A new Marquette poll has Cruz way up in Wisconsin at 40%, with Trump at 30% and Kasich at 21%.

The poll was completed before Scott Walker's endorsement of Cruz. (The previous Marquette poll, done last month, had Trump at 30% and Cruz at 19.)

The new poll also showed Walker's job approval up, so if the GOP primary is (as some have said) sort of a referendum on Walker, Cruz ought to do even better.

Also in that poll, Feingold's lead over Ron Johnson is down to 3 points, and — in the state supreme court race — Rebecca Bradley is up 5 points over JoAnne Kloppenburg (despite an effort to portray Bradley, based on her college essays, as a homophobe).

"Donald Sterling and the Neverending Fantasy of ‘Democrat’ Racism/Oh, how eager the conservative press is to call Donald Sterling a Democrat!"

"It’s all part of their larger fantasy narrative about conservatism and race," says Michael Tomasky (at The Daily Beast).

It must be so annoying to Democrats that this idiot .1%-er Donald Sterling stepped on the Cliven Bundy, Republican racist fantasy story.

But Tomasky is right, I think, to say Sterling sure wasn't much of a Democrat.

What I said about Sarah Palin on June 12th.

I'd forgotten about this. (Warning: I say "pro-abortion" at one point when I -- obviously -- mean "pro-life.")



ADDED: Here's the Beldar blog post I refer to in that clip.

One more night of convention blogging. The Invesco Field extravaganza.

6:35 Central Time. I tuned in in time to see the end of Will.i.am's "Yes We Can," but no we can't perform that song in a big arena. The great video has an elegance and intimacy and a crafty, spontaneous connection to the recorded Obama speech that is a far cry from the kind of anthem rock that works in a stadium. And we will see, as the night wears on, what works and what does not in this setting.

7:03: The NYT published the Democratic National Committee’s talking points. Fun to read these things because they're so insipid:

*Joe Biden showed exactly why Americans are rallying behind the Democratic ticket to deliver the change the country needs.

* Last night, Joe Biden told it like it is. And everyone at the Pepsi Center—and around the nation—responded. He showed exactly why Americans are rallying behind the Democratic ticket to deliver the change the country needs....

I love all that "exactly." I mean, if I were speaking in reliance on those talking points and someone followed up with the question, "You say he showed exactly what we need, but what exactly was so exact about what he said?," I would melt into a quivering pool of jelly.

7:31: Stevie Wonder!

7:38: He's singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered." The stadium looks great -- still in daylight -- full of people, all supplied with flags, so there's lots of waving of flags, which gives a nice energetic movement to the crowd shots. Stevie changes the words: "I know Barack Obama's gonna set this country on fire and a lot of people all over this place are gonna say ooh, baby, here I am...." By the way, that set doesn't look at all like a Greek temple, as the early reports said. Maybe they worked to tone down anything that was temple-like about it.

7:45: Al Gore! If only he'd won the presidency, Bin Laden would be captured by now. The great thing about losing is that you can say whatever you want about what you would have done.

7:51: I said above that I didn't think the set looks like a Greek temple, but I want to remind you that when I originally wrote about it, I said: "So is this stage set going to seem like a Greek temple, with Obama as some phony god — from somewhere in Europe — or is it going remind us of the federal government — with Obama looking simply presidential?" Yet look at this sleazy, lying, underhanded post at Crooks and Liars, slamming me this way:

Never let it be said that Republicans and their counterparts in the conservative blogosphere (yes, Ann “I Like To Drink Wine and Blog About American Idol” Althouse, I’m looking right at you) can’t attempt to manufacture a scandal out of thin air that shows just how stupid they are. ...

So Ann “Liberal Boobies Enrage Me” Althouse whips herself up into a righteous indignation, which is promptly echoed throughout the other sites. (I won’t dignify her with a link, look it up) How dare Obama? Is he trying to suggest that he’s a God or something??? The presumption! Do you see how messianic he is? His supporters are like a cult! (imagine her furious fingers typing away)

But see, here’s the problem, Ann. You clearly haven’t traveled. If you had actually ever gone to the seat of our federal government, Washington DC, guess what you’d see? Columns! Know why? Because most of our federal buildings were designed in an architectural style called…wait for it…Greek Revival. Which means, you know, lots of columns. Like the ones in the front and back of the White House–where Obama will reside in January, by the way. And the ones in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where exactly 45 years ago today, Martin Luther King gave a speech....

