David Corn

At least one conservative Republican has come out and said that John McCain ought to denounce the Reverend Rod Parsley for his extreme anti-Islam rhetoric, and that's James Pinkerton, with whom I regularly appear on Bloggingheads.tv. Pinkerton, who was a domestic policy adviser for the first President Bush and who advised Mike Huckabee during his recent GOP presidential primary contest, says that McCain should reject the endorsement he's accepted from Parsley, a pastor at an Ohio megachurch who has said that it is the historic mission of the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed."

For more on Parsley's anti-Islam ranting and to see the reverend in his full anti-Islam glory, click here for the video of Parsley's attack on Islam that was produced by Mother Jones and Brave New Films.

Up to now, McCain has steadfastly refused to renounce Parsley, an influential political force in the swing state of Ohio. Doing so could seriously hurt McCain's chances in the Buckeye State. So Pinkerton shouldn't expect McCain to heed his advice. Here's Pinkerton and I discussing the matter:

This was first posted at MotherJones.com

Regular readers will know that I've been on top of John McCain for not renouncing the Reverend Rod Parsley, a fundamentalist preacher who has endorsed McCain and who has called on the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed." I was the first reporter to note that Parsley was an anti-Islam extremist. I did so after finding harsh and derogatory statements about Islam in his 2005 book, Silent No More. But after Parsley's bigoted attacks on all Islam--not just Islamic extremists--were exposed, McCain refused to criticize Parsley or reject Parsley's endorsement. His campaign would not even take a phone call from me. It obviously wanted the matter to disappear, for Parsley is an important piece of the campaign's effort to win the key swing state of Ohio, where Parsley leads a megachurch and is an influential player who can drive tens of thousands of social conservatives to the polls. Before the Ohio primary, McCain and Parsley had campaigned together in Cincinnati. And the McCain campaign, no doubt, looked forward to doing the same during the general election. Thus, it was all mum on Parsley.

But there's more than Parsley's book excerpts for the campaign to dodge. I recently obtained from Parsley's church a DVD of a sermon he gave--titled, "Islam: The Deception of Allah"--in which he reiterated and amplified the anti-Islam rhetoric in his book. Joining up with Brave New Films, Mother Jones has produced a video showing Parsley in all his anti-Islam glory and McCain heaping praise on him at a campaign rally in February. Here it is:

This is not a game of gotcha politics. Consider this: what message does it send to the Muslim world if McCain requests and accepts the support of a fellow who wants to eradicate Islam and also praises him as a "moral compass," "great leader," and "spiritual guide"? It shouldn't be tough for McCain to repudiate Parsley and his statements. Yet apparently it is, for he is placing politics ahead of straight talk.

For more on Parsley's videotaped sermon, click here.

Here's a posting I put up at the Mother Jones blog:

The morning after, the Clinton crew was unbowed. As Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night was being creamed by Barack Obama in North Carolina and eking out a narrow victory in Indiana, pundits throughout Cable News Land were pronouncing her dead, dead, dead. Tim Russert said the race was over. But when a reporter on the campaign's morning conference call, asked Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, if there had been "any discussions about not going forward," he said, "No discussions." And he seemed to mean it.

On the call, Wolfson, deputy communications director Phil Singer, and chief strategist Geoff Garin were forward-looking. They claimed to be "happy" about the 1.8-percent win in Indiana--but without sounding at all jubilant about the squeaker. As for North Carolina--where she lost by 14 points--they claimed "progress" there and pointed to the fact that she beat Obama among white voters by 24 points (as if the increasing racial polarization within the Democratic primary electorate is something to celebrate). They acknowledged that Clinton had in recent weeks loaned her campaign nearly $6.5 million--and claimed it was a sign of her commitment to moving ahead and, of course, fighting for real people. They repeated the campaign's call to seat the disputed delegations of Florida and Michigan, and they indicated they were ready to rumble in the upcoming primaries. Voters in those states, Garin said, should be given the ability "to express their voice." He added, "All we are doing is suggesting the process ought to play out."

In other words, damn the pundits, full speed ahead. It appeared that Clinton--faced with three alternatives: fighting on as if nothing has changed, dropping out, or planning a graceful exit strategy--has for the time being settled on option one.

