Commenting on another West Virginia story (FT registration required), Sullivan says:

Obama’s got his work cut out with these people when he gets the nomination. A summer of engaging and listening with rural non-college educated white folk would help – why not hold a series of town hall meetings in rural America? I don’t think any region should be written off by any candidate, especially if the major objections seem racial or religious.

“Engaging and listening” won’t cut it.  Besides, how many times must a candidate deny patently ridiculous claims?  The voters who continue to believe these myths about him are either unreachable or unpersuadable, because they believe these things so strongly they won’t be moved from them or they are looking for any reason not to support Obama.  In any case, the campaign’s time can obviously be better spent in swing states where he has a remote chance of winning (e.g., Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, maybe New Mexico, Nevada and Michigan).  Obama and his campaign can do this without “writing off” whole regions.  Missouri is not necessarily a lost cause yet.  Kentucky and West Virginia seem to be.  When the majority of a state’s population is deeply and fundamentally opposed to your candidacy, there’s simply no point in trying to win them over during the campaign, especially if the major objections seem racial or religious.  If these are the objections, that is a kind of opposition that you cannot overcome with town hall meetings and stump speeches.   

Meanwhile, this sort of article (in the NYT of all places!) is hardly going to help Obama’s cause.  Frankly, I think the distinction between “he was once a Muslim according to Islamic law, but not according to the way we understand these things, and now he is not” and “he is a Muslim” will be lost on a lot of people.  Update: The counter-argument that he was not raised a Muslim and was abandoned by his atheist father, making this issue void, is not exactly a positive for Obama, either, since the only thing more politically damaging than being associated with Islam is being associated, however tenuously, with atheism.  In the eyes of his devoted opponents, Obama’s Christianity is supposed to be utterly cynical, so reminders about any parental atheism are not helpful.  It is intriguing that Luttwak’s article is being treated as a “smear,” since several regular NYT columnists have been going overboard emphasising Obama’s foreign connections for months (but in a good way!) and have never really been criticised in this way, except perhaps by me. 

As potentially explosive as it is, Luttwak’s argument, however, has something to it, which is that the assumption that Obama will improve American relations with Muslims around the world misunderstands how many Muslims are going to respond to him and his election.  Following up on an earlier point, I would add that the expectation that Muslims would respond well to Obama’s election is precisely the kind of thing that feeds into this claim that Obama is Muslim and increases his difficulties in the election campaign.  This sort of “symbolic augmentation of soft power” argument for Obama would strike plenty of people as fairly far-fetched all on its own, and it becomes even harder for some voters to swallow when you throw in these other (completely made-up) factors.  Neglecting a realistic assessment of Muslim reaction on the one hand, this expectation is also founded on an assumption that the minimal differences between Obama and the Washington establishment on foreign policy will strike foreign audiences as deeply significant shifts instead of small adjustments.    

Update: Obama addresses an element of this in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg:

I think what is going on there is the same reason why there are some suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look, we don’t do nuance well in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. We look at things as black and white, and not gray. It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about.   I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.

They’re not confused–they’re in denial, just as Obama’s “pro-Israel” critics are.

Stanley Crouch misses several things in this column, but the most important thing he misunderstands is the source of hostility to different kinds of elites.  There is always some thread of anti-intellectualism in any reaction against an “academic elite,” but the things that rankle people most are hostility to their cultural values and the presumption by elites to tell them how they should think or how they should live.  Fundamentally, the dissatisfaction with different elites is an expression of dissatisfaction with disparities of power and how that power is being deployed against the majority: the elites have it, they don’t, and the elites use it to their disadvantage.  Even this would not necessarily be so galling for many people, but when it is married to a sneering contempt for the people and their way of life it often sparks a backlash.  It is, of course, ludicrous to say that this dissatisfaction is anti-democratic, since it is what the demos does time and again.  For most of our civilisation’s history it was the philosophers and the educated who rejected democracy, partly because they genuinely thought this type of regime was disordered and partly because they understood that it threatened their position and their ideals.  There have been peoples, including the Byzantines, who valued classical education and accepted fairly great social mobility in the ranks of the bureaucracy and military, but who nonetheless abhorred democracy.  Democracy does not necessarily have anything to do with social mobility, and in its pure form democracy can encourage a culture that despises achievement in the name of equality.  In our culture today there is an excessive disdain for expertise, as if anyone could equally understand any field and those who have spent many years working on a subject are not better qualified than others, and this, too, is a very democratic habit of despising authority and resenting excellence.   

