THE MAP!

Sources:
http://www.270towin.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com
http://www.pollster.com
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

Final national average based on aggregate (pollster.com):
Obama: 52.0
McCain: 44.3

My guesses:

Final electoral college:
Obama: 378
McCain: 160

Battlegrounds, last poll averages, projected winner. Based on aggregates of both RCP.com and Pollster.com, which are aggregates themselves:

VIRGINIA:
Obama, +4.5
Winner: Obama

NORTH CAROLINA:
McCain, +0.4
Winner: Obama, based on early voting trends, plus the size of Obama's organization in NC.

PENNSLYVANIA:
Obama, +7.25
Winner: Obama by a mile. I heard a report on NPR detailing how Obama's field offices outnumber McCains more than 4 to 1 in PA, and how they operate in some capacity for 24 hours a day. McCain's were shutting down at 8pm in what his campaign detailed as a must win.

GEORGIA:
McCain, +3.5
Winner: McCain

MISSOURI:
Obama, +0.2
Winner: Obama. His field operation is "the largest in Missouri political history." I remember during the primaries reading that he had sent two young deputees down to Missouri to lay the groundwork there well before even the Iowa caucus. Hillary had no one there until after Super Tuesday. His steady, longterm presence in the state will turn out his supporters, while I'm guessing the Republicans will suffer a smaller turnout than the polls suggest. Maybe a five point differential.

INDIANA:
McCain, +1.3
Winner: Obama. The situation mirrors Indiana closely. Long standing organization. Massive get out the vote effort.

OHIO:
Obama, +2.5
Winner: Obama, see link above.

FLORIDA:
Obama, +1.75
Winner: Obama. Again it's the organization.

COLORADO:
Obama, +5.9
Winner: Obama

NEVADA:
Obama, +6.9
Winner: Obama

NORTH DAKOTA:
McCain, +0.7
Winner: Obama. Not only does he have more people there, the polls show a sharp McCain slide. Also see: LINK.

MONTANA:
McCain, +2.1
Winner: McCain

Final pitches:
Obama relates a motivating story about civic power. McCain talks about water rights in New Mexico.

snopes.com

LINK:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp

Pretty awesome rumor collection. Some are benign (Obama can't hold a phone correctly) and some are pretty vicious (he's a jew-hating Muslim born in Kenya who is conspiring to overthrow the American government) Most are of course false.

Haass on Afghanistan

LINK:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/165648/

"The Taliban is gaining ground; security is deteriorating; drugs and corruption are rampant. More U.S. and NATO troops are needed, but any increase will need to be temporary, given rising Afghan nationalism. The chief priority should be training Afghanistan's Army and police. Regular talks are needed with those with a stake in the country's future, including Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, and NATO. The government should be encouraged to meet with Taliban leaders willing to accept a ceasefire. Counterdrug efforts, while essential, should be targeted and low-key, lest an alienated populace grow more so."

Many of Haass's ideas are conventional and reassuring, but are counterintuitive when you consider the information gleaned from sources such as the HTT program and Nir Rosen's recent piece in Rolling Stone. Are we prepared to continue a half assed, nation building exercise in the heart of fragmenting Central Asia for another 30 years? If not, then we should leave immediately instead of continuing to insist that throwing cash at bridges, clinics, girls schools, and counter narcotics is going to lead to victory. Like William Lind might say, "Go Rome or go home."

Ugly

LINK:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/hussein-chant-at-palin-rally/

“I guess Obama was named after Saddam Hussein.”

Bobby Fischer

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6WsuBZfr10

"A sample of his orange juice is flown to the KGB in Moscow for testing..."

Real interesting clip on the Spassky/Fischer match of '72. When can we set up these sort of political matches with AQ?

N.B. Some thoughts

LINK:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/10/24/global.markets/index.html

Money quote:

"Greenspan, who some analysts say did not do enough to control financial institutions during his two-decade tenure, made his comments in prepared testimony to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee.

He admitted he made a mistake during his time as chair by presuming that lenders were more capable than regulators of protecting their finances, adding he was "shocked" when the system "broke down."

"I still do not understand exactly how it happened," he said."

Hell, from what I've seen on the net, no one understands how this event happened.

What I can gather though:

The financial institutions of the world have been aggregating at an accelerated rate since the 1980s. As Nassim Taleb recently noted on PBS, "It's much worse to have one large bank fail than ten small ones." The contracts of so-called financial tools such as CDSs or derivatives sometimes contain thousands of pages, written in the unpenetrable language of their astrophysicist authors. And people have invested heavily, overwhelmingly into these tools. The end result? A massively complex, closed network with very few, very large hubs that are prone to systemic failure due to feedback. The globalization and centralization of the world's financial and energy systems has created the perfect environment for total failure due to something akin to Taleb's famed black swans. The number and size of inputs available to add new energy to the system pales in scope to the system itself (the 800bil buyout looks pretty small compared to the 450 trillion in the derivatives market ALONE).

Also consider the following:

- The deleveraging of hedge funds (a $1.9 trillion market)
- The deleveraging of the American spender
- Massive debt in the USA ($59 trillion if you count unpaid commitments such as SS and Medicare)
- Increased military urbanization and corporatism in the USA
- The 'balkanization' of American life into isolated racial, economic, and religious subgroups. Thomas Barnett calls religion the "strongest social lubricant" in America, and I agree, but I don't think people move from ideology to ideology so much as they can't tell the difference between Vineyard and Presbyterian philosophies. Many people are swamped by their preferred medias (hey Washington Times readers!), live in communities that do not facilitate interaction, are disconnected from their food and energy sources. Government is deaf to these problems, as seen in New York City, where the ancient (by US standards) and resilient community (despite its problems) of Harlem is being transformed into a corporate business hub.The nation, as far as I can tell, is fractured, which might be part of the reason we've seen an increased radicalisation of the Republican party over the past generation.

Hoo wah!

(Just an opinion. The Thomas Barnetts/Tom Friedmans/globalization-as-salvation hockers of the world look rather Panglossian right about now. And I note TPMB has barely been following the crisis, instead choosing to post on such cursory topics as Chinese defense spending. He also tipped his hat to Palin in an attempt to be above the rabble of American politics, which I found startling and uncharacteristically generous. Tom Friedman is currently selling a green revolution as salvation for America, and based off two interviews I've seen about his new book, he believes that American life will be able to continue its routine. The work of James Kunstler and Matt Simmons has made me skeptical about green energy's ability to replicate the last 80 years of oil glut. Maybe its time to start seriously investing in cold fusion?)

EDIT:
The original post was written late at night after one too many glasses of Omar Khayyam at my favorite pub in Cairo. Cleaned up the language a bit and added links to a few specific posts instead of general websites. I didn't like the way the original seemed dismissive of the work of Friedman or Barnett. I have a lot of respect for Thomas Barnett specifically as a thinker and author, and there are many reasons why I buy all his books, watch for him on C-SPAN, and read his website daily.

2 Weeks

The only time John McCain doesn't need to pee is when he's peeing.

Can someone tell me...

is there a registry for morons in America? How did the entire creationist crowd get wind of ACORN within a 72 hour period? Where can I get the moron phonebook?

Is it just me...

Everytime McCain says "lemme give you some straight talk, friends" I imagine a grandfather trying to explain sex to his fourteen year old grandson who has the internet, access to his father's playboys, an older brother, and a friend who has already been laid.

EDIT:
Watching the McCain speech on al-Jazeera, I notice McCain gets the loudest cheers when he talks about Obama, barely a sound when he talks about the economy or "bringing change to Washington my friends!" The loudest moment of the speech? The "NO-BAMA" chant.

The financial crisis as it relates to the election

Game, set, match.

Quote of the campaign season

"What do you talk when you have nothing to say? What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last 8 years of failure?"

-Joe Biden on the RNC

Palin Upside...

"John Glenn knows something about heroism. And I'm going to make sure nobody does forget that in this campaign. There is only one candidate who has truly fought for America, and that man is John McCain."

- Republican VP Candidate, Sarah Palin

POW POW!

Okay, so here's what I'm learning about Palin's upside and why she's a serious threat to the Obama campaign from various news sources:

Qualification #1:
- She has a child with Down Syndrome

Qualification #2:
- She has a son in the NG

Qualification #3:
- She's a woman

Qualification #4:
- She's pro life and pro-guns!

