Blaming Teachers? Educational Accountability and Student Performance

Should we evaluate teachers according to how well their students perform?

If students do not master the curriculum, should teachers be held accountable, with the loss of employment or denial of tenure, etc.?

John Merrow, at the Wall Street Journal, goes pretty far in advocating that level of accountability:

Suppose a swimming instructor told his 10-year-old students to swim the length of the pool to demonstrate what he'd taught them, and half of them nearly drowned? Would it be reasonable to make a judgment about his teaching ability?

Or suppose nearly all the 10-year-old students in a particular clarinet class learned to play five or six pieces well in a semester? Would it be reasonable to consider their achievement when deciding whether to rehire the music teacher?

These questions answer themselves. Only an idiot would overlook student performance, be it dismal or outstanding.

However, suppose test results indicated that most students in a particular class don't have a clue about how to multiply with fractions, or master other material in the curriculum? Should that be considered when the math teacher comes up for tenure?

Whoops, the obvious answer is wrong. That's because public education lives in an upside-down universe where student outcomes are not allowed to be connected to teaching.

Ten years ago, I encountered this view in an interview with Jack Steinberg, the vice president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Here is the exchange:

He said, "You're asking, can you evaluate a teacher on the performance of the students?"

I said, "Yes or no?"

He said, "No, you cannot."

I, incredulously, said, "You cannot evaluate a teacher on the performance of his or her students?"

He said, "Right."

Merrow continues with a discussion of New York City's debate over the use of student performance data in teacher tenure decisions, a move the teachers' union opposes.

Merrow makes a concession to factors outside of instruction that hinder student performance, but doesn't back down in his basic argument:

Of course, not every kid comes to class equally able to complete the day's assignment. Some are new immigrants, others are gifted, and still others might have a learning disability. These factors affect test scores as much as or more than who is teaching.

Still, students at whatever level of performance can also be evaluated on how much they've improved over a given period of time.

So, there's the qualifier.

If we're simply looking at student learning during a course or semester, that doesn't sound so bad. But if we're looking at larger indices, like the number of students passing state assessment examinations as part of a high-stakes testing regime, with high percentages required for "measureable competence," a lot of teachers are going to get fired.

Judging teaching effectiveness is a tricky thing.

Which teachers have been the most important in our lives? The ones that "made" us learn the most, or the one's who set the standards of excellence, with high expectations of achievement, and who were available and accessable, and worked to advance the progress of their charges.

In my educational career, teachers and professors like that were the "best," although I don't know the numbers of students passing their classes or advancing to degree attaintment status in the academic program of record.

I consider myself a good classroom instructor. Whether I'm great - or the best - depends on what students or outside evaluators think. I like to think of myself as professional, taking my job seriously and fulfilling my formal responsiblities with excellence to the best of my training and abilities. I know the material I teach (recall the issue of uncredentialed instructors at low-income schools), so it's methods that matter in getting students to learn, but I still have difficulties in performance outcomes.
But, in some ways most importantly, I simply care for my students, and I want them to perform well. I'll go to bat for them in tutoring or mentoring if they'll put some effort into their work.

But at community colleges, faculty face a crisis of epic proportions in the numbers of students who cannot perform at freshmen-level indicators of competence, which often means that students don't advance in the programs.

A report on California's community colleges in 2007 found:

Only one-fourth of California's community college students seeking a degree transferred to a university or earned an associate's degree or certificate within six years, a report released Thursday found.

The report noted major institutional factors, like funding levels and full- to part-time faculty ratios, although family and individual-level sociodemographic factors are also key:

The report also found that completion rates were higher among students who attended colleges full time, were enrolled continuously, completed an orientation course and registered on time for most of their courses.

"The colleges with the lowest transfer rates are typically those in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, areas like Southwest Los Angeles or Oakland," said Senate Education Committee Chairman Jack Scott (D-Altadena). "It's the same pattern you see with in K through 12 schools."

So, how do we sort things like this out?

Many of the students not progressing toward their degrees are failing academically, and the schools in "sociodemographically disadvantaged areas" are the ones that need the biggest push to high standards and accountability.

But we're going to deny tenure to teachers whose student fail to pass courses and fall short of annual progress?

I don't have the answers. But I can share some thoughts from a Joel Parkes essay in the Los Angeles Times, from May 2000, which is unavailable online.

The piece is entitled, "Something Wrong in Our Schools? Let's Blame Teachers," and Parkes' is concerned with teacher accountability and merit pay:

Next year I'll teach fourth grade, and my students will have been socially promoted through every grade and, by defininition, won't have the skills necessary for the work that the state and district standards require of them to do. Some of them, five or 10, won't even know the alphabet, through no fault of mine, but they won't be held accountable. I will be.

Out of frustration over not being able to do the work, a number of my students will chronically disrupt my class, so my learning environment will be adversely affected daily. There is no meaningful consequence for disruptive behaviour at my school, so none of those students will be held accountable in any meaningful way. I will be.

Other students will be so discouraged at not being able to do the work that they will make no effort. They will seldom complete homework assignments and will produce virtually no work in class. Our senior assistant vice-principal has stated that "we don't retain [hold back] students for not trying," so the students who do no work won't be held accountable. I will be.

I'll give you two historical examples of accountabililty and leave your with a question.

First, when the Roman legions marched, they built roads and bridges, some of which survive to this day. When the legions had to cross a river, the engineers were called on to design and build a bridge. After the bridge was built, the engineers stood under the bridge while the army crossed. That's accountability, but at least they had what was necessary to build the bridge.

On the other hand, when the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia, they took the teachers and the other educated people to the rice paddies and said, "You're so smart and educated. Make the rice grow faster or we will kill you." So there were a lot of dead teachers in Cambodia. Accountability? The Khmer Rouge certainly thought so.

Consider, please: As a teacher, I have no control over a school system that does not require students to meet standards in order to move on to the next grade. But I am to be held accountable.

Parkes' story is a powerful example of why teachers might resist merit pay or tenure decisions based on student performance.

At my institution, and similarly situated community colleges, the students who arrive in our classrooms most often do not test into appropriate levels of academic preparation. Majorities of our students are assessed at remedial levels of language, reading, and computational proficiency.

Then we expect them to master abstract theories of political science, or philosophy, or psychology, so that they can transfer to a university and move on in their careers and lives.

I understand conservative frustrations with unions, and demands for merit pay or charter schools. I am conservative on these issues too.

But when there are so many other variables involved in explanations of student under-performance, calls for teacher accountability and teacher retention based on student performance are difficult to support.

The Coming Post-American World?

Fareed Zakaria's got a new book out, The Post-American World.

I'm familiar with the book's thesis from two recent articles from Zakaria, "The Future of American Power," at Foreign Affairs, and "The Rise of the Rest," a book excerpt and this week's cover story at Newsweek."

I'll be picking up a copy of the book soon, but I can suggest now that Zakaria's got some tensions in his thesis, or at least in his presentation.

In terms of his thesis, as evidenced by the Foreign Affairs piece, Zakaria starts out with a lengthy section comparing the U.S. today to Great Britain's decline from imperial grandeur in the early-20th century. He then he elaborates a theory of how the United States' contemporary great power profile has changed, amid a hypothesized narrowing of the gap between American preponderance and our closest rivals in the international system.

