Who is Barack Obama, really?

Proposed, a Saturday night amusement:

Is Barack Obama the Pied Piper (who promised to run the rats out of town, but absconded with all the children)?

Is he the Great Pretender?

P.T. Barnum? (If you believe Barnum said “There’s a sucker born every minute”, you’ve been fooled again!)

The One?

The Messiah?

Another Mandela?

A Mandala?

Marjoe?

David Koresh?

Willie Wonka?

The Gautama?

Harold Hill from The Music Man?

A latter-day Victor Lustig? (Who?)

Eddie Haskell?

Godot?

Another JFK?

Another Lincoln (who did say “you can fool all the people some of the time”)?

Another Harding (Warren G)?

Another Harding (Tonya)?

Who is he really, and why? Nominations are open!

I spit on The Math

You can always tell the Latest Obama Talking Point, today we’re back to the impossibility of Hillary winning the nomination now that Obama has successfully blocked the Florida and Michigan re-votes. His supporters must be so proud.

Well, I noticed a long time ago that The Math never won an election. I remember for example the fall of 2003 when The Math proved that Kerry could never win the nomination. There is some encouraging Hillary Math at MyDD (Pennsylvania 6-54321) by techfidel and at The Left Coaster (“The Math” of the Popular Vote in the Democratic Primary) by eriposte. However, while it’s fun to read, I don’t think Hillary Math is anymore reliable than The Math.

Especially if we’re approaching a Stampede.

Saturday Spring Clean-up

So, how many of you are going to spend the day cleaning and washing and throwing things away because a clean house is a happy house?

Me neither. But to get yourself in the mood for seasonal change, the BFF recommends this poem by ee cummings.

In other news:

• I think the framing is all wrong on what Hillary did or did not do in Northern Ireland for the peace accords in 1998. From all accounts, hers was an unofficial role but nevertheless an important one. She made many appearances with women’s groups in Ireland and made calls and had conversations with various leaders. It sounds to me like she was Bill’s eyes and ears and kept him informed about whose interests lay where. That’s not something all first ladies could pull off unless they had the intelligence to understand it. How about we take a look at Laura Bush’s foreign policy experience? Has she had any? In fact, I can’t think back to a first lady who might have been a significant influence on her husband since Roselynn Carter. But even *this* is the wrong frame. The real question is, what experience has Barack Obama had in peace negotiations or indeed any foreign policy? And the correct answer is zip, zilch, nada. He hasn’t been in the Senate long enough to have even done anything and up until recently, he hadn’t had any meetings on his Subcommittee on the Foreign Relations Committee. Now that we’ve determined how much experience Obama has, maybe he’ll STFU or we will taunt him a second time.
• Lambert at Corrente has a brilliant analysis of all the moving parts of the MI and FL debacle and what it all means in terms of the popular vote, STEALING and superdelegates in Revote Wrap-up. The only place I wohld beg to differ is that the country has been transfixed by this campaign season and Florida had ample opportunity to understand the candidates including viewing one of the most contentious debates of the season in SC just a week before. Their primary was the one least tainted by spin and emotionalism. Floridians used their heads, not their hearts in their primary. As a side note, Bill Richardson is of the opinion that the person with the highest number of votes should get the superdelegates, as Pelosi said, and that superdelegates should follow the will of their voters but that *he*, Bill Richardson would be pledging for Barack Obama even though Hillary won NM. D’OH!
• techfidel at mydd has a great analysis of the Ohio results and Pennsyslvanias projected results in Pennsylvania 6-54321. Without taking into account the Wright problem and the fact that PA has a closed primary, Clinton beats Obama by 57%-43%. That’s pretty amazing to me. But what is more amazing is I understand what k-means clustering is. (Actually, that’s frightening) I wonder though if the descriptors that techfidel used are sufficient or if there is something we are overlooking that is only gradually taking shape over time as the primary continues? Anyway, it’s something to think about.
• The primary season is dragging out a lot longer than Hillary anticipated. With Obama outspending her by 50% in most of the primary states, the coffers are depleted (probably for both of them but you’ll never hear Obama’s camp admit it.) Anyway, if you have some yuppy food stamps that aren’t being used, send them along to Hillary and she’ll put them to good use. I pledged $100.00 this week but if you’re on a tight budget, why not just kick in $10.00? Every little bit helps. Make History!
• Today is a travel day for me so my posting will be light until this evening when I will be in the heart of the battleground state of PA in the Harrisburg area. I’ll have a chance to talk to my mom’s neighbors and my sister and some of her friends and get a clearer picture of what it all means. In the meantime, we have had quite a few people sign on to do battle at The Confluence, like the indispensible Katiebird. Let’s give them some encouragement.

Why I like and support Hillary

Last week when riverdaughter invited me to post here at Confluence, I dived right in with a story that had been brewing in the back of my mind for a week or so. And it never occurred to me that I never really introduced or explained myself. By the time I discovered The Confluence, I was already committed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I’d moved past the agony of candidate selection and onto the agony of lost blogs and friends.

You’d never know from my few posts that I’m an issues based person or that I blog about health care. It was her Health Care Plan that brought me to Hillary’s campaign. I wrote about it at Eat4Today. And I’d like to share it with you today without blockquotes:

Hillary’s Health Plan: Surprisingly impressive

My dream is that everyone have access to Health Care.

Health Care is THE critical issue for me. I believe in Health Care for Everyone and I’ve judged all candidates since 1992 on that issue. I wasn’t happy with Hillary last year when she implied that it wasn’t a priority for her — that it would be sometime in her second term before she could promise universal access. It was Edward’s health care plan with its public option (giving us the choice of bypassing private insurance companies) that drew me to him. Now that he’s out of the race, I’ve got to figure out if either of the two remaining candidates have anything comparable.

I don’t particularly like the way Obama has attacked the concept of “mandates” in Hillary’s plan. But I didn’t immediately dismiss it either. Because — affordable or not — the idea of a law requiring us to buy private health insurance is deeply repugnant to me: it’s just another government give-away to corporations. So I went to Hillary’s site to read her plan for myself.