Who Won the Debate? Depends Upon Which Candidate You Support

The debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was pretty tepid, but it was good (and important) enough to warrant analysis. Partisans will definitely think "their guy" won, and each candidate provided the other with sufficient ammunition to claim victory.

What McCain Didn't Do for Obama

The Democrats wanted McCain to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog. He didn't. Instead, he came across as a senior statesman, offering tons of personal stories about handling problems in the past and even regretting some decisions. Several media outlets are making hay about him not making eye contact with Obama. I guess I was too bored to notice that.

What Obama Didn't Do for McCain

McCain needed Obama to look unsophisticated and raw. He didn't. He looked convincing on the stage.

Surprising Moments

Obama had the audacity to renew his argument that going to war was a bad decision. I agree that it was a bad decision, but choosing Joe Biden, who voted for the war, as a running mate diminishes the force of Obama's antiwar critique.

I was surprised that McCain raised the "experience" argument, which had defined much of his campaign against Obama until Sarah Palin's selection. Palin has a very skimpy resume, and most people believed that McCain had discarded the experience argument. Well, it's back, and it is now coupled with "you just don't get it" or "you are naive." McCain has begun to usurp Obama's slogans and use them against him ("change" and "you just don't get it").

Missed Opportunities

McCain missed the opportunity to expose Obama's inconsistency with respect to the war (saying it was a huge error, but picking Biden as a running mate), and Obama missed the opportunity to neutralize McCain's experience argument by either mentioning Palin or somehow showing that McCain's experience is a bad thing. He did this with Clinton in the primaries, but he was unable to do that during last night's debate.

Slip-Up

Obama said that Henry Kissinger does not disagree with the President of the United States speaking with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without conditions." This actually came up during Sarah Palin's recent interview with Katie Couric. Couric did a "gotcha" on Palin, asking whether she thought Kissinger was naive (a charge McCain/Palin made of Obama) for wanting talks with Iran without conditions. Palin said that Kissinger, who advises McCain and Palin on foreign policy, does not believe this. Couric said that CBS had confirmed that he does. Gotcha!

Obama used the same argument during the debate, and McCain rebuffed him, saying that his "friend" does not support that position. Following the debate, Kissinger released a statement agreeing with McCain. Ouch. Well, not a huge ouch, but ouch. Turns out, he would support other governmental officials meeting with lower level Iranian officials, but not with either country's president, absent conditions. So this is the "Bush Doctrine" redux. Political scientists do not even agree what such a doctrine looks like (or even if it exists). Another failed gotcha.

McCain still cannot pronounce Ahmadinejad on the first try. Bless his heart.

Overall: Slight Nod to McCain

During the primaries, I watched the Democrats debate incessantly; so there was probably nothing Obama could have done that I had not already seen. I did not watch the Republicans during the primaries; so I was eager to see how McCain would perform. Although Democrats have portrayed McCain as a curmudgeon, he did not come across that way. This scores him major points, I believe, and makes any more argumentation on that issue look petty. Obama, however, did not look inept and raw, but still remains vulnerable to that charge, due to his relative lack of experience compared to McCain. Of course, if McCain emphasizes experience, then Palin becomes even more vulnerable than she already is.

I do believe that the public will probably declare McCain the winner, if they follow standards from previous presidential debates. As a good progressive, I was thoroughly convinced that Al Gore and John Kerry won their debates against Bush. Apparently, they did not sell themselves well to the public. Obama is his own candidate, but in many ways, he excites the same demographic as Gore and Kerry, but even more intensely. Highly-educated, coastal, liberal, professional types (like myself) will think he slaughtered McCain. To the rest of the country, he might have appeared a bit like a "know-it-all" (distinct from "uppity") and pious. Here's a message for highly-educated, coastal, liberal, professional types: you have to exit your own skin to try to appreciate this analysis.

