I’m sure many of us hear about John Edwards’ massive new house, and say, “hey, good for him.”

Presidential candidate John Edwards and his family recently moved into what county tax officials say is the most valuable home in Orange County. The house, which includes a recreational building attached to the main living quarters, also is probably the largest in the county.

“The Edwardses’ residential property will likely have the highest tax value in the county,” Orange County Tax Assessor John Smith told Carolina Journal. He estimated that the tax value will exceed $6 million when the facility is completed.

The rambling structure sits in the middle of a 102-acre estate on Old Greensboro Road west of Chapel Hill. The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing” signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate.

But between this and the S Corporation tax shelter, which saved him paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare taxes, he might want to give it a rest the next time he talks about the richest one percent not paying their fair share.

UPDATE: A bit more detail here – there will be two additional residences on the property – one for Edwards’ daughter; one for guests. This quote from an unnamed Democrat suggests that Edwards’ primary rivals may find this a convenient line of attack:

“It’s one thing to be a millionaire, but it’s totally tone-deaf to be using Katrina victims while you’re putting the finishing touches on your multimillion-dollar mansion,” said one Democratic operative.

Over in today’s New York Sun, I have an article looking at a recent hire by the Hillary Clinton campaign, a smart guy by the name of Burns Strider. He’s best known for leading efforts at evangelical outreach among Democrats, but he also is believed to have had a hand in a tough primary campaign in Mississippi last cycle. The gist:

Strider also has recent experience helping a liberal female lawmaker quash the political aspirations of a young, up-and-coming African American in a Democratic primary. As Senator Clinton contemplates the rapidly rising star Senator Obama of Illinois and his recent interest in a presidential bid, the former first lady may wish to review Mr. Strider’s most recent experience with political hardball.

The battleground was Mississippi’s second congressional district, encompassing Jackson and rural parts of the Mississippi Delta, in the most recent election cycle. The state’s longest-serving and most influential African-American lawmaker, Rep. Bennie Thompson, had won re-election, but by a bit less than expected, in two straight cycles. A state legislator, Chuck Espy — the nephew of former congressman and Clinton administration Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy — made comments indicating interest in a primary challenge in 2006.

The tactics Thompson used against Espy are far from certain to be elements of the Clinton campaign’s playbook – Mr. Strider wasn’t interested in talking to me, which is frustrating – but it is an interesting example of how hardball tactics can keep a young, talented challenger from getting traction in a primary.

In Nevada, the grassroots are stirring, two years out. With the state now in between Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic primaries, campaigns are wondering how to divide their resources.

With California, New Jersey, and Illinois all debating moving up their primaries, we’re going to see some campaigns in a bit of confusion or panic – the familiar order, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina – is disrupted; and no one knows whether any particular state will be vital or whether it will get lost in the shuffle. It seems likely with so many candidates in the race, someone is going to focus their resources on one early state, and hope that it turns out to be an important one.

Somehow it seems appropriate that Nevada, home of Las Vegas and gambling, would make the primary schedule such a gamble for candidates with limited resources.

Okay, for the first time, I’m somewhat annoyed with Obama. (I know, I know, he’s probably quaking in his boots over that sentence.)

It has to do with his tying his “we must come together and have the audacity of hope” message to the thorny issue of how can Americans get the best health care for their money. 

(Jim’s theories on health care in one paragraph: Remember when doctors made house calls? Even if you’re not old enough to remember it, I’m sure we’ve all see in it old movies and T.V. shows.The doctors of two generations ago brought just about everything they needed in one black bag. The line, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” became the punch-line of a joke, because laymen believed that was a doctor’s advice for just about every ailment. Today a doctor has a lot more than a tongue depressor and stethoscope; they have MRIs, CT scans, pacemakers, heart stents, lasik eye surgery, etc., as well as exponentially more options when it comes to prescription drugs. Unfortunately, these advances cost money, as does the cost of a doctor becoming more specialized in his knowledge, and expanding that area of understanding of ailments and healing. American consumers want 2007 (or beyond) technology at 1956 costs. More specifically, they want somebody else, either the government or their employers, to pay for it. But there is no such thing as a free lunch; sooner or later, someone has to pay the bill; it will always come back to consumers (through businesses), individuals, or taxpayers (when the government picks up the check). Any serious discussion of health care ought to acknowledge that; instead, almost every lawmaker goes to the public and says, “I will promise you the best health care you’ve ever had, and I will get somebody else to pay for it.”)

