Potomac Primary
Even though Hillary is on MSNBC giving a speech in El Paso, in which she has not yet admited that she is getting pounded (65% Obama-35% Clinton), its pretty clear tonight will be another Obama Sweep. Its like if she ignores it, it doesn’t exist. As I said on 2/6 , the media narrative by next Tuesday night is Obama has won 10 in a row. Its like a a basketball team on a winning streak–every pass goes just where its supposed to. What’s significant is that both Latinos and White voters broke for Barack tonight. 8% of Virginia Republicans voted for Obama. The coalition is expanding and it bodes well for Texas and Ohio. Arnold Garcia, from the Austin American Statesman was on MSNBC tonight and he said that young Latinos in Texas (average age of the Latino population in Texas is 26) are definitely breaking for Obama.
The number 2 staffer in the Clinton campaign, Mike Henry, quit tonight. For a candidate like Hillary who promises fiscal discipline and managerial expertise, her campaign is clearly dysfunctional on both counts. As Joshua Green, who had his “inside Hillaryland” piece in GQ killed by Bill Clinton, reports in The Atlantic,
And despite her late start, Clinton did not lag on the money front: she has raised $175 million since winning her Senate seat in 2000, which should have been enough to fund a formidable campaign, even one that dragged on as long as this one has. That the money was so obviously mismanaged and Clinton was essentially left helpless to compete in last weekend’s primaries and caucuses is the reason Solis Doyle ultimately had to go. The problem, as before, was mismanagement—only this time against a worthy enough opponent that the cost was obvious to everyone.
By contrast, the Obama campaign has been an example of world-class management:discipline, bottom-up financial organizational skills and the ability to inspire a grass roots volunteer organization. This is why so many Republican friends of mine say they are ready to cast their vote for Barack. They say to me, “Every great country–like every great company needs a charismatic leader.”
UPDATE-Obama’s Campaign Manager made the Obama inevitability argument this morning, saying they had a 130 pledged Delegate lead. He doesn’t think Hillary can catch up.
“The only way she could do it is by winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points,” he said. “Even the most creative math really does not get her, ever, back to even in terms of pledged delegates.”
A friend of mine who interns for a think tank in Washington and is an avid Clinton supporter pointed me towards this article that’s got him edgy about the idea of Obama becoming president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/opinion/12brooks.html?ref=opinion
Any thoughts on it?
Chris-The main problem with David Brooks is that he buys into the whole idea that hard power is all that counts. Whereas the Chinese are in every continent in the world offering soft power (building dams, roads, airports, etc).
More on this tomorrow.
Interesting to hear the subtle changes in the tone of each candidates’ speeches. I think Obama is correctly making McCain a talking point, showing why he can beat him.
Hillary had some interesting points but she was using her annoying head nod after every statement tonight. I am not a Hillary hater, but that robotic gesture churns a visceral reaction in my brain that makes me hope for Obama’s inauguration and in the meantime suggests a hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch of Hillary’s tell.
After watching Obama tonight, backed by this crowd of young people and then to cut into the middle of McCain’s speech back by this small cadre of aging Senators and Pols–it was all the symbolic contrast of the fall campaign you could need.
Jon,
I had the same reaction. McCain’s speech and support came off extremely vapid after Obama’s usual inspiring charge. My relatively young age makes me admittedly biased on this point, but McCain’s group looked downright worn.
LH
One point that I don’t hear people talking about is the intersection of our oil problem , deficit problem and Iraq—if we are going to stay who is going to pay for it–we can’t afford it–Iraq has the second largest reserves in the world so if they want us to stay why don’t they pay for it and give us the oil supply we need at the same time–don’t we come off as fools spending all this money, never mind the loss of lives, and getting nothing in return?–my guess is that it wll be hard to leave so we might as well get paid and help our deficit and energy problems at the same time–otherwise we should get out asap–
Jon, I await your post about soft power with interest – sorry for not responding earlier in the item about military spending.
I think it’s interesting that all the people with political power, or at least influence, understand that politics in western democracies stopped being about hard power not long after Kennedy, but people who “comment” for a living need it because it’s easier to quantify, and filling media columns requires information,much as narrating football games requires statistics.
