U.S. Politics

The Convention marches on...

• Colorado is the key: Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe says internal polling shows that Swing voters favor Obama, and that, if Obama wins Colorado, McCain has a "5% chance of winning the election."
  
  
• Don't Go it Alone: New polling from the Better World Campaign shows that 66% of the public supports the U.S. "doing its fair share in the world."
  
  
• Already thinking about 2012? The RNC has changed their primary calendar to allow at least one month of campaigning between the first round of states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina) and the rest.
  
  
• Richard Haass: this is a sobering moment for international relations. The next president will face one of the most difficult tests of the past 200+ years.
  
  
• Great political theater: Hillary has her name put on the Convention ballot...and then she yields New York's delegates to Obama to put him over the top.
  
  
• From the Pepsi Center:
  • Bill backs Barack.
    
  • Floor so croweded people are fainting left and right.
  • John Kerry's best speech ever? Too bad the networks didn't cover it.
  • Mama Biden steals the show.
    
  • Obama makes a surprise appearance and declares that "Hillary rocked the house last night."
    

That was the question--with respect to the global problems we currently face--that Tom Brokaw posed to the spectacular panel at "Enhancing the U.S.'s Role in the World," sponsored by the National Democratic Institute, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Better World Campaign. Some of the participants biggest nightmares?

• Richard Holbrooke: Indonesia's assertion of viral sovereignty. Though the dangers of Indonesia's embrace of such a concept are scary enough, the Non-Aligned Movement is looking to take up the issue later this year. The consequences of other nations following suit could be disastrous should a global pandemic breakout within their borders.
  
  
• Jessica Matthews: Our worsening climate. I don't think this country is anywhere near confronting its energy use. The choice being presented is one of oil vs. renewables. That's not the choice. We must confront demand, and energy use, and we are frighteningly close to serious consequences with our climate already.
  
  
• Vin Weber: That Israel might strike Iran. There is no such thing as a quick and precise air war against Iran. Any action against Iran would lead to a protracted war. Whether the United States would be supportive of Israel in this action, Iran has the capability to reach U.S. soil with its missiles.
  
  
• Richard Haass: We've all been asked the question--what's the most important thing to do?--but the issues that are going to bite us are all ones that are going to take some time to work out. There are a stunning number of problems of significant scale and complexity, for which we are not prepared economically or militarily, and for which we don't have the international credibility to take on alone. This is a sobering moment in International Relations. The next president will face one of the most trying moments of the past 200 years-plus.
  
  

Some of the highlights (and lowlights) of Day One at the DNC:

• Breakfast with Global Leadership for Climate Action--a UN Foundation/Club of Madrid Partnership. Participants, including former heads of state, foreign ministers, business leaders and U.S. Ambassadors, express optimism about a post-Kyoto agreement with an Obama Administration.
  
  
• Tim Wirth and John Podesta declare that Democrats' Energy Plan doesn't go far enough.
  
  
• "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise"--Ted Turner's "words to live by" at the Philanthropy Forum.
  
  
• Touche, Joe Lieberman? Jim Leach, former Republican representative from Iowa, begins the Convention with an Obama endorsement that doesn't quite bring the house down.
  
  
• Reports of a planned Obama assassination attempt abound.
  
  
• A tribute to Ted Kennedy, Michelle Obama praises Hillary, and James Carville thinks the first day was a failure.

Democratic Party leaders--including Howard Dean, Madeleine Albright and Nancy Pelosi--opened up the DNC last night at a reception hosted by the National Democratic Institute by calling, virtually in unison, for Obama to restore American leadership in the world. They pledged to the audience, which included a delegation of Georgian government officials, that an Obama Administration would return the United States to its position as a "strong partner with the rest of the world."

Although Dean told me he couldn't "talk foreign policy" (or give me an On Day One idea), he did then proceed to run down a litany of actions that an Obama Administration--and the Democratic Party--would take to work more constructively with the world. He touched on all the usual, albeit critical, steps that an Obama Administration could begin with, including bringing the Iraq war to a close, working with and treating our allies with respect, and (perhaps directed towards the Georgian delegation) opposing authoritarianism while defending democracy and human rights. Pelosi followed suit, committing that an Obama Adminstration and a Democratic Congress would "work together for the freedom of mankind."

While the rhetoric certainly wasn't anything new, it underscored both major parties' continued commitment to greater international cooperation should Obama win in November. Indeed, as noted here earlier, the selection of Joe Biden brings a committed internationalist on to the ticket. Given the public's concern about America's standing in the world, this is certainly smart politics.

Russ Carnahan, one of the Party's up-and-comers, finished off the night by offering his ideas for Day One, which reaffirm many of Dean's and Pelosi's statements.

Ten years ago, I stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate to introduce a bill, which eventually became known as the "Helms-Biden law", to authorize the payment of nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations. Securing its passage was a hard-fought, but worthwhile, initiative. Unfortunately, we are again in arrears to the UN. For over a year, we have not been paying our full contribution for its peacekeeping operations -- missions in places like Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kosovo -- that advance our national interests while sharing the human, political and financial costs of peacekeeping with other nations. The Peacekeeping arrears -- $117 million to date -- are due to an outdated cap which prohibits the U.S. from paying more than 25 per cent of the United Nations' peacekeeping budget. However, the UN is billing us at just under 27 percent (a reduction from 31 percent, negotiated by U.S. Ambassador Holbrooke in 2000, under the terms of my legislation). If we continue to let the arrears stand, these critical missions could suffer, the nations who have been contributing their troops as peacekeepers might begin to balk at future requests, and our standing to press for further UN reform will be diminished. This is why I introduced a bill to correct the cap problem and pay our arrears, S. 392, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved on June 27. Ironically, while our arrears are rising, the importance of UN peacekeeping is rising too. If the UN didn't conduct these missions, we might have to -- at a much higher financial cost and burden on our over-stretched military. Our yearly dues to UN peacekeeping, which support missions in 18 conflict zones, are just over $1 billion -- less than the cost of a week in Iraq, and less than 0.5 percent of our entire Defense budget. The UN 'blue helmets' are literally on the front lines in conflicts that are the worst of the worst: protecting civilians, monitoring cease-fires, clearing mine fields, and disarming combatants. We vote time and again in the UN Security Council, and rightfully so, to support these critical missions -- and our financial support should be in harmony with our policy. We can not, in good conscience, continue to shortchange these operations.