Monday, November 19, 2007 - Posts
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The Obama-Clinton Enemy at the Gates-style sniper showdown escalates today, as Barack Obama unveils "Fact Check," a site dedicated to rebutting attacks and setting his record straight. It's similar to Hillary's "Fact Hub," which she unveiled earlier this month, only Obama's has a special section dedicated to refuting "Rumors & Smears." (Examples: "Obama Is Not And Has Never Been a Muslim;" "Obama Is a Patriot Who Loves His Flag and His Country.") Whereas campaigns used to trade vollies in the form of obviously biased press releases, now they can do the same thing behind a thin veil of purported objectivity!
On the bright side, the two sites provide front row seats to the daily propaganda war. Check out a few of the current flaps playing out:
- On Social Security: Hillary blasts Obama for shifting his stance. Obama upbraids Hillary for contradicting her husband.
- On NAFTA: Hillary tweaks Obama for misquoting her. Obama clarifies his record of opposing the free trade deal.
- On personal records: Hillary bombs Obama for keeping his papers under wraps. Obama defends his commitment to transparency.
- On Health Care: Hillary slams Obama for claiming that his plan insures everyone. ... Obama has yet to respond. Get on it!
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I've seen parts of Edwards' latest stump speech a few times now--first in this ad, then at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Las Vegas last Thursday, then again at Saturday's environmental forum hosted by Grist. And every time, he repeats the same line about how he and his wife decided, "in the quiet of a hospital room," to continue his campaign. The line goes by quickly, but it's about as subtle as a Mack truck. When you hear it once, it's moving. When you hear it three or four times, it sounds mawkish. But more importantly, it resurrects the debate--dormant for several months--over whether the former senator uses his wife's cancer as a political tool.
When Elizabeth appeared in an ad describing her husband as someone who can "stare the worst in the face and not blink," the campaign downplayed suggestions that she was talking about her own illness, as if Edwards would never use that experience for emotional leverage. Of course, a candidate should be able to discuss personal struggles. One could even argue that a painful experience like his wife's cancer does, in some ways, qualify him for office. But if there's been any doubt that Edwards regularly and deliberately uses that struggle to elicit sympathy, let this put it to rest.
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A thought about the 9 p.m. start time for the general election debates come September and October 2008: Isn't that a bit late? Not that many elementary school kids want to watch the debate, but shouldn't parents at least have the option to let their kids learn about democracy without sacrificing sleep? I'm also concerned that the late start foreshadows an especially nasty general election because part of the debate falls outside of Safe Harbor.
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When we wrote about Chuck Norris fundraising for Mike Huckabee last week, we didn't realize that was only the first glimmer of a major Norris-themed media blitz. Huckabee has now unleashed a new TV ad in which the candidate and actor-turned-pundit take turns stating "facts" about the other. Norris tells us that Huckabee will "protect our Second Amendment rights." Huckabee informs us that "there's no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard--only another fist." The $60,000 ad buy starts airing on Iowa television today.
The spot has already drawn flak from unlikely sourpuss Fred Thompson, whose campaign tells Politico that "Mike Huckabee has confused celebrity endorsement with serious policy." Because Fred Thompson would never, ever favor entertainment over substance.
But my question is, will people in Iowa get this? Unless he's trying to target college kids who can recite "Chuck Norris facts" like poetry, it's unclear to me why he would base his first Hawkeye State TV campaign on an outdated Internet meme that might not have trickled up to most caucus-goers. Sixty-four percent of Iowa caucus-goers in 2004 were older than 55. Chances are they don't know that "Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer--too bad he never cries," let alone find that concept funny. So Huckabee will have to hope that the ad is amusing on its own, or that Iowa voters are Web-savvy enough to get the reference. Because otherwise, it's just a mildly confusing spot with that guy from Top Dog.
And in the meantime, can someone please start LOLcandidates?
