Clinton Endorses McCain?

In "exposing" Barack Obama for what she feels is his reckless naivety and ignorance to the dangerous realities of our world, Hillary Clinton is now giving voters the impression that our safety would be in much better hands with John McCain than Barack Obama.

"I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold, and I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that, and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy," she said during a meeting with military officers and other national security experts in Washington, which was convened to discuss her own readiness for the job and her plans for dealing with the war in Afghanistan.

It's a shameless and desperate tactic and one that we will likely see more of in the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary. The best interests of the party be damned, it's typical Clinton.

Veepstakes Continued...

The Financial Times provides an interesting run-down of potential running-mates for John McCain and the positives and negatives for each.

Charlie Crist, 51: (+) Popular first term Florida governor; Credited with helping McCain win the Florida primary and would probably deliver the Sunshine State again in November if chosen as VP. (-) Too moderate for many conservatives; At 51, his bachelor lifestyle is a source of intrigue – rumour mongers cannot decide whether he is a playboy or gay.

Mark Sanford, 47: (+) Second-term governor of South Carolina; Crusader against government waste – once brought live pigs into the state legislature to protest against “pork-barrel” spending. (-) Did not endorse McCain (or any other candidate) before the South Carolina primary.

Tim Pawlenty, 47: (+) Second-term governor of Minnesota – a key Republican target state; One of McCain’s staunchest supporters and a conservative rising star. (-) Failed to deliver his home state for McCain in the Republican primary.

Haley Barbour, 60: (+) Second-term governor of Mississippi; Competent and well-connected operator; One of the few people to win praise for their leadership after Hurricane Katrina. (-) His background as a powerful Washington lobbyist clashes with McCain’s image as a crusader against special interests.

Matt Blunt, 37: (+) Young first-term governor of Missouri -- traditionally an important bellweather state in presidential elections; Won the highest rating of any governor from the libertarian Cato Institute for reducing state spending; Recently announced he would not seek a second term, making him available for the VP job. (-) Backed Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination; His youth could raise doubts about his readiness to be Commander-in-Chief and undermine Republican attacks against Barack Obama for his inexperience.

Bobby Jindal, 36: (+) Corruption-busting governor of Louisiana and Republican rising star; His youth and Indian-American ethnicity would help neutralise the appeal of Barack Obama. (-) Less than two months into his first term – it would surely be too soon for him to quit.

Sarah Palin, 44: (+) First term governor of Alaska, with an approval rating above 80 per cent; Solid conservative; Considered the brightest female prospect in the Republican party; Mother of four and wife of a commercial fisherman, giving her populist appeal. (-) Relatively inexperienced; Comes from a politically peripheral state.

Rick Perry, 58: (+) Governor of Texas since George W. Bush stepped down in 2000; Would be a popular choice among ”red state” conservatives. (-) Is America ready for another Texas governor on a presidential ticket?

Condoleezza Rice, 53, and Colin Powell, 70: (+) Secretary of State and former Secretary of State, respectively; Would add to McCain’s foreign policy credentials and bring racial diversity to the Republican ticket. (-) Too deeply associated with the failures of the Bush administration; Both say they don’t want the job; Powell is only a year younger than McCain.

Rob Portman, 52: (+) Former US Trade Representative and White House economic adviser; Would bring economic clout to the ticket and could be an asset in his native Ohio – a crucial swing state. (-) Little known outside economic circles. Closely tied to the Bush administration.

Christopher Cox, 55: (+) Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former congressman and editor of the Harvard Law Review; Would bring economic and financial experience. (-) Lacks star power.

Joseph Lieberman, 66: (+) Independent senator for Connecticut and running mate to Al Gore on the 2000 Democratic ticket; Quit the Democrats because of his support for the war in Iraq; Would strengthen McCain’s appeal among independents and moderate Democrats. (-) Liberal views would alienate conservatives.

Mike Huckabee, 52: (+) Presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor; Popular among evangelical Christians and widely admired for his good-humoured approach to campaigning; Refrained from attacking McCain. (-) Socially conservative views could alienate moderates, while his populist rhetoric alarms economic conservatives.

