Obsidian Wings

Mistakes Are Expensive

by hilzoy

From the Department of Unintentional Irony, EJ Dionne:

"Yet there is another world in Democratic politics, a practical, mostly middle-aged and middle-class world that is immune to fervor and electricity. It is made up of people with long memories who are skeptical of fads and like their candidates tough, detail-oriented and -- to use a word Obama regularly mocks -- seasoned.

These are the Hillary people, and they gathered in Manassas last weekend in significant numbers at the Grace E. Metz Middle School, cozy schools being a preferred venue for a Clinton campaign aware that mammoth rallies are normally beyond its reach.

She does not lack for loyalists. Paulie Abeles of Derwood, Md., held aloft a hand-printed sign that did not mince words: "Talk Is Cheap. Mistakes Are Expensive.""

I am practical, middle-aged, and I am probably somewhere in the upper reaches of the middle class, depending on how you count these things. I think I am immune to fervor and (metaphorical) electricity. I have a very, very long memory. And I know that mistakes are expensive.

That's one of the main reasons I support Barack Obama.

***

I think this is just one more instance of what Matt Yglesias calls the "Law of Conservation of Virtues":

"The pretty girl can't be smart, the not-so-good-looking guy must be really nice -- (...) people notice that Clinton is well-versed in policy but isn't a charismatic figure, and Obama is charismatic so it "must" be that he's not well-versed in policy. He's cool and she's the nerd."

Once you think about it, this is obviously ludicrous. There's nothing about being charismatic that precludes being wonkish, detailed, and substantive. As I have argued previously, Obama is all these things. There's also nothing about not being charismatic that ensures that you are experienced or less likely to make mistakes, or that means that you have to be solid, practical, or possessed of good judgment. Even someone with no charisma at all can make terrible mistakes like this:

"Chafee writes of his surprise at “how quickly key Democrats crumbled.” Democratic senators, Chafee writes, “went down to the meetings at the White House and the Pentagon and came back to the chamber ready to salute. With wrinkled brows they gravely intoned that Saddam Hussein must be stopped. Stopped from what? They had no conviction or evidence of their own. They were just parroting the administration’s nonsense. They knew it could go terribly wrong; they also knew it could go terribly right. Which did they fear more?”

Unlike members of his own party, Democratic senators were not getting the influence, home-state goodies, White House invites and Congressional pork that goes with being in the majority. The Democrats had learned not to trust Mr. Bush before the Twin Towers and the Pentagon burst into flame on Sept. 11.

A bewildered Chafee, seeking an explanation, turned to an unnamed Democratic senator who opposed the war but was well-respected by his party’s leaders. This senator tells Chafee “in confidence” what concerned the Democrats. “They are afraid the war will be over as fast as Gulf One. Few will die, the oil will flow and gasoline will cost 90 cents a gallon.”"

Possessed as I am of a long memory, I remember that episode. Since I like my candidates tough, I do not want to vote for someone who crumbled in the face of one of those moments of national "fervor and electricity" to which I try to be immune. And, being a practical sort, I am more interested in examining candidates' actual records than in trusting some pundit -- even EJ Dionne -- to tell me who practical, detail-oriented people like me support.

*** UPDATE: Just because I feel snarky, here's Brad Plumer:

"So Hillary Clinton missed all the FISA votes today. It's a shame--the Dems trying to block telecom immunity and add surveillance oversight were badly beaten, and I'm sure Clinton's 35 years experience and legendary ability to work for change would've come in real handy."

The Texas Inferno -- Why It Helps Obama

by publius

Although I reject the whole “nothing counts until March 4” argument, I have been looking ahead to the Texas Democratic primary. Quite understandably, Clinton wants to make Texas the firewall. It is, after all, the most Clinton-friendly of the remaining big states – on paper anyway.

