Posted 3:05 PM by Robert

Wesley Clark And Military Records

What is it about Wesley Clark that seems to stir up the most unpleasant and self-destructive comments on the military records of himself and others?

Retired General Hugh Shelton, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported that the reason Mr. Clark "came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues ... Wes won't get my vote."

Then Mr. Clark himself bizarrely attempted to diminish Senator Kerry's undoubted Vietnam heroism. He did this after infamously stating that if anyone else criticized his military record he would "beat the s--- out of them." Clark was later forced to distance himself from his own remarks. But will he physically attack General Shelton - a prime offender - when next they meet?

Now there's the weird "deserter' flap. Michael Moore accused President Bush of being a deserter and welcomed a debate between the "General and the Deserter." Clark refused to distance himself from his bizarre supporter's comments, even though they were not new and had been discredited to the satisfaction of the vast majority of the media and the public.

What the heck is it with Wesley Clark and military records?

UPDATE: Still more claptrap on Clark's military record, this time from Newsweek, which follows up on General Shelton's remarks:

What really happened? According to a knowledgeable source, Clark ran afoul of Cohen and Shelton by being less than totally forthcoming in morning conference calls during the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999. From his NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clark wanted to wage the war more aggressively, but back in the Pentagon, Cohen and Shelton were more cautious. They would give Clark instructions on, for instance, the scale of the bombing campaign. "Clark would say, 'Uh-huh, gotcha'," says NEWSWEEK's source. But then he would pick up the phone and call [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and [Secretary of State] Madeleine [Albright]." As Clark knew full well, Blair and Albright were more hawkish than Shelton and Cohen. After talking to the State Department and NATO allies, Clark would have a different set of marching orders, says the source, who has spoken about the matter with both Cohen and Clark. "Then, about 1 o'clock, the Defense Department would hear what Clark was up to, and Cohen and Shelton would be furious."

Was Clark going around them? Not really. As NATO commander, Clark told NEWSWEEK, "I wore two hats." He reported to Washington, but also to America's European allies. And within the U.S. government, he was within his authority to seek guidance from the State Department and certainly from the White House, as well as from his nominal bosses at the Pentagon.

No reasonable person will put any substantial faith in a report on this topic attributed only to "a knowledgeable source," and nobody at Newsweek should be so foolish as to believe otherwise. There are lots of people with actual knowledge of this matter - heck, even Wesley Clark himself is probably "a knowledgeable source" here. The problem is that all the known "knowledgeable sources" have personal interests in the story, which is a nice way of saying that they have an incentive to lie. Is the "knowledgeable source" Madeleine Albright or Sandy Berger? - two Clinton administration operatives who are almost certainly "knowledgeable sources" on this matter, but each of whom has a strong personal interest in how the matter is presented to and accepted by the public and each of whom has a serious record of prevaricating. Remember Knowledgeable Source Berger "remembering" to ever-credulous TIME magazine that the Clinton administration had left a secret plan with the incoming Bush people to invade Afghanistan? Now it seems Newsweek's turn to swallow whole a big piece of leftover Clintonian balloney - at least TIME named its absurdist source!.

The Newsweek story is nothing other than an attempt to discredit General Shelton's statement. At bottom, the story attempts to "explain" the severe language used by General Shelton in terms that portrait General Clark as acting entirely within his authority.

But the pattern Newsweek describes of General Clark juggling different constituencies does not amount to the "integrity and character issues" with which Shelton and Cohen charged Clark. And this pattern is definitely not the reasons tendered by General Shelton when he had Clark removed. That is, we may rest assured that General Shelton and Secretary Cohen did not call President Clinton and say something along the lines of:

"Mr. President, we have to remove Wesley Clark as head of NATO because in our morning conference calls with him he says 'uh-huh' and then phones your Secretary of State and our allies that he is supposed to talk to anyway, tells them what we want to do exactly as he is supposed to do, and then phones us back and tells us that they all want to be more aggressive. This just has to stop!"