Qualification #5:
- She's a fiscal conservative (Oh, you mean like Bill Clinton)

Seriously, those were the upsides I just heard on NPR, NYT, townhall.com, weekly standard. And if those are the things she brings to the table then there is no more a clear demonstration that this was an identity-politics pick. Her public statements suggest someone who is as disconnected from what's going on in Washington as her geographical placement would suggest (never mind her creationist bullshit). She has said she doesn't know what the VP does on a day to day basis. She asked "WHATS THE PLAN? WE NEED A PLAN!" for Iraq, though not in the accusatory tone of a Robert Bird, but as an actual inquiry, as if the plan exists but she just doesn't know about it.

I'd like to suggest to you that you join me for a game of imagination. Let's call it "SEND IN THE VEEP!" It works something like this:

Scenario #1:
Pro-Russian forces attack the Ukranian governments cyber-network, effectively shutting down business in the Ukraine. In response, Ukranian nationalist elements that are not controlled by the govt attack the Russian pipeline that passes through their country, and that carries over 90% of Russian petroleum supply to Europe, with crude explosives and arson. Russia occupies the areas of the Ukraine that the pipeline passes through and demands that the Ukranian government stop attacking Russian assets.

America's response?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN

Scenario #2:
A third intifada is boiling in Israel/Palestine after the mysterious death of Palestinian/Hamas PM Haniyeh in a car crash, continued sanctions against the Palestinian people, and a recent Israeli incursion into Gaza following the murder by Palestinian rocket of an Israeli mother and child who were shopping at a mall in Sderot. The occupied territories and the PLO government are in chaos, with Abu Mazin swearing revenge for the murder of Haniyeh and deaths in Gaza.

America's response?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN

Scenario #3:
The Chinese are mad as hell that the current administration is using them as a beanbag in domestic politics, limiting the ability of Chinese companies to buy American assets because of domestic paranoia and outrage over an uncomfortable incident involving Chinese-made dandruff shampoo. Exports are down, and the Chinese government is taking a lot of flack in the US press, abetted by the McCain administration. When a conference on Darfur is organized at the UN by France and Britain, someone has to go sit face-to-face with the Chinese and demand action on this issue, despite the current sourness of Chinese-American relations.

America's response?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN

So far we've only imagined international scenarios, where Mrs Palin will obviously look ridiculous. Let's imagine some domestic events...

Scenario #4
Racial violence breaks out in Cleveland following the beating and subsequent murder of an unarmed black man, caught on tape. Much like the riots of Cincinnati in 2001, conditions have been brewing for years, as jobs are down and drugs and gangs are up in Cleveland. Massive looting and destruction of property follows, and hundreds are injured. The executive feels it must send someone to make a symbolic appearance, and to improve the morale of the city.

America's response?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN

Scenario #5
A conference of the National Education Association is convened regarding No Child Left Behind, and whether the NEA will support it in the next congressional term. NEA love for NCLB is known to be very low, and the conference is thought to be a rebuke of the program that was created during the Bush years, and a plea to the current Republican administration to ditch many of NCLB's provisions, and to fund it fully. The executive wants to send top people on this issue, as NCLB is not up for negotiation.

Who does John McCain send to talk to America's teachers?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM (AND CREATIONIST) SARAH PALIN

Scenario #6
The Democratic majority in congress is pushing back against one of John McCain's biggest pieces of his energy platform, drilling. They are saying no to ANWR and no to off-shore. Democrats have created a political stalemate, as they are demanding what they term "a comprehensive energy policy", mainly federal funding for job-creation in key states in the alternative energy sector. Gas prices are up, and Israel looks ready to attack Iran under the popular and new leadership of Tzipi Livni.

Who gets sent to the Hill to speak with Democratic hardasses such as Robert Bird, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, and Patrick Leahy and demand that Dems work with the administration on energy?

SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN

And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on....

TPM Barnett's rationale...

LINK:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/still_deeply_but_closely_divid.html

Pretty good essay from the old doc about his choice to support Obama.

The 95%...

LINK:
http://alchemytoday.com/obamataxcut/

pretty neat program.

Thoughts on Palin and Gramps

In many ways I would not dread a John McCain victory. His pick of Sarah Palin as his VP, his "we are all Georgians now" comment, his belief that anyone who makes up to $5 million a year is a part of the middle class, his inability to define terms such as Sunni or Shia, are all demonstrations of a serious disconnect, if not dementia. Sen Obama was probably correct in his charge that "it's not that John McCain doesn't care, he just doesn't get it." But as someone who would not suffer as much as the majority of my countrymen under a McCain/Palin administration (I am a student, not a mortgage holder), I anticipate with my eyes to the future the predictable increases of poverty, warfare, economic turmoil, ugliness, incompetence, inaction, and stupidness (Palin is a creationist and her entire mental faculty is therefore called into question) that would befall my once great nation during their theoretical 4-8 year administration. For I believe that even with an Obama victory, Americans will continue to ignore our individual responsibilities as members of a democratic republic, that we will continue to consume a declining fuel source on a massive scale without any notion of consequence, that we will be unable to confront effectively and constitutionally the growth of subnational threats from individuals and small groups and increases in systems disruption as the brittle energy supply chain gets tossed around the global stage like a hackeysack (see: Georgia vs Gazprom and the BTC saga, US natural gas supply and hurricanes, Canada pipeline rupture of 2007 among others). Hallowed out states will probably propogate (see: Cambria, Lebanon, Mexico, Iraq, Colombia, Pakistan, Nigeria), and those new fangled global supply chains and internet that Sen McCain just discovered will all abet this increased fracturing. Americans will be unable to confront these challenges. I agree with James Howard Kunstler that only a massive social disruption, prompted by a final energy crisis, will radically alter the material ugliness, petty religion, and fucked up lifestyles of socially stunted rich white kids that I saw growing up in the idealized American suburb (FAMILY VALUES). Obama's victory will not change the insanity of the 45% or so of our population that will vote against him, no matter how intelligent his Russia policy is, or how quickly he fixes health care, or whether or not he can successfully pull US forces from Iraq. Pick a policy -- any policy!, to these people results do not matter. I agree with Mr Kunstler that only such a dramatic crisis as fundamental energy shift could call to cause the full, restless strength of America, that maybe we deserve to have our noses to the grindstone after the past three decades, and it is my belief that Obama is diligent enough to ease and prolong such a crisis. America and the globe will, at some point, confront the holistic nature and dominance of the global marketplace that they've created, and we will all understand that interdependencies create shared catastrophes as well as shared opportunities. And McCain/Palin is the perfect vessel to carry forth that apocalypse. Never in history, to my knowledge, has such a disgracefully awkward ticket been offered to the electorate. Sarah 'Who the Fuck' Palin? It is obvious that they will not confront the energy issue, that they cannot manage our international relationships, that they will only increase American political isolation and economic suffering. I feel insulted and confused at the same time. The soccer-mom-MILF who carries a shotgun to work and seems a tad unsure about what it means to be a "feminist" (or a VP for that matter) is surely a desperate lunge at the female vote, though I reckon that at least a million American men will vote for her based solely on her fuckability. But if John Robb's eloquent definition of the future of American and global security is correct, that we face either a global guerrilla security rule set or a resilient community rule set, and if we consider the implications of the nebulous anarchy of the former, I realize that, even if an American renaissance necessitates the fires of the alttestamentarisch, I would much rather see mitigating wisdom now than a whole generation of FDRs, Miles Davises and Jack Kerouacs later. And that's what Obama represents to me, this election. American greatness, hope, integrity, class, and above all our best chance to navigate these uncertain times.

"I hope I die before I get old (like that fuck John McCain)"
- Pete Townshend

note: for much better writing please read John Robb, James Kunstler, and Lawrence Velvel

New McCain campaign theme

Beauty and the Beast

Fundamental Differences

Obama's vision for integrating nations into a global liberal trade order is in line with Eisenhower's and Marshall's. To wit, democracy cannot be imposed by the barrel of a gun. It must come from the ground up. It must be based on institutions (currency, infrastructure, academic, judicial, parliamentary, etc) and not one election. In order to achieve a lasting peace, he believes we must foster interdependencies based on trade and shared problems (such as climate change), that require us to work with autocratic regimes like the Chinese. He's very much in line with the Friedmans, Barnetts, and Zakarias of the world when it comes to trade and the global order.

