Things we wish we’d written: Case #1

Vastleft at Corrente is an “Obama supporter” (airquotes) who is starting to lose his religion.  In Confessions of an Obama Skeptic, he writes:

In Barack Obama, I see a lot to like.

He really is smart. He really is charismatic (even if he’s wearing on me more and more as the campaign goes on). And he really does offer a healthy opportunity to re-imagine what a President of the United States looks like.

Hillary Clinton, too, is smart. She really is charismatic (she’s impressing me more and more as the campaign goes on). And she really does offer a healthy opportunity to re-imagine what a President of the United States looks like.

Oops. I left out one huge differentiator: unlike Hillary, Obama voted against the war.

I know he did, because a Google search on “Obama voted against the war” turns up thousands of citations.

Oh, wait a minute. He didn’t get to the Senate until 2004, and the AUMF vote was on October 11, 2002. Hmm….

There’s more.  *sigh*  Yes, it’s brilliant.  Just go read it and leave us in peace to lick our wounds.

Tipping Points and the Law of Gravity

“If the election were held today …” Well, it’s not. But if you seriously cared what the polls suggest would happen “if the election were held today”, you’d ignore winner-take-all totals of state Electoral Votes. You’d run Monte Carlo simulations like the ones Darryl Holman publishes Hominid Views, and you’d award EV ties to the D’s (who figure to control the majority of state Congressional delegations).

If you did so, you’d project a McCain victory … and you’d notice that Barack has been leading, but Hillary just pulled ahead. Clinton projects a 34.2 winning percentage against McCain, with a mean of 262 Electoral Votes, versus Obama’s 26.2% and 254 EV.

Meanwhile, as Steve Clemons at The Washington Note observes, Gravity Takes Bite Out of “Obama Wind”.

… Clinton has run a sometimes terrible campaign and has lost a dramatic lead over her opponent, but … “gravity” is finally taking hold on the former gravity-defying campaign of Barack Obama. …

Gravity has set in on Obama — and there are six months left until November.

My view “if the election were held in November” is that gravity has done about all it can do to Clinton (but beware the Bosnia baloney). Gravity tugs hard on McCain, whose supporters are largely unaware of key positions and reversals. And for Obama, gravity sucks. He has no idea what kid glove treatment he’s received from the Clintons and the Media, and his lighter-than-air “movement” is inflated with naught but “inspiration”.

Whatever goes up comes down; whatever breathes in breathes out; and as they say in show biz, “be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you’ll meet the same people on the way back down”.

Questions without answers: Because we’d have to ask first….

Riverdaughter got me started with the first question but there are more:

1. #$#%#$!!! Can anyone please explain to me why this primary season is so fricking close when it’s between a brilliant, articulate, experienced, hard working, policy wonk and a token male? What ever happened to merit?
2. So why, when racial abuse is rightly taboo, is it acceptable to abuse a woman on the grounds of her gender? Why is it all right to use words such as “witch” and “bitch” about a female politician? (Joan Smith: Medusa, bitch, witch, mad cow, DemocRAT… Why does America hate Hillary Clinton so much?)
3. Who came up with the “Why won’t the Stupid Bitch quit” Campaign. Has this ever been an issue in a closely contested race? Why this year?
4. Is a man with longstanding ties to domestic terrorists electable?
5. Why does Obama act like a Junior High bully sometimes? What would you do if your kid did this at the dinner table? Is this any way to run a campaign?
6. What the HELL is Obama doing in this campaign? Have you seen the resume? This is the best his supporters could put together.

Back at the beginning, it was all — we’ve got SO MANY qualified candidates: An Embarrassment Of Qualified Choices. I never once — ever — heard a single person (say last summer or fall) question Obama’s right to be on the same stage with the other candidates.

And that’s the biggest question of them all.

[UPDATE]  I’ll add your suggestions to the end of the list tonight.  I’d like to look back in a few months (or after the books come out) to see if we learn the answers.

Cautionary Public Service Announcement

This message is for the Clinton Campaign and women of Indiana. I hope it’s just redundant and you guys are already on this.

Indiana has one of the most restrictive voter fraud ID laws in the country. There is currently a case pending before the Supreme Court on it. You can find links to it at this old chestnut post: Ladies, Update Your Records.

Now, normally, Indiana wouldn’t even be on our radar map during a primary season but this year is different and suddenly they’ve become a big player, which makes it all the more crucial to pay attention to this law. If Indiana is like the rest of the country, there is going to be a high turnout of women for the primary election. And unfortunately, due to custom and tradition, women are most likely to have mismatches in their ID documentation. Through marriage, divorce, remarriage, a woman’s name can change several times during her lifetime. Sometimes, we are not always pro-active about updating all of our records with the social security office, the IRS, driver’s licenses, utiliy bills,etc, etc.

Now, if I were Barack Obama’s campaign or a Rove operative, I’d be damn sure to challenge as many female voters as I possibly can at the polling places. What better way of closing the margin?