Such a conversation never happened because nobody in his right mind could think such a conversation would actually result in the removal of the head of NATO. Since what Newsweek calls "what really happened" was not the proffered reason for Clark's removal, it seems that the "knowledgeable source" is planning to assert that this is what "really happened" in the sense that it was the true but undisclosed motivation of Messrs. Shelton and Cohen. How nicely unverifiable. Unless and until Newsweek wants to start naming its sources here we are all best advised to assume that General Clark - or someone working on his behalf - has a buddy at Newsweek and a friendly "knowledgeable source" from the detritus of the Clinton administration, who together were quite happy to create this ridiculous article just as Candidate Clark needed it.

I wonder what the called-in chip was? Where do I go to get some?

FURTHER UPDATE: God, it's worse than I thought. Clark's condition seems to be infectious. How else to explain this self-destructive and entirely unnecessary snap by Kerry:

"That's the first time I have heard a general be so dismissive of lieutenants, who bleed a lot in wars," Kerry told Ed Bradley in Sunday's interview. "I think the general is entitled to his feelings and opinions." .... "[Vietnam] is young people dying for the wrong reasons, because leaders don't do the things that they should to protect them."

And isn't Senator Kerry getting more than a little too cute when he says "I think the general is entitled to his feelings and opinions" where the point is exactly that General Clark is not entitled to these particular feelings and opinions because Senator Kerry thinks those feelings and opinions are insensitive, disrespectful, inappropriate and downright wrong?

But, most of all, why are these two men involved in this completely silly ongoing exchange?

Posted 11:28 AM by Robert

A Note On The Mathematics Of Conventions

The political process is often compared to a "marketplace of ideas." Within a particular political party, the purpose of the presidential primary season is in large measure to force the competitors to eliminate each other from competition. If that process is not completed by the primaries, then the convention must finish the job and establish a "monopoly" by choosing a single nominee.

What happens in a convention in which nobody commands a majority of delegates? Well, if one candidate commands a near majority, the brokering of the convention will likely be a deal cut by that that candidate and another player who can put the leader over the top. In other words, the convention will bear a stong resemblance to a kind of oligopoly.

If no contender has a near-majority, things get much more complex very fast. How fast? Well, continuing the economic analogy, one might say that as the "market" within the convention gets less concentrated, the convention functions more more like "perfect competition" - which is exactly the chaotic situation that the primaries and convention are supposed to eliminate.

How fast does a convention degenerate into perfectly competitive chaos? Probably mush faster than the degree by which the candidates fail to obtain a majority of the delegates. In the economic arena, a standard measure of market concentration is the Herfindahl index:

[T]he Herfindahl index is a measure of the size of firms in relationship to the industry and an indicator of the amount of competition among them. It is defined as the sum of the squares of the market shares of each individual firm. ... The major benefit of the Herfindahl index in relationship to such measures as the concentration ratio is that it gives more weight to larger firms. Take, for instance, two cases in which the six largest firms produce 90 percent of the output:

Case 1: All six firms produce 15 percent, and
Case 2: One firm produces 80 percent while the five others produce 2 percent each.

We will assume that the remaining 10% of output is divided among 10 equally sized producers.
The six-firm concentration ratio would equal 90 percent for both case 1 and case 2, but in the first case competition would be fierce where the second case approaches monopoly. The Herfindahl index for these two situations makes the lack of competition in the second case strikingly clear:

Case 1: Herfindahl index of 1360
Case 2: Herfindahl index of 6430

This behavior rests in the fact that the market shares are squared prior to being summed, giving additional weight to firms with larger size.

If the economic analogy holds, then a political convention in which, say, five contenders each hold about 20% of the delegates will pretty well approximate chaos. In other words, such a situation would mean that the entire primary season had decided essentially nothing.

Posted 10:15 AM by Robert

Hope For Edwards?

Mickey Kaus says "yes!" [Also, scroll down for lots of top quality Zogby bashing!]

Mickey points to this Greg Abbott post that argues that Clark is trashing Edwards to weaken Edwards in South Carolina - which, of course, is exactly what the Man Without Qualities has been arguing essentially follows as a corollary to Dick Morris' Clinton alarums.

