DEAR SENATOR OBAMA… (Karl Rove, Newsweek) Four months ago, you took the political world by storm in Iowa. The media were agog. They called your words “gorgeous,” your victory “a message to the world.” You “made history” and Americans could “look at ourselves with pride” in “a moment to marvel.” Times change. The six weeks leading into Pennsylvania were difficult. You excelled at raising money and gaining endorsements, but got weaker as big problems emerged. Before you can fix them, you must understand them. In Pennsylvania, you won only 30 percent among Catholics and 29 percent among white working-class voters. Defections like this elect Republicans… You argue the son of a single working mom can’t be an elitist. But it’s not where you start in life; it’s where you end up. After a prestigious prep school, Columbia and Harvard, you’ve ended up with the values of Cambridge, San Francisco and Hyde Park. So you’re doing badly in Scranton, Youngstown and Erie, where ordinary Americans live. HERE ARE SIX SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT TO DO.
DEMOGRAPHY IS KING (David Brooks, New York Times) Some social divides, mostly involving ethnicity, have narrowed. But others, mostly involving education, have widened. Today there is a mass educated class. The college educated and non-college educated are likely to live in different towns. They have radically different divorce rates and starkly different ways of raising their children. The non-college educated not only earn less, they smoke more, grow more obese and die sooner. The ensuing segmentation has reshaped politics… In state after state (Wisconsin being the outlier), Barack Obama has won densely populated, well-educated areas. Hillary Clinton has won less-populated, less-educated areas… The divide has even overshadowed campaigning. Surely the most interesting feature of the Democratic race is how unimportant political events are. The candidates can spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, but they are not able to sway their opponent’s voters to their side. They can win a stunning victory, but the momentum doesn’t carry over from state to state. They can make horrific gaffes, deliver brilliant speeches, turn in good or bad debate performances, but these things do not alter the race. In Pennsylvania, Obama did everything conceivable to win over Clinton’s working-class voters. The effort was a failure. The great uniter failed to unite. In this election, persuasion isn’t important. Social identity is everything. Demography is king.
WHERE WRIGHT GOES WRONG (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post) It’s understandable, given how Wright has been treated, that he would want to attempt to set the record straight. No one would enjoy seeing his 36-year career reduced to a couple of radioactive sound bites. No preacher would want his entire philosophy to be assessed on the basis of a few rhetorical excesses committed in the heat of a passionate sermon. No former Marine would stomach having his love of country questioned by armchair patriots who have done far less to protect the United States from its enemies. Given Wright’s long silence, I thought he had taken to heart Jesus’s admonition to turn the other cheek. Obviously, I was wrong. I’m through with Wright not because he responded – in similar circumstances, I certainly couldn’t have kept silent – but because his response was so egocentric. We get it, Rev. Wright: You’re ready for your close-up.
MORE: A Pastor at Center Stage (George Will, Washington Post) Because John McCain and other legislators worry that they are easily corrupted, there are legal limits to the monetary contributions that anyone can make to political candidates. There are, however, no limits to the rhetorical contributions that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright can make to McCain’s campaign.
OBAMA HEADS FOR SUPERDELEGATE EDGE (Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal) Despite his loss in Pennsylvania and other campaign bumps, Barack Obama is heavily favored to win what will be the final and decisive contest for the Democratic presidential nomination – the “invisible primary” for the convention votes of party leaders… Many of them see Sen. Obama as more electable than Sen. Clinton. But even those who don’t have been impressed by his grass-roots organizing and fund raising and the legions of new voters he has attracted, particularly younger and African-American voters. The politicians – especially Democrats with significant African-American populations or college campuses in their districts – see benefit for themselves in these new voters. By contrast, many see Sen. Clinton’s alienating some general-election voters. A Democratic strategist to congressional candidates cites Sen. Clinton’s high negative ratings in opinion polls. Politicians “all think Obama will stimulate African-American turnout, and they all know there’s no way she gets independents or Republicans,” says the strategist, who is unaligned in the presidential race.
MCCAIN MOVES TO THE MIDDLE ON HEALTH CARE (Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin, Politico) Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is proposing a greater federal commitment to people without health insurance on Tuesday, suggesting that states set up non-profit risk pools to help Americans who are denied coverage or can’t afford it. The federal government would help fund them, with McCain’s health-policy experts providing a ballpark estimate of $7 billion a year… Until now, McCain has emphasized such conventional conservative measures as tax deductions and malpractice reform. His new stance puts him closer to where former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was during the primary, an approach McCain had criticized. McCain is taking a step beyond tax incentives and tort reform, but not a leap. He is noncommittal in his remarks, pointing to the non-profit organizations as one effective approach that he would discuss with governors.
