Peering Into the Future

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana
(1863–1952)

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It really is amusing to hear diehard Democrats talking about the permanent damage that would be inflicted on the Republican Party if it cannot settle on a nominee before Easter.

And that, many of them are saying, is what we can expect if Mitt Romney fails to win the Michigan primary on Tuesday.

Granted, losing Michigan would be a bad thing for Romney — for several reasons.

First of all, it is never good when a presidential candidate fails to win his home/native state — just ask Presidents Al Gore (who lost his home state in 2000) and George McGovern (who lost his home state — and damn near everything else — in 1972) — and, while Romney made his name as an adult in Massachusetts and Utah, he grew up in Michigan.

Romney has been criticized by many in his party for not being sufficiently conservative. He's probably been the steadiest of the candidates, tap–dancing his way past the deep holes into which his rivals all seem to fall as soon as they are named the latest not Romney, but he has shown little positive movement within his party, even as the others have, one by one, dropped from the race.

Instead, the next not Romney emerges — and disgruntled Republicans gravitate to the flavor of the month.

Losing the state where he spent his youth could well be interpreted as further evidence to an increasingly skeptical Republican base that Romney can't close the deal.

Second, Michigan is a large state. Presidential candidates who can't win at least some of the largest states usually don't succeed in the general election — and the Republican rank–and–file are hungry for victory this year.

Consequently, the nominee's appeal to big–state (which usually means largely urban and suburban) voters is very important.

The outcomes are generally taken for granted in some large states. For instance, in the last 20 years, Democrats have been able to depend on winning the largest one (California) as well as New York and Pennsylvania and sometimes Michigan and Ohio. That's a pretty sizable base with which to begin in the Electoral College.

Republicans have carried Texas in every election since 1980, and sometimes they carry Florida. The GOP's big–state base isn't as big as the Democrats', but it's still a good start — and I really believe that Republicans are so eager to defeat Obama that they will vote for Romney, if he is the nominee, in spite of their misgivings.

I am convinced that Texas will vote for Romney if he is the nominee — even though most Texas Republicans probably would have preferred Texas Gov. Rick Perry before he dropped out and now are likely to support Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich in the primary, even if it is held in late May (as now appears likely) and the outcome in Texas will have no influence on any other state.

Such a streak is no guarantee, of course. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry Indiana and Virginia since 1964. In 2000, West Virginia voted for a non–incumbent Republican for the first time since 1928.

It's always possible that Texas will vote for Obama — but not very probable.

Records are made to be broken, and, likewise, electoral win streaks are made to be snapped. From 1904 to 2004, Missouri was on the winning side in every presidential election except one, but the Show–Me State voted for John McCain in 2008.

Missouri may start a new streak of voting with the winning side in 2012, but, until the votes are counted in November, clues to national voter behavior must be found elsewhere.

As polarized as American politics has become, the so–called swing states — the largest of which ordinarily are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — are probably the closest things to a bellwether that one is likely to find.

But the Democrats' current dire predictions for the Republicans if they have no presumptive nominee long before their convention in Tampa are not based on bellwethers.

They are based on a flawed faith in the conventional wisdom that once anointed nominees after only a couple of small states (led by New Hampshire) held their primaries.

Extended battles for the nomination were presumed to be fatal to a party's hopes for success because the nominee would be bruised and bloodied by the process — until Obama outlasted Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' nomination in 2008 and went on to be elected.

Of course, he might not have been elected if it had not been for the economic implosion in mid–September 2008. Before that happened, there was considerable angst in the Democratic Party, with some Democrats openly suggesting that Obama should have picked Clinton, not Joe Biden, to be his running mate.

After the economy imploded and was losing jobs at a six–figure monthly pace, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Today, I hear Democrats saying that, because recent numbers have been favorable to Obama, he is becoming an increasingly sure thing for re–election. Five months ago, Republicans were saying almost the same thing — except they were talking about how the numbers showed Obama was destined to lose.

Both parties have been on the right track, but they ignore the conventional wisdom I've been hearing since I was in college. It's held up pretty well over the years, and it still seems plenty valid to me.

Here it is — in a nutshell.

My political science professors all used to say that an election that involves an incumbent is always a referendum on that incumbent — and voters make up their minds about incumbents about six months before they go to the polls.

If that part is true, then the window is still open for both Obama and his eventual opponent, whoever that turns out to be. But it will be closing soon.

Here is how things have looked for recent presidents who sought second terms about six months before the voters went to the polls:

• George W. Bush was narrowly re–elected in November 2004.
  
  His second term was such a disaster that it is easy to forget the fact that, in early May 2004, most polls showed his approval ratings just below the 50% mark, roughly even with the number who disapproved.


• Bill Clinton's approval ratings were stuck in the 40s for most of 1995, but he rebounded and, by early May 1996, his approval numbers were in the mid–50s.
  
  He was re–elected by a comfortable margin in November 1996.


• In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush was so popular that none of the top–tier Democrats wanted to run against him in 1992.
  
  But, by May 1992, a sour economy had taken its toll, and Bush's approval numbers were in the low 40s. He lost his bid for a second term to Clinton that November.


• Ronald Reagan appears to have become the role model for all modern presidents and presidential wannabes — regardless of party.
  
  Republicans have been comparing themselves to Reagan for a long time, but recently Democrats have been getting into the act. Obama's supporters have been holding out Reagan as proof that a president can overcome high unemployment.
  
  With an unemployment rate that is significantly higher than the one that existed when Reagan asked for a second term, that isn't hard to understand, but it might be hard to duplicate. Reagan's approval numbers in May 1984, when joblessness was declining sharply, were in the low 50s and on the rise. He was re–elected in a landslide.


• Obama and his supporters may try to compare their administration to Reagan's, but it is most often compared these days to the administration of Jimmy Carter — and the Carter presidency offers a cautionary tale for Obama.
  
  In May 1980, Carter's approval was in the low 40s. It was the last time Gallup found 40% or more of respondents approving of the job he was doing.
  
  Gas was selling for around $1.25 a gallon in May 1980. The price had been about 85 cents a gallon five or six months earlier.
  
  There were other factors involved in Carter's unsuccessful bid for a second term that fall, but the impact of the higher gas prices on American budgets can't be discounted.

Keep an eye on gas prices in the next couple of months — and see what kind of influence they are having on Obama's approval numbers.

I've heard experts speculate that gas prices in most parts of the country will be around $4/gallon by early May — which is, of course, when the higher prices usually kick in prior to the summer driving season. If that happens, I expect Obama's approval numbers to drop to 40 or lower.

And if that happens, it won't really matter who the presumptive GOP nominee is. He will win.

Palin's Pronouncement

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As hesitant as I am to give Sarah Palin credit for, well, anything, I actually do feel compelled to give her some credit for her observation that a brokered convention would not necessarily be a bad thing.

Folks who perpetuate the idea that it would be bad for the Republican Party, she said, have "an agenda" — which, admittedly, sounds a lot like her usual conspiracy theory talk defaming everyone in the media or the party establishment — but suspend your disbelief and/or skepticism for a few minutes, OK?

While I won't rule out the possibility that Palin is playing the rest of us for a bunch of suckers and laying the groundwork for a "Draft Palin" movement in Tampa later this year, I will concede that she makes a valid point or two, especially when you consider recent electoral history.

Four years ago, the Democrats' nominating process dragged into the summer, and the pundits said it would mortally wound the nominee.

And, I suppose, it could have if 2008 had been an ordinary political year. But it wasn't.

You couldn't tell that right after the conventions. In the first half of September, the Democrats were struggling in the polls, and there was talk that Barack Obama had made a tactical error in choosing Joe Biden to be his running mate. Some Democrats openly fretted that Hillary Clinton should have been the running mate.

Seemed like business as usual — perhaps all those months of infighting really had taken their toll.

But then the economy imploded, and voters became determined to change directions. In the last six weeks of that campaign, the tide turned irreversibly to the Democrats. If Obama had needed two ballots or more to win the nomination in August, it probably wouldn't have mattered by Election Day 2008.

From the vantage point of 2012 (and in the eventual long–term context of history), the outcome of the 2008 election might look inevitable, but it was hardly certain at the time.

Anyway, Palin's assertion challenged the (pardon the pun) conventional wisdom that conventions do not serve the same purpose in the TV age that they did in the first 150 years of the republic's existence.