Mitt Romney, 60: (+) Former presidential candidate, business executive and Massachusetts governor; Emerged as McCain’s fiercest opponent; Would provide executive experience and economic knowledge. (-) Hostile relationship with McCain could be difficult to overcome.

Rudy Giuliani, 63: (+) Former presidential hopeful; Highly-respected for his leadership as New York mayor after the 9/11 attacks. (-) Could overshadow McCain; Too socially liberal for conservatives; Volatile private life.

Michael Bloomberg, 66: (+) Widely respected mayor of New York, philanthropist and billionaire owner of the Bloomberg news organisation; Recently ruled himself out as a third-party candidate; Would bring executive experience, economic clout and bipartisan appeal. (-) Quit the Republican party last year to become an independent; Too moderate and metropolitan for many Conservatives.

Steve Forbes, 60: (+) Member of the Forbes publishing dynasty and twice a Republican presidential contender in 1986 and 2000; Campaigner for lower taxes and small government. (-) Anti-tax views may be too extreme for some; Out of frontline politics for years.

John Thune, 47, Richard Burr, 52: (+) Young and solidly conservative senators for South Dakota and North Carolina, respectively. Frequently named among the Republican party’s brightest rising stars. (-) Conventional wisdom suggests it would be unwise for McCain, a longtime senator, to add another lawmaker to the ticket, given the unpopularity of Congress. The same reasoning could rule out several other senators that have been linked with the job, including Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Kay Bailey-Hutchinson of Texas.

Hillary's Inner-Tracy

Slate: “Don't you just hate when some upstart comes along and threatens your best-laid plans? We were struck by how well one of Reese Witherspoon's monologues from the film Election fits the narrative of Campaign 2008.”

The Ticking Time Bomb

In light of recent Senate debate on the issue of prisoner detention and interrogation, a group of retired Generals sent the following letter to Senator Hillary Clinton. It provides a thoughtful perspective and some compelling arguments on the “ticking time bomb scenario” that’s always levied by those who have no aversion to allowing water-boarding and similar techniques to be at the lawful disposal of American interrogators.

April 19, 2007

Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Clinton:

Thank you for meeting with us and the other retired general and flag officers last Friday. We appreciated the opportunity to have an exchange of views about U.S. policies on detention and interrogation of prisoners and the implications of those policies for the safety of our troops and the values they fight to defend.

We believe it is important for the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief, to ensure that all U.S. personnel adhere to a uniform standard for interrogating and detaining enemy prisoners that is effective, lawful and humane. These are issues that the next President of the United States must face and which every candidate for that office will undoubtedly be asked to address throughout the campaign.

We said we would follow up with you to share some additional thoughts from the group about the issues we discussed. In particular, we promised to explore further a topic that has been ubiquitous in the public discourse around these issues: the question of whether it is ever acceptable or wise for a President and Commander-in-Chief to leave open the possibility that he or she would authorize torture or other unlawful treatment in cases of dire emergency. As you know, this question – commonly referred to as the ticking time bomb scenario – is frequently put to presidential candidates on the campaign trail in an attempt to prompt them into admitting that they would violate fundamental American values in order to save American lives.

We recognize this question as the trap it is intended to be. As Commander-in-Chief, it would be your duty to set a clear policy for everyone under your command, not to make tactical decisions like the one presented by this hypothetical. We also know from experience that a situation like the ticking time bomb is extremely unlikely, if not impossible, as it would require a simultaneous triumph and catastrophic failure of intelligence. In order for the scenario to become reality, we would have to know virtually everything about an impending attack – that it was imminent, that it would be catastrophic, that the person we had in custody knew the one vital piece of information we needed to stop it, that he would divulge that information under torture – everything except that one vital piece of information.

People are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on 9/11 and, fed by what they see on television and in the movies, they are naturally drawn to the collective fantasy that torture in a ticking time bomb situation can spare us from suffering such an attack. Because of that, we understand the need for candidates to address the ticking time bomb question. But we believe you should use the opportunity of answering this question to lead the American people away from the grip of fear that prompts the question in the first place. In that spirit, we offer the following thoughts on how to defuse the ticking time bomb.

