The Next Hurrah

Newfound Transparency in Iowa [...someday]

by emptypockets

I'm a little slow out of the starting gate with this one, but it seems that one of the major criticisms of the Iowa Democratic caucuses -- that the actual vote totals are kept secret -- has quietly disappeared into the cornfields. The purpose of this post is to bring attention to that change, and raise the questions of how and why it came about. [Update 1/14/08, 8 am: In fact, it seems that this problem has not yet been addressed. See update at the end. Can one be slow out of the starting gate and jump the gun??]

Let me first define three terms I'll need to talk about this topic clearly:

RAW VOTE The number of caucusgoers who cast a vote for each candidate at the beginning of the caucus (in the first round of voting).

REALIGNED VOTE The number of caucusgoers who cast a vote for each candidate at the end of the caucus (after eliminating non-viable candidates, and when all is said and done).

DELEGATE COUNT The number of delegates to the state convention each candidate has earned at the end of caucus night.

Previously, the Iowa Democratic Party released only the last of these three numbers to the media. So, if you look at the CNN caucus results page for 2004, you'll see that Kerry won 1,128 State Delegates, or 38%, compared to Edwards's 957, or 32%. There's a note attached to those figures, reading

"Instead of releasing caucus vote totals, the Iowa Democratic Party releases a total indicating the number of delegates to the state convention each candidate will receive."

Why would that matter? Well, since the number of delegates per precinct is not determined by population (but by a formula involving turnout in the last two elections), it means that a candidate could, in principle, come in first in the delegate count without getting the most realigned votes. You could basically win the caucuses but lose the popular vote... and no one would ever know.

The Iowa Democratic Party has been criticized harshly for this lack of transparency. For instance, Saletan and Schiller wrote in Slate, under the header "Why you'll never know who won Iowa":

On caucus night, the Iowa Democratic Party will release the delegate count. Here's when the party will release the raw vote count and the realigned vote count: Never. The party won't compile or even record them, except as a temporary step in most precincts so that the caucus chair can determine how many delegates each candidate gets. The party doesn't want raw votes compiled and released, because it wants the caucuses to be a collaborative activity [...] but if you want to know how many voters stood up for John Edwards, you're out of luck.

That was four years ago. Just four weeks ago, the same complaint was filed by Cranberg, Strentz and Roberts in the NY Times op-ed "Iowa's Undemocratic Caucuses":

The percentage broadcast on the networks and reported in the newspapers is the candidate’s share of the 2,500 delegates the party apportions across Iowa’s 99 counties, based on Democratic voter turnout in each of the 1,784 precincts in the two most recent general elections. So, the turnout for a candidate in a precinct caucus could be huge, yet the candidate’s share of the delegate pie could be quite small — if that precinct had low voter turnout in 2004 and 2006.

The authors seem, to me, to confound the raw vote and the realigned vote in their piece, but as I read it they are saying that neither the raw nor the realigned vote is released -- only the delegate count (you might want to click the link to see if you read it the same way).

So I was all set to get royally cheesed about this lack of transparency, and Iowa's gall in insisting it maintain its first-in-the-nation status while the state Democratic party wouldn't even open its books to ensure the kind of fair vote accounting that Democrats have been campaigning for nationwide. And just as I fired up my snarkblaster to smother those poor Iowans in a deluge of withering blog-posting, I discovered a curious thing:

The 2008 vote totals are online.

That link is to an Excel file published by the Gazette on one of their caucus coverage web pages (it's the first link on that page). Admittedly, it contains only the realigned vote, not the raw vote (which would have been nice to see), but the numbers add to 250,005, so it seems they would have to be an actual head-count, not just delegate numbers. The percentages are the same as the ones reported that night, so it would seem the media quietly (and perhaps without even being aware of it) switched from reporting the Iowa delegate count in previous years to reporting the realigned vote count this year.

