What are you going to do? Bleed on me??

One more time:

California is still counting but I think it’s over guys.

I know that you wanted a revolution but as Thomas Jefferson once wrote,  “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”.

There’s a good chance that the people who voted for Clinton do not see her has the corrupt, deceitful, corporatist, neoliberal that you do. They see her has a person who has been thwarted for 25 years and has had to claw her way to this pinnacle with little or no help from anyone. And Bernie was good for her. The long, hard slog may have made her too practical. What Bernie gave her was a wake up call about where the country’s mood actually is.

But you know, you can not predict how this general election season is going to go. There’s a possibility that we could have a wave in the Senate. Is change likely in the House? Probably not, but I’m a Tolkienist, so anything is possible as long as we meet each new experience as it comes along without giving up hope.

Anyway, this is what *we* wanted but maybe not what *you* wanted. We aren’t going to apologize for it.

Come, Patsy.

 

Clinton Cocktail Party: Shattered Glass

The polls will close in NJ in about an hour from now. Time to fire up the tube and watch the first of two ceilings shatter.

Whoo-Hoo! Go New Jersey!

Update: We interrupt this cocktail party for a {{swoonworthy}} ad from Hillary’s campaign. Take a look:

Woah!

If you’re like me, you’ve been obsessively checking your phone and favorite sites during break and lunch and on the bus and since you got home. If you haven’t, here’s what you’ve missed.

Creamsicle Trump is whining about how the media is harassing him like no other candidate over his Judge Curiel remarks and his Trump University investigations and he’s not going to talk about it anymore because it’s distracting. His surrogates say the media is much nicer to Hillary.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

{{taking deep breath, wiping eyes}}

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

Oh, my, this general election is going to be so much fun.

Also, for those of you who want to compare the 2016 primary vs the 2008 primary, check out the front page of the NYT, which has some nifty graphs showing just how close it was. Actually, it was closer. I’m pretty sure they’re not including the FL and MI delegates, which weren’t restored to full votes until just before the convention. The difference between Obama and Clinton was microscopic and his lead came from a lot of undemocratic caucus states, just like Bernie. Anyway, at least the media is *finally* acknowledging the shocking closeness of the 2008 primary. It’s about f&*(ing time. Now they should look into the egregious convention.

Rico is here. He came straight from the gym. We provide great benefits here at The Confluence. He’s whipping up something called a Kick in the Glass. It’s more like a dessert than a cocktail but you can order anything you like including some fine California wines.

David Gergen just said that Hillary’s nomination is not going to be as exciting as Barack Obama’s nomination.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

{{taking deep breath, wiping eyes}}

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

Ok, where was I? Ah yes, cocktail party. Our servers are circulating with some appetizers from our primary states. Have some puffy tacos, fresh salads and crudites, buffalo sliders and steamed crab.

Our entertainment tonight is Billy Bragg and Wilco. This Woody Guthrie song goes out to our friends in California.

Everyone is welcome but please check your trigger words and concealed weapons with Florence, our enforcer. Heated arguments should be taken somewhere else. Relentless mockery is always encouraged.

Come on in.

DNC to Arkansas Voters: “F%^& you”

Following West Virginia’s primary vote example, Arkansas voters are fixin’ to deliver a message to the Democratic party today.  Tennessee lawyer, John Wolfe, was running a mere 7 points behind Barack Obama in recent polls of the Democratic presidential primary there.

Oh, I know that a lot of people are going to call the voters of Arkansas racists or, even worse, conservatives.  But in 2008, Arkansas voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton and, well, we saw how that turned out at the convention.  So, maybe, they’re not racists or conservatives.  Maybe they’re just pissed that their primary votes last time meant absolutely nothing to the DNC and they are trying to communicate their extreme displeasure with the suck ass job that Barack “I would give myself a B+” Obama has done in the intervening four years.

