Check out this quote from the New York Post that's supposed to scare people from voting for Obama due to tax issues, "Right now [it] is 35 percent, Obama wants to take that to 39 percent . . . We're talking about people who make over $200,000. That's not rich. So it's actually going to impact more people than you may think."

$200k a year isn't rich?  Even in New York City itself, that's a pretty impressive salary.  Moreover, the bump itself isn't exactly huge.  If it were going to 50 or 60 percent, that would be one thing, but going from 35 to 39?  Even people who believe in the Laffer Curve [1] would have a hard time arguing that someone would be willing to work for 65% of their gross income but couldn't possibly be motivated for 61%.

Keep it up conservatives.  At the beginning of a recession, start arguing that a person making $200,000 a year isn't rich.  I'm sure that'll play really well among those working class voters that are supposed to be having such a problem with Obama.  Between this argument and McCain's attempt to push the Carter meme - a perfect appeal to those who became Republicans in the late 70s, but worrisome if he's having to work that hard for conservatives in their 50s and 60s - it looks like McCain and his supporters might be falling into the trap of assuming everyone is like them.  

"If we appeal to late middle aged people who make $200k a year, there's no way we can lose!  That's the vast majority of the US population, right?"

[1] By the way supply siders, note the word "curve."  That means that at some point the stimulus effect of tax cuts would stop working.  It's not enough to say that tax cuts can actually increase government income in some cases; you have to prove that we're still on that side of the curve.  Either remember that or start arguing that setting a tax rate of 0% will bring infinite revenue.  

Remember this debate?

When asked if the Iraq War was a good idea, worth the price we paid John McCain simply responded, "It was a good idea."  Moreover two of his potential VP picks agreed that it was a good idea.

There's a case to be made against a quick withdrawal, that it would cause an humanitarian crisis now.  There are issues that we can discuss over the correct way of getting out of this ditch, but I'm not handing the keys to someone who thought it was a good idea to drive off the side of the road, even in retrospect.  

A vote for McCain is a vote to leave foreign policy in the hands of someone who still thinks we made the right move by going into Iraq.  Can you trust him to decide correctly about anything else if he thinks that that was a good move?

So here we are in June.  The primary season is over and it's time to reflect.  For the last few months we've had a contentious internal battle over two candidates, and while some of it was obviously people who had different preferences, it's becoming even more obvious now that a lot of the anger has been fueled by Republicans who were hoping to gain by our feuding.

In a way, this approach was the mirror image of the Iraq surge.  Take your forces and engage your opponents in an attempt to stall their victory; the only difference is that this time you're trying to inflame sectarian fighting instead of damping it out.  In both cases though people confused the technique with the goal.  The reason why you stall defeat is that you hope that something good will happen in the meantime.  That's what keeps getting forgotten.

How did the invasion of the Democratic blogs go?  Well not too well.  The diaries here are showing that the party is reuniting, albeit in fits and starts.  The trolls are being forced to become more and more obvious, which means that their time here is limited.  In the meantime, their own party's deep divisions have been ignored over the months as tried to exploit ours, and since theirs are policy based, it'll be a lot harder to overcome.  Obama is surging in today's Rasmussen tracking poll, he's up in electoral vote polls, he's up in the CBS poll, his favorable/unfavorable rating in Rasmussen are 55/42, and the press is now starting to focus on McCain.  Moreover, the long primary caused the press to already release the most powerful weapons that could have been used against Obama, meaning that their power is already blunted. Even the whisper campaign ended up getting deployed in April which meant that it was already widely debunked in the first week in May.

Congratulations Republican bloggers.  You managed to win April and May.  Too bad the election wasn't then.

On my way to get some food today, I decided to put on the ol' Limbaugh show.  I had given up my habit of listening to the other side during the primary season because our infighting was so fascinating but today seemed like a good time to check out their views.

While I'm sure that you'll be shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that once again the Democrats managed to nominate the most leftist candidate in the history of the Democratic Party, much worse than the last guy Limbaugh claimed was like that, I was more interested in hearing what he said about McCain.  In short, Limbaugh does not like McCain and hated his speech.

