Plouffe to the rescue?

Yesterday, he offered up some very sound advice to Democrats. And we also learned he's returning as an outside political consultant for Obama. This is good news, but will be spun as a bullet point in the "Dems in disarray" meme.

"Privatize gains for the few, socialize losses for the many"

Yes, indeed. Wow.

Is that a light at the end of this tunnel, or a headlight?

It may all come down to Gary.

Now, let's turn to Iraq

Fortunately, I was not one of the 10 million viewers as I was in Europe last week. Looks like I missed a laugh riot.

“We set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people,” Mr. Obama told an audience of nearly 2,000 in Raleigh, N.C., many of whom applauded. Reached by phone on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Stephanopoulos, a former aide in the Clinton White House who hosts “This Week” on ABC, sounded somewhat taken aback.

“We thought it made sense to deal with the core controversies,” he said, by way of explaining those early questions. All of them, he said, went to “what has become the No. 1 issue between the candidates — who can win in November?”

Ultimately, he said, “the debate covered a lot of ground.”

But Mr. Stephanopoulos said that after digesting much of what had been sent forth in the blogosphere on Thursday morning, he would have approached one critical aspect of his job differently. “I could imagine moving up some of the questions,” he said. “You can differ over that.’”

Hopefully, we've seen the last of the Democratic debates.

Meanwhile, about that concerned citizen's flag pin question...

The Hero stumbles

Steve Benen:

Now, I should note that I’ve seen some Obama supporters use this to rationalize major losses yesterday. As the refrain goes, “You won, but only because you took the campaign in an ugly direction.”

That, frankly, sounds a little petty, and it’s not the point I’m trying to emphasize. Rather, Clinton’s kitchen-sink strategy is a clear explanation of what worked and changed the campaign dynamic over the last week. It’s not even a mystery — one can look at the Ohio polls before the attacks began and after. And in Texas, before and after. Obama had narrowed the gap, and Clinton had seen her double-digit leads disappear. Then she launched the no-holds-barred attacks, and for the first time in the entire campaign, Obama’s numbers slipped. It’s hard to call this a coincidence.

This isn’t a value judgment. If you’re an Obama fan, the argument is, “Clinton couldn’t make an affirmative case for her nomination, so she had to tear Obama down. She’ll do anything to win, even if it hurts the party and helps Republicans.” If you’re a Clinton, the argument is, “We played rough, and it worked. This proves that Clinton is a fighter. Besides, if Obama can’t withstand relentless attacks now, he won’t be able to withstand relentless attacks later.”

Who’s right? In all likelihood, both are.

On "On the Media" last week, Brooke Gladstone spoke with Bill Powers, media critic for National Journal, to revisit Powell's theory of the "seven stages" of the media's focus on a candidate. Powers admitted that up until that interview, Obama hadn't reached "stage six" with the media -- "the flop." Powers was amazed it hadn't happened and explained that Obama just seemed to elude, "gazelle-like," a flopping performance because of his style -- a combination of logic and calm in the face of attacks. Was the past week -- Benen's "kitchen sink" of Razko, NAFTA/Canada, SNL, and momentum-stalling (though not delegate-changing) Ohio and Texas results last night -- a prelude to the flop? And, if so, will Barack reach stage seven: ultimate redemption?

Brokers

Ah, 1924.

"This convention," wrote H.L. Mencken, the most famous reporter of the age, is "almost as vain and idiotic as a golf tournament or a disarmament conference."

Divisiveness?

Every four years, for reasons I can't fathom, the New York Times turns its front page over to the idiotic musings of Ad Nag.

The Republican and Democratic presidential contests began diverging Tuesday, leaving the Democrats facing a long and potentially divisive nomination battle and the Republicans closer to an opportunity to put aside deep internal divisions and rally around a nominee.

The differing situations for the Republicans and Democrats have clear implications for both parties as they begin to move from the nomination battle toward the general election.

On the Democratic side, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seem likely to continue their state-by-state struggle, after a night of tit-for-tat division of states and delegates, though Mrs. Clinton claimed the formidable prize of California.

But after months of disarray, Republicans seemed closer to coalescing around Senator John McCain of Arizona. As Mr. McCain logged victories in populous states, including California, and added more delegates to his count, he moved nearer his goal of wrapping up his competition with Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. A third Republican candidate, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, underlined Mr. Romney’s weakness by posting a series of victories, in a performance that highlighted the discomfort social conservatives have with the field.

Right, they're really coalescing around McCain.

Look, it's going to be an intensely competitive fight, at least for another two months, maybe all the way to the convention. There's going to be some bitterness, because it's, you know, a race. And yes, I worry that the loudest of the "Yes we can" chanting Obama supporters may be disappointed and possibly disillusioned should their candidate not win. But divisive? "Identity politics," as Ad Nag ventures later in this conventional wisdom mash-up? I guess he didn't hear the roar of approval at the lasat debate when Blitzer suggested they run as a team.

Democrats are sorry one has to lose.

