor Tom Bradley although polls predicted he'd win). Finally, given the current issues (i.e., Iraq, Immigration, Competence, Constitutional Imperative, Justice Department Interference, economic fairness and Foreign Policy) and the reluctance of Republican candidates to break from Bush's policies, wouldn't a Clinton-Richardson ticket be more exciting, more strategic and better experienced with the issues than the current cast of potential Republicans?

Dan Balz: Parsing vice presidential possibilities is fun at this stage but until the nomination battle plays out, we all do it without enough real information. So much of this is the comfort level between presidential nominee and potential VP nominee. So much also depends on how the presidential nominee sees himself or herself and what message they want to send with their choice. Bill Clinton's decision to pick Al Gore sent a powerful message of generational change, even though in picking a fellow southerner, Clinton violated traditional norms of finding a running mate who provided geographical or ideological balance. Walter Mondale ended up picking Geraldine Ferraro because he found her personal story intriguing and powerful and wanted to send a message that way -- not just because she was a woman (he had actually been leaning toward Dianne Feinstein) but because of what else she symbolized.

As for Clinton-Obama or Clinton-Richardson, I doubt she would pick Obama for purposes of winning African Americans. His appeal would be the card he's carrying through the nomination battle: freshness, new direction, etc. Richardson would no doubt stimulate Latino interest in the campaign and as a governor would bring some balance to her Senate credentials. Maybe she won't even be the nominee -- Newt Gingrich not withstanding.

There was a comment on this exchange as well:


Putting Obama would make sense not because of the African American vote but because he would attract the younger generations while sending a very inspirational message to the world at large, i.e., that it's possible for a woman and an African-American can get nominated for the highest offices in the land. And if elected, Americans would have eight years to get used to the idea of an African American president -- and by then, Obama will be ready.

A Clinton-Obama ticket would mean a gradual rather than a radical change, which human nature can more easily embrace.

On Meet the Press on Sunday Dan Balz was on, and there was this interesting exchange:

Margaret Carlson in Bloomberg News weighed in on this, and she had some interesting things, talking about Hillary Clinton, and this is what Margaret Carlson had to say.

“She absolutely doesn’t admire and like very much Barack. In fact, Obama is the only candidate who gets under Clinton’s skin, and the aftermath of a mild exchange at the debate shows just how much.”

There something there, Dan?

MR. BALZ: I think there is something there. We’ve seen some evidence of that from time to time. The Clinton campaign has been—obsessed is too strong a word, but, but obsessed is not far off—with Obama and the Obama campaign from the very start of this.

MR. RUSSERT: Is it because he’s an upstart who’s in her way?

MR. BALZ: I think that’s part of it.

MS. MITCHELL: And a successful part.

MR. BALZ: And, and a very bright new-age person who, who has made clear that he wants to, you know, close the book on not just the Bush era but the Clinton era as well, that, that he thinks...

MR. RUSSERT: So turning the page is a double turn.

MR. BALZ: ...he thinks—he thinks—he thinks this, this period that we have been through for the last 12 or 15 years has been bad in terms of what it’s done to American politics. He wants to change that. She’s certainly part of that, so there’s a personal element there.

MS. MITCHELL: The only disagreement I’d have is that John Edwards also gets under her skin.

MR. ROBINSON: Yes. I think that’s clear. I think that’s clear especially after he criticized her apparel at the, at the YouTube debate.

I find it silly to speculate on personalities. Undoubtedly personalities play a big role in politics, of course. Former Congressman Dick Zimmer says that when he came to Congress, there was one member that his colleagues said could sponsor a bill praising motherhood and it wouldn't get any votes, because nobody liked him! But honestly, on the presidential level, if you are convinced a particular running-mate will help you win the presidency, I don't think personal differences will stand in the way much. What I object to is not the understanding that personalities are important, but the speculation on who likes whom. What evidence is there that Obama and Edwards get under Hillary's skin? They didn't give any that that is the case, so at this point I think it's just pundit blather.

I don't think Hillary will choose either of them as her running mate if she wins the nomination, however. Edwards would of course be too weird to be a VP candidate again. The comment on the politics hour is both right and wrong. In terms of Obama eventually becoming president, yes, him being a VP for eight years certainly would help! But the "youth vote" is so overrated. Young people don't vote. And when they do, they already vote heavily Democratic. And the point about gradual change works against her choosing him. It's already enough change to have the first female president. Add in the first black vice president, and that's a lot of change.

Hillary to my mind will probably if nominated choose a staid, experienced, somewhat conservative Caucasian male. Here's a post I agree with from Oval Office 2008.


Hillary Clinton: I bet she would probably will pick a middle the road white guy to balance out her ticket. Classic resume-fillers. I can't see her picking Obama or Richardson, because a woman and a minority on a ticket may be asking for too much change too soon. And as evidenced by the way Hillary is running her campaign, she is a very cautious politician.
The pick: Evan Bayh.
Other possibilities: Tom Vilsack, Mark Warner, Wesley Clark
Dark horse: Barack Obama. Just because a lot of people would really want it.


Here's Roger Simon from the Politico on the topic:


There would be enormous pressure within the party for her to select Barack Obama. It would be a unifying choice, an historic choice and she wouldn’t do it in a million years. Her best bet would be to make a symbolic offer to Obama in the certain knowledge he would refuse.

John Edwards? Forget it. He would never do it again and I don’t think she would offer it to him.

But what about another historic ticket - - Hillary and Bill Richardson, which would make it the first woman presidential nominee and the first Latino vice presidential nominee.

Though Richardson would be pleased as punch to get the bid, though he would add geographic balance to the ticket and though he is a governor, which voters tend to like, somehow I don’t think it is in the cards.

