Legislating, Educating: Obama as Community Organizer

September 7, 2012 11:00 a.m.

Whither the Democrats?
President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak on the University of Iowa Pentacrest today, September 7, 2012.

Five years ago, April 22, 2007, I had the opportunity to put a question to him at a comparable event in Iowa City.

It was a question I had put to a great many presidential candidates since the 1970s, starting with a series of television interviews I hosted, on through the quadrennial parade of candidates through Iowa City attracted by Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

It soon became apparent that most candidates for public office, including presidential candidates, have been asked so many questions, at so many events and interviews, over so many years, that few if any questions come to them as a surprise. The responses are smooth and designed to sooth, rehearsed and delivered as if recorded, played back from a tape cassette implanted in their brain.

The possibility occurred to me of having someone throw them a ball to see if they could catch it, or sneaking up behind them and tipping over their chair, to see how they'd react. Anything to get video of an unrehearsed response would be better than what was happening.

The producer rejected this suggestion.

Ultimately, I came up with "the question." In an Iowa City living room, it would go something like this: "Senator" (for they often were senators), "let's make two assumptions -- one, that you are, as we say, 'right on the issues,' and two, that you get elected. Why are the coal mines going to be safer places for coal miners to work? Why will the Congress stop spending our money for weapons systems the Defense Department doesn't want? Why will shipowners' subsidies be cut?"

It was, in short, a process question. It was not a "what are you going to promise us you will do?" question, but rather a "and how are you going to get it done?" question.

Almost all were totally flummoxed by the question. They had seemingly never thought about it before. Even Senator Hubert Humphrey, who was a friend and very effective senator I greatly admired, responded, "Gee, Nick, that's a great question. We need to talk about that. You come on over to the office and we're going to talk about that."

A couple came up with, "Well, I'm going to appoint good people to office" -- a response that made clear they didn't understand the problem. After all, I had been (as U.S. Maritime Administrator) what I would like to believe was a "good person in office," and had some sense of the limitations. Agencies of that sort tend to be covered by a pro-industry trade press, rather than general media. The congressional committees that determine the agencies' appropriations, legislation, and oversight tend to be made up of elected officials who come from areas impacted by those industries, and whose campaigns are funded by them. The agency's employees are wined and dined by representatives of the industry. (In the case of the agency responsible for monitoring BP prior to the Gulf oil spill, it turned out the employees were literally sleeping with industry representatives.) And although not true in my case, industry representatives often have easier access to the supervising cabinet officers and White House staff than the agency heads themselves.

No, unless "good people in office" are prepared to go along with everything their regulated industry wants them to do, they are going to be very frustrated.

In fact, during the last 40 years there have only been three presidential candidates who have at least grasped the question, the problem, and the possible answers: Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, and Barack Obama.

Obama's response to me, five years ago was, "Nick, I've been a community organizer."

Like many Americans' responses to many of candidate Obama's statements in 2007-08, I may have gone too far in breathing into that answer what I wanted to hear. I had visited with Saul Alinsky, whom even Bill Buckley recognized as "very close to being an organizational genius." I had gone through training at Heather Booth's Midwest Academy -- familiar to Obama.

I went away from that conversation five years ago with my personal vision of President Barack Obama as America's "community-organizer-in-chief." Yes, yes, I thought. He understands the problem. He has the insight that, as the saying has it, "When the people will lead, their leaders will follow." Or, as President Roosevelt put it to a petitioner, "I agree with you absolutely. We must do what you say. Now you go out there and make me do it." Or, as I have said before, "If you can't legislate, educate."

Obama has had the experience. He knows how to do it. He has already created and utilized the technology to expand the process from a single neighborhood to an entire nation. "Yes, we can."

Like so many hopes for change, it didn't quite work out that way.

Earlier this week I signed on to an open letter to the U.S. Senate and House Democratic Party leadership from 20 Democrats who had, in years past, served in the Senate and House, Executive Branch, administrative agencies, or other positions.

