Drewmocracy

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford, gives a cogent, clear, and interesting presentation about why he’s supporting Barack Obama. This has been floating around the net since early February, but worth re-posting in case you haven’t yet see it.

When done with this, you can watch his video explaining why Hillary Clinton can’t beat John McCain.

If you haven’t yet seen the videos by Josh Marshall’s new outfit, get yourself over to Veracifier.com with all deliberate speed:

Veracifier’s is topped only by the Daily Show in its ability to distill hours of video footage down to the tastiest cuts of meat. Here for instance, they showcase Doug Feith, who is either a blind idelogue, or the dumbest man on earth:

Articles by NPR, Politico, the New York Times, and other mainstream media sources, are painting a picture of a steep hill for Hillary.

NPR Blog: Media Ask “The Beginning of the End for Clinton?”:

A “drumbeat” has started to sound in the media the past week with the speech on race by Sen. Barack Obama and with the announcement of Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama - “this could be the beginning of the end for Clinton.”

Time’s Mark Halperin writes in Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know that Hillary can’t win without dismissing the will of the people:

1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats.

2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle — after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast her as a villain.

3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as impossible as catching up in elected delegates.

Politico: Story behind the story: The Clinton myth:

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

The New York Times’ analysis of fundraising suggests that as of the end of February, Hillary is at severe financial disadvantage to the virtually debt-free Obama campaign.

Once the outstanding campaign debt of $8.7 million is factored in, Mrs. Clinton has only $3 million in free cash for the battles ahead — one-tenth of the $31 million the Obama campaign has in primary cash.

Slate’s Christopher Beam says that Clinton’s path to the nomination is “barricaded”:

All this being a long way of saying, Hillary’s path to the nomination is not “narrow.” It’s barricaded. Yet still there seems to be a hesitation among the media to declare Clinton dead. Maybe it’s her zombielike ability to rise again—first in New Hampshire, then in Nevada, then most recently in Texas and Ohio. But people have to understand there will be no knockout blow, no head shot. Rather it will be a long, slow exit that causes pain to everyone involved.

The New York Times says that Clinton can only win if she a) wins Pennsylvania soundly, b) leads in the popular vote come June, and c) succeeds in casting doubts on Obama via some revelation that causes superdelgates to overturn his lead — basically subverting the outcome of the popular votes in previous primaries and caucuses.

NYT: Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination:

For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer.

My read of these articles is that with re-votes in Michigan and Florida looking doubtful, it’s looking unlikely that the campaign will continue into May. Although Hillary will likely win Pennsylvania on April 22, Obama may counter that with wins in North Carolina and Indiana two weeks later. At that point, the math will be undeniably clear, and Clinton will have no choice but to bow out.

Marc Andreessen, co-author of the world’s first graphic web browser and co-founder of Netscape Communications, has endorsed Barack Obama. It’s a thoughtful post, based on his impressions during an 1.5-hour meeting with Obama a year ago.

He writes that in person, Obama is quite authentically normal:

I’ve spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years. Most of them talk at you. Listening is not their strong suit — in fact, many of them aren’t even very good at faking it.

Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he’s with and the world around him.

And to Obama, the Internet is not just a series of tubes:

We were able to have an actual, honest-to-God conversation, back and forth, on a number of topics. In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more. We also talked about a pretty wide range of other issues, including Silicon Valley and various political topics.

Finally, Andreessen group asked about the Senator’s experience:

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of his answer — political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama’s opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win — and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

Read Andreessen’s entire post.

Spoiler alert! Thanks to the crack reporters at the Onion, the winner of the 2008 election can be known today.

(For an entertaining read on the problems with Diebold’s electronic voting machines, I recommend Brave New Ballot.)

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Yesterday, I wrote about attending Barack Obama’s town meeting in Alexandria. Today, the Washington Post published a photo in today’s paper that — through the magic of digital enhancement — shows me and my friend Jen in the crowd. Why are we not actually looking at the candidate? That I cannot answer. My guess is that this may have been the exact moment where I turned to Jen and pointed out that in the back of the room, CNN’s Candy Crowley had disappeared within the sea of cameras on the press platform and may have actually been napping.

Obama had just been introduced by Virginia governor Tim Kaine. We’re in the circle:

Also, here is the C-SPAN video of the entire event. Or, below is a more digestible excerpt. An undecided voter asked Obama why she should vote for him instead of Senator Clinton. Here is his response:

Barack Obama visited T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria earlier today, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket. I got there at 9:30 a.m., doors opened a little after noon. Obama didn’t take the stage until after 3. It was well worth the wait.

T.C. Williams, by the way, is the high school depicted in the movie “Remember the Titans.” In fact, Coach Herman Boone was sitting the front row. Obama called him out and joked that he was better looking than Denzel Washington.

I had a great view, as my mediocre photo below shows. He spoke about how hope isn’t merely “blind optimism,” but actually a way to take stock of the difficulties ahead. Nothing important that has ever been accomplished in America has happened without a fight, he said.

I’ve seen Obama speak on TV lately, and many of the words and themes were familiar. So the most unique part of the event was when Obama took questions. He called on a high school student sitting right in front of me, and she asked a smart question about strengthening relations with Latin America.

His speech and his time during the Q&A re-affirmed my personal impression of Obama as not only a uncommonly inspiring figure, but also extremely wise about the issues facing our country at this pivotal moment. He’s a quick study.

This post on Raising Kaine has a detailed description of the rally, more photos, and a summary of the excellent questions asked by the audience.

Please, God, no:

Still crunching numbers here, looking at absentees in American Samoa, reading the exits from Alaska, etc., and the one obvious conclusion is that the contest for the Democratic nomination may be decided by the very frightening Credentials Committee mentioned yesterday by Howard Dean. The Credentials Committee will try to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates at the convention, even though they are supposed to be punished for their jumping-the-gun impunity. That will, in turn, incite lawsuits galore — really apocalyptic stuff with heavy hitters emerging from the Palm and the Capitol Grille to let fly with legal briefs that will curl the hair on your back. And that legal case will surely go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Which means that, as in 2000 with Gore v. Bush, it’s going to come down to the whim of Justice Scalia.

More from Achenblog.

I banged my forehead a few days ago which necessitated a trip to the ER, but caused no permanent damage other than some ugly bruising around my eye. The story of how it I did it is so klutzy and lame that it will never be widely told. Fortunately, my co-worker Matt Humphrey caught a photo of what really happened:

The Washington Post reports that Bill Richardson’s endorsement is being heavily courted by both the Clinton and the Obama campaigns. He’s received calls from Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, as well as both candidates themselves.

Richardson is torn as he is an former member of the Clinton Administration. But as the Post reports, ” he said he likes Obama, telling a story about how Obama saved him from looking inattentive during one of last year’s Democratic debates:”

“I had just been asked a question — I don’t remember which one — and Obama was sitting right next to me. Then the moderator went across the room, I think to Chris Dodd, so I thought I was home free for a while. I wasn’t going to listen to the next question. I was about to say something to Obama when the moderator turned to me and said, ‘So, Gov. Richardson, what do you think of that?’ But I wasn’t paying any attention! I was about to say, ‘Could you repeat the question? I wasn’t listening.’ But I wasn’t about to say I wasn’t listening. I looked at Obama. I was just horrified. And Obama whispered, ‘Katrina. Katrina.’ The question was on Katrina! So I said, ‘On Katrina, my policy . . .’ Obama could have just thrown me under the bus. So I said, ‘Obama, that was good of you to do that.’”

Obama has always struck me as fiercely competitive. Do stories like this suggest that a fair and compassionate adversary as well?