By The River

Tickets to Barack Obama's rally tomorrow night at the Forum in Harrisburg were handed out this morning at Obama headquarters at 401 N. Second Street, and were quickly gone. I didn't hear about the ticket requirement in time to get one. People began lining up around 6 a.m., and the line, according to friends who saw it, stretched all the way to Third Street and around the corner. The Forum only holds 1,763 people, at least officially. It's too bad the Obama campaign didn't book the rally in the Large Arena at the Farm Show Complex, which seats 7,000. The Rolling Stones performed there in 1964.

One of the officials at Obama headquarters said the senator has promised to make a return appearance in Harrisburg before the April 22 primary. In the meantime, they were urging folks to attend the State College rally in the Bryce Jordan Center earlier on Sunday, which is open to all comers.

Things were hopping at Obama HQ today. I stopped in with my daughter, Lydia, who wanted an Obama placard, but they were out so she had to settle for a bumper sticker and button. People--there were at least two dozen-- were in a state of happy excitement, and inspirational slogans written on small squares of poster board covered one wall.

Contrast that to Hillary Clinton's Harrisburg headquarters a block away, which was nearly deserted. One brusque young woman manned the front desk. My wife, a Clinton supporter, asked for a placard to put in the front window of our house. "Well, if you really want to help, we need volunteers to go door-to-door or make phone calls," the young woman said, impatience in her voice. Almost reluctantly, she handed over a placard instead.

Lisa said afterward that having seen the two HQ's, it wasn't hard to figure out who was ahead. She put the placard in the window and still plans to vote for Clinton. The New York senator is pinning her hopes on reversing the decisions not to hold revotes in Michigan and Florida--if you recall, both states lost all their delegates to the Democratic National Convention because they moved their primaries close to the head of the line in violation of party rules.

To be honest, I'm not sure at this point that she would win either of them. More and more party elders are coming out for Obama and urging Clinton to end her campaign, but she vows to press on no matter what the damage to the eventual nominee might be.

Posted by David at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm in my hometown of Holland, Michigan, for a few days, enjoying a snowy Easter vacation with my parents. While out driving today, I tuned in to "Talk of the Town," a talk radio show on WHTC, the local AM station. People call in and talk about whatever's on their minds, from politics to the weather. They ask Van Oss for favorite recipes from his file, which he reads over the air. The show has been hosted by Juke Van Oss for 56 years, so long that I can remember getting steamed at snide comments about hippies and Vietnam War protestors when I was a youth.

Holland is fortunate to have a local radio station that is chock full of local content like Talk of the Town. Too many stations these days run canned programming sent in from somewhere in Texas. Nearly everything on WHTC is local except the network news breaks--another welcome retro-touch--and the Laura Ingraham Show. Holland is predominantly movement conservative and Republican, an island of the religious right in a state that votes Democratic overall.

I come from an odd town. It once was nearly entirely of Dutch descent, to the point that the arrival of a General Electric plant in 1963 was a traumatic experience for some of the old Dutch, especially the very insular Christian Reformed Church members. "Now the Americans are coming," a docent at the Holland Museum remembered an old relative saying. Today Holland City is barely a third Dutch, he told me, although the surrounding region is still predominantly populated by people who trace their ancestry back to the Netherlands.

This morning, Mayor Al McGeehan of Holland, my ninth grade American History teacher, was talking calls with Juke. McGeehan has been mayor forever, by my mother's reckoning. Callers were mainly concerned about the upcoming vote on raising the millage to fund a local airport authority, and an announcement by the Board of Public Works that electric rates are going up 15 percent. Holland has municipal power and its own power plant, but the rising price of bituminous coal and other things have forced this increase.

McGeehan plans to hold a public hearing tonight to have the BPW explain all the factors behind the increase. One thing in the favor of ratepayers of any municipal electric operation is that profit for stockholders doesn't factor into the rates. But they do have to cover their costs, and the price of coal has gone up steadily because of increasing demand from, you guessed it, China. McGeehan talked about having BPW explore alternative energy options, including wind turbines. The energy seas will be turbulent for the next several years, if not decades, and elected officials will ignore the public's desire for stable and fair rates at their peril.