Anyway – in his most recent address on health care, Obama says the reason you’re not getting spa-quality treatment at rock-bottom prices is that favorite arch-nemesis of his… Partisanship.  

Bleah.

In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we must find the will to pass a plan by the end of the next president’s first term.

 

I know there’s a cynicism out there about whether this can happen, and there’s reason for it. Every four years, health care plans are offered up in campaigns with great fanfare and promise. But once those campaigns end, the plans collapse under the weight of Washington politics, leaving the rest of America to struggle with skyrocketing costs.

 

For too long, this debate has been stunted by what I call the smallness of our politics – the idea that there isn’t much we can agree on or do about the major challenges facing our country. And when some try to propose something bold, the interests groups and the partisans treat it like a sporting event, with each side keeping score of who’s up and who’s down, using fear and divisiveness and other cheap tricks to win their argument, even if we lose our solution in the process.

 

Well we can’t afford another disappointing charade in 2008. It’s not only tiresome, it’s wrong. Wrong when businesses have to layoff one employee because they can’t afford the health care of another. Wrong when a parent cannot take a sick child to the doctor because they cannot afford the bill that comes with it. Wrong when 46 million Americans have no health care at all. In a country that spends more on health care than any other nation on Earth, it’s just wrong.

Now, Obama’s ideas about reducing paperwork and putting all medical records online, they’re great. But as he acknowledges, everyone from Ted Kennedy to Newt Gingrich has been calling for this for years.

(Obama estimates that one out of every four dollars spent on health care is spent on paperwork. That seems high to me, but I’ll take him at his word.)

But beyond that, a more serious debate about health care would recognize there are no silver bullets, no easy answers, no easy way to get more and better health care for less money. Yes, there are incidents of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, but by and large you get what you pay for with health care. It costs a lot to train a doctor. Doctors want to make a good living (as their job requires enormous amounts of education and training). The equipment is expensive, as it gets more advanced. As the Baby Boomers age, they’re going to want more treatment; demand will outpace supply, and we know what that does to costs. Our society also has reached a point where we medicate a lot of problems that we didn’t used to – anxiety, depression, ADD, etc. It used to be, “that guy’s got bad nerves, that gal’s always been morose, and the kid’s hyper.” (This not to say we shouldn’t medicate these problems, but that we should realize this costs money.)

Instead, Obama offers one paragraph of the usual somebody’s-making-too-much-money argument:

Another, more controversial area we need to look at is how much of our health care spending is going toward the record-breaking profits earned by the drug and health care industry. It’s perfectly understandable for a corporation to try and make a profit, but when those profits are soaring higher and higher each year while millions lose their coverage and premiums skyrocket, we have a responsibility to ask why.

Hey, kids! Who wants to go into the exciting field of medical research, when the government has decided the maximum level of profit you’re allowed to make on what you produce? Remember, while you may look at other professions and fields and envy their ability to have more take home pay, you’ll be getting bonuses in the imporant category of feeling good about yourself! It more than makes up for the fact that you will only be able to make a certain level of money off what you do! And investors – don’t miss this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an industry where your maximum possible dividend will be predetermined by federal regulators!

I liked this section:

My colleague, Senator Ron Wyden, who’s recently developed a bold new health care plan of his own, tells it this way: For the money Americans spent on health care last year, we could have hired a group of skilled physicians, paid each one of them $200,000 to care for just seven families, and guaranteed every single American quality, affordable health care.

I stand corrected, there is a silver-bullet solution. All we have to do is deploy the National Guard, round up all the doctors, and force them into the National Each-Doctor-Cares-For-Seven-Families System.

Also notice, “We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we must find the will to pass a plan by the end of the next president’s first term” – in other words, “don’t expect anything from me before 2012.”

With this start, it’s easy to wonder if Partisanship is going to be the Great Bogeyman of the Obama campaign, responsible for everything from high cost of health insurance, declining housing prices, traffic, bad weather, the common cold, male pattern baldness, and the awful state of prime-time television lately.

I saw this headline, and started to wonder if McCain-Feingold had been repealed, or whether Hollywood just decided the laws didn’t apply to them:

Liz Taylor gives Hillary Clinton campaign $100,000

Then I saw the revised version of the story.

(Corrects figure in first and fifth paragraphs to $2,100 for the sum donated. Taylor’s spokesman initially said the donation was for $100,000, but later said this figure was incorrect.)

Dear FEC, please keep an eye on this.

Obama will be hitting up Hollywood in the near future, with some high expectations.