Elites are unavoidable in any system, and democratic polities reconcile themselves to this reality of oligarchy by claiming that the oligarchs are accountable to the people.  The existence of elites is itself non-egalitarian and in that way anti-democratic, but most of us see the absurdity and futility in pursuing such a strict social egalitarianism that we would do away with them.  We not only reward education, but we also reward inborn talent, and both of these work to erode the myth of equality, which is at the heart of justifying democratic government.  Whatever the flaws with complaints against this or that set of elites, they are not anti-democratic flaws.

And if Obama is so utterly opposed to dealing with Hamas, as he has stated publicly, then why would he have an adviser, even an “informal” one, who was doing just that? ~Philip Klein

Probably for the same reason that McCain had two aides with ties to a company that worked for the Burmese junta–many people are tied in one way or another to presidential campaigns, and the campaign cannot control every informal advisor nor can it necessarily be held accountable for the former (or ongoing) careers or freelance activities of those connected to it, however closely or loosely.  If McCain is so utterly opposed to dealing with the Burmese junta, as he has stated publicly, then why would he have aides who worked for a company that did just that?  No one dreams of making such an argument against McCain, because it is prima facie idiotic.  It does seem difficult for some people to accept the idea that Obama’s views on Israel are perfectly conventional and are well to the “right” of half of Israelis (and probably a third of Americans), which is why there has been such a concerted effort to use peripheral figures such as Malley as evidence against Obama, because no one can actually find anything substantive that would cast Obama as anything other than an utterly predictable “pro-Israel” politician.   Hence we have single-sourced anecdotes about Obama’s interest in “even-handedness,” reports of friendly relations with Khalidi, who had been a U. of C. colleague, and stories about dinner with Edward Said as the “damning” proof, and, last but not least, his acknowledgement that Palestinians have suffered (quelle horreur!).  Of course, no one rejects that people can and will question his “earnestness” or his sincerity on this, and I suppose no one has to believe that Obama’s public record has any bearing on the question, but it seems to me that this is a classic case of attributing views of what the critics assume to be his supporters’ views to the candidate.

Klein asks:

When he was asked by Brian Williams in a debate last year to name the top three allies of the United States, why did he filibuster the question without naming Israel?

Because it was a stupid, gotcha question that was bound to insult any number of valued allies?  Never mind that Obama has repeatedly said since then that Israel is the U.S. “closest ally” in the region.  Is that satisfactory?

Klein asks later:

SO IS IT REALLY a stretch to wonder whether Obama would eventually support talks with the terrorist group, despite his public pronouncements to the contrary?

Since there is no evidence of any kind that he would do so, yes, it is a stretch.  The other two cases Klein mentions actually support accepting Obama’s stated views on Israel and Hamas.  On NAFTA and the Iraq war, Obama has been campaigning againstthe status quo, while his advisors have been saying in other contexts that he doesn’t really mean it or won’t necessarily withdraw from Iraq under just any circumstances according to a rigid timetable (which is actually what Obama has said on different occasions), so what we can take from this is that Obama will govern in a way that is much less threatening and challenging to the status quo than his campaign rhetoric would suggest.  This means that his conventional public position on Israel is almost certainly going to remain his public position, and he is not going to reveal some secret pro-Palestinian sympathies once he takes office.  Of course, for those who take the mere acknowledgement of human suffering as evidence of something insidious, anything Obama does or says will be interpreted in the worst light.

Klein concludes:

Yet those who demand to know a little bit more about the candidate by scrutinizing his statements and relationships are arrogantly dismissed as engaging in “smears” and being divisive for refusing to simply take him at his word.

But the concerted effort in recent months to label his advisors, both formal and informal, as anti-Semites and the suggestion that Obama wants to negotiate with Hamas are smears because they are manifestly untrue.  Asking questions about policy and a candidate’s record is perfectly legitimate.  Insinuating that a candidate has sympathy for or an interest in dealing with terrorist groups without a shred of evidence is not, and if Obama’s election would mean an end to this kind of vilification of domestic political opponents it might almost be worth it.  However, the truth is that Obama’s election isn’t going to change anything–not in U.S. Israel policy and not in the way that these attacks are launched against opponents. 

Update: Obama states his position about Hamas clearly:

My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them. I’ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: since they are a terrorist organization, we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.