But this being Holland, the most provacative comments came after the mayor's segment ended. Diehard Bush zealots called in to argue that 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq was no big deal compared to other wars, and we only thought it was because the "main stream media" had conspired to make us think otherwise. These are people who are still in denial about the massive public rejection of Bush and the Republican Party, and the reasons this has happened. Zealots in a lost cause can be dangerous, and that is worth remembering.

My daughter and I drove up to the Grand Rapids Art Museum to see an exhibit of Andy Warhol's serial images. Among them was his Death and Disaster series, which included the Kennedy assassination. A guide was explaining the iconic images to a group of high school students, and she veered off into something that obviously worried her greatly. She asked them to think about the national trauma that would result if Sen. Barack Obama was assassinated. That was what the Kennedy assassination was like, she said.

Many of us worry about that horrific possibility. Obama seems too good to be true, and those of us from the 1960s know how quickly a Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King can be snatched away.

Posted by David at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I could scarcely believe it when I saw the story on TV. A Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, company, Lauer Weaponry, is selling real firearms painted in kandy colors to look like water pistols or other toy guns.

Run by fanatical National Rifle Association members, Lauer thinks its funny to sell weapons that could get a cop killed because he delays shooting someone carrying one of these colored guns, or kills a kid carrying a toy because he feared it might be real. A chirpy Valley Girl type that Lauer pushed in front of the cameras to defend the company was "sure" that cops will be able to tell a fake colored gun from a real colored gun in time to make the right decision. They even have one in "Barney Purple."

It's not a joke. People will die because of these guns. Lauer will be sued into the ground by the survivors of the first victim, but why wait until then? Congress and the 50 states should ban painted guns immediately. There is no legitimate reason for these guns to exist. Oh, wait: fashion? But it will be interesting, to be sure, to see how legislatures react. These are the folks who rush to ban things like liqueur-filled chocolates as a "threat" to teenagers, or who believe that allowing adults to easily order premium wines over the Internet will lead teenagers to evade the alcohol police.

This is a real threat. And something needs to be done to protect the public from one business' reckless drive for profits.

Posted by David at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Move-On.org's Harrisburg chapter will hold a candelight vigil beginning at 7 p.m. tonight in the plaza in front of Harrisburg City Hall to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the disastrous Iraq War.

My main memory of that time is preparing to travel to Germany with my older daughter to attend the wedding celebration of my cousin Meike in Freiburg. My parents had been concerned about our traveling outside of the United States at a time like this, but I didn't think there would be a risk worth worrying about, and there wasn't.

.We were the only Americans at the event, but people, including those who didn't know us from Adam, couldn't have been nicer. Many "warum?" questions about the war and George W.. Bush, who then and now mystifies and angers the Germans. And we enjoyed our walks through the beautiful Black Forest as spring dawned in a country that knew the cost of blindly following leaders into war all too well.

Posted by David at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court today--the first in more than 70 years--has be dreading the outcome.

Not because I have any doubt how it should be decided. The Court should rule that the District of Columbia has the right to ban private possession of handguns as a public safety measure if it so chooses. That's what pre-Bush courts have ruled since the 1930s, that the Second Amendment is meant only to allow armed and organized state militias, not an unlimited individual right to possess firearms. Under that interpretation, states and cities are free to regulate private possession of firearms.

But I have every expectation that this will be a 5-4 cliffhanger, and I fear it could be even worse. As he so often is in recent years, Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the swing vote. The National Rifle Association and other elements of the right have pushed for years to overturn that longstanding precedent and allow an unlimited right to firearm ownership.

But wait, you might say. Doesn't the Second Amendment clearly state, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"? Yes, but there is a qualifying and limiting clause in front of it. The full Second Amendment states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." If you read that without your NRA spectacles, the meaning is rather clear. States may keep their armed and organized militias, their National Guards, despite the existence of a national army. I'm told that the debates among the framers of the Constitution back in 1789 reinforce that interpretation, but I haven't researched it myself.

