Bill Clinton on the Rush Limbaugh Show

As some of you might have heard, Bill Clinton called in to the Rush Limbaugh show on the day of the Texas-Ohio-Vermont-Rhode Island primaries.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and Talking Points Memo, I have an MP3 of the interview with Rush's substitue guest host, Mark Davis of WBAP (a Dallas talk radio station). I'm going to transcribe the MP3, let y'all read, and make up your own minds about what the Clintons had in mind.

Mark Davis interviews Bill Clinton on The Rush Limbaugh Program, March 4, 2008:

DAVIS: It's a pleasure to welcome former president of the United States Bill Clinton, welcome, sir, I know you're proud to be out there for your wife, and what do you think her chances are today in Texas and Ohio?

BILL CLINTON: I feel very good about it. I, ah, I have traveled all over rural Ohio going to a lot of small towns and places that are often overlooked but that are key to winning Ohio and, uh, in primaries and general elections, and I've done the same thing in Texas. I've been to twenty-eight different communities in Texas in the last two weeks, and of course made multiple stops in the bigger urban areas, in Dallas, in Houston, San Antonio.

I think she'll win here today, because she's run a great campaign, she's had wonderful Texas volunteers and people coming from every phase of her life from other states to help her... I think our daughter's worked hard here, she's done a great job, and I also think Texans don't like being told that they gotta get in line, that this race should be over. I think most Americans want it to go on, and mostly I think she's just come across as the person most ready to be President, most offering change you can count on in the economy and on the national security issue, including bringing the soldiers home from Iraq, so I feel good about it.

DAVIS: So many things have been focused on change and hope, obviously, Senator Obama sort of brought those into the lexicon, and Hillary's talked about being the kind of change you can rely on, the phone in the middle of the night ad- are you a fan of that ad, and is that exactly sort of what you felt you needed to do in this last week and say, sort of along the line of, "speeches are great, but who do you want in the Oval Office if crisis should strike?"

CLINTON: Yeah, because if you go back and look at that ad, you know, it's not an ad which invokes fear. It's very positive, upbeat, um... music there- it's a very matter-of-fact ad that says that presidents get awakened in the middle of the night. I got awakened in the middle of the night a lot of times in those eight years.

And you, you have to make those quick calls that affect the national security of the country but also the real lives of people who may be... for example... captured in Bosnia, trying to stop ethnic cleansing, or who may be involved in a political crisis in the Middle East, or in a tribal war in Africa, or other things, and I think that what she was trying to say in that ad was the absolute truth, which is that she is a seasoned leader who can be trusted with the national security and with the welfare of the men and women in uniform. That's why you've got about thirty former generals and admirals supporting her, that's why she was the only Senator in the United States Senate asked to be on a small commission to plan the future of the military by the Pentagon, and that was back when the Republicans were in the majority.

People know who have dealt with her that she is very good on these issues, very strong, very reliable, that she does not have a quick temper- she is got a solid sense of what needs to be done, and the decision making of a president under those circumstances I think is important- I think that that matters, and in that sense she's far better prepared to be president tomorrow than I was when I ran.

DAVIS: You need a big win in Texas, and in Ohio; Pennsylvania would be nice, if the narrative can shift, and if she can get some of that momentum back. How badly do you also need a do-over on Florida and Michigan- some way to get those, those delegations to weigh in, especially if it seems that things are going back her way?

CLINTON: Well, I think first of all that the Democratic Party really has to think long and hard about the million people who voted in Florida, because the Florida Democrats had nothing to do with when their primary was scheduled. That was a Republican legislature and a Republican governor. Secondly, the Florida Democrats were on record at the time as pleading with the Republicans to let them move their vote to February 5th. And they were denied.

Thirdly, Hillary clearly followed the rules- that is, she only raised funds in Florida, she never did any advertising there, and fourthly Senator Obama DID advertise in Florida, for a week or ten days on television with a national cable TV buy. And in spite of the fact that he did and she didn't, she won a big victory there. I think if those people are disenfranchised, or are told they have to undertake the expense of another election, they will be very angry and they will feel that... you know... that it's not just the Republicans who disenfranchise voters in Florida.

