Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Fuck The Clarifications

You might be aware that Michelle Obama is "Proud" or "Really Proud" of her country for the first time in her adult life. The right wing blogs and Faux have been having a fake rage-gasm over the quote. Let me say...officially...if you don't agree with her you haven't been fucking paying attention the last thirty years.

To explain, let's go back to when she turned 18, in fact let's even make the poor woman older and go allllllll the way back to 1968. For presidents, Michelle has watched, in chronological order: a Malignant Tumor, an Ineffectual Well-Meaning Sop, an Amiable Moron, a Bloodless Technocrat, a Smarmy Morals Challenged But Competent Letch and a Not-Very-Amiable Vindictive Incompetent Uber-Moron. Hell, with that rogues gallery it's the first time I'm proud of my country and I wasted four years defending it so that the KGB couldn't listen to our phone conversations without warrants and send citizens to the Gulag to be tortured without due process. Oh, wait...

I'm beginning to understand why all those Boomers get their panties wet whenever they talk about JFK or RFK. Obama actually inspires me to do something more than shop. Had 9/11 occurred under Obama, I'm willing to bet he would have asked us all to something noble. Not to go out shopping prop up an economy he'd spent the last nine months badmouthing in an attempt to justify tax cuts he'd already decided on.

Frankly, the latest two minute hate is all the right wing in this country has left. Intellectually bankrupt, all they can do is impugn the patriotism or sanity of anyone opposing them. As someone said on a blog (and I really don't feel like digging it up, so just take my word for it), if you spend all your time implying that 45% of the country aren't really Americans, eventually that 45% is going to get really pissed off. And you don't win elections by needing to get 90% plus one of all the votes left available to you.

The only thing Obama could do that would make me prouder is flying down to Guantanamo immediately after his inauguration, personally setting off the charges that blow the prison there sky high and then remanding those responsible to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague starting with Cheney (if possible) and Rumsfeld (without fail). Rumsfeld can stand up all the way there.

Voter Fraud Detected in WI. Right Wing Outrage Machine...Well...OUTRAGED

Turns out there's photographic evidence that a slightly underaged voter in Wisconsin went to the polls yesterday:

If you look carefully just above the grassy knoll you'll detect an "I Voted" sticker. Clearly, this is evidence of massive voter fraud that must be addressed immediately. I understand that Red State and Michelle Malkin are, as we speak, rifling through my garbage looking for evidence that the Wee Pedant cast a ballot for the lieberal Demoncrat Barack Jihad Hussein Osama Obama.

Won't they be surprised when all they find is used diapers from the aforementioned Wee Pedant and used litter from Furperson Cat Pedant's litterbox?

Don't eat it it Michelle. :-)

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Welcome To The Jungle

You might have heard. We're having a primary here next week. I know, big surprise, huh?

By all accounts it's Obama's to lose, at least here, and Hillary has "gone negative". I'm at work and our IT department has cut us off from YouTube (due to bandwidth considerations) so I can't link to the ad but go poke around TPM or Yglesia's site, in fact let me do it for you. Here or here.

If that's a negative ad, I'm a cossack. What THAT is, is an attempt by the Clinton campaign to get some free airtime here in beer, brat n' cheddar paradise. Clinton is shedding campaign staffers faster than a Las Vegas stripper. She's writing herself 5 million dollar loans. People. Candidates do these things when they're in trouble.

Her best bet is to win Texas and Ohio. But, particularly according to Obama's folks, she'd have to CRUSH him in those states, given the Dem proportional allocation plan. Like 60-40 splits. There's a candidate who's gotten those splits, but it wasn't her. Even in California the margin was more like 55-45 and that was her best showing to date.

So, now what? She's got one hope: keep it close enough in pledged delegates that she can pick enough superdelegates up to take the nomination. Ideally without having to start a floor fight about seating Michigan and Florida...though she might try that if she's close in the pledged delegates and thinks enough supers would back her. Ideally, she is losing badly enough after Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio that the "party elders" like Reid, Pelosi and Dean sit her down and explain that she needs to back down for the good of the party and not push for the supers to bail her out. Maybe a Senate Majority Leader nod from Reid when the time comes will put her over the edge into accepting defeat.

That doesn't look like it's going to happen, though these things have been known to change. Next best is for Obama to have enough of a lead that the supers would feel uncomfortable just ignoring it. I don't know what that number is. 100 or less is probably not enough. 300 or more would be more than enough. So I'll say 200.