What will be interesting is whether the so-called "originalists" on the Court--Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in particular--stay true to their convictions and vote to uphold the "clear meaning" of the Framers words. Don't bet on it. This case is a rightwing cause, and Scalia, Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito--a rightwing hack if there ever was one--will fall right in line. They may even have personal security concerns if they don't.

What happens if an individual right to firearm possession is affirmed by the Court? Say bye-bye to laws against machine gun ownership, gun ownership by felons, or forcing abusive husbands to surrender their firearms when Protection from Abuse orders are filed by their wives. There will be no way to prevent someone from strapping on a Glock and going into a public school to argue with a teacher who kept his kid after school, so long as the handgun stays in the holster. Even keeping weapons in a dorm room at college might have to be allowed.

This isn't fantasy. It is why the Bush Administration, angering the NRA, has called on the Court to uphold the current interpretation of the Second Amendment and allow sensible gun restrictions to continue. It is time to put this rightwing nonsense to rest.

Posted by David at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Iraq War turns five years-old on Wednesday, with no end in sight and a bloody trail of loss and hopelessness in its wake. It is old news by now, but worth repeating, that none of the Bush Administration's public justifications for the war ever panned out.

George W. Bush's war of choice has claimed the lives of 3,988 American soldiers and left 29,314 of them with often-grievous wounds. The death toll among Iraqi civilians from violence spawned by the war has been far higher: the documented number is between 82,000 and 89,000, according to Iraq Body Count. A study published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, used extrapolation techniques and pushed the civilian death count--including starvation and disease-related deaths--far higher, to 655,000.

The eventual cost to U.S. taxpayers of the Iraq War also varies depending on who you talk to. The Congressional Budget Office projected a worst case scenario of $1.7 trillion, but a new book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz pushes the eventual cost by 2017 to a staggering $2.7 trillion. Either way, all of that is wasted money that could have done so much good if used in America to provide national health care, shore up Social Security, or make college education more affordable. But the President pissed it away down the rathole of Iraq.

If there is any justice in all this, it is that Bush has probably sent the Republican Party down the same rathole. Short of a coup, I don't see many scenarios in which a Democrat doesn't take over the White House in January 2009 with a filibuster-proof Senate and many more new liberal members of both chambers. After Democrat Bill Foster's upset victory for the seat held by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert for nearly 22 years, the DNC must be at least thinking about pouring money into "sacrificial lamb" candidacies in supposedly safe Republican districts around the country.

Posted by David at 06:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shock of shocks, the Harrisburg St. Patrick's Day parade on Saturday is turning into a political battleground for supporters of Democratic challengers Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and apparently of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain as well. And the April 22 Pennsylvania primary is still six weeks away.

Coordinators for both the Democrats are urging any of their camp who want to participate to march in the parade, which moves down Second Street in Pennsylvania's capital city beginning at 2 p.m. Here's what former PHEAA general counsel Loretta Barbee-Dare, one of the local coordinators for Obama posted on the Obama campaign website:

"Since the Clinton campaign has bought their way into the parade, with McCain not far behind, I have opened up this group to include ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO MARCH. The 45-person limit, as well as the gloves, are off."

Hoo wah!

Barbee-Dare, who is also on the ballot as an Obama delegate from the 17th Congressional District that includes Harrisburg, did not respond to a request from By the River to explain that part about the Clinton and McCain campaigns buying their way into the parade.

Local Clinton campaign coordinator Jan Tamanini put out a call on the Clinton campaign website for Hillary's supporters, "as many as possible," to join the parade Saturday.

In the old days of the St. Patrick's Day parade, we could have expected the supporters of Obama and the supporters of Clinton to engage in a drunken street brawl. But chances are the confrontation will be limited to catcalls, such as "Bush war enabler" from the Obama side, and "inexperienced kid" from the Clinton side.

The Obama folks will also be doing voter registration Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. at the intersection of 13th and Derry streets in Harrisburg's Allison Hill neighborhood. Kudos to them. That's the heart of the black and Hispanic community in Harrisburg, and they hopefully will sign up a lot of new voters.

Posted by David at 06:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain comes to central Pennsylvania today on his fundraising tour of America, or as McCain prefers to put it, for a "Finance Event."