The problem for Clinton, though, is that Texas has an extremely arcane delegate allocation system that is structured in a way that will help Obama. The system won’t necessarily help him win, but it will help him avoid the type of blowout that Clinton so desperately needs. In short, Texas may not be much of a firewall at all.

Below, I’ve attempted to provide a basic summary of how the Texas primary will work. Be warned though – it’s extremely dense. Some who’ve sought its truths have never returned. But I, dear reader, risked it -- for you. Like Virgil before me, I will guide you through the Inferno that is the Texas Democratic primary. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here . . .

"Tough It Out."

by hilzoy

Just when I thought I couldn't be more angry about Iraq, I read this:

"A Fort Carson soldier who says he was in treatment at Cedar Springs Hospital for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse was released early and ordered to deploy to the Middle East with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

The 28-year-old specialist spent 31 days in Kuwait and was returned to Fort Carson on Dec. 31 after health care professionals in Kuwait concurred that his symptoms met criteria for bipolar disorder and “some paranoia and possible homicidal tendencies,” according to e-mails obtained by a Denver newspaper.

The soldier, who asked not to be identified because of the stigma surrounding mental illness and because he will seek employment when he leaves the Army, said he checked himself into Cedar Springs on Nov. 9 or Nov. 10 after he attempted suicide while under the influence of alcohol. He said his treatment was supposed to end Dec. 10, but his commanding officers showed up at the hospital Nov. 29 and ordered him to leave. (...)

The soldier said that on Nov. 29, he was called to the office at Cedar Springs. His squad leader, his platoon leader, his Army Substance Abuse Program counselor and two counselors from Cedar Springs “came and ambushed me.”

He said an Army alcohol counselor told him alcoholism and anxiety could not stop him from being deployed.

“They said, ‘You know what? Tough it out. All of us like to drink.’”

In the December e-mail, Tebo tells brigade leaders: “Evidently, while at Cedar Springs, he was started on psychiatric medications that should have made him non-deployable, but somehow no one was notified. He may have been pending a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but that information was not passed on at discharge. He deployed with his unit and has not been doing well here.”

In Kuwait, the soldier isolated himself. He said he had “racing thoughts” and couldn’t keep still.

“I was ... burning my fingertips with cigarettes, just anything to keep my mind off of things,” the soldier said. “I had homicidal thoughts. I don’t know at the time if I intended on doing anything. But at the time, it was there, I had homicidal and suicidal thoughts.”"

To state the obvious: bipolar disorder is serious business. A soldier with bipolar disorder isn't just a danger to himself, he's a danger to everyone around him. When he's manic, his judgment could be wildly off: feelings of grandiosity and omnipotence are no good under any circumstances, but in a war zone, they could be catastrophic. When he's depressed, he could be unresponsive, unable to react to what's going on around him. Just about the last thing you should do with someone who is bipolar is send him into battle. It's completely, utterly irresponsible: it will certainly do serious damage to the soldier himself, and could easily get people killed.

But a soldier who is bipolar and homicidal? I don't think there are words to describe how wrong it is to send someone like that to war.

Nor can I imagine what I would think if someone I knew, American or Iraqi, had been killed because of this. It's bad enough that someone you care about is killed under any circumstances. But to know that that person was killed because our government couldn't find it in its heart not to yank homicidal soldiers out of mental hospitals and send them into battle -- I just can't begin to imagine what that would be like.

And I should not have to try. We should all be able to have the minimal confidence in our government needed to feel sure that nothing like this could ever happen -- that whatever else the government might do, it would not knowingly place the lives of its own soldiers, and of Iraqi civilians, in jeopardy by deploying homicidal bipolar soldiers.

Apparently, though, that's just too much to ask.

Krugman: Sigh

by hilzoy

Paul Krugman's column today is just bizarre:

"The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again."

Note to self: whenever someone writes an article that doesn't reference any specific individual, just a mindset attributed to an entire group of people, beware.

