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And why you can expect a whole lot more of it until the Pennsylvania primary.
Now that the much-ballyhooed Texas and Ohio primaries have officially settled nothing other than the fact that the Democratic primary race will continue, the American public gets to wait seven more weeks until another major primary. True, there is a caucus in Wyoming tomorrow and a primary in Mississippi on Tuesday (both of which should be easy Obama victories), but the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 has 158 delegates at stake, nearly three times the amount of Wyoming and Mississippi combined. So we should look forward to a month and a half of silence, right?
Wrong. The candidates want to keep themselves fresh in your mind (predictably), so they're going to do all they can to keep themselves in media coverage, and especially to make sure that their opponent looks as bad as possible. So we should look forward to engaging and intellectual debates about the various issues facing our country, right?
Wrong again. With a few exceptions, party primaries aren't really about issues. (The 2006 Senatorial primary in Connecticut between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont, which was widely seen as a referendum on the Iraq War for the Democratic party, is a good example of this.) Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have differences when it comes to the issues, but for all intents and purposes, they're very minor issues. Both of them agree that we need a universal health care program. Both of them believe we should get our troops out of Iraq. Both of them believe we need to turn around the economy. Their only major policy difference is Obama's claim that he'll meet with leaders of countries such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea without setting preconditions, but the fact that this hasn't received much attention in the media goes to show you that these elections aren't about issues.
I've argued before that this election is about image. If you want proof of that, you need look no further than the slogans for each candidate. Obama's is "change we can believe in," and Clinton's is "solutions for America." Could we have two less substantive themes? Obama has been famously vague about what sort of change he will enact as president, earning criticism from the Clinton camp, but she has been equally vague on what "solutions" she would provide. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, though. We already know what issues and policies the Democratic candidate will pursue in office, whichever of them is ultimately nominated. What we're voting for is an image. Do we want the candidate who has an image of hope and staying above the fray, or do we want the candidate promising experience and an ability to fight?
Once you accept the idea that the election has nothing to do with issues, the fact that stories such as Obama's traditional Somalian outfit or Clinton's dallying to release tax information are dominating news cycles comes as no surprise. They aren't trying to show that the other is weaker on the issues. They're working to destroy image, because ultimately, that's what voters are deciding this primary season. An interesting side note: for all the noise generated about McCain being a phony conservative, can you think of anyone who looks more like a Republican than him? He looked and acted the most like a conservative of any of the candidates, with the possible exception of Ron Paul. He's old, and he's cranky. Mitt Romney was his strongest competitor, but the image he gives off seems like he would have been more at home in the Democratic party. (Is it any surprise that he was elected as the governor of Massachusetts?)
So prepare for a lot of stories about nothing over the next seven weeks. They may sound important and critical to the election, but you'll find that even if it sounds like there are issues on the surface, it boils down to image, and that's what counts in the end.
Your guide to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict.
On Thursday in Jerusalem, a Palestinian gunman entered a seminary and started shooting, leaving eight students dead and many more wounded. Hamas leaders claimed responsibility for the attack the next day, although Mahmoud Abbas was quick to condemn the attacks. Ehud Olmert was under pressure from his countrymen to respond quickly, although such a response was discouraged by President Bush and the United Nations. Peace talks between the two remain suspended.
Did you have any trouble following that? If you did, don't worry. You aren't alone in having trouble following the insanity in the Middle East. While no article could take on the daunting task of explaining the convoluted history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a simple glossary might be enough to help keep things in check. This list will help you sound more informed on the situation and impress your friends at the same time. In fact, armed with this knowledge, you might be able to successfully debate Barack Obama on the subject. (Ha! Only kidding!)
Mahmoud Abbas - Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority and chairman of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). As head of the PNA, Abbas is effectively the face of Palestine and seen as a moderate. He is a member of the Fatah party.
Fatah - a reverse acronym from Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini (Arabic, "Palestinian National Liberation Movement"). Fatah is the largest faction of the PLO and was the ruling party in the Palestinian National Authority until 2006. They are seen as more moderate than Hamas, though their militant wing is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Gaza Strip - a small strip of land in the southwest of Israel (bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt) named for its principal city of Gaza. The Gaza Strip was administered by Israel until 2005, when the Palestinian National Authority assumed control. Hamas currently oversees the territory, which is home to about 1.4 million Palestinians. A major battle was fought for the territory in 2007.
Hamas - an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Arabic, "Islamic Resistance Movement"). Hamas is a militant movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state. It is recognized as a terrorist organization by many major world powers. Hamas was elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority following elections in 2006. Like the PLO, Hamas is seen as the extremist wing of the Palestinian movement.
Ehud Olmert - Prime Minister of Israel. He had been Acting Prime Minister since his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, suffered a stroke. He has been involved in peace negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas, though those talks are currently suspended.
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) - an organization dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. Yasser Arafat headed this group from 1974 until his death in 2004, when Abbas succeeded him. The PLO has been designated as a terrorist organization and is often associated with the extremist image of Palestine.