McCain will meet Republican fatcats for a $1,000 per person fundraising luncheon at noon today at the West Shore Country Club in Camp Hill. It is closed to the public. The West Shore Country Club is where the now nearly forgotten Monica Goodling, the dragon lady in the Bush Administration's U.S. Attorneygate scandal, worked as a lifeguard and swim coach during the summers of 1993, 1994, and 1995 between terms at nearby Messiah College in Grantham. Given the number of Republicans who hang out at the WSCC, it is arguably where she first dipped her toe in movement conservatism and the GOP.

The McCain folks apparently decided that the Republican fatcats here weren't fat enough and so don't have a separate price of $2,300 that includes a photo op with the senator. There is a V.I.P. reception, but no separate price is listed.

McCain starts the $2,300 photo ops later this month in Chicago, then moves to the West Coast where, in Orange County and Los Angeles, the price for anyone to get in, photo op or not, is $2,300. The San Francisco Finance Event lists no prices at all, kind of like one of those pricy (and largely mythical) restaurants with no prices on the menu. Then he moves back eastward to Denver, where a "Finance Event" at the Petroleum Club on March 27 again allows in the Republican poor who can only pay $1,000.

McCain's only event open to the non-paying public this month is tomorrow at the Springfield Twp. Country Club in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It starts at 9:45 a.m. but you have to sign up on the McCain website in advance.

Posted by David at 06:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton will make a public appearance at Lebanon Valley College in Annville today from 12:15-2 p.m. Her speech will be in the Atrium in Lynch Hall, according to the Clinton campaign website.

Lebanon Valley College is an island of moderate liberalism in a town where the public schools are controlled by the religious right. So will Chelsea stroll downtown to greet shoppers, or pick up a snack at the coffee house attached to the Allen Theatre? Probably not.

The concept of central Pennsylvania as a political battleground is mind-boggling, but with the April 22 Pennsylvania primary so important to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, perhaps not surprising.

Posted by David at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Harrisburg can throw a good political rally when it wants to.

More than 1,763 people jammed into The Forum in downtown Harrisburg today to hear Sen. Hillary Clinton explain why she ought to win the Democratic nomination for President. People started lining up after about 8 a.m., and by 10:15, when the doors opened, the line was quite long. Not everyone was able to get in.

My daughter and I were in line behind a group of students from Sci-Tech High School in Harrisburg. Their teacher was offering them the chance to work for Hillary today passing out literature. He also said they could work for Obama, though I'm not sure how that trick would have been accomplished at a Hillary rally. A few of the mostly black Sci-Tech students took him up on the offer, enticed by the promise of better seats in the hall.

The rally started fairly close to the promise noon time. The sound system played "Salt of the Earth" by the Rolling Stones, which actually is a great song for a Democratic candidate with its paean to the "hard-working people" and its appeal for a prayer for "the common foot soldier." I'm surprised I've never heard it a rally before. It may be British, but it's way better than "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," the Clinton campaign song in 1992.

So when that song was done, there was a break in the music and anticipation built. Finally, out walks...Catherine Baker Knoll, the aged lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, followed by Mayor Stephen Reed of Harrisburg and Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, all of whom have endorsed Hillary. Finally out came Hillary, the lead singer in this rock band.

Reed gave a stirring introductory speech that stressed all the progressive Democratic concerns, from Iraq to the widening gap between rich and poor in America. Rendell promptly nominated him to run as Hillary's vice president. Reed didn't say anything audible to the audience, but looked pleased, and even more pleased after Hillary praised his more than two decades in office.

It was a perfect segue to her overarching theme of the day, how the nation needs "experience" in the White House in 2009. Once again, she seemed to like presumptive Repubican nominee John McCain better than Barack Obama. Her dissing of Obama's experience level while at the same time saying he'd make a good vice president on her ticket has angered some Democratic activists, who see the negativity as giving the Republicans fodder for the fall campaign. They fear criticism of Obama will resonate with the public more if it comes from a fellow Democrat than from the other party.

