Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932
By Donald A. Ritchie
University Press of Kansas
Lawrence, KS, 2007

In late 2007 I wrote a series of three essays (here, here and here) examining the parallels between the early indicators in this election cycle and the Democratic landslide of 1932.  In those previous essays I examined long-term demographic and voting trends, the number of seats being defended by the Republicans and the overwhelming financial, operational, strategic and polling advantages of the Democrats, and the tremendous unpopularity of George W. Bush and the Republican party.  

In the months since, the underlying weaknesses of the Republicans have grown more apparent.  The National Republican Congressional Committee has remained broke and is mired in an embezzlement scandal that could leave it unable to borrow money to protect their dozens of endangered incumbents or to defend Republican-held open seats.  The NRCC's Senate counterparts aren't in much better shape, with several Republican-held seats like those in Virginia, New Hampshire and New Mexico appearing to be already settled contests, and with probably ten or more remaining Republican seats potentially vulnerable, all while the DSCC has a roughly 2-1 cash advantage.  

Last November and December few would have predicted that it would not be until June that the Democratic nomination was finally settled.  After polling roughly even with Republican nominee John McCain, since Hillary Clinton conceded the nomination Barack Obama has surged to solid leads in many of the previously contested battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, and has polled exceedingly well in many other states that haven't been competitive for Democrats since 1996, or in some cases 1976 or even 1964.  

History doesn't repeat itself.  While there is great value in many of the writings of advocates of a cyclical view of history, such as Giambattista Vico, Arnold Toynbee and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr (whose works include the Pulitizer-prize winning The Crisis of the Old Order 1919-1933: The Age of Roosevelt), few historians accept the notion that history repeats itself.  But Mark Twain was on to something when he quipped that "history doesn't repeat itself...but it rhymes."  

Donald A. Ritchie's Electing FDR: The New Deal Election of 1932 would be a worthy read even were it not for the compelling parallels one finds in it from the perspective of this particular campaign season.  Ritchie, an associate historian at the U.S. Senate Historical Office, has a deft touch for the compelling anecdote and story, and keeps the narrative moving nicely.  He introduces the main and secondary characters with enough detail and context that we can understand their actions and motivations, but with enough brevity and economy that the details don't slow down the reader.  

Ritchie knows the social, economic and intellectual history of the era, and does an excellent job of giving the broader cultural and social background in which the campaign took place.  And his descriptions of the hard working, conscientious but humorless Herbert Hoover and the ebullient FDR, once seen as a featherweight but whose struggle with polio at age 39 led him to develop tremendous fortitude and empathy with those in danger of being beaten down in their own struggles, enliven the book.  Ritchie's portraits of Hoover and Roosevelt make it seem obvious that a cabbie in Detroit could convey this impression to a reporter:

I tell you, lady, the day Roosevelt is elected will be a national holiday—like Armistice Day, you know.  I figure that if we get rid of Old Gloom and put in a feller that can laugh and act human, the Depression will be half over.

The cabbie was right.  The economic toll of the Depression continued through FDR's first two terms, and didn't really lift until the country was mobilized for the struggle against fascism.  But half the battle against the depression was against fear and despair, and the country began righting itself the moment FDR, in his first inaugural address, told Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  

But what about those parallels between 1932 and 2008?  Yes, the country and the world face tremendous challenges, probably the most dire since the Second World War.  Things are not as bad as when FDR ran.  But the years before the stock market crash of 1929 have many similarities to our recent past.  The Republicans were in full control of the government, and anti-regulatory, pro-business policies prevailed. While unemployment was low, there was a yawning gap in wealth and income between the rich and poor.  Rural communities were distressed.  The economy was undergoing a major transformation.  Organized labor was weakened and under assault.  Though economic problems were increasing, it was cultural issues, most of all prohibition, that dominated elections.

Hoover came in to office with a reputation very different from that of George W. Bush.  Hoover was possibly America's most admired and respected administrator.  He was a self-made man who had excelled in the first class at Stanford University, became a mining executive, traveled the world and made a fortune.  During World War I he was dispatched by Woodrow Wilson to oversee food relief programs in Europe, and he performed brilliantly.  In 1920 he was even sought out as a possible Democratic nominee for President.  

That year former assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt ran on the losing Democratic ticket.  He and Hoover had become friends in Washington DC during the war, and they admired each other.  But Hoover joined the Republicans, and spent the 1920's as the Secretary of Commerce.  He largely avoided political rancor, but built up political chits, and in 1928 won the Republican presidential nomination and defeated New York's Catholic Governor Al Smith for the Presidency.

Roosevelt spent much of the 1920's rehabilitating himself from polio, which he contracted in 1921.  By 1928, however, he was recruited, somewhat reluctantly, to run for Governor of New York, in part to bolster the ticket in New York for Smith's presidential campaign.  Smith lost his home state, but Roosevelt eked out a narrow win.    

By 1932, the good times and emphasis in campaigns on divisive social issues were gone.  Unemployment, 3.2% when Hoover took office, was at 23.6%.  We have severe problems in our banking and financial sectors today, but nothing like what faced the country in 1932.  On the very day the Democratic convention started in Chicago, 25 of that city's banks were forced to close.  

In 1930, as the Depression gained strength, the Democrats crushed the Republicans in the mid-term elections.  Back then Congress didn't convene until a year after the elections.  During the interim between the elections in November of 1930 and the seating of Congress in early 1932, 13 members of Congress died, and Democrats won almost every one of the special elections, including some in previously solidly Republican districts.  In total, by the time Congress was seated, Democrats had netted a 54 seat gain in the House, shifting the chamber from solidly Republican to a Democratic advantage of 3 seats.  

In the Senate, Democrats picked up 8 seats.  It was barely less than they needed to gain control, but thinking that a solidly Democratic congress that couldn't accomplish anything in the face of Presidential obstruction would hurt the Democrats more than his party, Hoover urged the Senate Republicans to let the Democrats organize the chamber.  

That Congress, in large part because of Presidential vetos, accomplished very little.  Unlike today, there were progressive Republicans like George Norris of Nebraska and William Borah of Idaho.  Nevertheless, like today, an obstructionist President prevented a narrow Democratic majority from many accomplishments.

Roosevelt, easily reelected in 1930 on the strength of his bold policies as governor as much as the overall Democratic wave, became the favorite for the nomination.  However, the other candidates, including his one-time ally Al Smith, had enough support to prevent Roosevelt from securing the nomination.  Roosevelt assembled a team of newcomers, while the campaigns of his rivals were stacked with politicos who had been involved in previous presidential campaigns.  At a time when primaries meant very, very little—fewer than 5% or so of the delegates were awarded on the basis of primary results—Roosevelt nonetheless dispatched one of his chief aids to travel the country and build on the support of Democratic leaders with whom Roosevelt had continued correspondence ever since his 1920 VP candidacy, and he contested every primary.  Despite losing most of the biggest or mostly heavily Democratic states, such as Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Roosevelt performed quite well, especially in states not traditionally thought to be bastions of Democratic support or likely Democratic wins in a general election.