I have no doubt that most of the venom that Krugman sees comes from Obama supporters. He has, after all, been on an anti-Obama tear for several months now. But he is an economist, and economists should know enough about basic social science techniques to be able to ask: am I working from a genuinely random sample? In the case of, say, Krugman's email, the answer would have to be: no.

Next question: are there any better sources of information out there? Well, yes. For one thing, there are the Super Tuesday exit polls:

"Nearly two-thirds -- 72 percent -- of Democratic voters said they'd be satisfied with Clinton as the nominee, and 71 percent said they'd be happy with Obama."

Or, to put the same point slightly differently:

"Just 49 percent of Democrats who voted for Clinton said they would be satisfied if Obama won, while just 52 percent of Obama voters said they would be satisfied if Clinton won."

Note that there's a lot of room between being "satisfied" and being venomous. Had I been asked, I'm not sure whether or not I would have said that I would be "satisfied" with Clinton as a nominee. As I have said earlier, I would vote for her over McCain in a heartbeat. I think she's a better nominee than Kerry, and certainly better than other nominees I have voted for (cough, Michael Dukakis, cough cough.) So if "being satisfied" with a candidate means something like that, I'd be satisfied. But it seems to me to connote something more than that: thinking a candidate is just fine, perfectly OK, not my first choice but just dandy. And I'm not sure I could feel that way about anyone who voted for the Iraq War Resolution, or who did some of the things Clinton has done this primary season.

So I might have been one of the minority of Obama voters who was not "satisfied" with Hillary Clinton. But I hope I'm a long way from "venom". I have, at any rate, argued against any sort of Democratic civil war, and I do not foresee one. Note as well that according to the exit polls, more Clinton supporters would be dissatisfied with Obama as the nominee than the reverse: even if "dissatisfaction" does mean something stronger than I'm imagining, there seems to be more of it among Clinton supporters.

The blogosphere is not particularly representative, but it's probably a lot more representative than Krugman's mail. For what it's worth, I don't see a lot of venom among pro-Obama bloggers either. I mean, does anyone think that Matt Yglesias is venomous, or consumed by hatred of all things Hillary? I don't. What about Mark Kleiman? Or Anonymous Liberal? Or, well, publius and me? We've all been supporters of Obama for a while, and I don't think any of us is particularly full of hate and bitterness. For that matter, none of us strike me as lending much support to another of Krugman's claims: that "the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality."

In any case, when we vote for President, we are not voting for someone's supporters. Even if people who support Obama are doing so in a cultish way -- and I have seen no evidence that they are, though I'm sure that every candidate has some supporters who are cultish or otherwise silly -- that's irrelevant to the choice we face as citizens.

Paul Krugman should know better than to write a column based on so little. Democrats are not consumed by bitterness and hatred. We are in the midst of an exciting primary race between two formidable candidates. I see nothing to indicate that this is anything but good for the party, and no indication that the kind of venom Krugman talks about is more widespread than usual. I'm sure that a disproportionate amount of it is ending up in his inbox, but he should know better than to base a whole column on that.

This Day In YouTube

by hilzoy

Funny:

Funny and educational!

(Via The Edge of the American West.)

More News About Democrats

by hilzoy

(1) As everyone already knows, Barack Obama won Maine in a landslide. By my calculations (based on these results), with 99% of precincts reporting, Obama has won 59.47% of the delegates to Clinton's 39.93%. (OK, I like decimal points: so sue me.) In a state that a lot of people thought might go for Clinton, that's huge. But this is almost as important:

""Around the country we've seen high Democratic turnout and Maine has joined the chorus of other voices across the nation calling for change," said Arden Manning, Executive Director of the Maine Democratic Party. "The numbers tell a story here. Earlier this month, 5,000 Republicans gathered around the state to caucus for their nominee. Today, close to 45,000 Mainers attended the Democratic caucus. The message is clear: Mainers have seen what 8 years of Republican control looks like and they are ready for a change."