But John Ellis argues (I think) that if Clark trashes Edwards now then that helps Kerry win New Hampshire by 20 points, which is not good for Clark! But Clark (or Lehane) may think that Kerry's New Hampshire win won't mean much because he's a favorite son there. For example, Bill Clinton's strong second-place showing in New Hampshire primary — behind former Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts — enabled him to dub himself the "comeback kid" because Tsongas' "win" was discounted as a merely a "favorite son" effect in comparision to the strong showing by the Southerner. It is much more important for Clark to show strength in South Carolina - where Clark is not a favorite son but Edwards is. Of course, it's also very important for Clark to stop Edwards from showing too much strength in New Hampshire, where Edwards is anything but a favorite son. And if Clark/Lehane are sliming Edwards, they are probably trying to slime Kerry, too.

But, dear me, John Ellis is probably right that if Clark is trashing Edwards, then there is a big risk that Clark and Edwards may both get savaged in the process - one way or the other. In fact, if either of them (but especially favorite son Edwards) doesn't do well in South Carolina, that will likely leave the poor performer weakened through the rest of the camapign - but enhance Al Sharpton's results throughout the South and the African American community generally. Clark and Edwards should care about all that - but the Clintons don't, and Clark advisor Lehane really works for them.

As things look now, John Kerry will not after New Hampshire have taken or even threatened to take anything near a majority anywhere - even his own back yard. Heck, Kerry and Dean combined hardly claim a majority now in New Hampshire, where they are both favorite sons from adjoining states. What's more, John Ellis cogently observes that Kerry has now officially peaked in New Hampshire and Dean is apparently in a tailspin (although Zogby says Dean has had a small one-day bounce), so their combined vote is likely to shrink, if anything.

The chances of a brokered convention in which Al Sharpton carries a good deal of weight seem to be growing, if anything. Yes, right now John Kerry is looking strong. But John Kerry in South Carolina and the rest of the South? Please. The image of John Kerry tucked into a breakfast of shad roe and grits would be worse than seeing Michael Dukakis tucked into that tank.

Similarly, not even Senator Edwards' most unhinged and infatuated media admirers are suggesting that he will likely command a majority of delegates or anything close to it walking into the convention. The speculation now is on his viability.

Dean? Clark? Yes, they may be shrinking (although the polls seem unreliable and inconsistent at least as to the degree of shrinkage) - but nothing fatal, yet.

The prospect of being offered the vice-presidency has likely kept several of these contenders going for some time. That prospect alone may keep Clark, Edwards, Dean and even Kerry (and Sharpton!) going until the end of this very short primary season. That further increases the chances of a brokered convention.

Suppose John Kerry emerges as the nominee from a brokered convention in which he failed to command even a majority of Democratic delegates and in which Al Sharpton has a big say in cutting the final deal. Is such a nominee likely to be a strong contender in the general election?

After the dust settles on the highly probable Kerry loss to Bush, the Clintons could turn to the African American community and point out: We made you strong in Boston in 2004! Now help us in 2008!

Posted 3:16 PM by Robert

Kobe Chatter: The Race Card Forces Its Way To The Top Of The Deck

No, race can't be ignored or disregarded - especially if the prosecutors begin to look like they can actually convict. That doesn't seem to be the case at this point, which may be why the race issue has remained less disruptive than it will be if things keep moving forward.

Race is a big issue in the Kobe Bryant prosecution. And the consequences of that are beginning to force their way to the surface:

[T]he Laker star's defense team complained: "There is lots of history about black men being falsely accused of this crime by white women."

And so there is.

Posted 11:08 AM by Robert

The Limits Of Marthahate

A federal prosecutor said she was worried about finding a fair jury in the Martha Stewart trial after one potential juror looked at the style maven and openly wished her luck.

And it doesn't help matters any that the prosecutors seem to have a really bad case. Does somebody need to remind them that the standard they face is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? Have they looked through their files and chanted "reasonable doubt" ten times? Perhaps they should.

Indeed, pardon my skepticism, but the Justice Department's approach to Martha Stewart's prosecution seems eerily like the scientists' approach in this cartoon.