The signers, and their former positions, are: Senators James Abourezk, Fred Harris, Gary Hart; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Peter Edelman, Civil Rights Commission Commissioner Christopher Edley Jr., U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee Executive Director James K. Galbraith, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, New York Consumer Commissioner Mark Green, Texas Railroad Commissioner Jim Hightower, Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, U.S. Ambassador Derek Shearer, Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners President Stanley K. Sheinbaum , New York Governor Eliot Spitzer; Professor and MSNBC commentator Michael Eric Dyson, People for the American Way founder and TV producer Norman Lear, MSNBC commentator Ron Reagan, Rush Communications Chair and CEO Russell Simmons.

The recipients were: Senators Harry Reid, Daniel K. Inouye, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Charles E. Schumer; and House Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clybun, John Larson, and Steve Israel.

You can find the full text of the letter here: "Open Letter From Leading Democrats to Congressional Democratic Leaders: How Democrats Can Get Back on Offense," Protect Democracy, September 3, 2012. Meanwhile, these excerpts will provide the gist:

GOP rhetoric and policies [are] extreme . . ., e.g., climate change is a hoax, voter fraud is a menace justifying voter suppression, regulations only impose costs never benefits . . . and the American President hates America. Given such regressive nonsense, where are the Democrats? The surprising answer — often defensive, defeatist, and reactive. . . .

[W]e urge Democratic Party leaders to show leadership in at least three ways:

Frames: Let’s reframe issues so that platitudes and metaphors don’t pass for analysis. . . .

With Romney-Ryan’s unpopular views on tax cuts for the wealthy and “VoucherCare” for the elderly, now’s the perfect time to frame this election as between John Galt and Modern Family -– the 1% who believe “we’re all in this alone” (Sen. Durbin’s phrase) versus “everyone’s better off when everyone’s better off.” With reactionaries dominating the policy, language and financing of the GOP, the best way Democrats can win is to hit the gas not the brakes.

Record: A weekly RepublicanReignofError could explain what would happen if those running on a right-wing-and-a-prayer actually got their way. Not just facts but stories: . . ..

Ideas: Among the things that make Democrats exceptional is FDR’s axiom that we pursue “bold, persistent experimentation.” Where are the successors to Social Security, GI Bill, the Americans with Disabilities Act? To help Democrats win and govern, what can be our positive mandate?

I suffer no illusions that our letter was anything more than what many Democratic Party strategists have been thinking. But for whatever reasons, many of our sentiments were heard in the speeches of President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and last evening's address by President Obama -- among others. (In Iowa City, Obama acknowledged President Clinton's home run in Charlotte: "'Michelle was amazing. President Clinton made the case in the way only he can,' Obama said. 'Somebody emailed me after his speech they said, you need to appoint him secretary of explaining stuff. That was pretty good. I like that -- the secretary of explaining stuff -- "splanin."'" "After Conventions, More of the Same," Politico ("Reid J. Epstein reported from Iowa City"), September 7, 2012.)

Voting does make a difference, as we discovered in the South after the Voting Rights Act was passed and enforced. Once African-Americans were able to vote, and did so, they discovered a remarkable improvement in the city services provided in their neighborhoods. There are a sufficient number of poor, working poor, working class, and lower middle class people in this country that if all of them would register, vote, and support the candidates who will represent their interests their candidates would win every time.

Organizing remains the key to victory in 2012, as it did in 2008. I suspect the President will have something to say about that this evening on the Pentacrest. How Americans respond will make all the difference.

[President Obama and Cast of 8000; Iowa City, Sept. 7, 2012; Photo Credit: Iowa City Press-Citizen]
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Compassion and Experience

March 27, 2008, 7:25 a.m.

Compassionate Maturity
President George Bush has characterized himself a "compassionate conservative." However appropriately you may think that label applies to our president, we've had some evidence recently that the phrase, compassionate conservative, is not the oxymoron many Democrats believe it to be.

As general semanticists were trying to get us to understand during the latter half of the Twentieth Century, much of what we see and hear, and virtually all of what we say, reveals far more about what is going on inside that electro-chemical soup we call our brains than anything going on in the "real world" of space-time events "out there."