The Republicans have a problem right now.  Their ideas have been tried and found wanting by the majority of the public, but the base still believes that they'd win elections if they just said them louder.  McCain knows that he can't win an election if he's tied to Bush, but his slight movements away from that raised the wrath of Limbaugh.  Halfway through his Obama rant, he just stopped and went after McCain.  Remember that the Republicans have had two months of honeymoon period already and their base is still not on board.

This is why I'm not too worried about our split.  The fact is that we were arguing largely over tactics.  Both camps have the same basic goals.  Sure there will be some people who just can't pull the lever for Obama, but that's nothing compared to the Republican base who outright hate John McCain.  

I think Obama and McCain will largely split the moderates.  Both have an appeal that way.  Beyond that though, the vast majority of the Democratic base is fired up by Obama.  The Republican base?  Not so much.  One day after the primary season, we're already more healed than the Republicans.  Barring a disaster, I think we do win the turnout game and therefore win the election.    Fingers crossed.

Time to flip another state on the map.  MO is now polling for Obama.  That's 311 electoral votes.

Crosstabs aren't too interesting.  McCain wins with men, loses with women.  Whites only have a 46/40 McCain lead.  If that holds, November will be very nice.  As always, Edwards seems to be the favorite VP nominee.  

I figured this is good news on the day that Obama clinches.

There were 4 other SUSA polls but none of them are flips, MA Obama +5 despite only getting 61% of Democratic votes, WA Obama + 16, OR Obama + 10, MN Obama + 5. What sucks about those is that it means it's not likely there will be another Seattle rally.

This diary was inspired by MSNBC breaking into their regular news cycle to cover a speech by Boxer/Schumer.  It turned out not to be about the race but rather about an environmental issue that they cared about.  

So what?  They got free coverage for a while before they pulled the plug.  This is a great chance for the Democratic party and the issues we care about.

I call upon Senators, Representatives, and any unpledged groups of Superdelegates.  Announce a press conference and say something like:

We would like to make an important endorsement today, but before we get to that, we'd like to explain the reasoning why we came to this decision.  It's all about SCHIP.

[10 minutes of talking about the importance of this law]

In conclusion, that's why everyone of us on stage would like to announce our endorsement...  of the SCHIP bill I will be putting out next week.

Now the press will catch on after a few of these, so that's why you have to mix it up.  The next group will be a real SD endorsement, but only after they talked about global warming or poverty issues or Iraq or how great both Clinton and Obama are.

We have a captive audience today.  Let's take advantage. It'll be fun!

The flip side to, "Why didn't Obama's team just give Clinton the 4 extra delegates?" is, "Why is Clinton's camp so hard over something that won't make the slightest difference in the race?"  Four delegates - at 50% voting power no less - is trivial.  That's not the real argument though, and compromising about that won't stop the complaining.  Why are those two votes so important?  It's all about the delegate slate.

What was Ickes constant debating point during the arguments?  Fair reflection.  Over and over again it was stated that it wouldn't be consistent with fair reflection to assign the undecided delegates to Obama.  If, as the other committee member stated, it was effectively moot, that undecided delegates would effectively become Obama delegates, why fight that so hard?  There are two reasons for this, one obvious and one a little conspiratorial.  

Keeping the delegates as undecided creates more work for Obama.  Even if all 55 of them went to Obama, he'd have to woo them and get them to go on the record as supporting him.  That would mean that instead of this being wrapped up next week, it could take until July for him to reach the magic number.  Moreover, there were strong rumors out of the first selection meeting that Clinton managed to stack the uncommitted delegate slate with her own supporters.  Research on Demcomwatch has gone a way towards reducing that fear, but it definitely exists in the Obama camp.  Why else were there the frequent questions about changing the delegate slate if they wanted to?