In the last half century, conventions have been about making the best possible use of the free air time the parties received. Organizers of modern conventions want things to be decided outside the view of the cameras. They want their primetime coverage to present a picture of a united, harmonious party to the national audience, enthusiastic about its nominees and its platform and ready to do battle in the general election campaign.

They don't want their conventions to be discussions about important issues that engage the viewers instead of entertaining them, and they don't want prolonged battles for the nomination. They want bands and balloons and cheering delegates. Perhaps they are fearful that if a convention goes past the first ballot — and previously committed delegates are free to vote in any way that they please — that is an invitation to chaos.

But that is not necessarily so.

Democrats have been holding presidential nominating conventions since 1832. Republicans have been holding such conventions since 1856. Originally, parties made important decisions at their conventions. They nominated their candidates for president and vice president, that's true, but they also defined who they were and what they stood for in their platforms.

In a nation that was still growing, still emerging and constantly facing new challenges, that was important. It helped Americans decide which directions they wanted to take, what kind of country they wanted to have. It was the essence of democracy.

The platform–building process is still important today, but the debates (such as they are) take place weeks before the convention — under the watchful eyes of the presumptive nominee's staff.

And their overwhelming concern is how it will look on television.

Before television came along, few Americans saw what went on at a party's convention, and most read about it through the media filter. It didn't matter to them if the acceptance speeches were delivered before 10 p.m. or at 3 in the morning — or if it took several ballots to decide on a presidential nominee.

The modern assumption is that a multi–ballot convention will be a negative. But Palin says it doesn't have to be, and I agree with her on that.

A convention in which viewers do not know the outcome could generate a lot of interest, and I think that would tend to attract viewers, kind of like an athletic contest between evenly matched teams.

No organizer wants to see something like what unfolded in the streets of Chicago in 1968, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the image the country sees. Instead, it could see a group of Americans calmly and rationally discussing the pros and cons of issues that affect their countrymen and the candidates who propose to lead them.

In the past, multi–ballot conventions have sometimes produced compromise nominees, and that is one possible scenario. No one really knows what to expect, in no small part because neither party has had a multi–ballot convention since 1952, when TV was still in its infancy.

The Republicans' most recent experiences with multi–ballot conventions — in 1948, when the GOP needed three ballots to settle on Tom Dewey for the second straight election, and in 1940, when the Republicans picked Wendell Willkie after six ballots — weren't especially good.

Dewey was defeated by Harry Truman (Mitt Romney has been compared to Dewey), and Willkie lost to FDR (Newt Gingrich has suggested that this year's convention might resemble the one in 1940).

But in the pre–television days, open conventions were known to produce Republican nominees who won sometimes — Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, James Garfield in 1880, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and Warren Harding in 1920 — so it is not unprecedented.

Likewise, multi–ballot conventions produced some winners on the Democratic side — James Polk in 1844, Franklin Pierce in 1852, James Buchanan in 1856, Grover Cleveland in 1884, Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and FDR in 1932.

Don't misunderstand. There is no guarantee that an open convention will produce a winner. Nine multi–ballot Democratic conventions produced losers as did three other Republican ones (in addition to the two previously mentioned).

And you can add political scientist and historian to the lengthy (and still growing) list of things that Palin is not.

But this much is certain. Both the winners and the losers of the last 14 presidential elections were nominated in one ballot

Could a multi–ballot nominee fare any worse?

The Inevitability of Mitt Romney

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In the aftermath of Mitt Romney's victories in the Iowa caucus last week and the New Hampshire primary just two days ago, I've been hearing it all:

• Romney's nomination is inevitable.


• That may be so, but he can't beat Barack Obama.


• In fact, opinions about whether Romney can or can not win the election are all over the map. Everyone seems to have an opinion on that.

It has long been said that Republicans give their presidential nominations to the person who is next in line — in other words, whoever finished second the last time there was no incumbent.

In 1988, it went to George H.W. Bush, who served for eight years as Ronald Reagan's vice president after coming in second to Reagan in the GOP's 1980 presidential nomination race.

The runnerup to Bush 41 in '88 was Bob Dole, who was given the 1996 nomination after Bush 41 had been elected and then sought a second term.

In 2008, John McCain, who lost to George W. Bush in 2000, won the nomination. And now, it's Romney's turn.

That doesn't sit well with conservative Republicans, who frequently complain that their party's nominees aren't real conservatives.

Granted, I consider myself a centrist. I'm not qualified to pass judgment on anyone's conservative credentials, but I was a bit taken aback yesterday when I heard a conservative acquaintance loudly asserting that — with the exceptions of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan — no Republican nominee in the last half century was a conservative.

I mean, I always thought that Richard Nixon was a conservative, but this guy pointedly disputed that. I suppose conservatives still hold it against Nixon that he created the Environmental Protection Agency, but they voted for him, anyway, when the alternative was much farther to the left.

That, it seems to me, was always part of Nixon's problem. Republicans liked him well enough to vote for him, but they didn't love him, and Nixon wanted to be loved.

Maybe that is why I was drawn to a comment by Ari Fleischer, Bush 43's press secretary, for CNN.com.

"Republicans like Romney," Fleischer writes. "They think he's qualified. But they don't love Romney and many worry about his core convictions."

Polls tend to reflect that. Roughly three–fourths of Republicans are said to favor anyone who is "not Romney," but they can't agree on who that should be.

No one can say Republicans haven't examined all their options. Every other Republican in the field has been given his/her moment under the microscope and been found to be lacking. Romney may prove to be a flawed nominee — or a flawed president — but the conservatives have not coalesced behind an alternative, and, barring an unexpected twist of fate, I'm inclined to agree with Charlie Cook, who is among those who say Romney's nomination is inevitable.

Things might have been different if one of the party's right–wing heavyweights had entered the race, but they all declined to do so.

I don't know if Romney's nomination really is inevitable. I've been studying presidential politics for a long time, and I know that just about anything is possible — until it becomes a mathematical impossibility.

If Romney manages to win South Carolina, he won't be a mathematical lock to win the nomination. But most of his challengers will find it difficult to continue with financial resources drying up and the top political operatives gravitating to the apparent winner.

In the meantime, Romney will gain momentum in his drive for inevitability.

The Bland Leading the Bland

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When the Republicans gathered for their 1956 national convention, they were there to renominate a president who had been far from a sure thing to seek a second term almost a year earlier.

President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack on Sept. 24, 1955, and he had undergone surgery related to his Crohn's disease early in 1956. Thus, there was some uncertainty whether Eisenhower would seek re–election — at least initially.

However, the president bounced back, and speculation in Republican circles shifted to the question of whether the vice president, Richard Nixon, would be retained.

As a matter of fact, that was a reasonable source for guesswork — even though it seems that, in modern times, almost no vice president has been spared such speculation when the president was about to begin a re–election campaign. At least, no incumbent vice president in my memory has been considered a lock for renomination.

Until the president took it upon himself to put such gossip to rest.

Whether most, all or any of the presidents in my lifetime really were considering new running mates, I do not know. The only president in my life who actually chose a running mate other than the incumbent vice president was Gerald Ford — and neither he nor the vice president had been elected.

But there is enough evidence available that we can be reasonably certain that, in 1956, Eisenhower was interested in a new running mate.

Eisenhower, it has been said, believed Nixon was too partisan and too controversial. Ike's party had lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1954 midterm elections, and he may have wanted a vice president he thought would work better with Democrats.

Some historians have said Eisenhower approached Nixon about taking a Cabinet post. But Nixon was popular with the base of the Republican Party and, if he was asked to withdraw, he must have declined.

It's possible, too, that Ike never asked Nixon to fall on his sword.

Anyway, in the end, Nixon remained on the ticket. What's more, he re–defined the vice presidency. He used it as a platform from which he campaigned for numerous Republican candidates in 1954. In the process, he assembled a devoted network of grassroots Republican allies across the country — which may have been the reason why Eisenhower relented and kept him on the ticket. He may have wished to avoid a confrontation within the party.

That, in fact, was how Nixon built the array of connections that led to his nomination and election in 1968 — by campaigning for Republicans from coast to coast in the 1966 midterm elections. And, in 1968, Nixon pioneered the "Southern strategy" that continues to influence American politics.

