I want to congratulate the Michiganders slate for filling all of the Uncommitted slots in the 15th Congressional District. Montegue, Jackson, and Schwartz were elected to the available uncommitted slots. I also want to give a shout out to Rachel Friedlander for playing the kingmaker and putting Lynne Schwartz over the top on the final ballot.
Whether the Michigan Delegation to the National Convention in Denver is seated or not, we can rest assured that the "uncommitted" votes from John Dingell's District 15 are OBAMA VOTES!
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080325.htm About Bosnia, it seems
Senator Clinton "misspoke". Reminds me of something George Carlin once said: "There's a condition in combat...In the first world war, that condition was called "shell shock". Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called "battle fatigue". Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. "Shell shock!" "Battle fatigue". Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called "operational exhaustion". Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. "Operational exhaustion". Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam...and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called "post-traumatic stress disorder". Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it "shell shock", some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time."
Once there was a word in English that I haven't heard myself in a long time: Lie: the word is available in all forms: noun, verb, etc.
In the 1980s, this was downgraded to "terminological inexactitude" by General and Secretary of State Alexander Haig.
By the Clinton White House in the 1990s, it was downgraded to being "disingenuous". An active verb, certainly a far cry from lying, though it is the same thing.
Around the same time, we invented a new term: "spin". This is now accpted political wordplay and deceit.
Now, we're down to "misspoke". Like "mistake". It's an "oops" moment, that, yes would be "perjury" in certain situations, but it's like knocking over a beer on the new couch while cheering a Tiger's victory elsewhere.
Does anyone else think this is a good idea?
After two months of hearing my alleged governor say that it would be "unfair" to hold another caucus or primary in Michigan, because it would overturn the corrupt vote of Jan. 15, where only Granholm's friend Senator Hillary Clinton was on the ballot, suddenly, she says, one day after Clinton won in neighboring and democraghically similar Ohio, that it's a great idea:
http://www.mlive.com/elections/index.ssf/2008/03/michigan_democrats_appear_to_y.html
Wow. First, it was unfair and awful to have a re-do vote and now it is her fondest wish, because she has discivered that the DNC will not let her seat stolen delegates and keeping them on the sidelines hurts her and Mark Brewer's chum.
So maybe there could be democracy in Michigan, but only on Senator Clinton's terms.
Some people call her a tough fighter.
The rest of us call it election theft.
...what the Clintons', both of them, lagacy of laryngitis did for them.
Apparently, it lets you "find your own voice" every two weeks.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004197847_postman24m.html
I'm off to the Obama rally in Toledo, Ohio. Anyone else coming?
Senator John McCain got a break in a week the had a lot against him: the campaign finance situation, the New York Times story, trying to court Bush supprters while holding Bush himself at arms length.
His old Arizona Republican governor during Senator McCain's rise died of Alzheimer's in a nursing home.
You might not think this is good news, and I take little joy at any man's passing, but it is a blessing for John McCain.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hzWxtOyMwj_stygocrlohCoe5htQD8UVNSQ80
The man that made Barry Goldwater, the original "Mr. Conservative" state in
"1989, Goldwater said the Republican Party had been taken over by a ''bunch of kooks,'' a reference to forces supporting TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham."
It has been a mixed week across town; I wonder what next week will bring.
Look, I know this is a campaign that prides itself on decorum and decency, but even Jesus Christ lost his cool when he saw the moneychangers in His Father's house.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=42FC5818-3048-5C12-005E33B3C0F4E64B Let me get this straight: in 2000, George W. Bush tells the mainstream media that he had "youthful indiscretions" until he was 40 years old, even though he was the Governor of Texas by the time he was 48, and they give him a bye and stopped asking questions and now THESE SAME GERBILS ARE READING THE UNDERGRADUATE TERM PAPERS OF THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE'S FLIPPING WIFE!?!? I think we should hold some feet to the fire and find out what Cindy McCain's undergraduate thesis on "Cookie Baking: Science or Art?" reveals about her husband's capability to hold office.
I just had to get that out. This is the mainstream media that doesn't have time to pressure Senator Clinton to publish her tax returns, can't seem to figure out where her cash is coming from, but has time for...forget it. I have to go to bed on this one.
This is an article I found on the Democratic side of Iraq poliy and my comment to it. It's not my finest prose, but it says what I was trying to say nonetheless.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/democrats_unwavering_in_the_fa.html
After the 17 point victory in Wisconsin last night and a quick review of the punditry, things are quickly resolving themselves. The polls, though they have been far from perfect in this election cycle, reveal some pretty salient points: the race in Texas is a dead heat, the race in Ohio continues to narrow. Never before has the Obama campaign had as much time to concentrate time, manpower, resources and our greatest asset, the personal presence of our candidate. As every race yet has show, the more time Senator Obama has on the ground, the greater his margin of victory. Ohio and Texas seem to be no exception.
