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This week saw both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton put in appearances on Fox News. That's angered the netroots - but might win them brownie points with superdelegates, who're keen for the candidates to reach out to moderate and independent voters. I've jotted some thoughts for the Guardian's Comment is free site:

It's unclear quite what the candidates hoped to gain from their Fox interviews. In 2004, only 7% of Fox fans voted for John Kerry, making the network's audience a more reliably Republican constituency than gun owners, white evangelical Christians or even self-defined conservatives. Could it be that the candidates are taking a cue from Operation Chaos and hoping to pick up crossover votes from Republicans whose own party's nomination was wrapped up long ago?

More likely, perhaps, is that the candidates' Fox-fest was designed to send a message to the Democratic superdelegates. An appearance on Fox was bound to be taken as a snub by the netroots - and arguably that's no bad thing, if you're a left-leaning candidate desperate to stake out a claim to the centre ground. In an election that looks likely to be fought and won among independents and moderates, it's more important than ever for Obama and Clinton to convince superdelegates that they are ready and able to reach out to swing voters. Even if that means sleeping with the enemy.

More here.

The LAPD is under pressure to overhaul its rules for dealing with immigrants, after an illegal alien allegedly killed a high-school football star last month. I've jotted some thoughts for Comment is free:

One Sunday afternoon last month, 17-year-old Los Angeles resident Jamiel Shaw was walking home from the mall when a white sedan pulled up next to him. Two Latino men leaned out and asked Jamiel - a clean-cut high school football star with hopes of winning a scholarship to Stanford - what gang he belonged to. When he couldn't give an answer, one of the two men shot him dead.

That terrible, senseless act of violence has catapulted LA's battle with street gangs back into the public gaze - and sparked fresh debate about the way the City of Angels deals with its huge immigrant population. That's because Jamiel's alleged killer, a 19-year-old named Pedro Espinoza, is believed to have been an illegal alien - and, to make matters worse, had reportedly been released from county jail just a day before the brutal attack.

Quite rightly, that's prompted soul-searching at the LA police department, most of it focused on the application of Special Order 40, a regulation prohibiting police officers from stopping people for the sole reason of learning their immigration status. A number of police officers - including one who moonlights as a National Review blogger - say the rule is confusing and leads officers to actively avoid discovering the immigration status of known criminals.

Read the rest here.

Haiti has got plenty of problems: violent crime and kidnappings are on the increase, the economy's gone to hell in a handbasket, and food prices are going through the roof. I've written a piece for the Guardian's Comment is free site asking why the US isn't doing more to help:

If the Bush administration isn't prepared to help Haiti on humanitarian grounds, it ought to consider the practical advantages of doing so. Calling a moratorium on deportations would spare the overstretched Haitian government the burden of dealing with returned deportees. More importantly, it would provide the country with a stable source of income from remittances. At present, cash sent home by immigrants makes up more than a fifth of Haiti's GDP. Making it easier for Haitians to work in the US without fear of deportation would be a cheap, easy way to further shore up the country's economy.

That would be good news for Haitians, who need all the help they can get. It would also be good for America. After all, Haiti is a poor, populous nation just a boat ride from Florida. The US has a vested interest in staving off its southern neighbour's collapse, if only to keep the current influx of refugees from turning into a full-fledged exodus. Offering protected status to those Haitians already in the US would, at least, be a step in the right direction.

Read the rest here.

With the Pennsylvania primary just a month away, Hillary Clinton has an imposing lead in the polls. Still, the game isn't over yet - I've written a piece for Comment is free asking whether Barack Obama still has time to turn things around:

Clinton's focus on running up a big popular-vote win in Pennsylvania has so far led both candidates to invest most of their energy in voter registration, scrambling to sign up likely supporters ahead of this week's deadline. Now, though, the gears are grinding as both campaigns switch tack to begin what will essentially be a month-long get-out-the-vote drive. From here on, both candidates are likely to focus on energising their base, looking to boost turnout in densely populated areas - even those where the math makes it unlikely that extra votes will translate into extra delegates ...

With the voter-registration dash out of the way, Obama can now switch to what he does best: introducing himself to the electorate. He's already rolled out a number of new TV spots in the Philadelphia media market, which covers both his core urban supporters and the crucial suburban swing vote, and has embarked on an Iowa-style bus tour of the ground between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He's still heading for almost certain defeat in the Keystone State - but if he can woo enough well-heeled suburbanites along the way, he should be able to keep Clinton's margin of victory down to a manageable level.

More here.

New research suggests that people can predict election results based solely on the candidates' facial features - it's thought that we make snap-judgments based on how "competent" the politician appears. As I note in my latest Comment is free piece, that's good news for Hillary Clinton - a study suggests that she has a slightly more prototypically competent face than Barack Obama.