But the voyage got a lot rockier after Indiana and North Carolina. As the cable news analysts pointed out, it is now practically a mathematical certainty that Obama will end the primaries next month with a lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote, even if the results in Florida and Michigan are included. So Clinton has run out of metrics. The days of fuzzy math are over. There will be no measure by which she will be able to argue she is the voters' choice. All the campaign is left with is an opinion: Clinton can do better than Obama against John McCain in the fall. Clinton and her lieutenants do have stats to cite, notably her performance among working-class voters (meaning, white working-class voters). She has demonstrated, Wolfson maintained on the call, "a proven ability" to win over these voters, while Obama has not. This is, he added, "the crux of the argument" that the Clinton campaign will be making to the superdelegates. And in the next primary states--West Virginia (May 13), Kentucky (May 20), Oregon (May 20)--Clinton will try to show once more that she fares better among lunch-pail Democrats.

So now Clinton, who passionately insists that democracy demands that the Florida and Michigan contest be counted and that voters in the last few states be granted the opportunity to state their preferences, is left with nothing but the most elitist of strategies: she must convince party insiders--the 300 or so not-yet-committed superdelegates--to vote against the popular will of the voters who participated in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. On the conference call, I asked Garin whether his campaign is essentially stuck with a "nullification strategy." He disputed his campaign's game plan was anything like a "nullification strategy." All delegates--pledged delegates and superdelegates--have "equal moral weight in the process," he said, and the rules of the party "anticipate there will be delegates" who will make "good faith decisions."

That is so. But for Clinton to win, these superdelegates will have to say that they know better than the voters. It is certainly permissible under Democratic Party rules. But might such an action blow apart the party? There is no way for the Clinton campaign to orchestrate this strategy politely or calmly and wrap it up quickly after the primaries conclude on June 3. After all, no superdelegate commitment is solid until he or she actually votes at the convention. Even if Clinton is able to sway enough superdelegates and win the necessary number of commitments, Obama will not fold his tent and accept this as a deal done. He would fight for those superdelegates and, if need be, fight the process. There would be a bloody battle from early June until the first ballot at the convention in late August. Nullification cannot be accomplished neatly. Clinton and her crew must realize that.

I asked Garin if he foresaw any problem if the candidate with the most pledged delegates and the most popular votes was not chosen at the convention. "When we get to June 3, we'll have a very close result," he said. "This might raise the question of how close is close." He didn't answer the question.

Right now, the Clintonites are saying they're not bailing. But in for a penny, in for a pound. The only way she can triumph is by first persuading superdelegates to vote against the wishes of primary voters and caucus-goers and by then mounting an ugly fight that will last for months until the convention--a fight that would likely create consequences that would resonate far beyond the convention.

It may be full speed ahead for Clinton and her gang, but that's only because her finger is on the button and she is considering pushing it.

"We now know who the Democratic nominee will be." That's what Tim Russert said shortly after midnight on Wednesday, even while telection-watchers all over the world were waiting for the final results in Indiana. He was writing off Hillary Clinton. Done. Finished. Kaput. Whether she knew it or not.

A close win or a loss in Indiana, coupled with a resounding defeat in North Carolina, indicates that Clinton, Queen of Pennsylvania, is now the candidate losing altitude. The recent polls all showed her ahead by a decent margin in Indiana and closing in North Carolina. If those polls were on target, then somehow Barack Obama managed a late surge in both states.

But are Russert and the other pundits penning Clinton's obit prematurely? Does she have no choice but to say good-bye? She and her campaign aides immediately went into huddle mode--she canceled her appearances on the morning shows--in order to decide what to do now, as their cable news surrogates continued to talk up her chances in the coming primaries.

Given that it is likely that Clinton and her crew have not yet reached any decisions, a reporter or pundit can only at this point hazard a guess. And I would not count her out so quickly. Not that she has a chance. As the cable news analysts pointed out repeatedly on Tuesday night, Obama was racking up more delegates and more popular votes--further undermining any argument Clinton might be able to make to the superdelegates. But as I've noted before, the lesson the Clintons learned during the impeachment episode was this: no matter how bad it gets, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and ignore those calling for you to quit. The Clintons have defied the pundits before. They may give it another stab.

Will Indiana and North Carolina decide anything? In all likelihood, no. If Barack Obama were to cream Hillary Clinton in both states, there would be more pressure on Clinton to quit. But (a) that electoral prospect does not seem likely, given the direction of the recent polls in each state and (b) Clinton would still not leave the race. She would keep on going, hoping for another Reverend Wright-like development that would cripple Obama.

