Supreme Court Momentarily Aligns with Good

There has been a lot of crowing over the supreme courts decision to reject the GOP's lawsuit against 600,000 newly registered voters in ohio. I have not had time to analyze the consequences in policy and law resulting from it. i do not yet have my law degree and i am not familiar with the gonzaga and Sandoval precedent referenced in the decision. i do have to say that based my reading the decision was based on a narrow tailoring of standing, a procedural issue. While the result in this case was something good i am suspect about the implications for the law. Limiting who may sue on a particular issue is a way to prevent people from enforcing their rights except in very limited instances. Think of it as a rule saying you are allowed to shoot back only after having been shot.

In any event it was certainly not in the interests of justice to force the sec of state to check over half a million names in under a week. Slight immediate victory for the good guys on this one.

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Will the media tell the ground game story?

The under the radar story of the election as far as the traditional media outlets are concerned is the amazing effort and dedication of the obama ground game. It gets references in passing but because it is not sexy or flashy has largely been ignored. This absence of national level attention has not stopped the dedicated organizers and volunteers across the country who have worked tirelessly to elect either Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain. The Obama organization will be one of if not the best in history but because of the way the election is shaping up that story may not be

The story of the ground game is not one alien to dkos, fivethirtyeight, or The Field Readers. These sites have dedicated a great deal to reporting on the ground game and how it is shaping up as well as its possible effects. Sean Quinn at 538 has been traveling the country reporting town by town city by city on the different campaign's efforts in the battle ground states. The Field has done, imho, the best work on the ground game available in the blogosphere and Giordiono's recent post sums up why he finds it so important,

There are ten thousand potential newspaper, TV and radio news stories in those numbers, and at least as many "reporters" in need of a good report, but as during the primaries, the commercial media are leaving the real story of the 2008 United States presidential election to a few intrepid online journalists and bloggers. When on Election Night they will raise their eyebrows and go, wow, just wow, how the hell did that happen?, it will be the Field Hands here, and a very few folks like Sifrey, like Sean Quinn at 538 and Zack Exley at The Huffington Post who will have documented the answer: It was the organizing, stupid!
...
See, the story of the 2008 campaign is not some media creation and caricature like "Joe the Plumber," but those Americans that have done more than "win" the media lottery by having a chance encounter with a presidential candidate. (I put "win" in quotation marks because I have the feeling this isn't going to end well for that Joe, as media scrutiny can be a knife with two edges.) No, the story of 2008 is authentically about "Debrah the Neighborhood Team Leader" and "Glenna the Neighborhood Team Leader," and "Joe the Organizer," and "Jane the Change Crew Chief," and "Jose the Phone Banker" and "Jasmine the Canvasser." The story is that of so many Americans that didn't wait for the media to show up at their doorsteps but stepped out onto the battlefield and did the heavy lifting.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

He is absolutely correct on just about everything in there. What i think he misses is that the media will not wonder at how obama won the election. The media will look at the polls, look at the timing of some national level events and write a narrative that fits. I already wrote one that is perfectly plausible and does not rely on the hard work of the ground game.

The problem with this election is that the way it is shaping up it could be a very big win for obama. In that scenario the media will not look to the dirty and gritty work done by those on the ground. they will not give the ground game the credit it deserves for registering and turning out voters because they will make the assumption that the extra effort made no difference due to national level events. They play no part in the ground game and so it cant be important. They will simply attribute the overwhelmingly positive response for obama as the natural outgrowth of the democratic enthusiasm without making the connection that this energy means nothing without proper harnessing.

If Debrah the Neighborhood Team Leader" and "Glenna the Neighborhood Team Leader," and "Joe the Organizer," and "Jane the Change Crew Chief," and "Jose the Phone Banker" and "Jasmine the Canvasser" do not get the recognition they deserve on a national level then true difference between Obama and McCain will not be understood. Obama was able to translate excitement into work while mccain and palin were able to generate this in Columbus Ohio,



(picture by Brett Marty of BrettMarty.com)

Described by 538,

It's fair enough. We're not their biggest priority. They probably assume if they haven't heard of us, how much exposure could photos of their huge phone banks with 40 phones and one lonely caller at their state headquarters three weeks before the election really get?

As for the field offices themselves, we told you about the closed one in Troy. We were ushered out by rent-a-cops in Toledo (the second time I spoke with Levine), and there was a pencil-thin mustachioed rent-a-cop in the HQ where we got that picture.