I will say this: Hillary is right on all the issues that matter to me. Ending the iraq War quickly, rolling back George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, and introducing national health care--I couldn't have asked for more. She and Obama are both as liberal as Republicans accuse them of being, and thank God for that. But I question, especially in the wake of the Elliot Spitzer scandal, which she didn't mention, whether the public will go for a candidate who doesn't represent a clean break with the past.

My daughter was enthralled by the spectacle of the rally, of all the waving signs, the rhythmic chanting of Hillary's name, and the things Hillary said from the stage. On the walk home, she recited her own presidential platform, including an end to the Iraq War, health care for all, gay rights, open immigration for Mexicans, and (drum roll) tax cuts. Tax cuts? Where did I go wrong?

Posted by David at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm heading to the Hillary Clinton rally in Harrisburg today with my younger daughter, who got special dispensation to miss school for what will beyond argument be an educational event.

Yesterday when I decided to do this, I had no idea that Democratic Gov. Elliott Spitzer of New York, a major supporter of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in her quest for the presidency, would be revealed as a user of a high-class call girl ring charging clients between $1,000 and $5,000 per hour. Spitzer is a personally wealthy man. So far there is no hint that he used public funds to pay for his trysts with what are described as young and beautiful women working for the service.

There have already been jokes that this proved Spitzer was secretly a Republican, given the GOP's recent predilection for sex scandals. Spitzer hasn't said whether he will resign. I think he will have to, because his effectiveness as a reformer is now gone, and that was the best thing about him. As New York Attorney General during the first five years of the Bush Administration, he did what U.S. Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez wouldn't do: go after the titans of Wall Street for financial crimes. If you want to know how many enemies that made him, just look at some of the gloating public comments on the news stories about Spitzer yesterday and I'm sure continuing into today.

It will be interesting to hear what Clinton has to say about Spitzer at her Harrisburg appearance today. Will there be any political ramifications for her? Not directly. But there could be both positive and negative indirect impacts. She, of course, was once in the position of Spitzer's wife, married to a man who had a dalliance with a young, beautiful (grant me this one) woman. Clinton could get some sympathy support here.

But the downside of the Spitzer sandal could be that it will remind voters about what they didn't like about the last Clinton Administrations. They might decide they want a clean beginning with Barack Obama who, at least so far, has not been linkd to any woman except his wife. I'll report later on the Clinton rally and what, if anything, she has to say about the Spitzer scandal.

Posted by David at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With the April 22 Pennsylvania primary only six weeks away, Sen. Hillary Clinton brings her campaign for the Democratic nomination for President to Harrisburg tomorrow. Clinton is holding a noon "Solutions for America" rally inside the 1,763-seat Forum at Fifth & Walnut Streets, just a stone's throw from the Capitol. Doors open at 10 a.m. There isn't any significant amount of parking available in that part of downtown Harrisburg or even in easy walking distance in the middle of a workday. Shuttle bus service will be available from the Farm Show's overflow parking lot off Elmerton Avenue beginning at 9 a.m.

Methinks the location of this rally--in easy walking distance of many of the state offices--suggests at least a certain amount of worry on the part of the Clinton campaign and the Rendell Administration that turnout could be a problem at other locations in and around the state capital. Gov. Ed Rendell and Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed have endorsed Clinton and will make sure the Forum is packed to the gills, but I suspect that Harrisburg is more of a Barack Obama town. And not just because the population here is 55 percent black, but that's part of it. I suspect there are a fair number of Obama supporters in the people around Rendell.

Obama supporters will have their day on Saturday, April 12, outside the National Civil War Museum in Reservoir Park. A news release sent out by Central Pennsylvania Friends of Barack Obama says they are "hopeful" Obama or his wife, Michelle, will attend either the daylong rally or an evening jazz reception at the museum. I can't imagine Obama won't come to Harrisburg. Will this be the event? Stay tuned. Former Harrisburg City Council member Lenora Smith is in charge of the Obama campaign here. Sheila Dow Ford, the former chief counsel (1994-2007) of the troubled Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) is the Hershey organizer.