And if Clinton manages to win each primary--and a victory for her in North Carolina is way against the odds--there's no way Obama, who will maintain a lead in pledged delegates--will bow out. If there's a split--the likeliest of the possibilities--nothing really changes. Obama will argue that the math (and the pledged delegate count) remains on his side; Clinton will argue that Obama did not close the deal with Indianans, so she must press on.

That is, Obama will continue to have the better argument. After all, if Clinton were to apply her campaign's spin on Obama to her own campaign, she would have to concede that she has not closed the deal with a greater number of voters in Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Clinton is also heading toward a profound contradiction. In recent weeks, she has tried to depict Obama as an elitist and position herself as a pro-democracy populist. On the gas tax holiday, she's down with the people, who are hurt by high gasoline prices, while Obama is in league with "elite opinion" and--egads!--economists, who all are, no doubt, driving around in limos and laughing at the plight of working people. (Pass the Grey Poupon!) She and her lieutenants also constantly call for seating the Michigan and Florida delegations so that the votes of the people in those states count. And they insist that it's good for democracy for Clinton to remain in the race, for the voters in the upcoming states with primaries (and Puerto Rico) deserve a chance to participate. She's Hillary of the people and for the people.

But her ultimate strategy is one of utter elitism. She hopes to be able to persuade the non-elected superdelegates to support her and provide her the edge that trumps Obama's lead in delegates determined by the voters. So who's the real populist here? The candidate who wants the nomination to be decided by the voters, or the candidate who prays party insiders will determine the race against the will of the actual voters? Clinton the Populist is all for empowering the voters of Michigan and Florida and those in the upcoming states--all to keep alive her prospects of winning over the party elite. Once the primaries are done, the people won't matter for her.

How will she make that pivot? No doubt, with confidence and vigor, and without acknowledging the pivot. Her campaign is not about adherence to consistent principles. It's about winning. And when the primaries are done--and one day, they will be done--she will have to decide how far she is willing to go to undo the votes of the people.

During a conference call with reporters on Sunday, Clinton officials kept whacking Barack Obama for opposing Clinton's proposed gas tax holiday, insisting this was evidence that Obama just doesn't get it and is out of touch with common Americans. Clinton herself on Sunday compared Obama's opposition to the gas tax suspension to the opposition emanating from "elite opinion"--in what seemed to be an attempt to ignite an intra-party class war: I'm with the people; he's with the elites. And on the conference call, Phil Singer, the deputy communications director for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said that Obama

is not connecting with working class voters, real people and we think that's a problem in this election but its also going to be a problem for him going forward if he is the nominee.

Wait-a-minute. Was Singer suggesting that those voters who have voted for Obama--Democrats, independents, and Republicans--are not "real people?" Was he putting down the 15 million or so voters who have cast their ballot for Obama?

Clinton has been credibly accused of once having said "screw 'em," in reference to working-class white voters. But now that her campaign in recent primaries has fared well among this bloc of voters, she is going all-out to woo 'em and to elevate them to the most important group of voters in the entire universe. At the same time, Hillary and her lieutenants are arguing that Obama is too elite (or effete?) to bond with these voters.

There's no doubt that blue-collar voters are important to the electoral prospects of Democrats. Ronald Reagan reigned because he was able to swipe these folks from the Democratic coalition. And Richard Nixon had his successful "Southern strategy," which depended on playing to the racial fears of white working-class voters. But this does not mean that the other parts of the coalition are not "real." Singer and the Clintonites are pushing GOP talking points (about "San Francisco Democrats" and the rest) when they suggest that only the blue-collar Dems are "real" people.

There are millions of Democrats--including many middle-class voters--who have supported Obama. And just as the Dems may not be able to win in November without blue-collar voters on their side, the same can be said about African-American voters. What if pissed-off black voters stay home in Cleveland and Philadelphia? Could a Democratic nominee win Ohio and Pennsylvania? Of course not. They're no less "real" than the Deerhunter voters of Pennsylvania.

Millions of Americans--millions of Democrats--see Obama as a leader and an inspiration. Clinton and her crew ought to be careful in dismissing them as not the real thing. If she somehow manages to win the nomination--which can only happen if she destroys Obama and then persuades superdelegates to overturn the primary and caucus results--she will need these not-so-real voters in the general election.

Elsewhere I recently wondered whether Barack Obama is slipping. And I observed that though recent poll numbers suggest bad news for him, it's hard to suss out the connection between the campaign narrative in the national news media (Reverend Wright! "Bitter" voters!) and how voters in Indiana and North Carolina decide for whom to vote.