McCain still believes that democracy can be imposed, and he believes, like Wolfowitz and the other true believers in the neo-con circle, that the will of peoples can be ignored as long as you have the backing of the government (hence their trusting the alliances that they fostered with countries as different as pre-2004 Spain and Pakistan under Mushe). He, like George W, "doesn't do nuance." He advocates kicking the Russians out of the G8, something they would have to agree to under the terms of the group, and creating an arcane League of Democracies that would surely be ineffective due to a lack of support from the countries that would be included (Europe, Japan, S Korea, Oceania) and the nature of the problems in the world today (disease, global poverty, global climate change, global guerrillas, global energy crisis) that transcend political ideology and traverse entire oceans and continents. McCain is hopeless when it comes to Iran, his line of thinking only anticipating a crisis that has yet to take full form. Karen Armstrong's brief description of the failures of modernity in the Muslim world in her book Islam is a good example of what we can continue to expect from such idiotic foreign policies.

True Faith

LINK:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/17166715/detail.html

James Dobson's group Focus on the Family produced a video asking its members to pray for biblical rain on Obama's DNC acceptance speech tonight. The vid was pulled after members complained. Key quote from the video's producer:

""I'm still pro life, and I'm still in favor of marriage as being between one man and one woman," Shepard said in his video. "And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."

Talk about "post-materialist" politics.

Russia and Georgia

An excerpt from Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky:

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear! You think you have merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples...there are no nations, there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds, there is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and imane interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrodollars. Electrodollars. Multidollars. Marks. Rheims. Rubbles. Pounds. And sheckles. It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is...the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr Beale?

Then get up on your little 21" screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about at their Councils of State? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, mini-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

And our children will live, Mr Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common purpose. In which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquilized. All boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr Beale, to preach this evangel."

LINK: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/08/russias-hostile.html

"Russia is, for all intents and purposes, a corporation with the trappings of a nation-state. The core business of the Russian corporation is energy, its production and transport (as a result, Gazprom, Russia's key subsidiary, will likely become the world's most valuable publicly traded corporation, valued at over $1 trillion). Internally, production consolidation has led to the destruction of corporate competitors, to include domestic corporations (Yukos) and foreign partners (most recently BP). Externally, the focus has been on consolidating control over energy transportation (pipelines) and downstream integration (Europe, via soft pressure). Recent actions to control energy transportation include:

Georgia. The construction of the BTC pipeline (1 million barrels a day, currently Azeri and potentially Kazakh oil) that bypassed Russian control led to intentional systems disruption that led to a weeklong energy blackout, support for domestic insurgents, and (most recently) a military invasion."

- John Robb

Pile of Shit

LINK:
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/07/29/on-war-269-why-mccain-is-wrong/
4GW idea-man William Lind dissects McCain's "surge" punchline as nothing more than a credit-grab in an analysis of the situation in Iraq. The DNI guys are always interesting to read.

LINK:
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/48928/
The New Yorker's John Heilemann discusses whether or not McCain is even able to run a clean, message-driven campaign and win, given all the negatives he has stacked against him (age, Iraq, gaffe-prone, poisonous Republican brand, the economy, right-wing distrust...) Interesting article that emphasizes in the end what many believe to be true: that Obama has to hit back hard, "with interest," every time the McCain camp puts out some bullshit like the infamous celeb ad.

Some words from the last great American president

If any of our enemies, from Europe or from Asia, attempt long-range raids by "suicide" squadrons of bombing planes, they will do so only in the hope of terrorizing our people and disrupting our morale. Our people are not afraid of that. We know that we may have to pay a heavy price for freedom. We will pay this price with a will. Whatever the price, it is a thousand times worth it. No matter what our enemies, in their desperation, may attempt to do to us- we will say, as the people of London have said, "We can take it." And what's more we can give it back and we will give it back--with compound interest.

- FDR

McCain is corked on Iraq

LINK:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566852,00.html

This is the biggest development to hit the general election so far. This is a bigger blockbuster than Batman. The primarily Shia Iraqi government has endorsed Sen Obama's proposed 16 month phased withdrawal of American combat forces. In a recent interview with German daily Der Spiegel, Prime Minister al-Maliki explicitly endorsed the position held by Sen Obama and the majority of Americans. Some choice quotes from the Prime Minister:

"Today, we in Iraq want to establish a timeframe for the withdrawal of international troops -- and it should be short."

"As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

"Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited."

Politically, I think the numerous statements to come out of the Iraqi govt endorsing Obama were the coups de grâce for the McCain camp when it comes to Iraq. Recent (06-08) Republican Iraq propoganda has been based on (at least) three tiers: a) we had to go into Iraq because of WMD, democratization, Saddam-alQaeda links b) the "surge is working" and c) we must stay in Iraq to insure the victory that the surge has put within reach.

McCain has quietly conceded point a), as the war is unpopular and most people realize unnecessary. Iraqi WMD programs were virtually nonexistant, democratization is a joke when the process ends up killing 1 million people, displacing 4.5 million, and provoking sectarian violence, and all Saddam - AQ links have been disproved. McCain no longer mentions the initial rationale for the war, nor does he mention any never-never land type threat that AQI or Saddam posed pre-March 2003.

This week the Iraqi government relegated point c) to the massive pile of useless and forgotten memes that warmongers in our country have endlessly repeated over the past 6 years. It is a government that the Bush administration has propped up and given matériel, and who Republicans often point to as evidence that democratization has worked, despite all the evidence to the contrary. To have our friends in the Iraqi govt refute Republican-McCain policy and demand that we leave -- sooner, rather than later, must sting. Watch for accusations that Maliki is an Iranian stooge (which he might be) and that his words do not matter to come from the farthest reaches of the right, ie Limbaugh et al.

Which leaves John "100 years in Iraq" McCain with Republican talking point b) "Obama was wrong, the surge worked." This is a pathetic plea, and I really doubt that McCain will persuade voters that staying in Iraq is "worth it" or that "victory is at hand" based on a four word phrase that resembles the many others that the marketers in Washington have lambasted the public with for the past 6 years. As Gen Zinni (ret) said some time ago to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" (I paraphrase) "We need an overarching regional security policy for the Mideast." "The surge is working" doesn't cut it. Watch McCain try to steer the election towards the economy, a subject he seems to be as versed in as Iraq.

General Clark speaks

General (ret) Wesley Clark on John McCain:

"The truth is that, in national security terms, he is largely untested and untried. He's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or in managing his own congressional staff. It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is. McCain's weakness is that he's always been for the use of force, force and more force. In my experience the only time to use force is as a last resort. When he talks about throwing Russia out of the G8 or makes ditties about bombing Iran, he betrays a disrespect for the office of the presidency."

Public Financing

LINK:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11242.html

LINK:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91724104

It's unfortunate for his campaign that Obama made a pledge on this issue and has now retracted it, but this won't be an issue at all in 2 to 3 weeks, I believe. The only reason McCain doesn't reject public financing is because he knows he can't raise more cash than public financing would give him...whereas Obama is set to raise $500 million. At least twenty of those will be mine.

Widget

LINK:
http://www.270towin.com/

Well, in the past few weeks HRC has been dropped and the general has started. Thought I'd add this widget that you can play with to the links section. Let's you manipulate swing states and electoral votes. Cool example?: Obama can win w/o Florida or Ohio if he picks up Colorado and Virginia, two states in which he leads in the polls at the moment. The widget should become even more entertaining come Oct/Nov.

Who's looking out for you?

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQLot6QMtU

Has nothing to do with the campaign, but this video of Bill O'Reilly going nuts on the set of Inside Edition made my day

McCain emphasizes mil power as opposed to economic connectivity

LINK:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2008/04/mccains_radical_foreign_policy.html

Before the guillotine fell on the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton, her pleas to superdelegates to vote for her were largely based on the claim that she would be a stronger candidate vs. John McCain. This had to of amounted to simple politicking, as far as I can see, as John McCain offers negatives on every front. His emphasis on military might and his willing aggression could further strain our military, further ruin our credibility, and continue the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq. Even more worrying is his lack of understanding of the global economic order, on full display in the above article by Fareed Zakaria. His proposal to boot Russia out of the G8 and exclude China would, Mr Zakaria says, "reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow)." Still think Mr Obama's proposed 5% capital gains tax increase sounds scary?

Funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGyuYKlxIg

Notes from the Heartland: It's Alabama in between Philly and Pittsburgh

Well, there was a debate a few nights ago on ABC, maybe you heard about it. If not, here are the highlights via TPM:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_Koq6-UlLvo

The woman who cares about flag pins so much is Ms. Nash McCabe, 52, of Latrobe PA. (Sweet Jesus -- a cowboy's name, a baby boomer, and she comes from the city of Rolling Rock Light Beer!) The weird thing is that she was tracked down by the NYT, which reported this exchange, on APRIL 4:

"How can I vote for a president who won't wear a flag pin?" Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

"I watch him on TV," Mrs. McCabe said. "I keep looking for that lapel pin."

It's interesting that she was the ONLY outside questioner from the entire ABC debate. Did some producer from ABC see the NYT story, track Ms McCabe down, and have her ask the question? Of course they did.

At least Jake Tapper of ABC.com posted a follow up.

The whole thing is pathetic.

McCain: I KNOW THE SITUATION ON THE GROUND!!!

LINK:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_Al_Qaeda_not_necessarily_just_0409.html

So, after his gaffe in Jordan on a supposed Iran-AQ connection, then his recent spill at the Gen Petraeus/Amb Crocker hearing in which he suggested that AQ was Shia, McCain goes on to say the following:

"I've been to Iraq eight times, I know the leaders, I know the situation on the ground, I know that Sunni and al-Qaeda are closely tied...I believe that al-Qaeda does a lot of things, including with organizations and parts of the populations that are not necessarily just Sunni"

LOL.

Hilldog in Bosnia

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Z9o37FQI4

Veracifier did a great job sifting through all the clips to come up with a great summary of HRC's recent flap over sniper-fire in Bosnia.

Oh, and I love her new slogan:

SOLUTIONS FOR AMERICA

It sounds like a 4H club pitch.

Top US officials don't get the basics cuz they don't have to

John McCain's recent gaffe over Iranian-AQ connections is just one in a long series of post-9/11 misunderstandings that started with George Bush's revelation that there is more than one sect within Islam. Understanding the fundamental historical facts of a region in which over 150,000 US military personnel are deployed is essential, yet so many of our statesmen -- most notably the president -- seem to lack even a junior high school knowledge of the swarm of influences within the region: religion, general history, Islamism, Arabism, oil (maybe they get that one), colonialism, modern technology, the Shia revolt, etc. Ostensibly, this is stuff that could be briefed to a senator in less than an hour or two, and you'd think they would run into the terminology frequently from intelligence briefs, newspapers, committee meetings, citizens' letters,votes on the war, etc.

And so it is astounding to find Mr John "MAVERICK FROM TOP GUN" McCain making bold statements about AQ-Iranian connections 5 years into the second Gulf war.

The quote: "[it is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." At first glance, I thought this was an attempt by McCain to show that he hasn't forgotten about Iran, and that the mullahs still give him a raging j-bone -- y'know, J-Mac stroking the fires for the 25% of Americans who still think that God is on our side. But after the weird way his campaign sent out a memo correcting his mistake, then corrected the correction, it seems like Mr McCain might actually believe that the Iranians and AQ are somehow part of an evil alliance.

All of this evoked Congressman Reyes. I don't know if you remember him, but he became House Intel. Committee Chairman when the Dems retook the House in '06. He stumbled through such elementary questions as "Is al-Qaeda predominately Shi'a or Sunni." That's like asking if Nazis were German. The full conversation from the interview conducted by Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly is as follows (and it's fucking scary):

JS: "Al Qaeda is what", I asked, "Sunni or Shia?"

SR: “Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

JS: “Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

SR: “Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball ...

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

SR: “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

SR: “Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

JS: “Poquito,” I said—a little.

SR: “Poquito?! “ He laughed again.

JS: “Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

SR: “Well, I, uh....”

I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now ...

“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.

“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”

(LINKS to more of Mr Stein's reporting below)

When I heard about Reyes's inability to describe Hizb'ullah or AQ in the most elementary of terms I was initially pissed off. I sent an e-mail to Dr. Thomas Barnett, a national security strategist at the Naval War College, asking him how was it possible that the House Intel chief could barely get through the ABCs of the war. His reply was depressing and grim -- and short because he sent it from a blackberry. It went something like this: "No need for them to be briefed fully. Staffers shape most votes and speeches in the modern congressional office. -- TPMB"

LINKS:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002691574
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17stein.html?ex=1318737600&en=c5709ea7c5631b3f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=8e1061b86e6470b1f9f7a414dff6883ec0a4064d

Sinbad's relevent again

LINK:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03262008/news/nationalnews/now_bunko_hill_is_under_fire_103582.htm

Only HRC's campaign could stretch a lie so far that it results in comedian Sinbad being interviewed by the Washington Post.

The Clinton Myth

LINK:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html

HRC has a 10% chance to win the nomination. Why isn't this on the frontpage of CNN.com?

McCain thinks Al-Qaeda is supported by Iran

LINK:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/18/a_mccain_gaffe_in_jordan.html

Is this what experience is supposed to look like? Why, after 5 years in Iraq, do so many politicians not even know the basics?

Quote of the day

via TheAtlantic.com comments section:

"We are suffering from prejudice born from slavery and still 150 years after liberation we are fighting about race. Sure blacks are upset. Sure the situation calls for people who are oppressed to try to find solutions.

Does this mean that Barack Obama has these beliefs that inter-city blacks have. I don't think he does. He doesn't have the background. A Harvard education, A white mother, a desire to bring America together so we can all live as Americans instead of as Blacks, Whites, Asians, Jews. We can make a difference. The road will be frought [sic] with perill [sic] both personal and social.

There are those who want to keep the status quo. Who benefits; businesses like McDonalds, Wallmart [sic] and other low paying oppressive companies who pay employees below poverty wages. Defense contractors who want us to always be at war. Oil companies who want to stop green energy and green technologies of any kind.

People, think about where you want the US to be. I want us to be our very best going forward in a positive way. The peanut gallery will always be biting at our ankles trying to turn us on our heads but we must not lose sight of the future we want. "Yes we can" bring this future into reality."

- McCLum

I think this post sums up why Obama has been able to get such broad public support, even with all the sniping that's going on.

Excerpts from the Obama "Chicago CINC "Speech

LINK:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/No_shock_Barack._No_drama_Obama._0312.html

A bunch of retired military brass come to Chicago to show their support for Obama. C-Span doesn't have the whole thing up yet, but if/when it does, I'll update this post.

Enter McCain's new 'spiritual advisor'

LINK:
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

McCain looks dimmer and dimmer with every passing week.

Clinton saved Northern Ireland

LINK:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-experiencemar07,0,51719.story

HRC's claims that she has vast foreign policy experience are finally being scrutinized. Her most outlandish claim? That she was key in the development of Northern Irish peace in the 90's.

edit: added the following
LINK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml

Quote of the day

via D-N-I.net comments section:

"Looks like the Iranians just got lucky then. All they had to do was wait a couple of decades for George W. Bush to finally win the Iran-Iraq War for them and to see their arch-enemy Saddam Hussein hanged by a Shia lynch mob. Patience is indeed a virtue."
-rogelio007

All the way to the convention...

LINK:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/clinton-wins-ob.html

It looks like this is going all the way to the convention. Key quote from the above article:

"That means he would need to win 77% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024 to secure the nomination. That is highly unlikely due to the proportional delegate allocation rules in the Democratic Party.

Clinton would need to win 94% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024. (ABC News currently has her at 1449.)

So, clearly they both are going to be relying on superdelegates to secure the nomination. "

a poor Der Spiegel article's got it wrong

LINK:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,536232,00.html

Gabor Steingart of German daily der Spiegel seems a bit confused about Obama. His article is really about Obama's nascent foreign policy, but it takes seven paragraphs of a contrived metaphor likening the "Obama-phenomenon" to the market bubble of the 1990's before we find out why Mr Steingart is such a skeptic. I could find two things in the article that are at issue. One is Iraq, the other, Pakistan.

Mr Steingart on IRAQ:

"Obama's most dangerous land mines are hidden in foreign policy. A quick withdrawal from Iraq? Sounds great. But the mistake of having started this war in the first place cannot be corrected by ending it in a mad rush to get out of Iraq. A rapid withdrawal of the US military would most likely be followed by a bloody civil war."

Yes, we Americans have been swallowing this crap by the barrowful for years. "It can only get worse!" is the mantra. In fact, talking about civil war is moot. It's been occurring for years. And the likelihood that a fullblown regional conflict could occur is hard to predict. Juan Cole of Informed Comment has provided a basic rundown as to why.

Cont. on IRAQ:
"Al-Qaida would manage to sink its teeth into Iraq once and for all. Iran would rejoice. And Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be the real winners of the 2008 American presidential election."