Uh, yeah, so you won't "dignify" me with a link because... why? Because it would show that I said all along that it could either look like a Greek temple, as Reuters reported, or it might look like federal government buildings, and we wouldn't know until we actually saw it. Nicole Belle, who wrote that post, is shamefully dishonest. She flaunts her dishonesty by not linking to the text she was writing about because it would show that her post is vicious character assassination. I associate Crooks and Liars with John Amato, who I think is a good person, and I call on him to do something about the sleazy post that is messing up his blog.

8:15: But I do agree with the statement: "Liberal boobies enrage her." My dictionary defines "booby" as: "1. A person regarded as stupid." (2 refers to a tropical seabird, which is probably invariably apolitical.)

8:18: Al Gore is still pontificating. Ah, now he's done. Sorry, I didn't say much about that speech. I was getting pissed off at the underhanded blogger who's been allowed to post at Crooks and Liars. Anyway. I'm over it now. The song playing Al Gore off the stage is "Let the Sun Shine In." I don't get it. If the sun shines in, it will add to global warming. They should have played something like this or this.

8:26: Hey, Biden is back. Why is he talking again? There should be no second orations. He seems to be setting up one of those sequences of ordinary people. If I couldn't pause the DVR and periodically fast-forward, this would be utterly intolerable -- even for me, loving to write, and knowing I have quite a few readers on this post. I find it very hard to believe anyone would watch this part of the show. But, okay, the throng in the stadium must be entertained. Maybe it's just perverse even to attempt to watch this part of the show.

9:00: An introductory film clip. Obama's mother said he needed to understand what it means to be an American. He only met his father once and "was shaped more by his absence than by his presence." His grandparents "weren't complainers." His mother saw his promise and did what she had to do: woke him up at 4:30 to teach him lessons. It makes me tear up to see the pictures of the mother, because she's not alive to see this. Very cute pictures of him as a teenager. Michelle is talking about how weird it was for him to be named "Barack Obama." "Barack Smith" or "Barry Obama" would be okay, but not "Barack Obama." But everyone called him "Barry" when he was growing up, so he must have thought it was an advantage to revive the unusual first name. His mother's death was one of the worst things that ever happened to him. (What were the other things on that level?) It made him realize that life is short and you need to work hard to achieve your goals.

9:11: (By chance, it's 9:11... in the Central Time Zone.) Obama ambles out. He's got a nice square-shouldered suit and a red tie. A flag pin! (Duh!) Flags everywhere, in fact. The background, in the close-ups, is not temple-like at all. It's peach-colored squares framed in dark wood.

9:14: "With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for President of the United States." Big cheers. A wide shot shows the glittering arena, which is not giving off any ominous night rally vibe (such as I've heard talk about).

9:16: Michelle, Malia, and Sasha — he's introducing them now — are wearing coordinating pink flowery sundresses. I like the way the 2 girls are completely different, the older one shyly ladylike and the younger one un-self-consciously cute.

9:20: He wants to keep the American promise alive. If we love the country, we shouldn't want "the next 4 years to look like the last 8." In an allusion to a TV show he probably watched -- his memoir says he watched a lot of TV with his grandfather -- he says "Eight Is Enough."

9:24: The bad economy -- but today's news was good -- is not just a state of mind and people who complain about it are not just "whiners." There is a tremendous stress on helping working people. I don't know that it's at all clear why Obama would help this situation, but he's certainly doing what he can to convince you he cares.

9:30: Good lord, Michelle's dress is completely encrusted with flowers. Are they 3-D? It's kind of making me sad. She's an accomplished professional woman, and it's as though they can't emphasize enough that she's a feminine, motherly helpmeet. And to have her dressed like the 2 little girls? Ooh. That twinges.

9:38: Equal pay for equal work. "I want my daughters to have the exact same opportunities as your sons." As if his daughters won't have far more opportunity.

9:41: He gets the biggest cheer of the night after saying he invites the debate over who will be the better Commander in Chief. "Don't tell me the Democrats won't keep us safe." He wants to restore the legacy of FDR and JFK. "I will never hesitate to defend this nation." But he'll make sure there is "a clear mission." "I will end the war in Iraq responsibly."

9:46: "Patriotism has no party."

9:48: "We can keep AK-47s out of the hands of criminals." All right, then! Can I have an AK-47? I'm not a criminal. He's trying to say we can accommodate gun rights and gun regulations, but he won't admit to anything near the level of gun regulation he'd support, so he ends up sounding silly.

