that was pretty amazing, Charlie, the schoolkid stuff. how desperate they must be getting. don't they remember how Iowa caucus-goers punished Dean for "negativity" four years ago? but she's got Terry McAuliffe heading her campaign, so he's got to play to his strengths and find a way, as the saying goes, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. looks like he's well on his way.

and if i can self-advertise, i wrote about this tonight from a slightly different angle. (i found a groovy picture of Obama riding a trike, too; it's over there.)

Hell, when I was in third grade I wanted to be Commissioner of Baseball. Good thing I'll never run for public office.

Wait, dreaming of being president when you're a child now disqualifies you from actually pursuing that dream?

I don't get it.

The difference between John Edwards, Barack Obama and me is that when I was that young...I WAS the President, I WAS a cowboy and most importantly I WAS Captain of the Enterprise.

My imagination was a very useful during those years.

My imagination was a very useful during those years.

As nearly as I can tell, Carl, it still is.

Tom makes a very good point about Clinton's early lead. I'd also add that as someone who has gone through the whole Iowa caucus activity, that you'll find plenty of people willing to pick up a phone and tell a pollster that they'll caucus for you, but they have to care enough to head out at night and cram themselves in a library, school gym, fire station or wherever and sit there for a few hours.

If people have been indeed just saying they support Clinton because she is the candidate they know, a smart PC of another candidate could sway folks.

Then of course there are the number of "deals" made between various campaigns. I recall a big surprise from 2004 was the Kucinich and the Edwards people joining forces in some areas if one was eliminated in a caucus location (something I experienced first hand in Alden).

If Jeff Alworth is out there, I'd love to hear about if you've seen any numbers about caucus-goers second choice. Who would the Biden, Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson, and Dodd folks support if their candidate was eliminated in round 1.

Are these the polls you were talking about? Seems that they bolster Clinton. Or are we just cherry-picking polls to suit our political tastes?

(Just Asking)

Two New Polls: Hillary Clinton Leads in Iowa by 5-7 Points AP-Pew poll also shows strong double-digit leads in NH and SC; Clinton leading on important issues, most electable Hillary Clinton leads all Democrats in Iowa, according to a new AP-Pew poll showing her leading by 5 points, and an Iowa State poll showing her ahead by 7. In addition, new AP-Pew polls show her leading by 19 in New Hampshire and 14 in South Carolina. The polls also show her ahead on the issues most important to voters, as well as the most electable Democrat:

In all three early states, Democrats trust Hillary more than her rivals on Iraq. She has double-digit leads in Iowa and New Hampshire on which candidate would make the wisest decisions about the war, and is tied in South Carolina. On health care, she doubles every opponent on who would best improve the country's medical system -- in each of the three states polled. Democrats in each state overwhelmingly call Hillary the Democrat with the best chance of winning the White House.

Hell, when I was in third grade I wanted to be Commissioner of Baseball. Good thing I'll never run for public office.

When I was in 3rd grade I wanted to be an author. Maybe both of us can make our dream come true some day, eh Stephanie?

I could write the story of you kicking basball's collective butt.

Carl--I haven't see those figures. The Pew numbers that came out yesterday are interesting, but come from the first half of November, so it's hard to say what they mean.

As for Hillary, I think this is a metaphor for her style of leadership. If she wins, we can expect this same kind of BS--it's politics-as-usual and not a radical departure from the Rove gamesmanship. And it is a catastrophe for the party. IF she does win, it will be good if her friends in the party pull her aside and tell her to knock this kind of crap off. As Rove learned, you trade short term advantage for long-term blowback.

It's not that dreaming of being President disqualifies you from being it, the Clinton camp is calling "bullshit" on Obama's claim that he hasn't dreamt about it for a while.

And of course, the kid examples are cherry-picked from a long history of evidence that Obama has hoped to be president.

So for Obama to claim he hasn't hoped and planned to be President, that he hasn't had big political aspriations seems to be, well, bullshit.

Is it news? Does it deserve a press release including essays from when he was a kid? Well, only if people believe Obama's fatuous claim that he hasn't hoped to be President for a long time.

Blowback, from the Obama campaign, in my email box this morning:

Jeff --

When I decided to run for president, I accepted that my opponents would dig through my record looking for something to attack.

I didn't realize they'd go all the way back to kindergarten.

I'll respond to each of the Clinton campaign's desperate attacks directly and honestly. But when I respond to each attack, I want to be able to say that I am not alone.

I want to be able to say that 10,000 people responded with me in the first 48 hours. And we're almost there.