Obama goes into Denver with a 200 pledged delegate lead, Hillary counts noses among the supers, comes up short and takes herself out, maybe with as little as a primetime speech but she might angle for the aforementioned Majority Leader position (and wouldn't THAT frost the Repubs ass...female Speaker, female Majority Leader, Black President and---let's assume he picks Richardson as a veep---a Hispanic Vice-President...eat THAT "Heritage Not Hate" Southern-cracker Repubs). That's second best.

Third best is Hillary goes into Denver with enough pledged delegates that the supers aren't obviously ignoring the electorate. Hillary gets the nod and heads into the general with maybe Obama as veep, or maybe not, maybe Obama turns on Illinois as a governor to position himself in 4 to 8 years.

Hillary as the nominee is third best because she energizes McCain's base and frees him to run to the middle, as opposed to catering to the flat-earth, all torture all the time-types on the lunatic fringe, which is what he'd have to do contra-Obama. Yes, I know Obama is ACTUALLY more reliably liberal than Hillary, except for Krugman's weird one-issue Universal Healthcare obsession. For the record, universal health care is important. Just not MORE IMPORTANT than our overseas image, our economic health and our environmental balance COMBINED. (Yes, Krugman's attacks are more widespread, but it started because Obama wasn't doing what Krugman wanted done on healthcare). But he isn't SEEN that way. In this, he IS Reaganesque. He can be on a wing and not SEEM to be on the wing.

Worst is if Hillary JUST ekes out enough delegates to seat Michigan and Florida through the argument that those two states are too important in the general election to dis at the convention. Which by the way, is utter bullshit. Michigan's econo-woes are too awful to go Repub and between the Crackers and Batistasitas...I mean Cuban-Americans...I think Florida goes R no matter what. So who gives a flying monkey whether they're seated...makes no difference in the end. Except. Except. *I* have given serious thought to sitting out the election if Hillary pulls that stunt. How many independants, blacks and young voters go to McCain or sit it out if Hillary pulls that stunt?

And that's always been the nasty smelly underside of Hillary's main strength. She'll do anything, and I mean ANYTHING to win the contest she's in AT THE MOMENT. Let the future take care of itself. If she does that, and then tanks in the general in a year when we should win in a walk, that's it. I'll vote in Republican primaries for the least bad option and sit out the generals. Because if we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this of all years, then the Democratic party needs to cease to exist, and be replaced with something worthwhile.

I don't think that happens though. I think option 2 is much more likely. I think Obama heads to Denver with enough of a lead that the Clinton's count noses and realize they've come up short. But there's always SOMEthing in the jungle waiting to chew your face off. So watch and wait.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

So Exactly Who Won Super Duper Tuesday?

Hard to say. Let's start with, "No one sealed the deal," and look a tad deeper. Hillary won California, but that state is hard to move once it gets going in one direction or another, and her NH win probably provided at least 5 points of momentum alone.


But at Washington Monthly blog I find this: "It looks like Obama, by the narrowest of margins, won last night's delegate hunt. By our estimates, he picked up 840 to 849 delegates versus 829-838 for Clinton."

So he won. Except that many superdelegates seem to be breaking for Clinton. So she actually has about a 60 delegate lead. Who are superdelegates? I could tell you but then I'd have to ice my wrist for carpal tunnel, so instead I'll let Josh Marshall explain them.

Bottom line? This fucker may well go TO THE CONVENTION...it is more than feasible that neither Obama nor Clinton will sew it up before or even after the last primary, thanks to proportional representation and the (currently) about 500 uncommitted superdelegates, though Obama is making noises in speeches about the lack of wisdom on the part of superdelegates in contravening the expressed preference of the Democratic Polity: "Those super delegates will have to think long and hard about who they'll support because the people they represent have said, `Obama's our guy.'"

Now on the one hand, damn. That's some cold-blooded threatening. "Fail to support me, and who knows...your constituents might put horse head in your bed sometime." And then I got to thinking. That quote makes me support him more. The one thing I've known about Hillary is that she'll put the knife in and SMILE while she's doing it. We're going to need that. (That she would throw the right into spastic paroxysms of rage and impotence in addition is a feature not a bug, in my opinion.)

And Obama just showed he can play hardball too. "Want to seat those Florida and Michigan delegates? Go ahead and try...but if you fail, and I get the nomination, I. Will. Fuck. You. Up."

Good for him. We're going to need that. Hillary always could supply that cold steely resolve, and I guess Barack can too.

So let the games commence. As long as we can keep it as civil as those California Debates, and as substantive as anything moderated by Tim Russert is allowed to be, we're going to end up looking like the "Grownups' Party" rather than the "Commie-Pinko Party." And if we're seen as the grownups, we win. Period. Eight years of Idiot Manchild is MORE than enough.