But while outward appearances can reportedly help predict elections, they aren't necessarily the best criteria for picking presidents. In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell argues that Ohio Republican Warren Harding swept to victory in the 1920 presidential election largely on the strength of his rumbling baritone and "presidential" demeanour. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Harding's scandal-besieged administration went down as one of the worst of all time, with the beleaguered president himself admitting: "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here."

Gladwell tells me he's not surprised to hear that voters are still judging politicians by their looks. Political races are essentially popularity contests, he says, and people are generally excellent at making snap judgments about traits like attractiveness, friendliness and likeability. Unfortunately, we can't make similarly rapid assessments of intelligence or integrity. "That's why candidates who pass the 'blink' test win," he says. "It's also why candidates who pass the blink test aren't necessarily particularly honest or conscientious."

Read the rest here.

The Andean crisis, which began when Colombia struck at leftist rebels camped in Ecuador, just won't die down: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is rattling his saber like there's no tomorrow, and now documents captured from the guerillas appear to show that both Ecuador and Venezuela were negotiating with and perhaps directly aiding the rebels. I've bashed out a column for Comment is free eying the situation:

With the crisis nearing a flashpoint, it was clear that international mediation was needed. That put the US in an awkward position: as Colombia's major military backer, she couldn't simply sit on her hands while Uribe's security forces infringed on other nations' sovereignty. On the other hand, Washington couldn't credibly condemn the Colombian raid on principle. After all, the logic of the strike was virtually identical to that used to justify recent US raids against suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Somalia.

Thankfully, the Organisation of American States took up the slack. After frantic negotiations, the OAS yesterday gave Uribe a public rap on the knuckles, declaring Colombia's initial attack to have been a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty - but crucially stopping short of condemning the raid outright. Colombia responded by playing down the threat of open conflict. Ecuador and Venezuela were less conciliatory, with Chávez accusing Uribe of "war crimes" and Correa continuing a diplomatic road-show aimed at drumming up moral outrage among Colombia's other neighbours.

Still, the OAS statement was an important first step. It gave both sides grounds to claim a degree of victory, and kept everyone at the negotiating table. The next move should be for OAS observers to examine the documents retrieved from the rebel camp. If Colombia's claims can be independently corroborated, much of the regional support for Ecuador and Venezuela's sabre-rattling will evaporate, while if the two countries are absolved they will have far less reason to keep stoking the flames. Nobody's likely to come out of this mess smelling of roses, but as long as everyone keeps talking it should be possible to keep the Andean border brouhaha from boiling over.

Read the full thing here.

Fidel Castro has finally formalized his long drift into retirement -- I've posted some thoughts over at Comment is free:

Castro's drift to the sidelines ... clears the way for tentative social and political reforms. So far, Raúl has struck a relatively conciliatory tone toward the US and has given the appearance of wishing to edge away from his brother's absolute intolerance of political dissidence. The number of political prisoners in Cuba has gradually dwindled since Raúl took the reins, and his administration has even encouraged public criticism of its policies. It's not yet clear whether this is a genuine shift toward greater political freedom, a safety valve intended to obviate the need for more sweeping reforms or merely Havana's Hundred Flowers moment. Either way, these tentative first steps are a sign that Raúl and the party cadres have a plan for the future and won't be crying uncle simply because Fidel has begun cashing his pension checks.

That's a jab in the eye for George Bush, who'd assumed that regime change would be the inevitable consequence of Castro's departure. That certainty bred complacency: rather than reaching out to the next generation of Cuban leaders, Bush stuck to a more-of-the-same Cuba policy, continuing to serve up the economic sanctions and confrontational rhetoric that for decades have only bolstered the Castro regime.

Fidel has seen nine US presidents come and go and made no secret of wanting to add Bush to that list. But while Fidel may not have outlasted Dubya, he certainly outfoxed him. The smoothness of the handover of power in Havana has left the White House's Cuba policies looking dated, clumsy and ineffectual.

Read the whole thing here.

It's been two years since Evo Morales took over as president of Bolivia. He's had a bumpy ride - I've written a piece for Comment is free looking at his successes and failures:

Evo's significance as Bolivia's first indigenous president can't be overstated. He's brought countless marginalised Bolivians back into the political process, giving them a voice they'd been denied by previous governments. But so far he's governed with the same take-no-prisoners attitude that propelled him up the ranks of the cocaleros, Bolivia's mostly-indigenous coca growers.

That made sense when he was leading beleaguered farmers in a struggle to defend their livelihood. But Morales is now leader not of a trade union but of a bitterly divided nation, and he needs to find ways to bring everyone - even his opponents - back into the fold. In the past two years, Evo has shown that he can fight for the poor. Now he needs to prove that he can deliver socialism without sacrificing peace, stability or democracy.

Read more here.