Respond now with your donation of $25, and show our opponents that this kind of negativity will only make us stronger in our determination to bring about the change America needs:

[Donation link]

It's going to take all of us to change this game once and for all.

Thank you,

Barack

I think Clinton's attacks on Obama's credibility come at a crucial moment in time and I'm pleased that she's doing it now.

As recently as the last Dem "debate" she was all self confidence and good humor, and reassured us that the reason that they were all ganging up on her was because she was ahead not because she was a woman.

Now she's obviously in a panic, and it's good for everyone to be reminded how a Cornered Clinton reacts. This can offer the undecided a little window into her psychology, and into her "principles" as well.

Keep it up Hillary, This will accelerate the trend of The Little Old Ladies bonding to Michelle Obama and will reenforce their ideas of authenticity versus mean spirited calculation.

Damn Girl, You sure have the look and feel of a Republican candidate.

Trishka, that's pretty funny. We should have a (campaign) memorial "What did you want to be when you were six?" thread.

(I wanted to be Franco Harris, running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, not completely understanding that I couldn't actually be another human. Or a dinosaur.)

Take a poll, talk with a focus group, then change course and remodel the candidate with each outcome. Could be worse, though. Dig through her history and let Hillary be herself. She voted for Bush's blank check to wage war on Iraq

Yeah, it really seems like the advisors do know what The Base wants, and their behavior seems totally reactionary on that one. i.e. if The Base thinks X, we need to tack to the right on that issue.

What they seem much worse at, is figuring out the definition of "The Middle", which is always the crown jewel of their strategy.

These days, The Middle agrees with us on a lot of issues, but these clowns seem to be ignoring the polls and the focus groups and all of that stuff that is usually their bible.

It seems really irrational to me.

I would much prefer Kucinich

But now Dennis has whored himself out to the Paul campaign, hoping to stay relevant for five more minutes. A lot of my Lefty buddies are stunned and bemused by this sudden reversal by the candidate most likely to be nominated for the Pure of Heart Award.

It's not that dreaming of being President disqualifies you from being it, the Clinton camp is calling "bullshit" on Obama's claim that he hasn't dreamt about it for a while.

He may have dreamed about it when he was a little kid, but there's clear and conclusive proof that he didn't plan to run when he was in high school and college.

What's that? His admission that he did cocaine in the 1980s.

No one who had serious plans to run for President someday would do cocaine (that is, unless they're already the son of the Vice President.)

I am not a fan of Clinton and she ranks near the bottom of the Dem candidates I would want to get the nomination, but a little context seems to be called for here. The question of just how long Hillary Clinton desired the Presidency has received an an enormous amount of scrutiny, with unfounded allegations swirling that she planned it as far back as Bill's first election in 1992. Fast forward to a June 29th appearance when Obama made a statement that he never thought about being President as a kid:

Martinez: Did you believe that as a kid, like you believe that you could be even with brown skin the president of the United States? Did you have that even as a kid? Obama: I've got to say that as a kid, you know, I was more of a goof-off, I was more interested in being a ball player than I was a president. Martinez: Wow, so no? Obama: No, well I didn't think I couldn't do it, I just wasn't thinking about it. That wasn't my ambition.

Which is what the Clinton camp was pointing out is not true given the evidence going all the way back to kindergarten that Obama did indeed have such dreams and ambitions.

So despite the ludicrousness and unproven nature of charges such as the alleged "secret pact" between Bill and Hillary Clinton, pushed by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, against Hillary Clinton's ambitions for years now, some of which have been pointed to even by her Dem rivals such as when Obama campaign manager David Plouffe amplied them in a memo to supporters, writing that Obama was competing with "other candidates who have been preparing to run for years, and even decades."

I think this all adds up to a meaningless kerfuffle and an indication of a take-no-prisoners rapid response (which is a good thing if you want to run against the GOP slime machine) which, when stripped of context, does come across as desperate and ridiculous.

Thought it would be good to get the full context of this out there before we burn Clinton in effigy.

Posted by: Pat Ryan | Dec 4, 2007 9:55:43 AM But now Dennis has whored himself out to the Paul campaign, hoping to stay relevant for five more minutes. A lot of my Lefty buddies are stunned and bemused by this sudden reversal by the candidate most likely to be nominated for the Pure of Heart Award.

Kinda like Kucinich instructing his caucus goers in Iowa to back Edwards (who was an unapologetic war supporter) in order to take down Dean (who was anti-war) in 2004?

I agree that Kucinich is not the "pure" candidate that his boasters claim he is. Take for example his conversion from being "pro-life" until just a few months before he decided to run for POTUS in 2004 and then suddenly becomes "pro-choice".

