The issues of experience and race and "working class" (I mean, don't we all "work"?) have obscured the real elephant in the room, and that is gender. Until gender issues are addressed, the Clintons will continue to exploit them, and the danger of fragmenting the party will persist.
In some not-so-obscure ways, HRC represents the plight of literally millions of American women, who have sacrificed careers for family, who have bumped up against the glass ceiling, whose husbands have cheated on them, who have seen male bombast and "charisma" trump thoughtfulness, consensus building, and loyality.
The media flurry kicked up by Mr. Obama's gaffe powerfully confirms an argument I actually did make [in "Kansas"]: That as they return again to the culture war, what the soldiers on all sides are doing is talking about class without actually addressing the economic basis of the subject.
A US Senator identified only as "Hermione R. Climatus" wants to be thought of as the kind of person you'd like to do lines with, so she is reported seeking advice from this guy we'll just call "W" for obvious reasons. Middle class parents around the country are pleased and think that Sen. Climatus has been a perfect role model this week, doing boilermakers in a bar. There is general agreement among the nattering pundits that this is exactly what America needs from its president.
NY Times today has the story of how US drug manufacturers are pushing for a Supreme Court decision that would protect all manufacturers of products certified by the government.
So, we want to be WORSE than the Chinese. Essentially unregulated corporate greed. But apparently one fifth of Hillaroids and Obamanoids say they'll vote for McCain (or sit on the sidelines) if their candidate doesn't get the nomination.
Repugs hate McCain more than we knew.....and he's starting to realize that the wallets are closed.
McCain can't keep the Strayed Talk express in his own lane. After going for public financing, then reneging, violating the rules, he's going back to the public funds. So now he's giving back $3 million (only??) to donors and looks like he's gonna take the taxpayers' $84 million (which frankly is more than he seems to be able to raise, and what Obama can take in over just a couple of months)
Boston Globe:
The move is largely procedural, and McCain's campaign said yesterday that it has not yet decided whether to accept public funding or to raise money on its own for the November presidential election. But the decision to return checks - which was made as the Democratic candidates announced raising $60 million combined in March, nearly as much as McCain had raised for the entire campaign through February - indicates that McCain is laying the groundwork for doing so.
I see that President Bush is going to throw out the first pitch for the Nationals opening day baseball game on Sunday. Of course, they are going to have him throw to the Nationals' manager; he wouldn't want to be associated with Paul LoDuca, Nationals catcher, who may have taken steroids. After all, what LoDuca did, harmed exactly one person. If I was LoDuca, I'd refuse to be associated with Bush.
I presume the Secret Service is going to screen all spectators' cars for bumper stickers, and also refuse to admit anyone wearing a graphic tshirt or carrying a sign, or a noisemaker, and of course will require that everyone's mouths be taped shut. Applause is mandatory. Anyone who fails to comply will be arrested.
I just read this on the Drudge report so you know it might not be true. It might not have even been on the Drudge Report. It might have been at the Onion. Or perhaps it was a dream. So I chose not to use anyone's name, because, well, that might be construed as, well, you know, a "misstatement." And I know it's against the rules to call out a diarist in the title. So I put a ? at the end of it, though I hated to. But what the heck has alegre been doing to fill up her/his/its day, anyway?
UPDATE:RubyGal answers my question:life is imitating my snark. O M G !
In response to a vanishingly small chorus of criticism from the well-fed media, John McCain has put out a new, supposedly reassuring "3am" campaign video.. This 30 second spot shows the "red phone" next to the supposed bed of supposed president John McCain. When the phone rings, old John listens to some supposed crisis information, then stammers out some statement that makes no sense. But then, up pops another head from under the covers...IT'S JOE LIEBERMAN!! He whispers in McCain's ear for a few seconds, while McCain puts his hand over the phone. Then John speaks into the phone again: "No, I take that back, don't do that!!! Instead, do this....."
