Obama's Kennedy Connection

There were echoes in his Iowa victory speech Thursday night that may come from the influence on Barack Obama of the man who worked with JFK on "Profiles in Courage" and his Inaugural Address in 1960.

At 79, Ted Sorensen has been out on the campaign trail, introducing Obama and comparing him to the President he served almost half a century ago.

"Obama is older than Kennedy was when Kennedy ran for president," Sorensen has been pointing out. "He's had the same experience in the Senate as Kennedy had when he ran for president, and he's had the same opportunity to view the country from abroad as Kennedy did when he ran for president."

Sorensen, who doesn't see well now and needs help getting up to speak, tells crowds, "Don't worry about my eyesight. I have more vision than the President of the United States."

Taking the oath of office, John F. Kennedy said "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.'

In Des Moines, Obama said, "The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face, who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know...who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century."

Sorensen was at Robert Kennedy's side when he campaigned for President in 1968 and would say, "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not." Now Obama is telling Americans "our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."

In last night's debate, Hillary Clinton observed that "words are not actions, as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are." But Obama insisted that "words do inspire. Words do help people get involved...Don't discount that power."

With Ted Sorensen at his side, Barack Obama is not likely to forget that.

Is Huckabee Clinton or Carter?

His campaign chairman wanted to knock out Mitt Romney's teeth, but Mike Huckabee decided to turn the other cheek.

Internal struggles are common in the heat of campaigns, but this week's press-conference melodrama in Iowa suggests that Huckabee is (1) a man of principle who turned away from stooping to attack ads at the last minute or (2) ambivalent and indecisive or (3) devious in the extreme, having it both ways by publicizing the ads and renouncing them at the same time.

Like the first national politician from Hope, Arkansas, Huckabee elicits meaning-of-is ambiguity as voters attempt to parse the man beyond the slick surface of his good-boy image as opposed to Clinton's bad-boy charm.

If what you see is what you get, Iowa and New Hampshire voters will have to decide if Huckabee is the antidote to what they may have disliked in Bill Clinton or another Jimmy Carter, who promised never to lie to them but couldn't handle the complexities of the real world.

Deadly Politics in Iowa and New Hampshire

In today's world, very little can be called "unseemly," but the candidates' reaction to the death of Benazir Bhutto might give pause to even the most jaded observer.

It's hard to tell tone from news reports, but the responses of Obama and Clinton seem unfeeling at best, while Giuliani's New Hampshire co-chairman is right there to 9/11 her death with the claim that only his man has "the knowledge and judgment to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history. And that is the rise of the Muslims...(W)e need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat them or chase them back to their caves, or in other words, get rid of them."

Par for the Giuliani course, but the Washington Post headline reflects no credit on the Democrats: "Clinton, Obama Seize on Killing."

Politics ain't beanbag, but neither is it prissy to be repulsed by the rush to tie an assassination to experience and womanhood on the one hand, and an opponent's vote to go to war in Iraq on the other. Even George Bush had the restraint to limit his first reaction to shock and a determination to track down the people behind the killer.

"While aides said Clinton was anxious not to appear to be politicizing Bhutto's death," the Post reports, "they nonetheless saw it as a potential turning point in the race with Obama and former senator John Edwards."

Edwards meanwhile was touting his phone call to Pakistan President Perez Musharraf, urging him "to continue on the path to democratization."

What to do about Pakistan is going to be high on the next President's agenda, but a little mourning might be in order before seizing on a violent death to turn the issue to political profit in Iowa.

Democrats Sowing Confusion in Iowa

If you look carefully at the Hawkeye State, you can find polls showing John Edwards is in the lead (b) Barack Obama is ahead (c) Hillary Clinton and Obama are tied or (d) after the "viability rule" excludes candidates with less than 15 percent of the vote, who knows?

