DNC ‘08: 3.1

Hard-Hearted Hillary Made Me Cry

It has continually struck me quite odd ever since the DNC started that the also-ran got so very much nervous attention. Why so many big-wigs worried about whether she’d actually help the party’s nominee in this very important election, or whether she’d stab him in the back in a fit of leftover pique over losing what she (and the entire Republican Establishment) believed was her “rightful due.” As if OUR country, OUR leadership somehow became during the 1990s a monarchy instead of the Democratic Republic the founding fathers established.

Sure, the Bush “dynasty” did make it seem just like that monarchy, and God knows George Junior certainly has treated the position as if he has some sort of divine right to rule in flagrant disregard for what the country wants or needs. Yet that’s precisely what Democrats are running AGAINST in this election, not something Dems need to affirm when their turn comes around again. Maybe it’s a creeping mental illness, a delusional state easy to fall prey to in an era of Bush family totalitarianism. But the Clintons were better than that.

Oh, she gave a strong, spirited speech. She repeated her support for Obama and Biden several times, and came down hard on why the country absolutely doesn’t need another Bush (disguised as John McCain). But I saw no warmth, no genuine enthusiasm, and too much playing with the power she supposedly wields over a bunch of Republican plants whose jobs were to get her the nomination because that’s who the Republicans were determined to run against - because that’s who they could beat.

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DNC ‘08: 2.1

Assassination plot busted, Teddy’s speech…

…and Michelle Obama’s home run to the nosebleed seats. Wow. What a way to start a convention!

In a bizarre twist, the DailyKos blogging team - DKos is the official host of the “Big Tent” blogger-space attached to the Denver Convention Center - somehow got bumped from their posh hotel suites at the last moment and ended up having to spend the night before the convention at a hotel in Glendale (where the Newsweek convention crew was also ensconced) before arranging better accommodations for the rest of the convention. But during that first night there was some big excitement when the entire Denver SWAT team staged a big meth bust of a room across the hall, rousting the crew and leaving them witness to some very exciting police action.

…only to find out that they had been bumped right smack dab into the very midst of serious political intrigue when it was announced that the bust was part of a possible Obama assassination plot! The SS, ATF and FBI are all involved in investigations of the busted conspirators, apparently a small group of wackos from the White Supremecist corner of the hard-right wingnut end of the spectrum. Updates state that “at least” four people are under arrest in connection with the plot

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It’s Joltin’ Joe!!!

AP

I got that pesky text message in the middle of the darned night, and it wouldn’t stop beeping. At first I thought it was the alarm going off despite not being set to go off in the middle of the darned night. Then disturbing thoughts about grandson at his aunt’s house, and daughter who is in another state packing to leave the country tomorrow morning, so I reluctantly got out of bed to see what’s up. Joe Biden was up! As if that was somehow supposed to get me excited at that ungodly hour. But hey, I did manage a nod to myself. All is well with Obama, though he still seems to be operating on Maui time.

Good choice, Barack! I’ve enough coffee in me now to be perusing the blogs and getting the details, looking forward to the afternoon’s rally and next week’s convention - there should be plenty to post about. So do stay tuned!

The Veep Guessing Game

We should know by Friday (or, Thursday when the Obama camp promises to ‘leak’ the choice to selected bloggers who will immediately ‘leak’ it to the rest of us). Who will it be? Will we be surprised? Disgusted? Outraged? Glad?

Don’t know if I have a favorite in this beauty contest. I’ve heard a lot of things, and thought about others. I’ve heard Hillary is out of the running, but she sure seems to still feel it’s her ‘right’ to be on the ticket. And given that she got half the votes cast, she may have a point. But how effective could Obama’s leadership be if he had a 2-fer on the Veep end that worked constantly against his policies and hogging the spotlight? So no, I wouldn’t be happy to see Hillary’s name drawn.

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When You’re Sick of Surrogates

…making a total ass of their candidate…

Getty

Time Magazine informs us that the Debate Monitors for the upcoming (and never too soon) Presidential debates have been announced. Now we can look forward to more one-on-one between Barack Obama and John McCain without having to roll our eyes on campaign surrogate gaffes enough to go blind.

