The Texas Observer

Living up to her reputation as the biggest diva in the U.S. Congress, Houston congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee woke up the Texas delegation breakfast this morning with a bossy, fire-and-brimstone speech that also served as an apology for her early support of Hillary Clinton.

“Some of us started on a different path,” acknowledged Lee, who was booed earlier this year at a speech at Texas Southern University for her support of Clinton. “But now we’ve got to get a compass, we’ve got to get a GPS, we got to get on the road because we’ve got work to do.”

While other speakers have struggled to maintain attention in the room of delegates milling around and visiting the breakfast buffet, Lee let the delegates know, as she took the microphone, she would have none of that. She ordered the room’s doors closed (the buffet is located outside) and demanded that people chatting in the back of the room sit down. Earlier, she had distributed campaign signs for the delegates to wave, prompting a lot of eye-rolling among the delegates. But by the end of the passionate speech — in which she invoked Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Moses — the audience was on its feet, waving the signs enthusiastically. Her message: Republicans will try to win through voter suppression, and Democrats should be prepared to fight back on election day.

Speaking this afternoon to a small group of some of the country’s top journalists (okay…so I snuck in), Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said he doesn’t worry about the tightness of the Obama-McCain contest in national polls. Rather he’s focused on Obama’s ability to persuade increasingly cynical and disaffected swing voters in battleground states that an Obama presidency can reverse the country’s economic downturn.

Plouffe puts 18 states in the “battleground” category and says he likes what he’s learned about the views of their undecided voters. “We like who these people are and how they view” key issues like Iraq and the economy, he said. In particular, he believes that undecided women will break for Obama and give him the crucial edge in the Electoral College in what he acknowledges will remain a tight race.

While women find McCain appealing because of his record of independence, the recent pro-McCain television ads questioning Obama’s character will backfire, Plouffe predicted. Women who thought McCain was above slash-and-burn politics will be turned off, he said. (Plouffe specifically mentioned the ads funded by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons.)

Plouffe acknowledged that “deep-rooted cynicism” about Washington may make his target audience difficult to motivate. While the energy question has been included in every presidential debate dating back to 1972, Plouffe blamed the country’s dependence on foreign oil on “the lack of will in Washington” to find authentic solutions. For this, Democrats share responsibility, he said, noting that congressional approval ratings are on par with those of “the Ebola virus.” On the other hand, he called Obama’s refusal on principle to endorse a gas tax cut ” best moment of the campaign.”

In other observations, Plouffe said: The choice of Invesco Field as the venue for Obama’s acceptance speech is a key part of Obama’s field operations. Twenty thousand Obama supporters from Colorado — a crucial swing state — will be present. “We’re thrilled about opening up the convention to 60,000 additional Americans” who would not have been accommodated at the convention hall.

Number one goal of the Obama campaign for the convention: fill in gaps of voter’s knowledge about Obama; Job Number Two is making the case that convince people that a McCain administration would continue George Bush’s policies. Plouffe acknowledged that Obama’s election is contingent upon the campaign’s ability to turn out new or sporadic voters. To that end, field organizations in every state will help prod the 600,000 African American registered voters who failed to participate in the last election. “One thing we never run into is a John McCain field operation,” Plouffe said.

After the discussion — which was sponsored by TIME Magazine and led by the magazine’s senior political correspondent and San Antonio native Karen Tumulty — Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer said voters would be hearing a lot more about McCain’s affiliation with former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, who Pfeiffer said, continues to counsel McCain on economic policies. “It says so much about McCain that he is considering (for appointment to Treasury Secretary) a man who thinks we’re a nation of whiners and that we are in a “mental’ recession.”

I’m clueless about how the outside world feels about Hillary Clinton’s speech last night, but in Denver, people are running out of superlatives to describe her performance. (I’ve been bracing myself for some buzz-killer to nit-pick, in the style of the television commentator who could find something critical to say about the most stunning Olympic diving performances.) So far, in the Mile High City, Hillary’s been awarded a Perfect 10. This morning, Michele Obama brought the theme of unity to the Black Caucus, with kind words for Hillary’s speech. No PUMAs (as in party unity, my ass) in sight.

Though nobody expects Obama to win Texas, Democrats here are hoping his presence on the ballot will excite voter participation that elects down-ballot races. To that end, Texas lawmakers gathered at a fundraiser for Congressman Charlie Gonzalez’s leadership PAC. Gonzalez says he hopes to raise and contribute $100,000 to help fellow Democrats, particularly in their effort to take back the Texas House. Gonzalez inadvertently gave state Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) a promotion when he introduced him as “Congressman Ellis,” but the longtime state senator assured us the slip was not a prediction of his future plans. “If I wanted to do that, I would have had to use better family planning,” he quipped, noting that he’ll be 67 when his youngest child graduates from high school.

