July 17, 2008 7:23

Obama's Overseas Audition

The Obama campaign is not giving out many details of his big trip to Europe and the Middle East, but he's clearly got a lot on the line, as I write in this story. Such is the interest in this trip that all three broadcast networks are sending their anchors to Europe to interview him. I'll be aboard his plane and filing lots and lots of dispatches ( in no part to justify the enormous amount of money the High Sheriffs will be spending to send me on this trip, which, according to the schedule the campaign has shown us so far, will include five countries in six days).

What isn't on the schedule, but expected, is that Obama will at some point ditch the entourage and go to Iraq, with fellow senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel. Our world editor Bobby Ghosh, who has spent a lot of time there, has some suggestions of what he should do in Baghdad, if he really wants to learn what's going on. My hunch: No market strolls.

July 16, 2008 5:34

Strategy v. Tactics

Fred Kaplan does his usual good job parsing the Iraq and Afghanistan sections of the McCain and Obama foreign policy speeches yesterday. But there was more to Obama's speech than just Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a broader strategic purpose--perhaps the best articulation of the Democratic Party's regional security vision that I've heard--which McCain's effort lacked, although the Senator from Arizona has taken a run at foreign policy vision in the past.

Given the tremendous differences between the candidates, I find it rather annoying that the mainstream headlines were about McCain (finally) adopting a similar approach to Obama's on Afghanistan...and Obama sticking to his guns on Iraq. There is, in fact, a consequential foreign policy debate taking place. Now that I'm slipping back into the world after a lovely vacation, I want to take a few days to think, read and do some reporting about this. I"ll be back with more in a few days.

July 16, 2008 5:15

Too Late for Random Round-Up: Obama Family Dog

I have to say, I think mutts are more American.

July 16, 2008 5:02

That Weird NYT Poll Story

Ambinder gets co-author Adam Nagourney to push back against the push back Karen posted earlier:

This was a long and detailed poll that yielded a lot of interesting results. We could have chosen to focus on any number of themes; we decided to focus mainly on what we could learn from the poll about how blacks, whites and Hispanics view politics and society at the critical moment. The critique from the Obama campaign seems to be directed at findings from the poll that we did not address in much depth in the story, particularly the head to head matchups between the two candidates.

[snip]

One last point: I do think there is room for discussion about the headline – “Poll Finds Obama Candidacy Isn’t Closing Divide on Race”. The point of the story is that black respondents apparently do not see the fact of Mr. Obama’s candidacy as evidence of significant improvement in race relations. The story does not suggest that there is some onus on Mr. Obama himself to be closing this divide. I also, on a smaller matter – and the one matter the Obama campaign did raise with me – should have included, in saying that 20 percent of white voters had a favorable view of Michelle Obama, the fact that 72 percent either have no opinion about Mrs. Obama or hadn’t heard enough about her, to avoid any suggestion that 80 percent had an unfavorable view of her.

July 16, 2008 4:55

Random: Batman Can't Really Afford to Lose

• Ce n'est pas un blog. [Correspondent]

• Another reason to figure out how to do a Google: "Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find." [Googleblog]

• "Sanford today said talk shows only give you a second or two to respond and 'sometimes your brain works well; sometimes it doesn't. But that's being human.'" [The State]

• "Batman can't really afford to lose. Losing means death—or at least not being able to be Batman anymore." [SciAm]

• "FEITH: Removal of clothing is different from naked." [TP]

July 16, 2008 1:02

Three Things

1. Barack Obama's database knows your secrets.

2. John McCain praises Obama before the NAACP, pigs fly, the end it nigh:

Let me begin with a few words about my opponent. Don't tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways. He has inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them. His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud. Of course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes. But it makes me proud to know the country I've loved and served all my life is still a work in progress, and always improving. Senator Obama talks about making history, and he's made quite a bit of it already. And the way was prepared by this venerable organization and others like it. A few years before the NAACP was founded, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the nomination of an African-American to be the presidential nominee of his party. Whatever the outcome in November, Senator Obama has achieved a great thing -- for himself and for his country -- and I thank him for it.