Zakaria suggests that while international politics is now undergoing transformation, the U.S. is not in a traditional sense undergoing "relative decline"; that is, the key is not that the U.S. will be overtaken, but simply that the world around the U.S. has changed: The United States will remain the dominant country, but the international power gap will no longer be a gaping chasm, as was true through much of the post-World War II era, among those countries that were outside the bipolar order of U.S.-Soviet strategic competition.

Here's nice summary:

In trying to understand how the United States will fare in the new world, the first thing to do is simply look around: the future is already here. Over the last 20 years, globalization has been gaining breadth and depth. More countries are making goods, communications technology has been leveling the playing field, capital has been free to move across the world -- and the United States has benefited massively from these trends. Its economy has received hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, and its companies have entered new countries and industries with great success. Despite two decades of a very expensive dollar, U.S. exports have held ground, and the World Economic Forum currently ranks the United States as the world's most competitive economy. GDP growth, the bottom line, has averaged just over three percent in the United States for 25 years, significantly higher than in Europe or Japan. Productivity growth, the elixir of modern economics, has been over 2.5 percent for a decade now, a full percentage point higher than the European average. This superior growth trajectory might be petering out, and perhaps U.S. growth will be more typical for an advanced industrialized country for the next few years. But the general point -- that the United States is a highly dynamic economy at the cutting edge, despite its enormous size - holds.

In Zakaria's piece - especially in his comparison to Britain's fall from hegemonic status - I'm finding a striking resemblance to Joseph Nye's work, especially Nye's 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (which was a rebuttal to Paul Kenney's Rise and Fall of the Great Power, 1987).

Nye's research - coming at a time of significant debate on American decline - turned out to be very accurate in its analysis of the enduring nature of American power, for example, where he suggests the differences in capabilities between Britain and the United States:

As we will see ... none of the other major world powers is now overtaking the United States in military and and economic power. Although Western Europe has the skilled population, the GNP, and the improved Common Market coming in 1992, few observers believe that European integration will progress soon to a single government or single security policy. Similarly, China may become a potential rival of the United States over a much longer term, but China's human and technological infrastructure is much less developed than that of the United States or even the Soviet Union. And while many Americans believe that Japan's economic strength is a greater challenge than Soviet military power, economic competition is not a zero-sum game where one country's gain is its competitors loss. Thus, far, Japan has chosen the strategy of a trading state rather than that of a military power. There is no current analogue to the Kaiser's Germany.

With the exception of Nye's allusion to a durable Soviet power profile, the remainder of the passage is fairly prescient. China's probably now the key competitor to the U.S., after the decline of Russia in the 1990s. But other than that, the durability of American preponderance is key.

Nye also elaborated his theory of "soft power" in the 1990s, and one of his key conceptions was of power as a layer cake, with U.S. unipolar hegemony on top, a middle level of economic interdependence among the world's advanced industrialized democracies, and a bottom layer of increasing transnational globalization among the other remaining state and non-state actors of the world.

Compare this to Zakaria's notion of the "post-American world," in his Newsweek article:

We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century. It produced the world as we know it now—science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the industrial and agricultural revolutions. It also led to the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the Western world. The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the 19th century, was the rise of the United States. Once it industrialized, it soon became the most powerful nation in the world, stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For the last 20 years, America's superpower status in every realm has been largely unchallenged—something that's never happened before in history, at least since the Roman Empire dominated the known world 2,000 years ago. During this Pax Americana, the global economy has accelerated dramatically. And that expansion is the driver behind the third great power shift of the modern age—the rise of the rest.

At the military and political level, we still live in a unipolar world. But along every other dimension—industrial, financial, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance. In terms of war and peace, economics and business, ideas and art, this will produce a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now—one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.

The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

So, we're not really declining, because at "the military and political level" the international system will remian unipolar. But in every other dimension, America faces a "a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now..."

With all due respect to Zakaria, this seems all too familiar - it's deja vu, a relative decline thesis for the post-G.W. Bush world. It is, in a sense. a new world order for the post-America unbound, post-neocon era.

I like it, in any case. Simply because of Zakaria's optimism.

There have been some recent arguments suggesting a return of American relative decline.

Some assert a systemic challenger in the rise of Chinese power, or imperial overstretch in America's prolonged conflict in Iraq, for example, respectively, in G. John Ikenberry's, "The Rise of China and the Future of the West," and in a representative piece last year at National Journal, arguing the Bush administration's foreign policy's precipitated the "end of the American era."

I've rebutted some of these points previously, for example, in my entry, "China, International Institutions, and Power Transitions."

I would just add that Zakaria's work looks to be the most important statement on the enduring nature of American power this decade.

His research though, appears to be mostly an update of 1990s-era works - focusing on new actors, trends, and technologies - making the case for the likelihood of continued American preeminance in international life.

That's why I suggest Zakaria's got some presentation problems: We're not at the end of the Pax Americana, although the Newsweek article's subheadings suggest it.

We're also not genuinely in a "post-American" world, for while we are seeing the "rise of the rest," the traditional bases of American global preponderance remain intact - other key actors are just not so far behind.

We'll see more economic, cultural, and technological diversity on the world stage, but it's not likely that a new great power will supplant the United States soon, at least in the traditional conception of international power transitions.

Neo-Confederate Hate Comments: An Update

In response to my recent post on the paleoconservative anti-Semitic hate comments I've received recently, Red Phillips took issue with me at his neo-confederate blog, "Messing With the Neocons."
I suspect Phillips' post is sending more hate-filled commenters my way, as evidenced by these two recents drive-by attacks, which were signed "Anti-Niewert-Douglas Alliance":

I welcome a president that will fail to get the job done. A president no one will listen to. A president whose first order will be for handouts for the "desperate" highway window washers calling us "damn MFing crackers" for telling it to get the hell away from the car, how "white privileged" of us.

Donald Douglas on the other hand is in fear that his own pet welfare, the pointless war, made more pointless with uncontrolled immigration from the "axis of evil" pouring in by the millions each year to the west that paradoxically the neocons approve, will end.

Donald doesn't understand democracy; he views the position of the presidency as that of a warrior-king; one who dictates and his word is done.

He should be sent packing into darkest africa; where the neocon ideology is more appropriately IQ matched.

Also:

"Can Obama win over working class whites?"

"I don't think he's going to have an easy time of it."

You (Donald Douglas) are so far removed from working class whites, a billion miles more from where Obama is. You are decadent rot, filth, a preppy vest wearing teabagger, who doesn't call Abu Ghraib torture because you've been there, and it was fun. You are all that is wrong with America. You are more Liberal than Liberal.

These comments were left in two of my entries, "Obama's Claim to Transracial Postpartisanship is Dead," and "Clinton Pledges to Fight On."

As always, the attacks were left pseudonymously and without an e-mail address - complete cowardice, but representative of much paleoconservative extremism.

I've now deleted them at my Haloscan dashboard. I post them here to clarify and document the nature of these fanatics.

Obama Looks Like Carter

Hey, hey ... Barack Obama looks like Jimmy Carter!

The Carter-Obama comparison could have dire implications, unfortunately.

See, "Carter's Hamas Hug Haunts Obama."

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden

Has Wright Hurt Obama?

There's some controversy as to whether Jeremiah Wright has hurt Barack Obama politcally.

