Symbolic NPR vote fails, symbolism succeeds*

Republicans in the House of Representatives rushed their first big vote of the lame-duck session: An effort to cut funds to NPR over a recent decision to fire Juan Williams for his remarks about Muslims on the Bill O'Reilly show. The effort failed, as the New York Times reports.

Indeed, the vote was symbolic. Had Republicans really wanted to cut NPR they would have waited until January, when they will have the majority and will be able to get partisan legislation passed. Instead, GOP leaders determined that it would be better to throw some early red meat to their most conservative constituents, force Democrats to side with spending taxpayer money on the "liberal media," and avoid an early partisan fight that would paint Republicans as more interested in revenging a Fox New employee than in doing the public's business.

(Note: I am a producer at an NPR-affiliated station, KCRW, though I don't work for NPR.)

*Update: And speaking of Fox News, chairman Roger Ailes compared NPR executives to Nazis because the firing of Juan Williams brought the Holocaust to mind. Ailes later apologized, saying he was "angry" and chose the wrong word.

Here's his angry ad-lib:

“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”

California's center-left looking center-right

A new Field Poll has former eBay executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman far ahead of her primary challenger, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

This comes as no surprise.

What does is the news that Whitman edges out Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, who had until recently been seen as the overwhelming favorite going into November.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Whitman ... overtook Brown in a possible general election matchup, winning the support of 46 percent of likely voters compared with Brown's 43 percent, the poll found. Brown had led Whitman by 10 percentage points in the January poll and by 21 points in October.

Apparently, independent voters are leaning conservative in this election, which means Brown will have to step up his campaign earlier than he might have otherwise.

GOP fashion statement

The Orange County Register snapped a shot of Irvine Councilman and Assembly candidate Steven Choi wearing a picture of Nancy Pelosi as Joseph Stalin on his back. The indecorous decoration angered liberal blogger Dan Chmielewski:

To portray Pelosi as Stalin, a mass murderer of millions during his reign of power, is nothing short of outrageous. Choi owes the Speaker an apology. He owes his fellow city council members an apology. He owes the residents of this city an apology for his embarrassing antics.

But Choi is comfortable with his use of tea party-esque agitprop. He told the Register:

I'm a Republican Party member and went there to express my disapproval of her policies ... I have big concerns with what is going on with the government pushing down the mandated health issues ... As a small businessman it would impact me.

Health reform passes House

The House of Representatives just passed the Democratic health care reform bill by a vote of 220 to 215 -- 39 Democrats voted against the bill and one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for it. The bill needed 218 votes to pass.

Final pitch for the 32nd

The 12-way race to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in the 32nd Congressional District comes to a close tomorrow*. Los Angeles Times reporter Jean Merl looks at the role endorsements might play for the two heavyweights in the contest - Board of Equalization member Judy Chu and state Sen. Gil Cedillo - given the expected low-voter turnout. Rebecca Kimitch at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune checks out the campaigns' ground games heading into the final weekend.

*If no one wins a majority of the vote tomorrow there will be a runoff in July between the top vote getters in each party. Given the partisan makeup of the district, the top Democrat is expected to win easily.

Specter breaks with GOP

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter announced this morning that he's leaving the Republican Party to become a Democrat. Specter faced a tough challenge from the right in the 2010 senate primary race, so this gives him a chance of winning re-election. In his statement, however, Specter blames the switch on a "schism" that opened when he voted in support of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan. Specter's switch gives Democrats 59 seats in the U.S. Senate - and 60 if Al Franken gets the seat in Minnesota (which he will). Sixty, of course, is the magic number for ending filibusters.

Debate! Debate! 4

No new taxes? Clinton: I'm committed to not raising taxes on middle income Americans, but will let the Bush tax breaks lapse for those making $250,000 or more. I'll not only not raise them, I'll lower 'em.

Will you raise the capital gains tax? Obama cites this article and says he's trying to restore some balance to the tax system.

