BartCop.com Volume 2094 – A Pony called Change
In Today’s Tequila Treehouse…
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Charlie Wilson’s War |
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The Pig of the Year  |
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Bush Taunting Iran |
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Hillary Gets Emotional |
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Dems & Fascist Dogs |
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Poll shows Obama Surge |
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Tons of Feedback |
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Kate Beckinsale’s Nut |
I must admit, Mr. Spiegelman did an excellent writing job, the prose flows naturally and it’s a very easy read. The book might be too inside for the average reader and not enough for the political junkie, yet is amusing, light, marginally interesting and an interesting biographical account of the phone jamming incident in New Hampshire in the 2002 elections. But let’s back up. What is this book really about?
Wah, Wah, Wah, I have not read such oh woe is me bullshit in a long time. Other than some interesting stories about minor campaigns in NJ that only locals would know about, it is a confession, a cry for pity, and a hoodwink to the book buyer. It is interesting to note that Mr. Raymond takes one of his political tactics, basically distorting the truth, and applies it to the title of his book to mislead the consumer to buy it. The book is not about rigging elections at all. It is about a rich scion, heir of the Underwood Typewriter fortune, without any moral compass, playing the media: telemarketing, direct mail, print, radio and TV, to manipulate voters to elect his candidate without any consideration of the circumstances.
I’ve just been wading through some of the incredible torrent of posts about the recent Iowa caucus (just along the little corridor on the Fashionable Left Bank of Blogtopia (y!sctw!), and I must say thanks to you all for keeping me so infotainally occupied of late.
It seems to me that there’s some points that haven’t really been focused on enough:
- all of the inter-party sniping that goes on does nothing to help, and a lot to hinder, the party as a whole;
- that is the meat and drink of the supposedly liberal media, who are now in early feeding frenzy mode;
- eventually, hopefully, if a Democratic* candidate becomes president, most (if not all) of those running for president will be included in some measure or form in the next administration. Maybe you should all focus on the ineptitude, divisiveness, and elitist Republican’t candidates, and tie them to the Anchor In Chief this season, and look towards working together to bring this country back from the brink of oblivion once one of you get the nomination. A nice helping of media scorn and/or pointing out the media’s obvious biases wouldn’t hurt, either**.
- the Iowa caucus results seem to indicate that any of the big three can take any of the Republicant’s in the general election. And that turnout will be higher than usual. Which could turn this November into a completely different ballgame – or more of the same old same old. I’m personally hoping that america will be able to show the world that it is a participatory democracy once more, and that turnout in November 2008 will top 70%. But I’ve always been a dreamer…
And so once more we go into the fray, ladies and germs. Hang on – it’s going to be a wild ride in ought eight.
* – by the way, has anyone else noticed that suddenly increasing numbers of the MSM have remembered how to use Democrat and Democratic properly and appropriately again?
** – like, for example, publicly banning Faux Snooze and Oh!Really? from Democratic press fluffers until they learn some manners…
Editors’ Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the Funny Farm]
A friend returning from the winter wonderland of Iowa provides details of the political landscape outside of the Big Media Bubble there. (Full Disclosure: He was campaigning for Obama.)
No Wonder She’s Losing: Hillary’s ground game in Iowa was staffed by regiments of ‘alpha females’ — upper middle-class white women who were described as rude and pushy — the kind of tone-deaf “you there, do it now!” people accustomed to getting their way. They were nearly as bad as the gloriously bored and spoiled-rotten representatives of the Big Media (BM). None of this went over well with the polite and laid-back Iowans; Hill’s obnoxious advance team cost her votes among the pork-fed peasantry. It was also difficult to have a conversation with the Hillary Army, as they only spoke in Talking Points: “Want to get some coffee?” “Sen. Clinton has a program to control coffee importation and help the American worker while preserving international free trade!” Worst of all, for reasons known only to themselves, the Clinton campaign was PAYING people to show up at her events. My friend encountered several Iowans who were given money to listen to Hillary speak. None of this looks good if she expects the Hillary the Candidate pilot to one day become The Truman Show.
Lowdown on Edwards: (more…)
Bill Boyarsky, TruthDig, January 4, 2008
MANCHESTER, N.H.- I beat it out of Iowa just ahead of the more than 2,500 journalists arriving for Thursday’s caucuses.
“You’re going the wrong way,” said an Iowa-bound media friend I ran into at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
He had a point. Why was I leaving the racetrack before the horses crossed the finish line? Why not stick around to report the results?
To boil it down to its simplest terms, flight from Iowa was a rebellion against the unchanging, old-fashioned way politics are covered. As a colleague once told me, “If there are a hundred people covering a story, I don’t want to cover it.”
