Politics? The?

Hello again all. It’s been a second, but maybe this is the post that will get me back on a weekly schedule.

I don’t know why the fact that Hillary Clinton is doing a good job as Secretary of State means that the best plan is for her to be VP next time around for Obama, as this oped would suggest. It would seem to me everyone might be better served with her doing a job that it turns out she’s good at, and I would suggest that she doesn’t need to be VP to claim the nomination assuming Obama gets reelected and people still want to elect a Democrat by 2016. This job suits her, and it boosts her foreign policy credibility in a more meaningful way, and her name recognition is going to be enough to get her support, particularly with an Obama endorsement (again assuming he doesn’t screw things up).

John Boehner is taking heat for purchasing BP stock last year, and that’s fine. But anyone criticizing him on these grounds probably already knows the man is a moron and a raging tool.

Apparently Glenn Beck’s new book is terrible. This surprises me, as I would think that working at FOX news provides a rather natural transition to fiction writing.

I would speak to the BP disaster in detail, but there are much funnier and more insightful people talking about it, including my favorite cable news anchor, Rachel Maddow. It’s insane to watch the rapid degradation of  the gulf coast, though it is exciting to see that if somehow the whole area isn’t completely wrecked that BP is being forced to clean it up. To that point, Joe Barton can go fuck himself.

Go Ted Haggard! Way to prematurely declare the death of the “judgemental” religious right. It almost makes up for the fact that you were one of them and probably would still be if not for the fact that you had to resign your position in disgrace (funny how ranting against homosexuality only to be discovered as a regular patron of a male prostitute would do something to harm your credibility). Though I do hope  you are right.

Daily show!

That’s all for now. Hopefully I will be doing this again soon.

Some veep thoughts

Let’s start by saying that a 3 AM text was in poor taste, particularly when you’re trying to win over the people you’re jabbing at (people who have to this point shown no signs of a sense of humor), though I don’t see it being a huge deal long term. Clinton will do what she needs to do at the convention, and that will do more to sway her voters than anything thus far. Moving on to the actual pick. Would Joe Biden have been my first pick? Not as such. I’m fairly left on the political scale, and I would have liked to see someone like Boxer, Kucinich, or even Lincoln Chafee (even though he was until recently a republican, and would have never been considered on any level, he’s a politician I’m rather fond of), but if we look for a moment at Barack Obama, he’s by no means a progressive. He’s slightly left of center, and his vp selection was going to reflect that. People I know seem to not like the Biden pick, but look at the rest of the short list. Bayh? He’s a fucking joke, and he makes both Obama and Biden look more left leaning by comparison. Kaine isn’t any better, though I suppose at least as a govenor he has some executive experience that would have given him a modest edge over Bayh. I think perhaps Biden was the pick all along, and the others were on the list to make the progressive base see Biden and rationalize him as the best choice (which given the options he was). He’ll be able to attack where Obama is more likely to say something entirely too thoughtful for most of the American voters. I think he’s a solid pick, not spectacular, but we weren’t going to get spectacular. Anyone who thought we were was kidding him or herself.

After months of saying so on this blog that virtually no one reads, Rachel Maddow is getting her own show. It’s dissapointing that Abrams is losing his, when we could have just as easily shifted David Gregory out of the lineup, but it seems decently likely that we’ll see Dan back on the air again at some point (perhaps once Race to the White House is no more).

The DNC is next week, and I hope to update a couple times during the week to post my thoughts, though I won’t actually be attending as far as I know now (which is dissapointing because I signed up to volunteer a good while back).

RIP Stephanie Tubbs Jones. I thought you were a bit daft, but you still were an admirably principled politician, and Washington needs more of those. Your presence will be missed on the hill.

Here‘s something from Eugene Robinson, someone I’m always happy to see at MSNBC.

Andrew Sullivan poses an interesting question here.

McCain and the POW card.