Asked the same question, Clinton reminds everyone that she's Bill Clinton's wife. Remember the good old days? (Probably the most effective line she'll deliver all night.) She then says she'd cap any increase at 20 percent (up from 15).

The two then sparred over lifting the cap on the payroll tax as a way to keep Social Security solvent. Obama says he will lift the cap. Clinton says she'll figure it out after she's elected.

Another commercial break... Did I mention how fucking bizarre it is that George Stephanopolous is only at this debate because he works at ABC News because he used to work for Clinton's husband?

And we're back. Topic: Guns! Hillary respects the 2nd Amendment and will bridge the divide between gun-rights folks and gun-control folks. Obama gives a flustered answer, but says he believes in an individual right to bear arms. Does Clinton support the DC gun ban (which is before the Supreme Court)? Er, ums. No blanket rules from federal government, she says. They've both pandered themselves into a corner on this one.

On affirmative action, Obama promotes a plan that still takes race into account, but includes poor whites and excludes privileged minorities. Clinton seems to agree with it, but I'm not sure.

Gas prices! Clinton wants a windfall profit tax and seems amenable to moratorium on the federal gas tax. Also wants to investigate commodities traders and to release oil from the strategic reserve. Obama: ditto, adding that we need to raise the fuel efficiency standards for cars.

How will you use former president George W. Bush? Clinton: Hmm, I'll look for a way, but it'll be hard. Obama: I'll talk to his daddy. Correct answer: On humanitarian missions, like battling AIDS in Africa.

Commerical break... Clintonopolous

Boy, this is really a retro debate. Back to all the old issues. So, how about those superdelegates?

Clinton: I'll tell 'em we need a fighter back in the White House. Tax cuts for middle class. Make everybody feel like part of the American family again. Champion. Tackler of issues. Remind them of my track record and experience (minus sniper fire). Thirty-five generals want me to lead, to rebuild military. Turn economy around. Going to ask Pennsylvania voters for help first.

Obama: Nation at war, planet in peril, economy in shambles. American people have lost trust in government. I bet on American people. Lift people up. Stop spin. Honest conversation. Change happens from bottom up. No PAC money, no lobby money. Obamaroots. If we're gonna deliver, we need new political coalition in country.

Debate! Debate! 3

After Obama says we should talk about issues of substance, we get another question about patriotism. Why doesn't Barack wear one of those flag lapel pins!? Obama says he shows his patriotism by doing good work. He needs to learn the word "owe," I think. As in, I owe a debt or I owe gratitude to my country.

Stephanopolous: Obama, how about that friendship with the former Weather Underground member? Obama says he can't be held accountable for the statements/politics of every person he knows or is friendly with. Clinton says it's fertile ground for Republicans and so should be turned over a bit more. Obama strikes back: By that calculus, you can't be president cause your husband pardoned two members of the Weather Underground. Oh, snap! (I think.)

Commercial break... An opportunity for me to note how completely bizarre it is that one of the men asking questions at this debate has his job because he worked for the husband of one of the candidates.

Back to a woman-on-the-street question: Is the promised withdrawal from Iraq real or fuzzy? Clinton says she'll bring home the troops no matter what, except that it be in a "responsible and careful manner." Wiggle words?

Obama says he'd direct the generals rather than be directed by them.

So, what about Iran? Obama says he'll directly engage with Iran, but will take no option off the table to prevent it from getting nukes. He gets a little tongue tied in trying to say an attack on Israel is an attack on us.

Clinton will engage Iran diplomatically, but never talk to its nutty president. She'll take a regional approach. Never let Iran get nukes.

Debate! Debate! 2

Clinton sort of leaves Obama's response to her response about bittergate alone, says other people said it was a fucked up statement, and then promotes herself. Smart to move past it.

Next, we get to relive the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy. Why did it take Obama so long to repudiate the man? He responds with a short summary of his Race Speech.

Charlie then asks Hillary if all of the church members should have walked out, as she said she would have done? She throws her own double-reversal neck kick, noting the church people choose is, um, a reflection of that person's values as she reminds everyone Wright blamed America for Sept. 11. You do the math.

