Barack Obama's Farewell To Ted Kennedy

From CBS here is the video from Senator Kennedy's funeral today and a truly magnificent farewell from the President.

There And Back Again: An Inaugural Adventure

An Oklahoma meteorology student, Greg Blumberg, had almost the exact same experience at Barack Obama's inauguration that my daughter and I had, including

We got stopped here. This was the end of our trip.

Go take a look. The photos at the site explain better than I could ever do in words what horrendous crowd management conditions existed that day.

Hillary Clinton Redefining State Department

David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in the Washington Post writes

what is Clinton actually doing? Only overseeing what may be the most profound changes in U.S. foreign policy in two decades -- a transformation that may render the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush mere side notes in a long transition to a meaningful post-Cold War worldview.

The secretary has quietly begun rethinking the very nature of diplomacy and translating that vision into a revitalized State Department, one that approaches U.S. allies and rivals in ways that challenge long-held traditions. And despite the pessimists who invoked the "team of rivals" cliche to predict that President Obama and Clinton would not get along, Hillary has defined a role for herself in the Obamaverse: often bad cop to his good cop, spine stiffener when it comes to tough adversaries and nurturer of new strategies. Recognizing that the 3 a.m. phone calls are going to the White House, she is instead tackling the tough questions that, since the end of the Cold War, have kept America's leaders awake all night.

and

Clinton's State Department can take on a bigger role in tackling the problems of the future -- in particular, how America will lead the world in the century ahead. This approach is both necessary and canny: It recognizes that U.S. policy must change to fulfill Obama's vision and that many high-profile issues such as those of the Middle East have often swamped the careers and aspirations of secretaries of state past.

Which nations will be our key partners? What do you do when many vital partners -- China, for example, and Russia -- are rivals as well? How must America's alliances change as NATO is stretched to the limit? How do we engage with rogue states and old enemies in ways that do not strengthen them and preserve our prerogative to challenge threats? How do we move beyond the diplomacy of men in striped pants speaking only for governments and embrace potent nonstate players and once-disenfranchised peoples?

In searching for answers, Clinton is leaving behind old doctrines and labels. She outlined her new thinking in a recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she revealed stark differences between the new administration's worldview and those of its predecessors: The recurring themes include "partnership" and "engagement" and "common interests." Clearly, Madeleine Albright's "indispensable nation" has recognized the indispensability of collaborating with others.

Also,

by most accounts, the administration's national security team has come together successfully, with Clinton developing strong relationships with national security adviser Jones and Defense Secretary Gates. Her policy deputy, Jim Steinberg, has renewed an old collaboration with deputy national security adviser Tom Donilon; the two of them, working with Obama campaign foreign policy advisers Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, have formed what one State Department seventh-floor dweller called "a powerful quartet at the heart of real interagency policymaking." ...
At the heart of things, though, is the relationship between Clinton and Obama. For all the administration's talk of international partnerships, that may be the most critical partnership of all.

So far, according to multiple high-level officials at State and the White House, the two seem aligned in their views. In addition, they are gradually defining complementary roles. Obama has assumed the role of principal spokesperson on foreign policy, as international audiences welcome his new and improved American brand. Clinton thus far has echoed his points but has also delivered tougher ones. Whether on a missile shield against Iran or North Korean saber-rattling, the continued imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or rape and corruption in Congo, the secretary of state has spoken bluntly on the world stage

What a refreshing change from the last eight years of "I'll-kick-your-ass" belligerance!

"Take advantage of me and I will crush you"

Paraphrased: "You come straight at me and I'll come straight at you, but if you take advantage of me, I will crush you." Let's see some of this attitude against the Republicans in the health-care debate.

Paul Krugman on Obama’s Trust Problem

Paul Krugman a couple days ago wrote:

"it’s possible to have universal coverage without a public option — several European nations do it — and some who want a public option might be willing to forgo it if they had confidence in the overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, the president’s behavior in office has undermined that confidence.

On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of “bending the curve” but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama’s explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee."

What we need most of all is for the President to cast this debate within the frame of the moral case for reform. It should have been so from the beginning.

The PolicySpeak Disaster

I have long admired George Lakoff's ability and teaching on framing and messaging. In a post at Huffpo and DailyKos, George Lakoff discusses the Obama Administration's "PolicySpeak Disaster."

PolicySpeak is the principle that: If you just tell people the policy facts, they will reason to the right conclusion and support the policy wholeheartedly.

PolicySpeak is the principle behind the President’s new Reality Check Website. To my knowledge, the Reality Check Website, has not had a reality check. ...
To many liberals, PolicySpeak sounds like the high road: a rational, public discussion in the best tradition of liberal democracy. Convince the populace rationally on the objective policy merits. Give the facts and figures. Assume self-interest as the motivator of rational choice. Convince people by the logic of the policymakers that the policy is in their interest.