Really? Voting for Obama is basically like voting for Ahmadinejad and UBL? True al Qaeda fighters -- that is, people with operational and financial ties to AQ as opposed to purely inspirational links-- number less than 1,000 in Iraq. Does Mr Steingart truly believe that the Sunni "Awakening" tribes, the Shi'a dominated government, and the Kurds would permit AQ to form an operational base in Iraq (see above link)? We've seen that the best way to beat AQ kinetically is through the Iraqis themselves, such as the "Awakening" tribes. As for Iran, certainly they will rejoice when we withdraw, but I'm sure they're not sweating our $250mil/day tiedown either. Point of fact, our ability to confront Iran constructively has been mitigated by Iraq, on every level.

Mr Steingart on PAKISTAN:

"On top of all that, Obama, in an effort to show strength, has come up with a new, and in some ways exclusive, theater for the US armed forces. He talks about military operations in the nuclear power Pakistan, operations that he, as commander-in-chief, would order even without the approval of the United Nations. That is "the war we need to win," he says again and again."

First some factual errors.
1. Obama's policy is neither new nor exclusive. The current administration endorses and is conducting operations in the FATA region of Pakistan as we speak. Predator drones have been flying over that part of the world launching missiles for years. Obama's policy, as laid out in his August speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center, is a continuation of the policy. Obama's main point was that the policy was not enacted quickly enough. It wasn't to prove he was "strong." It's because Mr Obama believes in killing AQ fighters, not Iraqi civilians. Is Mr Steingart just plain ignorant?
2. The UN doesn't have to approve those strikes on Pakistan soil because the Pakistani government has already approved of them, albeit (not so) covertly.

Mr Steingart on VIETNAM:

"But in reality a military campaign in Pakistan would be lunacy, even if many in the American media have chosen to studiously ignore Obama's comments. A comparison with President John F. Kennedy, who was 43 when he was elected, reveals that Kennedy was in fact unenthusiastic about going to war in Vietnam. It was a war the inexperienced President slid into, and if he was a war president, it was by accident and not design."

I just wanted to throw this quote in there because I think it shows how little Mr Steingart understands about American political history. President Kennedy's escalation of American involvement was not an "accident," it was done according to the "communication" theories of SECDEF McNamara. I recommend reading the book Dereliction of Duty by Col HR McMaster for more info on how we slowly but surely got involved in that theater. Also, describing any President who served during the heyday of the Cold War as an accidental "war president" confuses the atmosphere of the era, I think. And comparing the containment strategy of the Cold War to the directionless foreign policy of today is absurd.

Mac vs Obama

Juan Cole on the recent remarks John McCain made re: Obama's Al-Qaeda/Iraq policy.

LINK:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/obama-scores-against-mccain.html

Gearing Up

The CFR produces a really useful campaign tracker that I just discovered. Something interesting to look at as we wait for March 4.

LINK:
http://www.cfr.org/campaign2008/

Ohio Debate Blogging En Direct

The last of the debates before the March 4 primaries. Should be interesting given all the crap that's happened in the past week. Part 1 can be found on youtube.com here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgSj5Wt1Ap4

Part 1
00:10 - Russert....!

00:45 - Strange, they start right off with clips of HRC instead of allowing them to make opening statements...

01:43 - HRC explains her "Shame on You" comment. Says that Obama's tactics in the last 48 hours -- his NAFTA flyers -- made her do it. Those flyers were in Wisconsin for weeks. That would explain why she still thinks she can win, she's lost in a time warp 8 weeks ago.

03:11 - Don't you hate it when any politician says "So, we should have a good debate based on facts" blah blah.

04:09 - The photo's circulation is brought up. Both candidates brush it aside gracefully.

06:04 - Obama's making all sorts of dirty on HRC's health care pitch.

08:30 - HRC keeps referencing independent experts on the health care thing. Personally, this isn't a huge issue for me. The big difference is the mandate vs no mandate issue. Obama's plan focuses on costs and prevention, HRC's plan forces people to buy insurance from insurance companies. Obama's campaign requested three profs from Harvard to evaluate his plan, and they estimated it would reduce insurance costs by about $2,500 per family. FactCheck.org did a pretty cool run-down of the two plans found here:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/theyve_got_you_covered.html

The Harvard study is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/finalcostsmemo.pdf

10:48 - HRC's hijacking this thing.

Part 2
03:36 - Good god, Hilldog, stop.

04:45 - NAFTA!!!

05:15 - Holy shit, HRC is flipping out that she has to answer first on NAFTA. This goes in line with her blame-everyone-but-herself thing that's been happening recently as the nomination slips further and further away. Full quote: "Well can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question ALL THE TIME. And I don't mind. Y'know I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious. And if anybody saw Saturday Night Live, y'know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow." Crowd boos. What the hell, this is the CINC from Day-1? Hahahaha. She's drowning in her own bubbling hot vat of self destruction at this point. Oh, and the SNL thing is a reference to a skit where the moderators of a Dem debate are obviously in love with Obama.

06:20 - Okay, your husband opens up a Free-Trade zone, and you are surprised that manufacturing jobs move south HRC?

08:30 - Obama always referencing labor and enviro standards.

Part 3
00:05 - NAFTA, continued.

01:55 - HRC's dig at Obama on trade/NAFTA is weak. "Senator Obama told the farmers of Illinois a couple years that he wanted more trade agreements." Ouch!

04:30 - Okay both candidates agree on NAFTA. Both want standards of enforcement and removal of corporate tax breaks for companies who move jobs overseas (how bizarre is that anyway). Both want to try to reduce the effects of globalization on small communities.

08:18 - Interesting historical reference by Russert. In 2000, HRC apparently promised New Yorkers 200,000 new jobs for upstate New York, and they've actually lost 35,000. HRC's response "No, what happened in 2000 was I thought Al Gore would be president." So...she make's promises she knows she can't keep.

09:27 - Let's do some geothermal baby!

Part 4
00:15 - HRC's speech yesterday: "We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We cannot let that happen again, America has already taken that chance one time too many."

00:43 - John McCain's vast FP expertise -- surge is working because I say so, and let's bomb Iran.

02:30 - Obama's kicking ass on FP. "On the critical issues that actually matter, I believe my judgment has been sound, and it has been superior to Sen Clinton and Sen McCain's."

03:01 - Hearing Hilldog talk about her role in Northern Irish peace is hilarious. What, she had some tea and biscuits with Sinn Fein? She was there man, she was there!

03:33 - HRC: Yeah, but, but! Obama didn't have responsibility at the time, he didn't have to vote on Iraq!

04:22 - Wow. HRC: "Last summer, he threatened to bomb Pakistan."

04:33 - Her Pakistan plan? Be tougher on Musharraf. She always sees things at the state-level. Her generation should just leave, they aren't helping in this "4GW" stuff.

04:48 - Ugh, not the whole "I won't meet with Iran unless there are preconditions" garbage again.

05:40 - Obama: "My objections to the war in Iraq were not simply a speech...I was very specific as to why. So when I bring this up, it's not simply to say 'I told you so' but it's to give insight into how I make decisions. The fact was, this was a big strategic blunder. It was not a matter of, 'Well, here's the initial decision and since then we've voted the same way.' Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out. The question is who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch and the fact is that Sen Clinton often says she's ready on day one, but in fact she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue. So the same person that she criticizes for having terrible judgment, and we can't afford to have another one of those, in fact she facilitated and enabled, this individual, to make a decision that has been strategically damaging to the United States of America. With respect to Pakistan, I never said I would bomb Pakistan. What I said was, that if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key Al-Qaeda officials and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should. And just several days ago, in fact, this admin did exactly that and took out the third ranking Al-Qaeda official. That is the position we should have taken in the first place...the fact is, it is the right strategy. And so my claim is not simply based on a speech, it is based on the judgments that I've displayed during the course of my service on the Foreign Relations Committee, while I've been in the United States Senate, and, as somebody who during the course of this campaign has put forward a plan that will provide a clean break against Bush and Cheney, and that is how we're gonna be able to debate with John McCain. Having a debate against John McCain where your positions were essentially similar until you started running for President, I think, does not put you in a strong position."

Part 5
00:10 - Iraq!!

01:00 - Russert asks a lame question on Iraqi sovereignty.

02:30 - Stop with the hypotheticals, Russert. Jesus.