My only follow up would be this: what else can explain Obama’s 40-point deficits in West Virginia and Kentucky? The states are lacking in some of Obama’s most reliable constituencies, but so are states like Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska, but Obama won each of those contests easily. ~Steve Benen

Benen is kidding, right?  First, South Dakota hasn’t voted yet–North Dakota moved up to 2/5, but not S.D., which votes on June 3.  That’s why Clinton was campaigning in Sioux Falls the other day (it worries me that I know that).  I know that it is probably considered unconscionable pro-Clinton shilling to say this, but the caucuses that Obama won by such ridiculous margins on February 5 are not representative of the broad majority of Democratic voters in those states.  That’s just the nature of a caucus system.  Caucuses go to the candidate with the superior organisation, funding and GOTV efforts, which is why Romney performed so much better in these venues than in most primaries, and why Ron Paul doubled and tripled his normal 8-10% percentage of the vote in some of these same caucus states.  Romney had the money and organisation, and Paul had money and loyal, zealous supporters.  It is a credit to Obama’s political operation (and a lasting mark of shame on Clinton’s) that he cleaned up in these caucuses, but it is not evidence that he used to win the sorts of voters he is now losing. 

In Oklahoma, Clinton won the primary by 22 points, and the electoral map looks a lot like Kentucky’s will in a little over a week: an island of Obama voters (OKC) in a sea of light blue (except that he is unlikely even to win the Louisville area).  My guess is that, if Nebraska, Wyoming, Alaska and Idaho had held primaries, Obama’s share of the vote would have been at Oklahoma-like levels, and we would not now be talking about Obama’s victory lap.  Instead, they held caucuses–those are the breaks.  This is not to argue that those caucus results “don’t count” or “shouldn’t count as much,” but it is true that a caucus format disproportionately attracts certain kinds of voters (those with more income, more education and more information), and these tend to be the voters who are more likely to prefer Obama.  Obviously, it helps even more when only one campaign actively competes and the other pretends that these elections don’t matter, which is another reason why Obama’s margins in some places were so huge.  A caucus format does not involve “disenfranchisement,” as some lame Clintonites have tried to argue, but it rewards the campaign that can mobilise better-informed, highly-motivated supporters and punishes the campaigns that have supporters who are either less activist (and generally less obsessed with politics) or too busy to participate.  We don’t know whether race was a factor in Oklahoma voting, for example, because no one even bothered to investigate the question, but it is not necessarily obvious that race, much less race alone, explains the size of Clinton’s lead in Kentucky and West Virginia.  Caucus results from Super Tuesday definitely don’t tell us what we want to know, because a caucus is an entirely different kind of process. 

P.S. South Dakota and Montana are both holding their primaries in June, so at that point we might be able to compare apples to apples when we see the results next month.

Update: Oklahoma’s exit polling seems to confirm that the patterns people started obsessing over in March and April were quite evident by early February in all their particulars.

This N.C. Senate poll should sound another alarm for the GOP.  No one will confuse Liddy Dole with a great or effective political operator, and it’s rather fitting that the one responsible for leading Republican Senate electoral efforts in ’06 is now in danger of losing her seat, but the chance that the Republicans could lose a seat in what should be, by all accounts, a Republican-leaning state strikes me as more significant than the odd House special election.  No one has been expecting the Democrats to have a shot at North Carolina, and now it seems they may have one.  It is possible that the activism and mobilisation connected with the primary last week has helped to weaken North Carolinian Republican office-holders in the eyes of the public, so this could be temporary, but more likely it means that Republican incumbents are facing a much more hostile environment everywhere than I would have assumed.  Even if Dole holds on to win, this means another diversion of resources away from the open seats that the NRSC already has to defend, which makes it that much less likely that the GOP can hold any of them.  The filibuster-proof majority is not such a far-fetched goal for the Democrats at this point.     

P.S. Meanwhile, in some good news for House Republicans in North Carolina that most of you will already know about, Walter Jones won his primary last Tuesday, which gives the GOP a much better chance of resisting Democratic efforts to add any more seats to what is very likely to be a huge number of pick-ups.