Like much of the career advice I’ve been given, this tip has its limitations. Reporters following it would miss untold numbers of wars, World Series and assassinations, but the man had a point. The greatest challenge for a reporter, and the most interesting experience, is to find a good story alone, away from the pack.
Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker, January 7, 2008
Mormons Out in Iowa, with the bell at last ringing and the combatants charging out of their corners, the Republican card has come down to the Maulin’ Mormon versus the Battlin’ Baptist. Would the Framers be pleased? Doesn’t seem likely, somehow. The deists, freethinkers, and assorted Protestants (plus two Catholics) who drafted the Constitution sternly forbade theological sucker punches-”No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” was how they put it-but today’s Republicans make their own rules. Marquess of Queensberry? Not for the new Grand Old Party. (Meanwhile, those groovy Democrats are reprising “The Mod Squad,” with the white guy, the black guy, and the blonde scrambling to see who gets to make the collar.)
The tale of the tape suggests that Mike Huckabee has to be given the edge, religion-wise. He trained at Ouachita Baptist University and turned pro early, pastoring his own church at twenty-four. A mere nine years later, he was president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention-half a million strong, a fifth of the state’s population at the time. He may not be a heavyweight these days (he shed a hundred and ten pounds as governor), but if he no longer has the belly he certainly has the fire.
The fire, yes-but, affable fellow that he is, minus the brimstone. Huckabee’s sensational rise has been made possible by his success, so far, at speaking in tongues that evangelicals and non-evangelicals understand differently. “I always tell the story of a lady who asked me, was I a narrow-minded Baptist who thinks only Baptists go to Heaven?” he likes to say. “And I told her, ‘No, ma’am, I’m more narrow than that. I don’t think all the Baptists are going to make it, either.’” Does he mean “Let’s not take this eternal damnation stuff so darn seriously”? Or is it “Everybody roasts in Hell except selected evangelicals”? And then there was his instantly famous sound bite at the November 28th YouTube debate, when he was asked where history’s most revered victim of the death penalty would stand on that issue. “Jesus,” Huckabee replied with a rueful smile, “was too smart to ever run for public office.” This was a clever sally, allowing moderates to infer that he, Huckabee, realizes that capital punishment is moally dubious but (like his gubernatorial predecessor Bill Clinton) supports it for prudential political reasons, while assuring his co-religionists that he, Huckabee, is a humble sinner, albeit one on easy terms with the Lord-who will forgive His flock the minor sin of clamoring for the modern equivalent of crucifixion.
George McGovern, The Washington Post, January 6, 2008
Nixon was bad. These guys are worse.
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice.
Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.
But what are the facts?
Frank Rich, The New York Times, January 6, 2007
After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel good about our country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of memory, suddenly as clear as light. “They said this day would never come,” said Barack Obama, and yet here, right before us, was indisputable evidence that it had.
What felt good was not merely the improbable and historic political triumph of an African-American candidate carrying a state with a black population of under 3 percent. It was the palpable sense that our history was turning a page whether or not Mr. Obama or his doppelgänger in improbability, Mike Huckabee, end up in the White House. We could allow ourselves a big what-if: What if we could have an election that was not a referendum on either the Clinton or Bush presidencies? For the first time, we found ourselves on that long-awaited bridge to the 21st century, the one that was blown up in the ninth month of the new millennium’s maiden year.
The former community organizer from Chicago and the former Baptist preacher from Arkansas have little in common in terms of political views. But as I wrote here a month ago, the author of “The Audacity of Hope” and the new man from Hope, Ark., are flip sides of the same coin. The slogan “change” — a brand now so broad and debased that both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney appropriated it for their own campaigns — does not do justice to the fresh starts that Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee represent.
The two men are the youngest candidates in the entire field, the least angry and the least inclined to seek votes by saturation-bombing us with the post-9/11 arsenal of fear. They both radiate the kind of wit and joy (and, yes, hope) that can come only with self-confidence and a comfort in their own skins. They don’t run from Americans who are not in their club. Mr. Obama had no problem winning over a conclave of white Christian conservatives at Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County, Calif., even though he insisted on the necessity of condoms in fighting AIDS. Unlike the top-tier candidates in the G.O.P. presidential race, or the “compassionate conservative” president who refused for years to meet with the N.A.A.C.P., Mr. Huckabee showed up last fall for the PBS debate at the historically black Morgan State University and aced it.
I just watched all the candidates together, Democrat and Republican on the stage together at once in New Hampshire. It was kind of strange. Watching Hillary Clinton try to keep a smile with Rudi Giuliani or Bill Richardson listening, I think, to Ron Paul. Or Obama giving everyone that kinda half man hug thing. Kind of weird.