04:44 - Obama pulls a weak cop-out on his Euro-Affairs sub-committee chairmanship. 1 strike to Hilldogs many.

05:36 - Five minutes into the Iraq debate and nothing of note has been said. I blame Russert and the line of questioning.

06:15 - Holy shit, HRC was testy as hell with Williams there.

Part 6
01:41 - "Sky will open, light will come down" clip shown on accident. Obama turns it into a joke: "Sounds good."

04:21 - It's amazing how many times Obama has to provide his credentials whereas Hilldog gets a free pass. But he does it gracefully and forcefully every time.

07:28 - Obama's "co-President" remark is brought up.

08:30 - Obama's playing this whole thing pretty well. He plays the policy side well and at length and then gets in a crowd pleasing remark. Hillary looked really desperate at the start of the debate with the whole health-care shenanigans. He looks cool and calm, and she seems like an opposing fan.

Part 7
00:15 - Public financing brought up. TPM has a run-down on the McCain side of things:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nG2OMJLT5c4

03:00 - HRC's tax returns are brought up. Russert doesn't pursue the issue. Media obviously loves Obama (or some other conspiracy nonsense)

03:35 - Haha, OMG. HRC just plugged her website. Things must be going awesome in the Clinton Camp.

05:25 - Eff Russert. Seriously. Bringing up Farrakhan? What the helse. Obama handles it better than anyone else could.

06:25 - JESUS CHRIST. Stop this guilt by association bullshit, Russert! He should be disciplined for this crap.

07:10 - Wow. Russert won't stop. Is he channeling Michelle Malkin?

Part 8
01:14 - Obama lays it out on USA-Israel, stays on point. Maybe this will be good that Russert did this now. Obama can look back in November and say "Like I've said all year, Israel is a great ally..."

03:01 - Haha, what, Hillary? Her "I love Jews more than Obama" shtick is awkward for all of us.

04:19 - Okay, so Obama just "denounced" Farrakhan. Here's HRC's retort: "You asked specifically if he would reject it, and there's a difference between 'rejecting' and 'denouncing.'" Obama's facial expression in reaction to that statement is awesome. Small laughter in the crowd at the absurdity of HRC's comments.

05:07 - How the hell can The Economist say that HRC is a better debater. Obama just shot Hillary from the sky. Applause.

Part 9
02:31 - Obama's understanding of where the true source of power lies in our democracy is amazing, and is a huge part of his appeal.

03:13 - Russert asks a question about the new President of Russia. The next five minutes should be pretty pointless.

07:44 - HRC comes as close to apologizing for her Iraq vote as she ever will.

Part 10

Closing statements. Nothing of note. Hey, Telemundo's gonna rebroadcast the whole thing in Spanish. Awesemo!

Quote of the Day

"I voted for HRC, and saw the writing on the wall when she didn't wipe him out on Super Tuesday and he started piling up wins. I've been very turned off by her campaign's lack of strategy and any semblance of a theme. It's become a schizophrenic mess and the buck has to stop somewhere...."

- Pearl White, TPM Comments section

HRC is a disgrace #2

Desperation rears its very cynical, ugly head. How can newspapers like The Economist endorse this vindictive woman? She looks anything but collected, calm, "presidential."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/24/hillary-clinton-mocks-bar_n_88194.html

There are many reasons why a lot of us support Obama. I happen to agree with military theorist Thomas PM Barnett: that Obama presents the best possibility of helping to 'create a future worth living in.' For many of us, this election is about a lot more than rhetoric, it's about policy and approach, and an understanding of a globalized, interdependent world. Billary Clinton is over, it's a failure. We hate your tactics, your inflated sense of self worth and accomplishment, your cynical and manipulative approach to the American public. We are sick of hearing the same Left and Right demagogues who dominate the national debate screech at pitch levels, no matter that they receive the same monies from the same lobbyists and industries. You have derailed the national interest, however vague that concept may be. It is you, Hillary Clinton, and your kind that have led us into costly, insane wars in the heart of the Mid-East, who allowed our military to lock itself into a conventional mentality in a post-Cold War world, who gave this President carte-blanche during his entire tenure, who supported an economic system that encouraged consumer debt and a widening class divide. It is you Hillary Clinton, and your kind, who sat on the boards of corporations like Wal-Mart while paying lip service to unions, corporations who not only replace concepts like "community" with "homogeny" and "society," but who actively despise their own workers and willingly use sweat shop labor from our dear friends, the Chinese, in order to undercut local businesses that do not happen to have the wives of governors on their boards. It is you, Hillary Clinton and your kind who view American politics as a game, and who view morals, positions, facts, records, data as temporary reference points -- as fleeting as the digits on the back of a baseball player's jersey. "Hope" is nothing but a catchphrase to you. "Change" is something you will mimic but never believe in. "Vision" is a concept that you have never understood.

But we've learned a lot about your character in the past 16 years, Hillary, as much as you rely on polls and analytical machinery to craft your persona. Your inability to define yourself, to present a vision of America, a future worth creating, is why independents like myself could never be for you. But it was because of your willingness to support the Second Gulf War so that you could seem tough that I will always be against you. You cannot even admit that your YES vote for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 gave the President the damn authorization to use military force against Iraq! I've had enough of you Hillary Clinton, and as the past 11 primaries have shown, I think many of my fellow Americans agree.

HRC is a disgrace

Welcome to American politics.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8667.html

Weekly Links #4 - The Return

This really is a HRC special edition. With the nomination looking more and more locked up for Obama, I thought we'd take a short tour through the past and revisit some of HRC's claims of inevitability which, like her Iraq vote, seem to be based on faulty intel.

Let's kick this off right. First a look back to the glory days of Madame HRC's campaign. When Larry King recently asked Jon Stewart "What happened?" to HRC's campaign, Stewart remarked "the voters started voting." But what was the world like for HRC before voters started voting? Take a look at this interview between Katie Couric and HRC done in Nov 2007:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/26/eveningnews/main3540666.shtml

Money quote: "It will be me."

Here's a montage of HRC laughing off serious questions about her husband, Iraq, health care. Yes, back in October 2007 everyone else in the Dem race seemed like a joke. From Glenn Beck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlF12X1dCeo

But things began to shift in December of 2007. The polls showed the races as dead-heats in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And then an infamous incident occurred at an Iowa debate where HRC interrupted Obama as he tried to describe his foreign policy credentials. It can be found in the following Countdown clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3wSWW8QmpM

And then the junior Senator from Illinois beat the junior Senator from New York in Iowa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_idWWFE-xiY

Bill Clinton's flops in South Carolina probably didn't help his wife's campaign there. In fact, Obama took 90% of the black vote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqd2dfjl2pw

Super Tuesday wasn't far away. This was the day it was supposed to be "all-but-over" for the Obama campaign. He ended up winning more states and more delegates.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/02/the_spin_wars.html

Super Tuesday lionized Obama. He had been a central figure of many of the debates and all of HRC's attacks for a long time, but he finally carried the national stage. We are now at 11 straight victories and counting.

Frank Rich has a wrap-up of the HRC campaign fiasco thus far titled "The Audacity of Hopelessness." Killer point in my opinion: if she's such a manager, and is "ready from Day-1," why has her campaign had so many shakeups and why did it make so many mistakes?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?ref=opinion

And Maureen Dowd published an interesting article on the HRC camp trying to criticize Obama's chief personal trait, his ability to communicate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/opinion/20dowd.html

Best line:

"Doin’ it her way, Hillary huffed to reporters on her plane: “If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words.”

I guess that means if your whole candidacy is anti-words, you don’t have to use your own words."

Also a fun video of HRC stealing campaign slogans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myoUzFfEdu0

Can't wait for March 4.

Texas Debate Blog En Direct

This post will feature live-blog style coverage of the recent Texas debate. The whole thing is on youtube.com, and part 1 can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVs0BfCBuRg

University of Texas
Austin, TX
Feb 22 2008

----------------------------------
Part 1
00:04 - Damn, Campbell Brown is fit.

00:40 - Opening statements about to kick off.

01:19 - HRC believes in hard work and responsibility. Astonishing stuff. Also, this is being co-sponsored by Univision, a Mexican-American Spanish language TV station. You can even find the entire debate en espangol if you want.

02:40 - HRC takes credit for CHIP now SCHIP and the good health of a couple hundred thousand Texan kids. She was First Lady at the time, bill was introduced by Sens Kennedy and Hatch. I wonder how she "made that happen"

03:15 - Sick people are like black people or gay people.