The DNC has told Arkansas straight out that it doesn’t matter who it votes for in the Democratic primary, Barack Obama is getting all of the delegates.  Yep. They say he hasn’t complied with the delegate assignment rules.  I’m not sure the voters really give a flying f^&* what the delegate rules are. They just want to register their discontent and be counted.  As I recall, it was the DNC’s robotic adherence to The RULZ!, while feverishly working to undermine them, that lead to Obama’s nomination in the first place, voters for the other candidate be damned. But that’s the official decision.  Which leads me to wonder why states all over the country spend millions of taxpayer dollars to stage a primary where the results have already been determined by the party.  That’s money that could be used to hire some teachers or pave some roads or repair bridges or pay for some poor kid’s asthma medication.

It’s also just hints at what Katiebird has been saying about how the party could make a change in the lineup if it wanted to.  If primary results are meaningless and the party has decided who will get the delegates, then that means that if they get enough of these messages from primary voters who are disgusted with Obama, they could have a serious discussion with their candidate and maybe even bring in a relief pitcher.

Nothing is certain, not even Obama’s name on the ticket, until the balloons drop at the convention.  That’s not being a fantasist or crazy.  That’s seeing an opportunity to put pressure on the party that most other activists seem to have missed.  You don’t have to settle.

But one thing is for damn sure, if the party ignores its voters during primary season this year, they may not have a chance to make amends before the general election in November.  And there’s no amount of bad mouthing Romney you can do to make them ignore their anger at the party and Obama.  If I were the party, I’d get out front of the problem early and find out exactly what it is that voters want.  Because Arkansas is not an isolated example.  Kentucky is also having a primary today and while Wolfe isn’t on the ballot there, voting “uncommitted” is an option.  Then there’s Texas next week where Wolfe is on the ballot, and New Jersey in June where write in candidates are allowed.  Guess who I’m writing in? So, there are plenty of opportunities left for voters to slow the party down from rolling right over them.

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

*************************************

I read this post yesterday at Digby’s about how the Democrats have made themselves a party of special interests and now the rest of the country is rejecting it.  While I understand the hypothesis, I disagree with it.  It just gives progressives an excuse to whine that no one understands them and all the good stuff they are trying to do.

The problem with this argument is that in 2008, the party had a humongous opportunity to break out of the perception that it is beholden to special interests but it passed on it.  By electing Clinton, they would have gotten back all of the working class people (by the way, that would include everyone not working on Wall Street).  The biggest pull they had was that millions of women from both sides of the aisle would have voted for her.  And this is why what happened to the party in 2008 was a self-inflicted wound that has festered: women are NOT a special interest.  Women are 53% of the population.  By electing Hillary, they would have acknowledged that fact.  By electing Obama, they aerosolized their base into a bunch of competing factions and then proceeded to gleefully neutralize the power of those factions.  The party has now become exactly what Digby fears it is.  It is perceived as being the refuge of the culturally disenfranchised groups who have no power and are completely at the mercy of the party fundraisers.  Those fundraisers have all the real power to direct policy, and they have- for their own benefit.  Without the money, Obama and the party is left to pander for the support of the groups it has gone out of its way to weaken in the past four years.  And the rest of the country, under stress economically is just tired of the austerity, unemployment and their dismal future prospects.  Republicans have seized on this situation by pouncing on those disenfranchised groups making it necessary for Obama to go after them, albeit weakly, and that makes him look even more beholden to them while paradoxically not being able to offer them much more than lip service.  It’s a fricking disaster.

The struggle is not between the liberal Democrats and the rest of the country.  The struggle is between the liberal Democrats and the moneyed interests that have taken control of the party.  The rest of the country *loves* liberal policies like Medicare and Social Security.  They’d love a modern New Deal initiative too, if only the party had a candidate who would put one together.  That’s never going to happen as long as one weak president is beholden to the guys who funded his campaign the first time.  With Obama, we get the worst of all worlds.  He’s a moderate Republican disguised as a liberal Democrat.  Karl Rove couldn’t have designed it better.