And three of the most powerful men in Hollywood _ Steven Spielberg, Jefrey Katzenberg and David Geffen _ have just invited Democrats to a truly high-profile fundraiser: a Feb. 20 reception for Obama at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with a dinner later at Geffen’s home for top donors.

By the way, this picture – featuring Obama, his lovely wife, and that Lovecraftian horror of a celebrity couple known as “TomKat” – seems to depict the formation of some sort of vortex of celebrity media hype. Had Paris, Britney, Lindsey and Angelina arrived nearby, the entire universe might have been sucked into a massive black hole of celebrity ogling.

I know you’ve been laying awake nights, wondering who Rep. Patrick Kennedy is going to endorse in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. (Okay, perhaps you’ve been laying awake nights, worrying that he’s going to drive his car into your living room, and then claim that he’s late for a vote.)

Well, Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Richardson can give up and go home. The winner of the Kennedy of Rhode Island primary is… Senator Chris Dodd.

U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy said last night he will endorse, raise money and work for the underdog campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination of Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, a veteran senator who is also close to Kennedy’s father, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

“Chris Dodd has a breadth of experience in both the House and the Senate,” said Kennedy in an interview. Kennedy cited Dodd’s leadership on children’s education and health-care issues, his foreign policy expertise and service in the Peace Corps.

The Rhode Island Democrat also noted that Dodd, who speaks fluent Spanish, is bilingual. “He answered President Kennedy’s call to serve in the Peace Corps, in the Dominican Republic,” said Kennedy, whose uncle was President John F. Kennedy. “I think that being fluent in Spanish in this day and age is such a powerful asset that it cannot be overvalued.”

Indeed, it is beneficial to know Spanish today. (“Dos Coronas, por favor.”)

Somewhat seriously, Kennedy may be a useful fundraiser if he’s still got all those DCCC contacts. Between this, his Connecticut base, and his chairmanship, Dodd is likely to have significant funds to stay in the game a while.

Kennedy also mentions that his father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, is not likely to endorse anyone for a while, now that Kerry is not running.

Okay, that’s not quite the headline on this New York Times story. But I can’t believe that some folks on Team Obama wouldn’t be smiling at least a bit over the fact that Al Sharpton is expressing skepticism about his candidacy.

One purpose of the visit, two New York advisers and confidants of Mr. Sharpton said, was to send a signal to Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois and a fellow African-American, that he should not take for granted the political support of Mr. Sharpton, a power broker in New York politics and a presidential candidate in 2004.

Indeed, Mr. Sharpton sounded far from sold on Mr. Obama on Thursday night after their meeting in the senator’s office, where Mr. Obama had them pose for a picture beneath a portrait of Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court.

“I left the meeting a little curious, feeling that he was noticing our civil rights agenda, but I didn’t understand what his civil rights agenda is,” Mr. Sharpton said.

Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, with whom Mr. Sharpton also met, are expected to compete fiercely for black votes.

“I’m not endorsing anyone at this point,” Mr. Sharpton said, “but she has more of a civil rights program laid out. And I always know where I stand with her. She is always accessible and welcoming.”

“Expert analysts said the praise from Sharpton could be the final blow to Clinton’s presidential hopes…”

Okay, again, that’s not what the article says. In fact, the article doesn’t make the slightest reference to the possibility that Sharpton could be, oh, a wee bit controversial. Recall him standing right behind Ned Lamont on primary night in Connecticut last year. Lamont lost for quite a few reasons, but that instant visual association with the oldest of old-school liberalism and racial grievances (to say nothing of Sharpton’s career of stirring up racial anger in New York City) certainly did nothing to help Ned-renaline in the general election.

The Washington Post asks, “Can Barack Obama win the black vote?” Honest.

(You think the Post likes taking whacks at Obama?)

I take back any time I’ve ever wondered if Obama or Romney have enough experience in national politics, as Albert Eisele is talking up Jim Webb for the Democratic nomination. Obama has about two years on the national stage; Webb has about two weeks.

If giving a dynamite speech before a national audience can make Barack Obama a presidential contender, then there’s no reason it can’t do the same for Jim Webb.

 

Indeed, the freshly-minted freshman Democratic senator from Virginia could claim to be as well-qualified to run for president as his fellow freshman from Illinois, who came out of nowhere in recent weeks to become Hillary Clinton’s principal challenger.

In other news, IrregularTimes.com looked at their sales data for their Election 2008 bumper stickers, buttons, t-shirts, magnets, posters and sundries sold in the period from September 19, 2006 right through January 23, 2007. In spring 2006, it was all over the map; lately, it’s a big surge for Obama nationwide. For whatever that’s worth.