While the standard ticking time bomb scenario as presented on television and in hypothetical questions to candidates is a fiction, there is another sense in which the ticking time bomb scenario is painfully real. Our soldiers in Iraq confront ticking time bomb situations every single day, in the form of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). There is no question in our minds that the proper way to deal with people who might have information about these threats is to abide by the law and by our
training. We know what works in these situations. And it is not torture.

We also know that the risks of hitting the panic button in a ticking time bomb situation are numerous and grave. First, torture is unlikely to produce accurate or actionable intelligence; to the contrary, since torture of a determined enemy is more likely to produce lies than the truth, applying torture in a true ticking time bomb situation is the surest way to guarantee that the bomb will go off. Torture does not work, and nothing about the urgency of a ticking time bomb situation – nor any amount of wishful thinking – will change that fact.

The case of captured terrorism suspect Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi underscores the gravity of this risk. After initially cooperating with FBI interrogators, al Libbi was transferred to CIA custody and then to Egypt, where he was reportedly subjected to waterboarding and other torture. Under torture, al Libbi told interrogators that Iraq had trained al Qaeda to use biochemical weapons. It came out later that al Libbi had fabricated the story in order to stop the torture, and all the information he provided was deemed unreliable and discredited. But by that time, we had already used his information as part of the case for going to war with Iraq.

Second, even if one attempts to limit the use of torture only to rare situations of dire emergency – real ticking time bomb situations – it always spreads. Any degree of “flexibility” about torture articulated by the Commander-in-Chief will drop down the chain of command like a stone, and the rare exception will fast become the rule. Every American soldier, sailor, airman and Marine takes an oath in which they swear to obey the lawful orders of the President as Commander-in-Chief. If you become President of the United States, these men and women will look to you not only for their orders but for the guidance and standards that inform those orders. Our men and women in uniform need clear and consistent standards, and the military provides those to them.

But if the Commander-in-Chief muddies that message by saying that he or she would be willing to authorize torture in some circumstances, we cannot expect our troops on the battlefield, who face death every day, to eschew it. As military professionals, we can say with certainty that complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.

Third, permitting torture in any circumstance does grave damage to America’s moral authority and, by fueling jihadist recruitment, undermines our security. Our country cannot hope to lead the world if it forsakes the most fundamental rules and standards it insists other countries uphold. This long war in which we are now engaged is in many respects a war of ideas, and it will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of those in the region who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave and imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This is a recipe for defeat.

And finally, as officers who were entrusted with the safety and moral integrity of the young men and women under our command, we believe strongly that any Commander-in-Chief who would authorize torture under any circumstances must understand the impact of that decision on those who would be ordered to carry it out. When we take young men and women from their parents and train them to be soldiers, we do so with the implied promise that they will be returned to their families better people for having served their country. That is a solemn obligation, and we breach it when we equivocate about the use of torture and other cruelty. We urge that you keep this obligation foremost in your mind when you are asked whether there are circumstances – even the most dire – under which you would authorize the use of torture.

Our country must return to the values our forefathers had the wisdom to set out in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Terrorism is a serious problem that we must confront using all our strength, persistence and ingenuity. But our values – as set out in these founding documents – are an asset in that fight as well, and we forfeit that asset at our peril. We need strong positive leadership that will replace fear with enthusiastic optimism that our Nation’s future is bright and secure. Our citizens and the world are searching for that leadership.

We look forward to further discussions with you about these issues of such importance to our Nation.

Sincerely,

General Charles C. Krulak, USMC (Ret.)
General Joseph P. Hoar, USMC (Ret.)
General Paul J. Kern, USA (Ret.)
General Merrill A. McPeak, USAF (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard Jr., USA (Ret.)
Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn, USN (Ret.)
Vice Admiral Albert H. Konetzni Jr., USN (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Charles P. Otstott, USA (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Harry E. Soyster, USA (Ret.)
Major General Paul D. Eaton, USA (Ret.)
Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, USN (Ret.)
Major General Fred E. Haynes, USMC (Ret.)
Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, USN (Ret.)
Major General Melvyn S. Montano, ANG (Ret.)
Brigadier General David M. Brahms, USMC (Ret.)
Brigadier General James P. Cullen, USA (Ret.)
Brigadier General Murray G. Sagsveen, USA (Ret.)
Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, USA (Ret.)

