What do we think?

See how long that lasted?

But I want to talk about Palin in the context in which she appears to have been picked: as a fresh, young face in the Republican party; a candidate of change, if you’re into that sort of thing. More generally, I want to wonder aloud about the vernacular that has emerged in this presidential race.

During the Democratic primary we heard complaints piled on complaints about the lack of substantive difference between the two major candidates; as a result we spent a lot of time talking about health-care mandates and troop withdrawal deadlines, but nothing compared to how much time we spent talking about change, hope and experience. Was there any comfort to be found? Yes! And we were told time and again, by both candidates, that their differences were nothing compared to the differences between each and their likely Republican opponent. Just wait until the general, we decided, when we’ll really start to hear contrasts drawn between our candidate and the Republican.

And we have. But–and make sure you’re sitting down, now–the contrasts as drawn up by the Democrat himself at his convention have been of the same talismanic breed we got in the primary. Now instead of Hope and Change vs. Experience, it’s Change vs. More of the Same. To be fair, Obama’s speech was pretty plentifully seasoned with policy visions and relatively detailed ambitions for his administration. But the more subtle, implicit messages we absorbed from the surrounding white noise of minor speeches, common turns of phrase and rythmic chants were all of that same paradigm: “That’s not Change, that’s More of the Same!”

I find this interesting as a method of transmitting political thought because it’s not devoid of substance; it’s just backwards. Change might be a talisman, but it’s a sign, and it represents a lot of important things we know (or seem to know) are meant by that. Universal health care, sanity in foreign policy and a halt to the conservative judicial revolution are all things we talk explicitly about less than we should; still, we seem to know that those are among the very things meant by our Democratic leaders when they tell us that John McCain doesn’t get Change and they do. And this is not to say we haven’t heard our issues preached out loud: what I mean by “backwards” is that these days, our themes draw out our specifics, rather than the other way around. As someone with an abiding affection for pragmatism in governance, I find this…interesting. Troubling? Maybe. What do you think.

I suppose this is news, that the presumptive Democratic nominee is being roundly trounced by a candidate who most of us think won’t be in the race a month from now, even if we knew it was going to happen. But the utter…thoroughness…of this coverage is intimidating. I suppose it would be less fascinating if it weren’t inexplicably sharing the headlines with the earthquake and cyclone that have killed tens of thousands of people in the past week and a half.

1) Tagging “HuckaBurgers” four times will only yield you a count of one in the tag cloud.

2) The full excecution of this revolution in Tag Cloud Theory (I call it this in the hope that one day, I will be able to earn a PhD in it) will require more posts than I think are tasteful. But let me make one plea: tag your posts! And do it in the “code” window of your writing thingy, or else it seems that it won’t work! Together we can change the tag cloud. I hope.

3) [bonus] The day Ryan figures out how to get italics into the tag cloud will mark the beginning of the deconstructive period of Tag Cloud Theory. May that day come soon.

Well?

[Update, 1:04 a.m.] Eric Schultz gives his math below. Union County is all out, and there are 7,000 or so residents, which translates to 1900-3800 votes and a likely margin of a few hundred for Clinton. Apparently Gary is mostly in, so the margin for the rest of Lake could conceivably be below 65, or 75, his total in the first 28% of returns there. It’s going to be Rush Limbaugh thin–but the damage, I think, is done. Huffington Post has the headline “The Presumptive Nominee”; Drudge has “The Nominee”; Tim Russert just declared Obama the Heir Presumptive on MSNBC…Win or lose by just a few thousand, which we may not know until morning, Senator Clinton looks like she’s well on her way to remaining Senator Clinton. Or–gasp!–Vice President Clinton? As an Obama supporter who once thought that an Obama-Clinton ticket would have been asinine, I must admit I’ve changed my mind. I can’t think of another VP candidate with more draw to the ticket than Hillary Clinton. The question would be: would she want it, and would he have her? Both open questions, as of now.