Palestinian National Authority - Palestine does not currently exist as a country, but it does have an interim government administering parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Abbas is the Prime Minister of the Authority, though Hamas is the ruling party.
West Bank - an area currently occupied by Israel containing Jericho, Bethlehem, and East Jerusalem. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967, though Jordan did not relinquish its claim to the area until 1988. Most of the West Bank's residents are Palestinian, though there are many Israeli settlements as well.
YouTube, which has given so much, continues to give with an MS-Paint induced phonetic craze.
Ever wonder what the lyrics of "Yellow Ledbetter" actually are? Well, you won't get any answers from the internet, but you might just get a couple exceptionally cheap laughs. Turns out a bunch of people with MS Paint and Movie Maker have decided that misinterpreting the classics is the wave of the future, unleashing a number of rebus-and-bad-pun laden vids online, interpreting the lyrics to everyone's pop favorites in strange, new and inappropriate ways.
My favorite? This one of Fall Out Boy's "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner".
In which Ben identifies the Awesome trend and derives the Equations of Radness.
Turns out you have to have a dictionary of 80's cartoon shows to communicate in our society. Totally ok with me--I watched Voltron 5 like any good American. It's just the tip of the iceberg in what I'm calling "Awesome Culture": the state of the art in social obfuscation in which the cheesy, obscure, and overblown are deified for the lack of truly inspiring messages. Or perhaps in spite of them. Allow me to digress (in this case, that request is like an H2 towering over your Camry with the blinker on being interpreted "Please let me into this lane."):
Iain Banks posited the eventual existence (well, actually, the current existence) of The Culture, an amalgam of minds, artificial and human, that exist in an anarchic and essentially hedonistic society where having fun is infinitely more important than being useful. Think of a cross between Star Trek's Federation and a frat party, and you've pretty much got it. Also think the Internet and you've still pretty much got it. Though we are definitely in state of economic scarcity, informationally we have a massive glut. Results? No, really, the results of having everything from Avogadro's number to DuckTales at our fingertips? DuckTales. And lots of it. It seems that the more we are allowed to look into the abyss, the more the abyss looks back into us and says, "By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!"
Note the following: Mystery Science Theater. Here's a precursor--Crow and Servo taking truly awesomely bad movies to task with verbal barbs. The beginnings of our Awesomeness, the show introduced a rising generation to rubbery monsters and bad dialogue. Awesome. All kinds of abominations are covered by this umbrella: Snakes on a Plane, a rekindled love for monster movies, and the general retro-desire we've come to accept as all-pervasive. And so, because I love you so much, Equations for these Radnesses:
Equation 1: Is this movie crap or adorable crap?
R = Monsters x Bad Dialogue x Kitsch x Oldness*
Note that Oldness is a value between 0 and 1. Anything 1969 and older is a 1.
Equation 2: How obscure is the right obscure?
R = Robots x Anthropomorphic Animals x Quotable Battlecries
Note that Voltron 5 is the highest possible score.
Equation 3: Can I use this word?
R = Have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used it?
Making sense of last night's primaries.
Hillary Clinton put a stop to the Obama freight train with victories in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island last night. Her campaign had made a big point of Texas and Ohio especially - Bill Clinton even suggested that if his wife did not win those two states, she would not be able to secure the nomination - and with last night's results, she publicly declared that her campaign has "turned a corner," even going so far as to hint at a Clinton-Obama ticket.
Should we go ahead and coronate Clinton, then? Or is Barack Obama's claim that Clinton's wins last night, though impressive, still aren't enough to make a dent in his delegate lead? And if you're a Democratic superdelegate, who should you vote for now? Which candidate is more likely to be successful in a general election?
Each side is quick to point out their electoral strengths and their opponent's weaknesses. Clinton reminds voters that she is consistently winning large states that serve as Democratic strongholds, and that nearly half of Obama's wins are in caucus states, where a much smaller percentage of the population is represented. Obama argues that he is winning smaller - but more - states, and many that traditionally fall into the Republican column, which gives him an advantage over John McCain in the general election. Both of them make a strong case for the nomination. Let's look at each in turn.
Clinton. She's right when she says that she's consistently winning the most populous - and traditionally Democratic - states. Of the ten most populous states in the Union, Clinton has won six (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio, and Georgia) to Obama's two (Pennsylvania and North Carolina have yet to hold primaries). Those make a bigger difference in the electoral college than they do in the primary season. She's won eight fewer states than Obama has, but she's far ahead when it comes to electors. If the two candidates were fighting in a general election, Clinton would be ahead 263-189. 54 electors is a big deal when there are only 538 total. (That's a ten percent margin of victory. Nothing to sneer at.) Clinton's victories have also consistently come in primary states, which have the same election format as will be seen in November. All but one of her wins (Nevada) have come in primary states. Her margin of victory isn't great - she averages 54% of the vote in her wins - but in a general election, each state is winner-take-all. Proportional allocation of delegates has hurt her in this race, and that's something she wouldn't have to worry about if she were the party nominee.