 If Obama’s biography and appeal affect global opinion and therefore foreign policy, the subject should be on the table – as a weapon in pursuit of national self-interest. If we cannot have a debate in a democracy about this impact without fostering xenophobia, ignorance and fear, then democracy cannot work. Which, I suspect, is partly Larison’s point. I’m not as defeatist – and it’s telling that many criticisms of Obama – Carole Simpson’s for example – fall into this trap. ~Andrew Sullivan

There’s not really a question whether the subject should be on the table, but whether, having been raised, it works to the advantage of someone like Obama.  We can have the debate, but what I want to stress is that if the debate is framed as it has been those who are perceived to be less nationalistic are going to lose.  I do not consider this to be a desirable or healthy development, given my objections to nationalism, but I think it does describe political reality.  My point was more that ignorance is an unavoidable part of mass democracy, as is identitarianism, so that a politician whose candidacy is defined to some large degree by connections to the rest of the world and his unusual biography is going to be at a special disadvantage.  The larger point is that I don’t think democracy works the way Obama’s supporters assume it does, and that they will view a repudiation of Obama to some extent as evidence of a breakdown or failure of democracy, while I take it to be the natural and logical expression of what democracy is.  Perhaps this is a pessimistic view of democracy, but I am a pessimist and someone who sees a great many flaws in mass democracy.

No sooner was Novak talking about Doug Goodyear, McCain’s convention chairman, than he was drop-kicked by the campaign for ties to a lobbying firm that had worked for the Burmese junta.  “Republican Convention Chairman’s Ties To Monstrous Government That Starves Its Cyclone-Ruined Nation” is probably not a headline McCain wants to see.  Goodyear got the job when Paul Manafort, one of Rick Davis’ partners, was passed over.  Manafort has represented Yanukovych in the past, so true to his standard Russophobia McCain instead opted for someone whose firm, as it turns out, had worked for an infinitely more despicable government.  Doesn’t anyone in the McCain camp check into these sorts of things before hiring high-profile employees?  I have a suggestion that may help avoid future embarrassments: stop hiring the associates of your lobbyist friends for key positions!

Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia. 

I’ve joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments. ~John Kass

Sullivan picks up on part of this L.A. Times article on West Virginia:

Neil Gillies, an Obama supporter who runs a local environmental nonprofit group, glumly recounted the gibes that his wife, a schoolteacher, hears regularly from her students. “They’re convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who’s coming to take away their guns,” Gillies said. “It’s just sad.”

I tend to agree, but I find it sad mostly because of what it says about the deplorable ignorance of vast numbers of voters and the inevitability of such ignorance in a mass democracy.  Why we should want to export this kind of government to other parts of the world has never been clear to me, when it isn’t clear that it contributes to either good government or healthy politics in this country.  Democracy is identitarian and necessarily so.  Democracy is dangerous to liberty for several reasons, but one reason is that it contributes to collectivist attitudes and what Kuehnelt-Leddihn called “nostrism,” one form of which is nationalism.     

No one who has been paying attention for more than an hour to this campaign could conclude that Obama is a Muslim, but that’s just the problem: millions and tens of millions of voters haven’t paid and won’t pay that much attention until later this year, and by then these memes will have spread far and wide through chain e-mails and word of mouth, by which time it will be too late and attitudes will have become settled.  One of the key things about memes is that they do not need to be true to be reproduced; they need only be memorable or notable.  This is one of the reasons why I have never understood the enthusiasm of Obama boosters to stress his background and biography as selling points or talk about how enthusiastically Muslims around the world will respond to his election.  You begin to see how this sort of thing backfires on Obama when McCain or his supporters can say, accurately if rather demagogically, that Hamas wants Obama to win–there’s some enthusiasm from overseas that Obama could do without.  This is why there should never have been an emphasis on whether or how many foreign nations would cheer an Obama win–there may be nations whose endorsement that might be politically damaging that you don’t want, but once you go down the road of touting popularity abroad you take on the undesirable supporters with the rest.  This sort of argument reinforces the impression, cultivated by Obama’s enemies, that he and his associates are lacking in their embrace of Americanism.  To be labeled “vaguely French” was part of what brought down Kerry, and yet for reasons I will never understand Obama and his backers have made Obama’s foreign experiences and connections a centerpiece of his public persona.     

You could not have concocted a more insidious anti-Obama campaign than what many of his supporters (as well as the candidate and campaign) have managed to do in constantly talking up all the foreign places he lived, his relatives in Kenya, and on and on.  From a certain perspective, Obama’s background and biography must seem to be undeniable political assets, but slowly it is beginning to dawn on his boosters that a great many, probably most, Americans do not share that perspective.  Furthermore, the emphasis on Obama’s background and biography has always meant that the ’08 election would become a culture clash, and it is one that I suspect the Democrats still cannot win.