Posted 9:14 AM by Robert

Bounce II

Perhaps the only thing in this race more remarkable than how little it takes to get the media to trumpet that Senator Edwards is on fire is how much it seems to take to get any meaningful portion of the public to warm up to him:

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who earned a jolt of momentum from his second place finish in Iowa that so far has not translated into rising poll numbers in New Hampshire, slipped one percentage point to 7 percent.

On a related point, the complete arc of Dick Morris' reasoning described in the immediately preceding post has even more difficulties than noted there, including the complete absence to date (January 23) of any detectable bounce for Senator Edwards.

It is worth noting that the man supposedly behind the machinations which are the subject of Mr. Morris' reasoning, Mr. Lehane, putatively works for Wesley Clark but actually works for the Clintons - and they don't want any of the Democrats in this race, including Mr. Clark, to become president. But they especially don't want Dr. Dean to become even the Democratic nominee - since he has all but pledged to purge the Democratic Party and its institutions of the Clintons' operatives and influence. The contenders other than Dr. Dean are less offensive to the Clintons' agenda as the mere nominee - as long as that nominee doesn't trip up and actually win the presidential election. But if any substantial portion of the speculation in these stories is correct, the Clintons seem to be well on their way to preventing that disaster.

But, one might argue, Senator Edwards and General Clark are both Southerners - their time will come in the South. That raises a name that has mostly been irrelevant so far in this campaign: Al Sharpton. That's a name that could become very significant to Messrs. Edwards and Clark - and even to the entire future possibly-brokered Democratic convention in which a candidate commanding, say, 10% of the delegates corresponding to the votes of the Democrats' most loyal and important consitituency could have real influence. As Senator Zell Miller sagely put it:

First, the Reverend "Ready for Prime Time." Conventional wisdom says native Southerners John Edwards and Wesley Clark and moderate Joe Lieberman will have the edge when the primaries move South. Don't count on it. I'd be willing to bet a steak dinner (mad cow or no mad cow) that Al Sharpton will get almost as many votes as Messrs. Edwards, Clark or Lieberman in this supposedly more friendly territory. (If they're still around, that is.) The last time there was an African-American in the primaries, Jesse Jackson blew everyone away, getting 96% of the African-American vote in the South, carrying Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana, and placing second in North Carolina, Florida, Maryland and Tennessee. It would be a tall order to match that. But Rev. Sharpton could do well because he's even more appealing than Rev. Jackson. While Jesse is sullen, Al is engaging. Can you imagine Rev. Jackson poking fun at himself? Can you imagine him on "Saturday Night Live" belting out James Brown's "I Feel Good" with a few cool moves?

In Democratic primary season, Senator Miller builds a road running both ways: If Mr. Sharpton can be seen as an annoying obstacle to the ability of Messrs. Edwards and Clark to harvest the South, then they can be seen as annoying obstacles to Mr. Sharpton's ability to do the same. One thing the Clintons know especially well is the politics of the South. And in addition to their proven ability to adapt to campaign contingencies, the Clintons have a very good record of being able to plan well ahead in a campaign (actually running the government was not so easy for them). So it seems likely that they also see what Senator Miller sees coming. Is it possible that the better reason for the Clintons' purposes to eliminate or damage Senator Edwards now is to clear the way for the kind of Al Sharpton Southern triumph predicted by Senator Miller? Would a brokered convention in which Al Sharpton has a lot of say in the final deal be more or less likely to produce a winning nominee and program than one in which he had no influence?

The reader should not be so naive as to imagine that the Clintons haven't considered that last question - or that they don't have a very well-considered answer.

UPDATE: Ah! We didn't have to wait at all! Here's another daily drip on Edwards already. And its a nice corrosive one in a Democratic Party that's full of people all charged up about campaign finance protocol.

FURTHER UPDATE: Ah, another one! Ripe. Very ripe. The "optimism and hope" bit ("Pessimists and cynics did not build this country, optimists built this country," Edwards said.) is suggested to be a calculated sham - supplemented by nasty, secret, negative tactics. Yes, very ripe that one. A trial lawyer offering arguments just for effect? Arguments that he doesn't really believe? Who wudda thunkit?!