In no election thus far in this cycle has Senator Clinton made any advance in an election in the polls. She either has big numbers and holds them or has big numbers and loses them. Her campaign is not designed to reach out to people and convince them of the rightness of her positions or cause. It is a holding action and she has had precious little to hold onto since before Super Tuesday.
In short, Senator Clinton is, in all probability, not long for this campaign. The prognosis is two weeks at the most.
This puts us in a moral quandry.
The themes of this campaign show the way out.
When taken in their totality, the real themes of this race is not merely one of "change" vs. "politics as usual" or "hope" vs. "experience", but of revenge vs. reconciliation. After eight years of President George W. Bush, after 12 years of a Republican Congress, after 20 of the last 28 years of a far-right Republican in the White House, we long to give ruthless and savage payback to those who have snubbed, ignored, abused, demoralized and distained us. This is the craven side of human nature and we are trained by long, hardened factionalism to think in these ways. We want to rub it in their faces, screaming "How do you like it, pal?!?" For every blow, to pay a blow back; for every slight, return a snub. To finally get even.
This would gain us precisely what? A momentary claim to a mean-spirited bragging right? In so gaining, we further fragment our nation and ourselves spiritually. It could be argued, and I expect it will, that we are due our pound of flesh, but should we claim it, we must cut it from our civil body politic. We are destroying a piece of the America tha we want to save and unify and strengthen. Revenge leads to reprisal, which leads to fratricide which leads to Hell. We, as supporters of Senator Barack Obama, choose a higher path. We would bind the wounds of this nation, not tear at the scars and bandages of our badly battered national consensus on right and wrong, good and evil.
Our first true test of our moral and political mettle is a fortnight away.
When Senator Hillary Clinton has to fold up her campaign tent and head for home, many of her supporters will be left with anger, venom, and pain. We must, as Democrats, Independents, Republicans and Americans welcome them into our fold with open arms. They are our brothers and sisters over there, beyond the light of our campfires. They will be cold, fearful and buffetted by the winds of change. We must not be reticent to embrace them.
Senator Hillary Clinton has called for the Michigan delegation to be seated even though she stated prior to the New Hampshire primary that "their vote means nothing."
The other day, Joel Ferguson, a Clinton advisor and supporter, said "The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic" suggesting that they not recieve a full vote at the convention.
Today, the big news is that Clinton plans to target pledged delegates already won by Senator Barack Obama:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8583.html
You have to picture strategists like Wolfson and Rich sitting around a table in Virginia saying, "Well, if we pass a law that in Texas and Ohio, only white Catholic women over 75 can vote..." you are pretty much admitting that you cannot compete and win on a level playing field.
Senator Clinton is engaging in terrorism here, in the sense that she wants to frame the choice as being an ultimatum: "Either you support me, or I will destroy the party." The rhetoric seems to be that if she is not the clear nominee, we will be looking at another 1968, the convention that tore the party apart and has left us disorganized in the 40 years since.
Isn't the point of a primary campaign supposed to be to determine what is best for the party and who is the strongest contender in the November presidential election? Clearly, Senator Obama is running the better campaign, does not threaten to shatter the base or polarize the party against itself, and runs better against the presumptive GOP nominee in virtually every single poll taken in the cycle. Republicans are excited to vote for Senator Obama. That is unique of a Democratic candidate in the last 44 years.
It's good for the party, it is good for the nation, and it is good for the future of the party and nation going on after the election into coming generations.
So, like everyone else, I have been watching the polling numbers, though they have not been terribly accurate this election cycle.
One Seems to stick out. They just came out of nowhere; RCP has picked up on them. According to ARG, Senator Clinton was up by 6% in Wisconsin two days ago. Now Senator Obama is up by 10%.
According to the same organization, Obama leads in Texas by 6% and was so doing three days ago.
Can someone tell me who these people are and how much the Clintons are paying them?
First, nothing moves 16% in two days barring a major scandal or an assassination. Second, these numbers seem a bit pointed: two days ago, the Obama supporters were supposed to feel doomed. Now we are supposed to feel overconfident in Texas and Wisconsin and just crack a beer and wait for the great news that ARG has predicted to come over the RSS feed.
Just keep working, fellow hopemongers and remember what Henry V said: "We are in God's Hands, brother, not theirs."