(I’ll bet a lot of committed Democrats still have “Vote for Clinton” buttons from 1992, 1996, and 2000.)

Just throwing out the idea. I suppose Donald Rumsfeld could still come out and endorse her, and ruin her chances in the primary.

I suspect Team Obama would have preferred a different headline in the Houston Chronicle:

Obama denies education as radical Muslim

Thanks, guys. It sounds like, “As a radical Muslim, Obama denies education.”

There was one interesting section – on one school registration document, Obama was listed as a Muslim, but his people say that is an error.

Obama’s mother, divorced from his father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended a Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather.

The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering — Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant. Gibbs said he wasn’t sure why the document had Obama listed as a Muslim.

“Senator Obama has never been a Muslim,” Gibbs said. “As a 6-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism.”

Here’s my attempt at cheering up Erick, who laments that all of the potential Republican presidential candidates stink. (Except he doesn’t use the word, “stink.”)

John McCain: Okay, my Democratic friends may want to skip the next paragraph or two…

During the Clinton administration, one of the disturbing truths that nagged at us the most was our conclusion that for all of his skills and talents, Bill Clinton was not a good man. He was a master of following the polls, was gifted in persuasion and rhetoric, presided over an economic boom, signed welfare reform – but at the heart of him was empty hunger, and a refusal to face the music when he screwed up. For eight years, our ship of state was steered by an eternal adolescent who would lash out at his Secretary of Health and Human Services when she dared point out that sleeping with subordinates is wrong.

Yes, a President McCain would annoy many conservatives. His Super-Duper Improved Campaign Finance Reform would be interpreted by the FEC to ban blogging about campaigns, and the Supreme Court would interpret it as making it illegal to criticize the Supreme Court. His giving the weekly national address on the Daily Show would grate on our nerves. Our biweekly lectures about how corrupt we have become, and how he was put on earth to clean it up, will quickly grow tiresome.

But…

I’m trying to find a copy of David Foster Wallace’s profile of McCain during the 2000 campaign; the closest I’ve found was a short excerpt on Salon.

As the article notes, the then Navy pilot was shot down over Hanoi, ejected himself from his plane, breaking three limbs in the process, fell into a lake in a park in the middle of the city, was dragged out by bystanders and beaten up on top of the injuries he already had, including being bayoneted in the groin; was imprisoned without medical care, then offered release (because he was an admiral’s son), which was refused, Wallace writes, because of “The Code” — something about prisoners having to be released in the order they were captured. Because he did this voluntarily, Wallace writes, McCain has “the moral authority to utter lines about causes beyond self-interest and to expect us … to believe he means them. It feels like we know, for a proven fact, that he’s capable of devotion to something other, more, than his own self interest.”

Whatever his flaws, McCain has been tested, and demonstrated his love and unbreakable loyalty to this country in a way that few of us can imagine. Not talking, and not taking an offer of early release because it was designed to break the spirit of the other POWs and violated his sense of honor? Folks, this is as close as we’re going to get to President Jack Bauer.

President McCain will be, no matter what else, a good man.

Rudy Giuliani: Okay, look, did you live anywhere near New York City in the 1980s and early 1990s? Here’s a quick trip down memory lane: Bernie Goetz, the teens “wilding” in Central Park going after the jogger, Howard Beach, Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Tawana Brawley, Crown Heights, the “Rotten Apple” on the cover of Time magazine… Watch some old episodes of Law and Order, the first season with Michael Moriarity and Chris Noth. The city is portrayed as a tinderbox of racial hatred, the subways are a cesspool of graffiti and hostile gangs of youths… I suspect that the corruption-and-crime ridden gloom of Gotham City in 1989’s Batman were inspired by the sense of accelerating urban decay in the Big Apple. “Decent people shouldn’t live here… they’d be happier someplace else.”

Along comes this guy Rudy, campaigning saying he’s going to go after the squeegee men. (Think about how bad things had to be in New York City for voters to consider a Republican.) The squeegee men were guys who would stand in busy intersections, smear your windshield with a rag so dirty it warranted a Hazmat team, and then demand money for the “service” they provided. And many New Yorkers would throw a dollar their way, just to avoid the hassle. (These guys particularly went after women driving alone, stuck in traffic.)

