Please Buy My Brand of Stupid, Part II

...in which the Washington Post runs an Op-Ed by Doug Schoen, former business partner of Clinton pollster and recently defrocked but not excommunicated (or fired) Chief Strategist Mark Penn, without mentioning Schoen's connection:

Hillary Clinton took an important step Monday toward winning the Democratic nomination by launching an ad targeting Barack Obama's recent comments about working-class voters clinging to "guns or religion." The ad is a marked change from her recent determination to use a positive message until the Democratic convention, but for Clinton to capture the nomination she needs to completely abandon her positive campaign and continue to hammer away at Obama.

Clinton has provided a compelling case for her candidacy thus far. After all, the superdelegates have the power to end the Democratic contest now and have chosen to wait. At the very least, Clinton has created enough doubts about Obama and his electability to have earned a chance to compete in the next handful of primaries.

Despite being a pollster, Mark Penn has long seemed immune to evidence.  One can see how he and Schoen ended up as business partners.  While Schoen claims "Clinton has created enough doubts about his electability," the polls in Pennsylvania, other states with upcoming primaries, and nationally all suggest that Schoen is completely wrong, that Obama has not been hurt by the "bitter" nonsense.  In fact, in the very paper where Schoen's banalities are published one sees on the front page the following headline:

Polls Show Erosion of Trust in Clinton

Lost in the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign's aggressive attacks on Barack Obama in recent days is a deep and enduring problem that threatens to undercut any inroads Clinton has made in her struggle to overtake him in the Democratic presidential race: She has lost trust among voters, a majority of whom now view her as dishonest...

Clinton is viewed as "honest and trustworthy" by just 39 percent of Americans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 52 percent in May 2006. Nearly six in 10 said in the new poll that she is not honest and trustworthy. And now, compared with Obama, Clinton has a deep trust deficit among Democrats, trailing him by 23 points as the more honest, an area on which she once led both Obama and John Edwards.

What about the electability argument?  Voters sure don't seem to be buying Schoen's snake oil, that Clinton can convince people she's more electable than Obama; on the question of which candidate "has a better chance of getting elected president in November 2008," the pick was Obama 62-31 meaning that even some of the Clinton supporters think Obama is more electable.  And Clinton is viewed less favorably than is Obama.

Why is Schoen pushing such claptrap, and why is the Washington Post publishing it?  Well, surely some of the problem is the Post's growing resemblance to the Wall Street Journal, where what's published on the Op-Ed page is  contradicted by the same newspaper's news section.  In this case it's also because Schoen has a book out, and his publicist probably played one of the Post's Op-Ed editors.  

This isn't Schoen's only stupid Op-Ed of the last few months.  Back in February the Post obligingly published this example of nitwittery, which Kagro X paraphrased as please buy my brand of stupid.  Schoen's brand of stupid included the tired and oft-"revealed" idea that the key to understanding this election is a new and previously undiscovered demographic sliver of the electorate.  Like an anthropologist back from Papua-New Guinea with tales of a previously undiscovered tribe, Schoen reveals the compelling worldview of this demographic sliver, and if you buy his book, you'll be let in on his discovery.  ("By the way, you corporate big wigs reading my book on the plane?  Please hire me to tell you all kinds of other demographic secrets.  Sincerely, D.S.")

The rest of Schoen's brand of stupid is right there in the title of his book: Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.  You see, Schoen himself is no longer a creature of the two-party system, because he stopped working only for Democratic candidates when he got the opportunity to work for NYC Republican mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg.  (I'm sure the fact that Bloomberg is a billionaire had nothing to do with Schoen's decision.)  Schoen no longer has Democratic clients—hell, it was so bad even he and Mark Penn had a nasty parting of the ways—so of course the two-party system (in which Schoen can't get work) must be coming to an end!

Schoen's argument, that the only way Clinton can become the nominee is to destroy Obama, is nothing that hasn't been said for quite some time.  In fact, some people at Daily Kos have been making that point for over five weeks.  That's about the only thing that Schoen wrote that's supported by evidence.  But what would Schoen have to gain from Hillary Clinton following his advice?  

Oh, yeah, that's right: Schoen would like to hasten the end of the two-party system, because about the only way for Hillary Clinton to become the nominee at this point is for the superdelegates to circumvent the wishes of the voters, probably flout the nominating rules.  Thus, following the path laid out by Schoen would destroy the Democratic party.  

It's encouraging that there's no indication that the superdelegates are clamoring to purchase the Schoen/Penn/Clinton brand of stupid.  Too bad the Washington Post was all to willing to buy an extra helping of Schoen's brand of stupid.