The Ashford Zone Blog

I really don’t care about the sex aspect to the whole McCain story.  I don’t think it’s relevant.  But the whole influence-peddling thing is troublesome.

And now, McCain’s got a problem with his story.  From Newsweek:

On Wednesday night, the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman’s clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times’ story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff–and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement emailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the September 25, 2002 deposition obtained by Newsweek. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

This one would have been interesting.

Here’s a roundup:

* Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic: The Debate Belongs To Obama, But The Best (And) Last Moment Belongs To Hillary.  The "last moment" refers to Hillary’s last answer:

Talk about a final answer.

"She was blessed" to "give others the same opportunities that I take for granted. That’s why I get up in the morning. That’s what motivates me for this campaign. No matter what happens in this contest, and I am honored to be here with Barack Obama… whatever happens, we’re going to be fine. I just hope that we’ll be able to say the same thing about the American people."

I guess you had to see it.  I think it’s nice, but not standing-o worthy.

* Josh Marshall looks at "that line" from Hillary as well, and notes that it echoes what Bill Clinton said in 1992, i.e.

"The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time."

* John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "I thought they both did quite well tonight outside the line above. Debating is a very good platform for Hillary and she shined—especially her closing statement, but so did Barack. This used to be a weakness for him in my mind, but he’s improved dramatically and is quite comfortable going one on one."

* CNN analysis: Clinton likely didn’t slow Obama’s momentum

* MyDD‘s Glenn Smith: "Nothing happened that will change whatever is going to happen anyway in the March 4 primary. Everyone assumed Clinton would try to knock Obama down a peg, throw him off his game, do something that would generate at least a fews days worth of news. There wasn’t even one day worth of news generated [by the debate]. In that sense, Obama succeeded at his task. Clinton didn’t."

* The Atlantic‘s Matthew Yglesias: "If [HRC] was still the front-runner, this would have counted as a clear Clinton win — Obama had some good moments, but her ability to rattle off policy details on the fly really comes through whereas Obama needs to pause to think. But she’s not the front-runner anymore, and it’s hard to see anything she did to make up lost ground."

* AMERICAblog‘s Joe Sudbay: "Clinton needed more. Her campaign made a very big deal about the debates — as if she would dominate. She didn’t get the boost we were led to believe she needed."

*Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice: "It proved to be largely a studious debate that was surprisingly (and refreshingly) issue-oriented. Clinton’s home run didn’t quite materialize but she gave an answer about adversity that brought the crowd to its feet — but it is unlikely to prove to have been a major vote-changing, election-turning response."

* TNR’s The Plank: "I think …all the television analysis is basically correct: Obama had a very good debate and kept his momentum despite Clinton’s marvelous final answer. I would just add that there were a couple of moments where Obama’s cockiness was extremely off-putting. His comment about "very good" speeches was tonally wrong, and he needs to stop saying "I was right" about matters of foreign policy (especially when the subject is murky questions like what to do about Pakistan). Still, it’s probably fortunate for him that the main soundbite from the night will be Hillary’s attack on the plagiarism charge, which fell very flat."

* The Nation: "In tonight’s CNN-Univision debate, Hillary Clinton personified the empathy of Franklin Roosevelt, while Barack Obama invoked the new spirit of John F. Kennedy. I thought Clinton excelled with her wrap-up statement, which led to a standing ovation. She succeeded in expressing a deep empathy for working families.

"Obama won on the issues of Cuba and Iraq, and held his own on healthcare against her severe attacks. They seemed equal on their opening statements, on what they would do on Day One, Mexican-American issues and Bush earmarks. Once again, Clinton’s attacks seemed to bounce right off Obama.

"Clinton’s performance might re-ignite her campaign, but it also could be a memorable farewell, a dignity in defeat, for which she will be well remembered and honored."

Meanwhile….

That’s a deadlock.  In Ohio, Clinton is up by about seven.

Just sayin…

Oh, and Dick, there are other parts to the Constitution.

UPDATE:  Ah, he’s a Free State whacko.

UPDATE:  Found a pic

UPDATE:  Feeling ornery, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Concord Monitor:

In his editorial dated February 20, 2008 entitled "Legally, A Woman Can’t be Elected President", former NH legislator Dick Marple makes a bold argument: that the 19th Amendment, which brought about women’s sufferage, "did not identify women to be qualified to become elected president."

He’s quite correct.  To that I would add, the Second Amendment (the "right to bear arms") also does not grant woman the qualification to become president.  Trust me, I looked.  I read it closely — it just ain’t there.

In fact, carefully scrutiny of the entire U.S. Constitution reveals the same result: nowhere does it specifically say that women are qualified to be President. 

True — Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives a few requirements for presidential office: the "person" must be a U.S. citizen (or a natural born citizen), must be 35 or older, etc.  But nowhere does it specifically say that a *woman* can be President. 

Clearly, the Supreme Court will have to resolve whether or not a woman qualifies as a "person", but until they rule on this thorny legal question, I advise caution.

I was going to write a tongue-in-cheek, smart-ass "Letter To The Editor" in response to Mr. Marple’s commentary, but then it dawned on me: there’s nothing in the Constitution which permits me to do so.  (The "free speech" clause of the First Amendment gets me close, but since it doesn’t specifically permit me to write a Letter to the Editor to the Concord Monitor, I guess am out of luck).

Still, here I am, writing.

Please don’t turn me in.

I don’t expect it to be published, but it was fun to write.

NY Daily News:

Get ready for a feeding frenzy, with the press as the sharks and John McCain as the bloody chum…

All that said, the political damage to McCain will be considerable. His lawyer and staff issued fiery denunciations of The Times last night and swore McCain never violated the high principles for which he is known.

The campaign also said McCain would address the article today in a public appearance, but one aide said McCain would not take questions. That would be a gigantic mistake that would feed the media’s hunger and suggest a level of guilt. Like a suspect invoking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, McCain would be suggesting he has something to hide.

However McCain handles the story, it’s not going to be a pretty sight. Then again, with numerous surprises in the campaign so far, it’ll be par for the wacky course.

WaPo and Howard Kurtz

The Times has an on-the-record confirmation from John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, regarding an aide to the senator warning Iseman at a Union Station meeting to stay away from the boss. Weaver e-mailed that he arranged the meeting after "a discussion among the campaign leadership" about her…

The McCain/Bennett strategy, of course, is to make the Times the issue. The senator’s statement doesn’t deny any of the specifics in the piece.

As for the political fallout, the issue should be the confirmable facts and what they say, or don’t say, about McCain’s run for the presidency. In Bill Clinton’s case it turned out to be quite relevant, and he had sexual relations with that woman, and some others. In this case, we have two people who deny such a relationship.

And there’s over 500 other stories as well.

CBS: Starting Gate: McCain’s First Test

CNN: McCain denies inappropriate relationship with lobbyist

Houston Chronicle: McCain’s ties to female lobbyist in question

Seattle Times: McCain lobbyist ties ruffled aides in 1999

Bloomberg: NY Times reports on McCain link with lobbyist

Here’s my take on the whole thing, something I haven’t heard anyone suggest.

Let’s say your John McCain, the persumptive nominee for the GOP for the presidency.

You don’t exactly know who your Democratic opponent is, but you know it is going to be a tough battle.  It’s like to get personal; it’s likely to get ugly.

You believe that character and ethics will be an issue, because character and ethics are always an issue at some point.

You know there is this story about you and this lobbyist.  It know the other side (or the liberal media) will use it at some point.

When then is the best time to have this story — even if it is false — come to the fore?  The week before the general election?  The month before?

Nope, the best time is now.  Get the rumor out there, deny it, let people speculate, and move on.  In one month, it will go away.

Conclusion: I think the McCain people are behind this story, or at least welcoming it now (as opposed to later).

I also think it "helps" McCain in shoring up the conservative base.  I mean, even McCain hater Rush Limbaugh is calling out the New York Times.  Nothing motivates and unites the conservative base like the "drive-by librul" media.

That said, I think the AP version of the Iseman story touches on something less titillating, but less innuendo-based, and potentially damaging for real:

In late 1999, McCain twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Florida-based Paxson Communications — which had paid Iseman as its lobbyist — urging quick consideration of a proposal to buy a television station license in Pittsburgh. At the time, Paxson’s chief executive, Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, also was a major contributor to McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. McCain did not urge the FCC commissioners to approve the proposal, but he asked for speedy consideration of the deal, which was pending from two years earlier. In an unusual response, then-FCC Chairman William Kennard complained that McCain’s request "comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process" and "could have procedural and substantive impacts on the commission’s deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties."

McCain wrote the letters after he received more than $20,000 in contributions from Paxson executives and lobbyists. Paxson also lent McCain his company’s jet at least four times during 1999 for campaign travel.

In other words, McCain intervened in a federal regulatory process on behalf of a company, after receiving contributions and favors from that company.

Democracy for sale?

Sure looks like it.