Posted by David at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was listening to the Harrisburg, Pa., public radio station, WITF, and they were reporting that some 65,000 voters had changed their registration to the Democratic Party for the April 22 primary. Of those, 42,000 came at the expense of the Republican Party and the rest, presumably, were independents who wanted to be able to vote in the primary. The deadline for switching or for new registrations is March 24 if you want to vote in the primary.

Pennsylvania, unlike some states, has a closed primary. That means only Democrats can vote for Democrats and only Republicans for Republicans. There are good arguments for and against a system like this. It prevents voters from one party from making mischief in the nominating process of the other party, either for malicious reasons or because they're bored with their own party's primary. But it denies people who don't want to affiliate with either party any role in the nomination of the candidates who will hold important offices.

It's really six of one and a half-dozen of the other.

Posted by David at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pray for us in Pennsylvania. It is nearly seven weeks until our April 22 primary, the latest "must-win" for Obama and Clinton, and we are about to be carpet-bombed with political advertising and candidate appearances. I suspect both candidates will be pitching in at the annual spring clean-up in my Shipoke neighborhood, which could even top the year we spotted a dead body snagged on a rock out in the Susquehanna River. It would be a perfect opportunity for either candidate to nail down the white liberal vote. And who will Char Magaro invite to her Bella Mundo bistro afterward? She probably wishes they both could win.

Hillary has been floating just such an option in recent days, at least not dismissing the possibility that she and Obama run as a team in November. She doesn't say who would be the presidential nominee and who the vice presidential, but I think it's safe to say she sees herself leading the ticket.

Could this work? Yes, but only if Obama is willing to fall on his sword and commit himself to eight years of political irrelevance. The next vice president isn't going to be a Dick Cheney, a Machiavellian figure controlling the President from the shadows. The real vice president in a Hillary Administration would be Bill, and everyone knows it. He may be sidelined for now, after his disastrous "help" for Hillary in the South Carolina primary, but anyone who thinks he would just go off and play golf for eight years isn't being realistic.

Which I plan to tell both Hillary and Obama while we rake leaves together during the Shipoke clean-up.

Posted by David at 06:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton remain in the race until the Democratic National Convention in Denver that opens Aug. 25, it appears almost certain, if current trends continue, that neither will have enough delegates to win the nomination on the first vote.

A Democratic candidate needs 2,025 delegate votes to be the nominee. Obama has 1,477 committed delegates or super-delegates (256 of the 712 super-delegates remain uncommitted) after the Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island primaries yesterday, with 170 delegates, mainly from Texas, still to be awarded. Clinton has 1,391. There are 552 delegates yet to be awarded from Wyoming (March 8), Mississippi (March 11), Pennsylvania, April 22, Indiana and North Carolina, May 6, West Virginia, May 13, Kentucky and Oregon, May 20, and Montana and South Dakota, June 3.

If Obama won all 552, he would have four more delegates than he needs to get the nomination. If Clinton did, she would not. But neither candidate is going to get all 552 because of the Democratic Party's proportional representation rule. If current trends continue, Obama would get about 300 of those and Clinton about 252.

So how does either candidate craft a victory and leave Denver as the nominee?

Obama might pick up John Edwards' 26 committed delegates once Edwards releases them. There have been rumors that Edwards has been promised the Attorney General job in an Obama administration, which would be nice. But that still doesn't put Obama over the top. So the deal-making begins in earnest.

Clinton will attempt to have Florida's 210 delegates and Michigan's 156 seated at the convention. Both states lost their delegates for defying the Democratic National Committee and moving up their primaries toward the head of the pack. Even if she succeeded, she wouldn't get all of the states' delegates because of the proportional representation rule. She was the only major candidate on the ballot in Michigan--Obama and Edwards withdrew in accordance with DNC desires-but there was a large "uncommitted" vote. So Clinton, too, won't likely be able to get the nomination without cutting deals.

Could this be the great, mythical "deadlocked" convention of yore? Only time will tell. What it does mean is that Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, which appeared to be sliding rapidly toward irrelevance, will be hotly contested by Clinton and Obama. We should be seeing them soon in Harrisburg.