Stephanopolous follows up by asking Obama if Wright is as patriotic an American as Obama is. A little tussle over whether Obama said he disowned the man - no, Obama says, not the man but his words. Oy. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices Obama.

Clinton sees the blood and brings out her daggers. This is ground that needs to be re-explored, she says. And speaking of re-exploration, Stephanopolous steps in with a question about Clinton's credibility re: sniper fire in Bosnia. She apologizes, says she wasn't as accurate as she was in the past in relating the story. But it was EXPERIENCE, she reminds Tom the Disenchanted Hillary Supporter who asked the question.

Obama takes the high road. Let's not get so obsessed with gaffes that we miss the point of the election. Good timing.

will.i.am, where.r.you?

Hillary Clinton wins Texas (according to CNN). Barack Obama now has to hope that headline writers run out of Comeback Kid cliches sometime before the start of April.

News cycles will be cruel to Obama, who has already suffered four days of drubbing without an effective response. Spinning your delegate lead isn't all that sexy. And now he can't even fire his economic adviser without inviting more criticism.

Will Wyoming and Mississippi kill the Clinton fire?

And don't forget Clinton's Florida card. If they re-vote there and she wins, could she take the delegate lead?

Who knew democracy could be such a pain in the ass?

Obama, Clinton and the long hard slog

John King at CNN just used his magic delegate board to show that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama has any chance of winning a majority of delegates at this point - mathematical proof that superdelegates will decide this election. The only question is, what will sway them?

Money? Momentum? Fatigue?

Probably all of them. But only time, and tonight's results, will tell.

As of 5:11 p.m. PST, Obama has won Vermont, Clinton looks solid in Ohio, and Texas is a jump ball. Rhode Island is expected to go to Clinton, but no results are in.

National Journal's The Hotline has given us one of the inevitable story lines for tomorrow (unless Obama can pull it off in Ohio): Going negative works.

Prepare for a long and ugly brawl on the road to Pennsylvania.

In case you care (I'm not sure I do) *Updated

I predict Hillary Clinton wins Ohio by 5-8 points, loses Texas by a hair and stays in the race with the argument that Pennsylvania looks a lot like Ohio, Florida could hold a do-over and enough superdelegates dig her style to put Barack Obama's inevitability in doubt.

She's just getting warmed up after all.

Obama needed a sharp stake and a hefty hammer to finish this one off. I don't think he brung it. In the last several days, Clinton has owned the news cycles, with her red phone ad, her campaign's leak of Obama in foreign garb, her re-ignition of a story that Obama's adviser told the Canadians he wasn't really serious about renegotiating Nafta, and the Tony Rezko trial starting today.

All of this comes on top of her successfully convincing the media that it had indeed developed a crush on Obama, which, as in real life, caused them to act out in strange ways to prove they don't really like him like that. *(Here's some proof of this phenomenon.)

Obama needs a stronger argument coming out of tomorrow's results than "she needed to win by a bigger margin." He appears to have New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on his side to ask Hillary to step aside, but he'll need stronger surrogates than that. After all, she has Bill Clinton mounting her defense and this is where he will be most effective, working the party insiders.

You're no daisy

Hillary Clinton wants to answer the phone.

Texas, Ohio and other states of being

A Republican stronghold concerned with immigration and a state with a rising Democratic electorate frighted by disappearing manufacturing jobs could decide the Democratic presidential primary on March 4.

My guess is that Texas, thick with colleges in the liberal stronghold of Travis County, will be more welcoming to Barack Obama than Ohio, even though Texas has a relatively large number of Latino voters.

Ohio, as this story indicates, appears to be suspicious of audacious hope. Obama's biography and skin color may not play well with struggling white blue-collar voters. Hillary Clinton has experience, race and family ties on her side.

Yes, race still matters in America.