[Update 1/14/08, 8 am, continued: Caucus turnout was about 240,000. There are 2,500 state delegates. It appears that the Gazette may have followed the Associated Press in simpy multiplying state delegates by 100 (to eliminate fractions, I guess) which coincidentally came out pretty close to real turnout. Bottom line is, we still only know the delegate counts, not the popular vote. And you can bottle up the next paragraph and save it -- I hope -- for 2012.]

If that's the case, I want to commend Iowa Democrats on a well-deserved move toward open election reporting. I also want to suggest that they should have gotten more recognition for this move -- particularly by those who have criticized them in the past -- than they did.

But most importantly, I'd like to know how and why this change occurred, especially since it happened so quietly (to me, anyway). When did it happen? Who pushed for it? Why this year?

I've written to two of the NYT op-ed authors asking if they know what happened, and they have not yet replied (in fairness, I wrote under this pseudonym and from a yahoo address, so I could have easily been spam-filtered or otherwise screened out as a crank). This weekend, I wrote to the Gazette and the Iowa Democratic Party asking the same questions. I'll let you know if I hear anything... and, if anyone out there knows more, please post it in the comments.

A flash of grey flannel, a whiff of BenGay...

by Kagro X

When is an Internet-based, third party organizing effort a Very Serious Idea?

When David "Wild Man" Broder f*cking well tells you it is. That's when. You lowly moron.

Until plans for this meeting were disclosed, the most concrete public move toward any kind of independent candidacy was by Unity08, a group planning an online nominating convention to pick either an independent candidate or a ticket combining a Republican and a Democrat. The sponsors, an eclectic mix of consultants who have worked for candidates including Jimmy Carter (D) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), have not aligned with a specific prospect.

Now, some people with high-level political and governmental credentials are moving to put muscle behind the effort.

What meeting, you ask? Why, the Big Bipartisan Serious Person's Kumbaya Love-In for America, of course.

It Takes Astute Observation, Not Mea Culpas

by emptywheel

Mark Halperin has a hysterical op-ed in the NYT today, designed to be a mea culpa for the failures of presidential campaign journalism. Halperin reveals the reason behind the press corps' obsession with horse race politics--they all read Ben Cramer's What It Takes--and then admits that success in a political horse race does not necessarily equip someone to run the country.

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared the view that there was a direct correlation between the skills needed to be a great candidate and a great president. The chaotic and demanding requirements of running for president, I felt, were a perfect test for the toughest job in the world.

But now I think I was wrong. The “campaigner equals leader” formula that inspired me and so many others in the news media is flawed.

Wow, Mark, that's one doozy of an insight. You mean all this horse race campaign journalism is counter-productive to choosing a good president? Who could have imagined that?!?!?!

The reason I say it's hysterical, though, and not just pathetic, is in Halperin's description of how he determined that he had been wrong--his analysis of the two presidents he has covered in the last sixteen years. See, Halperin describes those two presidents as both being great politicians--"wildly talented."

Our two most recent presidents, both of whom I covered while they were governors seeking the White House. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are wildly talented politicians. Both claimed two presidential victories, in all four cases arguably as underdogs. Both could skillfully serve as the chief strategist for a presidential campaign.

And then he proceeds to describe how the characteristics that made these "wildly talented" politicians made them failed presidents. Of note: he sees them both as failed presidents, Clinton and Bush. Here's how he supports his claim that Clinton's was a failed presidency:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully well for Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran into trouble, this trait was disastrous, particularly in the bumpy early years of his presidency and in the events leading up to his impeachment. The fun-loving campaigner with big appetites and an undisciplined manner squandered a good deal of the majesty and power of the presidency, and undermined his effectiveness as a leader. What much of the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in a president.

See where I'm going with this? Halperin claims that a guy who presided over tremendous economic growth, some innovative policy solutions (many of which I dislike, but admire for their pragmatism), and real success in foreign policy, had a failed presidency. He claims that a guy whose approval ratings stayed high during a trumped up impeachment "ran into trouble." Halperin clings to the Village's caricature of the Clinton presidency all so he can claim both Clinton and Bush failed. And in the process, he ignores a great deal of hard work and policy wonkiness that, in fact, made Clinton a successful president. Precisely the kind of characteristics you'd want good presidential journalism to cover--a candidate's comfort with the complexity of policy issues that translates into competent governance.