Veepstakes

In today's Fix, Chris Cillizza provides an interesting run-down of potential nominees for vice-president.

BARACK OBAMA

* John Edwards: The former North Carolina senator's endorsement remains the biggest "get" in the ongoing battle between Obama and Clinton. On one level, he seems like a natural fit as Obama's No. 2; the two were passionate voices for change in the race and both put a refusal to accept money from special interests at the core of their campaigns. Edwards is also still a relatively young man and would help Obama make a generational argument against McCain. Why wouldn't Edwards be the pick? His six years in the Senate don't help Obama address voter concerns about experience.

* Tim Kaine: Kaine, the governor of Virginia, has long been The Fix's dark horse pick to be Obama's running mate. Not only was he among the first major elected officials to back Obama, he hails from a potential swing state. Also, Kaine's deep faith (and willingness to speak about it on the campaign trail) could help the party's outreach to moderate and independent voters. Like Edwards, Kaine has very limited experience in foreign affairs, however.

* Kathleen Sebelius: Sebelius is the hot name right now among Democratic insiders buzzing about an Obama pick. Sebelius is currently in her second term as the governor of Kansas - one of the most Republican states in the country. While the idea of the Democratic ticket carrying Kansas is somewhat far fetched (Lyndon Johnson was the last Democrat to do so way back in 1964), picking Sebelius would add to the historic nature of the Democratic ticket and draw huge amounts of media attention. Plus, Sebelius may have an intangible going for her: Obama's mother is a native Kansan.

* Jim Webb: Webb is a beloved figure among the liberal left who all but drafted him into his 2006 upset victory over Sen. George Allen (R). And he has the military credential few can match as a decorated Marine during Vietnam. His biggest asset and potential liability seems to lie in his unorthodox approach to politics. Webb is blunt to the point of awkwardness. Voters often love it, but such straight shooting may not make an ideal veep pick.

* Tony Zinni: Zinni is not only a high ranking military officer(he served as a Marine for nearly four decades and was the head of U.S. Central Command), but he also is a longtime opponent of the war in Iraq. His foreign policy chops are tough to question and his opposition to the war jibes nicely with Obama's own position. Given the likelihood of McCain as the Republican nominee, Obama might well opt for Zinni (or some other military man) to blunt charges that he is naive when it comes to foreign policy and national security.

JOHN McCAIN

* Charlie Crist: Less than two years after winning election as the governor of Florida, Crist is already being talked up in Republican circles as a potential VP. (The St. Petersburg Times even has a Charlie Crist veep-o-meter measuring his chances. In retrospect, McCain's win in Florida was the tipping point in his bid for the nomination, and that victory was fueled in no small part by a last-minute endorsement from Crist. One strike against Crist is that he isn't regarded by movement conservatives as one of them.

* Jon Huntsman Jr.: Huntsman, the governor of Utah, is the dark horse pick of this list. His original endorsement was seen a major coup for McCain - Huntsman is Mormon, thus his support was seen as a slap at Mitt Romney. Huntsman also has significant chops among the Reagan/Bush crowd; he served in both Bush administrations and was a staff assistant in the Reagan White House in the early 1980s. Did we mention he is the son of the wealthiest man in Utah?

* Tim Pawlenty: The two-term Minnesota governor has to be considered the frontrunner at the moment to be McCain's pick. He hails from the electorally important Midwest, is young enough to balance concerns about McCain's age, and he stuck by the Arizona senator in the darkest days of the campaign. The criticism that Pawlenty is an unknown on the national stage may, in fact, be an argument in his favor - voters won't bring any preconceived notions about him to the ticket. Never forget that one of the guiding principles in picking a VP is to find someone who is comfortable being seen but not heard. Want more about the man they call "Tpaw"?

