leftfielder.org

In case you hadn’t heard, one of the big political news stories of the day is that the Clinton and Obama campaigns are feuding. They’ve been one-upping each other for awhile, as is the nature of the front-runners in any primary, but the real action started a couple days ago when a NYT columnist, Maureen Dowd, interviewed Hollywood producer David Geffen. Mr. Geffen was formerly a huge Clinton campaign contributor; in fact, he is one of the ones about whom President Clinton got in trouble for letting him sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom. In any case, Mr. Geffen has had a falling out with the Clintons, and so he is now raising money for Mr. Obama. By Ms. Dowd’s counting, this was the first big Hollywood fund-raiser of the campaign, and she found it interesting that it was thrown by a former Clintonian in favor of the Clintons’ biggest threat. As part of the interview, Mr. Geffen said some reasonably unkind things about the Clintons; and that’s where the real “feud” began.

See, Obama has been running his campaign, thus far, primarily on his personal likability. This is fine: it’s early, he’s trying to make a name for himself, and there is plenty of time to stake out finely tuned policy positions later on. So the Clinton campaign releases a press statement demanding that Mr. Obama, if he really takes his words about running a clean campaign seriously, publicly distance himself from Mr. Geffen and return his money. Mr. Obama responded by saying that Mr. Geffen doesn’t speak for his campaign, that people have the right to say whatever they want to, and that he was proud of the fact that Mr. Geffen has put his faith (and his dollars) into the campaign. And that’s where things stand.

Now, first of all, most of you likely had the same reaction I did: this story really deserves prominent coverage from all the major news organizations? After all, this event has no bearing whatsoever on the ability of either candidate to be president. No laws were broken, no social taboos were violated. Nothing that Mr. Geffen said (that the Clintons lie too easily, that they change positions too often, that they are too ambitious, that Mrs. Clinton is the Democratic candidate with the biggest target on her) hasn’t been said before, by many of the same people in the media that are making a big deal out of it.

Continue reading »

No potential candidate for 2008 annoys me quite like Mitt Romney.  Part of it, I will freely admit, is irrational.  He just strikes me as disingenuous.  Furthermore, I will admit that my feelings about him are somewhat colored by the local press and my local acquaintances here in the Boston area, neither of which have been flattering, in the least.

That being said, I find his candidacy absolutely baffling.  How could anyone like this guy?  It’s not like he has a lot of political experience; he was a one-term governor in Massachusetts, and he spent half of that term running for President.  (His last year in office, according to the Globe, he spent twice as much time outside of Massachusetts as he did in Massachusetts.)  It wasn’t like he was even a horribly effective governor.  He was a minority governor who had trouble compromising with the majority legislature.  He was the most prominent Republican office holder during a time when the minority Republican Party actually lost even more seats.  The performance of the Massachusetts economy during his time in office has been mixed, at best.  The local press hates him, for the most part, and his appointed successor and Lieutenant Governor lost in a land-slide to a political novice, ending sixteen years of Republican control of the Governorship.  The two biggest national attention-grabbing issues during his term were gay marriage and universal health care.  On the former, it was in part his own flip-flopping that first delayed, and then killed any chance at compromise.  On the latter, he forced through a deeply flawed compromise bill, and has already basically said that if it fails its not going to be his fault.

Continue reading »