These same portrayals tanked Gore and Kerry. In losing, they both were described as too bookish and self-righteous. Yet elite Democrats still seem incorrectly to believe that intellectual depth and nuance and the morality of liberal social democracy are winning arguments in presidential elections. If this were the case, then Gore and Kerry would have won, and Obama would be leading McCain by double-digits, especially given the tragedy of the war and the horrific economic conditions. The fact that the race is close should cause Democrats to rethink their presidential election strategies. Race has something to do with the closeness of the election, but it does not explain it altogether. The last two contests were close, as was Clinton's victory in 1992.

Although last night's debate was lackluster, next week's vice presidential debate could offer a lot of pizazz. The combination of Joe "Loose Cannon" Biden and Sarah "the Moose" Palin is too rich to ignore. Tune in next week for more analysis.

GET THE POPCORN READY: DRAMA UNFOLDS AS BAILOUT "DEAL" UNRAVELS

According to ABCNews the so-called "deal" in principle on the bail-out is unraveling. Both sides are blaming each other. Paulson apparently told Democrats not to "blow this up," while Representative Frank and Senator Dodd, both Democrats, say that the White House meeting was simply a charade to boost McCain's visibility. I imagine that both sides are right in blaming the other. The Republicans are likely blocking a deal in order to allow McCain to grandstand, and the Democrats are hoping that a quick agreement will emerge so that McCain will look irrelevant.

I have already argued that both sides are guilty in this matter, and I stand by that proposition. Frank and Dodd are captured by the industry and they, along with Obama and Clinton are among the biggest recipients of Wall Street campaign donations this year, while the Republicans have for a long time enjoyed a status as favorites to big business. Their tax cuts have augmented a budget deficit, which, though not the cause this current financial unrest, makes it difficult for the government to contribute resources to solving this economic crisis and tackling other social problems. Stay tuned, as more drama will likely unfold.

Bringing Back Welfare As We Knew It: My Indignant Take on the Wall Street Bail-Out

Bill Clinton’s 1996 "welfare reform" made him (and his wife) the enemy of the left and a hero to moderates and conservatives who apparently believed that single black mothers on welfare were the greatest threat to American taxpayers. Of course, AFDC payments constituted only 1% of the federal budget, and a majority of welfare beneficiaries were (and still are) white. Nevertheless, the "welfare queen" became a rallying cry for opponents to welfare. Welfare recipients, according to the royal rhetoric, are lazy, make bad choices, have ample opportunity for economic advancement, and are incentivized to idleness and pathology by governmental subsidies. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 required recipients to work, curtailed benefits to unmarried individuals (under the false assumption that marriage ends poverty), and placed a lifetime limit on benefits. By contrast, the unconditional bail-out for Wall Street, as it currently stands, marks a return to welfare as we knew it.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column questioning why the Bear Stearns bail-out failed to trigger a discourse concerning the pathology of Wall Street’s "welfare kings." See (http://www.blackprof.com/?p=2002). Although some liberal commentators have attempted to blame the present financial unrest on "deregulation," most financial experts believe that reckless investment decisions created this havoc. Historically low interest rates in the early in 2000s made it very easy for banks to obtain money to lend (at a profit). The wide availability of credit increased demand for housing which caused rapid price appreciation. Banks, wanting to fatten their coffers, engaged in reckless lending, using "creative" products such as adjustable rate mortgages and no-income verification loans to finance home purchases for individuals with poor credit ratings or "A-credit," but insufficient income. Homeowners used their homes as ATM cards, dipping into their equity to purchase cars and other consumables. Investment banks purchased mortgages, bundled them together as securities, and sold them as assets to investors wanting a fixed return.

Ultimately, market fundamentals could not sustain this excess, and the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to bring the market back to reality. Adjustable rate loans caused payment shock for borrowers, and foreclosures soared. Suddenly, mortgage-backed securities became risky and unstable assets, and financial institutions that held these securities or traditional mortgages began to suffer huge losses. Lenders refused to extend credit to holders of these assets or to purchase them due to their risk. Essentially credit dried up. Foreign sources of money also ran from the United States, exacerbating the unavailability of credit. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and other venerable Wall Street institutions hit the dust. And the story continues to unfold.