Iowans have a reputation for being contrary, but this year they have raised sowing confusion to an art form. Yesterday, three of their journalists wrote a New York Times OpEd, saying "if a poll does manage to precisely forecast the results of the Jan. 3 caucuses, that is probably more coincidence than polling accuracy" because of the arcane, secretive way that Democrats report results of their caucuses:

"Under the formulas used to apportion delegates, it is possible that the candidate with the highest percentage of delegate equivalents--that is, the headline “winner”--did not really lead in the “popular vote” at the caucuses. Further, it is possible that a second or third-tier candidate could garner a surprising 10 percent or 12 percent of the popular vote statewide and get zero delegates. (That’s because to be in the running for a delegate a candidate must have support from at least 15 percent of the people at a precinct caucus.) He or she may have done two or three times as well as expected among Iowa’s Democratic voters and get no recognition for it."

Is that clear? For months now, we have been hanging on every word from voters in the Tall Corn State as they ogle butter sculptures, eat fried stuff on a stick and respond to the presence of Oprah, Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson.

But do we get any clear answers from them? Not in your Field of Dreams. Maybe Meredith Willson had it right in the "Music Man" when he had them singing “And we're so by God stubborn/We can stand touchin' noses/For a week at a time/And never see eye-to-eye.”

Huckabee Hit Parade

After yesterday's right-left jabs from the Washington Post, the Republican Great White Hope is bashed today by the New York Times with charges of a Nixonish slush fund from tobacco lobbyists during his days as lieutenant governor of Arkansas.

Huckabee's sudden rise in the polls has drawn hits not only from Big Media (read cosmopolitan urban latte drinkers) but little media like National Review, whose web site keeps raining anti-Huck posts, including not only doubts about his conservative credentials but scorn for his claims of a theology degree when he was actually a seminary dropout.

Compared to Rudy Giuliani's whoppers, Huckabee's little fibs look benign, but there seems to be a deeper unease about him percolating across the political spectrum. National Review editor Rich Lowry says he agrees with the assessment that "Huckabee could be a disaster," likely to "lose conservatives on taxes, spending and immigration and alienate moderates and Democrats on social issues."

To add to all the ideological confusion, there is a remarkably statesmanlike piece by Huckabee in the new issue of Foreign Affairs asserting "The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. In particular, it should focus on eliminating Islamist terrorists, stabilizing Iraq, containing Iran, and toughening its stance with Pakistan."

Huckabee's foreign policy stance sounds suspiciously urbane (read ghost-written) for a candidate who was surprised by reporters' questions about NIE conclusions on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Political campaigns are supposed to sort out such questions but, as Iowa and New Hampshire draw near, will there be time for voters to see the real Huckabee stand up?

Blackening Obama

As the polls dwindle down, Hillary Clinton's supporters are performing what they delicately call "the political equivalent of a proctology exam on the opposition" by pelting Barack Obama with slime and hoping some of it will stick.

Twisting old news about real estate deals, drug use and (shades of Nixon) slush funds into attacks on his character that might make Karl Rove blush, they are topping it off with accusations that Obama's campaign is importing college students to vote illegally in the Iowa caucuses.

A Clinton national co-chairman is spreading word about possible problems from Obama's youth that Republicans could use if he is the Democratic nominee.

"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" he told the Washington Post. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks"

Meanwhile, the "Hillary is 44" attack crew is dredging for every bit of gossip about "Obama’s myriad real estate deceptions and transactions" and other alleged "lies."

Conservative smearmaster Robert Novak is helping stir the pot. Last month he provoked a Clinton-Obama spat with a report that "agents" of the Clinton campaign had been "spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent."

Today he spotlights an accusation on "Face the Nation" last Sunday that Obama is illegally spreading money from a Nixon-like fund to bolster political support and shoots it down by claiming the PAC fund "contributed to Clinton's 2006 Senate reelection and, in the current cycle, to Jeanne Shaheen's Senate campaign in New Hampshire, even though her husband, Bill Shaheen, heads that state's Clinton campaign."

The days are growing shorter in Iowa and New Hampshire, and more than one kind of darkness is setting in.

Exposed! Obama's Kindergarten Secret!

Is it sexist to say Hillary Clinton is getting shrill? If you think piercing screams only come from women, remember Howard Dean in 2004. But that was after the vote in Iowa. Clinton's tone there now is rising in pitch as her poll numbers go down.

What's disturbing about the decision to attack Obama is not that Clinton is doing it but doing it so lamely. "I have been, for months, on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks," she announced stiffly. "Well, now the fun part starts. We're into the last month, and we're going to start drawing the contrasts."