I was reminded of this the other day when I read the comments of Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Mike Huckabee regarding Senator Barack Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

As I say, neither comment tells us much, if anything, about Rev. Wright. Both comments tell us volumes about the contrasts between Clinton and Huckabee.

First, here is an excerpt from the story about Clinton's reaction:

"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking for the first time directly about the association between the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Sen. Barack Obama, said 'getting up and moving' would have been the right response to hearing the preacher's fiery sermons.

Wright 'would not have been my pastor,' Clinton said during an interview with the conservative editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, whose endorsement she is seeking. 'You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend,' she said."

Anne E. Kornblut, "Clinton Weighs In on Wright Controversy," Washington Post/The Trail, March 25, 2008, 5:15 p.m. ET.

Now read Governor Huckabee's reaction:

"Obama has handled this about as well as anybody could, and I agree, it's a very historic speech [Barack Obama, "A More Perfect Union," March 18, 2008]. . . . He made the point and I think it's a valid one. That you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't. Whether it's me, whether it's Obama, anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements."

"I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack . . . I'm probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you. We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie; you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant and you can't sit out there with everyone else; there's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office; here's where you sit on the bus.

"And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment and you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me."

Derrick Z. Jackson, "The black man's burden," Boston Globe/boston.com, March 25, 2008.

(Governor Huckabee earlier earned my once-every-four-years "if I had to pick a Republican who would it be?" award: Nicholas Johnson, "It's Huckabee," July 24, 2007 -- for many of the same reasons reflected in these quotes.)

Not incidentally, from Jackson's report Senator John McCain's reaction also spoke well of McCain: "John McCain, the assured Republican nominee resisted the attempt by FOX News's Sean Hannity to whip Wright's remarks into a pyre for Obama. McCain said coolly, 'I do know Senator Obama. He does not share those views . . . I've had endorsements of some people that I didn't share their views . . . My life has been one of reconciliation. . . .'"

In short, what we ought to be looking for are neither "compassionate conservatives" or "compassionate liberals," rather the quality of "compassionate maturity" in all of our candidates.

Tung Yin on "Experience"
I have written prior blog entries about Senator Hillary Clinton's assertions regarding her "35 years of experience" and why, she says, it makes her more qualified to be president than the experience of Senator Barack Obama. Nicholas Johnson, "Hillary's Lack of Qualifications," March 8, 10, 11, 12, 2008; Nicholas Johnson, "Hillary Makes Up 'Experience,'" March 14, 21, 2008; Nicholas Johnson, "Clinton Shouldn't Lie About What's Videotaped," March 22, 2008.

Yesterday [March 26] Tung Yin ("The Yin Blog") turned Senator Clinton's claims on her husband:

Experience to be President

If Hillary Clinton's main claim to the Democratic nomination over Barack Obama is her greater "experience" (in what?), then can we safely assume that she also believes that the country made a mistake in electing her husband in 1992?

After all, Bill Clinton had only been governor of a small state, while his opponent:

(1) was the sitting President of the United States -- itself no doubt the best experience for being President of the United States;

(2) had been a United States Ambassador to the United Nations;

(3) had headed the Central Intelligence Agency; and

(4) had served two terms as the Vice President of the United States -- a position at least comparable to Senator Clinton's eight years as the First Lady.

If you want to talk about experience, George H.W. Bush's record dwarfed Bill Clinton's . . . .

Tung Yin, "Experience to be President," The Yin Blog, March 26, 2008.

What Tung Yin kindly does not point out is that, however little experience Bill Clinton may have had to be president -- especially compared to that of the first President Bush or, I would add, Governor Bill Richardson -- it significantly exceeded that which Senator Clinton now has (insofar as her husband had at least the public administration experience, and useful knowledge of federal-state relations, that came from having been a governor).

# # #

"Least-Worst" Florida, Michigan Solution

March 15, 2008, 7:15 a.m.