In response to recent events, the Bush administration has requested $700 billion to allow the Secretary of Treasury to purchase mortgage-backed securities from troubled financial institutions. The companies would receive "market value" for the securities (whatever that is) and would presumably have a better credit rating without the risky assets. In addition to infusing capital into troubled firms, this plan, if successful, would help stabilize financial markets, attract foreign and domestic sources of credit, and prevent steep economic decline. Because a private-sector solution to this madness seems out of reach, governmental intervention is necessary.

Still, we need to label this intervention honestly: it is a handout to people who engaged in highly irresponsible behavior. Not only was their behavior reckless, but they, as financial professionals, had greater knowledge of the risks and consequences of their behavior than the average homeowner, who lacks sophistication concerning financial markets and lending parameters. Although many commentators have bashed "sub-prime" borrowers, which I view as the new "welfare queens" (http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.blackprof.com/?p=2002)) they have not similarly critiqued the companies which had the capital and power to create the current situation – and the financial expertise to avoid it!

The fact that this problem has intensified during a presidential election makes things even more dramatic. Democrats and Republicans are rightfully calling for more conditions placed on the receipt of federal money (and this seems inevitable). Hillary Clinton has even proposed that the government purchase individual mortgages and reiussue them to distressed homeowners under more favorable terms; a similar course of action took place during the Great Depression. But neither side can claim "clean hands" on this issue -- although Democrats have tried to do so. Liberals, in particular, have blamed the current mess on "deregulation," citing to several pieces of legislation, but most often, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. That legislation allowed commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies to consolidate. This statute, however, did not create financial chaos; risky investments did. Countrywide and Washington Mutual are strictly commercial banks. The former has already folded into Bank of America, while the latter is on life support. Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers were strictly investment banks, and they have both died. AIG is exclusively an insurer, but it too needed a federal rescue. On the other hand, JP Morgan Chase is a consolidated investment and commercial bank, but it is among the strongest of the remaining financial institutions in the country. Furthermore, Bill Clinton signed the legislation into law, and Robert Rubin (former head of Goldman Sachs, now Chairman of Citicorp), his Secretary of Treasury, lobbied for it. Democrats also voted for the measure in large numbers.

Recently, Obama called Rubin for "advice" on the economic crisis, and he initially chose James Johnson, a former managing director of Lehman Brothers and Vice President at Fannie Mae, to head his Vice President vetting team. Johnson resigned after the Republicans politicized his connection to Fannie Mae and his receipt of millions of dollars in "loans" from the troubled company. In the past, Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Christopher Dodd have both rejected stricter regulation of financial institutions, as has Representative Barney Frank. All of these men sit on congressional banking and finance committees. And Fannie Mae employees gave Dodd, Obama, and Clinton most of their campaign contributions this year. No one is innocent.

McCain has "suspended" his campaign, but, ironically, this move is just a campaign strategy designed to delay having a presidential debate during this chaos. Polls have begun to shift towards Obama during the turmoil, proving the old maxim that "it’s the economy stupid." Statistical data indicate that voters tend to blame the incumbent’s party for economic distress. Obama says the show must go on and that presidents have to "multi-task." That’s a great response to McCain’s gimmick. But at the end of the day, both candidates, as leaders of their respective parties, need to endorse the solution. Because it is an election year, expect to hear emotional (and nauseating) appeals to bipartisanship – so that neither side will become vulnerable to charges of "playing politics" with the solution.