And to end, here‘s something from Arianna Huffington.

I’m out. Back in a few days (barring anything unexpected).

Title anyone?

Let’s start with a little Bill Maher.

It would appear that the world is more fucked up than what many might have thought (also, Al Gore sighting).

If we saw this comfortable in his skin Joe Biden during his campaign to be president, maybe people would have actually voted for him.

However, let’s ask the very angry Michael Ware as to the substance of the new Iraq hearings. Though it’s difficult to suggest that anything groundbreaking was achieved, and in all honesty it was surprisingly similar to last year’s appearance, with the notable difference of members of the Democratic party appearing to have spines. My party has been dragging their collective feet for too long, and I’m happy to see a little evidence that they’re actually pissed. Most of the country is pissed, and that’s how we got a Democratic majority. Let’s give them a reason to keep it.

Andrew Sullivan might well be generally speaking conservative, but he’s also a man of conscience (and all the while not fitting in with the bulk of conservatives, for reasons varying from superficial to substantive, though I’ll leave you to do a bit of reading if you care to learn more… he’s an insanely active blogger). Things like this, are reasons I like this man although I don’t always agree with him.

Kos argues the opposite of what I would suggest, that Clinton’s continued presence is actually helping Obama in the long run. I can see the argument that it makes him more able to weather a potential storm, but I still don’t see the advantage of John McCain being able to pull direct quotes of Hillary basically suggesting that McCain would be a better president than Obama, and even if that’s not what the intent was, in sound bite politics, it would be very easy to make that assertion anyway. If she manages to play herself into Ralph Nader status in the next couple of months, than perhaps it would be easier to brush off that sort of attack.

Here‘s a scathing criticism of Hillary Clinton. I’m not overly familiar with the author, but it’s a good read.

61% of historians say Bush is worst ever. How do you top that headline? Also bonus points for the photo they used in this article.

Here is an interesting article concerning young Obama supporters. I have been consistently impressed with how well oiled the Obama machine is. That it extends to trying to convince your parents is something I wasn’t aware of, though if you drink the Koolaid on his candidacy, it would appear that you’ll talk to anyone and everyone about him. I remember having discussions with Obama supporters when I was wearing my Edwards button (one of which is still rocking out on my backpack), and they are certainly an enthusiastic bunch. I guess I’m by default an Obama supporter at this point, but I still think of myself as an Edwards guy.

That people still pay Pat Buchanan to talk is another thing I find consistently impressive. He’s a moron and he treats who disagree with him with the furthest thing from respect. He’s insane where a guy like Tucker Carlson is somewhat more reserved.

Clinton has been extremely intellectually dishonest lately with regards to Obama and her own positions on Iraq. Here‘s an article which while interesting, I’d say proceed with caution. It slowed firefox to a crawl for a few minutes (to the point that I was briefly worried about the program crashing).

Here‘s a nice clip of Edwards stuff basically suggesting he can’t endorse Clinton. I don’t believe he’s planning to endorse at all. I do think his play is to be an influence with regards to moving the party forward once there’s a decision to be made. He’s trying to remind people that either Clinton or Obama would be good as president (though what he’s really saying in my estimation is that those who suggest they would vote for McCain if their candidate loses should seriously reconsider that position for the good of the country… he might have been overly subtle for the sort of person who sees McCain as the logical second choice, but I like what it appears that he’s trying to do, though I long ago drank the Koolaid on Edwards). Man, that was a long parenthetical.

I wish America could get to the point that Europe is currently sitting at with regards to sex scandals. Namely that sex in and of itself is not a scandal. It takes something like a Nazi theme to propel sex to scandal level in Europe and I feel like this is an area where we could learn something from the Europeans (though in all fairness not the only area).