Here's a 'Least-Worst' Solution for Florida, Michigan

Nicholas Johnson

Des Moines Register

March 15, 2008, p. A11
As president, Bill Clinton used to talk about those who "work hard and play by the rules." He and his wife are still working hard. They just don't want to play by the rules.

The Democratic National Committee's rules for this primary season -- agreed to by all -- were that the penalty for additional states moving their primaries earlier would be the inability to have their delegates seated at the party's national convention. Candidates were not to campaign or otherwise participate in such states' primaries. The nominee would be whoever got the most delegates (elected and super) from rules-abiding states.

Florida and Michigan gambled that their ultimate role in candidate selection would be greatest by violating the rules, thereby gaining the impact of earlier primary results in exchange for sacrificing the ability to seat their delegates.

Like the choice of "buy, sell or hold" in the stock market, it turned out they sold when they should have held. Their originally scheduled times would have given them real leverage. Now they're left raking through the rubble, searching for the "least-worst" way out.

If any delegates from those states are seated, it will render the Democratic National Committee and its rules toothless. But political opportunists don't find that troubling.

Sen. Hillary Clinton also violated the rules, by keeping her name on the Florida and Michigan ballots. (Even without Sen. Barack Obama on the Michigan ballot, 40 percent of the Democratic Party voters preferred "uncommitted" to voting for her.) She now insists "her delegates" from these uncontested primaries be seated. At a minimum, she wants a mulligan: "do-over" primaries.

But even those who consider politics a game acknowledge it's not golf. You don't take your mulligan six months later on a different golf course. Like trying to make a soufflé rise twice, asking voters to make a second trek to the polls cannot possibly re-create what would have happened had both states played by the rules.

And wouldn't it be a little odd if the "penalty" for violating their party's rules would not only permit Florida and Michigan to seat the delegates they expressly sacrificed, but to choose them in a do-over when the results will have the maximum possible impact on candidate selection?

Fair play aside, what would be gained by do-overs? If they only add to Obama's elected delegate lead, they'd change nothing. If they narrow, or reverse, his lead such that, with the super delegates, Clinton is able to snatch the party's nomination, it will be seen as unfair, old-style politics of the worst kind.

This would be precisely the sort of special-interest-funded, manipulative, do-anything-to-win politics Obama and his supporters advocate be changed.

How will the newly found independents and youthful Obama enthusiasts he has managed to turn out by the tens of thousands at rallies, and million-plus in caucuses and primaries, respond to such a result? They may vote Republican, third party, or just stay home. Undoubtedly, some will leave politics sufficiently disillusioned never to return.

Many, including me, believe the "least-worst" solution would be to go ahead and violate the party's rules, seat delegations from Florida and Michigan, but allocate those states' delegates' votes according to the percentages of total elected delegates each candidate has earned nationally in rule-abiding states.

Although this weakens the Democratic National Committee's rule-making ability, it welcomes the prodigal son-shine state and Michigan -- fourth- and eighth-largest in the United States -- back into the fold of the faithful. It avoids giving Clinton a second bite of an apple she never should have initially tasted. It is fair to both candidates, increasing the delegate count of each by the margins they actually earned.

And, not incidentally, it saves for the general election the $10 million to $20 million or more the party and its contributors will otherwise have to spend to conduct these additional primaries.
_______________
NICHOLAS JOHNSON, a native Iowan, former Federal Communications Commission member and congressional candidate, writes about Iowa and Washington in his blog, FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

# # #

Hillary Makes Up "Experience"

March 14, 2008, 8:45 p.m., 9:40 p.m.; March 21, 2008, 7:30 a.m.

[Add-item, March 21: An update today on this topic is both balanced and consistent with what I reported earlier. Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung, "Clinton's Experience Is Debated; While Not a Foreign Crisis Player, She Carried U.S. Message," Washington Post, March 21, 2008, p. A6 ("While Clinton's advertisements have boasted that she is best prepared for a 3 a.m. crisis phone call, the schedules contain no evidence that Clinton was at the table during major national security decisions. They do not list her as attending National Security Council meetings or joining briefings in the Situation Room. She did not have a national security clearance. And the documents make clear that at moments of major crisis, Clinton was often busy with her own agenda.")]