For the first debate on Friday, September 26 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford the moderator will be Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of the PBS NewsHour. Always a delightful presence, calming influence and rational analyst.

The second debate will be between Vice-Presidential candidates - whoever those turn out to be - on Thursday, October 2 at Washington University in St. Louis. Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for the NewsHour and managing editor of PBS’s Washington Week will preside. Another excellent choice.

The second debate between Obama and McCain is a Town Meeting format on Tuesday, October 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Our fave Tom Brokaw of NBC News will officiate. Should be fun!

The third and last Presidential debate (and you thought McCain was serious when he offered to do Town Meetings every week back in the day, didn’t you?) will be held on Wednesday, October 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York with Bob Sheiffer presiding. Sheiffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of the weekly Face the Nation broadcast, is a bit more partisan than the others, but should turn in a good performance at that very late stage of the campaign.

Anybody want to offer odds on what the point spread will be by October 15th?

The Obamapalooza World Tour

Jerusalem and Berlin

Berlin

Jerusalem

Now, THAT’s how you woo the world! Our erstwhile allies are all pretty darned tired of being bullied. Maybe it’s not too farfetched to hope that Americans might finally get tired of being bullied too.

The Bushies (including John McCain) reacted to Obamapalooza just as everyone paying attention would expect. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice issued orders the night before Obama left to State Department employees in all the scheduled tour stops that they must not attend any speeches or events or aid Obama (or the other two US Senators on the tour) in any way when they’re in-country. But since assisting US leaders - or even arranging their events, as has been done for McCain’s travels - when they’re in-country is part of the diplomatic corps’ job description, most pointedly ignored the orders.

This is going to be a fun election.

Now That We Have a Nominee…

Hillary gracefully conceded the race to Barack Obama this past Saturday, finally allowing us Democrats to get down to the nitty gritty of picking on John McCain instead of each other. While Clinton liked to brag about the 18 million who voted for her as if she could sell them on the market, or issue vague threats that they might not vote for Obama in November, her ‘army’ of feminist voters are indeed moving to support the party’s nominee as expected.

So, just to get us started focusing on what needs to be focused on, here’s Johnny McCain telling us why it’s “not too important” to get our troops out of Iraq any time soon…

The Roles Bill and Hillary Can Play

After a long, hard-fought and predictably ugly campaign for the Democratic nomination for POTUS, the Rules Committee of the RNC on Saturday did not hand Hillary Clinton what she demanded - ALL of the delegates for both Florida and Michigan. These two states had broken the rules by rescheduling their primaries to occur before “Super Tuesday,” knowing they would incur penalty and lose their seats at the convention. They did it anyway, Hillary claimed wins in both, even though Obama (and Edwards, and Richardson, etc.) weren’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

Thus as of today, June 2 on the eve of the last primary contest tomorrow, the count stands at Obama 2,071, Clinton 1,914.5. Obama needs 46 of the remaining 234 delegates, Clinton needs 202.5 of them. Which she isn’t at all likely to get, so for all intents and purposes (and barring some not-so clever coup d’etat at the convention by Bill and Hill), It’s Over.

There has been increasing buzz over the last couple of weeks that the Clintons are positioning for Vice-President on Obama’s ticket, but I predict this will quickly slide into the rain-gutter. Why would a President Obama want to have not one but TWO vice-presidents with egos so big they’d undermine his policies just to get the attention they crave? This is a bad idea, and I don’t think Obama or anyone moving and shaking in his campaign are going to fall for it.