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While attending the final Nextel Cup race in Florida yesterday, Rudy Giuliani was asked to comment on the news that his beloved Yankees were close to re-signing Alex Rodriguez: "‘I'm glad to see as an American League fan, as a Yankees fan, we're keeping him in the American League, we're keeping him on the Yankees,' he said."
As the Washington Post pointed out, Giuliani made sure to say that he was an American League fan before he was a Yankees fan—an allusion to his heretical claim in October that he would be rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. At the time, commentators chalked up his pro-AL stance to political pandering. (He said it in New Hampshire, after all.) Giuliani, it seemed, thought that voters turn out for candidates who echo their sporting allegiances.
But if that's the case, Giuliani should quit talking about the AL and stick to hyping his newfound NASCAR passion. For one thing, in early Southern primary states like South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, the National League reigns supreme. One look at this map of baseball territories suggests Giuliani risks alienating a whole lot of Braves, Cardinals, Astros fans.
He would be wise to emphasize NASCAR while he's below the Mason-Dixon. Remember, "NASCAR voters" are a coveted demographic in this election for both Republicans and Democrats. Another reason Giuliani should stick with NASCAR: The mainstream press usually doesn't know enough about NASCAR rivalries to make Giuliani choose between Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing. And come to think of it, Jeff Gordon did pump $2,300 into Giuliani's campaign. Ah, but George Steinbrenner pitched in $4,600. Damn Yanks.
(Image via the strange maps blog.)
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The weekend’s big item—the skirmish fueled by Robert Novak’s column claiming that “agents” of the Clinton campaign have unspecified dirt on Obama—has inspired a few different theories. TNR’s Noam Schieber thinks the rumor is “a little too convenient” for the Clinton campaign to deny any knowledge, especially now that they’re “trying to take credit for not disseminating” the rumor. An admittedly paranoid Andrew Sullivan suspects this flap may be a “dummy run” for the Clinton campaign to test the media waters in case a Bill story eventually leaks out.
But don't both candidates look bad here? Sure, Obama gets a chance to show off his tough new rapid-response policy. And yes, Clinton benefits from not being the first to deal with vague allegations. But the cons for both dwarf the pros. Obama now faces insinuations that, like the Muslim thing, the pin thing, and the flag thing, are likely to persist throughout the primaries. Hillary gets equally muddy by issuing the “Who, me?” response. (In Nevada on Saturday, Clinton spokesman Jay Carson laughed about it with reporters: "So you have no secret info about Barack Obama?" "No." "Why not?" "This is ridiculous.") The smearing is more likely to drag both campaigns down than leave one standing. Novak supposedly has solid sources in Hillaryland, but if there’s a logical perpetrator, or at least one acting in his or her own interest, it’s someone from neither camp.
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LAS VEGAS, Nov. 17—The Democratic presidential candidates have just passed through town, and Anthony, perched behind a formidable stack of chips in the Excalibur Casino, couldn't care less. “In here, there's no Democrats and Republicans,” he says. “Only blacks, reds, whites, Benjamins and Jeffersons.” It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and Anthony is rocking a black scoop-neck t-shirt and baggy black pinstripes, and by "Jefferson," he means a two-dollar bill or a nickel. I don't ask.
As you might expect in a town that features mock pirate battles, 9-pound burgers, and Barry Manilow, the debate Thursday night at UNLV hardly registered with most casino-goers. If you're up $900 in craps, or if you've just pissed away the rent standing on soft 17s, the question of who will win the state caucuses Jan. 19 doesn't seem all that pressing. In three nights of gambling, not one of the chip-slingers around me ever brought up the subject.
But that's just the players—dealers are a different story. So, after hearing CNN's experts discuss the debate and its aftermath, I decide to consult the best oddsmakers around, the number meisters, the Charlie Cooks of the gambling world: Las Vegas blackjack croupiers.