It’s one of the more lovely things about globalisation – the rules have completely changed. There’s a class of people out there who’ve been making a good living out of these changes for a decade or so now, without “hard” politics being much of a part of it. I was at an IT investment briefing a few years ago, and a speaker mentioned that education and health in India was more important to the US economy than Hurricane Katrina, and on reflection he was absolutely right. And that’s nothing to do with the old Bill Greider “every Nike factory is the same” theory, it’s to do with the fact that US marines aren’t going to help anyone deal with the real power structure coming into play right now.
Or if they are, god help us all.
The British should understand this better than anyone – they didn’t do it well, but they came to understand the power of new cultures better than most – and they’re still dealing with it. I’m seeking advice from my Oxbridge educated friends right now.
@ doug newhouse: Are you seriously suggesting that Iraq should pay for the privilege of having been invaded and effectively occupied by a foreign power?
And to answer your own question: no, you do not come off as fools. Your government, however, does.
we should leave asap–however if the Iraqi people want us to stay they should pay for it–we have spent enough in money and lives and can no longer afford this crazy war– plus we have a real energy problem anyway– if we are going to stay it shouldn’t be for free —doug newhouse
The one thing you can say for Bush’s father G.W. was that he got the world to pay for Gulf War I. We have had a good discussion on these pages about the cost and wisdom of being the World’s policeman. Everyone acknowledges that the cost (closing in on $1 .5 trillion for Iraq alone) is unsustainable. Most of us feel the wisdom of playing this role of world cop is equally senseless. In that sense, Doug’s point is well taken.
But on the other hand resorting to the old world of Imperialism, in which we capture Iraq’s oil to pay for our occupation will never work. Oil is fungible. It’s traded on the open market. Hugo Chavez can cut off shipments to Exxon and it won’t make one bit of difference to the world oil price (except for a brief scare from traders who don’t know much)
My sense is that we need to move towards regional security arrangements, like what the Australians are doing in East Timor. Let the Europeans handle their region, the Arab League should be responsible for regional security in the Gulf. The African Union should be more forceful in Darfur. If the U.N. needs to provide funds for these regional security missions, so be it.
I appreciate that you’ve had this debate already elsewhere Jon, but I don’t see Iraq as a “world cop” situation. The US government invaded Iraq with a specific military agenda, based in part on what turned out to be flimsy intelligence. The US wasn’t called in by Iraq to help oust Saddam, nor has the military proven to be a reliable force for stability in the region (though only time will tell how things will go – my prediction is a new and improve dictatorship will fill the vacuum the second the troops leave).
And I also don’t get the impression that Doug’s suggesting the US “capture” Iraqi oil reserves – correct me if I’m wrong Doug – since he says, quite specifically: “if the Iraqi people want us to stay they should pay for it.” Sounds like a fee to me.
I do agree with you on one thing, Doug: the troops should withdraw as soon as is realistically practicable, but the US government is responsible for the situation and I don’t think it reasonable to expect anyone to pay for the choices it made.
My only point is that if we are asked to stay, and I think that we should leave, then it’s not for free because we cannot afford it. I do think however that it would be good for the world to have a major competitor to Saudi oil in Iraq and the only way that will happen is if we instigate it. Also a sharring arrangement with major oil companies , the Iraqi government and the US would make sense since someone will have to protect the oil fields and again be paid for it.
Point taken and understood. But you do know that there’s going to be “a major competitor to Saudi oil in Iraq” within the next decade? And they’re a bit closer to home (and much friendlier – hi neighbour!)
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/01/11/canadian-oil060111.html
Pete- All of that Canadian Tar Sands oil is really expensive to extract. We need to get everyone driving the 100 MPG Hybrid car.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109981
Until we convert our economy to Green Tech on a massive “Manhattan Project” level, we’re just playing a fools game financing “Petrogarchs” in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela
Jon, it’s getting (relatively) cheaper all the time. Even Wikipedia has a decent bit on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Tar_Sands#Economics
And Forbes was talking about it back in 2005:
http://www.forbes.com/2005/02/17/cz_0217oxan_canadaoil.html
Hence the ten year gap.
However, your point about the major transition to a Green Tech economy is a good one and should be the ultimate goal. Having said that, making the transition is still going to be slow – some estimates put any such transition at up to 50 years from now – so making a shift to another source of fuel that is more reliable, less volatile and closer to home will ultimately be a good thing, I think.
Jon–one additional point, which Ron Paul has been articulating , is that we have to stop being the world’s policeman, because again we cannot afford it, and we are providing the umbrella for the rest of the free world to use as they eat our lunch economically — we will go bankrupt financing the planets army while our curency collaspes and other countries take over–this ties in to the very point you made about China and “soft power”–doug
The only interpretation of our invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq that I find consistent with all of the facts is: oil-driven imperialism.
