U.S. Presidential Election 2008 [Archive]

Sean

03-17-2008, 05:09 PM

So I had to post this. Apparently, since McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination, Republican voters have begun voting for Hillary in primaries where they can because, in part, they view her as easier to beat in the general election than Obama (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/17/many_voting_for_clinton_to_boost_gop/). Here's an excerpt:

Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons: Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want to register objections to Obama.

"It's as simple as, I don't think McCain can beat Obama if Obama is the Democratic choice," said Kyle Britt, 49, a Republican-leaning independent from Huntsville, Texas, who voted for Clinton in the March 4 primary. "I do believe Hillary can mobilize enough [anti-Clinton] people to keep her out of office."

Britt, who works in financial services, said he is certain he will vote for McCain in November.

and

Some political blogs have suggested that the influx of Clinton-voting Republicans prevented Obama from winning delegates he otherwise would have, by inflating Clinton's totals both statewide and in certain congressional districts. A writer for the liberal blog Daily Kos estimated that Obama could have netted an additional five delegates from Mississippi.

It is also possible, though perhaps unlikely, that enough strategically minded Republicans voted for Clinton in Texas to give her a crucial primary victory there: Clinton received roughly 119,000 GOP votes in Texas, according to exit polls, and she beat Obama by about 101,000 votes.

Strangelet

03-17-2008, 07:30 PM

I've been waiting to post on this because I wanted to make sure this was real but it seems to be true.

A full 15 percent of mississippi voters who voted for clinton would be dissatisfied if she were to become president. 4% for obama. The writeup on KOS is pretty good, if you want to delve deeper.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/12/02257/1544
(http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/12/02257/1544)

By Rush Limbaugh's own admission, he's been actively persuading people to vote for Hillary, although in his case its more about prolonging the internal fighting to soften up the democrats, whoever wins, than it is about facing hillary over obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjZzK7qUr6I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjZzK7qUr6I)

Troy McClure

03-17-2008, 10:32 PM

On a side note: No New Primary for Florida Democrats (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/17/florida.primary.decision/index.html)

BeautifulBurnout

03-18-2008, 01:56 PM

Strangelet

03-18-2008, 02:09 PM

Obama's landmark speech (http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/the_full_obama) at Philadelphia today. (It's 37 mins long but worth the investment)

This man inspires hope. I just hope all you yanks have got the gumption to vote him in ;)
I was very impressed by this speech. There was really nothing he could have said differently. Of course its not going to be enough condemnation for half the people and too much for the other half, but in terms of finding yoruself in a no win situation, it was a pretty incredible performance.

I really hate to think of the man losing because of this issue. I can handle corruption, should that be deserving, or weak demonstration of political knowhow. But losing because of this is pretty hard to swallow.

EDIT: what follows is a strangelet rant, read at your own risk.

What continually surprises me is how many times the more patriotic of my fellow citizens need to be reminded that a higher level of patriotism exists above "America: like it or lump it" That to criticize one's country is the true work of a patriot, and the refusal to do so a subtle kind of treason. Several groups have been blamed for 9/11. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell made the bald face assertions on 9/12/2001 that the ACLU, fags, pagans, feminists, and abortionists are directly responsible for the act of God's retribution. Rev Jeremiah Wright's assertion is that white men are responsible. Neither of them have a legitimate place in the nation's dialog, but its interesting to me how pointing the finger at fags, pagans, and feminists does not imply a hatred towards america but pointing the finger at white men does. Why is this when all three men of God see the country the exact same way: wicked and deserving of God's Judgement?

Obama was right to distance himself from the Pastor's remarks and call them indefensible. None of them have any place in a campaign whose popularity was based on a hopeful look to the future, as opposed to a divisive retreading of villains and scapegoats. Most importantly all of these arguments, Wright's, Falwell's, Robertson's, need to be seen for what they are. Stupid? Yes, although there's more traction blaming rich white men over pagans. Unamerican? absolutely not.

Sean

03-18-2008, 04:36 PM

Today's speech set Obama above the fray in my opinion. It was by far the most frank and constructive talk I've ever heard on the subject of race from a politician in my life, and we would be lucky to have someone who can approach such a sensitive situation in such a direct, constructive way as our next President. Without getting too wordy, Hillary Clinton could never do what Obama did today, and neither could McCain. I will be extremely disappointed if Americans are stupid enough to cut him out of the contest after a first class performance like this.

