Trailhead: A campaign blog.

The Soft Pander

Barack Obama doesn’t say he would scrap the consent decree under which the federal government has overseen the Teamsters for the past two decades. He just says that he’d start to think about possibly scrapping it.  This maneuver—the soft pander—has been a staple of the 2008 campaign, particularly for Obama. Don’t make any promises; just hint at them. Load them up with so many ifs that you won’t get accused of breaking them when things don’t quite work out.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Obama got the Teamsters endorsement after telling them he supported scaling down a federal oversight policy instituted years ago to crack down on the union’s mob ties. But on Good Morning America, Obama denied making a “blanket commitment.” He said, "The union has done a terrific job cleaning house" and promised he’d "examine" the issue as president. The Obama campaign and the Teamsters both say the candidate hasn’t contradicted himself, and that anyway no president would have the power to lift the decree. According to Teamster spokesman Bret Caldwell, “closure to the consent decree will come through the legal process, not politics.” If that’s the case, then Obama’s blowing smoke when he promises to “examine” the issue. Hillary Clinton is doing the same when she says it’s time to “turn the page” on the decree. The trick is to give the impression you’d shake things up without making any concrete promises about how.

The candidates took a similar approach to NAFTA. As the crucial Ohio vote approached, Obama and Clinton didn’t promise to abolish the trade agreement. They said they would “renegotiate” it, which could mean as little as tweaking labor and environmental standards while leaving incentives for downsizing and outsourcing intact. When Obama’s economic adviser reportedly urged Canadian officials not to take Obama’s rhetoric too seriously, the NAFTA purists pounced.

Same with the debate over withdrawal from Iraq. No one really thinks Obama could withdraw all combat troops within 18 months. When Samantha Power, an advisor to Obama on foreign policy, called Obama’s withdrawal plan a “best case scenario”—an honest acknowledgment that no one knows what Iraq will look like in 2009—she was forced out. (Calling Clinton a “monster” didn’t help.) Here the fudge factor isn’t—indeed, may not be—uttered out loud. But everyone knows it’s there.

Vague campaign promises are nothing new, but Obama has elevated them to a fine art. Maybe he might possibly think about considering whether or not he should hypothetically be more decisive. Or maybe not.

Union Be Damned

Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton's projected win in the Nevada caucuses is a big deal. Not because she won—polls had her in the lead going into the caucus--but because the culinary union failed.

After Barack Obama's win in Iowa and his defeat in New Hampshire, Nevada's culinary workers' union endorsed Barack Obama—a move that pundits, aides, and staffers all said greatly boosted Obama's chances and maybe even guaranteed a win. But something seems to have gone wrong.

Latinos make up a large but undetermined portion of the culinary union, yet they favored Clinton over Obama 2.5 to 1, a loss that is foreboding for Obama as he moves forward and may have doomed him in Nevada. Moreover, Obama lost to Clinton in Clark County, where a large majority of Nevadans live and where the union has especially large sway because of its epicenter in Las Vegas. Even the controversial at-large caucus sites couldn't help Obama beat Clinton. Clinton's camp said that the at-large sites may give Obama a 5-point jump in the results, but it doesn't seem that ended up happening. If it did, then Obama has even bigger problems than he thought.

Clinton may have Harry Reid's son to thank for overcoming the union's power. Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid endorsed Clinton early on and seems to have delivered enough establishment support to sap the union's strength. With 82 percent of precincts reporting, Clark County chose Clinton over Obama 54 percent to 44 percent.

One last tidbit: Clinton had more than twice the number of Nevada unions supporting her as either Obama or John Edwards. They weren't as large as Obama's, but union members may have fallen in line with the leadership's wishes more resolutely. Exit polls show that she was tied with Obama among union members.

Obama struggled to grab union support in the early primary states, so the culinary union was thought to be a major breakthrough. Instead, it may have just allowed him to save face.

Photograph of Hillary Clinton on Slate's home page by Elise Amendola/AP Photo.