Ultimately, both candidates will ceremoniously help craft and endorse the legislation, which will likely have some conditions placed upon the Secretary of the Treasury and the companies that receive governmental assistance. But I do not expect "the people" to benefit directly from the legislation, in terms of mortgage-payment assistance or reissuance with more favorable terms. Nor do I expect that the "conditions" in the law will involve things like job training for financial professionals, a lifetime limit on the receipt of subsidies, or other similar conditions that were all placed in welfare reform legislation. Welfare as we knew has made a triumphant return.

The Democrats' Palin Strategy: A Bridge to Nowhere!

On August 31, I argued that, in order to counter John McCain, the Democrats needed to respond seriously to Sara Palin and engage her public policy record and political ideology. At that time, Democrats were salivating and laughing over McCain’s supposedly tragic decision to select Palin as his running mate. Liberals ridiculed her as Dan Quayle in a dress, and jokes and rumors about Palin and her family spread rapidly.

Well, to date the Democrats have done a poor job handling Palin (and McCain). Rather than accepting Palin as a serious contender and confronting her on policy and ideology, they have instead treated her, at best, as political prey. But their attacks have backfired. Each new supposedly "embarrassing" media and liberal-blogger tidbit concerning Palin has helped energize Republicans and iconize Palin. This is a losing strategy, and many polls show that white women have dramatically shifted towards McCain, giving him a tremendous surge in national and state polls.

Instead of scrutinizing McCain’s policy agenda, liberals have conducted a fishing expedition, canvassing Alaska for negative information on Palin. But undecided voters need to hear a comprehensive critique of McCain’s social and economic agenda and the alternatives the Democrats offer. Liberals, however, have wasted their resources uncovering alleged book burnings, igniting baby-mama dramas, bashing the "Bridge to Nowhere," and (mis)informing the public that Palin has slashed special education budgets, that she was a member of an Alaska secessionist movement, and (most alarmingly) that she once endorsed the neo-conservative Patrick Buchanan! Were Palin a Democrat, this amount of digging would make Ken Starr proud. Perhaps the Democrats have forgotten that it took the Republicans six years of slinging to discover something that seriously damaged Bill Clinton, but he nevertheless remained standing. The 2008 presidential election takes place in less than eight weeks.

In the rush to discredit Palin, Democrats and liberals have come across as acutely unsophisticated. The scandalous information about Palin that they have disseminated undoubtedly enhances foot traffic and debates on liberal blogs, but it does not tell skeptical voters why they should prefer Obama over McCain. In fact, the frenzied attention given to Palin diverts critical scrutiny away from McCain and his policies. Furthermore, it appears that much of the liberal narrative against Palin is false or misleading. Yesterday, the nonpartisan and respected Factcheck.org released a comprehensive rebuttal of many of the most infamous allegations concerning Palin (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_palin.html). This embarrassing development will only reinforce McCain’s portrayal of the media as biased against Republicans.

Unfortunately, smearing Palin seems like a permanent campaign strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Democrats have already dispatched 30 lawyers and investigators to Alaska in search of damming items in Palin’s past (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122098190668515511.html?mod=opinion_journal_political_diary). Because 80% of Alaskans view Palin favorably, one could safely assume that the Democrats’ quest for campaign-ending secrets will probably end up as cold as an Alaska winter.

So what should Democrats do? Instead of engaging in trivial pursuits, they should adhere to their script that highlights the vital differences between Obama and McCain. They powerfully detailed these differences during the Denver convention. Since Palin’s nomination, they have been wandering aimlessly.

Palin is running for vice president, and that’s how Democrats should treat her. They have powerful arguments against McCain. His rigid anti-choice perspective deviates from mainstream public opinion. His tax cuts for the wealthy will only increase the gap between rich and poor and drain the government of revenue that could go towards balancing the Republicans’ record budget deficit and that could eventually help finance important social services that a majority of the electorate supports. McCain’s closeness to the Bush administration and its policies should trouble all rational voters. And while there is a danger in billing McCain as Bush III (McCain could write his own narrative – as he has been doing), this strategy is far more effective than unleashing bloodhounds on Palin. Furthermore, McCain’s sharp turn to the right allows Democrats to portray him as a "waffler," which always seems to work with voters. Their failure to exploit this vulnerability is inexplicable. Palin has mobilized the party’s conservative base, who feared McCain due to his prior moderate stances on some issues. But Palin is not running for president; McCain is (seems elementary, but the Democrats have misunderstood this basic point).