Deckard

03-18-2008, 07:57 PM

I have such admiration for him, a man who could be US president. I don't know, it's just bizarre. And i think a lot of us overseas are thinking that way.

(Elton John, can kindly f*ck off :p )

It's far more than the prospect of a non-white president.
It's far more than being seduced by the oratory of a clever speaker.
It's even more than just agreeing with his political solutions.

For me, it's the way he unapologetically and bravely appeals to the intelligence and virtue of the electorate, something he amply demonstrated in that speech.

I mean, along with the denunciations of Wright, how many other candidates would dare to include the words, "He has been like family to me"?

It would be a real kick in the guts if this honesty, this balanced position, this frankness, ultimately proved to be his downfall. There has to be more to the future of politics than 3am commercials, shame-on-you tactics, slurs of traitor and other attack dog politics.

Mind you, I bet his granny aint thankin' him after that speech. :D

Deckard

03-18-2008, 07:57 PM

What continually surprises me is how many times the more patriotic of my fellow citizens need to be reminded that a higher level of patriotism exists above "America: like it or lump it" That to criticize one's country is the true work of a patriot, and the refusal to do so a subtle kind of treason. Several groups have been blamed for 9/11. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell made the bald face assertions on 9/12/2001 that the ACLU, fags, pagans, feminists, and abortionists are directly responsible for the act of God's retribution. Rev Jeremiah Wright's assertion is that white men are responsible. Neither of them have a legitimate place in the nation's dialog, but its interesting to me how pointing the finger at fags, pagans, and feminists does not imply a hatred towards america but pointing the finger at white men does. Why is this when all three men of God see the country the exact same way: wicked and deserving of God's Judgement?

Obama was right to distance himself from the Pastor's remarks and call them indefensible. None of them have any place in a campaign whose popularity was based on a hopeful look to the future, as opposed to a divisive retreading of villains and scapegoats. Most importantly all of these arguments, Wright's, Falwell's, Robertson's, need to be seen for what they are. Stupid? Yes, although there's more traction blaming rich white men over pagans. Unamerican? absolutely not.
That's a good point. I'd not considered this.

cacophony

03-18-2008, 08:04 PM

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell made the bald face assertions on 9/12/2001 that the ACLU, fags, pagans, feminists, and abortionists are directly responsible for the act of God's retribution. Rev Jeremiah Wright's assertion is that white men are responsible. Neither of them have a legitimate place in the nation's dialog, but its interesting to me how pointing the finger at fags, pagans, and feminists does not imply a hatred towards america but pointing the finger at white men does. Why is this when all three men of God see the country the exact same way: wicked and deserving of God's Judgement?

i'm not sure i agree with your point. the general communal sentiment towards robertson's and falwell's words was pretty angry and unaccepting of the blame. i don't see the outcry over this situation as being inherently louder or more divisive than what came out of the white preachers' portrayals of 9/11 and katrina as a delivery system of god's wrath.

mmm skyscraper

03-18-2008, 08:17 PM

BeautifulBurnout

03-19-2008, 02:23 AM

Linky here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/barackobama.uselections20081) from The Guardian for the text of the speech, for anyone that would rather read than watch.

cacophony

03-19-2008, 06:46 AM

Strangelet

03-19-2008, 07:05 AM

i'm not sure i agree with your point. the general communal sentiment towards robertson's and falwell's words was pretty angry and unaccepting of the blame. i don't see the outcry over this situation as being inherently louder or more divisive than what came out of the white preachers' portrayals of 9/11 and katrina as a delivery system of god's wrath.

Yes but they weren't callled unamerican. That was my point. Yes people railed against the absurdity of the comments, and even the hate it betrays towards certain minorities. But there was very little talk about it being hateful towards the country, and anti patriotic. Compare that to the outcome of Wright, and you see first and foremost a question of patriotism, a hate for america, and only sometimes a logical counter argument to the pastor's comments. This is the exact opposite response.