But, in 1956, all that was still in the future.

It may be hard for 21st century observers to fathom, but there really was nothing particularly extreme about the 1956 Republican platform. In fact, the 1956 convention was largely absent any drama to speak of.

Consequently, when the Republicans gathered in San Francisco, there was no suspense about the identities of the nominees. There really wasn't much suspense about anything. It seems to have been a largely by–the–script convention; Eisenhower was renominated by acclamation.

But the historical perspective is fascinating — for the Republican Party that so gleefully renominated Eisenhower 55 years ago is very different today. Passages from Ike's acceptance speech testify to that.

Eisenhower may have been a rather bland, plain vanilla president, but he did possess some beliefs that were bold even for his time — and almost certainly would be considered too liberal by modern GOP standards.

"Our party detests the technique of pitting group against group for cheap political advantage," Eisenhower told the delegates.

He also said, "The Republican Party is the party of the future because it is the party that draws people together, not drives people apart."

One can only wonder what Ike would think of today's Republican Party.

The Supreme Court Nominee

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Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court is attracting considerable editorial reaction.

Much of it seems to be knee–jerk and predictable:

• The New York Times calls her an "inspired choice" who would be a "trailblazing figure."
  
  Much has been written about the quests made by previous presidents to find an Hispanic judge for the Supreme Court — in part to appeal to the fast–growing Hispanic community.
  
  But if such choices are made with the belief that it will permanently attract a large, elusive demographic to the president's party, they are misguided. Nearly 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan nominated the first woman to the Supreme Court. Reagan did win the support of women when he sought re–election in 1984 — even though the Democrats put a woman on their ticket — but the Republicans have been losing women in most elections ever since.
  
  For that matter, George W. Bush appointed both blacks and Hispanics to positions within his administration, but neither group has shown much loyalty to the Republican Party.
  
  The Times finds Sotomayor's personal story moving but is quick to add that she is "more than just a distinguished member of two underrepresented groups. She is an accomplished lawyer and judge, who could become an extraordinary Supreme Court justice."
  
  Adam Liptak writes, in the Times, that Sotomayor's judicial opinions are"marked by diligence, depth and unflashy competence," but warns that she has "issued no major decisions concerning abortion, the death penalty, gay rights or national security."
  
  Sotomayor's track record, suggests Liptak, makes her "remarkably cursory treatment" of an employment discrimination case last year "baffling." That ruling, which many observers expect to be the centerpiece in Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, "contained a single paragraph of reasoning," Liptak writes.
  
  The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court and its ruling is pending.


• The Washington Post is a bit more restrained but nevertheless approving of the selection.
  
  "Senators are right to closely scrutinize Judge Sotomayor's philosophy and qualifications," writes the Post. "She has produced a rich record of opinions as an appeals court judge for the Judiciary Committee to discuss. Senators also should remember that Mr. Obama, like any president, is entitled to deference in choosing a justice."
  
  With a solid Democratic majority in the Senate, it's hard to imagine a Democratic president encountering much difficulty winning the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee. But unforeseen things happen all the time.
  
  Even if something unexpected doesn't pop up during the confirmation hearings, there is plenty in Sotomayor's documented history to discuss — not just her rulings from the bench but her statements in speeches. The Post cites one from 2001:

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  "The aspiration to impartiality is just that — it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. ... Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases . ... I am not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, ... there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

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  The Post's Robert Barnes and Michael Fletcher write that Sotomayor is the "most controversial of [Obama's] potential nominees."
  
  They also remind readers that, assuming she is confirmed, Sotomayor may not be the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court. Benjamin Cardozo (whose 139th birthday was Sunday, by the way) was said to have ancestors from Portugal, but he never acknowledged any Hispanic lineage. Perhaps he felt being Jewish was enough of a hurdle when he was chosen to replace Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1930s.


• As I wrote on this blog last week, Bill Schneider pointed out on CNN that survey respondents felt it was more important to have a Supreme Court nominee with judicial experience than it was to have a woman, a black or a Hispanic nominated.
  
  As it turned out, Obama multi–tasked on this nomination. Sotomayor brings extensive judicial experience with her to the confirmation hearings — and she is an Hispanic female.
  
  But the New York Post seems only to see the demographics.
  
  "Once confirmed, she will join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the High Court's second reflexively liberal, Ivy League–educated, female, former appellate jurist from the Big Apple," writes the Post. "Diversity for thee, but not for me — right, Mr. President?"
  
  Even so, the Post makes a point when it asks, "[D]id Obama make the most of his first opportunity to push the High Court to the left?"
  
  The Post observes that Obama could have picked someone who had a record of defending progressive principles, and, apparently, there were several such names on his list. "It's hard to imagine any of them refusing the opportunity to attempt a principled defense of affirmative action," writes the Post, but Sotomayor, who was chosen to succeed a progressive jurist, did — in the employment discrimination case I mentioned earlier.

From what I've seen so far, Sotomayor's judicial record contains few clues as to what she might do when other cases involving issues that progressives hold dear come before the High Court.

Obama has made his position on abortion well known, but he has come across as less than supportive of gay rights or marijuana legalization, two issues that many of his supporters hoped would have a champion in the White House. Sotomayor's positions on those issues, as well as how she stands on national security issues or the death penalty, are unclear.

Even though the confirmation hearings and the Senate as a whole will be controlled by Democrats, I hope the proceedings will not be a rubber–stamp for her nomination, that we will get some idea of where she stands before she is confirmed.

If not, she may well prove to be the kind of unpleasant surprise that Souter turned out to be for George H.W. Bush — a mysterious nominee whose legal views turn out to be different from what the president anticipated.

Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy

The recent announcement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter's intention to retire has presented Barack Obama with his first opportunity to make an impression on the courts and the interpretation of the law that will last beyond the life of his presidency.

Realistically, of course, the number of vacancies that Obama may be called upon to fill, even if his presidency is only one four–year term, could be unlimited. William Howard Taft nominated six Supreme Court justices in his single term, and the ages of the current justices imply the possibility of retirement or death for more than one before the next presidential election.

More than half of the justices are 70 or older. John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by President Ford, is 89 years old. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Clinton, is 76 and has had bouts with cancer in the last decade. Antonin Scalia, who is 73, and Anthony Kennedy, who is 72, were appointed by President Reagan. And Stephen Breyer, who is 70, was appointed by President Clinton.

Thus, while he is compiling his list of prospects from which will come his choice to replace Souter, Obama would be wise to keep an eye to the future.

Last night, while I was watching CNN, political analyst Bill Schneider was discussing survey results that indicated that less than half of respondents felt that it was important for the next member of the Supreme Court to be female, Hispanic or black. I think that is good because it indicates a de–emphasis on the symbolic and superficial aspects of the appointment.

Would it be a good thing to have another woman or another black — or the first Hispanic — on the Court? Certainly. But, as George W. Bush learned to his chagrin, gender (or ethnicity) cannot be the sole benchmark for choosing a nominee.

That was reaffirmed by the results of the survey. As Schneider told the viewing audience, nearly 90% of the respondents felt it was important for the next justice to have judicial experience. That indicates that the public places a premium on practical considerations.

The Constitution established no qualifications for serving on the Supreme Court, which gave the president the authority to nominate anyone. But the nominee must be confirmed by the Senate, which means a majority of senators must find the nominee suitable for the post.

Administration officials have told CNN.com that Obama may name his nominee late this month or early next month, before he leaves for Egypt. If that is true, chances are that he has already whittled his list down to a handful of names.

Considering the low approval ratings that Congress has received from the public in recent years, the Senate would be wise to apply the confirmation yardstick that is regarded as most important by most Americans. If Obama happens to select a woman or a black or an Hispanic, that's fine. But if that person doesn't have judicial experience, that nominee may be destined for the Harriet Miers Expressway.

David Strauss, one of Obama's law school colleagues, told James Warren of The Atlantic that he doesn't see Obama as having a "Supreme Court–centered agenda. He's not trying to move the Court in a dramatic new direction or to get the Court to make important changes in society."

There are still those, however, who hope to see a nominee who will promote a progressive agenda by upholding Roe v. Wade and supporting gay rights and affirmative action while opposing efforts to implement school prayer.

And, clearly, there is a growing movement favoring the reform of marijuana laws.