Roosevelt's team went to the Chicago convention with the most support, but far from the total needed for the nomination.  In 1924 the convention required over a hundred ballots before reaching agreement.  FDR's team expected to be able to hold and maybe grow their lead through four.  If all of the candidates arrayed against him could have thrown their collective support behind one of their group, that man would have won the nomination.  But with the assistance of Joseph Kennedy—father of John, Robert and Teddy Kennedy—Roosevelt's team was able to negotiate a deal with the Speaker of the House, Texan John Nance Garner, for the support his delegates who controlled the delegations from Texas and California.  

The Democrats came out of the convention only moderately excited by Roosevelt.  Some delegates, supporters mostly of Al Smith, declared that Roosevelt would not be able to win Catholic voters in November.  But the delegates were unified in support for repealing prohibition.  

Shortly after gaining the nomination, Roosevelt disappointed many of his most liberal supporters by renouncing his support for the League of Nations.  In the wake of World War I, the country was strongly isolationist.  While Roosevelt personally supported the League, Roosevelt announced he would not seek US entry in to the league, declaring there was "a difference between ideals and the methods of obtaining them."  

Throughout the campaign Roosevelt provided few specifics on policy.  He was widely criticized by intellectuals, writers and party elites for the vagueness of his proposals and the lack of bold pronouncements in his campaign.  He did, however, have his "brain trust" of professors, mostly from Columbia, who were key in drafting his speeches in which he advocated for government intervention in the economy and a more vigorous effort to move the country forward than that advocated by Hoover.  But Roosevelt kept many of his more conservative financial backers molified by advocating a balanced budget, and he eschewed many specifics.  As he told his brain trusters, he was running a campaign and not an adult education program, and that in office he could educate the public and harness their support for his initiative, but as a candidate he "had to accept people's prejudices and turn them to good use."  

Operationally FDR's campaign was far more bold and inventive than Hoover's.  FDR had a deep, resonant voice and an orator's gift.  Hoover was uncomfortable with speaking on the radio, and avoided that new technology, while FDR and his campaign embraced it.  FDR took every opportunity available to speak on the radio, while Hoover conceded that new medium to the Democrat.  And with Wall Street comparatively broke and the activist base split over prohibition between the pro-repeal "wets" and the pro-prohibition "dry's," the Republican party was short on money and enthusiasm.  

Along with the special election wins in the congressional races, the September results in Maine presaged the huge win.  Back then Maine voted for other offices in September, with only the presidency contested in November.  Despite being one of the most Republican states in the union, that September Democrats stomped the Republicans, winning the Governorship and two of the state's three Congressional seats.  

Polio decimated Roosevelt's legs, but the crushing work and failures of his presidency aged Hoover tremendously.  Despite a whisper campaign about FDR's disability—plenty of rumors circulated that he had been infected with syphilis—most who saw him viewed him as the epitome of vigor in comparison with the pallid and defeated Hoover.  Roosevelt developed a powerful upper body from pulling and hoisting himself around, and on campaign stops, his auto or train car was fitted with a bar on which he would rise and stead himself, enabling him to stand.  He had a powerful voice, was relatively young at only 50, and he was campaigning on the belief that what the country needed most was change.  The contrast was stark.  Hoover was old and represented the past.  Roosevelt was the future.  

On election day, Roosevelt won every state but Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  He garnered 57% of the vote--less than future landslide wins by Roosevelt in 1936, Johnson in 1964, Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984--and Democrats netted another 99 seats in the House and 14 in the Senate.

Obviously there are many differences between Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama.  I will not burden Obama with comparisons with one of our three greatest presidents, and the greatest Democrat to ever hold the office.  It's also important to recognize the difference between the horrific conditions of 1932 versus the bad but not as obviously dire circumstances facing us today.  But just as there are striking parallels between the underlying electoral conditions and demographic trends that I examined in my previous essays, the contrasts between our current candidates and the conduct of their campaigns have many parallels with those of 1932.  

Will Barack Obama lead Democrats to the overwhelming win that FDR led in 1932?  While the portents are good, it's still too early to tell.  Besides, we need to not only predict our history, we need to work smart and work hard to create the history we desire.  But one cannot read Ritchie's book in 2008 and not hear words and patterns that, while not the exact as what we hear today, certainly rhyme.  

My mom is Irish.  Growing up with my mom and grandparents I had some of the more standard stereotypical Irish experiences.  We had potatoes at every meal. My grandfather drank like a fiend for years, but when my mom was a teenager, he quit cold turkey.  After that, he limited most of his addictive behavior to betting on the ponies.  (And isn't that a stereotypical Irish thing to do?)  And of course there were the raucous fights arguments um, "loud discussions" about politics and whatever else people would argue about over the dinner table.  

Not much of that is extraordinary.  But something the Irish do that is, if not extraordinary, at least a lot of weird "fun," is honor the dead not just by tears and crying--because, well, the Irish don't do that kind of emotion very well--but by having a damn good party.  My dad grew up in an almost entirely Sicilian neighborhood, and I got to know a lot of Lebanese friends, and the people from the Mediterranean know how to do weddings.  Well, my mom's people know how to do wakes.

As explained today by ct, the guy who makes this place hum along, the original server that once powered this site has died.  As people might say of someone who had fought a tough battle against cancer, the server is now in a better place.  And I hear she looks pretty good...you know, considering.

One of the things that's common at wakes is for people to tell some of their favorite stories about the deceased.  I thought it might be a good thing to do with the server.  I have a lot of fond memories of things that happened here when that server was running the entire site, or then part of it, and more recently when it was powering comment searches.  I'll share some of my favorites, and I hope you share some of your favorite memories.

Even before we ran on Scoop, that server was powering the site.  Here's one of my more fond memories of something I read on that site:

Friday | September 19, 2003

New guest posters

Quick announcements: The two new dKos guest posters are message board regulars Meteor Blades and DHinMI. They will take over most blogging duties on weekends, and will be invaluable help when I'm on the road and in the immediate aftermath of our new baby (coming Nov. 10-ish).

The next day I wrote my first post.

September 2003 was also a milestone month for the site:

Wednesday | October 01, 2003

One million unique visits in September

Wow. Daily Kos had over one million unique visits in September. And each visitor averaged 1.5 page views.
Posted October 01, 2003 09:24 AM | Comments (64)

Now we get about a million hits every weekday.

Back then photos were a big strain on the site, so they weren't stored for more than a couple weeks, making posts like this photo montage by GOTV, which was hilarious, seem a bit confusing.  Trust me, those photos of Bush at the UN, with all the other world leaders, with GOTV's captions were brilliant.

Some of the comments, however, still show the photos.  And one of the best ever, by Addison, proved the existence of electoral fraud in the 2004 election.

There are still some great, great diaries that you can read in full that I think are among the best things written on DKos.  For instance, kossack PBJ Diddy explained his path to becoming a Democrat involved years of living on the streets in NYC.  (I still wish he had gotten it published somewhere, like the New Yorker.  Yeah, it's really that good.)

Not everything worth remembering that was once stored on that server was serious or touching. For instance, one of the great unintentionally ironic classics of Daily Kos, My experience at Kos. by jeremymc, was such an epic, wonderfully bad GBCW diary that it sat atop the recommended diary list for about a day, and attracted over 700 comments.  