In an earlier post, "Indiana for Hillary Clinton!," I cited ABC News polling data suggesting Wright had a significant effect on Democratic primary voters, with Clinton winning those swayed by Wright by 70-30 percent over Obama.

Note that some political science analysis, from the pre-Indiana period, suggests Obama hasn't really been damaged by the Wright fallout. The Monkey Cage offers this interesting graphic:

The chart provides some visual, data-plotting evidence showing how the ups and downs of the Wright scandal, "Bittergate," the flag lapel issue, and so forth, have had little effect on vote choice in earlier Democratic primaries.

Of course, Indiana and North Carolina broke pretty much along racial lines, with Obama emerging as the candidate of black Americans:

Race again played a pivotal role in Tuesday's Democratic presidential clashes, as whites in Indiana and North Carolina leaned solidly toward Hillary Rodham Clinton and blacks voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, exit polls showed. Almost half the voters said they were influenced by the focus on Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama, the Illinois senator battling to become the first black president, again failed to make an appreciable dent in a crucial voting bloc that has consistently eluded him – working-class whites. But he was piecing together a coalition that besides blacks included the young, first-time primary voters, the very liberal and college graduates.

According to preliminary results from the Indiana exit polls and final data from North Carolina, about two-thirds of whites in both states who have not completed college were supporting Clinton, which the New York senator could use to fortify her argument that she would be the stronger Democratic candidate in the November general election. Of 28 states that have held primaries in which she and Obama competed before Tuesday, Clinton had prevailed with working-class white voters in 25.

Wright was a looming factor in the voting, with nearly half in each state saying he was important in choosing a candidate. Of that group, seven in 10 in Indiana and six in 10 in North Carolina backed Clinton.

Those discounting him as a factor heavily favored Obama. In North Carolina, Obama got more votes from people saying they discounted the Wright episode than Clinton got from those affected by it, while in Indiana the two groups were about equal in size.

Among whites, eight in 10 in both states who said Wright affected their choice went with Clinton. That was well above the six in 10 whites overall who supported her.

In both states, two-thirds of Clinton's white voters said Wright was important. That compared to eight in 10 white Obama supporters who said Wright was not a factor.

Note though, as I said in my earlier post, that Obama's clearly evincing some liabilities with white working class constituencies:

These numbers will continue to weigh over Obama's head, as he increasingly looks to win the coastal elites in Boston and San Francisco, while becoming increasingly vulnerable to a general election rout to the GOP as large numbers of Democrats defect from Obama's shady socialist sham of post-partisan appeal.

Polling data do support these points. For example, USA Today offered this analysis from polling data earler this week:

Barack Obama's national standing has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his former pastor, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, raising questions for some voters about the Illinois senator's values, credibility and electability.

Fox News offered a polling analysis after Wright was in the news recently:

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright travels around the country on a speaking tour and as Sen. Barack Obama tries to distance himself from the controversial pastor, Americans are making some harsh judgments on Wright’s message, according to the latest FOX News poll.

On the surface, a majority of Americans (52 percent) says they care very little or not at all about the relationship between Obama and Wright, and four in 10 say that relationship would have no impact on their vote; however, a look below the surface shows how much this issue is influencing the presidential race.

Those disinclined to vote for the Illinois senator based on his ties to Wright (44 percent) outweigh those who would be inclined to vote for him (12 percent) by a wide margin. While the margin is somewhat closer among Democrats (36 percent disinclined; 16 inclined), the toll on Obama is still quite severe.

And, despite that the bulk of independent voters (49 percent) says the issue would make no difference to their vote, the lessened likelihood to vote for Obama outpaces greater likelihood by a nearly 8-to-1 margin (39 percent to 5 percent).

Finally, Hillary's favored to win Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, where just 3.3 percent of the state population is black - thus the vote breakdown in the Mountain State will further clarify the nature of Obama's weaknesses with white working class constituencies.

See also, "Polls split on effect of Wright on Obama."

Slim Path to Victory for Hillary

The Washinton Post has the key story, "Clinton Spurns Calls to Quit Race," discussing Hillary Clinton's perseverance amid dwindling options.

But check out this passage, from the Wall Street Journal, "Democrats Look to Life After Clinton":

The key to success for Sen. Clinton is to win her disputed claim to a majority of the 366 delegates from Michigan and Florida. The party disallowed both delegations because the states held primaries in January earlier than party rules allow. Sen. Clinton won both, though no candidates campaigned in the states due to the party's sanction. Sen. Obama and several other Democratic contenders at the time removed their names from the Michigan ballot. Party talks to reach a compromise to seat them have so far been fruitless.

But even the admission of Michigan and Florida wouldn't be enough for Sen. Clinton to overtake Sen. Obama's lead in delegates. So her hopes ultimately hinge on what is proving harder than ever after Tuesday's outcome: persuading superdelegates that she would be a better candidate against Sen. McCain than the less-experienced, less-battle-tested Sen. Obama.

The superdelegates are critical because neither Sen. Obama nor Sen. Clinton can build a nominating majority from the pledged delegates yet to be won in the six remaining primaries through June 3.

That means the main action in the nomination race has shifted to the Capitol. There, a virtual presidential primary is playing out behind the scenes among elected Democrats. House Democrats account for 235 of the 795 superdelegates. All of these representatives are up for re-election, so they are particularly interested in which candidate is at the top of the ballot. So far, 80 have come out for Sen. Obama, with 79 for Sen. Clinton. The other 76 remain uncommitted.

Sen. Obama only recently passed Sen. Clinton in endorsements from governors and members of Congress. As the former first lady and a two-term senator, Sen. Clinton began the election year with an early, big lead in endorsements, but picked up few subsequently. Since February, Sen. Obama's endorsements have exceeded hers by a margin of 5 to 1 as many in the party establishment signaled their desire -- along with the voters -- for a new face promising change in Washington.

After her morning campaigning in West Virginia, Sen. Clinton hustled back to Washington to meet individually with uncommitted House Democrats at party offices away from the Capitol.

This strategy, as everyone knows, will divide the party even further, perhaps causing an irreconcilable rupture in the battling party constituencies come summer.

Some insiders in the Clinton camp are leaning toward throwing in the towel, so we'll see if Clinton's stand in West Virginia means she simply wants to go out a winner.

On the superdelegate math, see the Chicago Tribune, "Clinton's Math Problem: Candidate Faces Daunting Task: Rack Up 67% of Available Delegates."

See also Memeorandum.

Obama's Claim to Transracial Postpartisanship is Dead

Hillary Clinton is out campaigning today, and as she hits the hustings her best case for continuing is to convince the superdelegates that Barack Obama's unelectable in the general election.

The Wall Street Jounal touches on Obama's liabilities:

With his victory in North Carolina on Tuesday, Barack Obama took a giant step toward the Democratic presidential nomination. The irony is that he is doing this just when Hillary Clinton has finally exposed his potential weaknesses as a general election candidate.

The Illinois Senator can certainly breathe easier having dodged a loss in North Carolina, where he once held a big lead. As usual, he swept the under-30 crowd as well as the educated, upscale liberals in the central part of the Tar Heel State ....

But his victory in North Carolina depended heavily on his overwhelming (91%) share of the black vote, which made up about a third of the primary electorate. Mrs. Clinton won 61% of white Democrats in North Carolina, according to the exit polls, and 65% of white Democrats in Indiana. Mrs. Clinton also broke even among independents. Clearly Mr. Obama's early promise of a transracial, postpartisan coalition has dimmed as the campaign has progressed and voters have learned more about him.