Deckard

03-19-2008, 07:42 AM

From the speech:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

Interesting.
Agreed. It was a curious way to structure a sentence about the mistaken cause of the conflicts. (If he was going to say "instead of" then he should at least have moved the word "primarily" to the last half of the sentence, I'd have thought...) It didn't quite chime with the rest of his speech. I'm aware it sounds like we're giving him a free ride if we speculate about this being inserted as an unequivocal rebuttal to those who see him as Muslim or being soft on terror. I suspect his position is rather less stark and one-sided, but certainly I'll be paying extra attention to his views on this in the future, particularly in light of his comment a while back about bombing Pakistan.

Deckard

03-19-2008, 07:49 AM

Incidentally, based on what I've read of the comments of Wright, they don't seem all that far removed from the position of a certain Republican presidential candidate this year.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and the black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Or are they?

Strangelet

03-19-2008, 08:07 AM

Incidentally, based on what I've read of the comments of Wright, they don't seem all that far removed from the position of a certain Republican presidential candidate this year.
Or are they?
exactly. and look where it got that certain candidate. To be fair though, I don't believe that its exactly the same thing. Ron Paul's sources were the 9/11 commission report and intelligence briefings. Wright's sources was a mystical layer of divine retribution. One's a lot more easy to scienfically verify than the other. One is constructive, and helps to put a needle of reality in the ever expanding balloon of neocon ideology. The other is not as constructive but merely provides a vehicle to throw in one's own gripe list against the country to rationalize your own ideology. The lack of rigor of which can converge to insulting.

Strangelet

03-19-2008, 08:22 AM

Agreed. It was a curious way to structure a sentence about the mistaken cause of the conflicts. (If he was going to say "instead of" then he should at least have moved the word "primarily" to the last half of the sentence, I'd have thought...) It didn't quite chime with the rest of his speech. I'm aware it sounds like we're giving him a free ride if we speculate about this being inserted as an unequivocal rebuttal to those who see him as Muslim or being soft on terror. I suspect his position is rather less stark and one-sided, but certainly I'll be paying extra attention to his views on this in the future, particularly in light of his comment a while back about bombing Pakistan.

I think you guys are right calling Obama out on this exerpt. But again, its pretty incredible the strides he's actually taken in this no win situation. I firmly believe that a candidate cannot be elected in unless they are unequivoval allies of Israel.

But there needs to be a distinction drawn between someone who can face talking with our enemies and those who won't, defending against america's enemies and defending against Israel's, imperialist wars and wars of strategic defense. In other words, its not like the bush administration made warfare obsolete, they just spectacularly misapplied it. And I think we are deluding ourselves that the next 4 years will see no cause for further military actions somehow related to al qaida or 9/11. The bush administration has all but guaranteed it.

Sean

03-19-2008, 02:15 PM

Yes but they weren't callled unamerican. That was my point. Yes people railed against the absurdity of the comments, and even the hate it betrays towards certain minorities. But there was very little talk about it being hateful towards the country, and anti patriotic. Compare that to the outcome of Wright, and you see first and foremost a question of patriotism, a hate for america, and only sometimes a logical counter argument to the pastor's comments. This is the exact opposite response.In fairness, I think that the reason the "un-American" charge has come up is because of specific comments Wright made like "god bless America? No...god DAMN America". My guess is that had he only made racially charged comments, then charges of "un-Americanism" very likely wouldn't have been raised.

My biggest concern with the whole Wright controversy is that it reveals a pretty blatant simplicity in the thinking of many people. The assumption being made by people who insist that Obama must share Wright's positions is a wildly unrealistic one - it's the assumption that if Obama, or anyone else for that matter, maintains a relationship with someone who holds a certain set of beliefs, then Obama must automatically share all of that person's beliefs. I assume I'm not alone in saying that I have plenty of close friends with whom I have numerous differences of opinion....and it doesn't stop me from being friends with them. In fact, it tends to make for some of the most interesting conversations if you're open to discussing opposing viewpoints in a constructive way. Hell, that's why most of us are here in the world forums.

And I'd even go so far as to say that I'd probably be more troubled by someone who only associates with others who share identical viewpoints to their own. I believe Obama has shown a real ability to understand opposing viewpoints even if he disagrees with them, and then incorporate them into constructive solutions. But you can't understand opposing viewpoints if you refuse to ever be exposed to them.