And within a month or two of Rudy taking office, the cops were going after these guys, and suddenly being a squeegee man wasn’t a good way to panhandle. Rudy fixed it. (With a lot of help from men like former police commissioner William Bratton; it’s a shame that these guys couldn’t share the credit.) And month by month, year by year, the city’s problems that seemed insurmountable start being fixed – the crime rate, economic growth, garbage collection, the drug influx, organized crime, redevelopment of neighborhoods like Times Square… and he ejected Yassir Arafat from a Lincoln Center event.

Yes, yes, “pro-choice, pro-gay rights, bad on the Second Amendment, goes through wives like Henry the VIII without the beheadings,” etc. But the guy had an unparalleled transformative effect on the daily life of millions of Americans. (You want pro-life? Think about the lives that have been saved because of the drop in New York City’s crime rate.)

The guy took on tasks that all the “smart people” said were impossible, and achieved them in strikingly fast time. If he could do that as mayor, imagine what he could do with the presidency.

(And notice, this argument didn’t even mention his leadership during 9/11.)

Mitt Romney: the one-governor’s record is a little thinner, but he, too, presided over a remarkable turnaround. Again, it’s easy to forget what a disaster the Salt Lake City games were expected to be – the previous organizers had run a deficit of more than $300 million, there were allegations of bribery, the president and vice president of the organizing committee were forced to resign, and there was serious talk of canceling events and scaling back the Games due to inadequate financial resources. (Talk about a national black eye that would have been – America couldn’t manage an Olympics because of rampant corruption in a city dominated by Mormons.) Romney steps in with about two years to go, and pretty much saves the day – the finances get in order (actually, they made a profit of about $100 million!), they handle the sudden new concern over terrorism after 9/11, and the games come off without a hitch, unless you count the French judge taking a bribe over the figure skating competition.

What does this tell us about Romney? He can handle a crisis, he’s at ease in a position of leadership, he can bring together a lot of squabbling voices and get them focused on the big picture, even when time is short. Not a bad bunch of traits to have in a commander-in-chief.

Newt Gingrich: I’ll just note that for those of us annoyed by the state of American discourse – where “Make America a better place to live, work and raise a family,” is taken seriously as a message for a campaign – a Gingrich presidency would instantly make our national dialogue at least fifty percent smarter.

 (You have to love a candidate who, when asked by a snotty teen at an MTV forum whether he wears “Boxers or briefs?” responds, “That is a very stupid question, and it’s stupid for you to ask that question.” The only way it could have been better is if he made the little punk cry.)

Long before the tech world was contemplating the $100 laptop as a possible solution to alleviate world poverty, Newt was thinking out loud about giving laptops to the homeless. Newt seems like the kind of guy who has twelve ideas before breakfast every morning, and at least some of them are likely to be good ones.

* * *

I’ll leave it to others to make the case for the other folks running for president – I’m less familiar with the Duncan Hunters, the Sam Brownbacks, the Mike Huckabees. But there’s something to admire in just about every man and woman on this earth; there’s certainly something to like about every candidate. (Maybe even some of the Democrats.)

Conservatives ought not be looking for their own Barack Obama; it’s a fool’s errand. Focus on the task at hand: Which man (or woman) is the best choice to represent the party, and lead the nation, starting on January 20, 2009?

An unnamed Democratic state party director, to Robert Novak, in today’s column:

“Bush is in such bad shape that the result of the 2008 election is already decided.”

He may have chatted with Erick Erickson (note to my buddies at RedState – I don’t know what got into him, but keep him away from sharp objects), who writes:

“In fact, all things being equal, I expect no Republican will be elected President in 2008.”

Hotline details a memo from the Obama camp on the Madrassa story. Key paragraph:

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa. These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to solve our common problems.

The Hotline gang have three interpretations – one that Obama wants to bash Fox News to score points among liberals, one that “Obama with not be swiftboated” (snort) and the most intriguing:

The story still has legs, and Obama’s staff are concerned that the madrassa rumor will never be fully put to bed unless it’s tucked under the covers by Obama himself. Obama, we’re told, was asked about the madrassa story at least six times yesterday. One reporter wasn’t aware that CNN had proven the rumor false.

When a politician gets confronted with an allegation like this, they usually face a certain paralysis – do they respond with a vehement and vocal denial, or does that call more attention to the original charge? Obama’s team clearly has decided to pull out the stops in their denial.

But you wonder how often this charge is going to float around the Internet like an urban legend, forwarded via e-mail among those who don’t follow the news, or who don’t believe the denials, or who simply don’t pay attention to the denials.

Over in the Corner, Jonah noted the sad, sad news that John Kerry will not be running for president in 2008.

I am heartbroken. This is terrible, terrible, news… for me.