There is also a movement against judges legislating from the bench, but Obama could send a powerful message by appointing someone whose judicial decisions support progressive positions.

I was reading an intriguing article today written by Matt Welch for Reason.com. It contains a cautionary tale for Obama as he makes this important decision.

"When the generation of Americans under the age of 30 gets around to realizing that this handsome young president might not be nearly as cool as they'd hoped," he writes, "it won't be hard to affix a date on when the milk began to sour. It was March 26, 2009, when Barack Obama conducted a live town hall press conference featuring questions submitted online."

During the online town hall, Obama referred to the fact that 3½ million people submitted questions to be asked, and one of the most popular questions had to do with legalizing marijuana.

The question was posed as a way of improving the economy and creating jobs, both of which are high priorities for the Obama administration. But, in spite of ample evidence that billions in tax revenue from marijuana sales could be generated and millions of jobs could be created, Obama declined to address the question.

Of course, a discussion about legalization also could have put more attention on the other benefits that could be derived, such as re–focusing the billions that currently are being spent on the "war on drugs" — which in effect criminalizes millions of hard–working and otherwise law–abiding citizens — in more productive ways — for example, using that money to pursue violent criminals.

Obama's response (or lack of one) didn't go over well with many of the younger, more socially enlightened voters who turned out to vote for him in November. He didn't seem to realize that many of those who voted for him did not do so simply because (a) he wasn't a Republican and (b) his last name wasn't Bush or Clinton. They did so because they sought a more enlightened leader than they had had in the previous eight years.

"There's little doubt about the broad mores of Generation Obama," writes Welch, "pro–choice, pro–gay, and pro–legalization. Obama's got the first one covered, but his youngest supporters are finding out quickly that on the latter two the president is not offering substantive 'change' from the last few administrations."

Nominating a judge who has been lenient about gay rights and medical marijuana and favors a more progressive federal stance on marijuana use in general would go a long way toward reassuring increasingly disenchanted Obama supporters.

The 'Hillary Hypotheticals'

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"As voters left the polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic candidate; 41 percent would have voted for McCain, wider than Obama’s 7-point margin over McCain."

Vaughan Ververs
CBS News blog

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Nate Silver of www.FiveThirtyEight.com expresses skepticism about the exit poll findings reported by Vaughan Ververs in his CBS News blog entry, which concluded that Hillary Clinton would have beaten John McCain more decisively than Barack Obama did.

Silver concedes that Clinton might have won by a wider margin — she "certainly proved herself to be an exceptionally compelling candidate," he writes, "even if her execution and staffing decisions were sometimes wanting."

Silver also suggests that the possibility exists that Clinton would have lost the general election. "I doubt you'll find too many Democrats who would be willing to take that trade," he concludes.

Let me address each of the questions he raises.

1. "Would she have handled the financial crisis with as much aplomb as Obama did?"
   
   Silver says yes. I agree.
2. "Would she have been so capable and reassuring in the debates?"
   
   Silver says, "Almost certainly." Again, I agree — although both parties held numerous debates before the primaries — and continued to hold debates once the primaries had begun. By October, both of the nominees had been through the debate process so many times that it was almost as routine as their stump speeches.
   
   I don't think that was a factor for the presidential nominees — nor would it have been if the Democrats had nominated Clinton.
3. "Would she have had an easier time resonating with working class voters in places like Missouri and West Virginia?"
   
   Silver says yes, and, again, I see no reason to contradict that conclusion. Clinton won the West Virginia primary handily — 67% to 26% — and, although Obama won the Missouri primary narrowly (49% to 48%), he appears to have lost the state in the general election.
   
   Nearly two weeks after the election, Missouri remains too close to call. If McCain is declared the winner of Missouri, Obama will be the first winning candidate to lose the state since Dwight Eisenhower more than 50 years ago.
   
   It would be the first time in my lifetime that Missouri has been on the losing side.
   
   At this point, Silver brings out his big guns.
4. "[W]ould she have managed the media as deftly as Obama did?"
   
   Silver is uncertain.
   
   As for myself, I can say that I've been observing Hillary Clinton longer than most Americans.
   
   I grew up in Arkansas, graduated from high school and college in that state and continued to live there until 1988. Hillary was the state's first lady for most of the last 10 years I lived there, including a period when she headed up the effort to improve the state's schools, holding open, public meetings in each of Arkansas' 75 counties.
   
   When Hillary became America's first lady, she had already been on my personal radar for nearly two decades — ever since 1974, when her husband was narrowly beaten in a race for Congress.
   
   When you combine those years in Arkansas with eight years as the nation's first lady and nearly eight years as a U.S. senator, that's roughly three decades of dealing with the media. And I speak from experience when I say that she didn't have a cakewalk when she was in Arkansas.
   
   There were certainly those in the Arkansas media who didn't exactly fawn over her.
   
   She hasn't always exhibited a golden touch — few people in the spotlight have — but I think her success in that regard would have depended upon whether her staff resolved to "let Hillary be Hillary."
   
   If her staff interfered, that probably would only make things worse — so the crucial part of the answer to that question, I think, would be determined by who was on her staff for the general election campaign.
5. "Would Republican attacks on Bill Clinton and Kazakhstan [have] been as counterproductive to their cause as their effort to link Barack Obama and Bill Ayers?"
   
   Again, Silver is noncommittal. "Maybe," he writes, "or maybe not."
   
   Surely, I think Republicans would have connected those dots as they tried to do with Obama and Ayers. But Clinton is no stranger to the "guilt by association" tactic, and I feel she would have been able to avoid being tarred with that brush.
6. "Would she have matched Obama's field organization and raised as much money?"
   
   "Doubtful," says Silver — without elaborating.
   
   Why is it doubtful? All the polls I've seen, even the ones cited in this discussion, suggest the exsitence of an overpowering hunger for change in this country after eight years of George W. Bush.
   
   I think there were people who were ready to contribute to whichever Democrat won the nomination, so great was that desire for a different direction.
   
   Now, Obama had a clear edge in fundraising when he was running against Clinton — but once the campaign for the nomination was resolved, I'm sure Hillary's army of dedicated supporters would have pledged money — as well as volunteer efforts — to her campaign.
   
   I don't know if she would have matched Obama's total — but I think the desire for change was strong enough to generate contributions for any Democratic nominee that exceeded what we've seen in the past. After the economic meltdown, I think Clinton would have benefited from both the desire for change and the nostalgia for the sense of economic well-being that existed during the years of her husband's administration.
   
   If Obama had won a narrow victory — in spite of his tremendous advantage in contributions — I would be inclined to give more weight to the argument about fundraising. But Obama won the election by margins of more than 8 million popular votes and a Clintonesque 95 electoral votes.
7. "Would her campaign have had the same steely confidence as Obama's did after the Republican convention bounce?"
   
   "Unlikely," Silver writes — again, no elaboration.
   
   I don't know why it would have been unlikely, given the many campaigns in which Clinton has participated in her life — as well as the grueling campaign for the nomination that she would have just survived.
   
   It might have depended more upon who was on her staff in the general election campaign — but, as the nominee, I would assume that she could have her pick of the best advisers from the staffs of the vanquished.
8. "Would she have delivered as strong a speech as Mr. Obama did in Denver?"
   
   "Iffy," writes Silver.
   
   I'm inclined to acknowledge that Obama is more skilled as an orator than Hillary — but, as the nominee, her speech wouldn't have been compared to Obama's (which wouldn't have occurred, if Hillary had been nominated).
   
   The only way her speech would have been a factor in the campaign would have been if she committed a serious gaffe while delivering it.
9. "Would she have catalyzed near-universal turnout in the black community?"
   
   "No," Silver says.
   
   I'll concede that point — but was it essential for victory over John McCain?
   
   Prior to 2008, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had ever nominated a non-white — but Democrats still enjoyed high levels of support from black voters. I've seen no indication that blacks would have abandoned the Democrats if Obama had not been nominated.
   
   Certainly, they might have been disappointed. But before Obama emerged as the front-runner, opinion polls suggested that a majority of blacks were supporting Clinton.
10. "If Hillary Clinton had headed the Democratic ticket, would John McCain have been dumb enough to name Sarah Palin as his running mate?"
    
    "One would hope not," Silver writes.
    