MORE

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Signs of a national Edwards bounce after all? Odd that it's not detected as happening in New Hampshire, the state where people actually have to vote very soon.

Who are these people?

STILL MORE: This poll seems to show a New Hampshire Edwards surge.

Posted 11:50 PM by Robert

And Now For Edwards?

Dick Morris says:

What happened to Howard Dean? He was assassinated by Bill and Hillary with the assistance of Chris Lehane, the political hit man who first worked for Kerry and now backs Clark.

Desperate to keep control of the Democratic Party, the Clintons used their negative researchers and detectives to the ultimate and generated a story-a-day savaging Dean. The Vermont governor, not ready for prime time, cooperated by being thin-skinned, surly and combative. And now he is an artifact of history. ... My bet is that Edwards surges and finishes second in New Hampshire, too. Then we proceed to the big states five weeks later - New York, Texas, California and Ohio all vote on the same day in this front-loaded process. Edwards and Kerry will slug it out and the winner is anybody's guess.

On Foxnews Mr. Morris has justified this conclusion by arguing that ONLY the Clintons have the resources to have produced the day-by-day water torture of anti-Dean stories that supposedly did him in. If Mr. Morris is correct, why doesn't this same reasoning lead to the conclusion that Mr. Lehane is targeting Senator Kerry's most formidable contender right now by employing the same negative researchers and detectives to create the same ultimate story-a-day savaging of John Edwards? Indeed, if a string of anti-Edwards revelations appear, doesn't Mr. Morris' reasoning lead to the conclusion that ONLY the Clintons/Lehane team could be their source?

Could Matt Drudge's pledge to present RESULTS OF A DRUDGE REPORT INVESTIGATION INTO THE MAN OF MYSTERY, DEM HOPEFUL JOHN EDWARDS have any connection? Hey, a Lehane/Drudge connection? Come on! Drudge is the guy who broke and tended the Lewinski story. Surely a Clintonista like Lehane wouldn't have anything to do with Drudge.

Right?

Of course, Mr. Morris' reasoning has some odd consequences. For example, some talented people believe that the Iowa Deanerdammerung has removed much of the reason for Wesley Clark's entire campaign. If that's true and Mr. Morris is right, then wouldn't Mr. Clark be more than a bit annoyed at Mr. Lehane right now?

MORE

Posted 11:02 AM by Robert

Bounce

The New York Times and the Washington Post both suggest that President Bush received a bounce from the capture of Saddam Hussein that has now largely dissipated. And, of course, many commenters believe that Senator Kerry (and maybe Edwards) received a big bounce from the Iowa results - especially for Kerry in New Hampshire.

I am not convinced of any of it.

It's not that I deny that the President is doing worse in his polls compared to the immediate post-Saddam- capture numbers (at least in polls like the NYT's poll with sampling techniquies apt to be skewed against him), nor do I deny that Senator Kerry is doing better in his polls relative to other Democrats in the race.

It's the causation of these things.

With respect to Saddam's capture: It has been fairly widely and (I believe) correctly observed that since and largely as a result of Saddam's capture a great many voters (Democratic and others) have reduced their evaluation of the significance of the entire Iraq war and occupation. Indeed, that reduction by Democratic voters is widely believed to be a substantial (but, of course, not the only) factor in the recent loss of altitude experienced by both Howard Dean and Wesley Clark. In other words, the public appears not to be treating Saddam's capture as of passing significance. If anything, there are signs that the public - and not just the Democratic public - is ascribing too much long term and profound significance to that capture.

It being the case that the public appears to have lodged the Saddam capture in its collective mind as an important and priority-shifting development, I think - unlike the Times and Post - that it is highly unlikely that the public has ceased to ascribe to the President the long term credit for that capture. Instead, as I have noted in a prior post, I believe the capture of Saddam Hussein is viewed by the broad public the removal of a continuing drag on the public's evaluation of the President's performance. The recent developments in the Democratic contest and current polling data seem to support that conclusion. To be fair to the Times and Post, their articles do not expressly assert the causal connections, but those connections are clearly intended to be drawn as conclusions by the reader. And, I believe, those conclusions are wrong.