No doubt realizing that a viewer of cable news shows might believe that Obama has lost altitude, the Obama campaign on Friday morning sent an email to political reporters (who tend to watch cable news shows) displaying various pages in Indiana that morning. Each newspaper presented stories that come across as favorable to Obama. Here they are:

Now there are few Indianans who read each of the four newspapers. But the overall impression one would get from these reports is that Obama ain't doing too bad. It's certainly a different take on the campaign than that presented within the national political media. And far more Indianans look at these front pages than watch Hardball.

But what about those tough polling numbers for Obama in Indiana? I suppose the best that can be said is that, one way or another, they won't matter after the votes are counted on Tuesday.

AN OSCAR FOR MOTHER JONES. Well not an Oscar, but an Ellie--which is the equivalent of an Oscar in the magazine business. On Thursday night, Mother Jones, my home base, won a National Magazine Award for general excellence. That's like picking up the Best Picture prize. My congratulations to editors-in-chief Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, publisher Jay Harris, and all the staffers who put in long hours to produce the magazine. Please remember to check out our daily website.

Quick--name an official task that was Hillary Clinton's responsibility last time she was in the White House? The answer is obvious: health care. It was a top priority for the Bill Clinton administration in the first years of his presidency. And he handed the mission to his two-for-the-price-of-one First Lady.

What happened next? We all know: an unmitigated disaster that set the cause of health care reform back for years. Hillary Clinton and her top advisers--in proceedings marked by secrecy and we-know-best arrogance--cooked up a plan that no one could understand. They bent over backward to accommodate the corporate community and miscalculated: Big Business ended up opposing the plan. And the common folks who the plan was supposed to help couldn't comprehend it--which meant they (and their elected representatives) could not fight effectively for it.

Flash forward to 2008. Clinton is fighting for her political life in a fierce battle with Barack Obama. She's pandering on gas prices, she's suggesting that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, she's pouncing on a remark he made to suggest he's an elitist, she's making a big deal out of his past relationship with a onetime 70s radical, she's accusing him of not being committed to withdrawing from Iraq, she's pushing reporters to dwell upon Obama's friendship with a developer indicted on corruption charges, she's pondering how to game the delegate system. And her latest ad in North Carolina, which holds an important primary on Tuesday, she repeats her claim that she is the candidate who can make change happen.

In the ad, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, a Clinton supporter, says:

These are tough times in America and I think that Hillary is the one we can count on to get the job done. She's going to turn the economy around, she's going bring new jobs, she's going to get some tax cuts for the middle class for a change. She's going to make health care available to everybody in this country, and she's going to do everything she can to help every child reach their full potential. She is so resilient, so determined. She knows how to deliver.

To which anyone with a skeptical view (and a memory) might say, "Hillarycare." Sure, she's racked up a few accomplishments as a senator. But she failed miserably on the biggest task she has ever assumed. She didn't get that job done; she botched it. True, it was a tough assignment, and the odds were against her. But if she's making promises now, her first attempt to "make health care available to everybody in this country" is relevant. (More relevant than the issue of her laugh.) Well, maybe she can get the job done on the second time around. Older and wiser, and all that. But her early-90s failure was one reason why health care disappeared as a political issue for so long. That's a reality that present-day campaign rhetoric can be measured against.

It's back to pander-politics. And unfortunately for Barack Obama, such tactics often pay off for pols.

There is little doubt that a federal gas tax holiday is bad policy. John McCain first proposed suspending the 18-cents-per-gallon tax for the summer months, and then Hillary Clinton jumped in, adding that oil companies should be slapped with a windfall profits tax to make up for the $9 billion in highway construction and maintenance funds that would be loss if the federal gas tax was waived for three months. Such a temporary measure would do nothing to address the fundamental energy problems of the nation. And Obama points out it will save the average American a mere $28 and, worse, it could cause prices to go up by encouraging more driving in a peak travel period and boosting the demand for gasoline. He's certainly right. It's no more than a Band-Aid--and, even then, not such a good stopgap measure.

But taking this egghead position has placed him in the middle, with Clinton and McCain shooting at him from different sides. Both are exploiting the moment to pound Obama further for being supposedly out of touch with common folks (i.e., voters). Clinton has been running television ads in Indiana slamming Obama for not supporting the gas tax proposal. The Republican National Committee has zapped out press releases blasting Obama for referring to McCain's gas tax plan as a "gimmick" and a "scheme."