While Democrats try to destroy Palin’s star power, McCain the "maverick" has managed to co-opt Obama’s "change" message. A snappy rebuttal might sound like this: "The only things McCain has changed during his career are his policy positions and promises to voters – just to win an election" (not the most elegant stump language, but I’m a law professor, not a politician). The bickering over Palin keeps the Democrats from defining McCain, but it allows McCain to define the Democrats as petty and sexist.

Speaking of sexism, Republicans have cynically manipulated gender equality in order to woo women voters. During Palin’s first media appearance as a vice presidential candidate, she referenced Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign. Republicans have also (rightfully) criticized commentators who question whether Palin could serve as vice president and raise five children.

The latest gender drama – over Obama’s cheesy observation that even with "lipstick," a pig is still a pig – ensures that this campaign will remain surreal and insane. The commonly used expression was clearly innocuous, but in a new commercial called "Lipstick," McCain, demonstrating a tremendous amount of chutzpah, accuses Obama of sexism. Obama and other Democrats have just dismissed the entire matter, denying any sexist intent. But the Democrats seem more reluctant to talk about sexism than the Republicans. The antiracist and antisexist party – whose convention oozed with "diversity" – should market its relative strength on civil rights issues. In response to McCain’s Lipstick ad, Obama could have demonstrated how McCain’s conservative policies would harm women. McCain spoke out against the Ledbetter Act (he was absent for the vote), which would have reversed a conservative Supreme Court ruling that narrowly construed the statute of limitations doctrine in pay equity cases. Now, pay-equity plaintiffs have only 180 days from the original date of discrimination (i.e., when the illegal salary decision was initially made) to bring their claims. In most instances, however, a plaintiff will not discover that she has in fact suffered discrimination until it is too late to obtain legal redress. McCain also promises to appoint conservative jurists who would undoubtedly continue to rule against victims of sex discrimination.

Criticism of McCain’s anti-choice and pro-war stances, his refusal to develop a meaningful health care reform agenda, and many other of his policies would likely cause some women to rethink their recent shift towards the Republican nominee. By getting enmeshed in Palinmania, the Democrats are squandering the opportunity to demonstrate why undecided voters should run from, not towards, McCain.

Palin: A Roveian Strategy?

Most commentators believe that by selecting Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, Senator John McCain has made either the most brilliant or reckless decision of his political career. Palin certainly carries a lot of obvious risks. She is a first-term, young governor of a thinly populated, non-mainland state. Prior to that she was a mayor of Wasilla, an obscure and tiny town in that same state. Her academic credentials pale in comparison to those of the other candidates and of those who have moved on, like Clinton and Romney. Although web chatter has long suggested that Palin could make the ticket, most reputable political commentators rejected such musings as pure folly.

Well, folly has become reality. McCain's choice has shocked the media and blogsphere, and people are now combing through Palin's limited background to discover who she is. Currently, we have learned that she is a mother of five children, the youngest of which is a few months old and has Down Syndrome. She and her husband, who dropped out of college, eloped because they could not afford a wedding. She was runner-up for Miss Alaska, after winning the Miss Wasilla competition that year. She is pro-life and pro-gun, favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (unlike McCain), opposes having the polar bear on the endangered species list, and is under "investigation" for allegedly pressuring a subordinate to fire a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce and custody battle with her sister. She believes that public schools should teach both evolution and creationism, and she is unsure whether global warming is "manmade." Palin, like McCain, also has a reputation for rooting out corruption, even if it means challenging her own party. In Alaska, she is known as the "Barracuda" for her toughness, a name she first earned playing high school basketball. Like Obama, Biden, and McCain, Palin, a self-proclaimed "hockey mom," opposes same-sex marriage, but she vetoed legislation that would have prohibited the state from providing benefits to same-sex partners of state employees. And the information on Palin continues to emerge.