POLITICAL THEORIES ABOUND IN NORTH CAROLINA, BUT DON’T ASK JOHN EDWARDS FOR HIS (Julie Bosman, New York Times) What will the Edwardses do? As the Democratic presidential candidates and their surrogates traipse through North Carolina in the final days before the state’s primary, some people here are wondering, why so quiet in Chapel Hill? That is where John and Elizabeth Edwards retreated after he dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination on Jan. 30. Neither Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, nor Mrs. Edwards, a political activist herself, has endorsed a candidate, despite the growing intensity of the race between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and the fact that the contest has now landed in the Edwardses’ backyard… Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, in particular, are anxious for the Edwardses to speak up about whom they support. Mr. Obama has held a significant lead in the polls here for months, and Clinton supporters are hoping that an Edwards endorsement will bolster Mrs. Clinton’s chances at a crucial moment. Theories abound: They will endorse before the primary. Or after there is a nominee. Or Mr. Edwards will endorse Mr. Obama and Mrs. Edwards will endorse Mrs. Clinton. Or none of the above.
WHITE WOMEN COULD BE SWING VOTE ON MAY 6 (Mary Beth Schneider, Indianapolis Star) If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wins Indiana’s May 6 Democratic primary, the votes of white women may be a huge reason why. An Indianapolis Star-WTHR (Channel 13) poll shows Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama essentially splitting the votes of all Hoosier women, with about 41 percent backing Obama and 40 percent backing Clinton. But among white women, Clinton is way ahead, winning the support of 48 percent compared with 29 percent for Obama. To a large extent, women are Clinton’s most ardent supporters and have paved her way to victories in other states. That consistent pattern of support is why both campaigns are reaching out to Indiana’s women. Ann Lewis, a longtime adviser to both Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, came to Indianapolis for a house party Monday with about 50 women. And the Obama campaign on Monday kicked off its Indiana Women for Obama organization, led by Cordelia Lewis-Burks, vice chairwoman of the Indiana Democratic Party.
THE PARTIES: Its Candidates Otherwise Engaged, Democratic Party Goes After McCain (New York Times) With no end in sight to the nominating contest between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democratic Party has begun its first sustained advertising campaign against Senator John McCain, introducing a new commercial this week criticizing his recent comments that he could envision a United States presence in Iraq for 100 years.
GOP Plans Half-Million Hit on Obama, Dems (Politico) For months, GOP operatives spoke with dread of the prospects of running against Barack Obama in the fall. But after weeks of controversies over his former pastor, his views of blue-collar voters and even the sincerity of his patriotism, Republicans now are ready to place a $500,000 bet that Obama will be a heavy burden on down-ballot Democrats. That’s the approximate amount of advertising purchased so far by the National Republican Congressional Committee and GOP allies to link Democratic congressional hopefuls in Mississippi and Louisiana to their party’s potential presidential nominee.
CLINTON: $2B IN EARMARKS (Manu Raju and Kevin Bogardus, The Hill) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year… Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a longtime foe of earmarks, has called for eliminating what he dubs “wasteful Washington spending.” Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has spurned earmarks, seeking no funds for pet projects in the upcoming fiscal year. Yet Clinton is continuing to request billions for earmarks, most of which will go to her home state… Clinton’s huge earmark requests have some speculating that the former first lady is preparing for a soft landing should she lose the Democratic primary to Obama and refocus her energy on winning a third Senate term.
VEXING ISSUE FOR THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN: WHAT TO MAKE OF BILL? (Mark Leibovich, New York Times) The question of what exactly Mr. Clinton’s “role” is in his wife’s campaign has been a much-pondered mystery. As has been the case throughout his public life, Mr. Clinton’s motives, agenda and apparent mistakes have been the source of great speculation outside the Clinton world and hand wringing within it. Inside the Clinton campaign, the general view is that Mr. Clinton’s more provocative statements are not calculated as Mr. Clyburn and others have suggested. But campaign aides acknowledge that they do not really know what Mr. and Mrs. Clinton discuss privately, either, nor are they certain what advice Mr. Clinton gets from advisers like Mark Penn, who lost his post as the campaign’s chief strategist last month but has not entirely departed. What is clear, among insiders, is that Mr. Clinton is playing a big — and some say expanding — role within the operation, one that might be sacrificing part of the accumulated prestige of his long public career for the cause of returning his wife (and himself) to the White House.
