Anderson@Large

Affirmative Action Foe Back At It

As Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s history-making campaigns continue, a blast from the past is making news. Ward Connerly is rolling out plans for a different kind of “Super Tuesday.”

Connerly is gearing up to place an anti-affirmative action initiative on the November ballot in battleground states, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nevada. Though white women have been its primary beneficiaries, affirmative action is seen as a “test” for Obama.

Notre Dame Prof. Darren Davis told Newsweek:

Basically, on every racial issue Barack Obama is walking the tightrope. The more he supports traditional black issues like affirmative action, the more that will eat into his white base of support.

If history is any guide, the ballot measure will boost turnout among voters who are not likely to vote for the Democratic nominee, whether it’s Obama or Clinton. In 2004, an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative helped George Bush narrowly defeat John Kerry in Michigan.

Connerly, an old-school “post-racial” political hack, is setting traps for Democrats on their hoped-for road to victory in the general election.

Clinton: I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

For the record, Hillary Clinton says she’s not going anywhere until the votes are counted in Michigan and Florida.

And the nomination battle isn’t over till it’s over.

At a campaign stop in West Virginia, Bill Clinton said folks should get over it:

Let's saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? ** When Hillary's gaining on him, they say, “Oh, let's shut this down, let's not be divided.”

Don't you think your vote ought to count as much as the votes of people in Iowa?

Um, yeah.

Love Bites Superdelegates

Hillary Clinton lost one superdelegate when New York Luv Guv Eliot Spitzer resigned following reports that he used the services of a prostitution ring.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s indictment on eight felony counts, including perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office, stems from testimony about an affair with his chief of staff. Depending on how this plays out, Barack Obama may have to subtract one superdelegate from his total.

But keep an eye on the scoreboard because another superdelegate might bite the dust. Client 9's successor, Gov. David Paterson, has admitted he too had extramarital affairs. While Paterson broke his marriage vows, he remains loyal to Clinton. He showed his loyalty by campaigning for her in Iowa and South Carolina. Fair enough. But reportedly one of his ex-lovers also was on the trips.

Meanwhile, some major donors want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to show them some love. The Associated Press reports:

Twenty top Democratic donors who are supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for saying superdelegates should support the presidential candidate with the most pledged delegates.

Pelosi, who has not endorsed either candidate as chair of the Democratic National Convention, said during a March 16 appearance on ABC's "This Week" that it would be harmful to the party if superdelegates don't support the pledged delegate winner.

In their letter, Clinton's supporters said superdelegates "must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party's strongest nominee in the general election."

The letter also noted the donors "have been strong supporters" of the House Democrats' fundraising apparatus.

"We therefore urge you to clarify your position on superdelegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the national convention in August," they said.

Ah, love among the ruins.

Clinton's Wright Stuff

It's impolitic to talk about religion at the water cooler. But that was before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright appeared in an endless loop on Americans’ TV screens and computer monitors.

After sidestepping questions about the Wright controversy, Hillary Clinton waded into the racial water during a meeting with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.

Clinton noted her denunciation of Don Imus’ racially offensive comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team:

You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving.

The Obama camp fired back. In a statement, campaign spokesman Bill Burton said:

After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it’s disappointing to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia. The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor’s offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech. The American people deserve better than tired political games that do nothing to solve the larger challenges facing this country.

Yes, Barack Obama's “uncommonly honest speech” was largely well-received. But that’s not the end of the story. Some think he didn’t go far enough. As former New York City mayor Ed Koch writes:

What is it that I and others expected Obama to do? A great leader with conscience and courage would have stood up and faced down anyone who engages in such conduct. I expect a President of the United States to have the strength of character to denounce and disown enemies of America - foreign and domestic -- and yes, even his friends and confidants when they get seriously out of line.

What if a minister in a church attended primarily by white congregants or a rabbi in a synagogue attended primarily by Jews made comparable statements that were hostile to African-Americans? I have no doubt that the congregants would have immediately stood up and openly denounced the offending cleric. Others would have criticized that cleric in private. Some would surely have ended their relationships with their congregation. Obama didn't do any of these things. His recent condemnations of Wright's hate-filled speech are, in my opinion, a case of too little, too late.

Like it or not, Wright will remain a drag on Obama’s candidacy.

Bush's War

This week marked a grim milestone in Bush's War -- 4,000 U.S. troops dead. As one New Yorker asked:

What's the point? What are we fighting for? I think it's a hopeless fight. We are just losing people there. We have mothers without sons and young people without siblings.

There is no point to this war without end. Indeed, McClatchy reports:

A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government.

Yes, we must honor the sacrifices of our brave troops and their families. But to truly support the troops, we must bring them home alive.

Pat Response to Race

The political impact of Barack Obama’s speech on race in America won’t be known for another month. That’s when voters go to the polls in Pennsylvania.

But conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has heard enough. He thinks "white America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to." In a post headlined, "A Brief for Whitey," Buchanan gives Obama grief for not throwing Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the bus:

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people? How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, "God damn America!"

Buchanan thinks African Americans should show more appreciation for being the descendants of slaves:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Buchanan was just warming up:

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

For the record, 20 million Africans were shackled and packed into the holds of slave ships. Roughly 10 million  black people didn't make it here because they died in passage.

I won’t dignify Buchanan’s rantings by disputing the amount of government spending on social programs. Suffice it to say there are more poor whites than poor blacks. But unlike the broken promise of "40 acres and a mule," the government programs that Buchanan lists were not “designed” for African Americans.

Also, white women have been the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action.

Buchanan denounces government spending to "lift up" individuals. How typical. Meanwhile in one day, the federal government spent $30 billion on corporate welfare to bail out Bear Stearns.

Change or Die

In this improbable election year, a law professor left "The Farm," went to Washington and told Congress: Change or die a political death.

Stanford Law Prof. Lawrence Lessig has launched a bipartisan, web-based movement to get money out of politics, Change Congress. In a speech at the National Press Club, Lessig said:

The most exciting idea in this political season is changing how Washington works, which means changing the influence of money in Washington. Change Congress will help build support to solve this first problem in Washington, which is the distorting influence of money. Other problems may be more important. But no problem will be solved until we solve this problem first.

Change Congress will seek pledges from incumbents and congressional candidates to:

• Reject contributions from lobbyists or PACs
• Ban earmarks
• Support public financing of political campaigns
• Push reforms to increase congressional transparency

In a blog post, Lessig wrote:

Though "change" is the dominant rhetoric of this presidential campaign, everyone realizes that fundamental reform can't come from a president alone. If there are problems in the way Congress now works, for example, no president can fix those problems alone. Any fix would require the cooperation of the very institution that needs changing -- Congress.

Not surprisingly, however, not everyone in Congress is eager for change. Whatever they say, and however strongly they may deny it, there are many who have grown used to a system they understand well. And many of those are not about to support radically reforming that system, at least until pushed.

But the 111th Congress will be the freshest that Washington has seen in more than a decade. There are more than 67 "open seats" in this year’s election; the last time we were anywhere close to that number was 1996 (62). This fact has led some to think about strategies for getting Congress to take seriously the idea of remaking itself.

To get involved in this citizen-driven movement to bring about real change in Washington, click here.