Camelot redux?
Barack Obama is going to run an aura campaign. As it has been from the start, it’s going to be a speech candidacy, a rhetorical candidacy, a JFK candidacy, the promise of another Camelot, Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger writes.
Listen here to Barack describing what it’s all about Monday in Indianapolis: ’I believe that this election is bigger than me or John McCain or Hillary Clinton. It’s bigger than the Democrats versus Republicans. It’s about who we are as Americans.’ That’s as big as it gets, Mr. Henninger said.
Will more than 50 percent of voters want a piece of this dream in November? Will the Rev. Wright specter be gone by then and the ’bitter’ remark forgiven? Sure. Why not? So long as the American mood sits in the dumpster, John McCain will have his hands full. The instinct of the McCain camp will be to compete for the unhappy white vote Hillary leaves behind with lurches toward Obama-like populism. That compulsion was already evident in the demagogic anti-Wall Street passages of his speech on the economy last month.
John McCain needs to find an Achilles heel in this opponent. It’s there — not the Wright mess but Obama’s dustup with Hillary Sunday on Iran, when he tagged her for ’saber rattling’ and ’tough talk.’
Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, collector of centrifuges, makes Jeremiah Wright look like Little Bo Peep. Yet this Tuesday Barack Obama said he assumes the American people will see it is ’not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies, like Roosevelt did, Kennedy did, and Truman did.’ In the here and now, a more apt name comes to mind: Jimmy Carter. …
If John McCain can’t talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?
Hillary’s missteps
Every time Barack Obama’s pastor got him in trouble, Hillary Clinton bailed him out, Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi writes.
After victory in Ohio, she invented the story of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. That reminded voters of the Clinton tendency to exaggerate or lie when necessary.
After victory in Pennsylvania, she embraced the idea of a gas tax holiday. That reminded voters of the Clinton tendency to pander.
In each case, she helped Obama change the focus from his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the country’s relationship with the Clintons. She squandered momentum from impressive victories by bringing back Clinton Fatigue.
Privacy issue
Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public, even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.
You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate, the wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired yesterday on NBC’s Today.
Asked whether she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Mrs. McCain said: No, the Associated Press reports.
The Arizona senator released his tax return last month, reporting he had a total income of $405,409 in 2007 and paid $84,460 in federal income taxes. He files his return separately from his wife, an heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.
Mr. McCain is routinely is ranked among the richest lawmakers in Congress, but he and his wife have kept their finances separate throughout their marriage. A prenuptial agreement left much of the family’s assets in Mrs. McCain’s name.
Backing Obama
David Bonior, a former Michigan congressman who managed John Edwards’ Democratic presidential campaign, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, saying he can fight for working people and take on Washington lobbyists.
Mr. Bonior pointed to Mr. Obama’s background as a community organizer in Chicago, the Associated Press reports.
That kind of passion and that kind of experience and that kind of dedication to change is really a very important part of my support for Barack Obama today, Mr. Bonior said yesterday in a conference call with reporters.
Mr. Bonior said he waited to endorse because he wanted the Illinois senator to prove he could take on Republican nominee-in-waiting, John McCain, in the general election.
He said the last few weeks were some of Mr. Obama’s toughest in the campaign. He’s shown great skill, great poise and great determination and spirit. And I was looking for that fight and spirit, and it was there.
Mr. Bonior, served in the House for 26 years, was minority whip — the second-ranking Democrat in the House — during most of former President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Barr to run
Former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia will speak Monday at the National Press Club, and the conservative ex-lawmaker is expected to announce that he will seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president.
About a month ago, Mr. Barr launched an exploratory committee and Web site to start raising money and building a campaign team. Next week’s press conference to discuss his future plans and the 2008 election was announced yesterday at his site, www.bobbarr2008.com.
Jonathan Martin at the Politico Web site reported that Mr. Barr will try for the nomination, citing a source familiar with his plans. The Libertarian Party meets in Denver on May 22 to pick its nominee.
But David Weigel noted yesterday at Reason magazine’s Hit and Run blog that Mr. Barr winning the Libertarian nod is not a certainty, despite his being by far the best-known potential candidate.
Barr is the frontrunner, narrowly, for the Libertarian Party nomination — it’s been a close three-way race between him, Wayne Allyn Root, and Mary Ruwart, Mr. Weigel wrote, also noting that many radical Libertarians would walk out on the party rather than back an ex-Republican celebrity.
Mr. Barr, a former Republican, was the first House member to call for President Clinton’s impeachment and served as one of the impeachment managers (prosecution attorneys, more or less) for Mr. Clinton’s Senate trial. He left the Republican Party for the Libertarians in 2006, saying the GOP had lost its way on spending and civil liberties issues during the Bush presidency.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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