The controversy over his 20-year association with his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, seems to have hurt in particular. About half of North Carolina Democrats said the Wright issue mattered to them, and they voted decisively for Senator Clinton. The former First Lady won easily among late deciders, which also suggests that Mr. Obama's rocky recent performance has cost him. And the Chicagoan continued his poor showing with rural voters, especially in white Democratic counties in Indiana. These are the voters John McCain will have a chance to get in November.

These are also the data points the Clinton campaign will now press with the superdelegates who will ultimately decide this contest. But the bitter political fact for the New York Senator is that her late-game rally may not matter. To nominate Mrs. Clinton now, party insiders would have to deny the nomination to the first African-American with a serious chance to be President, risking a revolt among their most loyal voting bloc.

Yeah, risking a revolt, literally, in the streets of Denver where Obama's radical supporters are planning to "Recreate '68."

Frankly, it's hard to imagine Hillary prevailing in her call to generate decisive superdelegate backing. But some outside the campaign are making the case for her to continue.

Ed Koch has suggested that "Obama's a sure loser, Clinton should fight on."

Obama's the weaker general election candidate, but I dread an Obama administration even more that the second coming of the Clintons!

Clinton Pledges to Fight On

Why should Hillary Clinton continue her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination?

Many commentators are saying last night was Barack Obama's, and in the absence of an exceedingly dramatic political event, there's no way for Hillary to win without leveraging party rules to shoehorn into the nomination. Indeed, at least one report suggests that Clinton plans to exit the race by June 15.

Yet CNN, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post are reporting the Clinton's hanging in there.

Here's CNN's report:

Despite an overwhelming defeat in North Carolina and a narrow victory in Indiana, Sen. Hillary Clinton vowed to stay in the race until her party has a nominee.

"I, obviously, am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee. That is what I've done; that's what I'm continuing to do," she said Wednesday in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

The focus of the Democratic race now turns to the superdelegates, because they outnumber the remaining pledged delegates.

Neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Clinton is expected to win the 2,025 delegates needed to capture the nomination during the remaining contests. That means the superdelegates -- party and elected officials who are allowed to vote during the national convention -- will probably decide who becomes the nominee.

Hillary can shift the momentum back to her side a big with a win in West Virginia next Tuesday.

But that may not be enough, as Michael Tomasky:

Next week's primary, in West Virginia, will probably be her biggest win yet, even if she never sets foot there. It's a white, blue-collar state with tiny black and "creative class" populations. So she'll get a win there. And she'll win the following Tuesday in Kentucky.

But those states now are hardly the main battleground. The battleground at this point is the hearts and minds of the superdelegates. The key thing to watch over the rest of this week is how many superdelegates declare themselves for Obama (277 uncommitted superdelegates remain). If reports over the last week or two are to be believed - Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, Obama's biggest Senate supporter, saying that most Capitol Hill legislators are already quietly behind Obama and just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger - then the effect of Tuesday's results might be that they start declaring themselves for him in greater numbers.

Assuming the superdelegates start breaking, Clinton will be reduced to one last option if she chooses to fight: go nuclear on Florida and Michigan. The Democratic party's rules and bylaws committee - a 30-member panel that tilts slightly toward Clinton in sentiment - will meet on May 31 to talk about what to do about the two states.

It does look rough, and that nuclear option's about as controversial as can be.

But Clinton could redouble her appeals to the superdelegates that Barack Obama faces a crisis of electability in the general election. Indeed, Thomas DeFrank argues that Clinton's strength with the white working class remains the only "ugly" reason to stay in the race:

While the case for Hillary Clinton to stay in the race is shakier than ever, one ugly reason for staying in could be found Tuesday amid the ruddy, sun-kissed Hoosiers who cheered her on to victory at the Indianapolis Speedway.

With Clinton posing alongside pioneering Indy speedster Sarah Fisher, there were almost no African-Americans to be seen. Many in the white, working-class crowd were simply not ready to back Barack Obama - for reasons that are disturbing.

"I'm kind of still up in the air between McCain and Hillary," said Jason Jenkins, 32, who cited information from a hoax e-mail as a reason to spurn Obama.

"I'll be honest with you. Barack scares the hell out of me,"he said. "He swore on the Koran."

Obama did manage to pull in many white voters, but still encountered similar sentiments from a man who refused to shake his hand at a diner in Greenwood, Ind.

"I can't stand him," the man said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."

Such feelings leave Clinton and the Democratic Party in a tough spot. With the largest number of remaining delegates nowbeing party insiders, they have to decide if Obama can overcome enough of that antipathy - essentially deciding if enough working-class whites will back away from the black candidate, whether because of the false Muslim rumors, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright flap or old-fashioned racism.

"I think that's right," said former Bill Clinton pollster Doug Schoen. "Obama showed that he could put together that coalition in North Carolina. In Indiana, he was less successful."

"He has to convince people that he can win over working-class whites in places like Florida, Ohio and Michigan," Schoen said.

Can Obama win over working class whites?

I don't think he's going to have an easy time of it.

Obama's strength last night was that he consolidated the black vote, especially in North Carolina, and benefited in Indiana from some Hillary fatigue among white women, white Catholics, and union households, groups unlikely to stay solidly in Obama's column over months of campaigning that will bring out further fine points of the Chicago socialist's elitism and poor judgment.

Blacks are the most staunch interest group supporting the Democrats, but being the candidate of black America and the coastal elites in Boston and San Francisco simply recycles the electoral flaws of the Democrats in 2000 and 2004.

John Judis discusses Obama's general election weaknesses in more detail, for example with this note on the racial vote:

As the primaries have proceeded, he has become more dependent on strong, almost unanimous, support from African American and young voters. For instance, he lost the California primary in February, but he still beat Clinton by a whopping 55 to 35 percent among white men. In North Carolina, where the white Democratic electorate is liberal and tolerant (only five percent of the primary electorate voted against Obama because of race, compared to over 11 percent in Pennsylvania and Ohio), Obama could still win only 36 percent of white voters. In the fall, when African Americans will only make up about 23 percent of North Carolina's electorate, he would have to win 38 percent of all whites to carry the state.

Read Judis in full.

These are the talking points Hillary Clinton should be offering as she prepares the case for challenging Obama at the convention. It's a tough argument to make, and the party elite may indeed have quietly lined up behind Obama, wishing to avoid a bitter denouement in Denver, but if Hillary decides to hang on longer, it's the most realistic argument she can make.

See also, Marc Ambinder, "7 Reasons Why Clinton Should Stay In The Race," and CNN, "Superdelegates Await Clinton's Next Move."

Photo Credit: Time

Hillary Clinton Maximus Decimus Meridius

"You simply won't die" declares Emperor Commodus to Maximus on the floor of the Colosseum, where the former general to Marcus Aurelius has emerged victorious in the deathly games.

After last night's Hillary Clinton squeaker in Indiana, the press and the blogosphere are outraged this morning, like Commodus, declaring incredulously "You simply won't die."

That's Hillary's neverending campaign, of course. It just keeps going, and going, and going...