OK, there were issues with the delegates.  Why not just make the count 73 Clinton, 55 Obama and not worry about the extra 4 delegates?  There actually is a reason to do so.  One of the Clinton camp's last remaining arguments is the popular vote one.  Never mind that nowhere in any rule does the popular vote count for anything, and yes it's stupid to mix caucus states, closed primary states and open primary states into a bowl and pretend that they're equal.  It's just a way of talking about the nomination process that makes your case look better.  In order to Clinton to have a lead in this count that includes the caucus states, Michigan has to be included, giving 0 votes to Obama.  Changing the delegate count sends the message that the Democratic Party does not consider Michigan to be a valid contest, and according to Chuck Todd, people are "cautioned" not to count Michigan's popular vote totals.

That's what this fight is about.  It's about extending the primary season and raising legitimacy questions about the nominee.  No one is going to accept an argument about that though, so they have to make the case about losing four delegates.  If I'm Obama, I let the case be made for a few days and if it keeps going after he gets to 2119, publicly offer to have two of his superdelegates vote for her.  I don't care much about two votes and I don't think Obama does either.  What we do care about is having the nomination process be over so we can focus on McCain.  That's what this argument is really about.

...or why Obama is going to get what he needs tomorrow.

If you knew nothing about the style of the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination, you could learn everything about that just by watching how they handle the rules committee meeting.  

Clinton is a fighter.  She concedes nothing as she strives for the best possible outcome.  It can be ugly to watch sometimes as arguments are abandoned and others that contradict the previous ones are suddenly promoted, but if you're not paying the kind of close attention that we political junkies do, it's not that big of a deal.  By attacking and attacking, she is an exciting person to support.  There's always a new line of attack and coming up with arguments to support the position keeps supporters energized.

Obama, on the other hand, talks about unity and compromise.  There's always lip service given towards trying to see the other party's position and view, even when you're rejecting it.  It can sometimes come across as fake, and it makes it difficult for him to be a hardliner when he needs to be.

While neither approach is superior all the time, the Florida situation shows why I prefer the compromise model as a way of winning.  Clinton has been all about the press release and the conference call, the statement of moral purity and the over the top analogy.  "Count the votes!"  "The election should count!"  

Obama's stance has been more nuanced.  Yes, these elections were obviously flawed by the way they happened, but let's see if we can find some way of getting the delegates seated in some fashion.  Here's what I'd prefer but maybe we can find another approach.

It's the nuance that's the reason that Obama is going to be happier tomorrow than Clinton is.  While Clinton's arguments have a clarity, ultimately they're severely flawed by an elephant in the room - the elections in Florida and Michigan were obviously flawed in many ways - no campaigning, voters told ahead of time that they wouldn't count, etc.  

The fight approach means that you have to ignore all evidence against your position.  You can't say that the elections were suboptimal because it undermines your case that this is disenfranchising.  However, that only works if you're arguing with people who already agree with you.  It doesn't move others to your point of view.  Ask someone in the Clinton camp about the irregularities of the primaries and they change the subject or question the premise that there was anything odd with them.  That can work with people who are vaguely following the news, but there's no way that that can convince a member of the rules committee who has been studying this situation for months, trying to find a way of resolving this.

That's the paradox.  By being willing to concede points, Obama actually makes his case stronger.  Showing an ability to understand your opponents point of view is the only way that you can ever find a way of coming up with an argument that will convince them.  Compromise looks weaker than fighting, but if you do it right - and Obama is an expert at just that - it'll produce the desired result far more often than not.  If you want to know why people think Obama will be a great President, watch his team tomorrow.  He'll give ground, make it so Florida and Michigan can walk away feeling like they've accomplished something, and yet still will get what he needs.  I look forward to seeing him try those methods on Congress.

Note: Mistersite made a good point in the comments that Obama is bargaining out of strength here. That's true now, but back in February it was far less so. Clinton could have scored delegate gains from the elections or managed a revote in Florida, but again her unwillingness to compromise led her to constantly suggest the solution that the voters had spoken and the votes should be counted exactly as is. Not only did that not get her a single delegate but it was the reason a lot of people moved from, "I'll take either candidate," to being in Obama's camp.