Link Banana

Timothy Noah finally said I was (unconsciously) waiting for someone to:

I have never understood why people get upset whenever Ralph Nader runs for president.

And his conclusion is great:

Nader doesn’t believe in compromise, and, yes, that would be a problem if he ever really did become president. But his stubbornness has been only an asset in his long career as an advocate, and I’m not so sure it’s a liability in his newer career as a perpetual candidate. In the current election, Nader is the sole presidential candidate you’re likely to hear about (now that Dennis Kucinich has dropped out) who stands forthrightly for adopting a single-payer solution to the health-care crisis, a stance universally regarded as politically impractical. But single payer is the only solution of much practical value in the real world, as evidenced by the experience of nearly all advanced democracies. If Nader does no more in the 2008 election than oblige major-party candidates to consider that stubborn reality for five minutes, he’ll have done us all a big favor.

Karl Rove’s Wall Street Journal editorial doesn’t exactly have novel analysis for those following the elections closely, but for anyone not doing so (99% of America) it’s a useful rundown of what’s happened.

- Technology allows a candidate to raise money quickly and inexpensively. The Internet dramatically shortens the gap between political success and raising money. Under the old regime, members of the finance committee would start calling a few days after a successful debate and FedEx’ing the checks. Mail pieces might hit 10 days later. Fundraising required events with weeks of advance notice. Today, if you do well in a debate on Tuesday night you can begin raising large sums of money Wednesday morning. Effective fundraising can be a mouse-click away.

That point was clarified this morning by Barack Obama’s announcement of having raised 32 million in January alone.

There are two ways — actually more, but these two are the most interesting — to read Howard Kurtz’s column about Obama and the media. It’s either a fawning look at a campaign that doesn’t spin the media or an indictment of a media so enchanted that they don’t need to be spun. Either way you read it, Mr. Kurtz offers an interesting portrait.

The Clinton camp, says David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, “is hyperbolic about it. What we don’t do is spend six hours a day trying to persuade you guys that red is green or up is down… . Their own spin was ‘We are the biggest, baddest street gang on the block.’

“We can’t be pacifists and cede the battlefield,” Axelrod says, but “what’s powering this campaign is a rejection of tactical politics.”

“That’s the best spin I’ve heard all day,” replies Clinton communications chief Howard Wolfson, inviting Axelrod to “send over some leather jackets.” “My sense is the Obama campaign spends eight hours a day spinning.” Clinton, for her part, abandoned her inaccessible approach after losing Iowa, scheduling far more time each day for interviews and press conferences. “She felt it was the best way to talk to the American people,” Wolfson says.