In other news:

John Broder at the New York Times gives a historical overview of how the two parties chose to select their delegates. It's an interesting commentary on the philosophies that drive the two parties. The GOP favors winner-take-all, Democrats proportional allocations.

Writes Broder: In other words, the Republican who kills the buffalo gets all the meat; the Democrat has to crouch around the campfire and share it with his brethren and sistren.

Robert Reich, secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, blogs about the four circles of hell politicians must successfully navigate on their way to the White House. As Maureen Dowd did before him, Reich argues that Obama needs to find his dark side and learn to tell stories of fear to complement the stories of hope. I don't think he's wrong.

Barack won big, but...

Sen. Barack Obama won a decisive victory in South Carolina, largely because he turned out black voters. He's buoyed as the Democrats ready for Feb. 5.

I'd argue, however, that the Clinton attack strategy in South Carolina succeeded, precisely because his win was dependent on the turnout and support of black voters.

Consider this from today's New York Times: [Obama's] share of the white vote in South Carolina, 24 percent, was lower than what he drew in Iowa or New Hampshire, raising questions about whether race will divide Democrats even as the party shows tremendous enthusiasm for its candidates.

That's a terrible trend if you want to win a majority of states on Super Tuesday, since most of the 22 states have too few black voters to give Obama an edge. He should probably reach out to John Edwards, who has a few delegates he can throw Obama's way and who seems to have captured the vote of white male Democrats not keen on supporting a woman or a black.

The rest of the New York Times story is here.

Real hard times*

Forget stocks dropping on Wall Street and poor Citibank writing down billions in debt. Here's a story about a real American economy that a one-time stimulus packages will do nothing to help.

After reading the story, I have three initial questions.

First, how recent is this terrible transformation from working class to working poor in the Midwest?

Second, is our health care "crisis" really about rising medical costs or a result of our stagnant and often falling wages?

Third, how in the world can a Republican beat a Democrat in Ohio this year? Mitt Romney's Democratic-lite turn in Michigan notwithstanding, no one making $8 or $9 an hour at McDonald's is going to respond to calls for more tax cuts as a way to dig out of this hole.

*Also, I hope any print journalists wondering why they're still in the business will read this and be inspired.

Statistics rarely sell

John Edwards, the Hallway Monitor of the Democratic Field, has released statistics his campaign says show he can put more right-leaning states into play than his Democratic rivals in a general election, thereby making him the better choice of the three front-runners.

The argument is meant to assure undecideds and independents that a vote for Edwards isn't a wasted vote.

My guess is the real strategy is to assure campaign donors that a dollar spent on the Edwards campaign isn't a wasted dollar, since voters are rarely moved by such thinly sliced data.

Edwards is going to have to come up with a better closing argument at this point in his campaign. He's burdened with having been part of a losing ticket and having left the Senate at a time when he could have had a meaningful role in important policy decisions. He needs a little Biden in him.

He also needs to step outside of the lines. At this point, why take a chance on yet another "safe" choice when you've already got Hillary making that case all across America?

In debt we trust*

Good news for Republicans: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be asking for a 10 percent across-the-board spending cut to close a yawning budget gap predicted by his financial advisers.

The Democrats, having put off tough choices year after year, will now have to decide whether they want to push for higher spending in an election year (which will fail because of the Republican minority), shift more expenses to bonds (which will make them look as bad as Schwarzenegger did in 2005), or negotiate for a smaller but still substantial cut in services (which will make all of their proposals for new programs, including health care, look financially risky).

Whatever they do, redistricting will keep them safely in their seats.

However, they will have a harder time attracting votes for the Democratic term-limit initiative if they get into a protracted budget battle.

Schwarzenegger predicts a $14 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year, while the Legislative Analyst's Office predicts $9.8 billion. The Dems will latch on to the smaller of the two numbers, but it's still a chunk of money.

I hear cities and counties are bracing for another raid.

*The Sacramento Bee says Senate Pro Tem Don Perata has put health care reform on the back-burner. That seems an odd negotiating tactic to me.