At first glance, it’s hard to imagine three candidates finishing ahead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in any primary… but in Iowa, that is what Strategic Vision is finding.

John Edwards 25%
Barack Obama 17%
Tom Vilsack 16%
Hillary Clinton 15%

I wonder if Hillary will spend more time out there, or whether the perception will be that the presence of home state governor Vilsack will “taint” the results.

Gallup has asked Democrats what they think of Hillary’s presidential bid. The results:

13.           (Asked of Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party) Suppose Hillary Clinton decides to run for president in the Democratic primary in 2008.  Please tell me whether you will definitely support her, whether you might consider supporting her, or whether you will definitely not support her.

                   BASED ON –535—DEMOCRATS AND DEMOCRATIC LEANERS  

	Definitely support	Might consider supporting	Definitely not support	No opinion
2007 Jan 5-7	34	52	14	*

  14.           (Asked of Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party who say they might consider supporting or will definitely not support Hillary Clinton) For each of the following, please say whether it is a major reason, a minor reason, or not a reason why you [might not/ will not] support Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.  How about — [ITEMS A-C ROTATED, THEN ITEMS D-E READ IN ORDER]? 

BASED ON –378—DEMOCRATS AND DEMOCRATIC LEANERS WHO SAY THEY MIGHT CONSIDER SUPPORTING OR WILL DEFINITELY NOT SUPPORT HILLARY CLINTON 

2007 Jan 5-7 (sorted by “major reason”)	Major reason	Minor reason	Not a reason	No opinion
E. You do not think she can win the presidential election	29	32	36	3
B. You do not agree with her on the issues	26	34	36	4
D. You do not think she can win the Democratic nomination for president	16	40	42	2
A. You do not like her personality	11	29	57	2
C. You do not want to see another Clinton in the White House	10	19	71	*

That last question suggests that “electability” might be as big a deal in 2008 as it was in 2004, when many Democratic primary voters “Dated Dean, Married Kerry.” (And, the joke went, Woke Up With Bush.)

Some smart guys disagreed with my post of yesterday, where I rolled my eyes at candidates’ pledges to pursue “energy independence.”

Many point out that the United States would be in a stronger position if we didn’t have to buy oil from Middle Eastern regimes. Right now they have leverage over us, and that leaves us with fewer options. And that’s a strong point.

Other readers said that most Middle Eastern countries need to diversify their economy, and our reduction in oil purchases would push them in that long overdue direction. Again, a good point.

Many readers wrote in to explain in detail how much they loathe the House of Saud. I don’t necessarily like the House of Saud either, but I don’t believe that the situation on the Arabian peninsula “cannot possibly get any worse,” as one reader put it. As it is, the official position of the Saudi Kingdom is one of friendship, they send their children to our universities, they cooperate on intelligence matters (or so we’re told) and they imprison or kill al-Qaeda within their own borders. Yes, there are some princes who are likely bad guys, and most likely plenty of aspiring jihadists within the country. But any regime that replaced the Saudi Royal Family in a coup could very well not cooperate in the current manners, and/or use their position as the ruler of the territory that includes Mecca and Medina to more explicitly endorse the jihadist message.

The same goes for Kuwait, the Gulf states, etc. Our purchase of their oil helps keep their economies going; the economic growth keeps their government in power, and keeping those governments in power ensures we have local allies in the war on terror.

I cannot help but suspect that when pollsters ask about “energy independence” in focus groups, the average Joes and Janes in those groups say something in the vein of, “I can’t wait for the day we can tell them all to go to hell and we don’t have to deal with the Middle East anymore.” (P.J. O’Rourke said something like, ‘Americans hate dealing with foreign policy because it’s full of foreigners.’) We know many people in our country don’t want to deal with the aggravation, irrationality, violence and incomprehensible ancient furies with the Sunni and the Shia and the Persians and the Turks and the Wahhabists and the Palestinians and all of that. They want it off of their television screens, off the front page. I feel this way all the time.

But “energy independence” won’t bring about that Isolationist Utopia. Instead of blaming the United States for stealing oil, or buying it at unfair prices, the locals will be angry at us for not buying their oil. It might force these countries to diversify their economies… or they may sit around and blame someone else for their problems, and listen to the radical guy who’s pledging to make it all better.

My sense is, we ought to be nudging them to diversify their economy (and they ought to want to do it for their own sake), but it’s not going to happen overnight. King Abdullah of Jordan, whose country doesn’t have much oil or many other natural resources, is actually putting considerable efforts into making his country the education and entrepreneurial center of the region. Dubai and the UAE aim to become a global trade center.