Why? Richardson may be too close to Bill Clinton. Of all the guys Bill could have gone to in order to get Monica Lewinsky a job, why did he go to Richardson? And Richardson came through, offering her a job at the United Nations. It was all investigated and there was nothing illegal about it, but does Hillary really need her running mate going on “Meet the Press” to try and explain it once again? And does she really need a reminder of that chapter in all of their lives?

Safer choices (we think) would be Mark Warner or Evan Bayh.

Iran and the General Election

Iran is an issue that might well come to the forefront in the general election...

In discussions with a friend recently we mused about the possibility of a US strike on Iran at the end of George W. Bush's term as president. It seems likely that this is being pushed by the Vice President's office right now, and the question is whether President Bush will decide to take action before his term expires. An invasion seems out of the question, with the strain Iraq is already putting on the armed forces. But air strikes are another matter. The temptation to escalate the conflict we are engaged in in the Middle East could be very great. The rally-around-the-flag effect would still be in operation, even with war fatigue. Americans still prefer their own country and its leadership to another country halfway around the world. Escalating would almost force those against the war to back the president and the military against their will. For a president with nothing to loose, and who really seems to believe in the necessity of "winning" in Iraq, the attraction to a very rash course of action is understandable.

The candidates should be planning for this now. As far as the Republicans go, their nominee would certainly support this action. Giuliani has pledged not to let Iran go nuclear, as has McCain. Fred Thompson, Brownback and Romney have taken a muscular posture. Joe Biden has criticized the latter for it, and as for the rest of the Democrats, they would face a tougher tightrope. Many liberals in their base would be appalled. Hillary and Richardson have said that they want more talks. But I'm not convinced that they wouldn't support the troops when the bombs start falling.

Obama and race

A reader sent me this article in Newsweek. Here's the intro:

[Cornel] West asked Obama how he understood the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and interrogated him about a single phrase in Obama's 2004 Democratic-convention speech: that America was "a magical place" for his Kenyan father. "That's a Christopher Columbus experience," West said. "It's hard for someone who came out of slavery and Jim Crow to call it a magical place. You have to be true to yourself, but I have to be true to myself as well." A few weeks later, the two men met in a downtown Washington, D.C., hotel to chat about Obama's campaign staff. Just a month after ripping into him onstage, West endorsed Obama and signed up as an unpaid adviser.

The article continues:

Officially, Obama became the earliest presidential candidate to get Secret Service protection because he's attracting such huge crowds. But NEWSWEEK has learned that a key factor in that decision was a string of racist e-mails sent to his Senate office, something his staff is unwilling to discuss publicly for security reasons.

That kind of overt hatred is not visible on the campaign trail. Many of Obama's supporters are enthralled by the content of his character—by his earnest desire to heal the nation's political divisions and to restore America's reputation in the world. Many also are excited by the color of his skin and the chance to turn the page on more than two centuries of painful racial history.

It gives a quote from the Democrat who beat Obama in the 2000 primary for Illinois' first district congressional seat, Bobby Rush.

Rush supports Obama's run for the White House today, but still rails against a "bourgeois elite" in the country that would "rather have a Harvard-trained, smooth-talking, forever-smiling, nonthreatening African-American" than someone like himself. Yet Rush also recognizes that Obama has a rare ability to work comfortably in different worlds.

In toto this peice paints Obama as transcending race. For the opposite view, see Steve Sailer's take on Obama's past, which challenges this notion. Sailer bases this opinion on his reading of Obama's books. But this is not something the vast majority of voters will do, or even media people. What matters, at least for the campaign, is the image he projects now. That of transcending race is an attractive one, at least for white voters. As the article notes, it is certainly a tightrope. But one in which Obama has navigated successfully so far.

The other motif of the article is Obama as a "uniter not a divider." This was so successful for candidate Bush in 2000, in a nation divided over Clinton's presidency. This holds real promise for Obama. If I were the campaign, I'd emphasize this over the transcending race asset. Consider the competition. Edwards is tacking hard left in order to distinguish himself. "Two Americas" is not a unifying theme. And then you have Richardson and Clinton, both from the Clinton administration. Hillary certainly divides people. That's the message to push and push and push for the Obama camp. Let other people talk about the candidate's race.

Bill Richardson: a profile

Here's his background info, from Project Vote Smart:

Personal:
Wife: Barbara
Birth date: 11/15/1947
Birthplace: Pasedena, CA
Home City: Santa Fe, NM
Religion: Roman Catholic
Education: MA, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1971. BA, Tufts University, 1970.

Political Experience:
Governor, State of New Mexico, 2002-present
Secretary, United States Department of Energy, 1998-2001
United States Ambassador to the United Nations, 1997-1998
Representative, United States House of Representatives, 1983-1997

Steve Sailer has a post on Richardson's background that you'll never read in The New York Times. Summing it up, Sailer writes:

Presumably, his career has been helped along by being a twofer -- he's one of these new-fangled Mexican-Americans and he's a traditional preppie WASP Old Boy at the same time!

Sailer continues:

On paper, he sounds like a plausible Democratic nominee in 2008. To win, the Democrats don't seem to need to gamble on a high-risk candidate like the irascible Hillary or the sometimes brilliant but moody and self-absorbed Obama. They just need a guy who won't blow it for them. And yet, Richardson's candidacy doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

The gurus at 2008Central have a post on whether Richardson might be angling for the Vice Presidency.

In this post on Richardson the day he announced his candidacy, Steve Clemons raised the issue of his treatment of women. Here's a follow-up from the Politico in March.