Senator Clinton's Claims of Credit for Children's Health Care Challenged
I have written earlier of Hillary Clinton's "lack of qualifications" generally, notwithstanding her very general and unsupported assertions of "35 years of experience" and "you know my record." [Nicholas Johnson, "Hillary's Lack of Qualifications," March 8-12, 2008.] Now it turns out that some of the "experience" she specifically claims may be at best wildly exaggerated, and at worst just flat wrong.

The Boston Globe reports today [March 14] that those who were responsible for SCHIP (children's health care) are irritated by, and factually refuting, Senator Hillary Clinton's campaigning on, and repeatedly taking credit for, the program the White House actually opposed while she was living there. Susan Milligan, "Clinton Role in Health Program Disputed," The Boston Globe, March 14, 2008. (Candidate Clinton's Web site says that, as First Lady, "She was instrumental in designing and championing" the program.)

Rather than summarize or comment about the Globe's story, I'll just provide some brief excerpts and let them speak for themselves.

This is apparently something of a pattern for Senator Hillary Clinton. Following the Globe story are some excerpts from Time magazine's take on two additional examples of her exaggerating her "accomplishments" in Ireland and Kosovo.

# # #

Clinton Role in Health Program Disputed

By Susan Milligan

The Boston Globe

March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton, who has frequently described herself on the campaign trail as playing a pivotal role in forging a children's health insurance plan, had little to do with crafting the landmark legislation or ushering it through Congress, according to several lawmakers, staffers, and healthcare advocates involved in the issue.

In campaign speeches, Clinton describes the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, as an initiative "I helped to start." Addressing Iowa voters in November, Clinton said, "in 1997, I joined forces with members of Congress and we passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program." Clinton regularly cites the number of children in each state who are covered by the program, and mothers of sick children have appeared at Clinton campaign rallies to thank her.

But the Clinton White House, while supportive of the idea of expanding children's health, fought the first SCHIP effort, spearheaded by Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah . . .. And several current and former lawmakers and staff said Hillary Clinton had no role in helping to write the congressional legislation, which grew out of a similar program approved in Massachusetts in 1996.

"The White House wasn't for it. We really roughed them up" in trying to get it approved over the Clinton administration's objections, Hatch said in an interview. "She may have done some advocacy [privately] over at the White House, but I'm not aware of it."

. . . "We all care about children. But does she deserve credit for SCHIP? No . . .."

. . . Hatch, a longtime Kennedy friend, said he didn't want to criticize Clinton, but felt that the record should be set straight about how the SCHIP program was developed. . . .

[P]rivately, some lawmakers and staff members are fuming over what they see as Clinton's exaggeration of her role in developing SCHIP, including her campaign ads claiming she "helped create" the program. The irritation has grown since Nov. 1, when Clinton . . . missed a Senate vote to extend the SCHIP program . . ..

Kennedy said he patterned the SCHIP plan on a similar program Massachusetts had approved in 1996. Kennedy's account was backed up by two Bay State healthcare advocates who met with Kennedy in Boston to discuss the possibility of taking the idea nationwide: Dr. Barry Zuckerman, director of pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, and John McDonough, then a Democratic state legislator and now the executive director of Health Care for All, a healthcare advocacy group.

. . . McDonough, a Democrat who has not endorsed a presidential candidate, also said it was Kennedy who developed the SCHIP idea after that meeting. "I don't recall any signs of Mrs. Clinton's engagement," McDonough said. "[I]t . . . is demonstrably not the case" that she was driving the effort, he said.

After meeting Zuckerman and McDonough, Kennedy sought out Hatch, and the two worked on the bill together, offering it as an amendment to a budget resolution. But President Clinton - much to the surprise and anger of Kennedy - lobbied Democratic lawmakers to oppose the Hatch-Kennedy amendment, the lawmakers and staff members said.

