Friday’s campaign round-up

Can’t you just imagine somewhere, someone making a parody of the marriage between Hollywood culture and the American Presidency? You start out with a cowboy actor, who’s wildly popular, even though he has Alzheimer’s. He is followed by a president who frequently dresses in the costumes of various childhood heroes such as fireman, fighter pilot, cowboy and baseball player. Then the people clamor for another actor, and fall in love with one with a basso profundo voice, who plays a DA that’s never wrong. Suddenly other candidates want to prove their heroic credentials. One uses a national tragedy as a mantra. Another gets a martial arts actor to follow him around on the campaign trail. Yet another gets an endorsement from a Rambo-style superhero actor. And finally one pretends he’s in the Olympics, referring to his failures as “silver medals.” The one thing they can all agree on is that a woman president is the nation’s worst nightmare.

OK, maybe “parody” is the wrong word.

The NYT also endorsed John McCain today, largely due to a process of elimination. After explaining why Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee are poor choices, the Times notes that McCain was at least willing to speak out against torture, recognize global warming, and support campaign finance reform. “That doesn’t make him a moderate,” the editorial explains, “but it makes him the best choice for the party’s presidential nomination.”

I guess no one told them that this guy is a liar who switches himself back-and-forth on everything, and who has an inexplicable and creepy amount of support from the media.

I also guess they’ve never hear about some threats that are not overt being more dangerous than some that are.

On the general subject of endorsements, I just wanted to say something about Senate Democrats endorsing Obama. Powerful men and women can be, more than some people expect from politicians, like little kids in a candy shop, who know what they want, but who need someone else to tell them what’s best for them. To a politician who is trying to get ahead, Obama may look like a more promising choice as a president, because as a younger, less-experienced person, he may be less realistic than Hillary Clinton is, and place his fellow Senators up on a higher pedestal, so to speak. They think they have a better chance of finding favor with him, and thereby being influential and gaining power. Whereas Clinton is more likely to use the Senators as an instrument to be played for the ends of good government, and not be drawn in by friendly overtures.

Remember, politicians are people too.

I also guess they’ve never hear about some threats that are not overt being more dangerous than some that are.

Meaning, just because he spoke out against different things- and often later reversed himself when the media stopped paying attention, or, his claimed opinion was never close to being a deciding vote (and of course he knew it) anyway- doesn’t mean he’s an even eviler Republican than say, Huckabee or Giuliani, who try to gain support less by being smooth and endearing to everyone, and more by holding themselves out as right-wing caricatures.

Grumpy: “denying reality is also a valid way of securing the GOP nomination”

I would say this year it’s the ONLY way. All we need to do is play back their retarded statements and ask the voters: “Had enough crazy people yet?”

For those who don’t click-thru
Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises presented by Senator Barack Obama

“To keep the budget balanced, I’ll rent the Situation Room for sweet sixteens”
“I will double your tax money at the craps table”
“Appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Lookin’ Good”
“If you bring a gator to the White House, I’ll wrassle it”
“I’ll put Regis on the nickel”
“I’ll rename the tenth month of the year ‘Barack-tober'”
“I won’t let Apple release the new and improved iPod the day after you bought the previous model” “I’ll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece”
“Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear”
“Three words: Vice President Oprah”

Hillary Clinton characterized Obama this morning as the aggressor in their disputes. “I try not to attack first, but I have to defend myself…

Isn’t that essentially what Obama has been saying all week?

Re: Rezko and Clinton Pic

Is there anything behind this or is it just insinuations and hot air? Politicians have their pictures taken with a lot of people.

New York Times editorial: “The early primaries produced two powerful main contenders” [Clinton and Obama] i.e., two individuals whom we can find something superficial to talk about (gender, race), with whom we can overdramatize the conflict (just like professional wrestlers on TeeVee), and who pose no threat whatever to corporate control of America.

“We certainly don’t buy the notion that [Edwards] can hold back the tide of globalization.” He won’t be able to do anything so long as, thanks to the NYT, nobody even knows what he’s about.