It could have all been avoided if the DNC had actually allowed a real roll call and floor fight at the convention in 2008 instead creating the false illusion that one candidate was soooooo far ahead of the other that there wasn’t a contest.  Too late to redo 2008 but 2012 is still available, and as we have seen above, primary votes are fungible to the Democrats…

As for whether African Americans would have abandoned the Democrats, I have my doubts.  *Maybe* the party might have lost the male portion but African American females would have won with either candidate. I think they would have come around. Then there were all of the Republican women I met when I was canvassing and phone banking who couldn’t cross lines in a closed primary but were determined to vote Democrat in the general.  That would have been more than historic.  That would have been a complete cultural shift and we missed it.

Oh well.

And Gallup says that Hillary Clinton is incredibly popular.

Touchy, Touchy

I'm sorry, what was the question again?

I’m resurfacing a bit after the Big Basement Cleanup.  Still waiting for the claims adjuster to take a look around and tell me the damage.  AND, since the countertop was installed yesterday, I get to hook up my faucet, garbage disposal and dishwasher.  I know what you’re thinking.  The DIYer who installs her own dishwasher has a fool for a plumber.  But I have no choice.  It’s either this or cha-ching!

I noticed that the left blogosphere is still reverberating over the Momentous Job Package Announcement Scheduling Crisis from a couple of days ago.  Markos is starting to sound hysterical and tenderly refers to us as an “idiot fringe”* ,  ThereIsNoSpoon is analytical, as usual, and I’ve even had a twitter follower drop me over a couple comments I made when technically I agreed with him.  Oh, well, I’ve been losing friends since 2008.  I’m getting used to it.

But it looks like the unravelling of the Obama presidency is happening so rapidly that his former supporters have not had time to adjust.  For the record, I don’t think the scheduling thing was that big a deal.  It happens all of the time at work.  You check their outlook calendar and send an appointment, the recipient ignores it and you have to send another.  By this time, the date has been booked and you have to negotiate another.  No biggy.

What *is* a big deal is the way the media is handling this.  This is what I think is throwing the Obama contingent.  Up to pretty recently, the media wasn’t nit-picking.  It’s the harping on the minutiae that brings down a politician.  The constant fault finding, the mountains out of molehills, the inability to let it go.  God forbid there’s a scandal waiting in the wings.  It might be a reappearance of Tony Rezko or an agreement between the administration and some hated industry or maybe the media will finally get around to covering the 2008 Democratic primary and convention.  But, whatever, the media has turned on Obama and not just the conservative nutcases on Fox.

The Obama contingent could tolerate the Clintonistas as long as the media was still sort of on Obama’s side.  As long as he wasn’t getting the Hillary or Al Gore treatment from the NYTimes, he had a fighting chance.  Without that little bit of protection, every move he makes will be amplified.  When the media starts making your guy look like a loser, he’s in trouble. You know how it goes. You can’t pick out the color of your clothing without calculating the impact it will have on the Sensitive New Age voter.   You say that someone has been telling a fairy tale and suddenly you’re accused of being a racist.  Or you say something about Bobby Kennedy not clinching the nomination until late in the primary season and everybody goes nuts accusing you of threatening to off your opponent.   Crazy s%^& like that.  Every move, every syllable, every action is scrutinized for malevolence and dark meaning.  It’s all packaged up to make the politician look as bad, weak, imcompetent, spoiled, shallow and stupid as possible.  And if that’s what’s happening, then we very well may be looking at President Perry in 2012.  Am I right, guys?

It is disturbing, isn’t it?  The guy just looks vulnerable, doesn’t he?  He can’t catch his breath.  Yes, now he’s going to have to run a real campaign and he won’t have the media picking him up ever so gently and carrying him over the finish line.  You can blame the “horse race” tactics and insider journalism that Jay Rosen has been railing against lately.  Maybe the NYTimes wants a genuine fight to the finish.  The rest of us want jobs but red meat competition is what we’re going to get.