And in more recent years, that server worked as the search engine for comments.  Just the other day, while someone was complaining that a satire wasn't funny, I searched for a this example of a scathing, searing, devastating satire that wasn't really "funny" but was nonetheless brilliant, calipygian's Jonah Goldberg Presents: The White Man's Shoah.  

How 'bout you?  Any particular comments or diaries that you fondly remember?  Please share.  And remember, don't drink too much at this wake.  

What Bob Johnson said.

Losing on the FISA thing sucks.  Of course.  But let's be clear here, while on principle it's been the right thing to do to fight it, the battle was lost months ago when Harry Reid made it clear it was a priority for him to pass the bill with the telecom immunity.  

Should I have paid more attention to the bill?  Should I have cared more?  Sure.  But there were a few reasons I didn't focus on it more than many of you did here at DKos.  As Bob put it in his diary:

Here's what is making me crap my pants these days:

• A soaring unemployment rate
• A crashing stock market
• The looming failures of a number of huge banks
• Soaring oil prices
• Our looming environmental disaster
• A horribly broken (and broke) government, destroyed from the inside by the Bush-Cheney cabal
• The mess in Iraq
• Afghanistan going backwards - quickly
• A Republican nominee who is likely more incompetent, corrupt and dangerous than the current criminals occupying the Executive Branch

I'll add a few more off the top of my head without even trying: the mess of health care in this country, obscene levels of income and wealth inequality, a broken military, young people priced out of going to college, moving out on their own or having kids, a horribly conservative judiciary and several fundamental rights hanging on only by the health of the octogenarians on the Supreme Court, our horrible standing in world opinion, the intersection of our energy and food problems, a plummeting housing market, our devastated manufacturing base, the assault on the federal civil service and on the very idea of government competence, the war on science, the selling off of public goods and the looting of the public treasury on behalf of Bush cronies...there are probably a dozen other major crises we face and for which John McCain is completely unsuited to address, and would probably make worse.  

These things--not FISA--are what sometimes keep me awake at night.

When I talk with family and friends who are generally well-informed citizens but not the kind of people who read Daily Kos, they never mention FISA.  They talk about the homes in foreclosure on their block, or how they can't afford health care, or how much they want us out of Iraq.  Now, there are plenty of other things that are important that most people don't mention.  Just because, for instance, few people talk about nuclear proliferation doesn't mean it's not important.  Prior to September 11th, 2001 there were few citizens without specialized knowledge who had even heard of Osama Bin Laden.  And had anyone realized how bad things had gotten at FEMA before the Fall of 2005?  

So, there is tremendous value in a small number of people paying close attention to the details, to things like telecom immunity in a FISA bill, for as the old saying suggests, that's where one finds the devil.  

But there's another hoary old saying, about missing the forest for the trees.  Does anyone believe that if Barack Obama was president, that this abomination of a bill would have been pushed on Congress?  One can be unhappy with his statements on FISA and skeptical about his commitment to block it.  However, it doesn't follow that one's possible reluctance to wage a battle against a bill for which the public isn't clamoring  but about which the GOP could easily demagogue, is the same as being likely to push such a provision on the Congress as president.  

I'm not happy about the FISA fold.  But I view this as the last new and horrible act of the Bush administration.  It's possible, of course, that Bush could bomb Iran, but it's probably not likely.  And with Congress ready to shift to campaign mode, with it likely that Congress will not pass new appropriations bills but instead pass continuations of this years budgets and wait for a president more willing to deal honestly and fairly with Congress, Bush may be done with real initiatives that are new ways to screw up the country.  

So, I'm focused on November.  That doesn't mean I don't care about FISA.  It just means I've decided that the fight is in front of us.  The challenge is to elect Barack Obama president, and to give him huge majorities in Congress.  You may think it's a cliche, but it's also the truth that the best guarantee against new and crappy laws like this FISA bill is more and better Democrats.  

Unlike many at DKos, I am not disillusioned with the current Congress.  I've been occasionally disappointed with them, but not disillusioned, because I always viewed winning Congress back in 2006 as not a way to really advance our agenda, but as a way to block Bush's.  Unfortunately, that didn't always turn out the way we wanted.  We never got withdrawal timetables for Iraq.  We weren't able to override Bush's veto on expanding health insurance for kids.  We had to struggle to pass a minimum wage increase, and we weren't able to block the FISA expansion with the telco immunity.  

But this Congress has stopped some of the bleeding.  Not all, absolutely not.  But it's a step, and like the the last six years of the Clinton administration, when it was pitted against a recalcitrant Republican Congress, this Democratic Congress could mostly just offer resistance to a recalcitrant radical Republican president.  

But that can change next year.  Because of the excesses of the Republicans, the disdain with which people hold Bush and the GOP and the blame they attribute to them for those problems listed by Bob Johnson and myself, we're on the verge of a potentially huge victory in November.  I want to make that victory as grand and transforming as possible.  

The Democratic landslides of the elections of 1932 through 1936 and the landslide win of LBJ in 1964, which swelled the Democratic congressional majorities, were the most transforming elections since Lincoln's victories in 1860 and 1864.  Lincoln brought the end of slavery and preserved the Union.  FDR modernized the federal government, creating the main pillars of the New Deal like Social Security, the advancement of labor rights, the creation of the vast middle class, and the ability of the government to control the excesses of the markets.  Later, with those majorities only slightly diminished, he led us in the victory over fascism.  Johnson finished the work of Lincoln through the voting rights and civil rights acts, and he moved us further along in economic and social justice through the creation of important initiatives like Medicare.  

Electing Barack Obama and giving him huge Congressional majorities will help reverse the damage caused by years of radical right misrule by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and George W. Bush.  It would give Democrats the mandate to do the things we need to do to turn around our country, and to save life on our planet.  

The battle to focus on isn't the one we lost yesterday.  The battle to focus on is the one we need to win in November.  Then, after November, we need to push the Congressional Democrats and President Obama to fulfill their promises, and to fulfill our promise.

I'm disappointed we lost FISA.  But I'm far more committed to doing what we need to do to have a huge win in November.  I think most Democrats share my view.  I hope most Kossacks will as well.

In a move that's no surprise, Barack Obama has decided to forgo accepting public matching funds for his Presidential campaign.  The McCain campaign has already begun attacking Obama for the decision.  But McCain himself, at least by implication, supports Obama's decision:

I think it's wonderful that Howard Dean was able to use the Internet, $50, $75, $100 contributions.  That's what we want it to be all about.  We want average citizens to contribute small amounts of money, and that's a commitment to a campaign.  So I'm for that.  I think it's a great thing.  I think the Internet is going to change American politics for the better.

Whether or not McCain understands the internet, he does think it's great that a candidate could largely fund his campaign with small donations, mostly taken over the internet, which is exactly what Obama is doing.  At least that's what McCain said in 2004, when he wasn't running for president.  Surely he wouldn't say something different today, right?  The so-called "Straight Talk Express" wouldn't contradict himself just because it's politically expedient, would he?  

Remember this, from a few months back?