9:57: He ends with perfect timing, after referring to Martin Luther King's speech, which was given 45 years ago. At that time, people could have reacted in a negative way to the "dream deferred." But they didn't. They were hopeful. And we can be hopeful too. Now Michelle and the girls come out, and there are some modest (and very smoky) fireworks. Now, Biden strides out, looking Clintonesque. Confetti falls. Red, white, and blue streamers. We see a long shot, and the brightly lit audience is full of waving flags. Joe Biden squats down and points around in a half circle, like a rockstar. Create excitement, he must be thinking. Now, the streamers hang droopily, and a bunch more people come out. Who knows who they are? More fireworks. Lots of blowing confetti. There isn't much loud cheering, and it's not just that the microphones are turned down, because I hear one guy yell "Our next President!" A sweet closeup of Barack and Michelle nuzzling. As they are walking off the stage, Obama pauses, turns and looks up and around. He claps for the audience, starts to leave, turns back again -- the moment of a lifetime is almost gone -- and claps one more time.

11:22: So was it an improvement to switch to the open-air stadium? I think it wasn't. The enclosed Pepsi Center preserved and amplified the crowd noise. During the tedious speeches in the last few days, you could hear the din of conversation. But for Obama's speech, the people would be paying rapt attention, and the cheers would have had an intensity in the convention hall that was not quite there in the stadium. Also, the background was much more vivid indoors -- a deep, electric blue. In the stadium, we saw a fairly dull background. It looked like a backdrop from a cheap TV studio. Because there's no roof on Invesco Field, we were deprived of the traditional massive cascade of balloons. The fireworks and the shooting streamers and confetti didn't have the classic look and over-abundance that we would have seen inside with balloons. (Balloons! I want balloons!) Finally, we lost the sense of fulfilment that comes when the man we've been celebrating for days finally shows up in the place where everyone's been talking about him. To make up for that loss, Obama put in a perfunctory appearance at the Pepsi Center last night, but that messed up the narrative arc. We should have been aching with anticipation tonight, but we already greeted him last night.

11:47: The best speech of the convention -- it's no contest -- was given by Bill Clinton. No one else came close for me. Second best: Joe Biden. At the next level, I would put Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama.

So, for "Meet the Press" this week, how about an Obama supporter and a Clinton supporter?

For the Obama supporter, we'll have former Senator Bill Bradley. And for the Clinton supporter: Representative Nita Lowey. That'll be nice and balanced, right?

The transcript is not up yet, or I'd particularize how Bradley wiped the floor with Lowey.

UPDATE: Here's the transcript. You can see the woeful mismatch for yourself.

Monsters and demons.

I've been reading Carl Bernstein's book about Hillary Clinton, "A Woman In Charge," and I was struck by the way she talked to members of Congress about her health care plan:

Mrs. Clinton “tended to view anyone who criticized her plan, even constructively, as an enemy,” Mr. Bernstein writes, adding that much to the dismay of Senators Bill Bradley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, she advised Congressional Democrats that “the time had come to ‘demonize’ those who would slow down the health care train for some important roadwork.”

These days, her campaign people acted scandalized when Obama advisor Samantha Power called her a monster. I wonder what is worse — expressing the opinion that someone is a monster or exercising power by threatening to cause the public to think that you are a demon. Demons are worse than monsters, it seems, but that's the least notable difference.

More on the new Hillary books.

The NYT has reviews of the two new Hillary books: Carl Bernstein's "A Woman in Charge" and Jeff Gersh and Don Van Natta Jr.'s "Her Way." Michiko Kakutani reviews only the Bernstein book (because the authors of the other book are or were employed by the Times), and outside reviewer Robert Dallek reviews both books. Let's look at the Dallek review first. Here's what he says about the Gersh/Van Natta:

The book’s greatest flaw is its flogging of all the Clinton scandals, not simply because they are so familiar and ultimately came to so little, but also because they give us insufficient clues to what sort of president Mrs. Clinton might be....

Should Hillary Clinton’s personal limitations — her inclination to shade the truth in the service of her ambition, what former Senator Bill Bradley called her “arrogance,” “disdain,” and “hypocrisy” — disqualify her for the presidency?

It is surely preferable to have our most upright citizens sitting in the White House, but history repeatedly shows that presidents with character flaws have not necessarily been less competent leaders, especially in times of crisis, than those with a stronger moral compass....

Oh, fine then. Character... big deal!