The real problem isn’t the economic dependence; the real problem is the radicalism, the ideology. Reducing our dependence on their oil may make sense for us, and it may give us greater leverage against radicalism. But it’s not the solution, and right now, ‘energy independence’ is the closest thing the Democrats have to a strategy against radical jihadism. The problem is, we’re never really going to succeed in “walling off” the problems of the region, and their problems sooner or later will end up being our problems.

So when candidates pledge to establish American energy independence, my reaction is, “Great, I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, what else have you got?”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on MSNBC to offer her response to the President’s State of the Union address. Highlights, such as they are:

On bipartisanship:

“[The President] mentioned a few issues, like energy independence and health care, where we are eager to work towards some kind of bipartisan result. 

So, let’s see what happens.  I mean, the proof is in the pudding.”

On Iraq:

OLBERMANN: In a backwards kind of way, and in an unexpected kind of way, did the president not spend enough time talking about Iraq tonight? 

CLINTON:  Well, actually, Keith, I think he made his whole defense of Iraq, because he started by linking it to the war on terror, which all of us support.  And I have been, you know, adamant that we have to be more effective and smarter in going after the bad guys who are after us.

And he certainly tried to once again summon the Congress and the country to see his version of reality. 

I don’t think it’s going to sell.  I think that a majority of Democrats and a sizable number of Republicans are turning against this policy of escalation, not because we don’t want to fight the war on terror—in fact, we want to fight it smarter and better—but because it is only a slice of a strategy.

On Bush attending the Democratic retreat, and potential support for Hillary among Republicans: 

MATTHEWS:  What do you think, Senator, of the fact that the president has decided to go down to Williamsburg in a week or so and actually join the House Democrats.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS:  You are laughing. OK, this is a personal question.  Would you accept an invitation if the Republicans invited you to their retreat? 

CLINTON:  Absolutely, in a New York minute, Chris.  I think it’s a great invitation.  I’m glad the president accepted. 

You know, some of these things may be ritualistic.  You know that.  You have been in this town a lot longer than I have.  But I think it also does at least show respect for the process.  We need to get back to working with each other and, you know, pursuing some common means toward getting results for our constituents and our country. 

So, I’m glad that the president was invited.  And I’m delighted that he is going. 

MATTHEWS:  Do you think you can retail those Republicans into voting for you?

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON:  Well, I got some of them in New York.  I would like to figure out if I could get a few more. 

Hillary Clinton did increase her performance in the 2006 elections, running against anemic competition. A common perception about her 2000 performance was that she did fairly well in working-class, Republican-leaning, culturally conservative upstate New York, but the New Republic went back and found she hadn’t done terribly well, and this was against Rick Lazio, a nice enough Congressman, but not exactly an electoral juggernaut.

Even in this less-than-hostile terrain, Clinton’s performance hasn’t been that spectacular. She actually lost upstate by three points to her 2000 opponent, Rick Lazio. And that’s despite the fact that Lazio entered the race late–after Rudy Giuliani dropped out in May–and then wasted further time downstate trying to catch up to Clinton’s fund-raising. That’s despite the poor judgment on display when the Long Island native introduced himself to upstate voters with an ad of himself walking on the beach. (Don’t bother with your atlas: Upstate has no ocean beaches.) And that’s despite the debate debacle, when Lazio ticked off upstate voters–particularly those who were unemployed–by declaring that the ailing upstate economy had already “turned the corner.” 

Though Clinton didn’t beat her opponent upstate, it could be argued that she did fairly well there by the standards of Democratic Senate candidates. She gained two points over Moynihan in 1994 and four points over Chuck Schumer in 1998. But previous candidates didn’t spend nearly as much time upstate as she did…

But, while Clinton may have done all right upstate for a Democratic Senate candidate, she didn’t do that well compared with Democratic presidential contenders. Al Gore and John Kerry both won upstate with 49 percent of the vote, compared with Clinton’s 46 percent. Where Clinton won ten upstate counties, Gore took 18 and Kerry 14. Although voters may base their choice for president on different criteria than they use for picking statewide candidates, Clinton was never like other statewide candidates. From the start, she was a national figure.

Well, as long as the Republicans nominate 2006 senatorial candidate John Spencer as their presidential candidate next year, Hillary will do fine.

James Pethokoukis of U.S. News and World Report has written an examination of the likely economic agenda of a Hillary Clinton Presidency, and it’s a must-read. Short version? Don’t expect a third term of Bill Clinton’s policies.