    Ah, now we come to a female factor that really is being credited with influencing the outcome.
    
    My contention all along has been that Palin was selected — in part — as a blatant appeal for the votes of women who were believed to be disgruntled over Hillary's defeat. Women have tended to support Democrats in the past, although minority women have been more inclined to do so than white women (I wrote about this in late August — on the day McCain announced Palin was his choice to be his running mate).
    
    If that was truly the case, that Palin was chosen to mollify women, it was clearly a miscalculation. As it turned out, women supported Obama by 56% to 43%.
    
    With Hillary as his opponent, McCain wouldn't have felt that constituency was in play, although, at that point, he might have been more inclined to follow the advice I gave in May and picked a black man as his running mate.
    
    Granted, that pool isn't as deep in the Republican Party as the pool of women — but there are clearly some options he could have taken.
    
    And, in hindsight, perhaps he should have taken my advice anyway. My sense is that Palin didn't help McCain any more than the selection of Geraldine Ferraro helped Walter Mondale 24 years ago.
    
    Perhaps that was because, in both cases, the voters had already made up their minds — and the gender of the running mate for the other ticket made little, if any, difference.
11. "Might McCain have been smart enough to hire Mike Murphy rather than Steve Schmidt, campaign on themes of bipartisanship, honor, and good government, and appeal as much as possible to independent voters (as the political climate dictated that he ought to have done in the first place)?"
    
    "Who knows," writes Silver. "He just might have figured it out."
    
    I don't know if that part would have changed if Hillary had been the nominee. I suppose that depends on one's evaluation of McCain — and what his probable response to running against a woman would have been.
12. "And what would Clinton's numbers have looked like after the Republicans had gotten done accusing her of being a socialist, a puppet for her husband, and an all-around conniving you-know-what?"
    
    Silver gives no answer to this one.
    
    And it can only be given a subjective response, anyway — like most of his other points.
    
    I do know that I heard Obama accused of being a socialist by many of the right-wing radio hosts — so if Hillary had been the nominee and had been accused of being a socialist, I presume the response by the voters would have been about the same.
    
    No one accused Obama of being a "puppet" for his wife, although I frequently heard those radio hosts complain about Michelle Obama's statement that she was proud of her country "for the first time." A candidate's spouse is often a political target, deservedly or not. When the candidate's spouse happens to have been president for eight years, of course, that's a unique situation, one for which we have no precedent.
    
    But the Clintons have been handling that kind of criticism since the "two-for-the-price-of-one" concept was first introduced during the 1992 campaign.
    
    As for that third accusation, well, I heard complaints during the general election campaign that Obama was too glib, too smooth by half. I suppose, when a candidate appears to be headed for a defeat, his/her campaign staff will latch on to anything it thinks will turn the tide.
    
    If it fails to do so, and the candidate loses as expected, those staffers are usually prepared to point the finger of blame at anyone or anything else — as we've seen many of them do with Sarah Palin since the votes were counted and the Republicans came up on the short end of the stick.

Silver offered no evidence that supported the idea that Clinton wouldn't have beaten McCain in the election.

In fact, considering the pitiful condition of the economy, I'm inclined to believe that talk suggesting Clinton — or any Democrat — would have lost to McCain is merely that — talk.

What I Want to Hear Tonight

Tonight, John McCain accepts the Republican Party's nomination for president.

He is sure to talk about foreign policy — how he feels about the war in Iraq, how he feels about security issues, his personal saga during his service in Vietnam.

We will hear much of McCain's personal story.

Much of it, I've already heard.

Did you hear the news today? The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 344.65 points today — that's 3%.

For everything, there is a reason ...

And, in this case, the plunge in the stock market may well be connected to an increase in unemployment claims last week.

"The bad news outweighed a jump in worker productivity and a report showing growth in the nation's service sector," write Howard Schneider and Neil Irwin in the Washington Post.

Michael M. Grynbaum writes, in the New York Times, that some investors will be watching Friday's monthly employment data for clues as to why recessionary concerns that have been lurking for months would have a seemingly sudden impact on the stock market.

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"Speculation focused on fears about the direction of the economy, though it remained unclear why anxieties that have been around for months would suddenly take hold. Some investors said they were worried about the unemployment report for August, which will be released Friday. Economists expect the economy to have shed another 70,000 jobs last month; a worse-than-expected showing would be an ominous sign for the economy’s health in the rest of the year."

New York Times

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In a complex economy, everything is connected.

I know McCain has said that economics isn't his strongest area. But the economy affects average Americans. So, while he's preaching to the choir on Iraq, it would be helpful for voters if McCain set aside a few minutes to talk about unemployment and high prices.

They might not be his biggest applause lines. But McCain's economic strategy is important.

There are voters who are struggling. They need to hear what the Republican who wants to be president intends to do about the economy.

I want to hear what McCain is going to do.

Does he have a plan for stimulating the economy and producing new jobs?

Is he going to rely on a team of economic experts to help him make decisions?

Does he propose a proactive or reactive presidency?

Before the voters go to the polls, they will want answers to these and many other questions.

World Reaction to Obama's Nomination

As the Republicans gather for their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, this week, it may be helpful to see what the world's reaction is to Barack Obama's historic presidential nomination in the other major party.

• Simon Jenkins writes, in the Times of London, that Obama's acceptance speech last Thursday was "an epic performance."
  
  Jenkins puts it this way: "Every American voter casts a de facto proxy vote for the disenfranchised millions who consume America’s foreign and military policy abroad ... Obama’s global popularity lead over McCain is thus more than a beauty contest. Were he to be elected, his country would unquestionably experience an immediate and dramatic surge in popularity."


• The Times of India raises the tired, old points about Obama's names.
  
  On the (at this stage) remote chance that you are unfamiliar with those points, Obama's middle name is Hussein (which is, obviously, the name of Iraq's deposed and now deceased dictator), and "Obama" sounds an awful lot like "Osama."
  
  (On the subject of his name, I've even read one article in which it was suggested that it doesn't take much of a stretch to make the Democratic ticket sound quite a bit like the name of America's top living nemesis — i.e., Obama bin Biden.
  
  (I ask you, is that a legitimate argument for or against either side?)
  
  Even if his middle name and surname are reminiscent of the most notorious American enemies of the last two decades, the Times speaks optimistically about what Obama's campaign means.
  
  "[T]hese are momentous times in America," says the Times. "It might not translate fully on November 4 into a 'Black man goes to the White House,' kind of storied ending, but Barack Obama has brought colour and panache to the usually monochromatic US elections.
  
  "Here’s a man who did not feel the need to change his name to 'Bobby' or whitewash his views to wow the mainstream. He just let it all hang out."
  
  Well, actually, I believe Obama went by the first name of "Barry" when he was young.
  
  But he's gone by "Barack" for most, if not all, of his adult life.


• Despite the glow among Democrats after their convention in Denver, the GOP designation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the presumptive vice presidential nominee has "dragged the spotlight back to John McCain," says The Scotsman.
  
  The paper acknowledges that the selection "was cleverly designed to inject some youth and enthusiasm into the Republican ticket, together with a reminder to Hillary Clinton supporters that McCain, for one, was happy to put a woman in the White House."
  
  It remains to be seen if that will make the difference in the election.
  
  However, The Scotsman says, "This newspaper ... believes Obama should take over from George Bush. ... But we will not decide the outcome of this election. ... [F]or all the dazzling speeches and hope of change, Obama might not win."


• Der Spiegel writes about the "staged unity" at the convention.
  
  "The fact that the Clintons' two speeches calling for voters to back Obama were treated as great events attests only to the absence of real events at the convention," writes Der Spiegel.
  
  Well, in case you hadn't noticed, the main goal of the modern political convention is to give the appearance of a party unified behind a candidate and a message. It is supposed to be a positive experience.
  
  If there are no "real events" (read: real news), then the convention is a success in the eyes of the party officials.
  
  We all saw — in 1992 — how much the Republicans struggled when the overall tone of their convention was perceived by the public to be negative.
  
  And some of us are old enough to remember the problems the Democrats had after TV cameras broadcast the clashes in the streets between the Chicago police and the demonstrators in 1968.
  
  In the age of television, perception has become reality. The modern convention is about style — not necessarily substance.
  
  Entertainment — not education.


• Michael Gershon of the Calgary Herald wasn't impressed with Obama's speech.
  
