The Wall Street Journal-20080214-The Morning Brief- A Rising Tide For Obama- Online edition
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The Morning Brief: A Rising Tide For Obama; Online edition
Full Text (2129 words)The Wall Street Journal Online
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Barack Obama's victories yesterday in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia were played down ahead of time by Hillary Clinton's campaign as she waits for votes in friendlier territory, but they are bound to shape voters' perceptions in all remaining contests for the Democratic nomination.
Following Mr. Obama's triumphs last weekend in five races that ranged from Maine to Louisiana and Washington state, the senator from Illinois beat his New York counterpart 75%-24% in D.C., 59%-37% in Maryland and 64%-35% in Virginia, according to the latest tallies from the Associated Press. He now counts 1,223 Democratic delegates to his credit, compared to Sen. Clinton's 1,198, and is favored to win the final two February Democratic contests, in Wisconsin and Hawaii, as The Wall Street Journal notes. Sen. Clinton's campaign has been volubly counting on a better showing March 4 in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio. And after flying to El Paso for a late-night rally, she didn't even publicly acknowledge the defeats yesterday in the mid- Atlantic votes, the Washington Post reports.
But the shift of momentum toward Sen. Obama since what amounted to a split on Super Tuesday continues to build, with Sen. Clinton apparently losing support among demographic groups that she could count on earlier in the primaries. The Post notes that in Maryland and Virginia, Mr. Obama "won big among the affluent, educated voters in the [Washington] suburbs, but he also won convincingly among rural voters and small-town Democrats." A class divide that earlier set the candidates apart was apparently obliterated, independent Democratic pollster Celinda Lake tells the Post, with Sen. Obama beating Sen. Clinton among voters who earn less than $50,000 by 26 percentage points in Virginia and 24 percentage points in Maryland.
Mr. Obama all but acted as if the primaries were behind him in his victory speech last night, taking aim at the "Bush-McCain Republicans," the New York Times reports. Indeed, now that John McCain looks set to be the Republican nominee, Sens. Clinton and Obama are increasingly arguing that they would be the better opponent to their Senate colleague from Arizona. The Journal points out that Mr. Obama has enjoyed better results in national polls that pit potential Democratic nominees against Mr. McCain, but also how fickle the polls have been this election season. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain, who handily won all three races yesterday despite lingering support among conservatives for Mike Huckabee, has signed up one of President Bush's strongest fund-raisers, Mercer Reynolds, who helped the White House incumbent raise a record $273 million for his 2004 re-election, the Times reports.
However much the Clinton campaign is struggling -- Deputy Campaign Manager Mike Henry stepped down yesterday -- it will argue the electoral map and schedule continue to give her a strong chance to reverse the trend. Yet as Republican Rudy Giuliani's failure in once- secure Florida demonstrated, ballot-box wins -- or in his case losses -- feed upon themselves. However much the potential decisiveness of previous primary dates this year didn't pan out, March 4 looms as yet another chance for the race to be decided.
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Senate Backs Telecom Immunity for Surveillance
The Senate passed a bill updating the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with inclusion of retroactive immunity for phone companies that aided the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program by a 68-29 vote. That sets up a conference- committee showdown with House Democrats, who have opposed granting such immunity, The Hill notes. Still, with current authorization of the NSA domestic eavesdropping set to expire unless an extension is passed by this weekend, the Senate vote gives President Bush what The Wall Street Journal calls "a victory on one of the White House's signature national-security issues."
On another national-security issue that has been important but controversial for the White House, the Washington Post notes that "after years of refusing public comment on a particularly harsh CIA interrogation method, top Bush administration officials have suddenly begun pressing a controversial argument that it was legal for the CIA to strap prisoners to a board and pour water over their face to make them believe they were being drowned." The importance of that shift on waterboarding may increase with the move to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed and five al Qaeda colleagues on trial for 9/11.
Meanwhile, one Supreme Court justice who could eventually be called upon to rule on these issues made public some of his own feelings about physical interrogation methods. Antonin Scalia said during an interview with the BBC that in the face of an imminent terrorist threat, "smacking someone in the face" could be justified, Reuters reports. "You can't come in smugly and with great self-satisfaction and say, 'Oh, it's torture, and therefore it's no good,'" he said. Public criticism in Europe of U.S. interrogation methods has been fierce, as it has with U.S. use of the death penalty -- another subject Mr. Scalia addressed. "If you took a public opinion poll, if all of Europe had representative democracies that really worked, most of Europe would probably have the death penalty today," he said. "To get self-righteous about the thing as Europeans tend to do about the American death penalty is really quite ridiculous."
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GM's Persistent Troubles
The latest quarterly results from General Motors illustrate how tough a slog the U.S. auto industry still has in trying to get back on its feet. GM posted a $722 million fourth-quarter loss and a $38.7 billion deficit for the year, and The Wall Street Journal notes that the total $50 billion loss for the past three years is greater than all the profit it made over the preceding decade. Improving prospects for some new car models and growth overseas is helping GM, but not enough to compensate for the overall softening of the U.S. car market, higher costs for raw material and other factors, the Journal adds.