Democrats have generally ridiculed Palin's candidacy. The Obama campaign, for example, said that McCain wishes to put a "former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." The campaign later backpedaled from that statement and issued a new one praising her candidacy as indicating that "old barriers" are falling in politics. Representative Jim Clyburn likened Palin to Dan Quayle, Bush, Sr.'s intellectually challenged Vice President, who was constantly ridiculed during the 1988 campaign and during his term in office. After I learned of the announcement, I immediately emailed friends proclaiming that McCain had just picked "Danielle Quayle" as a running mate. Finally, Newsweek writer Jonathon Alter, who has been openly supportive of Obama, predicts that Palin's candidacy will "belly-flop."

Despite my own serious doubts about Palin's qualifications, I believe that the Democrats will harm their own chances in November if they continue to mock Palin and depict her as a lightweight. According to popular accounts, McCain selected Palin in order to siphon off disgruntled Clinton supporters from the Democratic party. Although Palin's praise of Clinton in her acceptance speech supports this assertion, McCain probably does not believe Palin will attract many of Clinton's supporters. For the most part, pro-choice, pro-glbt, antiwar, public health care-supporting women will not vote for McCain, regardless of their bitterness over Clinton's failure. On the other hand, Palin help McCain lure politically independent white women and conservative Democrats, who are either pro-life or who do not centralize abortion as a political concern. If these women are angry about Clinton,would like to see a woman hold high office, or cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man, then Palin might have even more appeal. A Gallup analysis indicates that while McCain has a large lead over Obama among independent white men, the two are basically tied among independent white women. In a tight contest, a shift of a few points among this latter group could make the difference, particularly in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Missouri, where Obama failed to attract many white voters outside of progressive urban areas.

Furthermore, Palin apparently excites Republican religious conservatives, who have always had a strained relationship with McCain. Although Palin's veto of antigay legislation suggests that she has moderate political leanings, her political record is indisputably conservative. Accordingly, Palin could help shore up support for McCain among evangelicals and other socially conservative voting blocs. This same group helped put Bush over Kerry in 2004 and could potentially work again this year. Early signs indicate that the Republican party's conservative base has responded warmly to Palin, citing her strong opposition to abortion. Furthermore, McCain has reported that he raised a whopping $7 million the day he announced Palin's candidacy. An emboldened conservative base could prove destructive to Obama in November.

Democrats should also retire their suicidal belief that the public wants a president (or vice president) with great intellectual depth. The last two elections refute that notion. And despite the parallels between Palin and Quayle, Democrats must remember that Bush and Quayle won -- and they might have won again if Ross Perot had not run. If Palin comes across in the debates and on the stump as competent and charming, then she may pass the bar set by the United States electorate. To the extent that Democrats construct Palin as a lightweight ex-beauty queen, an "adequate" performance could actually make her look impressive.

Finally, Democrats must avoid portraying Palin in sexist terms, or they risk angering and driving away women voters. Lingering bad feelings over Clinton make this particularly important. Some male television commentators and bloggers have already asked whether Palin, a mother of five, will have enough time to raise her family and serve as Vice President. I do not recall ever hearing a male candidate asked a question like this. Others have queried whether Biden will have to treat Palin softly in their debate in order to prevent being perceived as too tough on a young woman ("girl"?). Would the same question apply if McCain had selected a young man? Should McCain go soft with Obama because who is only two years older than Palin? Democrats must even address Palin's experience issue - which is a real concern - with sensitivity, because they rejected Clinton's critique of Obama's thin resume, and because Democrat John Edwards had only two years of Senate experience (his only political position) when he ran for Vice President with John Kerry in 2004. If Democrats can accept the limited political experience of Edwards and Obama, then why not Palin? On the experience question, McCain has clearly ceded this as a point of attack. Palin neutralizes Obama's weakness in this area, and McCain's latest ads have asserted that Obama lacks substance, not experience.