We'll keep trying in good faith to speak to communications directors and stop into field offices, and if they're fair with us, we'll be fair with them. The problem the McCain folks have is that their offices are empty, and why would you want reporters to do a story on that, or on obviously manufactured volunteer conversations? So, we're not optimistic, but we're not quitting. They'll have to say it to our face.

One lone volunteer and 39 unused phones. That might be one of the saddest images of the campaign and it tells the story in a way words just fail to convey. It makes me feel sad for that lone volunteer, who although i disagree with her vehemently in her choice of candidates, earns my respect for sitting there all alone to make calls.

Getting people to the polls, making phone calls, getting people registered, canvassing neighborhoods, these are essential elements of campaigns that the media overlooks unless the race comes down to a few hundred votes in one state. There is reason to take heart though.

We can push this narrative. Whenever someone talks about the election and mentions the poll numbers or media coverage you should talk about the ground game. when people talk about how mccain lost it the election instead of obama winning it talk about the differences in organization and hard ground level work. the more we push the importance of the ground game in obama's victory as opposed to debates or katie curic interviews the more traction it can get.

Pat Buchanan loves to go on tv and talk about the economic disaster like it is a black swan event and but for that McCain would be right in this thing. This is simply untrue. Obama has legions more volunteers dedicated to contacting voters and making calls, getting his message than mccain does. Reading Quinn's series only seems to prove that in excruciating detail. If there were legions of mccain volunteers dedicated to getting him elected they would not have been scared off by the economy. He still has 40%+ support generally among the populace after all. The truth is that the Obama ground game will have been key no matter the outcome. The ground game can be the difference between squeaking by and a solid progressive mandate.

The story of the Obama ground game is important because, while its primary focus was on electing barack obama, the registration, canvassing and data entry it performed is invaluable to the down ticket dems. The organizing done by the obama campaign is not about just him but about the democratic party as a whole. he put infrastructure in solidly red states as an investment in the future. that's an important story. eliminating the excuses of the congress members who refuse to advance liberal or progressive legislation under threat of filibuster or defection may disappear because of the hard work done on the ground.

I expect all of this to be lost on the media at a large. Whether it is or not you can carry the story about the power and importance of the obama ground game to your community. let people know that their efforts on behalf of obama where essential. That the media is oblivious to this says more about them than the people who spend time on the ground doing this organizing.

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SOFA Still in the works

I have to give the Bush Administration credit. They are really working hard to get this Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) done before the new year. The reported major sticking point has been iraqi legal jurisdiction over american forces abroad. that may be on the verge of resolution,

Iraqi officials familiar with the draft say it allows American troops to be tried in Iraqi courts for major crimes committed off base and when not on missions. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information, say it also calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June and withdraw from the country by Dec. 31, 2011, unless the Baghdad government asks them to stay.

this raises some interesting legal mechanics questions. The biggest i can see is that the Iraqi's will be able to demand extradition of soldiers from the US if they want to charge them for one of these crimes in Iraq. That may lead to a situation where a former marine or army soldier is discharged then charged by Iraqi's with a crime. He would have to be extradited from the US to Iraq to stand trial. That could be very ugly.

The second point to consider is the definition of "on mission". this will be one of the most interesting negotiations because a broad definition of on mission is likely to undercut the oversight clause. Once the language is revealed we will know whether this is a real agreement with major teeth for the Iraqi's or just a pr release designed to make it look like al-maliki won out over the united states.

It will also be an interesting procedural question as to how this is eneacted into law in iraq. When the issue of not making the deal in time first arose the deadline was july because any proposed deal had to go through the parliment and it appeared at the time that there was no chance of that happening should negotiations extend past july. Well, we are well past that point. Juan Cole had part of a post on this topic,

McClatchy is reporting that Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, is expressing severe doubts that any security agreement can be concluded by the end of the year. He tells Leila Fadel that even if its text were soon finalized, the agreement would have to be passed by the cabinet, by the national security council and by parliament in time to take effect January 1.

Hashimi is also worried about a return of large-scale violence at the end of the year. How the Shiite-dominated government treats the Awakening Councils or pro-American Sunni militias, which it is now assuming responsibility for, will help determine if the civil war returns.

The alternatives to concluding the agreement are few. Iraq could go back to the UN Security Council for a one-year extension of its mandate to the Multinational Forces in Iraq, giving US troops legal standing to perform security duties in a foreign country. Moreover, Russia may raise difficulties in the UNSC, in retaliation for Washington's siding with Georgia in the recent police action there.