"It was a bipartisan bill. I don't remember the role of the White House," said Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who has not endorsed a candidate in the presidential race and who was the chief Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which deals with health matters. "It did not originate at the White House."

# # #

Here's what Time magazine has to say about her claims regarding Ireland and Kosovo (in an article that also discusses the SCHIP claims). Karen Tumulty, Michael Duffy and Massimo Calabresi, "Assessing Clinton's 'Experience,'" Time, March 13, 2008:


In her race to win the democratic nomination against a first-term Senator from Illinois, Hillary Clinton has put the criterion of experience front and center. She often references what she says is 35 years of work that qualifies her to run the country. And the most important achievements Clinton cites are the ones she claims from her years as First Lady . . ..

Northern Ireland

WHAT SHE SAYS:

On the campaign trail, Clinton has claimed she "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland" in the 1990s.

. . . Her involvement was more about generating public and private support for peace talks in the months leading up to that agreement.

It's a key distinction. . . .

[S]everal diplomatic sources who worked on the peace talks say that the women's groups were not nearly as pivotal to the process as Hillary's backers maintain. And Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, former First Minister of Northern Ireland, told Britain's Daily Telegraph that Clinton was not involved in the process and her claims to have played a direct role were "a wee bit silly."

. . .Jean Kennedy Smith, former ambassador to Ireland, referring to a women's organization in the country [said], "But as far as anything political went, there was nothing as far as I know, nothing to do with negotiations" [noting that] the process was well under way by the time Clinton got involved.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Clinton played a role in hearing the concerns of Irish women left out of the peace process, . . .. But that does not mean she rolled up her sleeves and conducted or led the talks that resulted in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Macedonia Refugees

WHAT SHE SAYS:

"I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo," Clinton has asserted when asked to identify an example of her foreign policy experience.

. . . When Clinton arrived in the middle of the situation in that May, diplomats on the ground expected an ineffectual high-profile visit. But . . . Clinton visited refugees in camps on the border and held talks with the Macedonian leadership.

When the Prime Minister complained about American companies terminating textile contracts with local firms, Clinton promised to urge the businesses to change course. . . .

THE BOTTOM LINE: In the case of Macedonia, Clinton engaged in personal diplomacy that brought about change. But securing the return of American business partners is not the same as the opening of borders to thousands of refugees. That accomplishment was a result of broader U.S. and European efforts during the war.

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Switching from Clinton to . . . McCain?!

January 30, 2008, 7:15 a.m.

My distinguished, brilliant and charming colleague Tung Yin explains in his blog entry today his evolution from his support of Clinton to his present declaration for McCain. Well, that's not exactly accurate. What he says is that he now prefers Obama (for whom he has enthusiasm) over Clinton -- but by so much that, if Clinton ends up being the nominee he will vote for McCain rather than her. In fairness, you ought to read exactly what he said. (And he ought to read State29, "Who Said It? Part Deux," January 30, 2008.)

Actually, it's not so much his blog entry that prompts this one of mine, but rather the comments his readers have entered. I presume, if you follow politics, you're aware of the expression "yellow dog Democrats" that comes to us from Texas and the south. They are the Democrats who are so committed to Party that they would even vote for a yellow dog if the dog was on the ballot in the Democratic column.

Anyhow, there are some yellow dog Democrats taking after Tung. I responded to them, with a comment of my own on Tung's blog, as follows:

Whatever you "yellow dog Democrats" may think of Tung's choice of McCain over Clinton in a two-way race, you do have to at least think a bit about the following:

1. Hillary Clinton started off this campaign with among the highest "negatives" of anyone in the field.

2. As one Democratic political pro put it to me nearly a year ago, "Any one of the Democrats could win in November 2008. That's not the issue. The issue is who could lose. Hillary is the one who could lose."

3. What she and her husband have done -- especially during the last few weeks -- has raised those negative numbers and turned a number of independents from neutral/maybe to outspoken hostility and opposition. During the last two or three days I have encountered a half-dozen people (who, so far as I know, have not talked to Tung) who have expressed precisely the same sentiment as he (not including the Vilsack comment, but including the switch in vote to McCain). Honestly now, haven't you?