  "The setting invited comparisons to John F. Kennedy," Gershon writes. "The anniversary invited comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr. The stage invited comparisons to Zeus."
  
  But the speech did not live up to the invitations, he says. "In tone, Obama's big speech was small, partisan, often defensive and occasionally snide. ... And some of the attacks were simply unfair."
  
  The speech was "aggressively unexceptional, as if he set out to be unmemorable," Gershon writes. "Ronald Reagan drew lines from Clint Eastwood movies: 'Go ahead, make my day.' Obama drew his tag line — 'Eight is enough' — from a 1970s sitcom. (The song, you might remember, goes, 'Eight is enough to fill our lives with love.')"

The Plot Thickens ...

John McCain is only a few hours from naming his running mate.

And the choice remains a closely guarded secret.

The "favorites" who appeared to be emerging last night are not turning out to be such hot prospects in the light of the new day.

CNN's Dana Bash has been reporting this morning that the Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty camps are both saying that their men will not be traveling to Ohio to be with McCain today. And I've also heard reports — apparently from Ridge himself — that the former Pennsylvania governor doesn't plan to be in Ohio today, either.

If you read my earlier blog entries, both Romney and Pawlenty were being mentioned prominently last night — especially Pawlenty. Ridge seems to have cooled off quite a bit.

Bash is also saying that a "mysterious" airplane from Alaska — possibly carrying Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and two teenagers — arrived in Ohio in the last few hours.

Palin, of course, has been mentioned as a possible running mate — although her name hasn't been mentioned very often lately. Even so, if the running mate turns out to be Palin — or another woman, whether her name has been mentioned in connection with the running mate spot or not — such a choice may be intended to lure disaffected supporters (especially females) of Hillary Clinton.

However, reports from Alaska suggest that Palin is still in her home state.

If true, that would make it awkward — if not impossible — for her to travel to Ohio in time for the big rally McCain has planned for mid-day.

In Denver, which just played host to the Democratic National Convention, an Associated Press report in the Rocky Mountain News is saying that Palin is emerging as the favorite. "Two GOP strategists close to the McCain campaign said all indications pointed to Palin, 44, a self-styled 'hockey mom' and political reformer."

I guess we'll have to wait until McCain is ready to make his announcement.

If 'Ifs' and 'Buts' Were Candy and Nuts ...

We have the latest entry in the "what-if" contest.

(A friend of mine sent me the link to this story, and he included this observation in his e-mail: "Interesting theory."

(That's about all it is, I think. A theory.)

Hillary Clinton's former communications director apparently tells ABC News that he believes Clinton would have won the nomination if the media had come up with the goods to force John Edwards out of the race when the story of his affair was first making the tabloids late last year.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Howard Wolfson told ABC.

If you recall, Edwards edged past Clinton for second place in the Iowa caucuses way back on January 3. We don't have actual vote totals, just percentages.

And caucuses are handled differently in each state — in Iowa's Democratic caucuses, as I remember, a preliminary vote at a caucus only serves to eliminate those candidates whose support level can't reach a certain percentage in that particular caucus location.

A second vote is taken without the candidates who couldn't clear the bar — and that is the vote that is reported from that location.

Anyway, when all had been said and done, Barack Obama had 38% in Iowa, Edwards had 30% and Clinton had 29%.

There were five other candidates (Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich) who accounted for 3% as a group — I presume they were all removed from consideration in the elimination round at most of Iowa's caucus locations.

Wolfson clearly believes that Clinton would have won most of Edwards' supporters.

He has the right to believe what he wants to believe, but I don't think it's quite that cut and dried.

• Just taking the figures that we have, by removing Edwards' name, we suddenly have nearly one-third of Iowa's caucus participants who are left without a candidate.
  
  In order for Clinton to pull even with Obama, she would have to win nearly one-third of Edwards' supporters. That would still leave two-thirds of his supporters for Clinton, Obama and the other five candidates to fight over.
• Who would have won at that stage of the campaign? By most accounts, Clinton was the front-runner going into the caucus. Obama had not yet emerged as the anti-Clinton.
  
  Would Obama have outdueled Clinton for the majority of the remaining Edwards supporters?
  
  Or would one of the other Democrats — Richardson, perhaps, or Biden — have benefited from Edwards' withdrawal?
  
  See, I don't think it's a given that Edwards' withdrawal would have meant that all his supporters would automatically gravitate to any particular candidate.
  
  I also don't believe the Edwards supporters were ready for the race to be narrowed to Obama vs. Clinton at that point.
  
  If anything, I got the impression from Edwards' supporters (and I was one of them) that they were looking for a break with the past. But, like any large group, the individuals had their own ideas of what kind of break they wanted.
  
  For some Edwards supporters, Clinton would have been an acceptable alternative — as indeed she was for some former Edwards supporters in the primaries and caucuses that came after his actual withdrawal in late January.
  
  For other Edwards supporters, Clinton wasn't enough of a break with the past. Her husband was president for eight years, and she's been in the Senate for the nearly eight years since the end of his administration.
  
  Sixteen years in Washington doesn't make you an outsider.
  
  These Democrats were wary of adding to the Bush-Clinton dynastic duel that has been going on now for 20 years (longer if you include the elder Bush's eight-year president-in-training period as Ronald Reagan's sidekick).
  
  Some, if not all, of the former Edwards supporters in Iowa might have decided that neither Obama nor Clinton were satisfactory. They might have breathed new life into Richardson's campaign — or Biden's — or Dodd's.
• I am reminded of the 1992 election. At the time, I was living in Oklahoma, a rock-ribbed Republican state where Clinton ran stronger than Democrats usually do, although George H.W. Bush prevailed — as Republican nominees inevitably do in Oklahoma.
  
  Many of the Republicans with whom I spoke about the election believed that, if Ross Perot had not been in the race, Bush would have been re-elected. As you may recall, Perot finished an extremely strong third with nearly 19% of the vote nationally (that was nearly 20 million votes).
  
  Those Republicans made the same mistake Wolfson makes. They assumed that a large bloc of suddenly uncommitted voters would naturally support their candidate.
  
  But the exit polls I saw after that election were not conclusive.
  
  Exit polls of those who voted for Perot indicated that, if Perot had not been on the ballot, about 40% would have voted for Clinton, another 40% would have voted for Bush, and the remaining 20% would not have participated at all.
  
  Whether we're talking about Ross Perot in 1992 or John Edwards in 2008, the fact is that the people who supported them supported changing the status quo.
  
  In 1992, George H.W. Bush represented the status quo. It never seemed logical to me that nearly 20 million people who voted for Perot (and, as a group, adopted the rebellious "United we stand!" as their motto) would have voted to retain the status quo if Perot's name hadn't been on the ballot.
  
  It always seemed more logical to me that they would have looked for another option or they wouldn't have voted at all.
  
  I've always given Perot credit for bringing millions of Americans into the political process. I hope many of them have continued to participate.
  
  But I never bought the idea that he took more votes from the status quo candidate than he did the challenger.
  
  In 2008, Hillary Clinton represented the status quo in her party. She had been first lady for eight years. She had been in the Senate for eight years. And she was the front-runner for her party's nomination.
  
  I'm not sure she would have been the beneficiary of Edwards' withdrawal before the Iowa caucus.
  
  But neither is it certain that Obama would have been the recipient of that (pardon the expression) windfall.