3. Andy Borowitz uncovers Obama-approved jokes: "A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Barack Obama says, 'This joke isn't going to work because there's no Muslim in this boat.' "

July 16, 2008 12:57

McCain's "Obvious Discomfort"

Planned Parenthood's PAC hits McCain with his own lack of words:

Reading coverage of this ad, I found some pundit explaining that McCain is uncomfortable talking about issues such as birth control because he'd rather talk about "big-boy issues" like war and peace. This is pretty much the argument you get from his own campaign: Okay, okay, so you don't agree with him about abortion. ISLAMICTERRORISTSISLAMICTERRORISTSISLAMICTERRORISTS! Even Carly Fiorina -- whose off-the-cuff comments made this a topical issue for McCain -- once told me, "Many women don't have the luxury of voting on one issue, like you do, on abortion." But at least she was talking about women being disproportionately hit in bad economic times, which shows some sensitivity to women's issues as a whole. Though it's still a head fake, because being poor makes it harder to get birth control, and therefore more likely have to make a decision about abortion. I worry that McCain -- and his staff -- don't understand the fundamental link between women having control over their own bodies and almost every social advance of modern times. Most McCain staffers dismiss I guess what we have to call "little girl issues" because, you know, there's a war on. Which of course doesn't affect women -- or have unexpected ramifications for reproductive rights -- at all.

July 16, 2008 12:54

Obama and Race: Another View

Regular Swampland readers are familiar with the insights of Jackson Dykman, our datameister here at TIME. In a series of emails to me today, he took a look at my earlier post and had some problems with it--not with the poll data itself, but with the way it was framed in the New York Times story. Here's part of what Jackson had to say:

I too was really struck by the NYT’s characterization of its own poll. I read the full poll first and then the story when they posted it last night. I’ve rarely seen a story so wildly off from the actual data on which it is based.

Aside from point C in the Obama response (which is true and basically negates the story), the premise of the story is, well, utter nonsense.

Are we really supposed to think that because a black man has become the Democratic nominee in recent weeks that he somehow should have cured (or markedly improved) race relations in this country? This is just a silly premise, yet the story thrust of the story seems to be shock and surprise that the mere fact of Obama’s candidacy hasn’t reversed—or obliterated—the slight increase in racial tensions in this country over the past 8 years.

In a second e-mail, Jackson adds:

July 16, 2008 11:18

Romney Makes His VP Case

On Monday night, at a fund-raiser in New Mexico, John McCain said this about his former mortal enemy, Mitt Romney: “I’m appreciative every time I see Mitt on television on my behalf. He does a better job for me than he did for himself as a matter of fact.” This may not have been a joke.

Yesterday, Romney sat down for an interview with CBS News. It is a striking interview, in part because Romney seems to be making the McCain argument better than McCain, or McCain's campaign. There is a clarity to the soundbites that McCain has mostly lacked, a clear line of attack against Obama's experience and McCain's plans. Add to that whatever fundraising burst Romney could provide as a VP candidate, as well as Romney's strength in key swing states like Michigan and Nevada, and it's not hard to see why McCain may end up with a running mate whose hand he didn't shake in the primaries.

The flip-side of Romney's knowledge of economic matters: What better way to highlight McCain's struggles discussing the economy than to put him on the stump after an introduction by Mitt Romney?

EXCEPT: Mitt says in the interview that McCain distinguishes himself from Obama on drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This is wrong, according to the latest McCain statements. Both McCain and Obama oppose drilling in ANWR.

July 16, 2008 10:21

Dennis Ross By Obama's Side

Massimo Calabresi in today's Time.com gets at what it means:

In one way, the message is simple: Ross, a career foreign service officer, was lead negotiator on Israeli-Palestinian issues for Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and he got the two sides as close as they've come to a peace deal before stepping down after the 2000 election. His presence alongside Obama in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan is designed to signal the senator's intent to resume the active pursuit of the peace process, which Obama claims President George W. Bush has derailed through inaction. . . . Still, it is somewhat surprising to see Ross emerge as an official member of Obama's team. . . . When Ross left the State department in 2000, he was so critical of Yasser Arafat, that some friends thought he was considering working for George W. Bush, who cut ties with the late Palestinian leader. "At the beginning of the Administration he hadn't excluded the possibility of working for a Republican again," says one. Ross supported the Iraq war, though he opposed some of the Bush administration's policies for post-war reconstruction.