Or maybe the editorial boards have realized they installed the wrong guy.  You have to wonder what was going through the mind of the journalist who just a few days ago asked the press secretary if he thought Hillary was going to primary Obama.  *I* didn’t ask it.  After all, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that it is crazy, insane, and a fantasy.  And I’m sure that the left blogosphere was able to happily ignore me until this last round of bad optics.  But now that it looks like he’s vulnerable, I’m suddenly more irritating than I was before?

Does the concept of Hillary joining the race make the Obama contingent uncomfortable?  Or are they going to hold the nomination hostage and scream “Mine! Mine! Mine!” until we put them in time out? Are they starting to think that they need an alternative and Hillary *does* look like the most likely candidate after all?  Have they figured out that a primary would be good for the party by forcing it to reconnect with it’s more liberal and New Deal base?  Can they swallow the bitter bile of their over-the-top vehemence towards her in 2008 and learn to live with her limitations in exchange for a more skillful and principled Democrat?  Nahhhhh.

I can’t get inside the head of an Obama supporter and I’m happy about that because if I could, I suspect it would be a very scary place where the AntiChrist looks something like Michelle Bachmann.  They’ll never change until they feel personally betrayed and disillusioned by Obama.  Right now, they seem to be really angry and are lashing out at the people they kicked three years ago.  If it makes them feel better, so be it.  We’re used to the abuse.  But it won’t fix the problem and it’s not going to make us give Obama our votes.  He’s still in the White House, the Democrats are charging towards a cliff with us chained to him and the media is going to assist in any way it can.

Feeling better?

* Ah, Markos, sounding just like a party loyalist, always ready to insult the regular voters and ignore their, you know, votes.  Because, after all, we can’t let the “idiot fringe” have a primary.  Obama might lose and someone like Hillary might win and that would be a really, really bad thing because, because… it is written!  So, there, you stupid primary fantasists.  Yep, according to Markos, Obama *must* be re-elected to four more years as a lame duck president because, presumably, Obama is the absolute best candidate the Democrats have.  It simply does not get any better than Obama and, by golly, even if there *was* someone more appealing that voters wanted more, the party is not going to let you have him or her because Obama simply is the creme de la creme of the Democratic party and he is entitled to your vote so get in line.  Yes, that is a winning campaign message.

More stuff:

On Virtually Speaking Susie on Tuesday, Susie suggested that the reason the Democrats are backing Obama in 2012 is because they need the African-American vote.  I don’t know if that’s true or not but the Democrats are having problems with women this go around.  And women are a much bigger contingent of the party than African Americans are.  So, I’m predicting that they have a more complex problem on their hands in 2012 than they would like to admit and the only reason they continue with Obama at this point is because they don’t want the Republicans to see them sweat.  Hillary as VP will not help the Democrats.  As long as Obama’s guys are still running the party, she would be deep sixed as VP and every woman in the country will know it.  Biden who?

So, Wall Street is having a bad day because of the jobs report.  Normally, Wall Street LOVES it when there are layoffs.  But at some point, those fund managers must be wondering who’s going to be depositing the funds they are supposed to be managing or buy the stuff made by the companies they invested in.

Weird Irene Side Effects:  I lost my apple modem in the Great Basement Deluge so I went to the local mall to buy another one at the apple store.  But when I got there, half of the mall had no power.  No, literally half.  One side of the mall was going about its business, every store lit up.  The other exact half on the other side of the main promenade was completely dark.  Same building, different halves.  It would be having power in only the right side of your house but not the left and no switch flipping at the fuse box would fix it.

So, we have to wait until tonight to get a new modem, if we can only get to the mall.  It seems like only one side of the road to it is working as well.  Funny lookin’.