We are building permanent bases there and listening to “100 year” occupation talking points because we need “our” oil.
There are lots of bad guys all over the world, but the one we got around to eliminating was the one with oil revenues. Rather than talk about the oil revenues explicitly, we get a fairly far-fetched theory about the ‘nuclearization’ of that cash flow. Bush himself has mentioned this at various times: Saddam had the oil revenue to fund nuclear research. The money is necessary to such research, but hardly sufficient.
McCain embodies the sentimental traditionalist “God & Country” class-bargain which emphasizes “a cause greater than self” (either service of God or service of country) and hasn’t thought seriously about Iraq beyond the “omigod we can’t bear to LOSE again!!” emotional talking point. This is the only conception of warfare that the right talks about openly since Vietnam.
Kissinger-style real-politik is sooo 70′s now — at least in public. But in private, Operation Iraqi Liberation is, was and always will be about three letters: O.I.L.
If thats true, and I don’t disagree, where is the media and it’s flashlight? where are the conversations about the cost of this war, the oil and who is going to pay for it?
Speaking of money and the deficit, I read somewhere recently that the current U.S. military spending is equal to the rest of the world combined. When you factor in the money already spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military threatens to bankrupt our country.
We also have the world’s largest trade deficit, again equal to the rest of the world combined. The Federal Reserve is cranking out money and sending it overseas to China and Saudi Arabia to feed our need of oil and consumer goods. Both those countries are awash in dollars, falling dollars and to get rid of them, they buy our debt.
So the burning question is, can either McCain or Obama /Clinton or Paul or Bloomberg or whomever the new figurehead of a failing Republic turns out to be, actually serve the American people and our interests? Very unlikely.
Not quickly–but the reason I like Obama is that I believe that we have to take a very different direction as a country and the Clinton’s of the world are to hampered by the “old school” visions of the past to be effective given the issues we are facing–doug
Brian-Here is a chart of comparative military expenditures (and it doesn’t even count the supplemental cost of Iraq). Pretty scary.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/republican-debate/
Someone asked:
“Are you seriously suggesting that Iraq should pay for the privilege of having been invaded and effectively occupied by a foreign power?”
…in response to a complaint that the U.S was getting nothing tangible out of its spending on Iraq.
The U.S’s attempt to recover funds from Iraq – as repayments for loans used to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by U.S attacks – is one of the many illegal aspects of the occupation.
The Geneva accords, International treaties to which the U.S is a ratified signatory (and which therefore are Constitutionally mandated U.S law) forbid explicity purposeful profiting from war.
The idea being to remove a motivation for invasion and exploitation.
doug,
where is the media spotlight? they only cover the tennis match between the two parties in DC. the democratic party is afraid to challenge the underlying premises of our occupation of Iraq because they’re mostly already deeply complicit in the ‘war on terrorism’ narrative and fear ‘turning the page’.
STS–I am sure you are correct but our involvement to the degree it continues is unsustainable with out being paid for—while
“profiting” from the war more be expressly banned–security payments are not and I suggest that we either get paid for our services or leave dodge asap–doug
Hey, guys. Enjoying this discussion.
The fact is that the world has come to expect American security while simultaneously railing against it. This year, we taxpayers will spend about $2,200 per American on basic defense spending + 2 wars.
Can we afford this? Absolutely.
Is it the best allocation of resources? Hmm… Well, to answer that, we have to imagine the world without pervasive American military power. Power hates a vacuum, so who would fill the power gaps? Would this new new world order make America and the world a safer, better, more prosperous place?
These are important questions to answer. It’s not as easy as “it costs too much” or “I’m scared of China/terrorists/Iran/oil shocks.”
Very interesting exchanges. A couple of points from an outsider (outside the US+Western circuit) perspective:
1. If you are the most powerful country in the world then you will end up being the policeman of the world, whether you like it or not. The best you can do is to get others to share the responsibility but when you deligate you have to be willing to accept others shortcomings.
2. If you then also have a moral/ethical framework that drives your internal functioning then you will have internal-external conflicts because projection of power in the world will require realpolitiks that will necessarily be at odds with internal values (note: support for all the dictators in the past half century, the childish attitude vis a vis a tiny speck on the globe called Cuba, etc).
