MCCAIN VS. LOBBYISTS (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek) Stung by the news that two aides once lobbied for the Burmese junta, John McCain last week rolled out a sweeping new conflict-of-interest policy for his campaign, requiring all staffers to fill out questionnaires identifying past or current clients that “could be embarrassing for the senator.” Aides say that McCain was furious over the Burma connection (which he learned from a NEWSWEEK story) and was “adamant” about banning campaign workers from serving as foreign agents or getting paid for lobbying work. But the fallout may not be over. One top campaign official affected by the new policy is national finance co-chair Tom Loeffler, a former Texas congressman whose lobbying firm has collected nearly $15 million from Saudi Arabia since 2002 and millions more from other foreign and corporate interests, including a French aerospace firm seeking Pentagon contracts. Loeffler last month told a reporter “at no time have I discussed my clients with John McCain.” But lobbying disclosure records reviewed by NEWSWEEK show that on May 17, 2006, Loeffler listed meeting McCain along with the Saudi ambassador to “discuss US-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relations.”
THE FALL OF CONSERVATISM (George Packer, New Yorker) Among Republicans, there is no energy, no fresh thinking, no ability to capture the concerns and feelings of millions of people… Political tactics have a way of outliving their ability to respond to the felt needs and aspirations of the electorate: Democrats continued to accuse Republicans of being like Herbert Hoover well into the nineteen-seventies; Republicans will no doubt accuse Democrats of being out of touch with real Americans long after George W. Bush retires to Crawford, Texas. But the 2006 and 2008 elections are the hinge on which America is entering a new political era. This will be true whether or not John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, wins in November. He and his likely Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, “both embody a post-polarized, or anti-polarized, style of politics,” the Times columnist David Brooks told me. “McCain, crucially, missed the sixties, and in some ways he’s a pre-sixties figure. He and Obama don’t resonate with the sixties at all.” The fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican in the 2008 race is the last one standing—despite being despised by significant voices on the right—shows how little life is left in the movement that Goldwater began, Nixon brought into power, Ronald Reagan gave mass appeal, Newt Gingrich radicalized, Tom DeLay criminalized, and Bush allowed to break into pieces.
CLINTON-OBAMA GRUDGES LINGER FOR SOME VOTERS (Krissah Williams, Washington Post) Lifelong Democrat Kathleen Cowley watches with disdain as huge crowds hang on Sen. Barack Obama’s every word. She dismisses Obama’s “intolerable logic.” She turns the channel on pundits who chalk up Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s primary victories to little more than racism. And she doesn’t much care for the notion that while Obama is fresh and inspiring, Clinton is, by implication, old and mean. “There’s just been an attitude that if you aren’t voting for Barack Obama, then you’re a racist,” said Cowley, 49, a mother of four from Massachusetts who has vowed to never back the senator from Illinois. “I just find that intolerable. I feel like when the members of the media talk about how [Obama’s supporters] would react, they say, ‘Well, we can’t take the vote away from African Americans.’ Well, excuse me, there’s a higher percentage of women.” A Democratic race that a couple of months ago was celebrated as a march toward history – the chance to nominate the nation’s first woman or African American as a major-party candidate – threatens to leave lingering bitterness, especially among Clinton supporters, whose candidate is running out of ways to win.
MORE: Gender Issue Lives on as Clinton’s Hopes Dim (Jodi Kantor, New York Times) Along with the usual post-mortems about strategy, message and money, Mrs. Clinton’s all-but-certain defeat brings with it a reckoning about what her run represents for women: a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few pursue high office in the first place. The answers have immediate political implications. If many of Mrs. Clinton’s legions of female supporters believe she was undone even in part by gender discrimination, how eagerly will they embrace Senator Barack Obama, the man who beat her?
SHE JUST MIGHT BE PRESIDENT SOMEDAY (Kate Zernike, New York Times) Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton may or may not become the first female president of the United States, but if fate and voters deny her the role, another woman will surely see if the mantle fits. That woman will come from the South, or west of the Mississippi. She will be a Democrat who has won in a red state, or a Republican who has emerged from the private sector to run for governor. She will have executive experience, and have served in a job like attorney general, where she will have proven herself to be “a fighter” (a caring one, of course). She will be young enough to qualify as postfeminist (in the way Senator Barack Obama has come off as postracial), unencumbered by the battles of the past. She will be married with children, but not young children. She will be emphasizing her experience, and wearing, yes, pantsuits. Oh, and she may not exist.
HOW WILL BARACK OBAMA GET TO 270? (Paul Maslin, Salon) Taking all these demographics and long-term trends into account, and then whipping out the dartboard, yields the following assessment: States that strongly favor Obama (“strongly” in the context of close states, that is): Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington. That’s 43 electoral votes. Add that to the safe blue 157 votes in 11 states and D.C. and Obama is at 200. States that slightly favor Obama: Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Another 55 votes. He’s now at 255. States that strongly favor McCain: Florida, North Carolina. Their 42 electoral votes are probably going to the Republicans. States that slightly favor McCain: Colorado, 9 votes; Missouri, 11 votes; and Virginia, 13 votes. Obama’s chances are better here. Pure toss-ups: Nevada, 5 votes; New Hampshire, 4 votes; New Mexico, 5 votes; and Ohio, 20 votes. Clearly, and I’m being cautious, I think it’s going to be a close race. If Obama wins the 255 votes in the states where he’s favored, then to get to 270 he needs to choose from the following menu: 1) Win Ohio, which takes him to 275; 2) win in the West – Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, for 274; 3) win the three N’s (Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire) for 269, plus one other state; or 4) win two of the three N’s and either Colorado or Virginia.