Perhaps McCain's attack on Obama's experience was really a Roveian ruse, designed to deter Obama from selecting a young, change-oriented Democrat as a running mate. Rove himself argued in June that Governor Kaine of Virginia was too inexperienced to serve as vice president, even though he has about the same political experience as Palin, whose candidacy Rove has now praised. By pressuring Obama to go for a more senior and "safe" Democrat, Rove and the Republicans could ensure that McCain would grab attention by picking a younger, charismatic, reform-minded female upstart. Furthermore, by picking Biden, Obama has neutralized a key component of his campaign: that voting for "Bush's war" demonstrates a lack of "judgment." Biden, like Clinton and McCain, voted for the war. Now, the campaigns will likely focus on who can end the war. The fact that one of Palin's sons will soon go to Iraq as a soldier will help blunt Obama's arguments that McCain will keep the war going for "100 years." It's easy to imagine Palin in a debate saying something like "As a mother of a son in Iraq, I want that war to end as soon as possible and will do whatever it takes to make that happen."

The Democrats had a surprisingly unified convention, and according to most pollsters, Obama enjoyed a nice post-convention bounce. McCain has grabbed the attention with his shocking selection, and we will soon figure out whether his gamble will work for him. As the public continues to scrutinize and debate Palin, the Democrats must decide to take her candidacy seriously, for she brings more to the Republican ticket than a vagina. McCain picked Palin to accomplish a complex set of political goals, including mobilizing the conservative wing of the Republican party, attracting moderate and conservative women, helping to put the maverick status back in McCain's brand, energizing his dull campaign, and re-awakening the beleaguered Republican party. Palin now faces the difficult, if not impossible, task of convincing voters in a very short amount of time that they should place her within a heartbeat of the presidency. She will have very little room for error. And while Palin's candidacy looks, at first glance, like a nice gift for the Democrats, Obama and company must take Palin seriously, or they risk squandering their opportunity to win. Whatever happens, the next two months will likely present many other surprises and moments of excitement.

Update: A new CNN poll shows that the race is a dead heat again. Presumably, Palin has helped neutralize Obama's bounce. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/31/cnn-poll-obama-49-mccain-48/

FORTHCOMING ARTICLE: "RACIAL EXHAUSTION"

Abstract

Racial Exhaustion

Professor Darren Lenard Hutchson

Washington University Law Review (vol. 86, 2008)

Contemporary political and legal discourse on questions of race unveils a tremendous perceptual gap among persons of color and whites. Opinion polls consistently demonstrate that persons of color commonly view race and racial discrimination as important factors shaping their opportunities for economic and social advancement. Whites, on the other hand, often discount race as a pertinent factor in contemporary United States society. Consequently, polling data show that whites typically reject racial explanations for acute disparities in important socio-economic indicators, such as education, criminal justice, employment, wealth, and health care. Echoing this public sentiment, social movement actors, politicians, and the Supreme Court have all taken a skeptical stance towards claims of racial injustice by persons of color and have resisted demands for tougher civil rights laws and race-based remedies. They have viewed these policies as: (1) unnecessary, given the eradication of racism and the prior implementation of formal equality measures; (2) excessive in terms of substance or duration; (3) futile because the law cannot alter racial inequality; (4) misguided because nonracial factors explain racial disparities; and (5) unfair to whites and a special benefit for persons of color. Adhering to these beliefs, a majority of the public has reached a point of racial exhaustion.