3. And as for Iraq let’s be real about this. It was and is about oil and influence in the Middle East. At least that is how much of the world thinks (I’ll bet a good bit on that) so it doesn’t even matter if the reality is different within the Bush-Cheney team. Nobody invited the US in and there is absolutely no reason anyone else should pay for the US to be in there.
seamus:
Good point about power vacuum. If the U.N. is the “legislative branch” of the de facto world government, then the U.S. is its accidental monarch. Before Bush II, we tended to act as a “constitutional monarch” working with the U.N. In terms of British constitutional theory, the U.S. /U.N. have governed international affairs as a “king-in-parliament.”
The neo-con tendency in the present administration has preferred the “divine right” theory, with the U.S. essentially dismissing the U.N. (and the world community) much as Charles I prorogued the “short parliament” of 1640.
That approach didn’t work too well then, and it isn’t working now either.
some basic observatios:
our current approach to managing the world isn’t working, everyone resents/hates us, we can’t afford it—unless we are willing to forego basic services(healthcare,infrastructure repairs etc) –we are to spread out, our currency is being devalued and replaced by the euro, our economy is losing ground to countries that are “free riders”—etc.
who would fill the vacum?–a good question but I am not convinced it would be any one country and maybe other resposible countries could fill some of the slack–Europe, Japan and even China need to play a greater role in world security issues–
Again I come back to the fact that if we are going to be the world”s cop we need to be paid for it and supported in that effort –niether of which I see from the rest of the world today—doug
Interesting discussion. Amazingly civil up to this point, but perhaps I just read more bare-knucles blogs. A couple of things:
1.) If you have not, please check out ‘The History of Oil” by Robert Newman on Google Video, or YouTube. It is about 47 minutes long, and if you have not seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I promise you will not be disappointed. It is edu-tainment. Quite funny and also quite enlightening, and thought-provoking.
2.) There are a multitude of factors that involve, surround, permeate our presence in Iraq. The great majority of the reasons given for our going there in the first place have been shown or have borne out to be completely false.
That being said, our continued presence there is a matter of much (understandable) debate. I would argue that post-justification of our actions cannot rationalize continued involvement.
3.) If I am not mistaken, *Nature* abhors a vacuum. *Power* is drawn to it.
4.) How much simpler would our foreign policy become if we had no need of Middle Eastern oil? Only about 20% or so comes from Saudi Arabia. Our largest importer of oil is in fact Canada. I firmly believe that it will require a WWII-level effort to move beyond the petroleum economy, but that we need leadership and collective volition in order to accomplish it. We should also begin moving towards this goal with expediency while the lights are still on.
5.) Really enjoy discussions like these.
Peace,
- Zhirem
I couldn’t agree more–our whole foreign policy is driven by oil–which is crazy–and creates alot of terible and unintened consequences—the only really short/medium solution I see is conservation and a big nuclear build up–
If we could rid ourselves of this dependence our whole milatary/foreign policy would be completely different , less costly less hostile–etc.–doug
Zhirem-I am really heartened by the civility of the discussion on the blog. Let’s hope we can maintain this level throughout what will no doubt be a contentious campaign season.
I’m also thrilled by the contribution from our international readers, who can bring a “get real” perspective to things.
We all agree that our policy in the Gulf Region has been driven by oil, but my contention is that Cheney’s Energy Task Force, which drove much of the early strategic planning for capturing Iraq’s oil concessions, was operating from a 19th century mercantalist framework: political control=resource control. I’m going to try to write about this later today.
I have posted my discussion of the Iraq Oil law.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/its-all-about-oil-alan-greenspan/
Jon – I will read that post next. Just wanted to say that I am really liking the blog, and the discussions herein. We won’t have to work to hard to maintain civility during the campaign. The primary season is what worries most blogs I think, and that is coming to a close within the next few weeks, IMHO.
Doug,
I agree that multiple players would fill the vacuum; nobody’s big, rich, or willing enough to be the new USA. But what would that mean for the world?
1. Europe: Let’s not forget that “Europe” as a cohesive world force is about a decade old, and has spent about 150 times as long fighting each other as banding together to address world security. Also, its greatest economic power (Germany) is coming off a really bad century of projecting military power. The other biggest powers are either military failures (France, Italy) or literally and figuratively disconnected from the rest of the continent (UK).
2. Japan: While they seem to be awakening to their military potential, their very constitution is based on keeping their military in check. Were that the whole world did that.