Another editorial focusing on Clinton. Though there is a third battleground which was not mentioned in this article. Clinton vs. delegate mathematics. She won’t take the lead by June and I don’t see the superdelegates overturning the will of the people (except for maybe that twat 20 year old who somehow became one of the party elite who can put down one vote which is the equivalent to something like 10,000 regular democratic voters… I’m sure you’ve seen him on maybe Dan Abrams before his show got revamped or maybe the Daily Show).

Cristopher Hitchens is an ass. If I want to hear from a militant Atheist (a viewpoint I do try to give a decent amount of reading although as an Agnostic I don’t tend to think it passes the provable test, it’s not something that encourages people to hate people for certain reasons so it is my religion of choice) I’ll turn to Richard Dawkins. Also, anyone want to explain the attempted joke to me? I’ve got nothing.

John Kerry is someone I like hearing from every now and again. I think I wouldn’t mind seeing a VP Kerry.

Rachel Maddow filling in on Olbermann’s show last Friday reminded me it’s been a few weeks since I’ve stated that she needs a show. Something like Olbermann, Abrams, than Maddow. That would be glorious.

Anyway, I’m out.

The? We don’t need no stinkin’ the!

I’m damn tired of hearing about Rev. Wright. He says stupid things, and somehow Obama is expected to apologize for every one of them. Wright is an idiot. I don’t even necessarily disagree with everything I’ve heard him say (though saying “Goddamn America” followed by “That’s in the Bible”… I’m no Bible scholar, but I have reason to believe that there’s nothing about America in there).

Hillary needs to drop out if she cares in the slightest about making damn sure that McCain isn’t our next president. Which she’s proven she doesn’t (otherwise there wouldn’t be a comparison of McCain and Clinton having experience and Obama having a speech, basically implying McCain is a better choice than Obama). I’m tired of this getting dragged out. She’s polling pretty low for someone who should be capitalizing on the rough patch in Obama’s campaign. We need to focus on healing the party for the general at this point because as many have aptly pointed out, the math isn’t there for Hillary.

Gravel switched his affiliation to Libertarian. Raise your hand if this change will make it any more likely for you to vote for him… or if you even give a shit.

Here’s a bit of powerful stupid. This as well.

A bit of Olbermann here.

I have to say I don’t have a problem with Chelsea Clinton not wanting to talk about her mom with regards to Monica Lewinsky. People are saying the question was fair game. I’ll grant that, but so was her response.

I’m out.

This one is going to be short

Partially because it’s in a lull in primary activity, but mostly because I just picked up Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (and would like to finish it before the 4th season starts).

I just wanted to take a second to talk about Obama’s speech on race. I think that he’s effectively taken the wind out of the sails of the people that have been attacking him on a variety of issues lately. He was candid and thoughtful in a way we can’t expect from the Clinton campaign in a similar situation. This issue was the question mark in the past few days as something that might make him unelectable, but he’s pretty much stormed past that, because this speech seems to have been an absolute success. Recall yesterday that it was conventional logic that he needed to hit a home run with this. Hopefully the road to Clinton going away and ceasing her attempts to drag the entire party down starts today.

A day late

Irregardless of that fact, I’m still here to offer up my 1-5 readers the analysis that they have come to expect (namely: next to none… apparently my mood is somewhat snarky today). Anyway, Hillary’s momentum was short lived, and Obama even made gains in California, creating an 8 delegate swing there, along with (as predicted pretty much everywhere) eventually winning the Texas delegate battle. What this all means is that despite the fact that Obama has won two “small” states, he’s in better shape than he was before March 4th. Hillary supporters can protest and theorize all they want, but the math isn’t there (and no, saying McCain is a better potential president than Obama is doesn’t help, though it is incredibly shortsighted). The only way she gets the presidency at this point is by subverting the Democratic process (though in all fairness, she has shown that her winning is more important than a silly democracy). Because she’s still in the race, it means that John McCain can (for better or worse) coast pretty much unscathed to the late summer, in all likelyhood. It might mean he will have to continue to level attacks at both candidates, but he’s already been shown to focus more on Obama, while Obama has to continue to fend off Clinton to allow the perception that he’s weak to not go unanswered (because superdelegates are a potentially fickle bunch). I’m pretty much calling the nomination for Obama at this point. Let’s see if I’m wrong in 5 months.