You see, Halperin tries hard to explain away his failures of judgment and discernment as failures of process. But in the process, he only emphasizes those failures of judgment. If Halperin really believes that Clinton and Bush experienced the same level of failure in office; if he remains ignorant of Clinton's considerable discipline (in all matters not involving his penis) and hard work and policy acumen, then he has proved his own failures of basic observation, not a failure to cover the right topics.

With his op-ed, Halperin proves he couldn't identify good governance if it looked him in the face. Sure, he calls for a different kind of campaign journalism. But at the same time, he proves he's not the guy to provide it.

GOP Offer Healthcare to All Those without Pre-Existing Conditions

by emptywheel

According to the LAT, the GOP presidential candidates have come up with a brilliant way of offering insurance to the uninsured: leave out those with pre-existing conditions, including people with medical histories just like the candidates' themselves.

When Rudolph W. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the spring of 2000, one thing he did not have to worry about was a lack of medical insurance.

Today, the former New York mayor joins two other cancer survivors in seeking the Republican presidential nomination: Arizona Sen. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson had lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

All three have offered proposals with the stated aim of helping the 47 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance, including those with preexisting medical conditions.

But under the plans all three have put forward, cancer survivors such as themselves could not be sure of getting coverage -- especially if they were not already covered by a government or job-related plan and had to seek insurance as individuals.

"Unless it's in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage," said economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, who has reviewed the candidates' proposals. "People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it."

I was drawn to the article because I'm one of those the article explains would be denied health care coverage in almost all cases.

An expert with access to a manual that insurers use to make coverage decisions said that most companies wouldn't consider a cancer survivor for 10 years, with some exceptions, and then would only issue a policy at a higher premium.

Nice to know I can always escape to Ireland if I lose my healthcare.

But in reading it, I wanted to recommend it because it is really the kind of coverage we need for a presidential election. It is informative, explaining in several different ways why and how cancer survivors cannot find affordable healthcare. It tells voters--in terms that put the voter at the center of the debate--information critical to assessing the candidates. And it's a great story, using the cancer history of three leading candidates to emphasize the gaps in their plans.

It's so rare we see good reporting on the presidential race, this article deserves attention.

 

 

"Catholics Hate Kerry...uh, Giuliani"; Repubs & Fundies to Divorce?

By DHinMI

Remember back in 2004 when the news media and the wingers were all atwitter about how John Kerry, because he supported a separation of church and state and upholding the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade, was supposedly a rotten Roman Catholic and was under siege by the Roman Catholic Church?  Well, the stories were always wildly overblown, and usually ignored the important fact that the few Bishops who mouthed off about denying communion to Kerry were acting as free agents, because the American Bishops voted 183-6 against adopting an official policy of denying communion to politicians who supported abortion rights or any other social policies in conflict with the Church’s teachings.  As you should expect,  this fact was almost completely ignored by the press. 

The "priests will deny communion to pro-choice politicians" story has returned, but this time with a twist: it’s about a Republican, Rudy Giuliani:

The Real Reason

by emptywheel

I've got a different interpretation of the news--via ThinkProgress--that Bush is advising Democrats to keep their options open to sustain the permanent war in Iraq.

Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

Rather than some Rovian gimmick to gain advantage in the presidential election, I think this just suggests that Bush believes that when a Democrat becomes President in 2009 (and I do think this suggests he thinks it highly likely), she will review intelligence and get advice and realize that the US must stay in Iraq. Here's the logic Bush offers.

Can We Really Afford Twenty More Years of Iraq?

By Mimikatz

Fred Kaplan has a good piece at Slate on the questions that Congress should ask General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker when they report next week.  As Kevin Drum notes, towards the end Kaplan quotes military analyst Stephen Biddle (an adviser to the Administration):

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years—and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

"The strategy" being the bottom-up attempt to achieve reconciliation among factions like the reconciliation between the US and Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar.  Leaving aside all the questions Kaplan raises about why it may be not only harder but impossible to reconcile the Iraqi factions, is this "long-shot gamble" what the Democrats in Congress really want?  And can we afford it?