* Mark Sanford: If Tpaw is the top choice these days, Sanford isn't far behind. Term-limited out of office in 2010, Sanford is young (47) and the rare Republican who can bridge the chasm between social and economic conservatives. Sanford was an early endorser of McCain during the latter's 2000 presidential candidacy and, even though he stayed neutral this year, retains a good relationship with McCain. Fiscal conservatives -- led by the Club For Growth -- LOVE Sanford and have already begun lobbying on his behalf.

* John Thune: A rising star in the party, Thune is a hero to conservatives for defeating Sen. Tom Daschle (S.D.) in 2004. He also hails from the Plains -- a potentially competitive area with Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin up for grabs. Thune, like Sanford and Pawlenty, is in his 40s, helping McCain offset
any concerns about his age.

Obama Surges Ahead

As reported today in Reuters:

Barack Obama has surged past Hillary Clinton to open a big national lead in the Democratic presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. Obama also leads Republican front-runner John McCain in a potential November election match-up while Clinton trails McCain, enhancing Obama's argument he is the Democrat with the best shot at capturing the White House.

The poll showed Obama with a 14-point edge over Clinton, 52 percent to 38 percent, after being in a statistical tie with the New York senator last month. Obama's new lead follows a string of 10 wins in February for the Illinois senator, who has moved ahead in the battle for pledged delegates who vote on the party's nominee at the August convention.

"Obama has the hot hand and you can clearly see his momentum in the national numbers," pollster John Zogby said. "This is what happens when you win a bunch of primaries in a row - or maybe this is why you win a bunch of primaries in a row."

Changing Dynamics

The NY Times provides an interesting take on the changing dynamics of the Democratic presidential primaries now that Barack Obama has garned a lead in delegates. An excerpt:

Senator Barack Obama emerged from Tuesday’s primaries leading Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by more than 100 delegates, a small but significant advantage that Democrats said would be difficult for Mrs. Clinton to make up in the remaining contests in the presidential nomination battle.

Neither candidate is expected to win the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to claim the nomination by the time the voting ends in June. But Mr. Obama’s campaign began making a case in earnest on Wednesday that if he maintained his edge in delegates won in primaries and caucuses, he would have the strongest claim to the backing of the 796 elected Democrats and party leaders known as superdelegates who are free to vote as they choose and who now stand to determine the outcome.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said she could still pull out a victory with victories in the biggest primaries still to come, including Ohioand Texas next month. But Mr. Obama’s clear lead in delegates allocated by the votes in nominating contests is one of a number of challenges facing her after a string of defeats in which Mr. Obama not only ran up big popular vote margins but also made inroads among the types of voters she had most been counting on, including women and lower-income people.

Should the cracks in her support among those groups show up in Ohio and Texas as well, it could undermine her hopes that those states will halt Mr. Obama’s momentum and allow her to claim dominance in many of the biggest primary battlegrounds.

AFRICOM

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the president's unfinished Africa legacy. An excerpt:

President Bush can safely claim a positive legacy in Africa, which he tours starting Feb. 15. He increased funds for health and tied foreign aid to reform. But one legacy hangs in the balance: a new American security arrangement there. It's called AFRICOM, a United States military command center for the continent. It replaces a cold-war setup that viewed Africa as secondary to larger security concerns. That's why its oversight was long divided among three US command centers that focus on other global regions.

Did Bill Sink Hill?

The Agitator raises the question “did Bill sink Hill on purpose?” Not likely, but an interesting read nonetheless.

"Big Daddy"

A performance that's a bit dated yet timeless (much like the speaker himself)...

Death by a Thousand Cuts

The Clinton Campaign's “death by a thousand cuts” is receiving more and more public scrutiny. The devolution of the campaign from one internal crisis to another, its lack of a consistent message, and its reaction to various setbacks has only added fuel to the fire. A chronology:

Three more primary losses, not even close. Now it's eight in a row. A slide in the national polls. Staff shakeup: soap-opera-watching campaign manager out, deputy out. Bill's former campaign manager, David Wilhelm, jumps for Barack Obama. Josh Green, in a stunning piece that might be called a meticulously reported notebook dump, says, in The Atlantic, that Mrs. Clinton made personnel decisions based only on loyalty, not talent and skill. (There's a lot of that in the Bush White House. The loyalty obsession is never a sign of health.) The Wall Street Journal reports "internal frictions" flaring in the open, with Clinton campaign guru Mark Penn yelling, "Your ad doesn't work!" to ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who fires back, "Oh, it's always the ad, never the message." (This is a classic campaign argument. The problem is almost always the message. Getting the message right requires answering this question: Why are we here? This is the hardest question to answer in politics. Most staffs, and gurus, don't know or can't say.) On a conference call Tuesday morning, Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, told reporters Mrs. Clinton simply cannot catch up. It is "next to impossible" for her to get past him on pledged delegates, she'd need "a blowout victory" of 20 to 30 points in the coming states, the superdelegates will "ratify" what the voters do. (I wrote in my notes, "not gloating -asserting as fact.") Within the hour Mr. Plouffe's words were headlined on Politico, made Drudge, and became topic one on the evening news shows. Veteran Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier took a stab at an early postmortem in what seemed a long-suppressed blurt: The Clintons always treated party leaders as "an extension of their . . . ambitions," "pawns in a game of success and survival. She may pay a high price for their selfishness soon." He cited party insiders: Superdelegates "won't hesitate to ditch" Mrs. Clinton if her problems persist. To top it all off, Mrs. Clinton has, for 30 years, held deep respect for her husband's political acumen, for his natural, instinctive sense of how to campaign. And he's never let her down. Now he's flat-footed, an oaf lurching from local radio interview to finger-pointing lecture. Where did the golden gut go? How did his gifts abandon him? Abandon her? Her campaign blew through $120 million. How did this happen?

The thing about that paragraph is it could be longer.

The Clinton response? "She awoke each day having to absorb new sentences in a paragraph of woe." But "her response to what from the outside looks like catastrophe? A glassy-eyed insistence that all is well.... Whether or not you wish her well probably determines whether you see it as game face, stubbornness or evidence of mild derangement."

EJ Dionne provides his thoughts on "what happened to Hillary Rodham Clinton?" Last fall, she was the 'inevitable' nominee whose 'machine' would raise scads of cash and push her to an early victory.... But this narrative was flawed from the beginning" and "her campaign has suffered from profound organizational failures."

Clinton has offered experience and some well-thought-out policies. That might be enough in a different year. But when it comes to a larger theme, her campaign has been all over the lot. You can tell a campaign has difficulty establishing a message when its slogans keep changing. In recent weeks, the Clinton campaign has featured one banner after another: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions," "Working for Change, Working for You," "Ready for Change, Ready to Lead" and "Solutions for America." Obama has stuck confidently with the slogan "Change We Can Believe In." Clinton must either get voters to stop believing in the change Obama promises, or make them an alternative Big Offer that they can believe in more.

Michael Gerson agrees:

Hillary Clinton's attempt to define a narrative of her own has been hobbled because her campaign is defined by the rejection of rhetoric. Obama's eloquence and idealism are dismissed as "abstract" and a "fairy tale" in contrast to Clinton's experience and policy substance. It is difficult for a campaign to inspire while using "inspiration" as an epithet. Though it is increasingly unlikely, Clinton may still have a path to the nomination - and what a path it is. She merely has to puncture the balloon of Democratic idealism; sully the character of a good man; feed racial tensions within her party; then eke out a win with the support of unelected superdelegates, thwarting the hopes of millions of new voters who would see an inspiring young man defeated by backroom arm-twisting and arcane party rules. Unlikely - but it would be a fitting contribution to the Clinton legacy of monumental selfishness.

Despite the various opinions on how we’ve arrived at this point, it’s now clear that Hillary Clinton must defeat Barack Obama in both Texas and Ohio next month to survive. And instead of presenting a case for why she is the most experienced and able candidate to bring a different kind of change, she has fallen back on the tired negative attacks of a desperate candidate. The latest - "speeches versus solutions, talk versus action;" "Speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank or fill your prescription or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night;" "I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business."