In the end if I had been sitting in the audience I think it would have been interesting to sit there through the entire period the candidates were together. Those of watching us on TV only saw a quick snippet of the candidates greeting each other. I would have liked to have seen the whole thing, I think a lot could be learned.
The Clinton campaign has begun to come with both barrels with negative attacks on Barak Obama. After losing badly in Iowa, a third place finish, Clinton has come out quickly on the offensive before the debate Saturday in New Hampshire.
The first attack is a completely misleading direct mail piece to New Hampshire voters questioning Obama’s commitment to abortion rights. A quick check of Obama’s record shows that during his eight years in the legislature, Obama cast a number of votes on abortion and received a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive, a vote that especially riled abortion opponents.
So there you go the first strike and it wrong. Clinton will have to do better than this to stop Obama’s juggernaut. Clinton needs to regain her composure and craft a clear message that she can get the job done. A strong showing in tonight’s debate could boost Clinton more than direct mail piece.
Karen Tumulty, Time Magazine, January 5, 2008
The scope of Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa has shaken the Clinton machine down to its bolts. Donors are panicking. The campaign has been making a round of calls to reassure notoriously fickle “superdelegates” — elected officials and party regulars who are awarded convention spots by virtue of their titles and positions — who might be reconsidering their decisions to back the candidate who formerly looked like a sure winner. And internally, a round of recriminations is being aimed at her chief strategist, Mark Penn, as the representative of everything about her pseudo-incumbent campaign that has been too cautious, too arrogant, too conventional and too clueless as to how much the political landscape has shifted since the last Clinton reign. One adviser summed up the biggest challenge that faces the campaign in two words: “Fresh thinking.”
Specifically, those inside the campaign and outside advisers fault Penn for failing to see the Iowa defeat coming. They say he was assuring Clinton and her allies right up until the caucuses that they would win it. Says one: “He did not predict in any way, shape or form the tidal wave we saw.” In particular, he had assured them that Clinton’s support among women would carry her through. Yet she managed to win only 30% of the women’s vote, while 35% of them went for Obama.
A modest rise in Iowa turnout from traditional levels — say by about 20,000 or 30,000 — might have been easy to write off as merely the result of superior tactics on the part of the well-funded Obama operation. But the fact that voters flooded the caucuses, and that Obama swept just about every demographic group, speaks to something larger that is going on in the electorate, Clinton strategists now acknowledge.
That leaves them facing problems on two levels. The first, and easier one to grapple with, is how to deal with Obama. Even as the results in Iowa were still coming in, the Clinton campaign was mobilizing onto an attack footing. But it’s possible that the most difficult problem is not Obama; it could be Clinton. How can she retool her message — and her identity as a virtual incumbent — to resonate with an electorate that seems to yearn more for change than any other quality? Says one longtime Democratic strategist, who is close to the Clintons: “Fundamentally, she is who she is; she can’t change who she is, and maybe this is not her time.”
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, December 4, 2007
On both Wednesday and Thursday, the price of oil briefly hit $100 a barrel. The new record made headlines, as well it should have. But what does it mean, aside from the obvious point that the economy is under extra pressure?
Well, one thing it means is that we’re having the wrong discussion about foreign policy.
Almost all the foreign policy talk in this presidential campaign has been motivated, one way or another, by 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Yet it’s a very good bet that the biggest foreign policy issues for the next president will involve the Far East rather than the Middle East. In particular, the crucial questions are likely to involve the consequences of China’s economic growth.
Turn to any of several major concerns now facing America, and in each case it’s startling how large a role China plays.
Start with the soaring price of oil. Unlike the oil crises that followed the Yom Kippur War and the overthrow of the shah of Iran, this crisis wasn’t caused by events in the Middle East that disrupted world oil supply. Instead, it had its roots in Asia.
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The Tattlesnake — Big Media Conventional Wisdom Wrong in New Hampshire Edition
NH Frontrunners Will Stumble to the Hope-Gropers Once AgainAll afternoon on Friday Jan. 5th, following the Iowa caucuses, and continuing over the weekend, various bloviators of Conventional Wisdom on CNN and MSNBC spread it on thick that John McCain was going to do well in New Hampshire, perhaps even win it, due to ‘independent’ voters swarming to the polls to vote for the ‘maverick’ Republican, just as they did in 2000. (Media Matters has a good rundown of the despicable cheerleading of the BM Punditrocracy for McCain here.)Of course, this is horse pucky with bells on. (more…)