Sunday's Democratic turnout exceeded the previous record, set in 2004, by almost 28,000 votes."

To repeat what I said in comments: nine times as many Democrats as Republicans caucused, and they more than doubled the previous turnout record. That's astonishing.

(2) As everyone probably also knows, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, has been replaced. There are a couple of interesting things buried in the coverage of this. First, several stories about Doyle's departure say things like this:

"The mother of two young children, Solis Doyle is like many in the campaign who had expected the nomination fight to have been wrapped up one way or another by Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, and are exhausted and somewhat demoralized to think this struggle might last weeks or even months longer."

Likewise:

"As I write, Hillary is on a campaign crisis conference call to spell out what she’s going to do to stop Obama’s momentum. But the fact is the Clintons are making it up as they go along now – they never expected anything beyond Super Tuesday to matter.

The Obama campaign, by contrast, forsaw a war of attrition and invested heavily in states like red states Nebraska – where his big win last night netted him a lot of delegates."

That the Clinton campaign wasn't planning on having to go on past Super Tuesday is supported by their bizarre explanation of Obama's victories last night:

"The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads. The Obama campaign has spent $300,000 more in Louisiana on television ads, $190,000 more in Nebraska and $175,000 more in Nebraska."

If they hadn't assumed the campaign would be over by the time they got to those states, why on earth didn't they contest them more seriously? Now it's conventional wisdom that Obama wins heartland caucus states, but this wasn't at all obvious back when the campaigns should have been making decisions about building organizations, making ad buys, and so forth.

This is just bizarre. The Clinton campaign should never have assumed that the campaign would be over after Super Tuesday. It was obvious at the 2004 convention that Obama had extraordinary political talent, and simply assuming that someone like him would not catch on -- assuming that in the way you'd have to do to base your strategy on that thought -- is a big mistake. But it's just incomprehensible if anyone in the Clinton campaign assumed that the primary campaign would be over on Super Tuesday after, say, mid-November, when it became clear that Obama was catching on. Mid-November was several months ago. The Clinton campaign has had time to adjust its strategy, and its staffers have had time to adjust their expectations. And yet none of the coverage sounds as though they have done so; nor can I see any obvious reason for them to be saying this if it isn't true.

The Clinton campaign has always struck me as strangely overconfident. They were, of course, way ahead in the polls about three months ago. But it doesn't take much political experience to learn that a lot can change in a few months, and that a lead that far out is nothing to count on. (Parenthetical note: this is why media coverage of the horserace months in advance is completely and utterly pointless, and stories about the supposed inevitability of any candidate written before a single vote has been cast are (to me) a sign that I do not have to pay attention to anything the person who writes them says in future.) They also had a candidate with strong negatives in significant chunks of the population, and one who (to my mind) has always lacked a credible story about why, exactly, she is running. There were, in addition, plenty of warning signs, like the Obama campaign's success in fundraising.

Moreover, the Obama campaign arguably had more reason than the Clinton campaign to focus on the earliest contests and slight the later ones. Obama, after all, was coming from behind. He had to win some of the early contests. If he had lost every state through Super Tuesday, it would have been all over for him. He therefore had a pretty strong reason to put everything he had into those states, and hope that whatever momentum he got would carry him through in places like Maine and Nebraska. Clinton, by contrast, only had to anticipate that Obama might win enough states to keep going to know that she had to focus on the post-Super Tuesday states. She has a lot less excuse for making this misjudgment than Obama did. But she made it, and he did not. That tells me something.

I also found this account fascinating:

"Initially, Clinton's former White House chief of staff, Maggie Williams, was brought in to run the campaign even though Solis Doyle was still there. The result was confusion and awkwardness for the staff, who weren't sure who was really in charge.

But even more problematic was the campaign's money crunch. Over the last seven years, Clinton had raised $175 million for her reelection and her presidential campaign. But Solis Doyle didn't tell Clinton that there was next to no cash on hand until after the New Hampshire primary.