I agree with a number of his positions, but he is far from a consistent and "pure" candidate and is simply trying to be liberal gadfly redux.

Posted by: JohnH | Dec 4, 2007 11:49:56 AM I thought that part of the American dream was that anyone could grow up to be President.

But isn't that exactly the double-standard that Clinton is being held too?

She is attacked for years as being a manipulative, plotting, making secret pacts with her hubby, etc. if she has such dreams whereas it is cast as the "American Dream" when it is Obama or anyone else.

Again, I put Clinton at the bottom of my list of preferred candidates, but I posit it is that double-standard which the Clinton camp was responding when the Obama camp was using that GOP line of attack (she has been plotting for decades to be POTUS) to with this misfired response.

With waging an illegal war on Iraq, the PATRIOT Act, tolerance of torture, and elimination of habeas corpus degrading what is left of the republic, Ron Paul's libertarian positions that disturb so-called liberals do not rise to the same level of importance on a national basis.

Bill, absolutely.

I agree with both you and Ron on these matters. I suspect that the three of us fall into the rough category of individual libertarian with maybe some utilitarianism thrown in for good measure, while Kucinich has been more of an Anarcho-Syndicalist, although I'd sure part company with Ron on the amount of gummint and the amount of regulation needed to keep the republic and the economy healthy in its uneasy realtionship with capitalism.

My point was that Kucinich sells himself as an Uber-Progressive in the Wellstone mold. Again, my lefty friends would disagree at this point and solely on the basis of his newly minted willingness to embrace the entire Friedman/Rand/Norquist meme of "gummint is evil", which has been, up 'til now, the central disagreement between the two.

Now I'm a Wiki/Philosophy major. Sorry to even "go there" as this stuff seems pretty esoteric and/or really boring, but the precision seemed to be warranted.

Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Dec 4, 2007 12:09:19 PM ... As a Bill of Rights Democrat, Pat, you know that as the right and left move away from the bullshit of the commercially synthesized center, they meet on the other side of the circle.

Agreed, which is why a full of crap most of the time racist that he is Pat Buchanan can accidently make sense on some issues like war powers, etc. though he is as wrong as the day is long on many/most policy issues.

on Iowa polling: particularly with someplace as hard to poll as Iowa, a rolling average is crucial. The Pew figures are from mid-Nov as was pointed out; the most recent polling shows a definite tightening of the race, to the point where anyone who is foolish to make a prediction should have their head examined. ONLY because of the Pew poll does Hillary maintain a "2.4 point lead" over Obama; the most recent three polls, all from last week, show a THREE WAY dead heat by anyone's yardstick.

Of course, the caucus system plays havoc with accurate polling. OpenLeft's Chris Bowers did an excellent job IMO of sussing out which peripheral results carry the most sway: previous caucus participants, certainty of participating in this one, new pledged participants, second choices etc. He finds that on the two most important factors, Edwards likely comes out ahead (he's the top 2nd choice pick, to answer someone's question).

The thesis here is correct: Clinton is no longer the presumptive frontrunner, and could very possibly finish THIRD in Iowa.

Take a poll in any college freshman political science class. On some level, maybe not seriously, but on some level, every student in the class wants to be president. Growing up to be prez still held up as the ultimate ambition that someone could have. But like most childish (or freshman year) dreams, most people grow out of it and develop--depending on how you view it--either more "realistic" or perhaps simply "higher" ambitions for themselves.

That said, I'm damn impressed if Obama had the ability to write an essay in kindergarten since most kids spend that year learning their ABCs! Clinton's attack is absurd on its face.

Disclosure: I wanted to be a race car driver when I was in third grade, or as Mark Penn might say, a NASCAR kid.

Let the record reflect that Evan doesn't find citing a kindergarten essay in a political attack absurd on its face. In this case, even after the Clinton campaign itself tries to backpedal -- "in rather head-spinning fashion" according to the New York Times-- and pass the release off as a joke.

This is pretty damn funny coming from someone who married Bill "I met JFK in 8th grade" "preserve my political viability" "boy wonder governor" Clinton, & who seems to have had an understanding in her relationship with him since Yale law school days (ca. 35 years) that eventually it would be her turn if they managed to work their way jointly into the center of things.

Hillary Clinton's sacrificed a lot to get where she is, don't mean to take anything away from her on that score. R attacks her own ambitiousness is one of the more insidious forms of their sexism.