Former Gov. Mark Warner gave a great keynote speech in the unenviable slot preceding Hillary Clinton. Now a candidate for U.S. Senate, Warner — known for his bipartisanship in Virginia — warmed up the crowd by linking McCain to George Bush. His best applause line: While everybody has their own personal reasons for despising the Bush administration, he noted, his was this: “It is the fact that this president never tapped into our greatest resource — the character and resolve of the American people.” If Bush had asked Americans to reduce their use of foreign oil, Warner said, every American would have responded, “How can I do my part?”McCain, Warner said, “promises more of the same.”And as I publish this, the REAL keynoter is taking the stage to thunderous applause…..

Two of the nation’s most respected pollsters — Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research — tried to explain to visiting international leaders in Denver today just why Barack Obama appears to be neck-and-neck with John McCain, even though nearly 80 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration has put the country on the “wrong track.”

While the Democratic Party enjoys a “double digit advantage” in voters who identify themselves as Democrats (over self-identifying Republicans), Obama still splits the independent vote with McCain and has failed to marshall support in key subgroups of Democratic Party faithful, particularly older blue collar voters. Simply put, Obama is not doing as well in polling as his party, and his numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

Some interesting poll findings from their recent research: Kohut says Obama has received twice as much press as McCain in the last few months, but apparently, to his disadvantage. Some 48 percent of voters feel “Obama fatigue” in that they’ve heard too much about the candidate. Yet, nearly 60 percent report they know little about his economic or foreign policy perspectives. Kohut also says McCain beats Obama 54 to 27 on the question of who is ready to be president; he beats Obama 51 to 36 on the question of who would govern best in a crisis.

Greenberg says 54 percent of voters say they would be “comfortable” with a Democratic president, but only 48 percent said they would be “comfortable” with an Obama administration. Noting that only half of independent voters believe that McCain would continue the policies of George Bush, Greenberg said Obama “must change that perception….It’s up to the Obama campaign to make that case,” Greenberg said, by drawing sharp contrasts with McCain on the economy and Iraq.

Added Kohut: “His mission at this convention is to do a better job with his base, alleviate the concerns about his lack of experience and shine a light on McCain.”

Greenberg believes Obama can win with the message that he will clip the power of the Washington lobby and end partisan divide. He also noted there was much good news in the numbers for Obama — he’s leading by 6 points in the battleground states. Also, Obama leads by overwhelming majority with Hispanic voters, who are participating in record numbers because of the Republican-driven immigration debate. And with that, Greenberg ended the discussion “on a note of humility”: Given the huge increase in participation in the primaries, he said, “I’m not sure I know America this year.” The surge in voter turnout, he admitted, came as “a complete surprise.”

As delegates to the Democratic National Convention arrived in Denver this weekend with high hopes of energizing Barack Obama’s presidential bid, perhaps the most compelling case for electing a Democratic president quietly was being made 70 miles away from the media glare, in Colorado Springs.

In a reprise of his May opinion piece in The New Yorker, CNN political analyst Jeffrey Toobin outlined for the incoming class of Colorado College on Saturday how a McCain administration would deliver the U.S. Supreme Court to conservative extremists. Tracing the history of the court since the 1960s, Toobin, author of the excellent book, The Nine, argued that a radicalized Republican Party is on the cusp of claiming the court for its agenda of expanding presidential power, curtailing civil liberties and overturning Roe v. Wade. (Compared to today’s Republican Party, Toobin noted, Nixon, with his appointments of Justices Warren Burger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist, would be considered liberal.)

Toobin eloquently pointed out that McCain’s statements about the court draw the brightest line between himself and Obama. As Toobin wrote in The New Yorker, McCain gave a speech in May that “amounted to a dog whistle for the right — an implicit promise that he will appoint justices who will eliminate the right to privacy, permit states to ban abortion, and allow the execution of teen-agers.”

And that (the execution of children), as Toobin told his Colorado Springs audience, would put the United States in questionable international company: Other than the U.S., only China, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia execute juveniles.

Given the new USA Today poll claiming that a full 30 percent of Hillary Clinton’s supporters plan to vote for John McCain, Obama supporters should emphasize this critical difference between their man and McCain. How long –- and at what cost — will Hillary supporters peevishly withhold their votes?

– Patricia Kilday Hart