Think about this:

The president who came to office with the most glittering array of experiences had served 10 years in the House of Representatives, then became minister to Russia, then served 10 years in the Senate, then four years as secretary of state (during a war that enlarged the nation by 33 percent), then was minister to Britain. Then, in 1856, James Buchanan was elected president and in just one term secured a strong claim to being ranked as America’s worst president. Abraham Lincoln, the inexperienced former one-term congressman, had an easy act to follow.

I don’t agree with those who are saying that Hillary is done, she’s toast.

I think the race is Obama’s to lose now, but he still can manage to do it.  He can still trip up; she can still cause him to trip up.

I’ll say one thing: the Obama people better prep their supporters before they go on national television.  More embarassing things like this, and the Obama glory will fade fast:

After another huge loss to Obama in Wisconsin last night (and Hawaii, although that was to be expected since Obama lived there), it looks like the Clinton campaign is going more negative against Obama:

ABC News has learned that a group of Democratic politicos have set up a new independent 527 organization called the American Leadership Project (ALP) with the express purpose of helping Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, beat Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in Ohio, and possibly Texas and Pennsylvania as well.

Free from campaign finance rules, ALP will not be legally permitted to coordinate with the Clinton campaign, but it is clearly intended to help her.

The group is targeting through TV ads, mail, and phone communications white women under 50 in the Ohio area — specifically Cleveland, Columbus, Youngstown, Charleston (WV), Wheeling- Steubenville, Zanesville, and Parkersburg (WV).

White men will also be a focus, and if there are any excess funds Latinos in Texas and middle class families in Pennsylvania will also be targeted.

ALP has developed three ads aimed at pushing the idea that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is a talker and not a doer — the ads are called “If speeches could solve problems" — and they will contrast Obama and Clinton on issues of importance to middle class voters, such as the economy, health care, and the mortgage crisis.

"Our purpose is to encourage audiences to look beyond the campaign speeches and political rhetoric to specific proposals to address these core issues," says an ALP mission statement obtained by ABC News.

The plan right now is for the TV ads to never actually mention Obama — rather, the statements about rhetoric vs. reality will go after him through implication, the contrast between Clinton and Obama already being so well-known.

I don’t think this is necessarily an eeeevil underhanded tactic (it is, after all, totally legal, except that I doubt the Clinton campaign isn’t involved). 

But I don’t think it is particularly helpful.  First of all, there is a mixed message.  You can’t say, on the one hand, that Obama is nothing more than a really good rhetorical speaker, and then, with the other hand, encourage voters to compare and contrast Obama’s stance on issues with those of Hillary.  That alone is a tacit admission that Obama actually does have a stance on the issues, that he is more than just a dynamic speaker.

And where does Clinton get the confidence that people will actually prefer her positions over his, assuming that they actually do compare and contrast?  I suspect that if people actually do the comparison, they’ll see that the two are not very much different on most issues.  So then it comes back to "who can get it done" — i.e., leadership qualities.  And that’s a heavy plus in Obama’s column (according to most polls).

On a larger scale, I think part of the problem with Clinton’s going after Obama is that she is doing it in a way which echoes how McCain is going after Obama.  Now, Obama criticizes Clinton, but not in a way that is destructive to the party, nor in a way which turns people off to Democrats.  And that’s an important difference.

UPDATE:  As unsavory as that is, this is even worse:

This morning brings the news that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has launched a new website where they are announcing how they are officially preparing to make the case that the rules of the Democratic nomination process should be changed.

Among many "facts" they declare are some accurate ones, such as the idea that superdelegates, which in true nomenclatural dexterity they now term "automatic delegates" "are expected to exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and the Democratic Party."

But then comes this juicy non-fact:

"FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy."

That’s not a fact, that’s an opinion.

And it’s clear evidence (not that there was any mystery about it) that the Clinton campaign is trying to change the rules in the middle of the game.

John Cole comments:

Don’t like the rules- change them. Isn’t that precisely what has been wrong with the criminal Bush administration the past eight years?

Ezra adds:

And then we get, "FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy." …

But it’s not a fact. It’s an opinion, and a wrong one at that. Indeed, you want a fact? "Clinton’s own senior adviser, Harold Ickes, voted as a member of the DNC committee to not recognize these two state delegations because they violated the rules of the primary scheduling process. Now as a Clinton campaign representative he’s making the case that they should count." There’s your fact: Hillary Clinton’s representatives helped make the very rules Hillary Clinton is now breaking.

Even more insulting is what comes beneath their "FACT" — lies, like the campaign’s contention that though Hillary Clinton was literally the only candidate on the ballot in Michigan, "she had no intrinsic advantage over her opponents other than the will of the voters." Right, and I had no intrinsic advantage finishing first out of 6 billion in the Ezra Kleinathon, even though I was the only individual on earth who competed.

Interesting….