Posted by David at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm fascinated and repulsed by liars, especially in the literary world, where it seems doubtful any memoir by anyone who isn't a bona fide celebrity will ever again see the light of day. I say that in reaction to a story tonight in the New York Times about yet another pathological liar who passed off pure fiction as the honest-to-God story of her own life.

This one is almost comical. Almost. Affluent white girl from Sherman Oaks, Calif., writes a "memoir" in which she claims to be a half-white, half-Native American girl who ran with gangs and sold drugs in South Central Los Angeles. It was published by Riverhead Books, a reputable publisher, and received glowing reviews in the New York Times and elsewhere. Here's an interview with the purported memoirist, Margaret B. Jones, on her publisher's website, while it lasts. Her older sister saw a story about her and dimed her out, and last night Margaret Seltzer, the real author, confessed that Margaret B. Jones and "Love and Consequences" were pure fiction. She brings to mind James Frey, author of "A Million Little Pieces," another purported "harrowing" memoir.

And therein lies part of the problem. The literary world wants ever more screwed-up lives in its memoirs. Just having an interesting life, full of lively characters and well-told, is not enough anymore. I was told this myself when, three years ago, I was suddenly besotted with the idea of writing about my early journalism career. I thought my story, of moving from a midwestern town known for its Tulip Festival, to my first journalism job in hard-boiled Shamokin, Pa., at least had some interesting possibilities. Especially when I threw in the Centralia mine fire, the central event of my early life as a journalist. A literary agent I knew practically laughed in my face. She asked me if I had abusive parents, or had some other horrible aspect to my childhood. Told that I didn't, she wouldn't even look at my sample chapters.

What Seltzer did is far from a victimless crime. Her editor, for all her foolishness in not ordering a fact check on the story, seems to have been completely bamboozled. She wasn't in on the scam, but her career will likely be destroyed anyway. Lies are like that. People believe them, and their own lives fall apart. Seltzer says she's sorry. Big deal.

Posted by David at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm here in New York with my family, looking down from the 27th floor as the city comes to life on Sunday morning. As a Hope College graduate, the view is ironic: I can see Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue, that East Coast citadel of the Reformed Church, and the statue of the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who pastored the church from 1932-84. Both the church and Peale (and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale) were major supporters of my old alma mater in Holland, Michigan. Peale wrote the best-selling, "The Power of Positive Thinking," an early self-help volume.

Peale was an old-line Republican, not the movement conservative type of Republican that controls the party today. He had veered toward an early version of that in 1960, when he infamously (as spokesman for 150 Protestant clergymen) urged a vote against John F. Kennedy for President because he was a Roman Catholic. "Faced with the election of a Catholic," Peale said, "our culture is at stake." He was widely criticized for that statement, and of course Kennedy narrowly won the Presidency. Peale then withdrew from partisan politics, other than remaining personally close to Richard Nixon and presiding at the wedding of Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower in 1968.

Peale was slow to recognize that American culture, political or otherwise, was changing rapidly. The same can be said for many politicians of both parties today who don't understand the appeal of Barack Obama to Americans, especially young Americans, tired of old white guys like Dick Cheney and Co. screwing up their lives. Given the way American politics is trending this year, Obama seems headed for a historic victory over Sen. John McCain, who seems older in every photo we see. Smart, young, urban, hip, and black/white seems destined to triumph this year over old, white, and suburban.

You could see a lot of this this Zeitgeist in a new Broadway musical, In the Heights, which we saw last night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. The play, written by 28-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda, is one of the best musicals I've ever seen. The music is as good or even better than that of "Rent," and the dancing is first-rate. It is ostensibly about the lives and loves of the Hispanic community in Washington Heights, a neighborhood near the top of Manhattan where the George Washington Bridge lands on the island. Yet like Obama, In the Heights transcends ethnicity to offer a story that is simply human and real, about people dealing with change. The actors received a thunderous standing ovation at the end of the show, one of the final previews before the official opening night later this week.

I don't know if Obama has been to see In the Heights. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain (New York Times columnist Frank Rich ties them together as evil twins today) ought to, if for no other reason than to understand the cultural changes in America that seem destined to make them seem as irrelevant to the modern day as Norman Vincent Peale.

Posted by David at 06:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)