Republicans are just sorry.

The NPR debate

I listened to yesterday's Democratic debate on NPR today and was, like many others, duly impressed: with the format, the moderators, and the candidates themselves. Highly recommended. It's actually a discussion of real issues, not UFOs and soundbites.

All of the candidates (Richardson couldn't be there), as I said, were impressive and tended to agree more than they disagreed (largely because there were no "gotcha" questions from the NPR moderators, intended to tease out minor and incendiary differences). Dodd and Biden were, in my opinion, the most impressive when it came to their grasp of the issues. If the question for voters is, who has more foreign policy experience, Clinton or Obama, the answer is: Dodd and Biden.

All of the candidates were one other thing: likable. Something that doesn't come through in what little I've seen of the execrable TV debates.

There hadn't been a presidential primary debate on the radio since Republicans Dewey and Stassen in 1948. We need more of them.

"Scrambling"

Aw ferchrissakes.

WASHINGTON, July 31 — Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers.

Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

It would be the first change in the law since the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants became public in December 2005.

In the past few days, Mr. Bush and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, have publicly called on Congress to make the change before its August recess, which could begin this weekend. Democrats appear to be worried that if they block such legislation, the White House will depict them as being weak on terrorism.

In their desire to not look like "pussies" in "the war on terrorism," Dems look like "pussies" in the war against our constitutional government. Way to go, guys and gals. Before we give the Bush administration anymore power to spy on us, perhaps you should take August off. Maybe go clear a little brush, or something.

The debate

It was an exciting day teeeveeee yesterday. First, a tasty hors d'oeuvres consisting of the final set of the Sharapova Schnyder match; then the soup course of the Democratic roster running for the party's nomination; then a tasting menu that included a pitchers' duel between Pettitte and Beckett, an hour with the collapse of Tony's crew, then back to the Red Sox game to find that the pitchers' duel was no more. Finally, sated but not entirely happy, off to bed without desert as the score was 5-4 Sox at the time.

But back to the debate. I only watched an hour (though I also watched the dreadful "pre-game" with Dobbs and the other dead white males). I have to say that I was pretty impressed with all of them. Really, could live with any one of them heading the ticket at this point.

It's still way to early to care about this stuff, but it sure feels good to be a Democrat these days. Surely better than being a "base" Repub.

Deep stuff

This profile of Barack Obama by Larissa MacFarquhar is interesting in the picture it paints of a deeply contradictory figure, a politician who seems to not give too much of a damn what people -- especially the boys on the bus -- think of him; a guy who writes about how confused and angry he was growing up who would be unrecognizable to the people who knew the confident, peaceful man they knew by his 20s.

When Christopher Edley first met Obama, in law school, he decided that he would go far, because of his centeredness. Then when, later, he read Obama’s first book and saw how Obama had suspected and vivisected himself for so many years, he decided that he would go far because of that. “The capacity for self-reflection is in my experience invaluable for a candidate or a President,” he says. (Edley worked in the Carter and Clinton Administrations and for Dukakis’s campaign.) “It’s difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t been involved how tough a Presidential campaign is. When you spend day after day flying around the country in an aluminum tube at forty thousand feet, it’s the easiest thing in the world to lose yourself. And when every misstep becomes a thirty-six-hour media disaster there’s every reason to second-guess your instincts, so being sensitive to your strengths and weaknesses and having the courage to come to terms with them is helpful when you’re facing a crisis. I’ve seen candidates who, like a deer frozen in headlights, can’t find their way forward and have to be led around by staff. I’ve also seen candidates who, faced with adversity, turn into the stubbornest of mules and can’t adapt or adjust. Most candidates walk into the room asking everybody ‘How’m I doing? How’m I doing?,’ with no ability to look at themselves in the mirror. So the ability that Barack shows in the book to be brutally self-reflective—this is deep stuff.”

I'm with Duncan and Ezra (I think, but can't find a link) on this. It is way too early in the pre-primaries to pick a candidate, and certainly too early (and impossible) to base that pick on "electability." Despite what the pundits are always claiming, that voters are so booooored by it all, I think voters actually enjoy the races (the general campaign, in which the scripts are basically fixed in place, is a different matter). Certainly, you never hear anyone in Iowa or New Hampshire complaining about all of the attention lavished upon them at pot luck suppers and 4-H club meetings. The presidential primary season is long, but it should be instructive. In 2004 I initially scoffed at the Dean campaign, but was impressed by their understanding of the power of new media and later learned enough about Howard Dean to be impressed by him. I initially put my faith in John Kerry based on his "electability," but as I learned more about him, electability stopped entering into the equation, replaced by admiration.

So, at least for the next few months, I'll point to profiles like this one simply because the Democratic slate of candidates offers a bunch of people about whom I'd like to learn more. The Republicans? Not so much, as they seem for the most part to be a craven (yes, that's the facade of Yankee Stadium in the background), pandering, and pretty dull lot, though I'll be interested to hear their answers to some of these questions.