Letters to the Editor

• ljwalker: On Obama and the Illinois State Senate.

  [Read the article: Nagourney: "At least one scenario where Clinton could win"]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I don't have the time or inclination anymore to get into everything you're wrong and/or cherry-picking about these days. So I'll just pick one: Obama's record in the Illinois legislature.

  I did a google search for Obama and "taking a powder" -- guess what came up? Your Salon posts, not any remarks by Illinois State Senators. The guy you seem to be citing is Dan Cronin, a GOP state legislator there, and even he gives Obama a mixed record:

  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/story?id=4339659

  In fact, members of the Illinois State Senate and Illinois observers have said over and over again that voting "present" is a viable third option there according to state law, and those who use it to denigrate Obama's record have no understanding of politics in Illinois.

  http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=274863

  http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2007&base_name=present#102958

  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18348437

  Now, regarding Obama's state Senate record, he's received wide acclaim from both sides of the aisle for his guiding of the first comprehensive campaign finance law in Illinois in a generation, his managing to get the cops to sign off on videotaped interrogations, and his championing of a controversial death penalty overhaul that he managed to get passed unanimously. See, for example:

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020802262.html

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

  If anything, the crack on Obama's state senate record is that he made a lot of controversial votes, not that he ducked them:

  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/17/politics/main2369157.shtml

  The ducking-the-vote charge you bring up stems mainly from one incident when he was on vacation during a gun bill that failed by four votes -- see the 2/7/07 WP article above. There are also six votes where Obama said he "goofed."

  http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamavotes24jan24,0,713086.story

  Otherwise, there's no there there. Here's a NYT graphic covering Obama's more important votes in the Illinois Senate:

  http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html

  So, in short, saying Obama's state senate record is flimsy and insubstantial is not borne out at all by the facts. So, basically, you're either wrong or you're being intellectually dishonest. And, frankly, this goes for all too many of your numbered points in your last post.

  Also, just to stay on message of late, it's over.

  Permalink Tuesday, March 25, 2008 02:46 PM

• On the race card between NH and SC.

  [Read the article: Nagourney: "At least one scenario where Clinton could win"]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  "By the time the campaigns got to New Hampshire, the Clinton team was panicking...It was clearly her side that first stoked the race and gender issue." -- NYT editorial, 1/17/08

  "We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama." -- TPM's Josh Marshall, 1/13/08

  "I think that the Clintons' anti-Obama strategy is more subtle than commentators are realizing. It is in the nature of a 'provokatsiia', as the Russians say...Such comments are a provocation, waving a red cloak in front of the Obama people. When they respond angrily with charges of racism, suddenly they look like Jesse Jackson redux...just the kind of angry, militant black folks who scare white people...The whole point was to get the Obama people to respond angrily, which they did. Clintons win." -- TPM, 1/13/08

  "Is it possible that accusing Obama and his campaign of playing the race card might create doubt in the minds of the moderate, independent white voters who now seem so enamored of the young, black senator? Might that be the idea?" -- WP's Eugene Robinson, 1/14/08

  "While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern." -- Margaret Carlson, 1/17/08

  Permalink Tuesday, March 25, 2008 03:36 PM

• Straw Man much, LJ?

  [Read the article: Nagourney: "At least one scenario where Clinton could win"]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I see you've picked up KateTex's old talking points. Noone is arguing that Obama is a savior. We are merely arguing that [a] Obama would make a better president than Sen. Clinton, and [b] Sen. Obama has already won the nomination.

  By the way, your link-dump aside -- I've already read most of those, tbh -- I notice you've skipped over responding about your questionable stance on Obama's state senate career.

  Permalink Tuesday, March 25, 2008 03:57 PM