Obama took the opening: "This presidential campaign isn't about attacking people for fun, it's about solving people's problems, like ending this war and creating a universal health care system. Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the American people are looking for leadership that can unite this country around a common purpose."

The official "Hillary for President" web site went after Obama for saying, "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."

This heinous untruth is exposed by quoting Obama's law school classmates, brother-in-law, third-grade teacher and, most damning of all, his kindergarten teacher, who discloses he wrote an essay, "I Want to Become President," proving that he was an ambitious tyke even back then.

As this pathetic attack is released on the official Clinton site, over at the gloves-off "Hillary Is 44" location, which has been vilifying Obama for months, the leadoff fusillade accuses him of "lying" seven times in the first ten lines.

On his blog, Robert Reich, who was in Bill Clinton's Cabinet, asks, "Why Is HRC Stooping So Low?" while refuting a "series of slurs" against Obama over Social Security and health care

Why indeed and, if the former First Lady feels she must stoop to conquer, why isn't she doing a better job of it?

Democratic Divas With a Difference

The names on the ballots are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama but, in Iowa and New Hampshire, a perfect storm of celebrity is brewing with two forces of nature named Barbra and Oprah on a collision course.

Like hurricanes, Streisand and Winfrey need be identified only by their first names, and they are lending their clout to Hillary and Barack to help elevate one of them to the ultimate celebrity.

The two women are a contrast in personal histories and styles. Winfrey, surviving an abusive childhood and early adulthood, created herself through empathy with millions of women. In backing Obama, she is taking her first steps into politics. When she appears with him next month, it will be a new experience.

At a fund-raiser that brought in $3 million, she reportedly told friends, "I haven't been actively engaged before because there hasn't been anything to be actively engaged in. But I am engaged now to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States,"

Streisand, a decade older and now eligible for Social Security, is a self-made powerhouse with an ego that is outsized even by Hollywood standards. She has been involved in politics for decades.

After Bill Clinton was elected, she was omnipresent at his inaugural. When his mother died, Streisand arrived by private jet for the funeral and announced her $200,000 donation to start a breast cancer research fund in memory of the President's mother, who, Barbra solemnly noted, had spent the last weekend of her life at Streisand concerts in Las Vegas.

This week, she announced her support of Hillary with a historical flourish: "Another former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote,‘In government, in business, and in the professions there may be a day when women will be looked upon as persons. We are, however, far from that day as yet.’ More than 50 years later 'that day' is now upon us…and Hillary Clinton is ready to shatter through that glass ceiling for all women."

Streisand will help Hillary with the Hollywood power structure, but Oprah will be giving Obama a unique advantage. Unlike 2000, when George Bush got a boost from appearing on her program, she won't be interviewing other candidates this time.

In light of her support for Obama, she has said, that would be "hypocritical," and nobody has ever accused Oprah of waffling about her feelings.

Obama Boomlet, Oprah to Come

As in Iowa, there are small signs of momentum for Barack Obama in New Hampshire.

In a new CNN poll today, he has narrowed the gap behind Hillary Clinton to 36-22 percent from 43-20, but more significantly, only 24 percent of likely voters tell pollsters they have made a choice. Another 29 percent are leaning toward one candidate, 47 percent are undecided.

Now the campaign is poised to bring out their big weapon. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, a close Obama watcher, reports his telling voters that Oprah is coming to New Hampshire and will probably stump for him in Iowa, too. One of his supporters points out, "Oprah can say to women ‘You don't have to vote for the first woman president. Vote for what you need.'”

Even Rudy Giuliani is pitching in (for his own obvious reasons). After Obama told high-school students today not to emulate his own experimentation with drugs and alcohol at their age, America's Mayor expressed admiration:

“I respect his honesty in doing that. One of the things we need from our people running for office is not this pretense of perfection. The reality is...we’re all human beings. If we haven’t made mistakes, don’t vote for us, because we’ve got some big ones that are going to happen in the future.”

After that validation, it would be churlish of Obama to point out that Giuliani has kept making some big mistakes long after high school. At the moment, however, they are both busy chipping away at Hillary Clinton's image of perfection.

New Sing-Along in Iowa

If you believe the polls, voters are changing their tune in the first bellwether state for '08, putting Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton and reversing their desire for experience over change.