Ann Althouse, reacting to the New York Times' editorial calling for more debate on the issues, cries, "I wish they'd say why there's reason for her to continue instead of pretending there are some issues that could be emphasized and sharpened!"

What's next for Clinton? Exploiting party rules to keep hope alive!

The Los Angeles Times lays out the details of Clinton's "nuclear option":

Tuesday's voting in Indiana and North Carolina put Hillary Rodham Clinton no closer to overtaking Barack Obama on the path to the Democratic presidential nomination. That now leaves Clinton with one overriding task: to make the path longer.

For most of the year, June 3 beckoned as the end of an exhausting nominating calendar, the day that the final states hold primaries to choose between Clinton and Obama. But now, Clinton is preparing to push the contest beyond the voting phase of the process and into the realm of committee meetings and credentialing rules, where her campaign believes she may have a chance to overtake Obama before the party's nominating convention in late August.

For voters who are weary of the contest -- and for the growing number of Democratic leaders who say the ongoing duel is damaging the party -- Clinton's course means continued uncertainty over whether the party can unify to focus on beating presumed Republican nominee John McCain.

Tuesday's voting all but ensured that Clinton, who shows no signs of giving up and vowed in her Indiana victory speech to go "full speed on to the White House," will now try to lengthen the nominating process.

There's some speculation that Clinton's cancelling of morning talk show appearances is a sign of desperation, or of reassessment.

But whatever's the case, Hillary's making some of the biggest decisions of her long campaign today.

Is she out?

"Not yet, not yet," as Juba would say.

Indiana for Hillary Clinton!

CNN just called the Indiana primary for Hillary Clinton!

(The New York Times has a piece up announcing the Clinton victory.")

A moment ago, Wolf Blitzer suggested that "it looks like Clinton's going to pull this out by a squeaker."

But a win's a win, and no matter what Adam Nagourney or Thomas Edsall say, this race is as alive as ever.

Why, for example, would Hillary pack it in now? Like the last few primaries, she'll get an infusion of cash at the campaign's website on Wednesday, and some of the key remaining primaries, especially West Virginia and Kentucky, are expected to fall into Hillary's column.

Not only that, Clinton's benefiting from further electoral fallout to Barack Obama from the toxic Jeremiah Wright controversy:

Wright was a new element; in Indiana nearly half of voters, 46 percent, called Obama's former minister an important factor in their vote, and they overwhelmingly favored Clinton, by 72-27 percent. Obama came back strongly, though, among those who said the issue wasn't important.

Additionally, Clinton won Indiana voters who made their choice in the last week, by 58-42 percent. She did markedly less well among those who decided earlier.

Key in Indiana were working-class voters; they accounted for a larger-than-usual share of the electorate, with 65 percent of voters lacking a college degree, compared with an average of 53 percent in all primaries to date. While Obama tried to improve his appeal among working-class whites, the exit poll found a 65-34 percent Clinton advantage in this group in Indiana (and 71-26 percent in North Carolina). She won them by 61-32 percent in all previous primaries to date.

These numbers will continue to weigh over Obama's head, as he increasingly looks to win the coastal elites in Boston and San Francisco, while becoming increasingly vulnerable to a general election rout to the GOP as large numbers of Democrats defect from Obama's shady socialist sham of post-partisan appeal.

But as I noted earlier, Clinton's team will be working up the "nuclear option," as campaign aides prepare the case for counting the Michigan and Florida delegations at the August Democratic convention.

Still, if I was advising Hillary, I'd continue to hammer on Obama's radical ties, his wife's polarizing personality, and his inability to clinch the nomination with a second Tuesday win in his neighboring state of Indiana.

I'll have more in the morning.

Hillary's Dwindling Options?

Adam Nagourney's pumped out some on-deadline analysis announcing Hillary Clinton's "dwindling options":

In this case, even a split would not be a draw.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loss in North Carolina on Tuesday night, combined with a tight race in Indiana, where the counting continued deep into the night, did nothing to improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If anything, Mrs. Clinton’s options for overtaking Senator Barack Obama may have dwindled further.

For Mr. Obama, the outcome came after a brutal period in which he was on the defensive over the inflammatory comments of his former pastor. That he was able, at a minimum, to hold his own under those circumstances should allow him to make a case that he has proved his resilience in the face of questions about race, values and patriotism — the very kinds of issues that the Clinton campaign has suggested would leave him vulnerable in the general election.

When paired with Mr. Obama’s comfortable victory in North Carolina, a bigger state, Mrs. Clinton’s performance in Indiana did not seem to be enough to cut into Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates or in his overall lead in the popular vote. And because Mrs. Clinton did not appear to come particularly close in North Carolina, despite a substantial effort there, she lost an opportunity to sow new doubts among Democratic leaders about Mr. Obama’s general-election appeal.

Well, actually, since the mathematical gap's not changing all that much, much of what happens over the next few days will be determined by the media cycle.

Clinton's options have continued to dwindle under proportional delegate allocation rules, so it's really been about momentum these last few weeks. The big argument this last week is that Clinton had to win Indiana to remain viable, to have a compelling case for continuing, one that staunches any big crossover in superdelegates to the Obama side.

CNN's still holding off on calling the race, with 95% reporting, Clinton's still leading, at 10:07pm PST.

Clinton Leads in Lake County Nail-Biter!

It's still too close to call in Indiana, where Hillary Clinton's holding a 51% to 49% lead over Barack Obama with 95% reported, as of 9:40pm PST.

CNN reports:

The Democratic contest in Indiana was too close to call Tuesday as late returns erased what had been a commanding lead for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

As polls closed in Indiana, Clinton had a double-digit lead over Sen. Barack Obama, but by the end of the evening, Clinton's lead had shrunk to 2 percent.

The focus of the contest shifted to Lake County, home to 8 percent of Indiana's population.
At midnight ET, only 28 percent of Lake County's vote had been reported.
There are 72 delegates at stake in Indiana.

Obama earlier claimed victory in North Carolina.

In his address to supporters, he congratulated Clinton on what he called her apparent victory in Indiana.

Clinton told her supporters in Indianapolis "it's full-speed on to the White House."

The senator from New York stopped short of declaring victory, and instead turned her attention to the upcoming contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon.

So, things will go on no matter the results, it seems.

Yet, on the one hand, the closeness of the Indiana race damages Clinton's case for a compelling argument to continue on, while on the other hand, the case could be made that she's held her ground in Obama's backyard - Obama still couldn't clinch the deal!

As we've seen so far, of course, Hillary's been able to turn defeats in to successes, so it's too early to speculate beyond the fact that we'll see continued primary contests!

I'll have more when the rest of Lake County's reported.

CBS News Calls Clinton Win in Indiana!

CBS News is projecting a Hillary Clinton win in the Indiana primary:

CBS News projects that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the Indiana Democratic primary and Barack Obama will win in North Carolina.

Clinton pulled off an Indiana win in what was a virtual must-win Midwestern state. With 85 percent of the votes being reported in the state, she was leading Obama 52 percent to 48 percent.

At a rally in Indianapolis, Clinton said that her Indiana victory had "broken the tie."

"And thanks to you, it's full speed to the White House," she said to the cheering crowd.

I'm not seeing other outlets putting themselves out there with a call for Clinton.

CNN's still got Clinton up 52% to 48% with 88% reporting, at 8:40pm PST.