Ahh, the home cooking of Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy. You can almost smell her Ahi tuna with Napa cabbage slaw or her rosemary chicken with warm spinach salad as you peruse the recipes on her husband's campaign Web site.

Or you could have, until yesterday, when that part of the site was taken down after bloggers revealed that several of the "McCain Family Recipes" were, in fact, copied word for word from the Food Network.

Cindy McCain's tuna recipe was actually developed and submitted to the Food Network by cookbook author and former "Cooking Thin" host Kathleen Daelemans. The recipe for farfalle pasta with turkey sausage, peas and mushrooms was a "quick pasta classic" from the TV show "Everyday Italian." That old McCain standby -- rosemary chicken -- was a creation of TV chef Rachael Ray and was lifted, with a few changes, from the same Food Network site.

All three were listed on a McCain Web page titled "Cindy's Recipes."

Well, they're at it again.  But this time they're plagiarizing recipes from Hershey's website for Cindy McCain's [sic] Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies.  

We all know that the Republicans like pretend they're salt-of-the-earth types in contrast to us supposedly effete decadent liberals, even though they too enjoy many of the pleasures of life used to caricature liberals.  Last Winter I stood behind Karl Rove in a coffee shop in one of the most gay-friendly, liberal and cosmopolitan neighborhoods in America as he ordered a latte.  

When they're being sloppy plagiarizers, the McCain team tosses out recipes for fine meals like Ahi Tuna with Napa cabbage slaw.  It's not something you're likely to find at your local Denny's, Waffle House or Cracker Barrel, but rather at some hip restaurant in a happening downtown.  It probably sounded good to the campaign help who plagiarized it.  But it was off message.  

The McCain campaign plagiarizers are getting a bit more strategic with their plagiarizing, at least going for something more down-home: good old-fashioned butterscotch and oatmeal cookie that makes me think of my grandmother's baking and the butterscotch candies she gave me when I was a small child.  

Of course all of this is amusing, because with her bazillions of dollars and numerous homes (including this house profiled in Architectural Digest, it's hard to picture Cindy McCain standing over a mixing bowl reading off the Hershey's package as she stirs the cookie dough.  I suspect it's "the help" that prepares all those meals at the McCain house houses.  Cindy probably just says "I'd like an Ahi Tuna entree," and the help runs to the computer and finds a recipe.  It's easy; it's a Google!

But what about "the help" employed on John McCain's campaign?  Are they so arrogant that they think that after putting out one series of plagiarized recipes, that they wouldn't get caught when they tried it again?  Or is the McCain campaign so clueless that not only do they not learn from their past mistakes, the they don't even remember their past mistakes and thus keep repeating them?  

Are you itching to express sanctimonious outrage?  

Are you jealous that you haven't made the rec list complaining about horrible offenses like people wishing ill on the dead and reveling in the loss felt by their family, friends and fans?

Do you, unlike just about everyone else decrying how Daily Kos has become a horrible place, at least hope to cite an example or two?  You know, so it's not patently obviously that you're "outraged" about something that's maybe 1-2% of the comments being written on the subject?  

Well, please, use this diary as a stand-in for evidence.  The odds are that few people will click on your hyperlink, and really, it's about as solid a collection of evidence as you'll find in all the other expressions of "outrage" that are on the rec list.  But your diary will have the look of something based on, you know, evidence.  

While we're at it, feel free to use this diary as a stand in for actual evidence of just about anything else that you want to say is wrong with the world, but about which you're not going to bother to provide evidence.  

This diary has been a community service to those creating diary performance art demonstrating their superior morality to those unnamed, uncounted, uncited and probably non-existent masses at Daily Kos who are responsible for their sanctimonious outrage du jour.  

John McCain, we've learned, is computer illiterate, and not knowledgeable about the internet.  That may concern some people worried about a president who doesn't understand arguably the most fundamental technological development since the invention of the internal combustion engine.  

Fear not.  I was recently briefed by one of McCain's tech advisers, who demonstrated for me some newfangled gizmos a McCain administration would use to keep America the world's leader in technological innovation and application.

John McCain isn't adept at dealing with digitized information, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about digits and computations.  For instance, to keep track of all the lobbyist money coming to his campaign from corporate special interests and tax dollars going out as favors to the same corporate special interests, his administration would use this nifty technology:

It's often said we live in an information age.  McCain has many technological answers to the problems of dealing with information.

Here's how he plans to stay in close contact with overseas governments and leaders:  

For domestic transfers of information, this is his solution:

McCain won't neglect infrastructure.  He plans on placing his "good friend" Ted Stevens in charge of developing a vast series of these:

McCain expects to put the US at the vanguard of biotech development with these:

McCain would commit America to cutting edge treatment for mental illness:

It's time to wean ourselves off of our over-reliance on gas-guzzling SUVs and large automobiles.  McCain's plan?  Mass transit:

McCain recognizes that our modes of freight transport need to revamping.  He has some wonderful ideas for harnessing previously underutilized sources of energy:

Are you tired of horrible service and delays when you fly?  McCain has an answer to our overburdened air transportation system:

Terrorism, of course, remains a threat; McCain will propose numerous technological responses.  There's this facial recognition technology:

One of the problems exposed by the 9-11 attacks was the inability of the FBI offices and divisions to effectively process and coordinate the analysis of information.  McCain will champion this new method of copying and preparing data for storage:

To see if suspected terrorists are concealing something dangerous, TSA under a McCain administration would have the best in new x-ray technology:

And in the event of an attack, McCain believes it's crucial that our first responders have state of the art equipment, such as this:

Finally, our greatest export is our culture.  As President, McCain would try to foster the continued growth of the creative class.  He would offer tax breaks to moguls like this guy who push the boundaries of cinema:

Spreading images of American life will help improve our image around the world:

And McCain himself will try to model healthy behavior by engaging in his beloved cycling:

John McCain for President: building a bridge to the nineteenth century.

All day today, the contributing editors will be offering different takes on why Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic primary despite having started as the prohibitive favorite. These essays approach the question from differing angles and are not for the most part mutually exclusive, but attempt to address specific pieces of the complexity of this massive, drawn-out primary process.

One year ago I was advising someone pondering an endorsement of Barack Obama.  I will not claim incredible prescience.  I did not predict that Obama would become the Democratic nominee for President.  But I did think he had the best chance of winning.  I thought there would be an anti-Clinton candidate.  I thought it would not be John Edwards.  I felt Edwards' populism would not play well in New Hampshire, where he finished fourth in 2004, and that his fundraising wouldn't give him the needed resources for a strong showing on Super Tuesday.  

By elimination if nothing else, I thought Barack Obama would become the alternative for voters looking for someone new.  Obama proved he could raise a lot of money.  I thought it was a "change election," and voters wanted something vastly different than their choices of recent elections, and that Obama offered the biggest break with the past that would be tolerated by the primary electorate.  I thought that Democrats would hope for something more than the half-loaf we came away with from the Clinton administration; instead of rear-guard actions delaying the advancing Republicans, Democrats want bold change.  And I thought that any campaign guided by Mark Penn, as was the case with Clinton's, was probably doomed to failure.  