"We were lying about money," a source said. "The cash on hand was nothing."

In turn, Clinton didn't tell Solis Doyle that she was lending her own money to keep the campaign afloat. Solis Doyle found out third-hand. And when she asked Clinton about it, the senator told her she couldn't understand how the campaign had gotten to such a point."

Did they actually burn through all that money? Without creating strong organizations in post-Super Tuesday states? And did they lie about it? How, and when? I'd love to see some more reporting on this.

I'm also struck by how dysfunctional the Clinton campaign sounds. When a campaign organization is set up well, a campaign manager does not discover that the candidate is making multi-million dollar loans to the campaign third hand, nor does that campaign manager fail to tell the candidate that they have serious money problems. You certainly don't have staffers not being sure who's in charge. And you probably don't have what sounds like a whole lot of people on the inside talking off the record about the various strains and divisions that led up to the firing either.

All very interesting. Stay tuned.

Biofuels. [Good God Y'all] What Are They Good For? Absolutely Nuthin.

by publius

To expand a bit on Hilzoy's point here, I’ve never been a big fan of biofuel. It especially bothered me to see poor families in places like Mexico struggling to pay higher food prices because corn was being diverted to ethanol. That said, one might argue that higher food prices are the unfortunate but necessary cost of controlling carbon emissions. The assumption of course is that biofuels actually do help control emissions. Two recent studies, however, conclude just the opposite. Confirming my “good for nuthin’” theory, the studies find that biofuels actually increase greenhouse gas emissions many times over (via Wired and NYT).

The two studies focus not so much on biofuel itself, but upon the process of its creation. The gist is that creating more cropland for biofuel production significantly increases emissions. Thus, even assuming biofuels themselves reduce carbon emissions, the production of them results in a significant net increase. The NYT explains:

The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

The studies added that diverting crops for fuel also requires new land to be cleared to replace the lost food:

Previously, Midwestern farmers had alternated corn with soy in their fields, one year to the next. Now many grow only corn, meaning that soy has to be grown elsewhere. Increasingly, that elsewhere, Dr. Fargione said, is Brazil, on land that was previously forest or savanna.

Looking ahead, there’s a very good possibility that Democrats will be running all of DC come 2009. Indeed, with the Southern Dems largely gone, it would be the most progressive American government in modern history. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I expect the new administration will push a comprehensive energy bill of some kind under those circumstances.

Currently, however, both Obama and Clinton incorporate increased biofuel production into their energy plans. Indeed, it’s hard to see a political downside to doing so. Promoting biofuels has a “green”-like appearance, and also fills the coffers of powerful political and economic interests in corn states – where, by coincidence, the first presidential primary always occurs.

It would be nice, then, to raise awareness about the problems with biofuel if for no other reason than to create some countervailing political vectors. The new administration (and the Democratic majority more generally) should understand that there are potential political costs to pushing biofuels as well – i.e., promoting ethanol shouldn’t be an all gain, no pain policy. At the very least, maybe it could provide a reason to get rid of those wretched Iowa caucuses (or at least the ordering of them).

Blowout Yesterday, Who Knows What Today?

by hilzoy

I expected Obama to win yesterday's primaries and caucusses, but not necessarily by such huge margins: 57%-36% in Louisiana, 68%-32% in Nebraska, 68%-31% in Washington, and 89.9.%-7.6% in the Virgin Islands. Obama seems to have beaten not just my projections, but his own campaign's: his campaign had projected a ten point victory in Louisiana and twenty point victories everywhere else, which was low by ten points in all three states, and way, way low in the Virgin Islands.