But for her to trash Obama's ambition is just dumb. Even if she had done it in a cleverer way that didn't set her up for immediate ridicule, it still would have been setting herself up for the attacks on her ambition that we know will come if she gets the nomination.

“It's not that dreaming of being President disqualifies you from being it, the Clinton camp is calling "bullshit" on Obama's claim that he hasn't dreamt about it for a while.

And of course, the kid examples are cherry-picked from a long history of evidence that Obama has hoped to be president.”

This is in keeping with Evan’s steady drumbeat of anti-Obama comments over the past five months or so. What’s so interesting is Evan’s political judgment that such a ridiculous attack is justifiable. And that Evan is defending the release when even the campaign itself will not.

Setting aside how lame and mildly ridiculous this line of attack is on the merits, what most struck me is just how ill-considered it is. Among other reasons, this attack 1) has helped Obama bring in tens of thousands of new donations over the past 48 hours 2) is almost a self-parody of everything people hate about the perception of slash-and-burn politics 3) will dilute future and inevitable attacks Hillary needs to make and 4) reminds media of voters' concerns about Hillary, especially in light of the campaign’s “head-spinning” denial that the original release was serious.

I call bullshit on Evan. First, using the term “cherry-picking” above implies that I took the word-for-word quote out-of-context, which of course I did not. Second, when Evan writes about the “long history” of evidence, what he’s referring to is my pulling of two paragraphs word-for-word out of the five paragraph section.

Here are those five bullet points –- or “long history” as Evan writes –- from the original piece in their entirety. See if the release reads like it was meant as a joke, or if I took the paragraphs out-of-context:

Immediately after joining the Senate, Senator Obama started planning run for President. "'The first order of business for Senator Obama's team was charting a course for his first two years in the Senate. The game plan was to send Senator Obama into the 2007-2008 election cycle in the strongest form possible'...The final act of the plan was turning up the talk about a potential Presidential bid, which was greatly aided by his positive press and suggestions by pundits that he run for President." [U.S. News and World Report, 6/19/07] His law school classmates say that Senator Obama has been planning Presidential run for 'more than a decade.' [A]ccording to those who know him, he has been talking about the presidency for more than a decade. "It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics," says Harvard Law School classmate Christine Spurell. [Washington Post, 8/12/07 ] 15 years ago, Senator Obama told his brother-in-law he was planning to run for President. Craig [Robinson] pulled him aside [in 1992] and asked about his plans. "He said, 'I think I'd like to teach at some point in time, and maybe run for public office,' recalls Robinson, who assumed Senator Obama meant he'd like to run for city alderman. "He said no -- at some point he'd like to run for the U.S. Senate. And then he said, 'Possibly even run for President at some point.' And I was like, 'Okay, but don't say that to my Aunt Gracie.' I was protecting him from saying something that might embarrass him." [Washington Post, 8/12/07 ] In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said." [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07] In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.' "Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama's kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, 'I Want To Become President,' the teacher said." [AP, 1/25/07 ]

As ABC's Jake Tapper said, "Personally, I agree that the attack was a joke. Just not in the way Penn [Clinton's pollster] means it."

Charlie,

Thanks for the post and the comments.

The Tapper quote at the end was a nice wrap up to the whole sorry mess.....

N.B. that Chomsky didn't say he'd support HRC. I think he sits these things out.

Chomsky is some species of philosophical anarchist but I don't think he's an anarcho-syndicalist. The key piece in defining the term is the "syndicalist" part, which was a particular theory of unionism widespread in the relatively industrialized world ca. 1900-1920. It stressed a) industrial unionism and relatedly b) organization of unskilled laborers and the then new category of "semi-skilled" industrial factory workers, in contrast to the older skilled trade unions. It also promoted what in some countries has been called "general unionism," i.e. not specialized by craft, trade or job within an industry, and ideally not by industry either. As a political theory it argued that workers should govern directly as workers. In some variants this meant as members of their union -- the most prominent U.S. syndicalists, the Industrial Workers of the World, took such a view which is part of why they advocated "one big union." Other variants involved different forms of "worker council" ideas as a key form of governance -- the original Russian soviets, before they got inverted by Leninist so-called democratic centralism, were syndicalist worker councils.

As far as I know Chomsky does not have particularly syndicalist theory of governance -- I am not sure he has a very explicit or fixed theory of governance at all. But I think is more of a philosophical anarchist in the more intellectualized side of the Kropotkin tradition.

N.B. also that Chomsky appears to support social security, warts & all, which must mean that in practice he's willing to support sizeable aspects of a Roosevelt-liberal state which certainly operates through representative government structures.