In 1940, France had the world's largest army.  France, having been invaded twice in the previous seventy years by Germany, had also built the Maginot Line, a series of bunkers and obstructions designed to prevent a direct assault from Germany or Italy.  The Germans avoided the Maginot line by invading with overwhelming force through the Low Countries and in through unfortified Northern France.  The construction of the Maginot Line and the deployment of much of France's army in the wrong place to repel the German invasion is one of the most oft-cited examples of generals preparing to fight the last war.

Hillary Clinton did not become the Democratic nominee for many reasons.  Barack Obama was simply the better candidate.  Voters wanted change; people generally vote either their fears or their aspirations, for what someone might become and bring about rather than what they were, are or have done in the past.  Obama appealed to and personally exemplified the aspirations of voters, especially younger voters and African-Americans.  The Clinton campaign also committed many errors.  They ignoring caucuses, didn't plan for the races beyond Super Tuesday, and didn't offer a compelling message beyond "the Clinton years were good, and voting for Hillary Clinton will bring back what was good about the Clinton years."  Clinton had also alienated many activist Democrats with her vote for the Iraq War resolution, and exacerbated this problem by refusing to repent for her vote.  

But most debilitating and pervasive within the Clinton campaign was the malady that afflicts many military organizations.  Like the French in 1940, the Clinton campaign was built to wage the previous battle, in this case a 1990's-style Democratic primary campaign.  The Clinton campaign was not prepared for the changes in the Democratic electorate or electioneering.  Furthermore, too many of the "generals" leading the Clinton campaign, beginning with Bill and Hillary Clinton, were unable or temperamentally disinclined to complete the missions required of them in the modern campaign.  

Personnel

A few years ago, while I was working on a campaign, one of my twenty-something staffers asked me what it was like to do campaigns before cell phones.  It would have been an excellent question for Bill and Hillary Clinton.  The 1992 Clinton campaign was innovative and tactically more modern than the Bush campaign.  But watch The War Room, the documentary on the 1992 Clinton campaign, and you barely see a cell phone.  It was before the spread of the internet, email, web browsers, blogs, online commerce and political donations, and YouTube.  Despite all these changes, Bill Clinton, the NYT reported this morning, doesn’t use email or a blackberry.  It is hard to believe that people such as Bill Clinton who have had such a hard time adapting to technology and tactics that are ubiquitous on campaigns can provide the best strategic and tactical guidance.  And from all accounts, the biggest player in the Clinton campaign after the candidate herself was the former President.  

Clinton's presidency is responsible for some of the other problems of Hillary Clinton's campaign.  Bill Clinton insisted that Hillary bring on Mark Penn as pollster and senior strategist.  Bill Clinton gives Penn great credit for his 1996 reelection, and Penn used that validation to prevail in intra-campaign disputes.  Furthermore, where the Obama campaign used five polling firms, and none of the pollsters had preeminence in devising strategy, Penn had exclusive control over the polling, and used his own numbers to back up his arguments.  There was little empirical data coming in to the Clinton campaign that didn't first go through Mark Penn, and Penn had that authority because Bill Clinton was too tied to a campaign from twelve years ago.

Penn's role was part of a larger problem: too little new blood.  Most of the Clinton team had been in place for ages.  It's important to have people loyal to the candidate, who know the candidate and those around her.  But it appears that there were some orthodoxies that went unchallenged, while there were simultaneously raging battles between key Clinton aides that had been going for decades.  The Clinton campaign, by relying so heavily on long-time staffers to the exclusion of new people, inherited the infighting but wasn't infused with fresh blood, innovative ideas and new perspectives.  Even the decision to keep the campaign in suburban DC ensured that people tied to DC, often with conflicts from clients outside the Clinton campaign, didn't put their full attention to getting Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination.  

Understanding the Lay of the Land
The Clinton campaign doesn't seem to have recognized the huge change in Democratic party activism in recent years.  Especially as unleashed by the Dean campaign in 2003-2004, and carried on through the 2004 campaign on behalf of John Kerry, literally millions of new or reinvigorated activists lent time to campaigns.  The Obama and Edwards campaigns recognized this, and volunteer-driven activities were at the center of much of their voter outreach.  But as MissLaura explained earlier, the Clinton campaign didn't capitalize on the new activism.  

The Clinton campaign benefited greatly from independent expenditure operations by the likes of AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers and EMILY's List.  But they never harnessed the energy of volunteers like Obama and Edwards did.   Not only did the mass of volunteers save the Obama campaign resources, the energy of his campaign became part of his very message and image.  

Message
The Clinton folks also appear to have grossly misunderstood the Democratic electorate.  Most Democrats recognize the achievements of the Clinton presidency, and are grateful for his competence, tenacity and spirit.  The Clinton years were absolutely a time of sound and often wise Democratic governance.  But Democrats didn't want a return to an era that was also full of frustrations, irritation with the Clinton battles, and Republican initiatives dominating the day.  

Democrats and most independents were also sick of the war, and no longer wanted bellicosity or fear of looking like Michael Dukakis.  Hillary Clinton's efforts to look tough may have been necessary for the first serious woman candidate for President, but they were in conflict with a Democratic electorate that opposed the Iraq war from the state, and is now adamantly opposed to it's continuation.  Clinton and her campaign appeared to be still fighting the accusations that Bill Clinton was a draft dodger, something that most of the electorate left behind several years ago.

What worked for Bill Clinton in 1996—but even then only with a 49% win—wasn't enough for Hillary Clinton against the more charismatic and visionary Obama.  Competence harkening back to the golden era of 1997 wasn't enough.  

Fundraising
Clinton had a formidable fundraising network, and it's odd to critique the efforts of a campaign that shattered all previous primary fundraising records.  But Clinton was outspent by Obama by a large margin.  She had a huge inherent advantage due to Bill's networks and her aura of inevitability.  But the donors who were key to Bill in the 90's included many who raised then-permitted soft money donations that could go to the DNC.  Since McCain-Feingold, federal candidates cannot be involved in raising soft money, and 527's played a very small role in the Democratic primary.  

The Obama campaign adapted better to the new emphasis on creating networks of raisers who can collect many checks in the $500 to $2,300 range.  Obama, obviously, also far outraised Clinton on the internet.  His campaign very early put an emphasis on small-donor fundraising, and it was small donors—especially donors who gave less than $200—that powered his campaign in the later months of the campaign, as both campaigns had largely tapped out the available pool of Democratic primary donors capable and inclined to give the maximum $2,300 donation for the primary season.  

Targeting
If Obama hadn't won Iowa, he probably wouldn't have become the nominee.  Iowa was the catalyst to his win in South Carolina, as African-American voters saw that Obama could get the support of white voters and had a chance to win.  Obama's Iowa win was both the partial product of Clinton's backward-looking campaign and the result of further problems based on looking back to the 90's.

The Clinton campaign suffered the larger problem of not preparing for caucuses, which along with the Potomac and Wisconsin primaries allowed Obama to open up the pledged delegate lead he never relinquished.  But the problems in Iowa weren't just about caucuses, it was that Bill had never seriously competed there in 1992.  That the 1992 campaign was 16 years ago should have made Clinton people realize they were essentially starting from scratch in many places.  But not having a built-in cadre of supporters—even though many of them would have been past their political prime, as was the case in many states, especially among their African-American supporters—evidently kept the Clinton campaign from diving in to Iowa until too late.