It’s always surprising to see Nanci Pelosi do something which might be perceived as anything other than caving in, but it looks like the truth.

If the roles were reversed, Clinton would call for whomever Obama’s moronic equivlant to Ferraro happened to be to be fired.  Apparently that standard need not be applied to her own campaign though. Calling her a monster might be hyperbole, but it was a statement based in truth, while there is no evidence of a factual basis for Ferraro’s statements.

Did you see this bullshit? Caucus delegates are now apparently different from pledged delegates, and why? Because Clinton is losing the bulk of the Caucuses.

Daily Show!

Florida? Out of luck.

Olbermann and Maddow on Countdown last night. Good stuff. Also, watch out for the special comment on tonight’s episode.

Tucker Carlson’s show is canceled. I’m not a huge fan, but I’d still rather see Matthews go first (though Tucker will be staying on as a political analyst).

Bill Maher on Spitzer (I’m leaving this one alone for the most part. I’m not against prostitution, so I couldn’t care less).

Spin anyone? I’ll slightly buy the argument with regards to Florida, but Michigan was a joke and even Bill Clinton has acknowledged that (though not in such harsh words). If Hillary cared that much, she would have adressed this before it looked like she was finished.

I’m out.

Clinton not dead for now

They called Ohio for her, despite the fact that Cinci, Cleveland and Toledo have turned in pretty much zero votes. She’s up by around 16 percent or so, and it seems like it could certainly narrow. Texas is too close to call, and they each took a practically meaningless state (Rhode Island to Clinton and Vermont to Obama). If Obama narrows the Ohio gap and wins Texas, there might well still be calls for her to drop out. I’m of the opinion that she can stay in as long as she wants, but at the same time, it has become clear that she values her chance at the presidency more than she values making sure whichever of them gets the nod has a good chance of beating McCain. He doesn’t even need to come up with his own talking points, as he can just steal her desperate attacks. It seems like Clinton is doing McCain’s legwork, assuming that Obama does get the nod (which I believe he still will). The Clinton Campaign will claim a momentum shift, even though she was polling with huge leads (in Texas and Ohio) maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. On a side note, it’s nice to see that low blows and sleazy attack ads still have their place in politics (this sentence is best read with a sarcastic tone added to it).

On the subject of McCain, he’s finally clinched the Republican nomination, meaning that Huckabee has finally officially dropped out (as if it matters). I guess that means it’s McCain vs. the not actively campaigning Paul, though he would have to lose delegates to not get the nomination. We could see the Democrats take more shots at McCain as a result, but I’m not inclined to believe that will happen.

Here‘s a Bill Maher clip.

I don’t like Maureen Dowd as much as I used to, but here‘s an editorial.

This is curious.

Jonathon Alter wrote a compelling argument as to why Hillary is going to lose regardless of what happens tonight. Check it out.

The lead in Ohio appears to be holding at around 15 or 16 percent right now with 65% of precincts reporting, but Cinci and Toledo are both only around 20% reporting, and Cleveland is at around 5%.

On an unrelated note, Vermont certainly takes its fucking time counting votes.

It turns out that Scarborough still says stupid crap every now and again.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones is a moron. Hillary mentioned her in her Ohio victory speech, and I’m reminded at how vacuous her comments about Clinton’s experience have been, and how Mr. Hardball didn’t challenge her to name one specific, where as he bitch slapped an Obama supporter in the same situation (actually on the same night).

Andrew Sullivan’s take on Ohio.

That’s all for now. Texas is still in the air, and I wouldn’t be surprised if when we wake up in the morning, the Ohio Primary lead is in single digits. The Texas Caucus has yet to have anything counted for it, though it will likely go to Obama. See you either tomorrow (if there’s any huge developments) or probably next week.