Granted, many intelligent people are voicing concerns over Wright, but I think that the vast majority of them probably support an alternate candidate and are voicing their concerns as a means of trying to damage Obama's chances at winning the nomination. This, of course, bothers me because of it's dishonesty. I'm fine with people having their personal preferences, but it sure would be great if we could state our cases based on honest concerns rather than rhetorical b.s., ignorance, or flat out lies.

I just hope that people can keep themselves aware enough to make a choice that ends up being good for the country and the world we interact with so closely. My fear though is that people will make their choices based on ignorant or false charges.

Strangelet

03-19-2008, 03:08 PM

In fairness, I think that the reason the "un-American" charge has come up is because of specific comments Wright made like "god bless America? No...god DAMN America". My guess is that had he only made racially charged comments, then charges of "un-Americanism" very likely wouldn't have been raised.

I see where you're coming from but hear me out, because i think its an important point to explain why this is happening.

You can take Wright's statements two ways. You can say they reduce to the same structure as past comments made by robertson and falwell in which case he's saying nothing more than what has been said before. then you have to account for the broad hypocrisy in which the statements were received by the media in terms of anti-americanism compared to the way the statements of falwell were received. Again i'm not saying that the fervency of the negative reaction is more or less in either case. But when it came to the case of WRight, all of a sudden he and his believers are branded as hating america. That's new. That's different.

The other way you can take Wright's comments is that they were not meant to heap blame on America, but to express a pre-existing hatred of it. In my opinion that's only believable to those individuals who were leaning in that direction in the first place.

In other words, he's either condemning America or he HATES america. And unless you're an absolute conspiracy nutball who's looking for it, its kind of hard to imagine a viable presidential candidate would foster their beliefs under an environment of nebulous hate. Which one makes the most sense? Especially in context of certain media hit jobs who have made B. "Hussein" Obama Bin Laden's american lapel pin, comments by his wife, his lazy means of saying the pledge of allegiance a serious topic with which to concern the american public.

THere's a reason this is happening and it has nothing to do with Wright. That may be my own conspiracy theory, but how else do you explain this coming out a YEAR later?

Granted, many intelligent people are voicing concerns over Wright, but I think that the vast majority of them probably support an alternate candidate and are voicing their concerns as a means of trying to dmaga Obama's chances. This, of course, bothers me because of it's dishonesty.

Oh the hit jobs are coming in strong man.

Check this shit out.

U.S. News and World report : Obama Speech Falls Short (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2008/03/19/obama-speech-falls-short.html)

Check out this paragraph.

Obama's speech, however, is likely to add grist to conservative claims that he has been less than honest about his knowledge of Wright's most controversial remarks. Obama himself last week posted remarks online (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/on-my-faith-and-my-church_b_91623.html) denying he'd ever heard Wright make controversial remarks in person.

Below is Obama's remarks before the speech. Can someone point out where he says he heard nothing controversial or where he's contradicted.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

Interestingly enough the article also mentions the newsmax piece that claims to have proof Obama was in attendance for that infamous sermon. A story that was picked up by the neocon Bill Kristol for the New York Times, which happens to be an all out lie and compelled the new york times to post an apology after pictures of Obama in Miami that sunday emerged.

abc news: buried in eloquence Obama contradictions about pastor (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4480868&page=1)

again tries to argue a case of double speak.

Can you media asses fucking read before you post this stuff? He said "those statements that caused the controversy" not "any statements that are controversial"

fuck. i better pop some more meds.

Deckard

03-19-2008, 03:45 PM

Hahaha! I don't know what's worse, these asshats, or the ones that will inevitably follow it with, "So Hank, I'm confused... is he saying he's for or against the Reverend Wright?"

Either way: Head.... meet brick wall....

Sean

03-19-2008, 04:45 PM

I see where you're coming from but hear me out, because i think its an important point to explain why this is happening.