About the Bernstein book, Dallek says:

Mr. Bernstein is... hyperbolic about Mrs. Clinton’s influence and importance. President Bill Clinton survived “in office due principally to the actions of his wife, just as their tangled relationship,” he writes, “was central to his being impeached in the first place.”

Mr. Bernstein adds: “The impeachment of the president was a direct reflection of the choices she had made, the compromises she had accepted, however reluctantly, and the enmity engendered by their grand designs, successes and failures.”

Kakutani writes:

Mr. Bernstein’s overall take on Mrs. Clinton [is] that her “experiential openness” gave her a “capacity for personal growth and change”....

[T]his volume does not really appraise Mrs. Clinton’s record as a senator from New York and sheds no new light on her stance on the Iraq war or her current campaign for the White House....

“With the notable exception of her husband’s libidinous carelessness,” Mr. Bernstein asserts, “the most egregious errors, strategic and tactical” of [Bill Clinton's] presidency, particularly in its stumbling first year, are “traceable to Hillary,” including, in large measure, the inept staffing of the White House, the disastrous serial search for an attorney general, the Travel Office brouhaha, Whitewater and the alienation of key senators and members of Congress.

Kakutani notes that the book is really long and that Bernstein spent 8 years writing it and seems rather defensive about spending so much time on it. Are readers going to put up with this? Aside from the health care fiasco, the Clinton Era events that involve Hillary really don't need to be remembered in detail. The Gersh/Van Natta book looks like a better read, perhaps.

The Rudy Giuliani conference call with the bloggers.

Giuliani started off with a very brief statement about the debate: Fox News handled it well by giving the candidates more time to answer. (I note the implication that maybe his problems in the previous debate were the fault of the format. Do the format right, and he'll excel.) He says that the Democrats ought to give Fox a chance.

The first question is from Jennifer Rubin of ABC News. What does he think of the new vote in the Senate in which all the Democrats are now for cutting off money for troops? Giuliani says it's interesting, since they've taken different positions in the past. "They don't get it," he says. They don't understand "the nature of the Islamist threat." They'll never even say "Islamist terrorism threat" when they talk about terrorism: "They can't get the words out."

Blake Dvorak of Real Clear Politics asks why he's "leveling off" or falling in the polls. Giuliani immediately says "I don't look at polls." Then he adds that he did notice that the Wall Street Journal had him at 38%, only one point below where he was before. He wheel spins a moment saying he's "getting his message out," then moves on to a better spin: the states. (I note: there's way too much talk about overall percentages when the presidency is won on a state-by-state level.) He says he's got a large lead in many -- or he might have said "most" -- states, and he's the only candidate who is competitive in all states.

Next is Philip Klein of the American Spectator who asks about Palestinian violence. Giuliani gives a solid answer, but I did not take notes at this point.

Jim Garrity (sp?) of National Review asks whether Ron Paul should be included in the Republican debates. Giuliani says that what Paul said about 9/11 last night is something he'd have been surprised to hear anyone say even in the Democratic debate. Giuliani seemed to know that some people are talking about whether he characterized Paul's comment fairly last night when he lit into him, because he said he listened to it again and that there was "tremendous confusion in what [Paul] was saying." Paul said that because of our attacks on Saddam, al Qaeda wanted to kill us. That didn't make sense. Giuliani emphasized that he has been studying Islam and Islamic terrorism since the 1970s when he was in the Ford administration, and he knows that the reason they hate us is because of our freedom, notably our freedom of religion and the freedom for women.

Matt Lewis of Townhall.com asks him about what he said about torture in the debate: You seemed to say that in the worse case scenario, we should do whatever is necessary. Giuliani stressed the importance of seeing his comments within the hypothetical posed at the debate: we've captured someone who has knowledge of an impending terrorist attack that would kill thousands of Americans. He said that the question was about the definition of torture as contrasted with "enhanced techniques" or "aggressive techniques." His view is that we should figure out exactly where the line is and go right up to it. He specified that was more than McCain was willing to do.

Next was Skip Murphy of GraniteGrok, who invited Giuliani to talk about the effect of Islamic values on American culture, for example, the way Muslim cab drivers want to be able to refuse service to passengers who are carrying alcohol. Giuliani declined the invitation and used this segment to talk about how bad it is that in Palestine they're using a Mickey Mouse character to try to teach kids to kill and how the documentary "Obsession" shows what is being taught to young people.