I’ve nothing witty to add here

Polls regarding November seem to be of little relevance 9 months prior, but it would appear that Obama stands to perform better against John McCain than does Hillary, whether it be because he appeals more to independents, perhaps because Hillary motivates the Republican base in a way that McCain doesn’t seem to, or because of the fact that Obama brings out the youth vote in numbers we might not come close to if he’s not the nominee. I think of the two left that Obama is our best choice to win in November, and I’m inclined to believe he’ll end up being less fickle politically than Hillary has appeared to be since she got crushed in the 90′s over health care.

Superdelegates have got to go. Obama had to win something like 8 states in a row to take a delegate lead, and why? Because there are this group of individuals who have votes which carry an absurd amount of weight when compared to a regular voter (meaning that they hold as much weight in theory as 25% of ordinary Democratic primary voters and caucus participants). That they could swing the nomination away from either candidate in the event that one has more pledged delegates than the other is insane. They should fall in line with the popular vote for this election and then be taken out of the picture for the future. For much better analysis of the situation, I’ll direct you here.

Fidel Castro is retiring, as it were. I don’t have a lot to add here, but I thought it worth mentioning.

The Clinton camp is getting desperate, calling Obama a plagiarist over words shared with Deval Patrick (though they admittedly share phrases and ideas and have acknowledged such). He went further later, criticizing the usage of the phrase “we hold these truths to be self evident”, as if the fact that it appeared in the Declaration of Independence means that using it somehow manages to pay offense to Thomas Jefferson. This is a manufactured drama, and it’s fucking absurd.

I heart Rachel Maddow. She rocks my socks off, and I like that she’s on tv more now that MSNBC pays her to be an analyst. I wish they’d give her her own show, and Shuster pretty much killed his chances of getting one anytime soon. Maddow is clever, informed, and simply put, more fun than many who get airtime on any channel.

I can’t see any course of action for Huckabee other than pulling out at this point. Romney backed McCain, and McCain is taking Wisconsin apparently. Huckabee needed to win Virginia to make his candidacy even remotely viable. He’s completely finished, and at this point only stands to damage his standing in his party.

The last thing McCain’s campaign needs is more Joementum.

It’s looking like Obama will end up winning Wisconsin as well, and I can’t imagine him losing Hawaii. 10 in a row would seem to be hard to shake off, and every time I see Obama speak at this point, I think to myself that I think I’m watching the next president of the United States. I can only hope that the John Edwards imprint proves to be more than superficial regardless of who wins.

This is an interesting read.

John McCain is painful to watch with regards to his considerable lack of oratory skill. Just wanted to throw that out there.

This is a great reason to like Crooks and Liars. Because they draw attention to stupid bullshit like this. Religion is absolutely insane, and we as a society need to move past it. It fosters ignorance, and justifies ideas that only survive with the weight of the alleged almighty. What reason is there to hate fags, if not because the bible says so? Or for Islamic people to oppress women in the way that they do for that matter (or kill those which they deem to be infidels)… I’m an agnostic, and I admit that there are likely values in which I share with parts of the Bible, but I also am not tied to some antiquated document which says all manner of absurd things that intelligent beings shouldn’t believe. Moderate Christians don’t do nearly enough to denounce the actions of their radical counterparts, nor do they see that neither group seems to be really honoring the spirit of the book. No one in this country would suggest that slavery is okay, while the Bible would suggest it’s okay. Why then is it not equally absurd to believe that homosexuals are living lives of sin? Would any of the modern Christians suggest that god should strike down any who would spill his seed (read: masturbate)? Let’s just try to treat people well, and move on from this nonsense.