3. China. Oy vey. A few years ago in a tiny Costa Rican beach town, I got to participate in a wonderful argument between a crunchy US college grad and a Swiss banker. The American girl decried US hegemony. The Swiss banker demanded it because, “You would prefer the Chinese were the dominant exporter of values?”
It’s an important point. We have to remember that security is America’s greatest export, which like all exports means that other countries don’t have to make it themselves. World War II ended more than 60 years ago, which is the longest continuous peace among major powers in modern history. If the USA says, “enough with this world policing,” other countries will feel pressure to build up their own forces. And if there’s one thing history has taught us, that’s not good for peace.
We may not have a choice soon – even if our economy were to avoid a steep recession or worse, it still couldn’t carry Iraq indefinitely.
Thanks to all for continuing this wonderful discussion. A couple of additional observations:
1. On the US as the world’s premier power broker. A couple of years back an Australian political scientist spouse of an American friend of mine made a point over dinner that I am still chewing over: For all its faults, which the world enjoys laboring over, who else would you want to run the world? I agree with him that at this point in time other than the US there is no one else big enough, and reasonably principled (at least domestically) to do this job. And the job needs to be done. Multilateral setups are great talking shops but someone has to make the decisions and I’d rather have the US do this than amoral (not immoral I should add) China, dictatorial Russia, too-tiny Japan, indecisive Europe, dysfunctional UN, or still not-powerful- enough Brazil & India (though both have internal plurality that can be the basis of soft power – but in the future).
2. But to do this job the US will always need to make a big effort to showcase its internal civil achievements to the world and use that as the basis for projecting power and managing the world. America, more than anything else, is the country of HOPE to the rest of the world and as one of my favorite movie lines (Shawshank redemption) goes ” hope is a good thing.” This, more than anything else is what is so damaging about the past 7 years (though I should add that Bill & Madeline can never wash off the Rwandan blood on their hands from 1994).
And what better way to repair that than to have a colored man as president (would have been even better with a colored woman), one who inspires and is bold enough to say he’ll talk to anyone and not sit back and cast some as the axis of evil and communists or what have you.
Amazing interview of Michelle Obama –
Jaiki – I completely concur with your comment that “If you are the most powerful country in the world then you will end up being the policeman of the world, whether you like it or not”, and your later comment that “For all its faults, which the world enjoys laboring over, who else would you want to run the world?” And I disagree with Doug’s comment that “our current approach to managing the world isn’t working, everyone resents/hates us, we can’t afford it”. He’s right that the current approach to managing the world isn’t working, but I think he’s wrong to suggest that the world hates the US. There’s a large degree of loathing for the current administration, but that’s not quite the same thing. Speaking as someone who spends a good deal of time in the US, but is a foreigner, there’s a huge wellspring of hope in other countries for a more enlightened administration in the future.
Seamus said “World War II ended more than 60 years ago, which is the longest continuous peace among major powers in modern history. If the USA says, “enough with this world policing,” other countries will feel pressure to build up their own forces.” Seamus, they’ve actually been doing that anyway – look at the increase in Chinese ballistic missile submarine sophistication, and the realisation by the Russians that selling fighter aircraft is one heck of a good business. Rather than attribute comparative peace to US strength (the US has, after all, actually been fairly active in invading lots of places – or at least fighting in them directly or via proxy), I’d attribute it to economics and improved access to resources. Most major wars have been fought because of one or both of those issues in the past.
I agree with Seamus that the other major western powers are pretty terrible at projecting military force. But the bigger argument, which I think is the point of the whole discussion, is that there are lots of other ways to project power, and most of them are more useful than a Seawolf-class submarine.
Which brings me back to Jaiki’s comment. The US has been the world’s police force most effectively not through the use of its armed forces, but through its use of diplomacy and the respect accorded it by other nations because of its values. As the current administration has traduced these, it’s actually weakened the power of the nation, not increased it. While it’s been useful to invade the Balkans, that was done with a multilateral force, and certainly didn’t need a big one. Likewise most police actions against third-world nations require smaller forces than the US maintains. The US exports security not through maintaining enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but through working well with others and using its enormous economic and political power to coerce other nations interested in staying rich to work with it. Increasing its economic power is key to continuing this influence.
On that “hope thang” it is worth reading the leader in the latest Economist (to me easily one of the best news magazines in the world – a bit conservative for my liking but incredibly crisp and concise writing)
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=10689547