So, ladies, get your paperwork in order. You don’t have much time. Find out what you need to get and have it ready when you go to the polls. Call your local board of elections and get straight with them now. Don’t wait.

Pass it around.

Sunday: Into the homestretch

It’s almost May, so it’s almost over. This has been the longest race that I can remember. I think it started back when I was in high school. But we can’t stop, can’t flag, can’t slack off. Now is the time to find that little extra reserve, that spark, to keep us going. Will, determination, hard work and voile!, we will finish by a nose. We’ve bet on the right horse and she is tireless and feisty. When she’s in the winner’s circle with that wreath of flowers around her neck and a bowl of oats in front of her (Ok, maybe I’ve taken this metaphor too far), we can let out a collective sigh of relief. And then rest up for the next race.

BTW, yheitman invites everyone to a live chat for Hillary Supporters tonight at 8:00pm EST (5:00pm PST) at Savage Politics. I took a look over there yesterday and they have some quality stuff. So synchronize your watches.

In other news:

• The first lady of our hearts, Elizabeth Edwards, wrote an Op/Ed for the NYTimes this morning on the media coverage of this longest of races titled, Bowling 1, Health Care 0. After documenting the atrocities of the season, she comes to the crux of the problem:
  

  News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates “sells,” we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.

  And the future of news is not bright. Indeed, we’ve heard that CBS may cut its news division, and media consolidation is leading to one-size-fits-all journalism. The state of political campaigning is no better: without a press to push them, candidates whose proposals are not workable avoid the tough questions. All of this leaves voters uncertain about what approach makes the most sense for them. Worse still, it gives us permission to ignore issues and concentrate on things that don’t matter. (Look, the press doesn’t even think there is a difference!)

  The problem is that prior to the Reagan Era, news divisions of major networks were money pits. They were the loss leaders of the enterprise. As soon as the bean counters decided that news divisions would have to work for food, the integrity of news started to suffer. That is not to say that it hadn’t happened before but it was done more in earnest this time. So, the news became a form of entertainment programming over time. And if you need to keep the ratings up and advertising dollars flowing, to a certain extent, you have to appeal to the audience. Then, when the business end started coveting consolidation and mergers, it was in their interest to manipulate the news to make sure the more sympathetic party would win the elections. Which leads to an interesting question: If Hillary is the so-called “corporate” candidate, why is the media trying so hard to take her out? I’ll let Kid Oakland ponder that for awhile.

• McCamy Taylor at Democratic Underground puts the Obama enigma on race together in a piece called, Putting All the Race Cards on the Table. I believe that our own ronkseattle had been busily compiling this info as well. Maybe later he can publish his finished product and we can compare with Taylor’s. What Taylor says is what I have suspected for a while and it kind of ties in with Elizabeth Edwards’ piece: the media has been active in pushing Obama’s race card accusations because it desperately wants to split the Dems before the General Election. Congratulations! Mission Accomplished. BUT, let’s not let Obama off the hook here. His campaign started the whole race baiting ball rolling but our visceral distaste for him as a candidate has as much to do with how his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models with PhDs in Architecture have condescended to tell us what stupid, old women and working class losers we are. Not to mention, what bitter bigots we are. Oh, and the hand gestures didn’t help. And let’s not forget the braying Why Won’t the Stupid Bitch Quit? antics of his slavish supporters. And who could forget his terrible debate performance or him sitting on MI and FL revote plans? Yeah, it’s not all the media’s fault here. Let’s not let Obama off he hook. But Taylor does suggest something else that when *I* brought it up, I was called a crazy conspiracy theorist at the Big Orange Cheeto. He says the blogosphere has been infiltrated by Republican moles on Rove’s payroll whose job it was to antagonize the supporters of other candidates and make them hate one another and splitting the party as a result. Well, given the way DailyKos has devolved, that doesn’t seem so far fetched now, does it? So, I’m not crazy after all. That’s a relief.
• Obama has DI-ver-TIC-u-LI-tis. (Ok, anyone who got that reference has instantly aged her/himself). This is Day Two of the Obama Debate Acceptance Watch. Obama is whiiiiining about having to do anOTHER debate: “I’m not ducking, we’ve had 21”. (Chicks and Ducks and Geese better scurry) Yes, but you never had to speak for an hour at a stretch- by yourself- like Lincoln did. Thank God we’ve changed the timing on L-D debates in the modern age. I can’t imagine having to listen to Obama’s endless run-on sentences with the multiple clauses, subclauses and prepositional phrases for a solid hour. I’m pretty sure my ears would bleed. But Hillary is as chipper as ever! She wants to play. Come out, come out, Barack! Let’s have some FUN. “”We need a president, especially after the last seven years of George Bush, who doesn’t just make speeches about American values but understands them and lives them and believes them and wants to make sure that they are available for everybody.” Yes, let’s see what American values Barry, um, values. Bring. It. On.

So, what’s happening in your part of the world?