One bright spot, according to the Detroit News, is that GM "thinks it has a hook that will help coax thousands of highly paid veteran factory workers into retirement even after they turned down similar offers two years ago." That hook is an incentive: "the option of having cash payouts rolled into a retirement or 401(k) account, which could delay tax charges and make the offers potentially more valuable than those being rolled out by Ford Motor," the paper says. GM finance chief Fritz Henderson called the plan GM's best bet for saving money.
In a setback that demonstrates another source of pressure on the auto sector, former GM unit Delphi's $6.1 billion plan to exit bankruptcy protection is in trouble because the auto-parts maker's lenders are having difficulties getting funding from the stricken credit markets, people familiar with the matter tell the Journal. With J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and others unable to syndicate the Delphi loans to other lenders, it may fall to GM to step in and provide the needed aid, the Journal adds, and Mr. Henderson says GM is exploring options along those lines.
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Also of Note. . .
Wall Street Journal: The credit crunch that has so far caused more than $100 billion of losses for big Wall Street investment firms now extends to students in Michigan -- where a state agency said it would stop making loans under a student-loan program -- and it could soon hit many other borrowers, ranging from California museums to the prestigious Deerfield Academy prep school in Massachusetts. In the past few days, problems have mounted for many borrowers as an obscure but important corner of the credit market called auction-rate securities has gone into a deep freeze.
Guardian: The true scale of climate-change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked U.N. study that puts the annual emissions from the world's merchant fleet at 1.12 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.
International Herald Tribune: The presidents of Russia and Ukraine resolved a dispute over the price and terms of supply for natural gas, just minutes before the deadline for a threatened midwinter shutoff of a quarter of Ukraine's heating fuel. Presidents Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin of Russia also discussed Ukraine's possible NATO membership, and Mr. Putin said at a news conference afterward that his country might aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it joined the Western military alliance.
Associated Press: Hezbollah today said the fugitive militant Imad Mughniyeh, who was indicted in the U.S. for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a Navy diver died, has been killed by Israeli agents. Israel denied involvement in his death.
BBC: In a speech televised around Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today made a formal apology for the "profound grief, suffering and loss" inflicted by successive governments on the country's indigenous Aboriginal population, and he singled out the "Stolen Generations" of thousands of children forcibly removed from their families.
Kyodo: Protests continued to spread today in Okinawa in the wake of the alleged rape by a U.S. Marine of a 14-year-old Japanese girl over the weekend.
Variety: Steven Spielberg has decided not to participate in this summer's Beijing Olympic Games as an artistic adviser, citing China's lack of progress in resolving the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The move is a public relations blow to the Chinese government, which is under pressure to join the West in forcing the government of Sudan to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and Mr. Spielberg's worldwide profile could lead others involved in the Games to pull out and even lead sponsors to reconsider their roles in the event.
Financial Times: European Union competition regulators raided the offices of Intel and top European electrical goods retailers, in a sign that the antitrust probe against the world's largest chipmaker is expanding.
San Jose Mercury News: The pressure ratcheted up on Yahoo as its second largest institutional shareholder spoke encouragingly of a sale to Microsoft and headhunters circled the beleaguered Internet giant with job offers.
Times of London: Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling executed a partial retreat over his tax crackdown on foreigners domiciled in Britain last night. In his second U-turn in recent weeks, Mr. Darling made clear there was no intention to tax so-called non- doms for foreign income or gains not sent to the U.K.
Dow Jones Newswires: UBS today confirmed Morgan Stanley's Jerker Johansson will be the new head of its troubled investment banking unit, filling a position made vacant after a slew of management changes late last year.
Ad Age: After three months of acrimony, an armistice between Hollywood's writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers was finally approved, with 92.5% of 3,775 writers who turned out in Los Angeles and New York to cast ballots or fax in proxies voting in favor of ending the 100-day strike.
Washington Post: The FBI yesterday announced the award of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to Lockheed Martin to develop what is expected to be the world's largest crime-fighting computer database of biometric information, including fingerprints, palm prints, iris patterns and face images.
Los Angeles Times: A Chicago investment group said Los Angeles officials had failed to come up with the cash to preserve the mountaintop next to the iconic Hollywood sign, so it has put the ridge -- one of L.A.'s most famous postcard views -- up for sale with a $22- million price tag. The listing immediately generated loud protests from city officials and Hollywood residents, who say building homes on Cahuenga Peak would mar hillside vistas and scar a pristine hilltop.
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Quote of the Day
"As of last night, we were turned down by one and we hadn't heard from the other two, so it didn't sound like they were leaping for the door to say 'yes' to us," Warren Buffett told interviewers on CNBC yesterday morning, about his offer to reinsure $800 billion in municipal bonds covered by the three largest bond insurers, whose far- more risky coverage of bonds tied to subprime mortgages have shaken both their credit ratings and wider confidence in the financial markets. Despite the scant interest generated by Mr. Buffett's offer -- and its disassociation from the source of the insurers' trouble -- the news was credited with bolstering stock markets for the day.
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