[Update, 1:09 a.m.] Looks like Gary was all in by 1. The rest of Lake is in, and Obama’s margin there is only 55-35 overall. Clinton will win Indiana by about 22,000 votes overall, not a Rush Limbaugh-thin margin, but thin enough, to the tune of 50.9%-49.1%. 1.8% won’t net her nearly any delegates, and her popular vote gains from Pennsylvania are almost entirely gone. More in the morning, I’m sure, once we hear from the Clinton camp.

Some voters might think it would have been nice if Obama had been as angry in March at Wright’s disrespect to the United States of America as he was in April at Wright’s disrespect to Barack Obama.

Kristol is referring to Obama’s annoyance that Rev. Wright had attributed political motives to the distance Obama has now forced between them. I was originally going to equivocate as to the merits of the sentence quoted above, but let’s not. I’m tired of politicians taking umbrage on behalf of the United States of America abstracted, or telling us what the “American people” think, or telling us who’s “out of the mainstream.” Republicans and Democrats alike persist in this kind of nonsense, but when a pundit tries to pass off such stuff as analysis, it’s enough to make you upchuck the HuckaBurger you had for lunch. I don’t think that Obama was ever “angry…at Wright’s disrespect to the United States of America;” if he had been, his anger would have been unjustified. Obama was, however, very justifiably concerned with Wright’s disrespect to the growth of the American people, who have contended with the persistent evils of racism in every generation, and in every generation anew. Those who were outraged by Wright’s disrespect towards the United States in abstract were abstractly outraged. Let’s call it the Flagpin Fallacy: If one proclaims adoration for American symbols, and defends every slight against them as they were idols, then one must be especially attuned to the spirit of the people of America, and be their most resolute defender. Right? Wait, shouldn’t that go the other way? What was the American flag worth when Benedict Arnold rode beneath it? And is George W. Bush, flag pin firmly fitted to lapel, more of the spirit of the republic than Abraham Lincoln, who so boldly eschewed the stovepipe hat-pin? If you ask me, one of the few things about which Barack Obama can take legitimate umbrage is Barack Obama. Most anything else, and it’s a bit patronizing, which I’ve written about before.

The second piece, also admittedly not that dumb, is by Rhodes Cook, and tells us all why Hillary Clinton can win by amassing a lead in the popular vote. (Quick aside: she can’t, at least not without the Elder Wand, or perhaps some magic beans.) Well, I agree that it sure would be helpful as far as convincing superdelegates is concerned, but unfortunately for Senator Clinton, most superdelegates can count. Cook can, too, but oddly:

…Mrs. Clinton boasts that she has the lead already, but her count includes the votes in the unsanctioned primaries in Florida and Michigan. A fairer calculation would eliminate the ballots cast in those two states, as well as the votes from caucuses where no statewide tally of the actual vote was compiled. (Those states are Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington; Mr. Obama won three of them.) Territories that do not possess any Electoral College votes should be ruled out, too.

Time for a list:

1) In the first place, Cook conflates the unfairness of counting states whose vote tallies were not compiled with the manifest injustice (yeah, it’s really bad) of counting a state in which Obama was not on the ballot (Michigan) and one in which, by Democratic party rule, no campaign was allowed to take place (Florida). While it might not be possible to add their tallies to the popular vote total, the Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington caucuses were all legitimate primaries under Democratic party rules, and can’t be left out of consideration just because it’s inconvenient.

2) As for the last little part about ruling out “territories that do not possess any Electoral College votes.” Why? This isn’t the general election, and the Electoral College doesn’t apply. It’s true that it would be awfully smart of the Democratic party to calibrate their primary system in order to deliver the best general election candidate, but they are under no obligation to do so. So why not count them? Cook doesn’t justify it.

3) 1) and 2) add up to this: it becomes pretty clear that when you have to qualify a popular vote total by not counting certain caucus states and territories, the popular vote doesn’t mean much anymore. Wait–isn’t the race decided by delegates? Oh, yeah: the popular vote never meant anything to begin with! There’s really no fair way to tally the popular vote, because nobody ever agreed on any rules to do so in advance. Fortunately, we did agree on how we’d count delegates, and we also agreed that the candidate with the most of thosewould be the nominee. Of course, we also agreed that superdelegates could choose their candidate based on whatever criteria they choose–and if the bogus method proposed above does it for them, may they live and be well, but they were asking to be sold.