No one seems to know what will happen today in Maine. The Obama projections show Hillary Clinton winning narrowly. For what little it's worth, here's Pollster.com's Maine page: the last poll, taken in October, has Clinton up by 46% to 10%, with 5% for Edwards and 35% undecided. Maine seems to be one of the states in this phase of the contest that people think Clinton has a decent shot at taking, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

This is your thread for primary discussions, and whatever else you want to talk about. But you didn't need me to tell you that... :)

They Love Him Not

by publius

I know it won't really affect the outcome, but it is interesting that McCain -- just days after essentially securing the nomination -- is poised to go 0 for 3 tonight against Huckabee. It's close in those states, but still.

I'm not sure what it means, if anything. But I think it reinforces Ross Douthat's point that McCain's victory can be attributed in large part to luck. McCain won the nomination with a relatively small plurality, and with other candidates splitting the conservative vote.

That said, I think conservatives will come home in the general. But tonight's results are potentially concerning for McCain for a different reason -- namely, they illustrate not merely a weakness with the base, but weakness as a campaigner. One benefit of primaries is that they allow the best campaigners to prove themselves in Darwinian battle. To the extent McCain won by luck -- a point reinforced by the lingering hostility on display tonight -- it could mean that McCain hasn't yet proved himself ready for primetime even beyond the base. He's won, but he hasn't really won yet.

The same, of course, will not be true on the Dem side. There, it's essentially a runoff and winning will be far less Fortune-based.

[UPDATE: Speaking of Ross Douthat, this is why I enjoy reading him. In today's NYT, he sticks this delicious little shiv into the Rush/Hannity crowd:

[T]oo many of conservatism’s leaders sound like the custodians of a dwindling religious denomination or a politically correct English department at a fading liberal-arts college.

Ouch.]

Fight On

by publius

The great battle for Texas is still a few weeks away, but organization is well underway. Today, for instance, I wandered down to the opening of the Houston for Obama Volunteer Headquarters. It was essentially a rally followed by neighborbood canvassing (I skipped out for the latter – kids make that hard). The rally had several interesting aspects, but what stood out was that it confirmed just how beneficial a long, drawn-out primary battle will be for Democrats.

The traditional thinking is that parties need to select a winner as quickly as possible to raise money, define opponents, etc. And it’s easy to be jealous that the GOP has found their man, and that their man can now shift to general election mode. The Dems, by contrast, are bloodying each other up, while McCain happily goes about fundraising and wooing the press. Sigh, he had me at “maverick.”

But there are lots of benefits in stretching this thing out. Yglesias beat me to this observation, arguing that an extended primary would reap months of free favorable media coverage and would sharpen the candidates’ skills in a Darwinian sense.

I agree with all that, but there’s another dimension too – organization. Primary contests between two well-funded, well-organized Titans tend to have an “anti-Tasmanian Devil effect” in the states in which the candidates compete. Basically, the two campaigns sweep through important states, leaving – not a trail of blood and destruction – but a well-developed grass-roots infrastructure that will pay dividends in the general.

That’s what I thought about today as I watched organizers creating email lists of volunteer teams. Those lists aren’t going to magically disappear if Obama wins. Neither are Clinton’s for that matter. So long as the Dems can avoid fratricide at the convention, they are going to benefit from the “wreckage” of two sophisticated election organizations in several key states (Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, etc.).

The GOP won’t have anything similar. Iowa provides a good example. Regardless of whether Clinton or Obama wins, both candidates will have a pre-existing sophisticated infrastructure on the ground, ready to go as they say. McCain’s organization is rather meager by contrast. And it’s hard to imagine many McCain offices opening up in future primary states given that the contest is virtually over.

And of course, you really can’t overemphasize the public relations benefits of a months-long drama that puts Democrats in the headline every week or so, while McCain’s victories get relegated to page A12.

The fear of course is that the battle will leave half the party pissed off and apathetic. But I think resentment will subside approximately 5 seconds after McCain and the GOP take their first shot at the nominee. It's the whole "I can make fun of my family, but you can't" principle. It's going to be hard to tolerate those attacks on the sidelines, regardless of who you support today.