The New York Times is holding off as well.

Gary, Indiana, Could Decide Final Democratic Tally

I just finished watching Hillary Clinton's rallying speech from Indiana. She seemed very pleased with the showing, although CNN's currently holding the race too close to call (52% to 48% with 87% reporting) at 8:20pm PST.

The Washington Post suggests that Lake County, and especially Gary, Indiana, could tilt the election to Barack Obama:

As the fate of a nailbiter Indiana primary -- and possibly the course of the Democratic race -- hung on his city, Gary Mayor Rudy Clay said just now that it might take a while yet to finish counting the vote in Lake County, which includes Gary, and said that his city had turned out so overwhelmingly for Barack Obama that it might just be enough to close the gap with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Let me tell you, when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you're looking at something for the [world] to see," Clay, an Obama supporter, said in a telephone interview from Obama's Gary headquarters. "I don't know what the numbers are yet, but Gary has absolutely produced in large numbers for Obama here."

I'll update a little later when more information comes in, although I'm intrigued by Hillary's throwing down the challenge on counting "all" the votes, "north, east, west, and south," including Michigan and Florida.

This is the nuclear option, and it's looking evident that the Clinton campaign's fully prepared to deploy their big weapon.

Michael Moore: What's It Like to Be Black in America?

I watched Michael Moore on Larry King Live last week.

It was a troubling, even disgusting, experience. It's not as though I should be surprised at Moore's outrageous views, given his socialism. But when he spoke of Jeremiah Wright, and particularly of "what it's like to be black in America" today, my jaw just about hit the floor.

Here's the interview clip, via YouTube:

I've long been convinced that racial victimology is the scourge of the American black future. When we teach our kids that white racism is the cause for their problems, we absolve responsibility from the individual to the society.

Note Dennis Prager's powerful rebuttal on left-wing racial politics, where he touches on Moore's Larry King performance:

It is with no pleasure that I put in writing what I have long believed: Though many individual liberals have only goodwill toward black Americans, the liberal world since the late 1960s (i.e., after the major civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s) has done incalculable damage to black America and to race relations in this country. Whether out of guilt or because of its own racist views (i.e., the unspoken but regularly implied belief in the inferiority of African-Americans), the left-of-center's general attitude toward black Americans has been that they cannot be judged by the same standards as others.

From lowering standards of admission to universities to blaming the high number of black men in prison for violent crimes on white racism to decades of cultivating black victimhood and the subsequent Wright-like rage against America, liberals and their party, the Democrats, have immeasurably hurt African-Americans and America.

Should a non-black oppose race-based lowered standards or blame black criminals rather than white racism for their criminality, the liberal world dismisses that individual as a racist; and should a black express these views, he is dismissed as an "Uncle Tom," a "traitor to his race."

In just the past week, two prominent men of the left provided examples.

Appearing on "Larry King Live," Michael Moore, the adored hero of the 2004 Democratic Convention, explained the Rev. Wright's anger and racism this way:

"I'm a white guy. And I think I've got to tell you something. If you were black in this country, especially if you are of his age, of his era or even times before that or even kids today, when you look at the situation in our inner city schools, I mean, you have to ask yourself, Larry, what's it like to be black in America? And what kind of rage would you feel? And if you did feel that rage, what kind of things would you say that, at times, would be outrageous, crazy even, because you've had to live through this for so long?

"And I do not believe, as a white guy, that I am in any position to judge a black man who has had to live through that" (italics added).

To the liberal world, the black American is so oppressed that his rage against whites specifically and America generally is completely understandable, and therefore no white has the right to judge black outrage and its subsequent expressions. Blacks are not to be judged by the moral standards one judges others.

Note Prager's warning that to just raise these issues is to be opened up to charges of racism. It happened to me recently, in response to my post, "Will the Real MLK Please Stand Up?", but Dr. King didn't put his life on the line for generations of blacks to descend to racial separation and victimology.

In 2006, I received a death threat in my comments when I posted on Heather MacDonald's analysis of New York's Sean Bell incident, "No, the Cops Didn’t Murder Sean Bell."

That's the kind of reaction from someone's who's whole identity is consumed by the sense of enormous, irredeemable evil in the United States.

People like this, over forty years after King's "I Have a Dream" speech, have rejected the fundamental reality of America as the very embodiment of King's calling.

Do we have problems? Sure, but Jim Crow's a thing of the past, the black middle class is thriving, and a black or a woman will raise the standard of the Democratic Party in the fall. These facts are widely recognized among Americans who acknowledge the gains we've made, but are willing to work toward even greater advancement for all Americans, irrespective of race, and without grievance politics.

But for the Michael Moores of the left, the investment in racial victimology is on the scale of crack addiction in its destructive power.

Until that scourge is beaten, there won't be further racial progress in America.

Michelle Obama and the Gospel of Bitterness

Scott Johnson at Powerline lays out a compelling thesis on the "gospel of bitterness" that drives Barack Obama and his wife's politics.

The key here, though, is that Barack's stump speeches are more polished than are Michelle's. She spews bitterness, of course, and as a power couple, the Obamas are representative of the elite thinking among many "what's the matter with Kansas" Democrats:

Michelle Obama seethes with bitterness. While she preaches the gospel according to Barack, she wears resentment and bitterness on her sleeve. It is therefore painful to listen to her. She's apparently even still angry about her SAT scores. She didn't test well in school, she explains. Somehow, she has overcome.

Mrs. Obama seeks to convey convey the impression -- she expands on the theme at great length -- that Senator Obama's campaign is, to borrow Joe McCarthy's formulation, the victim of "a conspiracy so immense..." It is not clear whether the Obama campaign can overcome the power of these sinister forces.

According to Mrs. Obama, the Obama campaign has been constrained by nameless forces constantly changing the rules of the game and thereby preventing Senator Obama from securing the nomination. Who are "they"? Mrs. Obama says just enough about these nameless forces for us to infer that "they" include the Clintons and their supporters. "They" seem also (incredibly) to include the mainstream media. These nameless forces have approximately the same specificity as the names on Joe McCarthy's list.

In her North Carolina speech Mrs. Obama reiterates the condescending political sociology that she elaborated in her Fort Wayne remarks and that Barack Obama preached at his closed-door fundraiser with the San Francisco Democrats. Given the modesty of her and her husband's family backgrounds, Mrs. Obama denies that she or her husband could be elitists.

Yet Mrs. Obama's political sociology comfortably fits the What's the Matter With Kansas? school of thought held by the Demoratic Party's liberal elite. Indeed, it was an elite group of wealthy San Francisco Democrats to whom Barack Obama was preaching the gospel of bitterness in San Francisco.

Mrs. Obama mocks the notion that she and her husband are elitists. She implicitly asserts that only those born to wealth are capable of looking down their noses at their fellow citizens. She does not think highly of those of us who want to be left alone by advocates of the administrative welfare state such as she and her husband. Moreover, she finds us guilty of making our children the victims of our fears. We are raising "young doubters." (I confess!)

But aren't those in her audience afraid of the sinister forces struggling to hold the Obamas down? Apparently not any more than she is. If her remarks were to be believed, they would by themselves instill deep fears. Her audience seems to understand that her impassioned whining is not to be taken seriously.