You can take Wright's statements two ways. You can say they reduce to the same structure as past comments made by robertson and falwell in which case he's saying nothing more than what has been said before. then you have to account for the broad hypocrisy in which the statements were received by the media in terms of anti-americanism compared to the way the statements of falwell were received. Again i'm not saying that the fervency of the negative reaction is more or less in either case. But when it came to the case of WRight, all of a sudden he and his believers are branded as hating america. That's new. That's different.I think we're basically on the same page, but I'm talking more about the perception of Wright's comments - whether they're accurate or not - while you're talking more about their actual meaning. I focus on the perception because it gives us greater insight into how the controversy is reported as well as how the public digests it. This is not a new thought, but it strikes me that the major news outlets and a large portion of the public aren't too concerned with subtlety, as is demonstrated again by what you pointed out regarding Obama's supposed self-contradiction that actually isn't a self-contradiction at all. Similarly, Wright used the words "god damn America", the media outlets then replayed the video of him saying "god damn America", and finally, large numbers of people see the video of him saying "god damn America" and are suddenly looking around, wide-eyed, saying "that guy just said 'god damn America'! He must be anti-American!"

So I'm basically with you on the subtle reality of what was said compared to previous statements, but what's unfortunately got to be dealt with is the dumb-ass, simplified, superficial results of it, which are a bunch of Obama detractors out there running around claiming that Obama hates America and "whitey". :rolleyes:

cacophony

03-19-2008, 08:03 PM

Either way: Head.... meet brick wall....

jesus, no kidding. clear a piece of that brick wall for me.

Sean

03-20-2008, 12:47 PM

Let's see how things play out, because I'm growing increasingly disappointed and skeptical about whether or not U.S. citizens are ready to accept the kind of forward-thinking Presidency Obama offers.

I say this because even in the wake of a powerful, and likely historic speech from Obama addressing the Wright controversy and his thoughts on race issues in this country, his poll numbers are dropping and Clinton's are rising.

Meanwhile, it's coming out that newly released Clinton papers show specific instances in which she actually helped rally support to pass NAFTA (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/clintons-1993-n.html), which she now claims she was always unenthusiastic about and would renegotiate as President. There are also audio recordings from before the Michigan vote in which she says "I personally did not think it made any difference whether or not my name was on the ballot. Y'know, it's clear, this election they're having is not gonna count for anything" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ULxxBz-PAjg), while yesterday, she stood in Michigan pushing her contention that the Michigan vote is extremely meaningful to her, and not for political reasons according to a snippet from one of her speeches that I saw on CNN last night. And finally, Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said any notion that potential Michigan donors sought to help Clinton was "absurd", yet all ten of the Michigan donors who have offered to fund the revote have also been large contributors to Clinton's campaign (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-19-michigan_N.htm).

But Obama's poll numbers are dropping because someone who he knows said some bad stuff about the U.S. that Obama himself has given us no reason to believe he agrees with, and Clinton's numbers are rising. What.....the.....f@$k?

Is it pure ignorance? Willful ignorance maybe? I just don't know.

And more about Clinton's supposed "experience" is released through those White House papers she finally just put out:

"The calendars reflect her extensive itineraries abroad, a record she has used in the presidential campaign to demonstrate readiness for office.

But while Clinton engaged in substantive meetings with foreign leaders over the eight years, the overseas events are heavy with more traditional appearances by a first lady.

The schedules show her meeting other political wives, having lunch with prominent women, touring cathedrals and hospitals and engaging in various ceremonial duties in trips to Japan, Russia and other countries."

mmm skyscraper

03-20-2008, 02:40 PM

Obama = What did he hear and when did he hear it?
Clinton = What did she do and when did she do it?

Strangelet

03-20-2008, 03:44 PM

Hannity: this affects me as a christian

it affects you as a useful tool is how it affects you, sir.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qwkGZ0Z-Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qwkGZ0Z-Y)

Sean

03-20-2008, 05:50 PM

Hannity: this affects me as a christian

it affects you as a useful tool is how it affects you, sir.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qwkGZ0Z-Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qwkGZ0Z-Y)So now Obama has to answer for every comment ever made by every supporter he gets? I hope to god that people are smart enough to see why this is absolute rubbish.

Deckard

03-20-2008, 08:02 PM

Just over a week after she resigned her post on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign after making controversial comments about Barack Obama’s presidential bid, Geraldine Ferraro said she resented being compared to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the Illinois senator's recent speech on race relations.

"To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," Ferraro told the Daily Breeze newspaper an interview published late Wednesday night.
No you stupid stupid woman.

See this is EXACTLY the problem, and exactly what I feared. As soon as we get a speech that dares to be more honest than normal in its complexity, it immediately gets distorted.