In defining the differences between their candidacies, she's clearly chosen the low-road. While sure to grab headlines, it’s probably not the message you want to send to an electorate that’s eager for change, fed up with politics as usual, and hopeful for the future. To the record number of Democrats who’ve turned out in support of Barack Obama (many first-time voters, and many independents and moderate Republicans) or those who are considering doing so, it’s a charge that they’ve all been duped by a candidate that’s all style and no substance. That has to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. For those who’ve followed Obama (including those who once complained that he was too “professorial” and "wonkish"), it comes as quite a stretch... and rather insulting. It’s the classic Clintonian self-denial (which has growing Nixon-like qualities)– the “if you’re not with us, you're misguided, and we're going to tear you down until you join us" mindset. It's quite a contrast from a message of hope and unity.

To be an effective statesman and chief executive, a president must garner the support of the American people if he/she hopes to accomplish anything of substance. It’s hard to do that when, in the quest for that presidency, you alienate more and more people every step of the way.

In the News: Africa

Tonight, the President is scheduled to embark on a six-day, five-country tour of Africa that will also take him to Eastern Europe, Israel, Japan and China. Due to the increasing violence and instability on the continent, it will be far from the "victory lap” of American beneficiary nations (Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia) that was originally intended.

As the NY Times reports: “On the eve of a planned trip to Africa, President Bush thrust himself into the role of peacemaker on Thursday, as his plans to promote American efforts against poverty and disease gave way to a more pressing imperative: addressing the violence and turmoil on the continent.” As a self-proclaimed peace-maker, the President also defended his decision not to send troops to Darfur (despite what he calls a genocide taking place) as a "seminal decision" not to intervene with force, taken partly out of the desire not to send US troops into another Muslim country.

Elsewhere on the continent, Kenya's political rivals agreed to an independent review of the disputed presidential election (to be released within three to six months). As the BBC reports: “The agreement, which also calls for a new constitution, is a clear sign of progress after weeks of violence that have left more than 1,000 people dead.”

Meanwhile, Chadian President Deby declared a nationwide state of emergency, telling citizens that tightened controls are ''measures important and urgent to maintain order, guarantee stability and assure the good functioning of the state.'' NY Times: The Red Cross said more than 160 people were killed and 1,000 wounded in the fighting, which reached the edge of the presidential palace before the rebels were driven out of N'Djamena and back toward Chad's eastern border with Sudan.

Voices

"We didn’t put any resources in small states." - Clinton Finance Chair Hassan Nemazee on why Clinton might lose the Democratic nomination.

Losing, Hillary Style

The Politico reports on the Clinton campaign's response to their latest defeats - a strategy somewhere between spin and denial.

Hillary Clinton has had a lot of experience dealing with setbacks in the last five days, losing two of her top campaign aides and eight consecutive contests to Barack Obama in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. But she hasn’t gotten any better at acknowledging defeats.

In speeches to supporters in Texas Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, she ignored Obama’s convincing Tuesday wins in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Only in a press conference after a Wednesday morning rally in this dusty border town did Clinton acknowledge the results of the Potomac primary. Even then, she said everything was going according to plan.

“I want to congratulate Sen. Obama on his recent victories and tell him to meet me in Texas. We’re ready,” she said, before brushing off questions about her apparent struggles by saying, “that’s what I always thought would happen. So we are very well positioned to compete in these big states and that’s what I intend to do. This is a long journey to the nomination. Some weeks one of us is up and the other is down, and then we reverse it . . . It’s a long and winding road.”

Clinton also said she wasn’t concerned that Obama on Tuesday cut into her base of Hispanics and white women, and she denied reports that her campaign is in turmoil. “From my perspective this is the exciting part of the campaign,” she said.

Still, the unprompted recognition of Obama’s success was rare for Clinton, who in her speeches neither congratulates Obama on his wins, nor acknowledges her losses, even if only to predict she’d soon turn things around in her March 4 firewall states of Texas and Ohio. And when directly confronted about defeats and stumbles, she normally makes it sound as if everything is going precisely to plan.

Undoubtedly, Hillary Clinton will go down swinging and her latest ad in Wisconsin (going negative) should be an indication of what's to come.

Morman? More like More-Man.

If only the Romney campaign had adopted this tone earlier (caution: un-Mormonlike language)...