As I noted in the post immediately below, what in my view is likely happening is that political news coverage has been recently dominated by reporting of the Democratic selection process - which means that the Democratic arguments have been getting a lot of play - and the polls are reflecting that process.

With respect to Senator Kerry and Edwards: I detect little sign that the public - Democratic or otherwise - have actually raised their estimations of Senators Kerry or Edwards. Instead, it appears that for very different reasons Iowa caucus members re-evaluated sharply downward their estimates of both Dean and Gephardt as those caucuses approached. The effect was that, relative to those two, Senators Kerry and Edwards looked the better choices. A caucus is after all, in the final vote, a zero-sum game. That there appears to have been no (or very little) bounce for Edwards in the New Hampshire polling is further evidence that Democratic voters are not raising their estimation of him - despite media reports that Senator Edwards "positive message of hope and optimism" is getting through to more people. Instead, Senator Kerry is occupying a larger share of New Hampshire territory as a favorite son now that the other favorite son, Howard Dean, is contracting and Wesley Clark may be receding with the public's perception of Iraq's significance and in accordance with his own increasingly odd pronouncements (Kerry's Vietnam heroism was no big deal. Gay marriage is A-OK., etc., etc.). Clark's position in all this is, however, more complicated since he is also arguably picking up New Hampshire supporters who are departing from Dean - even as the territory claimed by both Dean and Clark together shrinks. In fact, because Senator Kerry is a favorite son from a neighboring state, New Hampshire has only down-side potential - and no substantial up-side potential - for Senator Kerry.

One further point: It has been said that Mr. Gephardt commenced his barrage of attack ads against Dr. Dean on the advice of Bill Clinton. Those attack ads resulted in Dr. Dean upping his attacks on Mr. Gephardt. The net effect is that they both shrank and lost, while Senators Kerry and Dean looked better and better. Gephardt is now out of the race entirely and Dean may be mortally wounded.

Nice work by Mr. Clinton in resolving those gosh darned competing goals, wasn't it? I wonder if all the Democratic contenders are still seeking Slick Willie's advice?

MORE

Posted 8:25 PM by Robert

Comfortable?

One curious side effect of the President being unopposed in his own party is that - except for coverage of the State of the Union address - political news coverage has been mostly dominated in the last couple of weeks by reports of actions and statements of people trying to replace him in the White House. The Man Without Qualities believes that where coverage of one's critics and their speeches dominates the media one is likely to suffer a bit in the polls, which has apparently happened to the President - at least in some polls. Until that balance in coverage corrects itself, it is more interesting than otherwise the case to peruse polls that detect shifts in public sentiment that are not so directly political as the customary polls asking whether a respondent thinks the county is "off track" or the like (although those polls and sentiments are very important). One such poll is tabulated in the ABC News/Money magazine CONSUMER COMFORT INDEX, which has been displaying a rather pronounced trend recently:


End Date.......................................Consumer Comfort Index

1/18/04............................................................ -3
1/11/04............................................................ -7
1/4/04............................................................ -7
12/28/03 ............................................................-9
12/21/03............................................................ -9
12/14/03............................................................ -11
12/7/03............................................................ -11
11/30/03............................................................ -11
11/23/03............................................................ -13
11/16/03............................................................ -17
11/9/03............................................................ -18
11/2/03............................................................ -18
10/26/03............................................................ -18
10/19/03............................................................ -19
10/12/03............................................................ -19
10/5/03............................................................ -20
9/28/03............................................................ -19
9/21/03............................................................ -20
9/14/03............................................................ -19
9/7/03............................................................ -16
8/31/03............................................................ -18
8/24/03............................................................ -17
8/17/03............................................................ -16
8/10/03............................................................ -17
8/3/03............................................................ -17
7/27/03............................................................ -17
7/20/03............................................................ -21
7/13/03............................................................ -21
7/6/03............................................................ -18
6/29/03............................................................ -20
6/22/03............................................................ -18
6/15/03............................................................ -17
6/8/03............................................................ -19
6/1/03............................................................ -19
5/25/03............................................................ -21
5/18/03............................................................ -24
5/11/03............................................................ -24
5/4/03............................................................ -21
4/27/03............................................................ -19
4/20/03............................................................ -15
4/13/03............................................................ -17
4/6/03............................................................ -22
3/30/03............................................................ -26
3/23/03............................................................ -28

This Index is particularly interesting to the Man Without Qulities given the unwavering belief here that the coming election will be dominated by domestic economic issues barring an unforseen and dramatic development on another front.