Time for the last question -- which meant no question for me -- and it was from Bill Bradley of New West Notes. He went back to the question of defining the distinction between torture and "enhanced techniques." Giuliani repeated that it's important for the government to look at the specific techniques -- some of which are "too gory even to discuss" in the public debate -- and to categorize them. If it's torture, don't do it. He said he would not stress that the reason we avoid torture is to inspire our enemies to avoid torture. (I note: McCain states that reason.) We would avoid torture to be true to our principles and because it's the right thing to do.

That's it. I thought he was clear and substantive. He was not evasive except in not responding to Murphy's question. Good job.

ADDED: Watching the debate, I see the McCain also expressed the principled position on torture:

When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went -- underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them.

It's not about the terrorists, it's about us. It's about what kind of country we are.

I have heard him take the pragmatic position, and part of his statement last night was pragmatic. He invoked three key pragmatic arguments:

1. "[W]e could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion." [That is: It hurts our reputation.]

2. "The more physical pain you inflict on someone, the more they're going to tell you what they think you want to know." [That is: It's not effective.]

3. "If we do it, what happens to our military people when they're captured?" [That is: It encourages the enemy to torture our people.]

I remembered these pragmatic arguments, but I can see McCain made the principled argument too. I want to see the principled argument, but I don't object to combining it with pragmatic arguments. Nevertheless, in this case, the pragmatic arguments -- especially #3 -- are not that believable.

MORE: This was billed as a blogger conference call, but it was heavily weighted with mainstream media. I mean: ABC News?? If you've got some mainstream reporters doing some of their writing in the blog format at an MSM site, those aren't really bloggers in the meaningful sense of the word. Looking back, I'm annoyed that I got lost in the queue behind so many MSM reporters. If the candidate really wants to open himself to the bloggers, he should do conference calls that do not include mainstream reporters.

AND: You're misreading me if you think I'm saying the MSM bloggers were given priority. It was a matter of punching in a number to indicate you want to ask a question, and I didn't try to get in quickly.

Ideas first, charisma last.

On the NYT op-ed page, Former Senator Bill Bradley tries to figure out what the Democratic Party can do to rebuild itself. He bases his idea on a plan Lewis Powell (who went on to become a Supreme Court Justice) devised for the Republican Party, after the Goldwater defeat in 1964. Powell's design led to the construction of a "pyramid."At the base are large donors, who fund the conservative research centers at the next level. Above them are the political strategists who take and deploy the ideas produced in the centers. Next are the partisan news media through which the strategists work. Finally, at the top, is the President.

Because the pyramid is stable, all you have to do is put a different top on it and it works fine.

It is not quite the "right wing conspiracy" that Hillary Clinton described, but it is an impressive organization built consciously, carefully and single-mindedly. The Ann Coulters and Grover Norquists don't want to be candidates for anything or cabinet officers for anyone. They know their roles and execute them because they're paid well and believe, I think, in what they're saying. True, there's lots of money involved, but the money makes a difference because it goes toward reinforcing a structure that is already stable.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have a completely unstable, inverted pyramid. The point is at the bottom, and the whole party structure needs to balance on the strength of the one charismatic character who is able to win the Presidency. When he's gone, they're back to nothing.

There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas. Campaigns don't start thinking about a Democratic brand until halfway through the election year, by which time winning the daily news cycle takes precedence over building a consistent message. The closest that Democrats get to a brand is a catchy slogan....

Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. ...

If Democrats are serious about preparing for the next election or the next election after that, some influential Democrats will have to resist entrusting their dreams to individual candidates and instead make a commitment to build a stable pyramid from the base up. It will take at least a decade's commitment, and it won't come cheap. But there really is no other choice.

Very well put -- by a man with a fancy educational background who once ran for President and wiped out early, because of a woeful lack of charisma. He's right, though, isn't he?

Is it a mystery that academics tend to vote for the Democratic candidate, despite this lack of coherent ideas? Academics are -- I'm thinking -- a lot less interested in elaborately structured ideologies than nonacademics imagine. Perhaps intellectuals are more comfortable with freewheeling, pragmatic politics than the average citizen. But Bradley is still right: the Democrats should develop a coherent ideology in order to speak persuasively to that average citizen, who longs for ideas that make sense. And plenty of academics would freewheelingly and pragmatically enjoy raking in lots of money while they produce the necessary structure of ideas.

UPDATE: Gerry Daly has a different perspective on the Bradley piece.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's another perspective, from Tigerhawk (who reveals that he went to law school with Ann Coulter).