Once Obama won Iowa, one of the key assumptions of her campaign was shattered.  Typically, if one primary candidate gets a large share of the black vote in the primaries, that candidate has won the nomination.  It happened with Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and Al Gore.  The two times the Black vote was scattered were the years that sons of Massachusetts—Michael Dukakis and John Kerry—garnered the nomination.  Clinton expected to keep the black vote that had been so loyal to her husband.  Instead, it shifted to Obama in a huge way, first in the 80% range in South Carolina, and then typically over 90% in the later primaries.  

Clintons' campaign also appears to have expected to compete for a largely static electorate.  Her appeal was almost exclusively to the types of voters who had previously dominated Democratic primaries; reliable Democratic voters, mostly over the age of 35.  Obama, however, was able to grow the electorate, by getting a huge increase in younger voters, and in the states without closed primaries, by winning a large share of independent voters.  With many more independents voting in the Democratic primaries than in the Republican primaries, even before John McCain had secured the nomination, that provided a solid bloc of voters to Obama that Clinton never competed for, and may in many cases not even have expected to be voting.  

All these reasons for Clinton's loss are secondary to the primary reason Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination: Barack Obama was the superior candidate.  There were many other reasons, as my fellow contributing editors have spelled out in other essays today.  One of the overriding problems, however, was that in many areas, the Clinton campaign didn't plan and wage a campaign for 2008, but one that was state of the art for 1998.  

Yes, we can rally the party around Senator Obama, especially with the help of Hillary Clinton.

As brownsox just reported a little while ago, Hillary Clinton has emailed her supporters announcing that on Saturday she will "extend [her] congratulations to Senator Obama and [her] support for his candidacy."  

There were some low moments in this nominating battle, and some things said and done that many of us wish had never occurred.  But now, with Hillary Clinton signaling that she's prepared to unambiguously acknowledge that Barack Obama is the nominee, that she supports him, and that she wants her supporters to do the same, we should be able to start pulling together to do the work, in unity, that will lead to a huge win in November.  

Back in February, as Barack Obama racked up a series of big wins, I wrote a piece declaring the contest over, that Barack Obama had ensured that he would be the nominee.  There were  reports circulating that Mark Penn wanted her to run a scorched earth campaign, and as we've seen since then, the Clinton campaign heeded too much of Penn's advice.  In calling on the Clinton campaign to reject the scorched earth policy, I wrote this:

But the opportunity for Hillary Clinton to become a historic leader of the Senate is real.  As I've argued repeatedly, there are numerous and strong parallels between the election of 1932 and how this election is evolving.  This would provide Hillary Clinton an opportunity to take advantage of an opportunity to create parallels between 1933 and 2009.  After all, winning elections are great, but I doubt anyone is a Democrat because of our victories of 1932.  But generations of Americans have looked to the Democratic party to lead our country because of the legacy of the New Deal Congresses and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  1932 was the opportunity.  But 1933 and afterward is what established the greatness of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal Democrats.  

If he wins in November, Barack Obama will probably never be considered as great a president as Franklin Roosevelt.  For everyone's sake, let's hope he and the country don't face the challenges FDR and the country faced in 1933.  But Hillary Clinton has a chance to be as great a Senator as Lyndon Johnson or Robert Wagner.  Let's hope she ignores Mark Penn, runs a dignified and positive campaign for the next twelve days, and then becomes Barack Obama's greatest ally.

In an unfinished novel F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "there are no second acts in American lives."  Fitzgerald was a great novelist, but it's a dumb line.  Looking at Hillary Clinton's public life, we see she's already had more than one act.  After being her husband's First Lady in Arkansas and then in Washington, she's forged her own career in electoral politics, becoming a US Senator and finishing a close second in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Al Gore found a new path that led to the Nobel Peace Prize.  Richard Nixon reinvented himself about a half dozen times.  And the model that may be best for Clinton to follow is Ted Kennedy, who put behind him his 1980 primary loss to Jimmy Carter and devoted himself to a stellar career in the Senate, ranking him among the giants of the institution.  Let's hope Hillary Clinton finds the role that fits her best.  I think it's to become one of the leaders of the Senate.  Maybe she has something else in mind.  Whatever it is, she will probably be impressive and successful.  

But first, all of us—Obama supporters, Clinton supporters, Edwards supporters, people who were with another candidate and Democrats who didn't care all that much who got our nomination—need to applaud Hillary Clinton's move toward unifying the party.  As has been repeated here many times, Rahm Emanuel put it best:

The way the loser loses will determine whether the winner wins in November.

Today's message to her supporters is a promising sign that Hillary Clinton will help determine that Barack Obama will be the the winner in November.

Finally, a point about other blogs.  Some of us here have watched other political blogs and online communities known for being bastions of Clinton supporters.  Most of those blogs and communities will be fully on board with Obama, if they aren't already. At places like MyDD, the community, including most of the pro-Clinton folks, had already been pushing back against anti-Obama garbage for some time.  The folks at MyDD--many of whom also participate at Daily Kos--are Democrats, they know that Barack Obama needs their support, and he will have their support.  A few other bloggers are simply contrarian, and shouldn't be taken very seriously.

A few other blogs and websites that aren't obviously Republican have trafficked in extremist anti-Obama crap, and continue to do so.  Instead of expressing outrage about them, we should starve them of attention.    

Hillary Clinton appears prepared to give the signal that Democrats need to come together and do whatever they can to elect and support Barack Obama.  Some folks have no interest in joining with other Democrats, even at the urging of Hillary Clinton.  If they don't, even if they're on non-Republican blogs, they will demonstrate that they aren't really Democrats.  

For everyone else, however, it's important that we all realize that unity doesn't come about when only one side reaches out to the other.  Hillary Clinton has begun the process of bringing her supporters toward Barack Obama and his supporters.  For those of us who wanted Barack Obama to be our nominee, we must welcome the Clinton supporters, and do what we can to be modest winners, recognize that whatever differences we had in the nomination battle are tiny compared with our differences with the Republicans, and join together to build a stronger Democratic party and put our country on the path to a more progressive future.  

Magnanimity:

Hillary Clinton has told congressional colleagues she would be open to becoming Barack Obama's vice presidential nominee, saying she would consider it if it would help Democrats win the White House.

Clinton, a New York senator, made the comment on a conference call with other New York lawmakers Tuesday, according a participant on the call.

The senator's remarks came in response to a question from Democratic Rep. Nydia Velazquez who said she believed the best way for Obama to win over key voting blocs, including Hispanics, would be for him to choose Clinton as his running mate.

In related news, I am willing to play second base for the Detroit Tigers.  I mean, sure, last year second baseman Placido Polanco won both the Silver Slugger and the Gold Glove, but I'm here to serve if it would help the Tigers bring their team together.

