I can’t believe I missed this one

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Marc Rubin wrote this last week:

So amazingly, even in a year and in an election where it was virtually impossible for the Democrats to lose, the leadership of the Democratic party found a way to lose. It took two years and Obama botching everything from healthcare to the stimulus to the Bush tax cuts,but the defeat of the Democrats in the last election solely because of Obama’s failures was breathtaking in its scope.

Geraldine Ferraro was absolutely right even though she was torched by a knee jerk news media for saying it, that if Obama had been white he would have been a joke as a presidential candidate. Now Obama is president but the only ones laughing are Republicans while liberals, moderates and independents keep trying to figure out what went wrong. And the answer still is, nothing went wrong. Obama has been exactly the same duplicituous politician he was during the primaries and in his prior political career as he has been as president.

That Hillary Clinton was clearly the most qualified candidate was obvious then and more painfully obvious now. But those at MoveOn and the Huffington Post, and NY Times and the Nation and all those who turned a blind eye to Obama’s lack of qualification and character flaws because they wanted to support a black candidate for president, ironically had to take everything Martin Luther King lived for and took a bullet for — the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin — and threw it in a dumpster in order to do it.

You don’t have to wonder how different things would have been had the DNC and the press did nothing more than simply be honest. If the process had played out honestly Clinton most likely would have been the nominee since there would have been no disenfranchising of 1,600.000 voters in Florida and Michigan who voted for Clinton over Obama in landslide numbers (which is the real reason for the Florida and Michigan fiasco), and the entire set of expectations, fueled by the press, would have been different.

There’s more and you should read it. I guess I was so busy preparing for the Airing of Grievances that I missed it.

I know some people think we should stop talking about the past and move on. Yeah, that’s always worked so well before. To paraphrase Santayana, “Those who forget the past have no future.”

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My Voting Strategy – Loyalty

I spit on this election.

Hillary’s a Sticker

In this upside-down year when a leading Presidential candidate has been relentlessly hounded to quit (see Lambert’s WWTSBQ Watch) it was refreshing to find this list of reasons why Hillary should stay in the race:

10 reasons why Hillary should stay
by Bob Hepburn

But Hillary vows she won’t quit the race before it’s over. She compares herself to Rocky Balboa, of the famous film about an underdog boxer. “When it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common,” she said recently. “I never quit. I never give up.”

And she shouldn’t.

Indeed, here are 10 reasons why Hillary should stay in the race:

1. She has strong, well-thought-out positions on topics from health care to Iraq and the environment. If anything, she has a wonk-like obsession with policy.

2. She is smart, has outstanding academic credentials, and was her husband Bill Clinton’s most trusted White House adviser.

3. She has a strong personality, enthusiasm, determination. She has never been afraid to fight for what she believes in.

4. She has a strong team of advisers who could form the backbone of a Hillary White House.

5. She is still winning primaries, and has won almost all the big states, including New York and California, that the Democrats must win in November to gain the White House. While Hillary trails slightly in elected delegates, she is virtually tied with Obama in popular votes. Polls show they are in a dead heat in Indiana while Obama leads in North Carolina, two states with primaries next Tuesday.

6. She is the beneficiary of the political damage inflicted upon Obama by the controversial comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was Obama’s pastor for 16 years. Obama is outraged by the latest assertion by Wright that criticism of his incendiary sermons is an attack on the black church, but polls show his support slips every time Wright opens his mouth.

7. She fares better in polls against Republican nominee John McCain than does Obama. In a USA Today poll taken April 18 to 20, Clinton led McCain 50-44 per cent while Obama led him by 47-44 per cent.

8. She is ahead of Obama in winning support of “super delegates,” who are party officials and elected politicians. This is important because neither she nor Obama will have the 2,024 pledged delegates needed to win before the convention starts. Eighty per cent of those delegates are awarded through primaries; the other 20 per cent are super delegates, who can vote any way they want at the convention.

9. What is so wrong about a “contested” convention? They are rare in the U.S., the last one being in 1952 when Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination. In Canada, though, we see them every time a party holds a leadership race. Here, emotions run high, bitter words are spoken, but no one argues that every candidate except the front-runner should drop out before the actual balloting begins. There will be lots of time after the convention to heal party rifts and focus on beating McCain on Nov. 4.

10. She is carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of women.

When I was deciding who to support after Edwards dropped out, those first two reasons were what I liked about her. I thought they’d be important assets for a President (and they will.) But I had no idea how important they (and point number 3) would become as the campaign as the campaign went on through the spring.

Watching the debate in Pennsylvania and The O’Reilly show last night, proved the truth of those first three points. She handled the questions in that debate with easem making it seem like each question was exactly the thing she wanted to talk about. Last night, O’Reilly couldn’t shake her. She not only answered his questions fully — she turned them around on him. And she makes it look easy.

While stories are surfacing that Obama is bored with the campaign, Hillary is energized making even the routine into an opportunity to connect with voters.

I totally agree with riverdaughter that we should view them as trends rather than reliable numbers.  We’re starting to see a shift in the trend with Hillary’s Campaign looking very good and she IS connecting with voters.

She’s a sticker and wasn’t ever going to quit.  But, it’s nice to see her commitment and drive start to pay off.  She might never be a “media darling” but the tone of her coverage is starting to shift just a little.  And May is looking like a good month.

Things we wish we’d written: Case #2

Joanne Parrent at No Quarter must have been listening in to a conversation with one of my sisters:

A Family Fight or a License to Hate?

When I asked my sister why she didn’t want to vote for the first viable female candidate for President – and a brilliant person as well – she told me that she “hates” Hillary Clinton. Stunned at the intensity of her feelings, I asked her “Why?” She proceeded to give me some reasons that I found startlingly similar to the Obama campaign talking points:

1. Sister: Hillary voted for the war in Iraq.

Me: Actually, she voted to give the President the authorization to go to war so the threat of war would force Saddam Hussein to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq, which it did. Bush, not Hillary, then decided to stop those inspections before they were done and invade Iraq. (I sent her an article in the Huffington Post by anti-war activist, former Ambassador and husband of Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, about this. Joseph Wilson, Huffington Post)

If wishing won elections

Reclusive Leftist wonders why Obama is still the front-runner after his humiliating defeat in Pennsylvania last Tuesday:

It was thus that I learned about the realpolitik of nominating contests. A lot has changed in the process since 1968, and all to the good. More actual voting, fewer smoke-filled rooms. But what hasn’t changed is the purpose of the whole thing: to settle on the candidate with the best chance to win in the general election.

If I had a time machine and could go back to 1968 or 1972 to chew over a thought experiment with one of those old pros, the conversation might go like this:

Unity? Not so much …

Big Tent Democrat is asking about Unity Tickets. But, we’re talking about a guy who’s still keeping votes from two states from counting in this nomination process.  How unifying is that?

SusanUnPC has an example of what might be in store for us if Obama takes either slot on our ticket — “N.C. GOP releases Rev. Wright ad” — how unifying is this?

And he can’t control himself. Is this unifying yet?

. . . My feelings about the Unity Ticket?  Not so much.

With all the really good possibilities among Democrats why tie ourselves down to last season’s candidate?  How about looking for a VP with a commitment to Hillary’s goals.  Someone who could help shepherd her Health Care Plan through Congress?  There are a lot of things to consider in picking the Vice Presidential candidate and I’m not sure Unity is the most important one.