Let's assume, just for a minute, that Edwards was forced out of the race in early December. No one had won anything yet. No one had momentum (the "Big Mo," as George H.W. Bush famously said) — other than whatever momentum Clinton had from the perception that she was leading the pack. Edwards' supporters would have been in a position to alter the dynamics of the race. If, as Wolfson suggests, the majority of them had piled on Clinton's bandwagon, we might be anticipating her nomination later this month. Or perhaps they would have gravitated to Obama. He might have secured the nomination earlier than he did. Or perhaps they would have opted to support someone else. They might have rallied behind Bill Richardson — would he have proven more popular among Iowa's caucus goers than Obama or Clinton? He might have, considering the political résumé he brought to the table. Or they might have lined up behind Joe Biden. His experience in foreign affairs might have seemed particularly appealing, even timely, considering the fact that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated just a week before the Iowa caucus (and gas prices hadn't yet careened out of control). But Biden has been a part of the Washington establishment for more than 30 years. He might have been seen as too much of a status quo candidate. And that doesn't even consider the possibility that another Democrat — perhaps a prominent one, like recent nominees John Kerry or Al Gore — might have decided to enter the race. Gore, who won the popular vote as the Democrats' 2000 nominee and won the Nobel Prize last year for his efforts against global warming, seems like a particularly plausible prospect. But both Gore and Kerry might have been seen as too entrenched in the establishment — even though Gore has held no elective office since leaving the vice presidency. And a movement to persuade Gore to run was launched by supporters in October. If Edwards had withdrawn before the Iowa caucus, that might have been the nudge Gore needed to try again. To me, this is another example of the truth of the old adage, "Timing is everything." It's a what-if that can't be resolved. And it's pointless, at this stage, to try. My gut feeling is that Clinton wasn't going to win in Iowa. And Jon Cohen appears to agree with me in a Washington Post blog entry. "It is a pure hypothetical, of course, and the entire dynamics of the contest would have been different without Edwards," writes Cohen. "But the public data do not bolster the notion that Clinton would have won." Want some facts?

1. Obama will be nominated later this month. He will give his acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
2. Hillary Clinton will speak at the convention. She will address the delegates about a week after the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in the United States.
3. It seems doubtful to me that she will be chosen to be his running mate.

That's reality.

A Tale of Two Speeches

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Tonight, I've been musing a little about the funny games that history sometimes likes to play with mere mortals like us.

No, this isn't a tricky lead-in to Kenneth Walsh's latest installment in his series of articles in U.S. News & World Report about the most consequential U.S. presidential elections — although, while I'm on the subject, I do recommend this week's article, which is on George Washington's election as president in 1789.

Actually, what I'm talking about is something that anyone who is over 40 should remember — at least in part.

If you're my age or older, you probably remember both events.

I refer to Richard Nixon — who may have experienced the highest of his political highs and the lowest of his political lows on two August 8ths.

On this date in 1968, Nixon accepted the Republican nomination for president at his party's convention in Miami.

Now, being nominated for president was not a new experience for Nixon — he had been nominated in 1960. But the circumstances were different.

Nixon was part of the incumbent administration when he lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960. As such, he was required to defend and support the record of the Eisenhower administration.

Defending a record requires different skills than attacking a record. And Nixon's style was more suited for the role of attacker.

He was always a combative politician, whether he was staring down Alger Hiss early in his congressional career or challenging allegations of a secret fund in his "Checkers" speech as a vice presidential candidate.

Or fighting to keep possession of his tapes during the Watergate scandal.

By 1968, the incumbent Democrats had achieved great things domestically, but they were unpopular because of the Vietnam War. And the economy struggled at times under Lyndon Johnson.

Nixon came to Miami prepared to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire.

The question, he said in his acceptance speech, was "whether we shall continue for four more years the policies of the last five years?"

(With a few modifications, that isn't a bad model for Barack Obama to follow as he prepares his acceptance speech for later this month. It might serve to re-focus the debate.)

On that August night in 1968, when Nixon accepted the nomination and unveiled his new catch phrase, "the silent majority," he did so with the knowledge that, if he could contain George Wallace's support in the South, he had a good chance of winning the election.

And being president was the thing he coveted most in life.

With the exception of five Southern states that voted for Wallace that November, Nixon did manage to contain him enough in the South to win the election. It was another cliffhanger, just like the one Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960.

Six years later, speaking to the nation from the Oval Office, Nixon announced that he would resign the next day.

In 1968, Nixon chastised the opposition, as a good nominee is expected to do. "When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight ... when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy ... "

Historian Theodore H. White called the speech a "return to the tested themes of the primaries," and it united the delegates on that evening, giving the Nixon-Agnew ticket some momentum heading into the fall campaign. But Nixon barely hung on to win the election, and, after taking office in January 1969, he struggled with both the war and the economy until the Watergate scandal overwhelmed his administration.

That is one of the ironic twists of the story.

In the history books, it says that Nixon resigned on August 9 — and, indeed, he did. Gerald Ford was sworn in as president that day, and the Nixons flew home to California.

For drama, Nixon's farewell to the White House staff on the morning of August 9 had no equal. Later, Nixon's son-in-law, David Eisenhower, reported believing that Nixon was about to come mentally unhinged as he lurched through a maudlin, sentimental, nationally televised speech that paid tribute to his mother ("She was a saint," Nixon told the staff) and spoke unself-consciously of a need for "good plumbers" in America (if you weren't around in those days, a little background may be useful here — "plumbers" was the name that was given to Nixon's secret goon squad that was assigned to squelch political leaks).

As a speech, the one Nixon gave on Aug. 8, 1974, announcing his intention to resign the next day, is really memorable only for what it represented — the American Constitution had emerged as dominant even over the most powerful official in the land.

Contrary to the implications of Nixon's behavior, the president was not above the law. And that means that no one is above the law.

But I have to wonder if some of Nixon's words from his 1968 acceptance speech didn't come back to haunt him, even as he announced plans to voluntarily give up the office he had desired so long.

"When the president of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration," Nixon told the GOP delegates in Miami in 1968, "then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America."

As Nixon was delivering his address in 1974, announcing that he would resign, protesters had gathered near the White House and were chanting, "Jail to the Chief."

It was, as Nixon had proclaimed six years earlier, "time for new leadership."

The Nomination of the Not-Clinton

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"I am not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat."

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

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Father Raymond J. De Souza makes an interesting point in National Post about Barack Obama winning the majority of Democratic delegates.

"Whatever else he might accomplish," De Souza says, "Senator Barack Obama has prevented the restoration of the Clintons. ... It was partly about him, but mostly about her. Many have remarked that in the identity-politics world of the Democratic Party, the first credible black candidate trumped the first credible woman candidate."

For all intents and purposes, it really came down to Obama vs. Clinton in the earliest days of 2008, when Obama won the Iowa caucuses. A few diehard Democrats -- most notably John Edwards and Bill Richardson, but there were a few others -- stayed in the race beyond New Hampshire the following week.

But I believe it was Iowa that anointed Obama as Clinton's challenger for the nomination.

De Souza thinks the "formidable power of being the not-Clinton first became clear" a couple of weeks after the Iowa caucuses -- when Michigan held its primary ahead of schedule and only Clinton's name appeared on the ballot. Clinton won, but an uncommitted slate of delegates received about two-fifths of the vote.

At that point, the voters' desire for an alternative was clear.

"Obama became the chosen instrument for those who fervently wished to prevent the Clintons from coming back," De Souza writes. "In this race, being the not-Clinton was as important as being black."

There's an interesting dynamic at work in America regarding the Clintons. Bill Clinton remains popular as a former president, remembered fondly for presiding over an economic boom and a period of relative peace. He is, after all, one of only three Democrats (along with Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt) to serve two full terms as president in the 20th century.

(By contrast, the Republicans only had two -- Eisenhower and Reagan -- although it may seem like more because Theodore Roosevelt served almost all of William McKinley's second term after McKinley was assassinated, three different Republicans were elected in succession in the 1920s and Richard Nixon was elected twice but didn't complete his second term. Actually, there's another Democrat -- Harry Truman -- who served almost eight full years, succeeding FDR a mere three months into Roosevelt's fourth term.)

But Clinton brings with him personal baggage. And there is no question there are many people who hate him. Thanks to his own behavior on the campaign trail, the list now includes many blacks who regard him with suspicion after looking upon him as a friend during his presidency.

So there is a tug-o-war going on between appreciation for the accomplishments of Bill Clinton's presidency and resentment for the promise that went unfulfilled because of his personal flaws. I suspect it's a dichotomy that Clinton will have to live with for the rest of his life, much as Richard Nixon had to live with the memory of Watergate balanced against some impressive achievements in his presidency and Lyndon Johnson had to accept that his domestic record seemed to be permanently buried beneath his woeful record in foreign affairs.

Clinton clearly inflicted some wounds on his wife's campaign. Is that at the core of Hillary's defeat? Perhaps. I have heard some of her supporters bitterly blaming Bill for her defeat -- although, before the primaries began, Bill was regarded as an asset for his wife's campaign.

I don't want to rub salt in an open wound. Let me just say that I think Bill was a factor in the outcome. I don't believe he was the sole cause of it.