I don't think we want to put Florida at risk. I think it is very interesting that the Republican Party caused all this- and they NEVER intended to disenfranchise all the Florida voters, 'cause they know they need Florida to win.

Now, in Michigan it's a little bit different because the other candidates took their names off the ballot, but they did it because they knew Hillary was gonna win, and because it was a way of saying, "Oh, look, we're on your side," to the other early states. Some resolution of that will have to be found. But I do think it's important to note that even there there was an aggressive campaign against Hillary funded and led by the local supporters of Senator Obama, and she still did remarkably well, so I, I don't know what's gonna happen. We need to find a solution to the Michigan issue, and I think if they work hard enough they'll figure out some decent way to do it.

DAVIS: Last thing, sir, thanks so much, there's so much history being made- we either get our first black president or our first woman president- if we get our first woman president, I know you get this all along the trail so lemme just give it to you as our final question, the first male presidential spouse, you have a great line about what do we call it- what to the Scottish people call it, the "First Laddie," I don't know what we'll call it, and I know you said you'll do whatever she wants you to do, and that's great, but surely you'll want to have some, um, some input, especially on foreign policy, you have been president, and what shape do you see that input taking, and the legacy question comes to mind too, sir, would you view her presidency as a proper adjunct, a proper addendum to yours?

CLINTON: Well, first let me say that I believe if she's elected, and if the Congress passes her plans for, uh, creating millions of new jobs through a commitment to energy independence and clean energy, and her healthcare and education proposals, I think the economy will produce new, more new jobs and more broadly shared prosperity in her term than it did when I had the privilege of serving as President- I think they'll have more prosperity.

So I think she will have her own legacy.

In terms of what I would do, I would expect that we would continue to talk about everything just like we have since the first day we met. And I would be willing to do anything I could to help on any front around the world or around the corner, so long as it did not undermine of building a strong team. A president succeeds in the end not only on having great personal qualities, but also by putting together a strong team. And you need a strong vice president, a strong secretary of state, strong secretary of the treasury, nobody wants to undermine that. But if I can help in any way on any specific mission, I will do that, and I will do anything I can to give the best advice I can, but I'm not gonna Bigfoot anyone on the team that's important.

I think that she has shown repeatedly in her career in the Senate an astonishing ability to make good decisions, and, and pull people together, and she'll do great, and if I can help, I'm THERE. And, um, I'd be honored to do that.

DAVIS: Mr. President, thanks so much. Politics are what they are, but the talk show host in me hopes that you guys are around for a long time in some form.

CLINTON: Thank you!

DAVIS: 'Preciate it a lot, sir. Take care.

CLINTON: Bye-bye.

Well... do you think this was a call for Republicans to cross, or just a generic media performance for the campaign?

Post-March 4th Analysis

I'm having a very significant revulsion reaction right now to the talking heads. The campaigns- all of them- are just repeating their same old talking points over and over, and none of them are willing to answer any questions that might challenge their position.

Yesterday was the worst-case reasonable scenario for the Obama campaign. Reasonable means that nobody expected Clinton to win 60-40 in either Ohio or Texas or better. This was as bad as anybody who watched the contest would reasonably expect it to end up from the Obama camp's point of view. They lost their momentum, ending a twelve-contest winning streak. Furthermore, they failed to defeat Clinton's big-state strategy- and thus failed to force her out of the race.

So far as I can tell this morning, Obama's rumored announcement of fifty superdelegate endorsements isn't going to happen. Bill Richardson's endorsement of the candidate ahead in the delegate count isn't going to happen. A Democratic party leadership intervention isn't going to happen. This race doesn't just go to Pennsylvania; it goes on clear to the convention, plain and simple.

The popular talking point among the media is that Clinton won by regaining her base of support, reversing the inroads Obama had made into that base. That doesn't explain, though, why that base went back to Clinton in Ohio and Texas.