And now a message to the left blogosphere

It’s probably dawned on you that Obama and his recruits are not the ones you thought they were. I’m going to cut Obama some slack here and assume that he looks like he’s caving to the right because he’s part of their milieu and he really thought he could reason with them. That’s because he’s never had to struggle with success and has never met an obstacle that he hasn’t been carried over. Magical things just *happen* to him. There is not doubt in my mind that he has gotten everything he has ever aspired to. He played the game and kissed the asses of the people who could grease his way to the top and now he’s there.

He’s not a politician. He’s a CEO. He was groomed to handle a difficult transaction. Maybe at the time he started to run he didn’t think he’d have to do anything too onerous. I don’t know. But I do know that like many men whose ambition take them to the top, he is a ruthless campaigner, not above intimidating, bribing and bending the rules to win. He doesn’t play fair. That was your first clue that you should have been paying attention to what he was doing and not what he was saying.

In any case, the right is already spinning this vote as a liberal victory when we know it is anything but. So, if I were you, I would do as Ian Welsh suggested a couple months ago and distance yourself from him as far as you possibly can. That goes for Democrats in Congress as well. Put as many miles as you can between yourselves and the White House.

Democrats, you have lost all credibility. First, you shoved off the “old coalition” for this man in 2008. That gave those voters no one to appeal to. Then your party proceeded to capitulate to the Republicans on everything. Now, their lives are a mess and they are blaming YOU. You can blame Fox and Wolf for part of that but mostly, you have to blame yourselves for not being seen to be fighting more aggressively for them. And the first place you screwed up was not controlling the message. Actually, the first place was when you voluntarily divided the party. The Republicans were probably gobsmacked that you made it so easy for them.

This is the time, left blogosphere, to get rid of Obama and find a challenger. You know my preference and you really should consider it. I don’t think she’s anything like Obama. If you want to hang on to your CDS and Big Dawg Urban Legends, go right ahead. But there are few Democrats in the party today who could generate any kind of enthusiasm as well as she would.

But whatever. It is only August. There is still time to turn this thing around. As we said in 2008, it ain’t over until the balloons drop at the convention. Whoever you pick had better be a red meat eating, unibrowed, man or woman who can actually relate to the average American working person of any class. That will not be Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich or Elizabeth Warren. Bless her heart but she’s not a politician. And this time, you want a *politician*. You know, someone who knows how to negotiate and manipulate the levers of government to get what he wants?

And you’re going to have to stop talking down to the rest of us. We’re not stupid. After all, *we* didn’t vote for the Lightbringer. We come in all ages, genders, education levels, sexual orientations, shapes and sizes. You can either join with us or sit it out for the next four years. It’s up to you.

Obama is no friend of the New Deal Democrat. He’s not a liberal. We reject his candidacy because he does not represent our values.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

One more thing: I’d like to thank my Senators, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, for voting No on the bill.  Any senator in a northeast state where the R&D industry is being decimated knows that this bill is going to cut like a knife.

And kudos to Kirsten Gillibrand as well.

Saturday: Forest and trees and The Marshall Plan

Yesterday, I was listening to Stuff You Missed in History Class and the topic du jour was The Marshall Plan.  As I might have mentioned before, my knowledge of history is non-linear as a consequence of having moved 14 times before I graduated high school.  So, I listen to podcasts like this to catch up on things that got lost in transit.  One of the things I learned yesterday about the Marshall Plan is that it wasn’t just a massive act of charity on the part of the US towards a wartorn Europe.  No, there was definitely an ulterior motive.

After WWII, Europe was so devastated economically, and then suffered a ruinous weather event in the winter of 1946 that killed the wheat crop, that the populations were suffering malnutrition and looking forward to debilitating poverty for decades to come.  George Marshall anticipated that the conditions were ripe for social uprising and a turn towards communism, what with Russia breathing down everyone’s neck in Eastern Europe.  In the wake of WWII, Greece was the first post war country to have to put down such an uprising but it wasn’t going to be the last.  So, Marshall devised his economic recovery plan to prevent the other countries in Europe from going commie.   There is plenty of historical precedent for the overthrow of governments when poverty rises and effects the majority and it doesn’t take much to set off an angry mob.  Marshall needed to nip that in the bud.