Yes, it's true, as De Souza says, that whoever emerged as the "not-Clinton" in this race would be the candidate Hillary would have to beat to claim a nomination that most people believed she was probably going to win. Obama got the boost in Iowa and that gave him the momentum to move past the other contenders, even though Hillary made a comeback the next week in New Hampshire and won uncontested races in Florida and Michigan shortly thereafter.

But it's also true that the Clinton campaign was run sloppily by a staff that made no preparations for a drawn-out race and had no rationale for the election of its candidate.

When it came right down to it, the Clinton campaign really couldn't offer much more of a rationale for Hillary's election than Ted Kennedy could provide when asked in an interview nearly 30 years ago why he should be president instead of incumbent Jimmy Carter.

The rationale for both, basically, was "I'm entitled."

If they had been running for the Republican nomination, that might have worked.

Republicans have a tradition of giving their nomination to the one "whose turn it is." This year, it's John McCain's turn (much to the chagrin of many true believers in the Republican Party). In 1996, it was Bob Dole's turn. In 1988, the GOP rewarded George H.W. Bush for eight years of service as Ronald Reagan's vice president. And it was Reagan's turn in 1980, because he had lost a close race to Gerald Ford four years before.

You don't have to be next in line to win the Democratic nomination. In fact, sometimes it seems that Democrats prefer to nominate someone most people hadn't heard of before the primaries -- like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or Michael Dukakis.

Sometimes it seems that being the Democrats' front-runner early in the process is like receiving the kiss of death.

And sometimes, it seems, the kiss of death is actually winning the nomination.

Obama's Destiny -- Is He Al Smith or JFK?

John Judis asks an interesting question in The New Republic: Is Obama Al Smith or John F. Kennedy?

"[P]undits will mostly gauge Barack Obama's prospects ... by looking at states he can win or constituencies he can carry," Judis writes.

"He represents a social group that was once on the margins of American politics, but now aspires to put one of its own in the highest office. This has happened once before in U.S politics: when American Catholics saw one of their own nominated to be president."

The trailblazer to whom Judis refers, however, is not John F. Kennedy in 1960. It's Al Smith in 1928.

Smith became the first Catholic to be nominated for president -- in a nation that was created by mostly Protestants who came to America in part to get away from the grip of Rome. There was a deep religious divide in America when Smith was nominated, and he lost to Herbert Hoover.

How much of a role did religion play in Smith's loss? I don't know. But no more Catholics were nominated for president until John F. Kennedy was nominated 32 years later.

It's been 80 years since Smith's groundbreaking nomination. It was symbolic at the time, but it paved the way for better things to come.

"Kennedy's success removed a political stigma from Catholics," says Judis, "to the extent that it is no longer a serious question whether a Catholic can win the presidency, and a Catholic candidate like John Kerry is seen (except by his most fanatical co-religionists) as first and foremost an American politician rather than a representative of his faith."

As the first black nominee, Obama's ultimate role in the history books may be the same as Smith's -- or maybe he will bypass that and, like Kennedy, be elected.

Certainly, I believe it won't take eight decades before a black candidate is regarded as "first and foremost an American politician" rather than a "representative" of his -- or her -- race.

Whatever the outcome in November, the ground has been broken.

Likewise, the ground has been broken for women, too.

Obama will be the nominee. But he and his staff should encourage Hillary Clinton to retain her delegates in Denver. She has worked long and hard and should not be denied her historic role as the runnerup.

It's symbolic, but it will help pave the way for the next woman who seeks the nomination.

Obama has nothing to lose by being gracious, and it could go a long way toward mending Democratic fences.

Random Thoughts on an Historic Night

We still won't have any results from today's primaries for a little while.

But CNN says Barack Obama needs only to claim four more delegates tonight --either in the primaries (and he's favored in both of them) or with the help of superdelegate commitments -- to secure the nomination.

• Needless to say, it looks like the race for the nomination will end tonight, as the results from the last primaries come in.
  
  That makes this an historic night. Tonight, for the first time, a black man will address an audience as a major political party's presumptive presidential nominee.
  
  If nothing else, this campaign is shaping up to make a spectacular topic for this generation's Theodore H. White. Whoever he or she may be.
  
  White wrote a fantastic series of behind-the-scenes books, "The Making of the President," starting with the 1960 campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon and proceeding with volumes about the 1964, 1968 and 1972 campaigns.
  
  I wish we could look forward to White's unique political insights in this campaign. But he's been gone for more than 20 years.
  
  Jules Witcover did a reasonably good job of trying to fill White's shoes with his book on the 1976 campaign, "Marathon," but no one has written White's kind of presidential election book in almost 40 years.
  
  The last time White did it.
  
  We're overdue.


• Obama will wrap up the nomination only a few days shy of the 40th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's assassination.
  
  His achievement is doubly ironic when you realize that the night that Obama is supposed to accept his party's nomination in Denver will be the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
  
  I'm sure there were times when Dr. King permitted himself to dream of the day when a black man would be nominated by a major party for president.
  
  But I also believe that -- because of the times in which he lived -- Dr. King probably didn't dream of that day too much.
  
  When he was alive, it was enough of a challenge for Dr. King to strive for the right to vote, a decent wage, integrated schools, integrated housing, integrated public facilities.


• I guess the presidential nomination means things have almost come full circle.
  
  To complete the circle, Obama needs to win in November.
  
  I believe that's a thing that is easier said than done.
  
  My hunch is that Obama's candidacy will turn out to be largely symbolic. But that's what I believe now. People and campaigns that have a lasting impact have a way of demonstrating that at their appointed time -- the way Gandhi did in India and the way Martin Luther King did in the United States.
  
  Part of what makes such a man and such a campaign truly significant is the ability to convince those who are as-yet unconvinced.
  
  So we'll see what happens in the next five months. That's an eternity in politics.


• I saw Joe Madison on CNN a short time ago, and he was talking about how he hoped the debate wouldn't be on race.
  
  Hmmm.
  
  Seems to me that boat has already sailed.
  
  Sorry.
  
  It was always inevitable that race would be an issue in a campaign featuring the first black presidential nominee.
  
  Just as it's inevitable that the first woman to be nominated for president will have to contend with discussions about gender.
  
  Americans have come a long way on the subjects of race and gender, but they still have some issues that have to be resolved before a woman or a black can be elected president.
  
  Those demons will have to be exorcised in the fall campaign. And it will be a measure of Obama's presidential potential if he is able to put the race issue to rest fairly quickly and turn his attention to the real problems -- the war, the economy, health care.


• About 35 million people voted in the Democratic primaries this year. When the general election is held, there should be well over 100 million people participating.
  
  In the race for the nomination, Obama faced a foe who shares most of his political views. Democrats weren't asked to choose between two different political philosophies.
  
  But the voters in the general election will be given a choice between two candidates who want to take the country in different directions. I just wonder if we'll ever get the chance to talk about the significant policy choices that will be offered to us this fall.


• Of those 35 million votes, Clinton took about 18 million of them.
  
  Now, I don't expect many -- if any -- of Clinton's voters to vote for John McCain. But how many of them will choose not to vote at all?
  
  I know several women who are Clinton supporters. Most have sworn they will not vote at all if the choice is Obama-McCain. That's what they're saying right now. It remains to be seen how they will feel in November.
  
  But those votes could be critical if Obama wants to win in places like Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas -- where my friends live -- as well as all the other places on the map.
  
  I've heard talk and read articles about how many states Obama puts into play.
  
  But it seems to me those projections are based -- at least, in part -- on the very large assumption that Obama can rely on the backing of Clinton's supporters in November.
  
  So my question is -- how does one make up for the absence of 18 million votes?


• Well, if it's any consolation, McCain will have his own issues to deal with.
  
  He would be wise not to rely on the automatic support of some groups of Republican voters.
  
  McCain will be 72 when the voters go to the polls in November. He has been criticized as not conservative enough. Social conservatives have made noises about boycotting the November election.
  
  Although it appears to be in remission, cancer has been an issue for McCain in recent years.
  
  And he himself has conceded that he doesn't know much about economic issues -- at a time when economic issues may be what truly fuels the presidential campaign.
  
  My thinking is there will be more than enough side issues on both sides to keep voters distracted from the important matters.
  
  Again.