Post Debate Soiree

Ladies and gentlemen, you are cordially invited to our post debate thread. We have a nice selection of New Zealand wines and cheeses. Tonight’s chamber performer will be playing Bach’s Cello Suite #1 -Prelude (courtesy Briana)

Question for tonight: Who won the debate: Hillary Clinton or Tim Russert?

Discuss…

MSNBC Debate Live Blogging

As Atrios would say, “The Stupid, it burrrrrnnns!” KO has pumped up the expectations for Clinton to ridiculous levels. Apparently, Hillary is going to throw the entire kitchen sink at Obama and cinch the nomination in 90 easy minutes. It sounds like something Martha Stewart would whip up: it’s tasty, elaborate, complicated and impossible for mere mortal human beings. “It’s a good thing”

Oh, God, he’s going on about Clinton Campaign infighting and whining. Make it stooooppp! Is this thing on C-Span?

Later: Liveblogging the debate- body language observations

Last week when we did this, I found it very entertaining.  As I mentioned before, I don’t usually follow the debate in real time but you can if you like.  What I’m really interested in is the body language, so I sometimes stop my DVR and examine just the faces, posture, behavior and position with respect to one another.  Last week, Obama was disconnected from Clinton when she talked.  Clinton, on the other hand, did very well but she should check the height of the camera on her face.  It frequently looks like her head is tilted too far back, giving her an air of superiority.  Well, she is, but that’s not the message she wants to convey if she wants people to vote for her.

So, stop by later and we’ll do the live blog.  See ya!

They have a reason. It’s just not a very good one.

What came first? The hatred that the media has for Clinton or her hostile reaction to it? Hmmm, you’d have to go back a long time to figure out the answer to that question.

It started with the attack on her hairband back in 1992. Then it was her “teas and bake cookies” comment. Then Bill’s philandering ways. Her clothes. The White House decorator. Her career. Her friends. You name it, they poked at it. This has been going on for a very long time.

They NEVER liked her. I think it’s because she was too smart for them “and in her air altogether there is a self sufficiency without fashion”. It drove them nuts that she thought herself an equal to her husband. It didn’t fit their preferred narrative and they had to cover her differently. She wasn’t sucking up to them in order to be liked. She was too involved in her work.

She made them seem unimportant to her existence.

So, they forced the issue. It’s been downhill ever since.
The media started it. They just don’t like her type.
She seems too presidential.

The Ultimate Power Trip

Greg Sargent at the Horses Mouth peels back the mask of the Villagers to let us see the ugly disfigurement that is DC political journalism.  They are not content just reporting the news.  No, they want to *make* it.  They are so close to killing off Hillary Clinton and dancing on her political grave.  Like serial murderers who get off on taking out their prey.  They are plateauing with breathless anticipation of the release they will feel when the object lays lifeless at their feet.

Gore and Kerry were like killing poor helpless animals.  It was just a warm up for the real thing.  Now, they are on the verge of ritual murder of the serious kind.  After that, there’ll be no stopping them.  They will control everything and pick your president for you.

Sickening.

Invisible Man

Well, he’s not a Muslim, that’s for sure. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that) He stays carefully distant from any implication that he is in any way shape or form even tangentially connected to Islam. Oh, maybe his grandfather in Kenya was but that’s a whole different country and anyways, he’s post, um, Kenyan.

And he’s not a liberal. No, our articulate, well educated candidate is dispassionate about liberalism. He believes in common sense. Ideas are ideas and some of them are just wiser than others. But liberal is a sticky word and he doesn’t like clingy things.

Like black leaders at State of the Black Union conferences. It’s cool that their sons act as surrogates when the candidate can’t speak for himself. But does he really need to be seen on stage with them in person after they’ve already shown him support? Wouldn’t that be superfluous? And anyway, it’s not like they’re his crowd, exactly. They’re too wedded to that pre-post-racialism stuff. He’s transcendent.

He runs as a Democrat but core Democratic values, like shared responsibility aren’t values he wants to be too closely associated with because the independents and the moderate Republicans might be repulsed by that. So he doesn’t wear his party, He dissociates from it. It’s like buying your jeans from K-mart.

In fact, it’s hard to pin him down on any particular political characteristic. He floats amorphously. It’s not that in a political sense that “people refuse to see him”. It’s that he refuses to be seen.

MSNBC Debate Tonight: Any Questions?

Following up on the parody of the CNN debate that SNL did last Saturday, what questions will be asked and how easy will they be for Obama versus Clinton?

How about:

Senator Obama, do you think they crowds were more favorably disposed to your health care plan in Toledo or Canton and how did your campaign staff manage to get them all in the same building without tipping off the fire marshall?

Senator Clinton, please integrate .

Senator Obama, what *is* the capital of Vermont? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with an M.

Senator Clinton, the gross domestic output of Mongolia will have what affect on the world’s wheat market and how do you plan to integrate (there’s that word again) this with your plans for peace in the middle east, assuming you *have* one?

Senator Obama, is Hillary correct? Either question. Take your time.

Senator Clinton, would you like to take this opportunity to concede and let Obama go home early?