A round-up of other breaking magnanimity stories:

• Documents have recently surfaced that suggest that Managing Editor SusanG has informed her Daily Kos colleagues that she would be willing to spend the night with George Clooney if--and only if--it would bring on world peace.
• Devilstower has indicated to international officials his willingness to travel the world inspecting sand quality of beaches and the deflection of hammocks from increased winds due to climate change.
• ct, taking a respite from running the tech side of Daily Kos, has expressed a willingness to subsist on a diet of excellent salami if it would facilitate the drive to achieve world peace. He has also signaled that he would bravely volunteer to drive a Bentley for social justice and move into a 20 room mansion to save baby seals.
• From seals to Penguins.  The word from Pittsburgh is that smintheus has told the coaches that's he's willing to spend tomorrow evening between the pipes for game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals if Penguin's goalie Marc-Andre Fleury is too tired from last night's triple overtime thriller.
• Confidants of Scout Finch  report that in recent conversations she has conveyed a willing to explore San Francisco and the Bay area in an effort to compare and contrast "San Francisco values" with "Midwestern values."
• Our Capitol Hill correspondents have picked up on discussions involving contributing writer Adam B.  If it would resolve the current gridlock, Adam B has agreed to accept a nomination to serve on the Federal Election Commission.
• Rumors are flying that Meteor Blades has told a number of reporters off the record (so typical of him) that he would be willing to serve as policy czar and have the very last word on all legislation in the fields of immigration, defense, health and human services, labor, environment, energy and commerce for the next eight years. Which approval he could phone in from Ubud, Bali, every other day.
• The French press is atwitter over rumors that brownsox is willing to travel to France as a member of the Diplomatic Corps, and attempt to ameliorate the well-documented strains in Franco-American relations by engaging in a "listening tour" of prominent French restaurants and vineyards.
• The British music magazine Mojo has published a claim that Trapper John will, if offered the opportunity, travel back in time to London, 1970, hang out with Jimi Hendrix for a few days, earn his trust, and bogart most of the bottles of wine on September 18.  Trapper John is further willing to serve as the road manager for Band of Gypsys on the 1970-71 Winter Tour.
• DarkSyde just wanted to add that he's open to riding along on the next Shuttle flight as a Mission Specialist, or in any capacity really. He's also warm to the idea of being paid to fly backseat in an F-15 Strike Eagle upside down over the cape on patrol with a Raptor while taking spectacular, official NASA shots of the next shuttle liftoff, you know, just in case they need a volunteer. --  DS

What are YOU open to doing...for, you know, a good cause, and for which you would be indispensable?

As BarbinMD explained a little while ago, earlier today the Associated Press reported that "for all intents and purposes, the two senior [Clinton] officials said, the campaign is over":

On NBC's "Today Show," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said that once Obama gets the majority of convention delegates, "I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee."

[...]

Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.

The advisers said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her. She also wants to press him on issues he should focus on in the fall, such as health care.

OK.  Seems like progress, that the Clinton campaign is finally acknowledging what some of us have known since mid-February, that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president.  Now, one would imagine, is the time to set the nominating contest behind us,  move on to unifying the party and prepare for November.  

Well, maybe not:

Sen. Hillary Clinton's is "absolutely not" prepared to concede the race for the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, her campaign chairman said.

Terry McAuliffe rejected as "100 percent" incorrect an Associated Press report that Clinton is preparing to acknowledge that Obama has the delegates to win the nomination Tuesday night as the five-month Democratic primary process comes to a close.

Obama "doesn't have the numbers today, and until someone has the numbers the race goes on," McAuliffe told CNN.

Someone else with the Clinton campaign told CBS that Clinton "has no plans to concede the race tonight."  Harold Ickes told MSNBC Clinton would not drop out of the race.  

What we have here, folks, is a breakdown of message discipline within the Clinton campaign.

It's possible that the Clinton campaign is pushing back against the AP report because they wanted tonight to be a bit of a "surprise," or to have her concede the race without having it seem as if it's in reaction to media announcements that she's done.

It's also possible, however, that the Clinton campaign—most of all, Hillary and Bill Clinton—aren't 100% sure of their next move, and are hearing conflicting advice from different factions, and can't make up their mind, even though we're just hours away from the end of primary season voting.  

Whatever the case, this is far from the "well-oiled machine" that the press was lauding back in September of last year.  This is a breakdown in the campaign.  Regardless of any semantic creativity they spring on us tonight, everything we've seen in these last few days points to this being the end of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.  

Clinton supporters are being called together.  Her staffers are being told to get new jobs.  Uncommitted Senators and members of Congress appear ready to endorse Obama.  Her national co-chair is implying the primary race is over.  And some time in the next few days, Barack Obama will secure enough pledged delegates and commitments from superdelegates to lock up the nomination.

But according to Ben Smith, not everyone in Hillaryland appears reconciled to the end of her candidacy:

A Clinton donor tells me that on a conference call today with major fundraisers this afternoon, Harold Ickes told them Clinton isn't planning to drop out. He pressed donors to stay unified, and reviewed tactical options, including challenging the Michigan delegation.

State finance committees are also circulating letters to deliver to Clinton tomorrow in New York, and I've obtained a draft of the Illinois finance committee's letter, being circulated by a Clinton fundraising aide, Rafi Jafri, which stresses a fight until the convention, and a resolution in "August, and no earlier."

Of course, a politico from Chicago who goes to work against the home-town candidate probably has a lot at stake in Hillary Clinton continuing her candidacy.  One has to guess that the moment Hillary Clinton is no longer a candidate for president is the moment that Rafi Jafri has a very difficult time getting work as a Democratic operative in Chicago.  

But the end of the Clinton campaign will be wrenching for far more people than some of the staffers who've put everything in to what they probably expected would be an easy win and are now realizing will be a loss.  Having set herself up as a "fighter" who doesn't give up, Hillary Clinton will have to explain how the best thing to do is to stop fighting against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination and begin fighting alongside Barack Obama to help him win the White House and deny John McCain the opportunity to complete George Bush's third term as President.  

It won't be easy, but let's hope that tonight, after the voting ends in South Dakota and Montana, Hillary Clinton starts the work of unifying the Democratic party.  Let's hope she starts to tell her supporters that the way they can support the ideals she espoused and the aspirations they wanted to see realized through her candidacy are best pursued by unifying around Barack Obama.  

And let's hope—and let's demand of ourselves and other Obama supporters—that we recognize that unifying the party won't happen only by Clinton supporters coming to us, but by us embracing the Clinton supporters.  We must all recognize that reconciliation and banding together isn't something demanded only of our primary opponents, but is something to be demanded by, and of, all Democrats.  

On Saturday, I attended the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, and posted updates and analysis about the proceedings on Daily Kos.  It was one of those great moments where you get to compare your perceptions of an event with the characterizations you read, hear and watch in the traditional media.  While I won't say the reports read as if they were at a completely different event than the one I attended, I will say that most of them emphasized conflict and conveyed a level of raucousness greater than I witnessed.  

Using the Clinton and Obama partisans in that crowd as an indication of how deep the divides are within the Democratic party is moronic, because the partisans in attendance are among the most zealous you could find in either camp.  Even if they were valid measures of deep divides within the Democratic party, I didn't find their actions at the meeting all that extreme.  As is usual, most reporters just mindlessly lapsed in to the simplistic "Democrats divided" trope that they so love, because it doesn't require them to think or put much care in to their analysis.  