Hillary is speaking now, and she’s sticking to “ready on day one” and talking about vague dangers. Solutions is sticking as her new buzzword, but I can’t imagine it making much of a difference now. Obama just interrupted Clinton. I’d say that the gloves are off, but honestly, the Clinton campaign has been throwing haymakers for a bit now to try and catch Obama off guard (to stick with the boxing metaphor).

The Writers are back. New Rules were back on Bill Maher’s show. They were good, particularly the one about Obama needing to have his name on his posters. The Daily Show is scripted again. These things please me, and on that note… I’m out.

Obama cleans up

More and  more, when I see Obama speak and whatnot, I feel like I’m looking at the next president of the United States. He had a big weekend, momentum wise, going into a month where he’s apparently in a position to win more states over the course, these next few weeks could be big. Edwards met with Hillary Thursday, and is meeting with Obama tomorrow, and Hillary went so far as to say that she “Intends to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything she does”… which could well mean something like a cabinet position, or it could just be a play for the people who weren’t going to vote for him who might be as of yet undecided. Even though it might just be rhetoric, I feel a little better about the prospect of having to vote for her come November, though I don’t think I’m going to have to make that choice anyway.

This guy is an idiot, I don’t care if he’s a Nobel laureate.

Huckabee had a decent weekend, winning more than he lost, and having what appears to be a valid challenge in the one state of consequence he lost (Washington stopped called the race for McCain with 87% of precincts reporting, even though the difference of votes was 242 at that point).  Romney had his  most impressive victory of the political season, (though I found Nevada to be impressive too), handily winning Maine after he dropped out (I’m used to people continuing to vote for their preferred candidate after they drop out to the tune of 5-10%, but Romney had a healthy 52% of the delegates there). It’s been an interesting weekend, and I’m interested to see what the lead up to Ohio and Texas holds in store for us.

I just caucused for the first time

I ended up staying in the center with the few Edwards people, instead of switching to Obama like I had initially planned. Obama did take my precinct and ended up with 5 of the 7 state delegates. It felt right standing (or sitting as it were) with the Edwards people (Though anecdotal evidence there seemed to suggest that if Edwards hadn’t dropped out, we could have pulled in a delegate, taking perhaps a little more from the Obama camp than the Clinton camp in raw votes) . I found it odd that the race that has the most significant local impact (in my precinct, State district #8) is the one that doesn’t come to a vote in the caucus. I went in excited about the process, and left learning that at least where I was, it was an unorganized clusterfuck. Obama looks to be taking this state, but overall, it’s looking like it’s going to be a wash. We’ll see what happens in California, as it’s the big one for both sides, but it looks like Obama is chipping away at the support that Hillary has, making gains with white voters and in states where he wasn’t supposed to be competitive. I think momentum is building for his campaign. It looks like he’s winning more states overall, on a geographic level, pretty much anywhere that isn’t New England (Connecticut being the exception).

On the Republican side, Huckabee is having a good night, making an excellent case as a VP candidate, or if Romney were to pull out, Huckabee seems to be more electable than McCain among the base. It seems like McCain and Romney didn’t do as well as expected, because of the apparent Huckabee surge. California could swing some needed momentum Romney’s way, though if he pulls it out. I do believe that a president Romney would do less damage than McCain or Huckabee. So far Romney is at least crushing Utah, and for whatever reason Ron Paul is getting torn apart in all of the primaries, but seems to do a bit better in caucus states.

After clusterfuck Tuesday, one might wonder if I have any overall predictions down the road… I do believe that Obama is building on strong showings, and has a very strong chance to be the nominee. I stop short of making a prediction, but if pressed, I would say Obama. If pressed on the Republican side, I’d be unwilling to say anything as long as it continues to be a 3 way (and unpredictable) race, though I think McCain does better. I’d give the edge to whoever stays in if Romney or Huckabee were to drop out, because McCain performs pretty poorly amongst the base. McCain didn’t win many more states than the others, but he seems to have won the pretty big states. The main thing to remember is that both races are far from over.

I’m out.