Meanwhile, the GAO Report says that nearly all benchmarks are failing to be met in Iraq and that the Administration's statistics claiming to show the opposite are bogus. And the report issued by a 20-member Commission headed by retired General Jones  says that our excessive footprint in Iraq is actually counterproductive to our stated aims and also says that any declines in Baghdad sectarian violence are probably the result of  ethnic cleansing.  General Jones also says we can begin withdrawing early next year.  And everyone agrees that we will have to start bringing home some troops next year  because we don't have the replacements for them.

And yet, our Democratic Congress appears ready to give the Bush/Cheney regime its demanded $200 billion Iraq Supplemental funding even though the Bush/Cheney regime can't get its request together in a timely way.  (via Atrios.)   They appear ready to abandon the plan to impose withdrawal timetables, all in a futile effort to get a few GOPers to join them.  But why?  With the public--virtually the entire known universe on their side, why are the Dems thinking so small?  Why aren't they making the GOP own and defend this unpopular war?

And over at the economy, the jobs report showed a net loss for the first time in 4 years, the Dow Jones average is down 200 points at this moment and the subprime mortgage mess threatens to morph into a recession, at least in several of the most populous parts of the country. As if this were not enough, the cumulative debt has gone over $ 9 trillion.   This is more than the current debt ceiling of $8.965 trillion, (raised 4 times already during the Bush/Cheney regime) but there are some items that are not subject to the limit, so the Treasury may still be able to  borrow money for a short while.

With all this factual firepower and with not only the approriations power but the leverage of the debt ceiling, why oh why can't the Democrats learn to stand strong and do what the public wants instead of capitulating to the Bush/Cheney regime at every turn?

What Happens Next

by DemFromCT

Karen DeYoung has two fact-checking stories in the WaPo today on progress in Iraq. The page 1 story is about how the Iraqi army is not ready to step up, and the page 16 story is about the contradictory and confusing stats on violence (see emptywheel's take on the page 16 story):

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq
Military Statistics Called Into Question

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

The bottom line is that no matter how the PR campaign plays out, the public has already made its mind up about the war. Hard core Republicans still support it (hence the war dance at the Republican mating ritual in NH), but they don't represent a majority. So here's the new Conventional Wisdom, via Carl Leubsdorf writing in the Dallas Morning News (and acknowledging the CNN poll).

Meanwhile, the administration's effort to turn glimmers of progress into a steady light at the end of the tunnel faces the reality checks of independent observers. For example, though officials claim progress on half of the 18 benchmarks Congress set, the independent Government Accountability Office this week reached a far more pessimistic conclusion. It said the Baghdad government has met only three of the 18 with partial progress on four others.

In the end, the spate of claims and counterclaims about conditions in Iraq may offset one another, creating public confusion and leaving Congress and the public in a stalemate about the war. Public attitudes, after all, have been relatively unchanged for years.

But unless Mr. Bush and his supporters can succeed in changing the prevailing majority view that favors ending the war as soon as possible, even his ability to stage upbeat events in Iraq and win periodic fights in Congress won't give Republicans a positive terrain on which to fight the 2008 campaign.

While Larry Craig is doing his best to highlight ongoing Republican scandals, there's little good news out there in what even Republican and conservative observers describe as a bleak picture. The fundamentals aren't changing, and Republicans remain on the wrong side of the issues, including the sectarian civil war in Iraq. So far, at least, they've done nothing to take Iraq off the table for 2008. It's the reason that the fact-checkers have so much work to do whenever anything comes out of the Republican spin machine. And it's the reason predictions about the war being less of an issue in the next election are so much hot air.

Is War With Iran Imminent?

By Mimikatz

Being more or less an optimist by nature, I am generally skeptical of the stories that periodically surface claiming that we are months, weeks or even days away from war with Iran, given how insane it would be on so many levels.  But the new spate of stories has me worried.