She says that she and Barack were born to parents of modest means, not with "silver spoons" in their mouths. Nobody knows the trouble they've seen. The burden of paying for her undergraduate education at Princeton and her law school education at Harvard has scarred her. It remains a motif of her stump speech. No one is accorded a chance to ask her if she thought about attending the University of Illinois, or if she's grateful for any of the financial assistance that facilitated her and her husband's attendance at the finest institutions of higher learning in the United States.

Note too, Christopher Hitchens' post yesterday, where he warned that we're getting two-for-the-price-of-one in Barack's presidential bid:

What can it be that has kept Obama in Wright's pews, and at Wright's mercy, for so long and at such a heavy cost to his aspirations? Even if he pulls off a mathematical nomination victory, he has completely lost the first, fine, careless rapture of a post-racial and post-resentment political movement and mired us again in all the old rubbish that predates Dr. King. What a sad thing to behold. And how come? I think we can exclude any covert sympathy on Obama's part for Wright's views or style—he has proved time and again that he is not like that, and even his own little nods to "Minister" Farrakhan can probably be excused as a silly form of Chicago South Side political etiquette. All right, then, how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama?

This obvious question is now becoming inescapable, and there is an inexcusable unwillingness among reporters to be the one to ask it. (One can picture Obama looking pained and sensitive and saying, "Keep my wife out of it," or words to that effect, as Clinton tried to do in 1992 when Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader quite correctly inquired about his spouse's influence.) If there is a reason why the potential nominee has been keeping what he himself now admits to be very bad company—and if the rest of his character seems to make this improbable—then either he is hiding something and/or it is legitimate to ask him about his partner.

I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language. Anyway, at quite an early stage in the text, Michelle Obama announces that she's much influenced by the definition of black "separationism" offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. I remember poor Stokely Carmichael quite well. After a hideous series of political and personal fiascos, he fled to Africa, renamed himself Kwame Toure after two of West Africa's most repellently failed dictators, and then came briefly back to the United States before electing to die in exile. I last saw him as the warm-up speaker for Louis Farrakhan in Madison Square Garden in 1985, on the evening when Farrakhan made himself famous by warning Jews, "You can't say 'Never Again' to God, because when he puts you in the ovens, you're there forever." I have the distinct feeling that the Obama campaign can't go on much longer without an answer to the question: "Are we getting two for one?" And don't be giving me any grief about asking this. Black Americans used to think that the Clinton twosome was their best friend, too. This time we should find out before it's too late to ask.

I've noted many times - after first hearing Michelle Obama's comments that she's never been proud to be American - that I cringe at the thought of having Mrs. Obama as first lady.

Some have suggested that we elect the president and not his wife, but the office of the first lady has always been a integral component of any presidential administration, and over the last few decades first ladies have often served as powerful political actors in their own rights. Just this morning First Lady Laura Bush spoke out on Myanmar, urging the government to allow humantarian relief teams into the country; last fall Mrs. Bush called on Myanmar's ruling junta to step down.

Hillary Clinton's claims to expertise on healthcare derives from her experience spearheading health policy reform as first lady in the Clinton administration. We could go back at least to Edith Wilson to look at historically powerful first ladies.

Michelle Obama, reflecting on the possible "emulation" of Hillary Clinton's precedent as first lady, suggested a potentially activist role in a Barack Obama administration:

I never think in terms of her or anybody else, because I don't know Hillary Clinton … I don't think I can honestly emulate somebody else. I think I can only be who I can be in this role. And that's going to come with all the pluses and minuses and baggage and insecurities and all the things that I'll bring into it, plus my hopes and dreams along with it.

All the pluses and minuses, the baggage and bitterness.

All the more reason to vote McCain.

Phote Credit: Newsweek

Obama Goes Negative

Barack Obama apparently can't stay up in the clouds of political above-it-all-ness, as indicated by his new attack ad on Hillary Clinton's "negativism":

The spot begins with: "A war that should never have been waged..."

And continues: "And what does Hillary Clinton offer us? More of the same old negative politics."

But what does Obama offer us? A return to Carter-esque appeasement and international dishonor?

See also my earlier entry, "The Fight Goes On: Today's Indecisive Primaries."

The Fight Goes On: Today's Indecisive Primaries

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama go head-to-head in Indiana and North Carolina today. These are potentially decisive primaries, but unless Clinton loses both contests, she'll maintain enough momentum to make the credible case for staying in the race.

The Economist had a very good editorial on the Indiana contest yesterday:

Indiana, though, is another matter. It ought to be solid ground for Mrs Clinton. It resembles states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where she has done well, being somewhat conservative, mostly white and above all relatively poor. Average incomes in Indiana are $36,500, versus $40,000 for Pennsylvania, where Mrs Clinton won by 9.2 percentage points. Her appeal has consistently been strongest to voters earning between $15,000 and $100,000 a year.

This expectation carries great danger, though. Should Mrs Clinton stumble in Indiana, her campaign will almost certainly be doomed. Her recent comeback critically depends on maintaining the momentum generated since her breakthrough in Ohio on March 4th, which has allowed her continually to close the gap in the popular vote between her and Mr Obama. If that process goes into reverse, she will lose the most convincing argument that she is able to deploy to the wavering superdelegates who will determine the final outcome because the tally of elected delegates is so finely balanced.

But for more of a youthy, Obamist perspective, see Rolling Stone's piece, "Hillary's Bitter Victory," which makes an interesting argument that the Democratic race represents the most important round in the "culture wars" in recent times:

Seldom in American politics has the same side of a single party split into such distinct and acrimonious factions. As virtually identical as the two candidates are in their political positions, there is no longer any common cause left between Hillary lovers and Obama supporters. There is only a culture war of epic proportions, featuring some of the most unlikely and absurd combatants in the history of impassioned conflict. Ordinary suburban Americans, people who consider Tina Fey biting satire and whose only "fighting" experience has usually been against trans fats or hair loss, can now be seen running through the streets, screaming war calls like Maoist guerrillas in the jungles of Nepal.

As Hillary finishes her speech in the ballroom, plumes of confetti shoot into the air out of a pair of paper-cannons. The loudspeaker — which for hours now has been playing an agonizing loop of patriotic classic rock, with heavy emphasis on Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" — is now blasting John Cougar Mellencamp's "Our Country."

I raise an eyebrow. The song is (1) the soundtrack to a hideously overplayed truck commercial and (2) possibly, just possibly, a weird and weirdly gratuitous dig at Obama, who at that very moment was making his gloomy "I'm fucked" concession speech in Evansville, Indiana, flanked by Indiana native Mellencamp and his wife, Elaine. Is the Clinton camp trying to make a joke about the fact that Obama is grasping for the endorsement of some gnomish Eighties B-lister while Hillary is grabbing America by the balls? Yeah, this is our country, motherfucker! Suck on this!
Has it come to this? The political equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I?" On both sides, this Obama-Clinton race has turned into something very like the vicious rivalry of a pair of blood-lusting high school student bodies — Odessa Permian versus Midland Lee, only with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance.

This race has already seen such juvenilia as one would previously have considered inconceivable in a contest between two ostensibly cerebral Democratic presidential candidates, including a surprisingly serious argument over which camp had the right to invoke Rocky references in their Pennsylvania campaign rhetoric — an argument settled, amazingly, when Gov. Ed Rendell declared "by executive order" that the right was Hillary's alone. The problem has been exacerbated by the relatively minor policy differences between the two candidates, although one suspects that even if those differences were major, they would take a back seat to the emerging tribal schism now cleaving the Democratic Party — a wholesale regression to clashing teenage emotions that turns these supposedly profound electoral battles into feverish squalls of car-honking and sarcastic sloganeering.

