Debate Aborted

Apparently McCain may not show up for Friday's debate against Obama, as reported by Walter Shapiro over at Salon.

But whatever McCain's underlying motivations, both campaigns are now locked in a bizarre game of chicken. If McCain actually boycotts the Oxford debate, Obama may score a public-relations coup while his Republican rival looks weak and evasive. Or the Democratic nominee may appear too political while McCain puts on his mantle as statesman.

Seems like more of a gamble for McCain than for Obama.

The Rove Question

How worried should we Democrats be about our buddy Karl Rove? Clearly he has some talent, but does he really warrent us discussing him in hushed whispers? Walter Shapiro, writing on several books that relate (in some cases tangentially) to Mr. Rove says no.

Fixated on the Cult of Karl, hagiographers, like the authors of "The Architect," constantly miss all the ways that Rove's gambits end up doing little more than mobilizing the Democrats in opposition. Moore and Slater lavish considerable attention on Rove's fantasy of wiping out the fundraising basis of the Democratic Party by crippling unions and trial lawyers and wooing wealthy Jewish donors with the administration's pro-Israel tilt in the Middle East. There is even a hint of anti-Semitism when the authors trot out the odious dual-loyalty charge: "A president who'd famously bragged that he didn't read newspapers or deeply study policy had surrounded himself with advisors whose interest in Israel's sovereignty and safety might have outweighed their concern for the United States."

Rove, in his efforts to defund the Democrats, apparently forgot about the law of unintended consequences. Bush's conspicuous efforts to pander to his social conservative supporters prompted a fundraising backlash from partisan Democrats. As Edsall writes in discussing the financing of the 2004 campaign, "[John] Kerry not only came within striking distance of Bush, but he also tapped into the small donor universe to a degree that had never been even approximated on the Democratic side of the aisle." This year, although Internet-based small giving is apparently down, the Democrats are in surprisingly strong shape for a party that reaps none of the obvious rewards from controlling Congress or the White House. All this prompts the obvious question: If Rove is so smart, why are the Democrats so comparatively rich?

I think Rove is a great media creation, and he has some skills. But mostly he's been lucky, as Shapiro points out. Lucky that Gore ran a crap campaign, lucky that the Media waged a 2 year war against Gore, lucky (if you can call it that) that September 11th happened, and so on and so forth.

I don't think his luck will hold forever

Why We Probably Won't Fight

Salon has a story by Walter Shapiro on the Filibuster Fiasco. I'm not sure I agree entirely with his analysis, but he does raise some good questions.

An intriguing question, if one entirely theoretical at this point, is what might have happened if Senate liberals had decided at the outset that they would use the filibuster to prevent the Alito-for-O'Connor seat swap. For Alito was the be-all-and-end-all Supreme Court nominee -- the moment to put aside wait-until-next-year caution. The odds on such a filibuster still would have been long, but at least there would have been a glimmer of coherence to a get-40-votes opposition strategy. Yes, Republican senators might have succeeded in employing the "nuclear option" (outlawing by a majority vote all filibusters against judicial nominees), but if a Democrat were elected president in 2008, that would have turned out to be a short-sighted GOP ploy. Instead, Alito opponents are now left with plenty of nothing. Even if there are future vacancies during the Bush era, Democrats are sufficiently demoralized that they would probably join in approving John Ashcroft to the Supreme Court on a voice vote.

That is the key problem with the filibuster situation - Democrats never actually came up with a strategy for opposing Alito. More to the point, they never came up with a compelling reason to oppose Alito. Some seemed to think it was abortion, others that he lied on application or belonged to a racist organization in college (one or the others). For some it was that he supported executive power to the Nth Degree (in my opinion, this was the best reason to oppose him). But without a unified reason to oppose him, we were left with "Democrats don't like him because he is a Republican."

Which isn't enough.