Where am I going with this?  Oh, yeah.  I was going to write today about the PUMA movement and principles.  I believe that a successful movement is based on principles.  I also believe that we are at a time in our nation’s history when the public is so fed up with the two party system that there is a window of opportunity to make a real change and the political principles of either party aren’t as relevent at the present time.  Our social safety net in this country is so fragile that it only takes a couple of missed paychecks or a catastrophic illness to put a family into insolvency.  The steady erosion of our quality of life has happened under the auspices of both parties through deregulation, regressive taxation, union busting and the outright fraud perpetrated by the financial industry and their cronies in the business management field.  Before the election last year, we knew that the Republican party was morally bankrupt but who would have suspected before November 2008 that Democrats would also seek the path of least resistance and sell us out?  Well, *us*.  We believed it because we watched it happening in real time with our eyes wide open and our minds unclouded by propaganda. But now, many more people know it too.

In order to make change happen we need to threaten the current power structure.  By threaten I don’t mean by the use of any form of sabotage or physical violence.  I mean we have to make sure that our elected officials know that we will toss them out and then we must do it.  The question is how do we do this?

The answer is in motivating voters to go to the polls to vote out people who do not put the general welfare first.  The public doesn’t like Republicans, even if the GOP has been more successful at channeling the rage into tea parties.  But the GOP is not in power right now and as long as Democrats feel they are safe, they are going to try to ride this recession out without biting the hands that feed them.  But once Democratic voters start to turn their attention towards their own party, then there will be hell to pay.  The question is, can we engage people outside the Democratic party to join us?  Yes, I think we can.

I think we have all had the experience of knowing people who say they do not vote for any party.  They vote for the individual.  And this may be true, although I think some of these people are influenced by the last voice they hear on the way into the voting booth.  But the truth is that there are very few Democrats running for office who haven’t sworn to uphold the party machine that gets them elected.  And once you buy into this machine, your chances of balking at the money that flows to you is very slim.  Without that money, you can’t run.  But is this true?

If it is true that people vote for the individual, what is it they really want?  I would say that most people want to be treated fairly.  They want to feel like they have as much right to representation as someone with wealth and connections.  The reason why people want fairness is because deep down inside, we Americans believe profoundly in promoting the General Welfare.  We believe that this country was founded because we wanted to be free from a power that did *not* see our General Welfare as important to its own survival.  Isn’t this the same situation we find ourselves in today?  The power is not a foreign one; it is homegrown.  But our welfare is completely incidental to its own.  We need to be rid of this power.

This is an idea that can potentially attract voters from many different political persuasions.  The recession is having a profound effect on Republicans no less than Democrats.  And when it comes right down to it, no one wants to see the end of Social Security.  Why?  Because it is an insurance policy against risk.  Now that Republican households are just as vulnerable as Democrats’, there are a lot more of us who want to keep it in a “lock box”.

We need to bring this home to Democrats in a very simple way, because, after all, THEY are the ones with the reins of power.  We need to primary as many of them as we can.  We need to register as Democrats again, find out what the local requirements are for Congress and Senate and just enter our names as an alternative to whoever is running as the blessed party candidate.  Getting our names on that primary ballot doesn’t take a party endorsement.  In fact, I wouldn’t expect one.  But in a primary, you don’t need to be known or popular or a politician to be an active citizen interested in public service.  Those of you who are unemployed can look forward to a nice salary and health benefits.  All you need to be is another name on that ballot under the Democratic party. Call yourself a PUMAcrat.  Throw some coffees and cocktail parties.  Then see what happens.

Now, there will probably be campaign ads against you saying you aren’t connected enough.  In this environment, that could be a plus.  There will be people digging up dirt about you and your family and your unpaid car registration.  Tell them those without sin can cast the first stone.  There will be people who will say you don’t know enough about the issues.  Um, if you are reading blogs instead of the mainstream media, you can run circles around anyone making that claim.