The issues were contentious, and the debate on the committee was often raw.  And yes, the crowd was engaged in what was going on, and I didn't like the clapping by partisans every time someone said something members of the crowd thought supported their side.  But the room, with the exception of only a couple dozen people at most, did not descend in to chaos.  Unlike what you may have inferred from the reports in much of the press, the RBC didn't turn in to a food fight.

I will admit, I may have a higher threshold than most for protest chaos.  I've been on picket lines with union strikers that turned very violent when we were attacked by paramilitary goons.  I've been at anti-war and community protests where we had to deal with loony left provocateurs who claimed to be Trotskyites or Sparticists but who were really just troublemakers who were trying to provoke a police reaction by throwing rocks at the cops, burning flags and the like.  

So maybe I just have a higher tolerance for a bit of anarchy at an event.  But walking through the line of several hundred or maybe a thousand Clinton supporters protesting down Connecticut Avenue before passing by the Marriott Wardman Park hotel and eventually down in to Rock Creek Park, I only saw a bunch of calm, well-behaved people.  The people walking around with signs didn't come across as particularly angry; I even suspected many of them were probably public employees who were members of AFSCME who were urged by their union reps to join the march.  I can't prove that, but that's what I thought of when I saw the crowd.  

The worst thing I encountered outside the hotel was overheard hyperbole.  

Inside the meeting, sure, there was booing.  The Obama people weren't perfect, but for the most part they seemed to have honored the wishes of Obama and his campaign team and acted in a restrained manner within the meeting.  And though many of the Clinton people booed at several points, that was about the worst behavior one could witness from probably 95% of the Clinton partisans in the room.

Now, yes, there were in fact some people who shouted out "Den-ver! Den-ver!" when the final votes were taken to seat Michigan's delegation at a ratio far different than that sought by Clinton.  But the disrupters probably didn't exceed two dozen people.  One of the loudest had sat next to me during the morning session—somehow she scammed some press credentials, though I don't think she was either press or a blogger—and frankly, she seemed a bit off.  She was the only person in the balcony with the press and bloggers who was cheering, clapping, booing and muttering throughout the session.  She seemed a bit crazed, to Hillary Clinton supporters what the worst of Free Republic loonies are to John McCain supporters.  

Toward the end, when Clinton supporter and committee member Alice Huffman was booed for supporting the Florida compromise, she admonished the Clinton supporters by telling them their conduct wasn't helping their candidate.  Most of the Clinton people seemed to recognize that Huffman was correct.  In the end, the disturbances came mostly from a couple guys heckling from the audience, and maybe a dozen or so women in the back of the room making a bunch of noise and chanting about taking the fight all the way to Denver.  

For much of the media, what happens with a couple dozen rabid partisans points to huge conflicts within the Democratic party.  How they extrapolate from those couple dozen to the entire Democratic coalition, who knows.  

About the time he became the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain was booed by the crowd at the convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee,  despite the organizers of the event imploring their crowd to not boo McCain.  He's seldom gotten over 75% in any primary since he's become the nominee; fully one quarter of the people who bother to cast a vote in an already decided race are casting protest votes.  But what doe we get from much of the traditional media?  More talk about how it's the Democrats who are divided.  

By the way, one other observation from Saturday's meeting: I spent much of the afternoon sitting behind a reporter or producer from one of the networks who all afternoon looked at this website.  Too bad more of her colleagues weren't doing the same.  

(DH adds meat to the piece I linked below -- kos)

Tom Edsall is reporting that tomorrow night may be the end of the Clinton campaign:

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama.

Obama and Clinton spoke Sunday night and agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources. In addition to seeking Obama's help in raising money to pay off some $20 million-plus in debts, Clinton is known to want Obama to assist black officials who endorsed her and who are now taking constituent heat, including, in some cases, primary challenges from pro-Obama politicians.

Ben Smith first reported that the Clinton campaign is "shedding staff," but then reported that "Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee says the advance staffers haven't been let go or told to find other jobs, just sent home. They aren't typically paid for off days. 'We just haven't figured out our schedule past Tuesday,' he said."  And Marc Ambinder reports that Clinton staffers are being urged to quickly turn in their expense receipts.  All of this is consistent with what I heard last week, that some staffers who had been hopscotching from state to state were being told to not expect to be redeployed to a new state.  

It's too bad Dick Cheney so abused the term, because all these maneuvers look like the actions of a campaign in the last throes.  

Maybe, maybe we will finally all be able to focus exclusively on beating McCain and racking up the huge Congressional majorities we want so President Obama will be able to get us out of Iraq, pass a national health care plan, fix the damage of eight years of misrule by Bush, and steer our country in a new direction that ameliorates poverty and inequality, expands opportunity, brings about a safer world, and creates an environmentally sustainable future.  

Whether that happens depends on Obama, it depends on those of us who will be counted on to work hard for November, and it depends on Hillary Clinton, for as Rahm Emanuel said a few months ago:

The way the loser loses will determine whether the winner wins in November.

19 votes for, 8 votes against.  

Again, 69 pledged delegates to Clinton, 59 pledged delegates to Obama, each delegate gets a half vote.  

About two dozen Clinton protesters causing a ruckus, and they're being asked to leave.

Update by georgia10:  What this all means:

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama 66 delegates short but still within striking distance after the three final primaries are held in the next three days.

Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.

Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

Michigan proposal:  69 delegates for Clinton, 59 delegates for Obama.  Everyone, including superdelegates, gets a half vote.  

Harold Ickes, in ending his statement against the proposal:
"Mrs Clinton has asked me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee."  

In other words, Hillary Clinton announces her intent to possibly scorch the earth rather than act in the best interests of the party, the country and the world.  

Update by georgia10:  The text of the motion being debated:

Mame Reiley (VA) moves that all pledged delegate positions in Michigan be restored, provided that each pledged delegate shall be entitled to cast one-half vote, that the pledged delegate positions shall be allocated as follows: Senator Clinton, 69 delegates casting 34.5 votes, Senator Obama 59 delegates casting 29.5 votes. All unpledged delegates allocated by the call shall be entitled to cast one-half vote. The Michigan Democratic Party shall conduct a process to fill the pledged delegate positions in accordance with Rules 5, 6, 7 and 12 of the delegate selection rules, including candidate right of approval.

The vote is 27 votes to seat the entire Florida delegation, with everyone getting a half vote.  No committee member voted no or abstained.  

Clinton supporter and committee member Alice Huffman was heckled by some of the Clinton supporters in the audience for supporting the motion.  

Now we're on to Michigan.

As Hunter reports below, there are rumors that a deal has been cut.  Someone sitting near me in the press area heard from someone with the Florida delegation that their situation had largely been worked out.  We'll know about that soon enough, as the debate on Florida is beginning right now.

The first proposal to be debated: seat the Florida delegation at full strength.  This is a non-starter.  

UPDATE The vote fails 15-12

And I tepidly commend the Obama supporters in the audience.  I don't like all the hootin' and hollerin', but the Obama people have conducted themselves with much more restraint and respect than the Clinton supporters in the crowd.