Evidently they began with a directive sent by Vice President Cheney to various neocon think tanks to begin drumming up support for the war.  Via George Packer,

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained.

Evidently 35-40% support is deemed to be enough--that would be the 25% of the population who are Bushbots (including the neocons) and  5-10% who either profit from war or who just think things going boom is cool.

Spencer Ackerman finds a connection between our embrace of new BFFs the Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents and the talk of war with Iran.  These same Sunnis warned the US in 2005 that elections would deliver the country to Iran.  Is the increased support for the Sunnis and the undermining of Prime Minister Maliki a harbinger of a switch in who we are really backing?  Was that part of the subtext of Bush's surprise visit to Anbar?  After all, in the view of Reuel Marc Gerecht, it is the Shi'a militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, and their Iranian suppliers, who are now responsible for most American deaths.  Best we teach those pesky Iranians a lesson now.

Ackerman sees the Cheney-led campaign as directed as much at the Pentagon as the American public.

Cheney's likely motivation for issuing such instructions to his think-tank allies would be to win an inter-administration battle over the future of Iran policy. Cheney, an advocate of confronting the Iranians militarily, faces opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where the primary concern is preventing an open-ended Iraq commitment from decimating military preparedness for additional crises. A new war is the last thing the chiefs want, and on this, they're backed by Defense Secretary Bob Gates.

This theory makes war with Iran much less likely, except for one thing--The Decider.  Of all the people who seem to really get off on war, Bush has to be the head cheerleader.  And he does have a record of not listening to his generals, like Eric Shinseki.  And we know he really likes kicking (Muslim) ass.  In fact, showing them just how tough we really are is, to me, the most plausible reason for the misbegotten and mismanaged war we are still mired in.

The shakiness of the financial markets had seemed to me to argue against war with Iran, since the economic implications of war (increase in oil prices, possible damage to oil fields leading to even higher prices, China gets involved on some economic front,  stock market goes down, debt goes up, etc)  would seem to exacerbate most if not all of the problems we have now.  But The Cunning Realist thinks that events in the global finacial markets related to the packaging and selling of subprime mortgages make war with Iran more, not less, likely.  I'd like to see this theory elaborated.

In any event, if it comes to that we know that Bush doesn't think he has to ask permission to start a war.  He's the Commander-in-Chief!  And there's always the Authorization for Unlimited Military Force (that was the name, wasn't it?)  passed after 9/11 that gives him Congress' blessing.  Declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be terrorists and blaming all the weapons in Iraq (that aren't ones we gave the Iraqi Army) on them provides the provocation.  If more is needed, it can be manufactured.

So now I'm worried again.  What do you folks think?

emptywheel's Continuing Obsession with Ed Gillespie

by emptywheel

Via CREW, I see Ed Gillespie making grand promises that the GOP will have a scandal-free election in 2008.

Ed Gillespie, President Bush's counselor and a former chairman of the Republican Party, acknowledged that ethical scandals have hurt the GOP. He predicted that by 2008, the party "will not have candidates who have any kind of ethical considerations that will be a concern to the voters."

Like CREW, I'm not holding my breath that the GOP will be willing to jettison Stevens, Domenici, Doolittle, Lewis, and a slew of others.

But I'm increasingly fascinated with the prominent role of Lobbyist-in-Chief, Ed Gillespie. We now know he was included in discussions, in spring of 2006 (at precisely the time Andy Card and Scottie McClellan were ousted), about whether or not to fire Rummy. He picked up the portfolios of both Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove, two of the last hold-outs from the Texas Mafia. And now here he is, promising to do what Karl Rove couldn't do--excommunicate the corruption from the Corruption Party.

The Lobbyist-in-Chief is accruing an awful lot of power in fairly short order. Is Gillespie the guy corporate America imposed on BushCo to ensure the Republicans not lose power for all eternity? And is Gillespie the guy who told Rove and Gonzales to leave?