Clinton's attacks worked. Beginning in the Ohio debate- which I didn't score, and in retrospect maybe I should have- and continuing with attack ads and insults and borderline slander on the stump, Hillary kept Obama on the defensive all week, resulting in nearly a two-to-one advantage among those who decided their candidate in the last three days (and a 60/40 split of those deciding in the past week). This especially hurt Obama in Ohio, where the NAFTA-Canada story allowed Clinton to misrepresent what actually happened as Obama himself double-talking on the NAFTA issue.

Ben Smith at politico.com also suggests that race favors Hillary; as many as one in five voters are still voting based on race, and Clinton wins that vote by a stronger margin than the overall result. The difference, though, isn't enough to change the outcome in yesterday's results, if the MSNBC exit polls are accurate.

Obama has to not just counter Clinton's attacks; he has to find a way to take the initiative. His attempt to attack Clinton on NAFTA backfired big time; never attack your opponent's weakness in an area where you, yourself, are also weak. Clinton has shored up her vulnerability on Iraq and is seen as the most qualified to keep America safe; Obama has to undermine this, especially since Iraq is the one and only issue-based advantage he has. He also has to demonstrate that he has experience and substance- an argument Clinton has been winning despite the facts.

Now, here's my own delegate count at present. It's looking like, at best, Obama will win the Texas caucuses by 55-45. Of course, those delegates won't be decided pro forma until June, three rounds of county and district and state conventions later. Despite that, I'm going to project that Obama gets 36 delegates to Clinton's 31.

That makes the delegate math from yesterday, by my best estimate (and using projections from various sources on district-based delegate counts):

OHIO - Clinton 77, Obama 64
TEXAS PRIMARY - Clinton 65, Obama 61
TEXAS CAUCUS - Clinton 31, Obama 36
RHODE ISLAND - Clinton 13, Obama 8
VERMONT - Clinton 6, Obama 9

MARCH 4 TOTAL - CLINTON 192, Obama 178

In other words, Clinton nets a total of fourteen delegates.

Adding these in to my own running total, I get the following totals:

TODAY'S TOTAL, PLEDGED DELEGATES: Obama 1,380, Clinton 1,236 (Obama up by 144)
TODAY'S TOTAL, PLEDGE PLUS ESTIMATED SUPERDELEGATES: Obama 1,574, Clinton 1,477 (Obama up by 97)

Now, looking forward, here's the good and the bad news. Bad news first.

BAD NEWS

1. Pennsylvania is a closed primary. That means that Obama supporters must register as Democrats not later than March 25. I'm going to go a step farther and make this prediction, barring a Clinton disaster: Obama loses Pennsylvania. He'll win Pittsburgh (narrowly) and win Philadelphia (strongly), but the rest of the state is mostly rural, mostly conservative, and mostly white, with a strong racist tinge. Obama has a definite ceiling in the Democratic race there, and I'm setting it at 45%. I'm predicting Philadelphia's 158 delegates to go 87 to Clinton, 71 to Obama.

Obama will have to dump a lot of resources into Pennsylvania to make it this competitive- and to avoid appearing to turn his back on what will be a battleground state. That will be wasted money, for the most part. For the moment Obama has it to waste... but he should set some aside for post-Pennsylvania contests, because he's going to need those contests badly.

2. Michigan and Florida may come back into play. The Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, has offered a state-funded re-do of the Democratic primary. If a similar movement comes up in Michigan, it will be difficult to stop a re-do from happening. Obama is not likely to win either state- Michigan is Ohio only more so, and Florida's results are not likely to change from the original in any meaningful way. Bringing these two states in more or less erases Obama's current delegate lead, if the numbers from January hold up- not just in pledged delegates, but in superdelegates who currently have no vote, and who are unanimously in Clinton's back pocket. My view is, if Michigan and Florida count, Clinton wins.