CLINTON LOOKS FOR A KENTUCKY TRIUMPH (Perry Bacon, Jr., Washington Post) Can Hillary Clinton notch a second colossal blowout in eight days against Barack Obama? Introducing the New York senator here, Clinton’s state chairman Jerry Lundergan, also the former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman, called for a victory that was “bigger than West Virginia.” That may be tough; Clinton won in West Virginia by 41 points last week and recent polls here show Clinton with a lead of around 30 points. But the former first lady is making stops all throughout this state in an effort to drive up turnout, stopping in small towns like Mayfield (population 10,000), as well as targeting the big media markets around Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati (much of Northern Kentucky watches Cincinnati television) with repeated visits.
A SHIFT IN VOTERS, BUT OREGON STILL EMBRACES THE UNCONVENTIONAL (William Yardley, New York Times) Oregon is well known for the sharp divide between its more liberal and populated west and its rural east. That tension has often made statewide races close. Yet while the farmers who once dominated this part of Oregon still own much of the land, they no longer own most of the vote. Urbanites arrived long ago, promoting preservation of all this beauty, but bringing change, too. Michael Dukakis won Hood River County in 1988 by 18 votes out of 6,968 ballots cast, and Democrats have been gaining ground ever since. On Sunday, Senator Barack Obama campaigned in Portland, where he drew an estimated 75,000 people, the largest crowd of his campaign. On Tuesday, when Oregon’s mail-in ballots are tallied, Mr. Obama is expected to win, moving him closer to the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Obama is well ahead of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in polls in the state, reflecting what political experts say is Oregon’s ready embrace of the non-establishment new.
MORE: Obama: No Victory Declaration Tuesday (Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico) Concerned about appearing presumptuous or antagonistic towards Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama will not declare victory in the Democratic nomination fight Tuesday in the event he wins enough pledged delegates to claim a majority. Rather, he’ll tiptoe right up to the line, without explicitly asserting the race is over. While it may sound like an exercise in hair-splitting, the conscious decision not to declare victory is a revealing measure of the sensitivity surrounding overtures that appear to disrespect Clinton and her supporters. It’s also a reflection of the Obama campaign’s supreme confidence in the delegate math at this juncture—the campaign now appears secure enough in its commanding position that it no longer feels compelled to declare victory in an attempt to marginalize Clinton. That marks a departure from the stance the Obama campaign took after his blowout win in North Carolina and narrow loss in Indiana May 6. An Obama senior adviser, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, told Politico the next day: “On May 20, we’re going to declare victory.
CLINTON QUIET ABOUT OWN RADICAL TIES (James V. Grimaldi, Washington Post) When Hillary Rodham Clinton questioned rival Barack Obama’s ties to 1960s radicals, her comments baffled two retired Bay Area lawyers who knew Clinton in the summer of 1971 when she worked as an intern at a left-wing law firm in Oakland, Calif., that defended communists and Black Panthers… In her campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Clinton has said little about her experiences in the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s, including her involvement with student protests and her brief internship at the law firm, Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. She has said she worked on a child custody case, although former partners recall her likely involvement in conscientious objector cases and a legal challenge to a university loyalty oath. But her decision to target Obama’s radical connections has spurred criticism from some former protest movement leaders who say she has opened her own associations to scrutiny. “The very things she’s accusing Barack of could be said of her with much greater evidence,” said Tom Hayden, a leading anti-Vietnam War activist, author and self-described friend of the Clintons.
MCCAIN AND OBAMA: TWO VISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT (David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times) Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), in a speech two weeks ago, echoed the views of conservatives who say “judicial activism” is the central problem facing the judiciary. He called it the “common and systematic abuse . . . by an elite group . . . we entrust with judicial power.” On Thursday, he criticized the California Supreme Court for giving gays and lesbians the right to marry, saying he doesn’t “believe judges should be making these decisions.” Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) said he was most concerned about a conservative court that tilted to the side of “the powerful against the powerless,” and to corporations and the government against individuals. “What’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves,” he said in response to McCain.
OBAMA MAY FIND IT HARD TO GOVERN AS A FREE TRADER (Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal) Since at least John F. Kennedy, presidential candidates have campaigned as tough on trade and then governed as free traders. Some business leaders are expecting the same if Barack Obama makes it to the White House. Don’t count on it. Sen. Obama, the Democratic party frontrunner, and his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, have expressed some support for trade liberalization during their careers, as public opinion and congressional politics have shifted markedly against free trade. A coalition of anti-free trade activists and labor unions also has used the long primary season to wring commitments from the two candidates on an astonishingly detailed list of trade issues, making it hard for them to reverse course.
MCCAIN TO RELY ON PARTY MONEY AGAINST OBAMA (Michael Luo and Mike McIntire, New York Times) Mr. Obama’s fund-raising success makes it increasingly likely that he will back away from a pledge he made last year to accept public financing for the general election — and its attendant spending limits — if the Republican nominee also accepted public money. Several major fund-raisers for Mr. Obama said in interviews that they could not envision the campaign sheathing its sword and accepting public financing, given how powerful Mr. Obama’s fund-raising could be in the Democrats’ urgent quest to reclaim the White House… Mr. McCain, who abandoned public financing in the primary but has indicated he would employ it in the general election, is aggressively building a joint fund-raising operation with the Republican National Committee and state party committees in four battleground states. These committees can raise money far in excess of the $2,300 limit imposed on individuals giving to Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign. Donors can write a single check of almost $70,000 to the committees that is divvied up to various entities.