If we manage to upset some races around the country, it may put the fear of God into our party officials and the tide may turn in our favor.

If we don’t do it, we can look forward to social unrest.  It’s coming.  The financial aces who have been riding high on our 401K contributions are busily tunneling out our economy.  To them, it’s all global now.  What happens in the US is collateral damage as they race to the bottom chasing lower and lower labor costs.  It’s very short term thinking but they aren’t worried about it right now.  It is time to focus our elected officials’ attention.

It’s either reform now or socialism later.

Please Digg!! and Share!!

Indiana and North Carolina Primary Cocktail Party

What the heck, Champagne for everyone, Rico. We’re going to have fun regardless.

The polls have closed in Indiana. That was fast. Wolf Blitzer is reporting that with about 1% of the vote in, Hillary leads Obama 64% to 36%. As I understand it, Indiana processes its ballots very quickly so we should know fairly soon what the score is.

I read on some blog today (they did give us bathroom breaks) that Obama had a meeting with big money contributors. Maybe that’s what that single closed door meeting in NC was all about yesterday. I’ve been expecting this for awhile. Obama has to have a really high burn rate. He is spending money like a sailor on ads in a lot of states and the firm he hired to do them gets paid by the ad, hence the incentive to do even more. When NC commenters started saying there didn’t seem to be many Obama lawn signs, that suggested to me that they are starting to feel the pinch. Don’t be surprised if his money starts to dry up if he doesn’t win NC by a healthy spread.

Anywho, sportsfans, let’s party!

Bill Bradley disenfranchises MI and FL. AND CA, NJ, NY, MA, AZ, OH…

Bill Bradley and Nita Lowey were on Meet the Press this morning and Tim Russert (aka Pumpkinhead) and Bradley had the following exchange:

TR: What should happen to Michigan and Florida?

BB:Well, I think the rules are the rules. MI and FL both knew that they wouldn’t be seated if they moved their primaries up. They decided to do that anyway. I mean if we want to make sure that MI and Fl are seated, well, then, don’t let that determine the outcome. They get a 50/50 division and go into the convention, everybody will be there.

TR: Are you disenfranchising the voters of MI and Fl with that position?

BB: Well, I think this is not the voters, per se, but the parties of those states made that decision and there are consequences for that decision.

Sunday: Solidarity

Welcome new readers of The Confluence. We are a merry band of bloggers, exiles by our own choice or our own words, standing on the brink of a new progressive blogosphere. Make yourself at home and join us in solidarity.

• If you haven’t read ronkseattle’s summary of the DailyKos writer’s strike so far, please do. At the heart of this strike is the idea that free speech really should be free. It should not be held hostage to the proprietors of large web sites. As dissenting voices are chased from the marketplace, so are the ideas that go with them. We do not know what the future holds for the political blogosphere but there are hundreds of voices that go unrecognized because their sites do not reach the threshhold level of size. Stay with us as we brainstorm on how to change this model.
• Tom Watson puts his finger on the problem in his post on The Left Splits: Writer’s Flee DailyKos over Clinton Bashing. Here’s the money quote:
  

  The resentment among non-Obama backers is growing rapidly – you can see it in the comments here, and I can see it in my emails. There’s a real split among party activists, and it’s getting wider. Some of it is motivated by the media’s love affair with one candidate – and hatred for the other; Keith Olbermann’s embarassment drove many over the edge. But much of it comes from boorish, Stalinist behavior online – the kind of “you’re either with us or against us” attitude we saw so much of when the Bush crowd was flying high. It’s disturbing, particularly because so many of the targets are women. This is not the Democratic Party many of us have worked for; this is not the progressive blogosphere we’ve supported. Without blaming the worthy candidacy of Senator Obama in any way, this is not a progressive movement – it’s a harsh, echo-filled politburo bathed in faux post-racial hosannas and the gauzy camera lens of “hope.”

  This is also the time to note the lack of leadership in the party.