But to a cognitive scientist or neuroscientist, this sounds nuts. The view of human reason and language behind PolicySpeak is just false. Certainly reason should be used. It’s just that you should use real reason, the way people really think. Certainly the truth should be told. It’s just that it should be told so it makes sense to people, resonates with them, and inspires them to act.

In this health-care debate, the President's advisors have fallen into the classic policyspeak framing disaster to which we on the left are so often prone. The White House would do well to get a cognitive scientist like George Lakoff on board, and fast.

Barack Obama: Superhero

Obama's Speech to the AMA on June 15, 2009

President Obama's Cairo Speech on June 3, 2009

My Inauguration Week Experiences in DC

My 15-year-old daughter and I had a wonderful time during our stay in DC from Saturday to Wednesday. We stayed at the home of a very nice elderly couple who offered a room for rent through their church, saw a college friend who came over from Baltimore with his family, went to the National Zoo, attended a "bash" at the Air & Space Museum sponsored by the California Democratic Party, saw the Holocaust, Natural History and International Spy Museums and National Archives.

On Inauguration Day, the whole atmosphere was one of euphoria all day long, with everyone realizing they were there to witness history and being all nice to each other. There were loud cheers by the crowd at many moments during the swearing-in ceremony. It was the only day of its kind in history, but I hope that we can have more days that approach this kind of euphoria in the months and years ahead with the Obama administration.

We had "silver" tickets, which entitled us to stand in the silver section on the west side of the Capitol Reflecting Pool. There were many thousands of ticket holders who never made it past the excruciatingly SLOW security gates because of the complete LACK of crowd control, signage, bullhorns, information, authorities and staff people and not enough metal detectors. This affected the purple, blue and silver gates. I pity the poor purple ticket holders who were stuck like sardines in a tunnel for hours with NO assistance whatsoever.

By going to an alternate security gate on the parade route (no tickets required), we waited in a crowd for only a bit less than two hours and finally made it in at about 11:00 a.m. There were only four metal detectors for the thousands seeking entrance there. We never made it into the silver ticketed section, a mere 30 yards away, because of police and barricades. We were across from the Canadian Embassy at 4th and Pennsylvania, where our view of the Capitol was blocked by the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. There were speakers across the street that were providing the NPR live commentary about the proceedings.

But using binoculars and a view that was partially blocked by tree branches, we watched a Jumbotron that was next to the Capitol lawn, then waited over 3 hours to see the parade and Obama's motorcade. The "crowd" was only one person deep on our side of the street, with three police officers lining Pennsylvania Ave. for every spectator in the area we were standing.

Then as the presidential limo approached, my video camera ran out of space to record (argh!). But then Michelle and Sasha waved at us, which was memorable. I could see Barack waving on the other side of the car. A block after they passed us, Michelle and Barack got out of the car to walk.

It was so cold, before and after this, that we left and did not stay for the rest of the parade. It was obvious that it would not finish until after dark. But as it turned out, because of all the police barricades, we had to walk up Constitution Avenue toward the Washington Monument to get out of the secured area, and the entire parade was lined up on that street waiting for the start. A few marching bands were practicing.

My daughter and I bought some souvenirs from the vendors and then got on the still-packed Metro train for the ride back to the National Zoo stop, where we had stayed nearby.

It was for us an experience of a lifetime that we will always hold close.

YES, WE DID!

Great Obama Photo Gallery Covering the Last Several Years

Check out this photo gallery by Barack Obama's photographer, Pete Souza. He is now the new official White House photographer, and he was also Ronald Reagan's photographer.

President-Elect Barack Obama's Weekly Address, 11/22/08

Angry Clinton Women (heart) McCain?

I highly recommend the column by Frank Rich in today's New York Times.

You’d never guess that Mr. McCain is a fierce foe of abortion rights or that he voted to terminate the federal family-planning program that provides breast-cancer screenings. You’d never know that his new campaign blogger, recruited from The Weekly Standard, had shown his genuine affection for Mrs. Clinton earlier this year by portraying her as a liar and whiner and by piling on with a locker-room jeer after she’d been called a monster. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he wrote.

But while the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends. New polls show Mr. Obama opening up a huge lead among female voters — beating Mr. McCain by 13 percentage points in the Gallup and Rasmussen polls and by 19 points in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey.

How huge is a 13- to 19-percentage-point lead? John Kerry won women by only 3 points, Al Gore by 11.

Obama's Victory Speech

Here is the text of Barack Obama's magnificent victory speech from St. Paul on June 3, when he clinched the nomination. And here is the video (to watch over and over). Savor the fruits of Part I of our work.

Part II comes to fruition on November 4.

Rating Obama’s Jedi Master

Eons ago, back in February, Bloomberg News obtained a detailed spreadsheet that was inadvertently released by the Obama campaign. The spreadsheet was the topic of this diary at the time. The Bloomberg reporters posted it at this location. The prognosticator was Jeffrey Berman, the “Obama campaign’s unsung hero" and Jedi master.