So… what do we do with the Clintons? It’s quite obvious that their ambition, sense of entitlement and passion for divisive politics wasn’t quenched after 8 years’ worth of Vast Right Wing Conspiracy or Bimbo Eruptions. They still feel they’ve something to contribute, and we might all be better off if we go ahead and let them contribute. Here’s my ideas…

Hillary should go back to representing the State of New York in the Senate, and the moment one of the current cadre of Supreme Court justices dies or retires, she should be the first and foremost Obama nominee to that bench. With a Dem congress it should be a breeze to get her confirmed, and a lot of the folks there are themselves floating this idea of what to do with Hillary.
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More Primary Time-Biding Digressions

Today is yet another primary day, as Oregon and Kentucky hit the polls and Democrats will choose between Hillary Clinton - who is expected to win Kentucky handily - and Barack Obama - who is expected to take Oregon by a goodly margin. Thereby not changing a thing in the current delegate situation and not resolving the issue of who will be the Democratic nominee against John McCain.

As it stands right now while voters in those two states vote, Obama is 110 delegates away from victory, while Clinton needs another 306 delegates. Today’s vote will diminish those “still-to-go” figures, but the ratio will remain essentially the same. And since Clinton still hasn’t figured out that America doesn’t believe it “owes” her the top job, she shows no signs of giving up on her desperate clinging to irrational hope that she can blackmail her way to the nomination via superdelegate coup d’etat. By now, of course, most Democrats are sick of the whole mess, as is just about everybody else in this wacky primary season that has lasted way, way too long.

So… what’s going on in the real world these days?

First, here’s a great photo of Myrtle Strong Enemy, a 101-year old Crow Indian (and oldest living Crow), waiting for Obama to speak in Crow Agency, Montana on Monday. When Obama was officially adopted into the Crow Nation. He was given the Crow name “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land,” which seems quite fitting. He is also the first presidential candidate ever who has visited the Crow reservation.

Another subject of interest is the 8 million Americans targeted for round-up in case of a declared National Emergency. You may ask, how can I make sure I get on that list? It’s really very easy. There’s this computer software algorithm that does all the hard work, making thinking human beings completely unnecessary to the project of designating enemies of the state. It makes judgments about targets’ behavior by tracking their associations via “social network analysis” and uses artificial intelligence tools.

The data collected includes information from banks, credit card companies and credit agencies, private data like ISPs, landline and cell phone records, your travel record, things you purchase, how much cash you withdraw from the ATM, etc. All that “domestic spying” data they say they don’t need a warrant to collect, which is collected anyway and fed into the “Main Core” database for analysis. Bragging rights all around!

Last but not least (for today), there’s the OOOH, SCARY statistic that 16% of high school science teachers neglect evolution or teach unapproved notions such as Creationism or Intelligent Design. Now, that might not be all that scary to people who recognize that public schools are such failures generally that more than 16% of American students don’t even attend at all (home schoolers plus the ~60% dropout rate in entire regions of the country), but there’s a strong scientific lobby that likes to play Chicken Little on the very idea that people are still allowed to believe things the lobby disapproves of in the US of A in the 21st century. Go figure.

At any rate, those are three items of interest and possible discussion value over dinner tonight as we all await the results of the primaries we already know the results of. Do try to avoid the temptation to throw up hands and start living in the real world. It’s an election year - we’ll have none of that! [/snark]

Edwards Finally Endorses Obama!

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton soundly won Tuesday’s (May 13) West Virginia primary 2-1, surprising no one. On Wednesday evening (May 14) ex-presidential candidate John Edwards formally endorsed Barack Obama.

“There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America - not two - and that man is Barack Obama,” Edwards said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Things did look a little iffy recently, when some of Edwards’ campaign staff worked on behalf of Clinton prior to the North Carolina primary on May 6. Edwards is a North Carolina resident and ex-Senator for the state. Obama in turn embraced Edwards’ Half In Ten initiative to reduce poverty in the U.S. by 50% within the next ten years.

Additionally, on Thursday, May 15 Obama received the endorsement of the United Steelworkers union. This fight may soon be over, the better to take on Republican candidate John McCain in the real race to the White House. The full endorsement speech is available in the videos below, parts 1 and 2:

Part 1

Part 2

Links:
Ex-Rival Edwards Throws His Support to Obama
John Edwards: “We must come together…”
Steelworkers Endorse Obama
Half In Ten