This Article argues that the public's racial exhaustion did not recently emerge, and it is a product of a hard-fought and successful battle against racial subjugation. Instead, throughout history, opponents of racial justice measures have invoked this discourse to contest equality measures and to portray the United States as a post-racist society, even when efforts to combat racial hierarchy were in an embryonic state and persons of color lived in extremely vulnerable political, social and economic conditions. To elaborate this claim, this Article examines political resistance to civil rights legislation and remedies immediately following the Civil War and during Reconstruction, after World War II and through the Cold War era, and in contemporary political and legal discourse in order to demonstrate the persistence of racial exhaustion rhetoric. This Article then considers how social movement actors, civil rights lawyers and theorists, and scholars interested in the interaction of law and rhetoric could respond to the persistent portrayal of racial egalitarianism as redundant and unfair by dissecting the premise of these claims, placing them in an historical context, and, if necessary, by strategically modifying their arguments to focus on class and other structural barriers that correlate or intersect with racial inequality. Despite the presumptive constitutionality of class-based remedies, political opposition to social welfare policies and the depiction of these programs as handouts to undeserving individuals - including persons of color - might limit the efficacy of economic approaches to racial inequality. Moreover, the intersection of race and poverty suggests that class-based remedies alone might not adequately address racially identifiable material inequity.

DOWNLOAD HERE: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1113563

Sinister Minister? Race, Wright and Obama

Many liberal pundits have begun to analyze the racial issues involved in Wright-Gate. Frank Rich of the N.Y. Times has a very extensive analysis that represents the general racial critique among mainstream liberals. Here's my take......
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Rich, I agree that race has shaped the public's response to Wright, but I have a few comments on your essay. First, you dismiss the 20-year association, but it matters. And it's more than a mere association. He performed the Obamas' wedding, baptized the kids, was a spiritual advisor, etc. That makes a huge difference (but race still matters).

Second, Obama has subtly manipulated race himself, which makes the Wright situation more explosive for him. Obama has run as a "post-racial" candidate (i.e., not Sharpton or Jackson). He has distanced himself from blacks in terms of politics and policy; he is a "safe" black. At the same time, Obama has "dabbled" in blackness to win black support. According to many accounts, he attended Wright's church in order to establish black, upper-class liberal credentials. With respect to his campaign, he describes it as "historic" (translation: I am black). In black churches he speaks in a folksy diction in order to appear "authentic" (a very problematic concept). His surrogates prepare "racism" talking points to agitate black and white-progressive opposition to the Clintons and to shut down any critique of him. But to remain "balanced," he peppers his speeches in front of black audiences with "personal responsibility" statements.

Given Obama's own manipulation of race, Wright presents a bigger problem for him than we have seen with other ministers. Wright proves that the post-racial, "I don't think of you as black," candidate associates with the "stuck in the past" black "racial victim" minister. He has congregated with Jesse and Sharpton's "brother." Whites are now questioning and reconsidering their support for him. Although the need to run as a post-racial black derives from racism, Obama has to stick with it or risk coming across as a "typical" politician.

Finally, Republican ministers are not political liabilities to Republicans because the party caters to racists, sexists, and homophobes. Its members do not disagree in spirit with the wild comments of neocon ministers. Although most elite Republican would never speak in crude language as Hagee, they are united in their social conservatism. They differ only in degree and rhetoric. Democrats, however, are not really committed to leftwing race politics. The difference is not simply one of degree and rhetoric. Obama's recently declining support means that white Democrats are equally as responsible as white Republicans for the existence of his racial bind. Because virtually all of Obama's white support was educated and upper-class, participants in this "white flight" are not necessarily poor and rural. Instead, they are likely include members of Obama's core base of middle-to-upper-class white liberals. Although upper-class whites have accused poor whites of opposing Obama due to racism, it is clear that white Democrats, regardless of class, want a safe post-racial candidate and are concerned about Obama's connection to Wright. So, even though the Wright "problem" stems from racism, white Democratic elites helped create it, not just rabidly racist Republicans and Reagan Democrats.