Fifty-five percent say that a "new direction and new ideas" are their top priority, compared with 33 percent who favor "strength and experience," a shift from July, when 49 percent wanted change and 39 percent experience.

Their lyrics may come straight from Bob Dylan's "Blowing' in the Wind" of the 1960s:

"Come writers and critics/Who prophesize with your pen/And keep your eyes wide/The chance won't come again/And don't speak too soon/For the wheel's still in spin/And there's no tellin' who/That it's namin'./For the loser now/Will be later to win/For the times they are a-changin'."

On the Republican side, the wheel is turning toward Mike Huckabee catching up to Mitt Romney, both of them well ahead of Rudy Giuliani fighting Fred Thompson for third place.

All this can be summed up by a still earlier song about the contrariness of Iowans from "The Music Man":

“And we're so by God stubborn/We can stand touchin' noses/For a week at a time/And never see eye-to-eye.”

Obama, Hot and Cold

On Meet the Press yesterday, Barack Obama seemed tentative, defensive and, of all things, wishy-washy. No one could have guessed that the night before, at the Democrats' Jefferson-Jackson dinner, he brought down the house.

"The passion he showed," political columnist David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register wrote, "should help him close the gap on Hillary Clinton...His oratory was moving, and he successfully contrasted himself with the others--especially Clinton--without being snide or nasty about it."

"When I am the nominee of this party," Obama told Democrats, "the Republican nominee will not be able to say I voted for the war in Iraq, or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or that I support Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don't like...I don't want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s...I don't want to pit red America against blue America."

He was the last to speak at 11 o'clock after four hours of oratory by others and apparently wowed the crowd, but the next morning with Tim Russert, he was defensively answering questions with "Look,..."

Walter Shapiro in Salon puts it just right: "The fiery Obama of Saturday night had been replaced on Sunday morning by a replicant, a tepid candidate mostly concerned with avoiding mistakes rather than winning converts."

It's getting to be too late in the campaign to be blowing hot and cold. Will the real Obama stand up and stop taking time for a nap on national TV?

Front Runners Hear Footsteps

Weeks before primary voting in The Election That Looked Like It Would Never Come, front runners in both parties are losing some of their luster.

Yesterday's indictment of Bernard Kerik may finally slow down Giuliani's broken-field running toward the Republican nomination. He won't swivel-hip away as effortlessly from the corruption of his post-9/11 business partner as he has from abortion, gun control, gay rights and multiple marriages. Conservatives, burned by so many crooks in Congress, may balk at iffy integrity in the White House.

In Iowa, Rudy's woes give new hope to Mitt and his money, Fred Thompson's sleepy stumping, John ("I was right about Iraq") McCain, and there could a perfect storm brewing for Mike Huckabee, moving up in the polls and fund-raising, who's getting praise from Bush's former favorite speech writer and is about to reel in his first Religious Right whale, James Dobson.

To the left, Barack Obama has finally found his campaign voice, competitive if not combative, and Hillary Clinton's national lead is narrowing. New Hampshire polls next week will show a closer race and in Iowa, it's a tight three-way with John Edwards, who could now claim residence there, not far behind.

Signs of Clinton concern abound: being caught planting questions, setting up still another web site to counter attacks, the former President trying to deflect blame for the 1993 health fiasco away from his First Lady.

His emergence was prompted by Obama's needle that "part of the record she’s running on is having worked on health care" while also suggesting "that somehow she doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it didn’t work.”

Not exactly brass knuckles, but Obama is beginning to blend the politics of hope with some nimble in-fighting, pointing out that "to say there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have hasn’t been paying attention.”

Voters are beginning to pay attention. Stay tuned.

Obama's Better Half

In Iowa this week, Michelle Obama gave voters a new reason to consider her husband for President.

“First ladies were once more or less average, and were expected to be,” Peggy Noonan wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal. “Now they are accomplished, worldly, and expected to be. Candidates for the first lady's job have to find a balance. It's delicate. Strong is good, aggressive not. A person who cares, yes; a person who pushes an agenda, no.”

Introducing her husband, Ms. Obama was so far from average that her presence raised the question of how special a man would have to be that so attractive, articulate and passionate a woman would choose to spend her life with him.

