Just when Jeff and I thought that things might be winding down, and that our recent bouts of bad health and overextension might have forced us to put 2G2K to rest, Ralph Nader comes out and throws his name into this year's Presidential race.  Nader's declaration to run made what was already a great week for republicans only better.  First the NY Times gave their base something to rally around by running an article with murky allegations of impropriety against John McCain, then Nader decides to join, a move that immediately puts the democratic candidates on notice. 

 Nader cites a desire to get core issues on the agenda as his reason for running, but from my vantage point it seems as if he just wants to get his name back out in public forums.  Nader has every right to run, but it's unclear how continually resuscitating Nader helps advance the Green Party's claims of legitimacy.  With its rabid supporters and ability to made gradual inroads in local politics, it's disconcerting that the Greens have to cultivate another viable presidential candidate.  Worst yet, Nader's announcement undermines the campaigns of Cynthia McKinley and Kent Mesplay who had been seeking the Green Party's vote.  Nader supporters will spin his candidacy as the equivalent of Al Gore jumping into the democratic fray, but unlike Gore, Nader and the Green Party seem content with letting him jump in without acknowledging the efforts of his competitors. 

The democratic and republican candidates have already started crafting their own responses to Nader's announcement.  It will be interesting to see what impact Nader's campaign has on this race. Will he pull voters away from Obama, and if so, will this create the opening for Clinton that she desperately needs at this point?  Will either Clinton or Obama be sandwiched into a debate between Nader and McCain?  And finally, can the Green Party create a viable slate of delegates without Nader? 

F 

As this competition for democratic presidential nominee draws to a close, it looks increasingly likely that Barack Obama will head to Denver's convention with a lead in delegates.  In order to secure victory, both Obama and Hillary Clinton will have to convince their party's 796 superdelegates to vote in their favor.  If you've been wondering what precisely is a superdelegate, here's a definition posted on wikipedia.

One of these superdelegates, John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia who initially supported Hillary Clinton, has now announced that he will cast his vote for Obama in August at the Democratic Convention.   A civil rights icon, Lewis was criticized for throwing his support behind Clinton.  Now that he has shifted toward Obama, Lewis initiates what will undoubtedly be a series of high profile announcements.  Unlike celebrity and political endorsements, superdelegates actually get to vote and therefore their support really matters. 

In other news:

University of Michigan Professor and author of, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles, Scott Kurashige, posted this essay at The Huffington Post on Thursday.  Entitled, "What’s the Matter with Paul Krugman?" Kurashige explores Krugman's desperate attempt to reinsert himself as an expert voice as Hillary Clinton's campaign collapses.  Kurashige challenges Krugman, and by extension all academics to step outside our bubbles if we are to properly try analyzing social movements:

Following up on last week's conversation about financing, John McCain has challenged Obama to live up to his pledge last year to accept public financing for the general election. 

Clinton has begun making moves toward seating delegates from Michigan and Florida.  As some of you might remember, the democratic candidates initially vowed not to campaign and to take their names off ballots in these two states as a way of voicing their displeasure with the decision to move up their primaries.  Hillary Clinton won both of these informal primaries, and now wants to have them seated.  Julian Bond, says that civil rights of Michigan and Florida are being violated.  Meanwhile, Al Sharpton, argues that the votes should not count because too many people did not vote since they thought that their votes would not count.  

After reading this Joseph C. Wilson in the Huffington Post declaring that Hillary Clinton is battle tested, I was all set to write an entry exploring whether Obama will have enough allies in the national media writing similar opinion pieces on his behalf.  Before I could write a word, I saw this post by Gary Hart advocatating for Obama's transcendent talents.  These two pieces are instructive because they display characteristics that have followed for better or worse Clinton and Obama.  Her supporters enjoy proclaiming that she's experience, or "battle tested" as Wilson argues, and Obama's supporters portray him as a political visionary, a "transcendent" politcian to paraphrase Hart.  Sadly, a year into this campaign, we have not gotten any further than what these candidates offered when they first entered into the race.  It stands to reason that if he figured out how to hang around long enough Obama's "change" rhetoric would eventually find enough captive audience members.  Likewise, Clinton's "experience" rhetoric might eventually draw voters away once they started feeling as if they were being lectured to.  Clinton's campaign was designed for a general election and unfortunately for her supporters it is beginning to look like she will not be able to reach this point.  Obama is as transcendent as Hart suggests, but, if he does not learn the lesson that Clinton failed to learn during this primary, sooner or later people will tune you out if you do not say something new. 

This leads me to the title of this post, John McCain has begun turning his attention to Obama.  In the quotes lifted by the NY Times, McCain is sounding a like republican version of Clinton.  McCain's obsession with proving himself a conservative might ultimately derail his attempts at challenging Obama.  He has a far greater identity problem than anything faced by Clinton, and one which might ultimately derail his campaign.  Still, Obama cannot rely on McCain to completely unravel on his own.  He will need to incorporate more "specifics" into his platform.  Fortunately for him, the economy is a safe issue that he can leverage his experience as a community organizer to engage McCain on and draw sharp distinctions between him and his counterpart. 

 In other news, The Telegraph, a British newspaper, has picked up on my insinuation that JC Watts is a possible running mate for McCain.