3. There's only one caucus left- Wyoming. After Wyoming, with only twelve delegates, the rest of the contests are primaries. Obama doesn't have any substantial blowouts coming to him. (I'm still predicting that racial polarization will lead to a Clinton narrow win in Mississippi, although I'll be very glad to be wrong.)

4. It is mathematically impossible for either candidate to win without superdelegates. Obama has, by my estimate, 1,380 pledged delegates. The goal to reach, remember, is 2,025. There are only 613 pledged delegates left, and Obama needs 645. It is now official; superdelegates will decide this election.

Now the good news:

1. Without Michigan and Florida, the math does not favor Clinton. There are only 613 pledged delegates left. What's more, there are only about (by an average of estimates) 361 neutral superdelegates remaining. That's less than a quarter of the delegate total currently in play (although, remember, the superdelegates can potentially shift at any time).

By my calculations, Obama currently needs 451 delegates (46% of the total number remaining) to reach the magic number of 2,025; Clinton needs 548 delegates (56% of the total number remaining). Clinton would have to win all the contests like she won Ohio last night and like I feel she's going to win Pennsylvania- and she's not going to be able to do that- and she needs to pull down a lot more superdelegates.

If you do away with superdelegates altogether and focus on pledged delegates alone, as the website ObamaIsWinning.com does, the magic number is 1,627 delegates. Obama needs only 247 of the remaining 613 pledged delegates to reach this number (40%). Clinton needs 391 (64%). In order to get 64% of the delegates, Clinton is going to have to get substantially more than 65% of the actual vote to get those delegates.

2. More of the contests remaining favor Obama. For a concise rundown, Hillary must be considered favored in Pennsylvania, West Virginia (rural, poor, bigoted) and Kentucky (ditto). Obama is favored, and pretty strongly so, in North Carolina (the second largest remaining contest, with 115 delegates in play), Oregon, South Dakota, and Montana. Indiana could be an even split (red state, adjacent to Illinois, v. large rural white vote and large "rust belt" constituency), but a poll from mid-February showed Obama with a 40-25 lead (and a massive undecided). And Puerto Rico, the last contest, cannot be called for Clinton, because...

3. All the heavily Latino states have spoken. The Latino vote has been pretty consistently 2-1 Clinton- with Obama's support coming almost universally from the youngest Latino voters. However, the one contest remaining with a large Latino vote is Puerto Rico... and Puerto Ricans are not the same, by any means, as the Latino vote here in, for example, Texas. Puerto Rico politics is vastly different, based on a combination of patronage and internal statehood v. commonwealth arguments. What's more, the governor of Puerto Rico has endorsed Barack Obama. Finally, Puerto Rico has a large minority of citizens of African descent. Puerto Rico could go either way, or split right down the middle, depending on circumstances.

4. Obama is still winning the money race. Obama is still out-raising Hillary; rumor has it, he raised over $50 million in February to Clinton's $35 million. If he uses his money advantage wisely, he can compete in more contests than Hillary- enabling him to take an advantage.

Balancing the bad and the good, here are my current projections for the remaining contests:

WYOMING - Obama wins 9 delegates, Clinton 3 in the final caucus.

MISSISSIPPI - Clinton edges out Obama, winning 18 delegates to his 15.

PENNSYLVANIA - Clinton wins handily, 87 delegates to 71.

INDIANA - Clinton closes a bit but not enough; Obama wins this neighboring state, gaining 41 delegates to Clinton's 31.

NORTH CAROLINA - Obama wins North Carolina on the black vote, gaining 64 to Clinton's 51.

WEST VIRGINIA - Absolutely overwhelmingly Clinton. I think the best Obama can hope for is what I'm giving him- an 19-9 delegate split in Clinton's favor.

KENTUCKY - Also strongly Clinton, but not quite as much as West Virginia, thanks in large part to Louisville. Clinton picks up about 31 delegates to Obama's 20.

OREGON - The Washington caucus was overwhelmingly Obama; the beauty-contest primary was an even split. To my mind Oregon is more liberal, and thus slightly more Obama. Obama gets 29 delegates to Clinton's 23.