Obama. While Obama hasn't won many large, delegate-rich states (his two biggest states have been his home state of Illinois and Georgia), he's done very well in smaller, traditionally red states. Over half of his primary wins have come in states that went for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. There's reason to think that he could siphon some of those away from McCain this year. Clinton's claims that his caucus wins are tainted don't quite hold up, either. It's true that his wins in those states (11 of 24) have represented a much smaller percentage of the population, he's done just fine in primaries, too. He's won nearly as many primaries as Clinton has (13 to her 15), and has done so with a higher average of four percent more of the vote.
So who should superdelegates side with? If you're looking to stick with the time-honored "two coasts" strategy of focusing on the Pacific west and the Northeast, Clinton might be your best bet. She's shown that she can easily win those states and probably be competitive in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. If you're looking to adopt the new "50 states" approach that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean is pushing, though, Obama might be a more attractive option. Obama has made significant inroads into the mountain west and the South. He would probably be unable to win all of those states for the Democrats (do you really think Idaho and Utah are going to be blue states this year?), but if he could pick up Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Georgia, that would result in a 41-elector difference, and none of those states are out of the realm of possibility. Obama's command of the black vote could prove to be decisive in this election. Yet Clinton holds an equal sway over blue-collar workers in financial straits, and there are more and more of those every day with the current recession. Each candidate has powerful strengths. Superdelegates will have their hands full making their decision in the coming months.
What elections end up boiling down to.
I mentioned in an article last week that issues have taken a back seat to image in recent elections. Now, I'm aware of the folly of citing a webcomic as a definitive source in matters political, but today's Toothpaste for Dinner seemed to reinforce that point. Here it is:
If this is true (and remember, the artist lives in Columbus, Ohio) we have every reason to expect a resounding victory for Barack Obama. I don't think any reputable source on earth would tell you that Hillary Clinton was the cute candidate. (Case in point: a Google search for the phrase "hillary clinton cute" returns the message, "Did you mean "hillary clinton cut?") Searching for "barack obama cute" yields about the same amount of hits (465,000 to Clinton's 461,000), but most of Clinton's are about Obama's cuteness and her own lack thereof.
Today's primaries essentially amount to be a referendum on issues vs. image. Texas and Ohio look to be Clinton's Alamo. If she goes down, the issues candidacy goes down with her.
The situation in Iraq just got a whole lot worse.
A story that should have dominated the news on Wednesday was relegated to the back burner amidst growing talk of a recession. U.S.-backed Sunni Iraqi forces, sometimes referred to as Sunni Awakening forces, threatened to renege on their deal to fight alongside American troops against al-Qaeda in Iraq. These local militias are unhappy with the Shi'ite police chief in Diyala province and are trying to pressure the government to replace him. The news seems innocuous enough amongst repeated claims from the White House that "the surge is working," but the loss of a key ally like the Sunni Awakening squads could not only undo everything that has been achieved in the last year, but possibly even make things worse.
These Awakening squads are a large reason for the success of the surge in the first place. Having an extra 30,000 troops in the area is significant, certainly, but having fewer enemy combatants is perhaps more significant when it comes to explaining why fatalities have dropped so dramatically. Before the surge, Sunni Iraqis were actively fighting against U.S. troops, but in the beginning of 2007, they formed a temporary alliance in order to combat the growing influence of al-Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar Province. These soldiers, called "concerned local citizens" (CLCs) by the American military, are paid $10 a day to police combat areas. The military likes the idea because it allows the security of Iraq to be placed in the hands of Iraqis, which is the entire point of the war in Iraq. The sooner Iraq can stabilize itself, the sooner U.S. troops can come home.
That's all good and well, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is worried that these troops aren't loyal to Iraq. He has every reason to be. The CLCs are fighting against al-Qaeda in Iraq. They're being paid by the U.S. military. At no point does the
Iraqi government enter the picture. Maliki is worried that once the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq disappears, they will resume fighting against the government, and after Wednesday's announcement, those fears are starting to be realized.
Which makes one wonder: is the surge really working? Increased troop levels provide an image of security at home, but on the battlefield, the CLCs seem to have actually been making the difference. With the threat of their disappearance, not only does the U.S. military lose a valuable ally, but it also potentially gains more enemy combatants. That mitigates the claims coming from the White House about the success of the surge. Most of these claims are centered around the argument that conditions in Iraq are better than they were before the surge. That sounds wonderful, but when you stop and think about it, the argument falls apart. Of course conditions are better now than they were in 2006. In 2006, the country was in the grip of a civil war. Now that Sunnis across the country have resolved to fight alongside U.S. troops instead of against them, the civil war has largely ended. It's no great stretch to say that conditions after a war are better than they were during it. It is a stretch, however, to connect that improvement to an increase of troop levels.
The end of the alliance between U.S. troops and CLCs makes things in Iraq worse. However, the prospect of armed and U.S.-trained CLCs potentially fighting against the government is far more dire. The Bush administration was livid when they suspected Iran and Syria of arming and funding Iraqi insurgents. If conditions continue as they are right now, they won't have anyone to blame for an increasingly deadly insurgency than themselves. While the situation in Iraq is grim for George W. Bush, it looks to be even more so for his successor.