4. My personal encounters are only anecdotal and not statistically significant. But Peter Hart's national poll, released over this last weekend, IS statistically significant. And what it shows is that Obama can beat any of the Republicans -- including, by a significant margin, McCain. It does not show Clinton beating McCain.

5. Can you imagine what the Republicans will pull out to use against the Clintons if she's the candidate -- to which I've recently been led to believe they have now added a whole new batch of material they've been accumulating for just such a day.

Stick with Hillary if you must; just be aware that you -- and the Democratic Party -- may end up paying a very heavy price indeed for doing so.

If you are a Democrat living in one of the 22 states that are voting next Tuesday you might want to reflect on these comments before casting your ballot for Hillary Clinton.

Also consider, from the Century of the Common Iowan blog:

Saturday, January 26, 2008
55%

55% is the percentage of the vote Hillary Clinton won in Michigan when no one else was on the ballot and it is the percentage of the vote that Barack Obama won in South Carolina when he actually had opponents.

P.S. and disclosure: I do not recall ever voting for a Republican for president and think it unlikely I will be doing so this year. But I will say that the recent behavior of former President Clinton has caused my assessment of his role as an ex-president to drop from "respect and admiration" to "deep disappointment, disdain and disgust."

# # #

Alcohol, Three Items and a Comment

January 22, 2008, 12:30 p.m.

Three Items and a Comment
* Senator Barack Obama has called Senator Hillary Clinton, and former President Bill Clinton, on their unethical, negative campaigning involving a number of knowing and deliberately false characterizations of Obama's positions and statements -- repeated once again by her during the South Carolina debate last night [Jan 21]. "Most recent was an interview in which Obama described former president Ronald Reagan as a transformative leader and also said that over the past 10 to 15 years, the Republicans were more a party of ideas than were the Democrats. . . . Hillary Clinton pounced on Obama on Monday night, as Bill Clinton had done over the past few days [with the distorted assertion that Senator Obama had praised and endorsed Reagan's ideas when of course he had not]. 'They were bad ideas for America,' she said. 'They were ideas like privatizing Social Security, like moving back from a balanced budget and a surplus to deficit and debt.' Obama protested . . . 'You just said that I complimented the Republican ideas. That is not true.'" He was right; she was wrong, and wrong to do it. Dan Balz, "The Other Clinton is an Absent Presence," Washington Post, January 22, 2008.

* In response to my list of what the UI could do if it really wanted to get serious and effective about reducing under age students' binge drinking, a friend emailed: "Do you really mean this? . . . What a demoralizing and hypocritical (not to mention just plain mean and vindictive) set of proposals. . . . [W]hy take it out on students who are accepting the community's invitation to drink?" And see State29, "Prohibition Always Works," January 18, 2008. [Nicholas Johnson, "Don't Get Tough, Get Effective" in "Getting Real About Alcohol," January 18, 2008.]

* Two UI Delta Upsilon members have been charged with allegedly dealing marijuana; one other, and a guest, with possession. Following their arrests, the University suspended the fraternity -- which has been on campus for 82 years, with over 1000 members during that time -- during the investigation. This morning's [Jan. 22] news is that "Delta Upsilon International Fraternity announced Monday it has closed its University of Iowa chapter . . .." Rob Daniel, "Fraternity closed after drug raid; Delta Upsilon says it hopes to return," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 22, 2008, and see Erin Jordan, "Pot Case Spurs Closing of U of I Fraternity," Des Moines Register, January 22, 2008.

Comment
I had noted in that January 18 blog entry, linked from paragraph two above, that:

"As I wrote last Tuesday in the context of considering options and rational analysis in assessing the needs for additional police officers (and increased budgets), it may very well be that the best thing to do about underage drinking is nothing; or, more properly, to simply lower the drinking age to 18. Nicholas Johnson, "'How Many Police Officers and Fire Fighters Does It Take To . . .'" in "Rational Thought About Realistic Needs: Police & Fire," January 15, 2008.