***But…
Doesn’t that make all those folks who posted vehement defenses of your actions look rather stupid?***

Actually, no—it makes all those folks who posted vehement defenses of their actions look incredibly “uber-stupid.” Rather than replying to the media inquiries, she should have called a meeting with senior staff, had the media attend, and then tell her top people “this is what we’ve been doing; it’s dumb; get it fixed—NOW.” But it came across not so much as a directive to staff and surrogates as it did a shallow pandering to the media. It probably didn’t help her cause to have Obama tie her to Wal-Mart as a corporate shill.

The obvious reason as to why she’s trying to back away from the negativity now is that it’s beginning to give Obama the upper hand in the media spotlights. When that happens, he gets what amounts to free airtime in the prime-time arena, and even the most neutral of attitudes appears on television screens and ‘Net monitors as “Obama is the better choice.” That, added to the appearance that voters want issues instead of red meat, suggests that Hillary is discovering she’s not campaigning in the GOP primaries….

the Times notes that McCain was at least willing to speak out against torture

Yeah, speak out and then fold like a bad hand as he knuckled under to Bush and enabled him to go right ahead and torture. Of all McCains cravenness, that is one of his worst moments. Yet he gets hailed for “speaking out against torture” from one side of the media spectrum to the other. What kind of BS is this?

Run that pic of McCain hugging his boy George, over and over. That says it all.

Hillary and Bill are smart. They’re going to win the election. They’ve been playing their cards pretty well all along.

Wow, that will be great if Barack Obama runs again in 8 years. He will face so much less racism. More old racists will be too old and infirm to vote, or will have died, and the country will have become more diverse. Also, in modern times, people are less racist when they have a chance to get used to members of another race- when they encounter and interact with them more. Eight years from now, the public will have known Barack Obama for years. They will be much more comfortable with voting for him. It is a safer bet that he will be able to win an election in eight years than it is that he would be able to win in November.

Focus on Bush Administration is enough to defeat any GOP candidate. Republicans could have stopped him at any time and didn’t, fully supporting his tactics. NYT failed to ask how McCain can accomplish any of the goals they state he supports without the backing of his party. McCain could be stopping torture now. He could be doing something for global warming. He’s done nothing on any of these issues. NYT is actually saying he is the least embarrassing of the republican candidates…now that’s funny.

Wish more on this site would talk about how to get the party’s progressive agenda elected, how we can get our elected reps to listen to us more than just at election time. We are not electing dictators here, they must progress the agenda of our party platform. I would like to see when there is disagreement on issues such as Health care that the candidates listen to the people’s opinions to come up with the best plan so it’s not always ‘my way or the hiway’. For instance how can we get Obama and Clinton and Edwards to accept Kucinich’s health care plan as the best plan and the one we want to see implemented.

Do we now have a Birth Tax? Can it be eliminated by getting rid of the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy? Has it come down to Birth Tax vs Death Tax? Throwing a few bucks at us will do little to stimulate the economy in the long run.

The simple truth is, the Democrats have led to the disillusioning of many young voters. I say that after listening to a student who will be eligible to vote and was so excited by Obama’s campaign, now crushed as she reads of Billary’s tactic of dividing the nation racially and by gender so Bill can get back in the White House. She now has decided to vote for Sen. McCain. Despite their calm fascade, many Democratic leaders are beginning to feel the same problem: 2008 is slipping through their fingers as the scorched-earth strategy of the Clintons drives people away that could have voted for them. After the under-handed way “Billary” slipped race into the campaign in a bid to manipulate white voters (of course it’s not a racist tactic, just anything to win regardless of cost), I will never vote for Hillary. She lost me when the attacks on Obama began. Her husband lost me when he was chasing skirt while 800,000 Rwandans died. Do you see a common theme there?

As for a good role-model for women, I honestly am not sure that qualifies anymore when she has to bring Bill into the fray to rescue her. The women I know and respect don’t need a man to fight their battles for them. They are women who raise 4 kids, own a business and need no man to make them complete or to define their success. Is that what Hillary is doing?

Then she calls herself “(insert flavor of the month descriptor) of change.” Let’s see, her hatchet man is Bill. Have you listened to his speeches? “Oh um, Hillary is the best candidate, now let’s talk about my glory years in office.” So tell me, how does the nominee of the establishment, the wife of Mr. Legend-in-his-own-mind, also get to claim the nom de guerre “agent of change?”