Posted 7:49 PM by Robert

A Positive Message Of Optimism And Hope

The New York Times reports that following his encouraging Iowa performance, Senator John Edwards is keeping his stump speech positive and has stuck to his message of optimism and hope.

So what does that mean in practice? Well, apparently, this:

Just as in Iowa, [Senator Edwards] sought to criticize President Bush as having helped create "two Americas," one for the haves and one for the have-nots, in an effort to undercut Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.

"I expect him to say the state of the union is strong," Mr. Edwards said, repeating to a scrum of reporters on the steps of the library here what he had just told the audience inside. "The question is which union? The union of special interests and insiders is strong. The problem is there are a lot of Americans who are struggling every single day, and they are the people who need our help."

It is not inappropriate in a campaign for Senator Edwards to offer such criticism and his harrowing vision of what the American union has become. But if that's what the Times and Senator Edwards think of as constituting the the "positive", "optimism" and "hope" in his message, it's terrifying to imagine what the Times and this man think it means to actually go negative.

Posted 10:47 AM by Robert

It's The Polls, Stupid!

An astute if, perhaps, somewhat mischievous, reader informs the Man Without Qualities that all of the complaints here about the Iowa polls being misleading predictors of the caucus results are all wrong-headed. He says that it's the polls that count - not the caucus results:

Nobody thinks the Iowa caucuses are about the incremental contribution of the delegates selected in Iowa to the probability of getting the nomination -- that number is close to zero no matter who "wins" the caucuses or by how much.

Instead, they are about the ability of candidates to gain traction among somebody other than pundits. The caucuses are almost pure signal. In that case, the raw Zogby-type poll numbers (to the extent they are accurate) actually measure what people are interested in. Indeed, reporting the outcome of the caucuses is probably the mistake here.

When results don't match polls there are three possibilities: a) the polls predicted the raw totals, but the process outcome doesn't mirror the raw totals (your case); b) the polls failed to predict the raw totals because the electorate changed their minds at the last minute -- or lied to pollsters -- or didn't show up as the pollsters predicted they would in some differential fashion; or c) the polls were really political and not scientific documents, i.e. the polls were calculated to misreport in order to skew perceptions.

It seems to me that b) and c) are both more common, and more interesting, than a) but I have no real evidence on relative frequency.

So put all that in your pipe and smoke it!

Posted 10:27 AM by Robert

And Yet More On Those Iowa Polls: The 100-Year Kaustown Flood!

Talk about Flooding the Zone?!! O My God - somebody will have to declare Iowa a political disaster relief area after Kausfiles Floods the Entire State!

It's all worth reading and thinking about carefully, in my view.

Curiously, after all this display of high quality awareness of the distorting effects of the Iowa caucus mechanics, Kausfiles really doesn't draw attention to any likelihood that John Edwards will not be able to exploit his "surge" (if there is one) in popularity there because he reportedly hasn't much of an Iowa organization.

UPDATE: The Note goes the extra mile!

Posted 11:02 AM by Robert

Gosh Darn Competing Goals

According to TIME magazine, Bill Clinton is a consultant for each and every Democratic presidential candidate's campaign:

Whatever their differences, Clinton is talking to all the candidates because, his friends say, they share one goal: ensuring another one-term Bush presidency.

Yes, indeed. No doubt they all don't like Mr. Bush. But as each and every one of those Democratic contenders listens to Mr. Clinton's sagacities, they may want to remember that he has an additional goal - making his wife president in 2008.

And Mr. Clinton doesn't have a good record of subordinating his - shall we say - more personal goals and needs to those of the Democratic Party generally.