MONTANA - A substantial Obama win, but not many delegates- Obama 9, Clinton 7.

SOUTH DAKOTA - Another Obama win, but one fewer delegates. Obama 8, Clinton 7.

PUERTO RICO - Your guess is as good as mine, especially since there are rumors that the delegates will be picked without regard to the primary vote. I'm splitting them evenly for now, giving Clinton the edge, 32-31.

Add all of these together and you get a pledged delegate vote (by my estimate) of Obama 1,686; Clinton 1,545. Obama beats Clinton by 141 delegates in the pledged vote, but just BARELY gets over 50% of the pledged delegate total. If all of Puerto Rico's votes go to Clinton, Obama still beats her and still gets 50%... but by such a small margin as to call it a tie.

Factor in superdelegates currently endorsing candidates and the overall totals are:

OBAMA 1,880: CLINTON, 1,786.

That's just under a hundred-delegate difference; that's well below the 2,025 needed to wrap up the nomination. Obama falls 165 delegates short.

Barring an overwhelming and firm turn of the Democratic leadership towards Obama, this goes all the way to a brokered convention in Denver in August...

... where the machine, the environment, and the tactics all favor Hillary Clinton.

Those of you who fear a repeat of 1968 have every right to do so.

Clinton: The First Defection

Today's news cycle is all about the apparent revival of Hillary Clinton's campaign. This revival is based on two things: first, her taking the gloves off and attacking Obama (again) for lacking substance and being unwilling to debate; second, because of new polls in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and two polls in Ohio (here and here) showing Clinton neck and neck with Obama in Wisconsin and up by very large margins indeed in the other two states.

First, it's no surprise that Clinton is going negative. Negative campaigning is the only tool in the Clinton kit that has ever worked for them. Positive campaigning cost Clinton his first re-election campaign as Arkansas governor; ever since then, both candidates have taken the low road early and often. Obama, however, has proven that he can rise above Clinton attack ads and speech talking points- indeed, he can use those attacks to win as he did in South Carolina and in a majority of Tsunami Tuesday states.

Second, the polls reveal nothing new except possibly in Wisconsin, where another poll showed Obama up by nine points only a couple of days ago. We know that the polls tend to understate Obama's support, especially among independents. Let's look at the Quinnipiac polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania- showing Clinton up 55 - 34 in the former, 52 - 36 in the latter... The poll, however, focused solely on self-declared Democrats- it did not include independents.

Most of the Democratic primaries and caucuses this year had an unprecedentedly high turnout of independents and aisle-crossing Republicans- about 25% of the total vote. Almost without exception these voters have gone two to one for Obama. Let's factor in those votes into the total, and we get an adjusted projection- Clinton still ahead, but by much less- of 50-42 in Ohio, 47-44 in Pennsylvania.

And that's before Obama campaigns in those states. His numbers always go up, and Clinton's down, in states where he campaigns personally.

So the reasons that Clinton was the big story in politics today- until Mitt Romney announced his endorsement of John McCain- are, all in all, pretty damn weak.

For the most part, though, they succeeded in drowning out the one genuinely interesting bit of news today, even more interesting than the Republican walking out of the House of Representatives just long enough to tell the press how tough they were on spying on American citizens and protecting telecom corporations from their own crimes... before walking right back in again.

Here it is: NJ Superdelegate Switches to Obama.

There we are: the first defection from Clinton's clutch of superdelegates.

The switch took a week: she first announced she was undecided on Feb. 8, blaming Bill Clinton's negative attacks on Barack Obama.

"I'm disappointed in a few things that were said a few weeks ago by President Clinton," she said. "I'm going to have to revisit what I'm going to do between now and when we vote."

. . .

Samuels, a member of the Democratic National Committee and the executive committee of the state NAACP, also said she was troubled by Hillary Clinton's comments that Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That's the first one out the door on Clinton. If she doesn't stop Obama cold in Wisconsin, expect more to follow. More may follow anyway, if her current negative campaigning backfires the way her first batch did in South Carolina.