Nor, even without that clarification, was my list, above, a wish list that I was advocating the University adopt. I was simply noting that IF the UI wanted to do something effective about binge drinking there are a number of things it could have done over the last 10 years. It's not what they say -- or what they do (or in this instance don't do) -- that bothers me so much. What I'm addressing is the inconsistency between the two: representing that this is a serious problem, that they don't want to be known as one of the intercollegiate binge drinking capitals of America, that they're doing all they can to stop it -- when in fact that does not seem to be the case.

In short, I am not advocating that the "binge drinking problem" be addressed with draconian measures, only that it is hypocritical not to consider effective regulation if one is professing to want to "do something" about the problem. (Indeed, I deliberately headed the discussion "Don't Get Tough, Get Effective.")

Let me also make very clear that I am not suggesting those criticizing my draconian list were deliberately misrepresenting my position. After all, we're not candidates competing for public office, unlike Clinton and Obama. Anyone who finds himself misunderstood bears at least as much responsibility for that misunderstanding, and probably more, than his audience. But the experience does further illustrate the underlying analysis of Wendell Johnson, "The Communication Process and General Semantic Principles," in Wilbur Schramm, Mass Communications (2d ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975).

As a lawyer, I think it is destructive of the "rule of law" and "ordered liberty" to have any given laws that are routinely and widely flouted -- because it tends to undermine respect for all laws. So what are some alternative approaches?

(1) Enforce the 21-only law; and the most rational and administratively feasible way to do that is to follow Ames' example. If you don't want under-age students to drink you don't permit them to enter establishments the sole purpose of which is to prosper from the sale of alcohol.

(2) Work to lower the drinking age to 18, thereby eliminating "the problem" at least for those over 18.

(3) Engage in "civil disobedience": openly disobey the law, knowing that arrest will follow, and accepting jail or other punishment, as a way of protesting what is thought to be an unjust law.

(4) Come up with a compromise, such as the "21-only after 10 p.m." proposal that was voted down by a bar-owners-organized students protest. This would have forbid violations of law for 28 of the 168 hours each week (10 p.m. to 2 a.m.), while permitting under-age students in bars at all other hours.

(5) Although destructive of "rule of law" purposes, simply accept rampant violations of law -- whether eliminating any and all enforcement of law regarding all alcohol related crimes, or limiting enforcement to the consequences of excessive drinking (e.g., drunk driving, public urination, fights, sexual assaults) rather than arresting students for the illegal drinking itself.

There are presumably many other options, including draconian measures applied by the University, but these five are major ones.

It is true that I think alcoholism and alcohol abuse are associated with serious social problems. As I led that January 18 entry:

Alcoholism, alcohol abuse, binge drinking, drunk driving, under-age drinking. We should not be surprised that our nation's number one hard drug problem by any measure (e.g., economic impact, health/medical consequences, numbers of people affected, involvement in crime and violence, adverse impact on the brain, prison population, unwanted sexual activity ("accidents cause people"), impact on fetus, automobile and other death and injury) is a major problem in Iowa as well.

Which brings me to the third paragraph, above, and how it reminds me of the following story:

A man's son was involved in a drunk driving accident in which one passenger was killed and his son and two other passengers were very seriously injured. On being informed that all had been drinking he responded, "Thank God they weren't using drugs."

Alcohol is a drug; an "illegal drug" when sold and consumed in violation of law; our nation's "number one hard drug" for many reasons, including those cited above.

Marijuana is also an illegal drug. But the harm it causes -- in the categories just detailed -- are far less than the consequences of alcohol. And yet, just as the penalties for possession or sale of crack cocaine (used by the poor) far exceed those for powdered cocaine (used by the rich), the penalties for the illegal possession and sale of marijuana far exceed those for the illegal possession and sale of alcohol.

And yet we give the latter a wink and a boys-will-be-boys nod, while shutting down an 82-year-old institution on campus for the former.

Now, who will be the first to say that I have advocated the legalization of marijuana? Re-read the blog entry. I haven't -- here.

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