The World’s Election 2008 Podcast: Episode 13

Democrats go to Unity, but the GOP isn’t ceding New Hampshire.

The BBC’s Kevin Connelly has some ideas on how Obama might have to shift on foreign policy to win.

Granite State politics expert Dante Scala tells me why NH is so important to McCain and how the Republican candidate hopes playing the national security card will work there.

Something from Obama on patriotism.

Give a listen. Send me an email with some comments, criticism, recipes, etc…. theworldpolitics@gmail.com

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Have a lovely day.

-Matthew

Veepstakes

Want some early speculation about who might get picked for VP by McCain and Obama? Here’s Doyle McManus at the LATimes today on the subject. Some nice headshots there too!

Obama on patriotism

Obama is speaking right now on the subject of patriotism. Naturally, he’s doing so in Independence, Missouri. I’ll put some audio from the speech in the podcast (coming later today). But here’s a link to the text of the whole speech.

United front

There was lots of “divided we fail” paraphernalia in Unity, NH today. Along with a fair sprinkling of Hillary signs as well.

These folks must have had the second-most popular photo op of the day, after the dynamic duo’s appearance on stage.

Finally getting around to add this on Sunday morning, 6/29.

On the way up to the Unity event, I stopped in Manchester to meet Dante Scala. He teaches politics at the University of New Hampshire, avoids endorsing anyone publicly and is very much up on what’s doing in state and national politics. We had breakfast at a French Canadian (many of the patrons were chatting in French) diner on Kelley Street in downtown Manchester called Chez Vachon. I mention this because it’s my goal to go back there and try the poutine. It’s pile of french fries smothered in cheese and gravy, described by the waitress to me as “a heart attack on the plate.” I didn’t have the fortitude to order it for breakfast… but I’ll be back. Alrighty then, enough about food and back to the interview with Scala. I asked him about how national security and the Iraq war issues are playing in New Hampshire. I started off asking him what the state of New Hampshire means to the McCain campaign, and Scala told me that it’s the one state in the northeast that the GOP thinks it can take in November. Listen to our conversation here, it runs about 8 minutes.

Here’s the story I put on the air on Friday afternoon.

Negotiating with evil

The American representative at the six party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program is Christopher Hill. The assistant secretary of state is much reviled by conservative hawks like Dick Cheney and John Bolton, who doubt that any deal with North Korea will ever be worth the paper it’s written on. Here’s Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post with a story about how Hill, a “mid-level State Department official” turned the Bush administration around 180 degrees on North Korea. Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard has a different take on HIll, with a piece focused on how Hill’s boss, Condoleezza Rice helped steer the Bush administration from a policy of “preemption to one of preemptive capitulation,” as one un-named source puts it.

Chris Lydon from Open Source Radio has an insightful podcast interview with Hill. It’s well worth a listen.

For my story today, I interviewed Carolyn Leddy. She sees today’s deal as a big mistake. Here’s most of my conversation with her.

North Korea is an interesting 2008 campaign issue. In part, because McCain and Obama don’t talk about it much. My sense is that, like many Democrats, Obama doesn’t want to give too much credit to president Bush for engaging in hard-nosed diplomacy because that would be, well, giving Bush credit. And McCain, from what North Korea watchers tell me and from his own statements from the 1990s, is actually quite hawkish on North Korea. But McCain doesn’t exactly need to be playing up the “I’m tougher than Bush-Cheney on evil regimes” card if he wants to win over independent-types from the Dems.

Fred Kaplan at Slate.com is convinced that John McCain’s evolving policy toward North Korea shows that McCain is more of a neocon than George W. Bush. I’m not so sure though. I asked McCain about this point blank about a year ago after a campaign event up in New Hampshire. And he said he’s skeptical about the Hill/Rice approach on North Korea, but he’s willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. It’s all about verification, he said. McCain issued a statement today essentially towing the same line. In fact, McCain and Obama were both cautious about the way they characterized the deal announced by Bush early this morning.

The Japanese don’t want to be left out of any deal with the DPRK. After all, they’re in missile range of North Korea. Prime minister Yasuo Fukuda told the Washington Post that a straight-up nuclear deal would not meet Japan’s needs. They are worried about the abduction issue, nukes, AND North Korean missiles… all of which appear to be pushed back into later stages of the six party talks process. But it’s not clear that the current Japanese government is going to make much of public stink about the pending deal. Even if many members of the Japanese parliament today voiced their skepticism.

North Korea is off the list

North Korea handed over a long-awaited declaration on its nuclear programs today. And President Bush reciprocated, announcing that the US would move toward removing North Korea from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Here’s the president’s announcement from early this morning. And here’s my radio story.

More background on the North Korean nuclear issue here on our own site.

Murdoch St. Journal

I’ve never been particularly interested in Rupert Murdoch for some reason. But Mark Bowden’s story in The Atlantic about Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal is a fantastic read. Check it out.

Fareed on appeasement

Zakaria on CNN.

CCP on Obama

Austin Ramzy at The China Blog on Time.com has a great blogpost about the People’s Daily’s take on Obama.

Abu Hamza

The half-blind, hook-handed, Egyptian-born London cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri might be coming. He lost a High Court appeal in London today. Here’s today’s radio story.

Abu Hamza’s lawyers are arguing that the cleric cannot receive a fair trial here in the US because his prosecution would be “tainted by torture.” US and British authorities have made this guy out to be a big fish. They have said he’s connected to shoe bomber Richard Reid, suspected 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaui, and that the London suicide bombers were inspired by his sermons. The Guardian says that the State Department wants Abu Hamza tried in a New York courtroom.