So we're back to the perennial question: how mature are voters? Do they fall for the no-pain, quick-fix? Can they see through transparent pandering? The "First Read" gang at MSNBC had some interesting thoughts on this front:

Clinton is trying to harken back to the '90s and hammer home the "I feel your pain" aspect of the Clinton years that voters responded to so well back then. But the debate over the gas-tax holiday is an interesting one -- and it's a test of just how closely voters are following the campaign. Will voters respond simply on the pocketbook front and demand this gas tax holiday, despite all the downsides that many experts have outlined about the idea? It's the old "if it feels good, do it" (that Clinton and McCain have seen succeed for so long during times that pocketbook politics have dominated the debate) versus the intellectual argument Obama is trying to have (that usually is praised by, well, intellectuals but dismissed by rank-and-file voters who want their tax cut or gas prices cut). Clinton is trying to own this issue big time -- even running TV ads about it and constantly criticizing Obama for not supporting the gas-tax holiday. Obama's criticism of McCain's plan and Clinton's are accurate. The only problem is it leaves voters saying, "Ok, it's a gimmick; so what's your proposal? This feels like Clinton v. Tsongas '92. But the electorate acts as if its more informed than it was 16 years ago, and also could be a bit more distrustful of government handouts than in the past. Regardless, one could argue that the Clinton-Obama debate over this issue sums up their candidacies and potential presidencies. In this environment, which do voters prefer?

So as Obama has been tied up by the Wright business (and doing his best to respond to the recent Wright eruption), Clinton has been hoping to trump him in the I'm-more-like-you category. That is, like you, I'm damn pissed off by these freckin' high gas prices--can you believe what it costs to fill up?!!!--and I've got something to do about it right now. Her unsaid message: While Obama is dealing with all that black stuff, I'm fighting for you and am willing to kick the oil company in the teeth to save you a couple of bucks a week.

Will it work? Indianans and North Carolinians will tell us on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, John McCain's silly-named "Call to Action" tour hit health-care-land, and he traveled to Tampa to tout his Bush-like health care proposal. At the center of his plan is a proposal to provide tax credits to individuals ($2500) and families ($5000) that they can use to buy insurance.

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth Edwards blasted McCain's plan for not covering preexisting conditions, including illnesses experienced by Edwards (breast cancer) and McCain himself (melanoma). McCain, in his remarks on Tuesday, tried to address Edwards' criticism:

Critics argue that when my proposed tax credit becomes available it would encourage people to purchase health insurance on the current individual market, while significant weaknesses in the market remain. They worry that Americans with preexisting conditions could still be denied insurance. Congress took the important step of providing some protection against the exclusion of preexisting conditions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996. I supported that legislation, and nothing in my reforms will change the fact that if you remain employed and insured you will build protection against the cost of treating any preexisting condition. Even so, those without prior group coverage and those with preexisting conditions do have the most difficulty on the individual market, and we need to make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need. I will work tirelessly to address the problem. But I won't create another entitlement program that Washington will let get out of control. Nor will I saddle states with another unfunded mandate.

Translation: Edwards is right, and I now have no concrete proposal for addressing her criticism. Folks with preexisting conditions are just going to have to tough it out while McCain works "tirelessly."

What I'm curious about is how far those tax credits will go in helping individuals and families obtain decent coverage. Democrats routinely slam this level of assistance as insufficient. And that's what you'd expect them to say. What about a less partisan source? In February, on The Health Care Blog, Robert Laszweski, the president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates and former top executive at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company took a look at McCain's plan, and here's what he wrote about the tax credits:

The real question is, will McCain's plan give you enough to buy health insurance? With the average cost of employer-provided family health insurance at $12,000 a year a $5,000 tax credit will often come up way short--especially for higher age people and those who don't have the benefit of an employer contribution. High deductibles and [Health Savings Account] plans will help but families who don't have employer contributions should be prepared to pay at least a few thousand extra dollars.

He calls for the states to develop a "risk adjustment" bonus for high cost and low-income families to supplement tax credits and Medicaid funds. But just who will pay for this (the states alone?) and how it would close the cost gap is not explained....How will he deal with age rating, medical underwriting, and preexisting conditions? If McCain does not develop an individual health insurance market everyone can access, no matter how old they are or how sick they are, his scheme will fall way short.

In other words, no. McCain's plan offers too little for too many. So if your budget is tight or you've already been smacked by a bad disease, McCain's Call to Action tour will pass you by.