04:04 - This is why I hate opening statements.

05:00 - Obama's up. Interesting contrast between his and HRC's opening statements. She was name dropping, he's framing a bleak picture of the economic situation and the war.

07:16 - Obama knows how to communicate with people. He's already had three rounds of applause. All he's done is drop NAFTA, China, and lobbyists.

08:27 - Big applause for Obama at the end of his opening. "I want to help America be as good as its promise."

08:51 - Holy shit the Univision guy is speaking Spanish on CNN.

Part 2
02:08 - HRC shows that she's still bound to the insufferable belief our political class has that negotiating or meeting with the Americans is a gift.

03:49 - Obama rebukes that position in word, gets a round of applause.

05:03 - Obama throws a left uppercut on the issue of speaking with hostile governments. We've maintained a policy towards Cuba for 50+ years, and the only people to suffer from that policy have been the Cuban people, not Castro. Same thing for Iran, pre-2003 Iraq, Syria, NK, et al. Remember what happened when Nixon went to China.

05:49 - Applause count is 7 to 1 Obama.

07:45 - Huge applause for HRC as she renounces Bush's unilateralism. 7 to 2.

Part 3
00:30 - The Economy!

04:25 - Obama hits nicely with the crowd on economic issues, even as he bumbles a bit. Taxes: remove tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas, removal of GWB's taxcuts to the rich, eliminate corporate tax loopholes. Trade: "Trade should be viewed not just through Wall St., but through Main St. as well" Weening off foreign oil, institute a "green economy." Final remarks "HRC and I agree on a lot of these issues, and it's a credit to the Dem Party."

08:00 - On the economy Obama and HRC basically say the same thing. HRC drops the foreclosure crisis. Says she could fix it. These articles suggest the problem is so vast that no president will be able to just snap-yo-fingaz and fix it, even with HRC's grand "90-day moratorium." Says some nice things about infrastructure, but ends with a bizarre mention of "George Bush's War on Science" What the f***? When did she accidentally vote for that?
LINKS:
NYTimes: Credit Crunch
NPR: Foreclosure Season
FinancialSense.com: The Housing Bubble

08:30 - Pretty much a draw on the economy.

08:45 - Immigration!

09:45 - Both parties (GOP-Dem) look somewhat uncomfortable when discussing immigration. HRC's grand plan is about community centers?

Part 4
01:05 - One of Obama's gifts is his ability to put a question into a positive context. Re: Immigration, "We are a nation of immigrants and of laws, and we can reconcile those two things." Big applause. Unofficial applause count - 12 to 5 Obama.

01:50 - Obama lays out his "path to citizenship plan." Learn English, pay back taxes, significant fine, queue for citizenship responsibly. Fix the legal immigration system, reduce the waiting period. Sounds like McCain's plan that got shot down by the Malkins of this world.

03:45 - Border Fences!

Comment: This whole issue is ridiculous. You are going to build a fence that lays out across the entire American southwest that is seal-proof against drug runners and immigrants? What would that have to be, 30 feet deep, 30 feet high? And where would this fence be placed in places like El Paso and Juarez? You'd cut through a metropolitan area with a population of 5mil+ in total? Another sign that many Americans are walking nervously into globalization and our government doesn't address their concerns sincerely.

06:00 - HRC on border security: "I'd listen to the people who live along the border"

06:30 - Good God, HRC never has an original thought. "Smart fencing?" She's the most calculated, PC person I've seen on TV in my 22 years.

07:55 - Obama brings up the economic and environment implications of fences, disagrees with a physical fence. He answered the question immediately, HRC meandered and had to have the question posed twice. This is the second time I've noticed that stark contrast.

010:05 - Obama: Illegal immigrants "living in the shadows." Sounds like a Cream song. Mentions the DREAM Act he helped pass, giving American children of illegal immigrants assistance for higher education, his aversion to class warfare.

Part 5
00:20 - According to Jorge, 10% of the country speaks Spanish. Poses the very tricky question of "Is it wrong for us to become a bilingual nation."

01:30 - HRC: "I think it is important that English remain our common unifying language." "I am adamantly against the efforts by some to make English the official language. I don't think we should discriminate against people who don't speak English." Uh...What? I am praying Obama doesn't give such a vague answer to the same question...

03:00 - Obama: "I think it's important that everyone learns English. But I also think every student should be learning a second language." Drops globalization, mentions that our capacity to lead in the world will depend on a host of skills in which we've fallen behind, languages included. Drops No Child Left Behind, huge applause. Unofficial applause count, 15 to 5, Obama.

Part 6
00:03 - Campbell Brown is seriously stunning.

00:15 - The absence of Russert or Matthews is very noticeable.

01:00 - Questions on Rhetoric and Slogans!

01:32 - Jesus H. Hong I hate that expression "All Hat and No Cattle." What the hell is wrong with Texas?

02:40 - HRC: "I do offer solutions, that's what I believe in and have done. It's what I offer to voters because it's a part of my life for the last 30, 35 years." In Britain there's an acronym called a WAG... I think HRC is a WAG.

03:18 - HRC mentions that one Obama supporter who was on Hardball and was asked to name an accomplishment of Sen Obama and couldn't. Zippity-doo, HRC, I bet half of your supporters can't name a single bill you've sponsored either. But we all know about your Iraq war vote. Yes we do. Oh, and I think S.1977 was a pretty big accomplishment for the Sen from Illinois. Go look it up. Respect.

03:26 - Just want to note that after HRC mentions that Hardball episode, she says "And there are contrasts between us, and it's important that voters get that information." As if the Hardball episode somehow defines the two candidates. I think 11 straight primary victories for Obama provides a more substantive reference point.

03:37 - HRC: "Actions speak louder than words."Nice platitude. Iraq votes speak louder than Penn or Wolfson.

04:57 - Obama counters HRC's rhetoric beautifully, speaks of his own record, gives a nod to HRC herself, gains the moral ground. All at once.

05:30 - Obama makes fun of HRC's comment she made a few weeks ago that Obama supporters were "delusional." Big applause.

07:30 - Obama was born for television. Thundering applause. Lasted 20 seconds.

07:50 - Oh God, Plagiarism!

Part 7
01:40 - Oh snap. "The notion that I plagiarized from one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and suggested that I use it is silly. This is when we start to get into silly season in politics. What I've been talking about in these speeches -- and I gotta admit, some of them are pretty good -- it's not just about hope and inspiration, it's about a $4000 tuition credit for every student, in exchange for every year of national service, so that college becomes more affordable, I've been talking about the reworking of the tax codes, I've been talking about ending this war in Iraq..."

2:57 - HRC looks really uncomfortable at the audience's reaction to Obama's counter.

03:30 - HRC: "It's not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox." Gets booed. Hahaha.

04:09 - I wonder if, at the start of campaign season, HRC knew she'd be saying the word "Change" 800x a day.

05:15 - Jesus, Obama looks non-plussed.

05:35 - HRC referencing her great days as First Lady, an unelected position and pretty much an honorary title. I don't think anyone under 30 cares.

07:00 - Debate has naturally shifted to Health Care. Finally back to an issue.

08:35 - Obama: "Sen Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it. And my belief is that the reason that people don't have it is not because people don't want it, it's that they cannot afford it. And so I emphasize reducing costs...the notion that I am leaving 15mil people out implies that somehow we are different in our goals." Namedrops former cabinet members of WJC.

Part 8
00:20 - Obama has looked very "presidential" and confident. So far I'd say the campaign is a 6-4 match to Obama.

00:45 - Question to HRC: "Do you believe Obama is ready to be CINC?" Obama is the central figure of this debate. She shifts it back to health care.

Part 9
00:10 - Back to the Obama as CINC question.

00:30 - HRC: "For more than 15 years I've been honored to represent our country." What the hell? Being First Lady doesn't make you a diplomat Hilldog. Her own self-aggrandizement is astonishing.

01:46 - I seriously do not understand how anyone could rigorously follow this campaign cycle and say HRC's grasp of foreign affairs is deeper or more nuanced than Obama's. She lists off a series of events that have happened in the past week -- Pakistan's election, Castro, the events in Kosova/Serbia -- says "see, there's a whole host of challenges" and somehow we're supposed to believe that that is an argument? Oh, she also supports Kosovo's independence, which is surely more important that EU-Russia relations or US-Russia relations.