She's squeezing into her costume and starting to warm up LLALALAALLLLLA
McCain isn't going to survive this. And I'll tell you why. He's seventy years old, he thought he won the nomination, and now he's getting chopped up for chum. And he's a nasty old codger, anyway. He can't stand the heat in the kitchen.
He's gonna have a colossal meltdown one of these days, and it'll be on YouTube within minutes.
As long as everybody has a different idea of how things are going to turn out today, I'll throw this in. A "blog sentiment" analysis is predicting a decisive win for Obama. Bigger than predicted by pablano. The big prize, California, seems, by this method, not to be even very close. Collective Intellect is saying the sentiment suggests Obama will carry CA with 58%. Survey USA may end up going into the dogfood business after this one, if Collective Intellect is right; of course the opposite may hold as well.
In what some observers are calling a last-ditch, poison pill defense/attack, designed to protect his wife's incredible shrinking lead, ex-President Bill Clinton has declared that he did not have sex with Barack Obama. That this is a campaign ploy seems obvious, since, as far as is known, no one has made the claim that there has been sex between the two men. Furthermore, both Clinton and Obama have been widely assumed to be "straight".
Some have recently speculated that Bill Clinton's attacks on Obama and have been counterproductive, and that his inflated claims about his own performance in office have also put off some undecided voters.
The new Harris Poll is coming out (no link yet) in advance of the State of the Union address, and it shows Americans are pissed off. These numbers are getting worse (or better, for Democrats, if our candidates could figure out how to dissociate themselves from Bush).
Overall, the Harris Poll found that 81% of Americans rate the current state of the country as "fair or poor."
We have to have a candidate who is not perceived as part of the problem. Hillary Clinton, imho, is not that candidate.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligencewas called into session over the holiday weekend to hear testimony from telecom expert Lily Tomlin. Chairman Rockefeller and Vice Chairman Bond were particularly anxious that her testimony be in the record, before a bill on telecom immunity comes up for a vote in Congress. Because Ms. Tomlin took the Fifth, her testimony was taken from a LP phonograph record and from tapes of old television programs.
"Here at the Phone Company we handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to scum of the earth. (snort)
Sorry, kos, as of this afternoon, according to exit polls, nobody but Republicans seems very interested in the Michigan Republican primary. It's not a very nice day, turnout is light, according to the Grand Rapids Press.
On Tuesday there were both Democratic and Republican primaries and though ballot maneuvering left the Democratic side in essence non-competitive, apparently it kept some Democrats from migrating to the Republican contest — where they made up fewer than one in 10 voters. In 2000, Republicans made up only 48 percent of the GOP primary electorate; Tuesday they were two-thirds of it. A quarter of Republican primary voters Tuesday called themselves independent, down from 35 percent eight years ago.
This is the first I've heard of this:
The Wall Street Journal suggests today in an editorial that Harry Reid
is saying privately that he now won't attempt to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the wiretapping of al Qaeda suspects. Instead, he'll merely support another 18 month extension of the six month old Protect America Act. Among other problems, the temporary bill includes no retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that cooperated with the feds after 9/11.
Bravo to Chris Dodd for his principled stand on this issue. If the rumor is true, congrats to all those who have deluged their congresscritters with email, calls and letters. Somebody has found the right buttons to push.
I don't know exactly how kos predicted the results of the Iowa caucuses. Maybe it was Bushgut, maybe Jupiter was aligned with Mars, or maybe he is just ubersmart. I suppose there may be pollsters who got it pretty close. But there are also now professional blog-sentiment-miners who seem to have a pretty good replica of kos' neural programming. They spot and analyze posts and take into account the poster's track record...if you have read "The Tipping Point" you will recognize the term "mavens."
Stopping stuff is Sen. Coburn's specialty. In a Congress that has had trouble passing even the simplest legislation, Sen. Coburn, who proudly wears the nickname "Dr. No,'' is a one-man gridlock machine. This year, the senator, who indeed is a medical doctor, single-handedly blocked or slowed more than 90 bills, driving lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to distraction.