How long before one side kidnaps the other side's mascot? Will we wake up some morning in the near future and find Obama's campaign bus taken apart and reassembled on the roof of the Indiana Statehouse? Will Obama hooligans steal Hillary's Botox kit and gleefully paint the word "suck!" at the end of every yes she can sign in Guam?

Seldom in American politics has the same side of a single party split into such distinct and acrimonious factions. As virtually identical as the two candidates are in their political positions, there is no longer any common cause left between Hillary lovers and Obama supporters. There is only a culture war of epic proportions, featuring some of the most unlikely and absurd combatants in the history of impassioned conflict. Ordinary suburban Americans, people who consider Tina Fey biting satire and whose only "fighting" experience has usually been against trans fats or hair loss, can now be seen running through the streets, screaming war calls like Maoist guerrillas in the jungles of Nepal.

As Hillary finishes her speech in the ballroom, plumes of confetti shoot into the air out of a pair of paper-cannons. The loudspeaker — which for hours now has been playing an agonizing loop of patriotic classic rock, with heavy emphasis on Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" — is now blasting John Cougar Mellencamp's "Our Country."

I raise an eyebrow. The song is (1) the soundtrack to a hideously overplayed truck commercial and (2) possibly, just possibly, a weird and weirdly gratuitous dig at Obama, who at that very moment was making his gloomy "I'm fucked" concession speech in Evansville, Indiana, flanked by Indiana native Mellencamp and his wife, Elaine. Is the Clinton camp trying to make a joke about the fact that Obama is grasping for the endorsement of some gnomish Eighties B-lister while Hillary is grabbing America by the balls? Yeah, this is our country, motherfucker! Suck on this!
Has it come to this? The political equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I?" On both sides, this Obama-Clinton race has turned into something very like the vicious rivalry of a pair of blood-lusting high school student bodies — Odessa Permian versus Midland Lee, only with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance.

This race has already seen such juvenilia as one would previously have considered inconceivable in a contest between two ostensibly cerebral Democratic presidential candidates, including a surprisingly serious argument over which camp had the right to invoke Rocky references in their Pennsylvania campaign rhetoric — an argument settled, amazingly, when Gov. Ed Rendell declared "by executive order" that the right was Hillary's alone. The problem has been exacerbated by the relatively minor policy differences between the two candidates, although one suspects that even if those differences were major, they would take a back seat to the emerging tribal schism now cleaving the Democratic Party — a wholesale regression to clashing teenage emotions that turns these supposedly profound electoral battles into feverish squalls of car-honking and sarcastic sloganeering.

How long before one side kidnaps the other side's mascot? Will we wake up some morning in the near future and find Obama's campaign bus taken apart and reassembled on the roof of the Indiana Statehouse? Will Obama hooligans steal Hillary's Botox kit and gleefully paint the word "suck!" at the end of every yes she can sign in Guam?

More important, when will this thing end? Is there any relief in sight?

The short answer to this question is no, there isn't. This contest no longer has anything to do with the electoral math. After the Pennsylvania contest, Obama holds some 1,724 delegates, which include 1,488 pledged delegates and 236 superdelegates. Hillary, by contrast, has 1,593 total delegates, broken down into 1,334 pledged and 259 superdelegates.

The popular vote is a more confusing story, but even there the margin is substantial: 14,417,619 votes for Obama to 13,917,393 for Hillary. Those numbers can be skewed in several different directions, depending on one's inclinations (Obama's number is artificially low because it fails to reflect caucus-state populations; Hillary's number is artificially low because she doesn't get credit for Michigan and Florida). But either way, the final count will almost certainly favor Obama.

The fact that the race seems so closely fought now makes it hard to remember Obama's crushing streak of victories in the middle of this campaign. But the truth is that he built up so big a lead back then that even a major victory in a major state like Pennsylvania has little influence on the outcome: Hillary picked up only nine delegates on Obama in the process.

By the time the primary season officially ends on June 3rd with Montana and South Dakota, Obama will almost certainly be leading in delegates and the popular vote — but there almost certainly will be no nominee, either. The remainder of this race has therefore become a matter of each candidate making a case for his/her electability to the 300-odd superdelegates still uncommitted — people like Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, who ultimately will decide this contest at the convention.

In the meantime, one thing about this contest can be said with absolute surety: Everyone involved has lost their minds. For Clinton supporters, the race has taken on a meaning that transcends politics. One gets the sense that Hillary's campaign has become an idée fixe for any Democrat of a certain type who has ever been fucked around or disrespected or abused or disappointed. Far more than any policy position, it is Hillary's "fight to the finish" mantra that is reaching her supporters on some elemental level that is hard for outsiders to comprehend.

Here's the killer conclusion, which is penetrating:

With all his verbose deflections of Hillary's attacks and unconcealed annoyance over silly nonissues like his failure to wear a flag lapel pin, Obama inadvertently painted himself into a corner as a know-it-all, a pointy-head who would rather yammer in polysyllables and talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than wear the fucking American flag on his chest — as Hillary, meanwhile, was promising to "obliterate" Iran and in the process roping in hordes of nondescript suburbanites who'll crawl through the mud for "Madam President" while marching to classic rock tunes like the "Horst Wessel Song." Clinton's genius was in seeing that it was possible to play the liberal/intellectual-baiting game not only with Republicans but with Democrats — and that by forcing her opponent to take the high road, she could scour the fish-rich waters of the low road.

The result has been an epic clash, a war of cultural types that has nothing whatsoever to do with issues and everything to do with self-image. It's become a pitched fight between the fucked-over suburban little guy and the vilified intellectual, two groups that for years have felt put upon and dispossessed, for different reasons. The fact that their respective champions are identical superstar U.S. senators/multimillionaires makes the bitter hatred this schism is inspiring absurd, but it doesn't make it any less real. Or likely to end anytime soon.

I'll have more later.

Debating the "Hot New Foreign Policy Book of the Season"

I'm not a big fan of Matthew Yglesias' foreign policy views (if you hadn't noticed), although I'm about half-way through his new book, Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.

I've got posts brewing on Yglesias' latest writings (he's extremely far to the left on foreign policy, despite his repeated efforts in the book to locate his positions as basically a "neglected centrist" alternative to compliant, opportunistic Democratic Party "liberal hawks"), but until then, here's your chance to get the inside dope on the book straight from the horse's mouth.

The video's an Atlantic magazine production, featuring a surprisingly friendly exchange between Yglesias and Ross Douthat, two commentators of widely divergent in political ideologies:

Douthat looks to be a tolerant guy, sitting pleasantly as he is with Yglesias, considering his own tightly argued right-wing conservatism.

I guess it's possible, though, to explain bookish pleasantries between these two, as I do maintain some professionaly collegiality with the few genuine Stalinists I happen to work with in my school division.

I'll have my own take on Heads in the Sand in upcoming posts, but don't forget Jamie Kirchick's killer review of the book, as well as the non-photoshopped picture of (a fundamentally incredible) Yglesias in a kafiya.