• A funny thing happened on the way out of Macy’s yesterday. I was on the way to my car when I passed two retail assistants talking to one another while on a smoking break. One turned to the other and said, “Yeah, but what about Michigan and Florida?” *ping!* Did I hear that right? Just two average NJ Joe’s standing on the sidewalk in front of Macy’s, dragging on their Camels and talking about delegate counts? Yes, my droogs, they knew the frickin’ delegate counts and they knew which states were important and they knew what was going on. So, as I passed them, I updated them that Michigan was headed for tha do-over but I didn’t think that Florida needed one. One of them burst into howls of laughter while the other just smiled and nodded his head. The laughing one stopped and asked, “So, didn’t Hillary win Florida?” and I told him, “Yes, 1.75 people can’t be wrong. They certainly voted like they knew what they were doing.” He started laughing again and he and his friend went on talking as I went to my car. Now, I don’t know about you, but it is my humble opinion that when the average cashier at Macy’s knows what the score is and who is ahead, it is going to be very difficult to spin the Florida controversy as a win for Obama. This experience is not atypical for what is going on all around me in NJ. When people spot my Hillary button in Starbucks, they start to talk politics like it is second nature. My asian colleagues hash it out with me at lunch. My *sister* who is not a politico, sucks up information like a sponge on this stuff. People are tuned in and are following this like a real horserace. And I think they know what is going on, who is pulling the strings and just how much they can trust the media. Thank you SNL. So, if I may make a recommendation: wear your Hillary button (or Obama button, if you must *sigh*) on your jacket or your backpack or your sleeve when you’re out in public. And don’t be afraid to engage people in political talk. You know what’s going on and can fill in the missing pieces. Listen to what people are saying. Hold back the emotional aspect and just listen. The public is waking up and using its mind. And that is a powerful thing that we need to encourage.
• Oh, give me a BREAK, Josh! How the hell do *you* know Hillary unleashed the Jeremiah Wright stories in the news? Do you have proof? Have you seen the secret drop site somewhere in the DC metropolitan area where an operative from Hillary’s campaign stands, slouched up against a park bench with a package full of already publicly available videos of Wright going off on a tangent? Oo, Oo, maybe there is a balcony somewhere where a geranium is changing position on a daily basis. Will you get real? Anyone could have dragged that stuff out. The Republicans have picked their candidate. The primary season is over for them. They can spend all of the rest of the year picking off our candidates. And it’s not like Obama didn’t share some culpability for his situation. After all, Hillary didn’t force him to associate with Wright for 20 years or include him on his spiritual advisory panel. But so what if Hillary’s campaign *did* whip up this frenzy? Politics is not a tea party. Are you going to come to Obama’s defense every time something negative comes out about him? Can’t he fight his own battles? This is just silly and unworthy of a Polk Award winner. It’s just another example of the Clinton Rules/Obama Rules. Put up or shut up, Josh.

Meanwhile, Obama says no redo in MI either

For those of you joining the story late, it appears that Obama is playing Florida: No seating of primary delegates, no redo of primary by mail and if they try it, he’s going to tattle on them to the Bush Administration’s DOJ, you know, the one that tried to load the voting rights division with lawyers who thought that white voters in Mississippi were being oppressed.

Now, he’s decided that there shouldn’t be a do-over in Michigan either. That’s right, he’d be happier if the DNC would just split the votes in Florida and Michigan 50/50 even though Clinton decisively won Florida and won by default in Michigan.

So, how do the good people of Michigan feel about that? Well, why don’t we drop in on some of them and see for oursleves? See this from Michigan Liberal. It’s not looking good for Barry.

(Isn’t Michigan called the Wolverine State? And aren’t they vicious and carniverous when taunted?)

One other thing:  If today’s events leave you somehow unsatisfied, make success the best revenge and donate to Hillary’s campaign.  Even $5 or $10 bucks can do a lot of work when combined with thousands of others.  Click here.