Or the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, could sign an executive memorandum of agreement with George W. Bush in hopes that it would take on the force of law with time. Both steps have drawbacks. Iraqis are not eager to postpone their return to full sovereignty in international law for yet another year. And, an executive-branch memorandum of agreement could easily be challenged.

The nightmare scenario is that a US platoon gets in a firefight in a village and accidentally shoots up a house full of civilians, and are overwhelmed by Iraqi troops and police and dragged before the local qadi and summarily executed. Without a Status of Forces Agreement, it is not even clear that the Iraqi police and judge in such a situation would be brought up on charges; after all,they had just arrested and punished foreign "murderers" with no legal standing to be in Iraq in the first place.

As noted in the article the way to get this proposed agreement into law is not clear and every option has significant negatives. Stay tuned...

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McCain's last best hope for a comeback.

This idea is about as likely as snow in summer but hey, mccain really is desperate. His final move is to throw bush completely and totally under the bus. Run against him and the GOP for the last 18 days and pray people take him seriously.

mccain was at his best last night when he was laying out his maverick cred. people used to really believe that and i think many would like to believe he can be that again. To do this he needs something big but believable and just trashing bush, his legacy etc, may be it. Of course Obama is going to hit him on his voting history and past support of bush but he is going to do that no matter what mccain does.

The biggest card in this is to prosecute both of them for war crimes and to close gitmo. vow ot get the bottom of the corruption and to name names. Obama has so far refused to do anything like this and the public would probably be on board. It might even give permission to the right to stop towing the defending bush line. they need permission to throw him under the bus and mccain can do it with threats of prosecution.

Separation from traditional conservative orthodoxy was always mccains best hope. that he let the schmidts of the world lead him down the old path of smear was the worst decision of his campaign. I dont claim he would win by just turning bush into a pinata and he might lose the base totally but he is going to lose now. doing what he is doing is not working and this was the only thing i could come up with that would resonate with the general public.

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Into the Wilderness

The Republican Party and conservatism in general really is fascinating right now. Taking glee in their circular firing squad and subsequent cannibalism is going to bring a smile to the faces of many liberals. The election is not over yet but the all signs point to an obama victory and when that happens, on the scale it looks like it might happen, conservatives and the republicans are going to be as farther out in the wilderness than either party has been in the modern political era. The reasons are easy to spot.

When David Brooks wrote his now famous column excoriating the GOP for chasing away the people who demanded and respected ideas he illustrated the greatest problem with modern conservatism. Modern Conservatism as it has evolved has entered the last stages of its society, its civilization.

Picture them as a civilization where at one point there were a number of people inventing things. These people were advancing conservatism for the rest of the conservative society. A conservative enlightenment. They invented the backbone of the society in the southern strategy, tax cutting, abortion, gay rights, "patriotism", regulation bad. What have become the traditional republican wedge issues were once shiny and new. They were invented by people like Nixon and Buckley who were very smart regardless of what you think of their morals.

These ideas became the cars, the tv's, the computers of conservative, the houses. They were things that everyday conservatives used as a basis of their lives. Now however all of the inventors are gone. Instead we have people like Rove who do not actually invent anything but are good at using what has already been invented. They can use what they have but cant build anything new. So they stay in the same buildings, use the same tvs, use the same cars even as those start to get very old and to break down. Now though nobody is around to fix them. its the idea that everyone can drive a car but if it all went to hell not many people could build one from scratch.

The failure of the modern conservative to understand how to build new things, new ideas is exemplified in the McCain campaign. McCain is unable to weave the various pieces of conservatism that he has into a coherent economic vision. his failure in the banking and financial crisis is going to cost him the election. He had a certain set of tools left to him by the proto conservatives but they were not enough to deal with the situation at hand and so mccain has sunk.

So the conservatives civilization has collapsed like europe into the medieval period. they will be headed into the wilderness with the task of building a new society with new ideas. they need the big thinkers the inventors again if the want to get back into power. i doubt they realize this any time soon. every indication is that instead of abandoning some of the obsolete cars etc they are clinging to them even tighter.

I suspect though that there is a small number of national or state level republicans who understand the fundamental need to do something new. they look a lot like mike huckabee. Huckabee is at least someone who is putting out new ideas to frame the future of the republican party. Economically populist while socially conservative. we have to keep an eye on them while they trek off into the wilderness to restart their civilization.

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