02:06 - HRC: "And I would hold the Serbian security services responsible to protect our embassy." HERES THE NEWS! So would every president! The FP debate should be about GRAND STRATEGY, aka your "vision" HRC. This is what frustrates me more than anything about this woman, she can't see beyond the brush stroke.

02:13 - HRC: "And when you think about everything that's happening..." I think her entire campaign tactic re: foreign policy is try to overwhelm a crowd with names and dates, make it sound like she has a strategy, and then wing it once she gets into office. You know what we'll get with 8 Clinton years? No new action v. Al-Qaeda, and a small, slow humiliating burn out of Iraq. At least the Canadians will respect us though. This "Day-1" bullshit is becoming really tiring.

03:52 - Parts of the crowd interrupt Obama to applaud when he mentions that Clinton was "wrong on Iraq." Unofficial applause count 20 to 8, Obama.

05:20 - Obama on Iraq: "Going into Iraq originally, I said this would distract us from Afghanistan, this would fan the flames of anti-American sentiment, this is going to cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and overstretch our military. And I was right." Obama on Pakistan: "We have put all our eggs in the Musharraf basket, and that was a mistake. We should be going after Al-Qaeda and make sure that Pakistan is serious about hunting terrorists. And I was right."

06:40 - Amazing how group think works in the small world of TV-media and the political class. John King suggests that the security situation in Iraq "is better, ideal, no, but better, some say significantly." Let's take a short trip down reality lane:
Juan Cole on the recent escalation of violence
Violence in Iraq on the rise
Turkey vs. Kurdistan
Iraq Benchmarks not met
Harper's report on Iraqi oil
on the plus side, a new oil deal looks to be settled soon:
via UPI

Anyways...back to the debate

06:45 - Formal title of the question at hand: "Is Iraq better off now due to the surge than it was a year ago." How pitiful.

07:30 - I think everyone knows the surge had almost nothing to do with the recent downturn in violence, at least outside of Baghdad. I read, I think at d-n-i.net, that among the 30000 soldiers that were sent there (and are now being drawn down), only around 10-12k were "trigger pullers", and its not like those guys work 24h/7d, so on average at any given moment you have around 3000 extra "trigger pullers" doing security operations. Just reading Al-Jazeera and McClatchy and CFR, I think we know what happened in Baghdad and al-Anbar.

07:45 - HRC: "The Iraqi govt has not taken advantage of the sacrifice and the losses of life and the billions of dollars."

08:09 - HRC makes a bold promise to begin the withdrawal within 60 days. "1-2 brigades a month"

Part 10
00:28 - Obama: "I think it's indisputable that we've seen violence reduced in Iraq...this is a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder. And I think that when we're having a debate with John McCain, it will be much easier for the candidate who was opposed to the concept of invading Iraq in the first place -- to have a debate about the wisdom of that decision, than having to argue about the tactics subsequent to the decision." Finishes up with a whipping of John McCain. Obama is clearly trying to be perceived as the Dem candidate.

03:50 - Campbell Brown...

04:06 - Transparency and Secrecy!

06:35 - King poses a tricky question for Obama and HRC. McCain apparently has never asked for $1 of pork-barrel spending, whereas Obama has earmarked $91mil and Clinton around $320mil for their states. Question: "Does John McCain make a better case for fiscal accountability in government?" HRC: "No, not at all. Because he supported the wasteful tax cuts and the Iraq war." She then references the boomin'-90's.

08:30 - Superdelegates!

Part 11
01:45 - Both candidates brush off the superdelegate question.

03:00 - Final question: "Describe the moment in your life when you were tested most."

04:45 - HRC implies that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was pretty damn tough. Then: "The hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to the things that go on in the lives of people in this country every single day...I was called by my faith and upbringing to do what I could to give others the same opportunities and blessings that I took for granted."

07:45 - It's over.
--------------------------------

Campaign narratives

It's a bizarre thing to watch CNN clips of election coverage on the internet. What you'll usually get to see is a two minute clip that features excerpts from speeches by the remaining candidates and a couple different storylines, without the when, where, or what. The excerpts of the speeches usually reinforce whatever the producers at CNN believe the narrative of the week to be (hint hint, Speeches vs. Solutions!) I've always been curious how this process starts -- of reducing a candidate and all of their positions, speeches, and personal history into an abstract, usually 5 words or less -- but I think it's obvious that in an age of TV the campaigns try to define both themselves and their opponents in as minimal a way as possible. Like this recent NYT story shows, HRC badly underestimated Obama's chances for a run at the nomination, and I think he was able to take advantage of her early laziness and take control of the whole storyline in the Dem primary. "Change," "Hope," whatever, HRC's campaign has been completely reactionary since Iowa. Her campaign started with "Renewing the promise of America." After Iowa, the influence of Obama's surge is obvious: “Working for Change, Working for You.” “Strength and Experience.” “The Strength and Experience to Make Change Happen” (that reads nicely). Today's it's "Solutions for America."

Ben Smith at politico.com made some interesting comments regarding HRC's slogan rotation:

"The shifting, carefully measured words reflect some of the strengths of her campaign but some of its most visible weaknesses. They’re the product of years of meticulous polling, layers of advisers, and evidence of a detailed understanding of what Iowans and Americans want to hear. But they also reflect more perspiration than inspiration. And they don’t have a beat you can dance to."

While in Texas HRC recently said, "We need to make a choice. Between speeches and solutions. Because while words matter greatly, the best words in the world aren't enough unless you match them with action."

Obama's retort? "It's not a choice between speeches and solutions. It's a choice between a politics that offers more of the same divisions and distractions that didn't work in South Carolina, didn't work in Wisconsin, and will not work in Texas."

I believe the key point in this battle of rhetoric is that Obama, not Clinton, is the central figure, and has been for a long time, even before he was the frontrunner. As long as HRC's campaign continues to offer nothing but backhanded compliments to Mr Obama's communication skills -- "Speeches Don't Solve Problems" -- I believe she will continue to lose primaries. And that's damn fine with me.

"Yes We Can"

Following up the last post, here is the famous "Yes We Can" speech that Mr Obama delivered in January.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe751kMBwms

And here is HRC taking a pathetic rip at Mr Obama's inspiring speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRQD-MsSpfI

Things going well, Hilldog?

"Movement" "Bandwagon" "Frontleader"...and a really terrible Will.i.am song

Well I doubt I really need to mention what's happened since Feb 5. Obama held his own on Super Tuesday and then won the next 7 primaries/caucuses, and has taken a commanding lead moving towards the month of March. In my own HRC-hating state of Idaho, Mr Obama won 29 of 30 counties, and the state dem party scored a record turnout for a caucus, mainly because of independents and republicans turning out in droves for Obama. The events of the past two weeks has lead to a pretty dramatic shift in how the race to the Dem convention is being portrayed in the media. For one, he is now viewed as the clear frontrunner. This last week, the HRC-loving British newspaper The Economist had Obama on the cover with the headline "But Could he Deliver?" He is also starting to pull in pundits and talking heads of all types. Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich of the NYT have blasted HRC over the past 3 weeks while consistently praising Obama in a stark contrast. Chris Matthews, who has had many spats with the Clintons dating back some years, spoke of a "chill up the leg" that he gets when he hears Obama speak. Even some Republican bean-counters are starting to speak of Mr Obama in glowing terms. Take a look at this video:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Frank_Luntz_enthusiastic_about_Obamas_words_0214.html

I always felt this shift would take place at some point during the primary season. HRC's strength, her "CEO-from-day-one" shtick, and her abilities on the campaign trail were all exaggerations. She has absolutely no likeability, which makes it hard for her to campaign in a media world dominated by television. Her baggage is immense, especially with Republicans and independents, and her husband's missteps in January (I think) boosted Obama at the right moment going into Super Tuesday. What I never considered was the horror Hollywood and will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas would create once Obama had the nation's attention and growing admiration. Check it out:

http://www.yeswecansong.com/

....

Humor website SomethingAwful.com came up with their own tribute in retort:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6AYrYZCQig

Weekly Links #3: Polls, Push polling, Feb 5

Feb. 2 Dem nationwide poll (click for big), via Pollster.com:























Obama surging up :)

HRC push-polling in California, via LATimes:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/breaking-news-p.html

wikipedia article on push-polling (hate to use it, but it's correct on this one):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

Obama cripples HRC on Iraq, via Politico.com:
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D2FF4D65-3048-5C12-001AA97B5EB71A37

CNN.com discusses the election cycle after Feb. 5:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/02/super.tuesday/