In it, the campaign analyzed about twelve scenarios for all the state-by-state races after the February 5 Super Tuesday, including projected splits in the popular vote and the delegate totals. Only one scenario is in this spreadsheet, but you should take a look at it. It is fascinating to see what the Obama campaign predicted at the time and where they saw the race going.

Now that Obama has clinched the lead in pledged delegates and nearly clinched the nomination, let’s check out exactly how good Jeffrey Berman's wizardry actually was.

It is remarkable how accurate the predictions were, and it’s interesting to see where the results deviated significantly. I put together the following chart to illustrate the difference between the forecast on February 6 and the actual results of the primaries and caucuses.

2008 DNC Delegates vs Jeffrey Berman forecast - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: 2008 DNC Delegates vs Jeffrey Berman forecast

The chart shows the differences in both popular vote percentage and number of delegates earned. The delegate numbers show the results for caucus states through the local and state conventions that have been held so far. For example, on May 16, Nevada provided an extra delegate for Obama at Clinton’s expense. The actual results are based on The Green Papers tallies.

The Green Papers and this chart do not include the one extra delegate that the Obama campaign claims for each Louisiana and Texas (although the extra Obama caucus delegate(s) in Texas may yet appear on June 7). (The popular vote shown for Texas in the chart is for the primary.)

The Obama results also exclude the Edwards delegates that have now endorsed Obama, as well as the two Clinton pledged delegates from DC and MD that switched to Obama.

State W-L
On February 6, the forecast for the remaining 27 contests was for 19 wins and 8 losses. So far, Obama has 17 wins and 7 losses, matching the predicted number of wins and losses to date. MT, SD and PR will go 2 and 1, for a final record of (drum roll, please) 19 wins and 8 losses. The Obama campaign did not project to win Maine, but he won it anyway. On the other hand, Indiana went from his winner column over to a narrow loss to Clinton.

Popular Vote Variance
Obama had double-digit over-performances in the popular vote percentage in VA, DC, HI, ME, and VI, all winning contests for him. In fact, the day of the Potomac Primary was exceptional for exceeding the forecast not only in VA and DC, but also in MD (by 7%). Most notable was the winning vote margin in Virginia. It had been forecast to be tight at 1.2%, but it ballooned to a 14% margin. In Hawaii, total turnout for the caucuses was a magnitude higher than it had ever been, and the result was a 24% blowout for favorite son Obama.

Obama under-performed in the popular vote in eight states, although by less than 1.7% each in four of them (OH, RI, MS and PA). He lost OH, RI and PA, and even though he garnered a slightly smaller percentage of votes in Mississippi than had been predicted five weeks earlier, his winning margin over Clinton there was nearly 25%.

In Guam, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky he received, respectively, 4%, 3%, 17% and 12% less of the popular vote than had been forecast by the campaign. Nevertheless, he won Guam (by 7 votes). In Indiana a switch of 7210 Limbaugh-influenced Clinton votes would have given him the state. As for WV and KY, what else is there to say? As DHinMI has often noted, "Appalachia has an Obama problem."

Delegate Count Variance
Leaving aside a half-delegate under-perform in the Democrats Abroad primary (where Obama crushed Clinton anyway), Obama under-performed the campaign forecast in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, all of which turned out to be very tough for him to win. Of the 22 fewer delegates garnered in those states, 19 were lost in Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky. Excluding Indiana, the campaign on February 6 had not even expected to win the other four states, each of which later exhibited varying degrees of the Appalachia syndrome.

Obama more than made up for it in Maryland, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina, where he gained 28 more delegates than had been forecast. And for a one-day over-performance, it’s hard to top the day of the Potomac Primary, when VA, DC and MD produced 19 more delegates than the campaign had expected (exactly offsetting the IN, WV and KY losses).

Of the 24 contests held since February 6, the Obama delegate numbers for nine of them were within one delegate of what had been forecast (including five that were spot on). Another seven were within three delegates.

Overall so far, Obama has over-performed by 28.5 delegates compared to the February 6 prediction.

If it were I that had received that forecast on February 6, and then witnessed the kind of results that we see here, I’d say Jeffrey Berman deserved a big, fat raise — and then some time off on August 29.

P.S.: Here's a snapshot of part of the famous spreadsheet:



As many of us remember, Ben Smith at Politico offered this comment on the campaign spreadsheet at the time it was “released” in February:

The scenario considered in the Bloomberg story foresees the widely anticipated Obama roll through the Potomac Primary, and Clinton victories in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Crucially, it doesn't forecast any blowouts with huge delegate margins; Washington State's caucus, by this projection, offers Obama his widest margin, 20 delegates.

The scenario "projects Obama will end up in June with 1,806 of the delegates who select the party's nominee to 1,789 for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton." That's a count that gives her a 50-delegate lead among superdelegates, and him a 67-delegate lead among pledged delegates.

Isn’t it nice to be able to breathe easier now, compared to then, with Obama’s relatively large lead?