The day he is elected, she said, her husband will change the way the world looks at America. Michelle Obama would be an important part of that change. See for yourself.

Huckabee: Move Over, Paris and Britney

Two months ago, the former Arkansas Governor, suffering from media neglect, was musing about “accompanying Paris Hilton to jail” to get some attention.

"One of the frustrations,” he said, “is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president."

He can stop complaining. After his surprise second-place showing in Ames yesterday, Huckabee is going to be the flavor of the month. The fellow townsman of Bill Clinton from Hope, Ark. will be the talk of MSM and bloggers.

USA Today is reporting that Huckabee spent only $58 a vote in the Iowa straw poll against Brownback’s $148 and Romney’s who-knows, possibly over $1000. The Washington Post calls his showing “a win.” The preacher-musician is on his way to becoming the Republican rock star.

Fred Thompson may want to think twice about waiting for Labor Day to announce

Huckabee, Harry Potter Hound Romney

Mitt Romney won the most votes in Ames today, but he may have come in second in popularity behind Harry Potter carved in butter, who drew long lines waiting to see his refrigerated image.

After spending millions on TV ads, chartering buses and saturating the state with relatives, Romney only managed to draw 31 percent of the vote against former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who ran no commercials and reportedly spent only $150,000.

Huckabee with a surprising 18 percent ran second and is positioned to break into the top tier of Republican candidates, if he can translate his showing into campaign cash, or if fails, to become the running mate of any of the top three contenders, who would be helped by his popularity among Evangelical Republicans.

Although the straw vote was practically pointless, it should at least thin out the crowd at future debates. Tommy Thompson is certain to drop out as is Duncan Hunter.

No word about whether Harry Potter is staying in the race.

Mitt Strikes Out Again

Outbidding the patriot Nathan Hale by a factor of five, Governor Romney told Iowa voters that he regrets having only five sons to give to his country. Grateful Americans can only hope that none of them comes back from hazardous electioneering, as Jon Stewart fears, as casualties of Post-Campaign Stress Syndrome.

In their first year, the New York Mets had a first baseman nicknamed Marvelous Marv Throneberry who set records for making errors. Marvelous Mitt is on track to becoming the Barry Bonds of boners in the annals of presidential candidates for muffs and miscues.

Yesterday the former governor of Massachusetts added to his string by misstating the number of counties in the state he ran for four years.

Christmas in August for John Edwards

The ’08 campaign pace in Iowa is as intense as it was a month before Democrats chose John Kerry in 2004 with a new poll showing Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and—-surprise--John Edwards in a virtual tie.

Six months before the January 14th caucuses, Iowans have donated as much money, attended as many campaign events and received as many phone calls as they did in December 2003.

Edwards, who placed second last time, is making an all-out effort there to beat the two national front runners, with a week-long bus tour this month to pound home the message of his poverty campaign: “I want America to join us, all of us, to end the great work Bobby Kennedy started.”

Clinton and Obama are working hard too for a victory in the first ’08 test of strength. The former First Lady’s secret weapon is two-time Governor Tom Vilsack, a possible running mate, who is auditioning by playing surrogate in the spat over meeting with unfriendly foreign leaders.

Vilsack, in expressing “disappointment” with Obama’s attacks on Clinton, told voters, “It’s not the Iowa way.”

Meanwhile, Obama is showing considerable strength with potential caucus-goers expressing interest in his “new ideas and new direction.”

In a state with a reputation for being “contrary,” where caucus members stand in designated areas and yammer at one another and traditionally make up their minds at the last moment, anything can happen. John Edwards, for one, is hoping that it will.

Tall Corn in Iowa

Half a century ago, in “The Music Man,” there was a song about Iowa being contrary: “And we're so by God stubborn/We can stand touchin' noses/For a week at a time/And never see eye-to-eye.”

This week the state’s Republicans updated the lyrics for a political visit by the Clintons: "After Bill Clinton tarnished the name of the president of the United States, the Republican Party restored hope, respect and morality within the Oval Office by bringing positive ideas and conservative values back to the White House," the Party said in an e-mail to reporters.

To round out the picture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is reporting that “Iowa’s corn growers are poised to harvest the biggest acreage ever.”