Now you try…

More Questions

From Sugar :
“Senator Clinton, as the crisis in Darfur continues, the need for more food, namely easy to transport rice, is growing. Tell us exactly how many grains of rice per person, per bag would be needed to sate the hunger of each refugee in that part of the world and exactly how you plan to get that rice to them?”

“Senator Obama, do you think they should put salt in that rice?

From me:

Senator Clinton, the other day you excoriated Senator Obama, as you tend to do periodically, for misrepresenting your position on NAFTA. Are you feeling better?

Senator Obama, have you figured out yet what ticked her off or did it come out of nowhere?

Hillary needs a Haka in Texas

So, the Texas primary system is screwed up and stupid because of the idiotic caucus system. And it is true that Hillary loses caucuses. Before we tackle the issue of how we can never let this happen again and how Howard Dean needs to be strapped down and have his armpit hairs pulled out with tweezers (I’m not into torture but Dean can’t go unpunished for this), we have to figure out how Clinton can win the Texas caucus.

Now, what is the Obama camp has been doing to win their caucuses? Well, from what I’ve read, they flood the damn things with thousands of rowdy, intimidating Obamaphiles while the Clintonistas watch in stunned disbelief. What we have here is a Haka. A Haka is a Maori wardance, usually performed by men (figures) to scare and intimidate the enemy. The dancers do a lot of chest pounding and screaming and making truly scary faces complete with bulging eyes and sticking out their tongues. But just like the online world, they aren’t going to hurt you. It’s just to make you feel like they are the most dangerous people on the planet. So what if they scream at you, jostle you or make nasty faces?

So, what Hillary needs is a haka. Someone, I HOPE someone, is coordinating efforts to turn out the caucus haka for Clinton. If Obama can do it, Clinton can do it. Some suggestions:

• Create Clinton Haka parties for the caucus using the DFA-Link tools.
• Make T-shirts. Nothing says solidarity better than warrior colors.
• Create a chant. Learn some polynesian and some chest pounding, spear shaking hand movements.
• Use the blogosphere to whip up a frenzy.
• Comb the universities and other places for women to learn the haka and go up against the Obamaphiles.

I’m perfectly serious about this. Most of this caucus crap has been a psychological game. Now it’s down to “Obama is going to win the causcuses, woe is me, Clinton will lose Texas” This is bull. The maoris didn’t train their warriors in the haka for nothing. It’s a mindset and anyone can be taught to be fierce. Make it an event that people will remember for years to come.

Let’s turn *this*:

into *this*:

Texas: “White Males are Breaking for Obama” (‘gits)

That was heard on Hardball last Thursday.Now, why would “white males” break for Obama? What is it about Obama that is so appealing to “white males”? Weren’t these the same damn “white males” who gave us George W. Bush? Why is it these same guys would consider switching to McCain if Obama doesn’t win? McCain isn’t even in the same party. All those votes in CA, NJ, NY, FL, MI, AZ, MA mean nothing because the party is being held hostage to a bunch of testosterone poisoned “white men” in western states and finally Texas. That’s what this has come down to. They seem comfortable with the ideas that Hillary Clinton represents but they will switch to a dude who doesn’t because she doesn’t have a penis? I thought guys were supposed to be logical so what is driving this overtly emotional desire to vote for a guy- ANY guy- over Hillary Clinton?And I don’t buy this argument that “it’s not all women, just this particular one”. We’ve gone over this before: she’s the one who wins the experience argument, she can run circles around Obama in debates (watch it tonight, she’ll do it again), she is tied to one of the best presidents we’ve had in recent history, there’s literally nothing in her past of any major consequence to trip her up and her policies are the ones that most people say they want.We don’t know much about Obama except that he has been packaged very well. When it comes to authenticity, he ain’t it. His policies are not representative of core Democratic principles and any Change! he brings is likely to be minimal. We don’t know who is really pulling his strings (tho‘ we have some clues). And the media, along with the $250M GOP attack machine, is going to flay him if he wins the nomination.

All the media nipple massaging is a trap to lure Democrats into voting forthe weaker candidate, All those white males are going to abandon him for McCain the instant the GOP creates the right narrative. We all know this is coming. And yet, they can’t vote for her because they think no one will vote for her?Isn’t that a self-fulfilling prophecy and what does it have to do with the good of the country? We know the scenario that is laid out before us and the “white males” of Texas are going to follow their hearts and not their heads and fall madly in love with the one with the Y-chromosome.

What is it about THIS woman that makes men think this way, because I guarantee you that there won’t be another woman like her for a long time. Let’s try to solve this problem before next Tuesday, shall we? Because if “white males” of Texas can’t get past their man-crushes, we’re going to get stuck with a weak and vulnerable dude whose only advantage is that he can pee higher on the wall than she can.

Challenge: I want to hear from the white males from Texas today. Put your cold, hard logic in the comments and tell me why you won’t vote for her. I want to hear a really good argument with all of the deductive reasoning you can muster. And it better be good. Because running a campaign is the easy part. Governing is very difficult.