Some key points:

But after listening to Hillary’s inaugural campaign video and perusing her recent speeches, it seems as if she’ll be campaigning not so much as Clinton 3.0 but more as Clinton 1.0, the “putting people first” Beta version from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign that got tossed overboard in the early months of his first term. While candidate Bill campaigned on a Main Street-friendly program of increasing public investment in human capital–aka workers–President Bill shifted to a Wall Street-friendly strategy of cutting the budget deficit so the Federal Reserve and bond market would lower interest rates. (The theory was that out-of-control deficits would devalue the dollar and create higher inflation down the road.) As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has written:

… the administration was unable to increase public investment. It had to cut the budget deficit it inherited so that Alan Greenspan and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve, plus bond traders on Wall Street, would feel confident enough to reduce interest rates. But even when the economy soared in the late 1990s and deficits turned into large surpluses–that is, even when we could afford it–Clinton and the Democrats were reluctant to push an investment agenda. Instead, they admonished Congress to “save Social Security first,” a stopgap strategy that left the surpluses on the table.

…Maybe the most interesting tidbit from her April speech–one I am sure the GOP will hammer her on if she is the Democratic nominee–is her apparent belief that the Kyoto treaty, meant to reduce global-warming emissions, is a “great organizing principle” for a national economy.

On a related note, Hillary Spot reader Michael asked whether I can create a macro on my computer so that every time some Democratic candidate mentions the Kyoto Treaty, my computer will automatically point out it was rejected 95-0 in the Senate.

It seems like one of the big buzzwords that we will hear on both sides of the aisle this campaign season is “energy independence.”

Thomas P.M. Barnett – whose weekly interviews with Hugh Hewitt I’m enjoying tremendously – puts this into perspective. (This piece is actually from about a year ago, around the time of the Dubai Ports World controversy but it came to my attention recently.)

And if we’re seeing connectivity result that otherwise would not be there, then I say we choose investment over fear. Do I want Dubai to become a Hong Kong/Singapore of the Middle East? Sure. Because I want the Middle East to connect up to the world. In fact, that’s the whole purpose behind our Big Bang strategy of toppling Saddam: connecting the Middle East up to the global economy faster than the jihadists can disconnect it.

The Al Qaedaists of the Middle East know damn well what they’re doing: they want to sabotage the regions’ economies, disconnecting them from the world, and reap the whirlwind of social distress. Thus we should expect more attacks on port and energy facilities like the one that targeted the Abqaiq facility recently.

I know that some op-ed strategists want to play that game as well, arguing we should cut the global economy off from the Middle East by denying ourselves its oil as quickly as possible, but I argue for just the opposite approach. I want shared economic and strategic interests, not some rapid-fire economic divorce.

If the U.S. were to find a supply of oil somewhere in Texas that suddenly meant that we didn’t need to import another drop from the Middle East, would this country say to the House of Saud, to the Kuwaiti royal family, the Gulf states and every other oil-rich semi-friendly nation to go to heck? Are we really eager to bring economic ruin to the few wealthy and more stable states in the region, and would we really tell the entire Middle East, “well, we don’t need your oil anymore, you’re on your own”?

These isolationist dreams seem really attractive for a few moments – until we contemplate a bin Laden-type taking over Saudi Arabia and controling Mecca and Medina, and a whole slew of Taliban-style states taking over in the aftermath of the economic collapse. The United States is intertwined in the Middle East, and all the investment ethanol, renewables, and hybrids in the world aren’t going to change that.

Hugh Hewitt wonders about Hillary watching Casablanca in law school.

Then there is her Al Gore-like summoning up of her days in college and law school watching Casablanca.  Mrs. Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969 and Yale Law School in 1973.  Perhaps Betamax machines and VCRs made an early appearance at those campuses, or there was a  film theater nearby that showed nothing but Casablanca, but the idea that she watched it “over and over again,” is one of those “hmmm” moments that catch your attention, like Al Gore’s dog’s Shiloh’s medicine or John Kerry’s magic hat.

Finally, the “Out of Africa” reference may lose her the election.  Really.  That’s frightening. 

Wasn’t Casablanca on television a lot back then?

As for Hillary’s movie choices – well, I can’t help but wonder if someone conducted a poll of the most popular movies of the voting-age electorate, that the Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and Out of Africa would all rank very high on the list. Suspicious minds might recall Bill Clinton having Dick Morris conduct a poll on where the Clintons ought to spend their summer vacation back in 1996…

Nahhhh.