Dealers are by nature a talkative bunch. The best ones can simultaneously fan cards, add and subtract, change money, lend sage advice, and still have enough mental bandwidth to deftly analyze the Barry Bonds indictment. There’s just one problem: They can’t talk politics. Well, they can, but they’re not supposed to. Most casinos discourage discussion of two subjects: politics and religion. (Both topics apparently provoke fights and even the occasional lawsuit.) As a result, dealers are stoic when it comes to matters civic and metaphysical. For them, there is no God but luck, no presidents but the dead ones.
So I’m not surprised when Gregg, a dealer at Excalibur with a penchant for sleight of hand, declines at first to say whom he supports in 2008. The last eight years have been rough, he says, and it will take a long time to right Bush’s wrongs. But who’s the person for the job? “There’s only one choice,” he says. I ask if he means Hillary. He nods, and a five materializes in his hand.
Charlotte, a bottle redhead from Hungary working the graveyard shift at Tropicana, says she doesn’t pay much attention to politics. She wheels the cards around. The blond guy sitting to my left, Devon from California, has 14 showing. He asks Charlotte what he should do. “You can hit, or you can stay” she offers helpfully. “Hit,” he says. Nine: bust. “Fuck!” he says. “No cursing!” Charlotte says. (She isn’t joking, either. A friend of mine was thrown out for swearing the night before.) When I push her for more detail about 2008, she scowls: “Not Bush.” I ask Devon what he thinks of the Democrats. “Hillary, she’s fucking—” “No cursing!”
Things are more civil across the street at the MGM Grand. The dealer, Joyce from China, says she doesn’t care for Rudy Giuliani, but only after I remind her who the GOP candidates are. Joyce hasn’t decided whom she’ll vote for yet, but thinks “probably Hillary.” Same goes for Deanna, a Planet Hollywood dealer whom one tipsy player, Steve, keeps calling “Halle Berry.” (I’m “John Denver,” apparently.) Deanna says she’d support either Hillary or Obama, but prefers the former “because Hillary is the shit.” Pushed to elaborate, she calls the New York senator a “strong woman.” (It suddenly occurs to me that the Planet Hollywood pole dancers, who were gyrating above the tables earlier, have left for the night.) Steve disagrees, and bets me $5,000 that Mitt Romney will win. We shake on it.
I find the first Republican-supporting dealer in the Bellagio. A spiky-haired blond lady named Valerie says she’d pick the “lesser of two evils.” That means “Giuliani, I guess … although I don’t really like any of them.” So what does she like about Giuliani? “Nothing.”
Other dealers seemed disillusioned with politics—a natural response, I think, for someone who gets paid to help Americans hemorrhage money. Sean, a saggy dealer at the Luxor, says he doesn’t vote. It just wouldn’t be responsible: “I might be voting against my own interest and not know it.” It’s the most principled statement I’ve heard all night. Tom, a dealer at New York-New York (but from Chicago), waxes equally bleak. He didn’t vote in the 2004 election. “We have 300 million people in this country, and these are the two I get to choose from?” But this year, he’ll vote for either Hillary or Obama. What with Iraq and health care and the environment, he’s convinced “it will be a Democrat” who wins. So why is it, I ask him, that he’s not supposed to talk about politics? “People get in fights,” he says. “Think about what I was just saying—what if you were a Republican?” I can’t tell if that’s a dig at Republicans or humanity in general.
By the end of the night, it seems to me that Hillary has the Las Vegas dealer vote locked up. And frankly, that’s not a bad group to have. Croupiers might not endorse collectively (Would that make them card-carrying card-carriers?), but, rules against political talk notwithstanding, they’re still remarkably influential. They meet hundreds of Americans passing through the city every day. They chitchat like it’s their job—because it is. And players vest them with absurd amounts of authority, both moral and emotional. (I once saw a man propose to a dealer who had just given him blackjack.) If a campaign wanted to disseminate propaganda nationwide, they might start with the Strip.
That’s not to say Hillary is in the clear. I hear the Bookies’ Association of America, the Meth Lab Technicians United, and the Sex Workers’ Local 116 may still be undecided.
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