Surely she must know that to draw on two instances to make a general point is not the same as equating those two instances? (otherwise Obama must really hate his granny... )

I just hope she's cynically seeking victim status for political capital, rather than genuinely that stupid.

Strangelet

03-21-2008, 07:20 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeXwboxjyI

oh solace of truth! oh salve of reason!!!

BeautifulBurnout

03-21-2008, 08:00 AM

LOL about Hillz's international "experience":

"She says she has been to 80 countries on trips. My travel agent has been to 150 countries on trips" :D

Sean

03-21-2008, 08:32 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeXwboxjyI

oh solace of truth! oh salve of reason!!!Let's just hope that people actually see this and listen.

Deckard

03-21-2008, 10:16 AM

The date: September 11, 1998
The venue: The White House
The occasion: Bill Clinton's high-profile, televised repentance event with nationally prominent ministers, avowing that he'd prayed and prayed and was changing his tawdry ways.

Oh and who's this shaking Bill's hand?

*snap!* (http://images.politico.com/global/clintonwright.jpg)

I don't particularly like this tactic of strategic photo leaks as attack, but I'd say this one fits safely in the defence category. What it does is show that Wright, despite those views (before or after), was nonetheless a fairly well-respected man of the cloth. Which is the very point currently being missed by so many people as they lap up the Wright=all bad, and Obama=Wright bullshit being pumped out by the networks.

Wha..?
Another Rev Wright besides the 'God Damn America' nutcase?
I can hear the minds of millions of voters popping at this very second....

Sean

03-21-2008, 10:30 AM

Deckard

03-21-2008, 10:55 AM

Yes precisely, though I fear the thought process of the intellectually challenged (I'm sorry, I say that with no arrogance intended) will be a typical exercise in us vs them / win vs lose simple tribalism. It will go something like this...

1) Obama is trying to link Clinton to Wright.
2) But Clinton was never as close to Wright as Obama was.
3) Therefore Obama loses.

Will be interesting to see how this one pans out, whether the important points to draw from it are broadly lost on people, and how Obama himself responds.

Strangelet

03-21-2008, 02:08 PM

ok this simply rocks the beat that rocks the party. Guess who's backing up Obama in the wake of the Wright affair? I mean besides Bill Richardson?

Mike Huckabee.
And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.WOW

this along with his beautiful resignation speech, I think this guy's pretty cool.

Deckard

03-21-2008, 02:34 PM

Strangelet

03-21-2008, 02:50 PM

I'd second that, despite how fundamentally I disagree with him on certain things.

Not many Republicans would have agreed with that, let alone felt it worth their while speaking out about.

(< God that grammar was painful)
oh yeah I'm glad he's not president. but jesus this really opens a wide open chasm in the hannity game plan. And like he says, hate the sin, not the sinner ;)

I would like other politicians, even ones with something still to gain in this election to also come forward against this smear.

cacophony

03-21-2008, 03:36 PM

this along with his beautiful resignation speech, I think this guy's pretty cool.

yeah, the beautiful resignation speech where he quoted almost continuously form the bible and spoke eloquently about the need to completely remove all legal access to safe abortions?

yes, it was so beautiful.

Strangelet

03-21-2008, 03:54 PM

I would like other politicians, even ones with something still to gain in this election to also come forward against this smear.

hmmm. i see that's not going to happen.

Adding a bit of fuel to the political fire, Bill Clinton made a bizarre comment on Friday, leaving the impression that he believed Barack Obama's patriotism would be a general election issue.

MSNBC is reporting that on the campaign trail today in Charlotte, North Carolina, the former president said a general election matchup between his wife, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. John McCain would be between "two people who love this country" without "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Strangelet

03-21-2008, 03:54 PM

Strangelet

03-22-2008, 10:29 AM

this election is un fucking believable. I am blown away everytime i catch up on the news.

Today: Chris Wallace of Fox News goes on TV to put his own network to task for their blatant smear. I mean this is drama, folks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIK8jh3ZCE

the looks on the fox anchors are priceless

Strangelet

03-22-2008, 10:35 AM

yeah, the beautiful resignation speech where he quoted almost continuously form the bible and spoke eloquently about the need to completely remove all legal access to safe abortions?

yes, it was so beautiful.
basically, to quote bill clinton, there are more things that are similar among us than are different. So, no I have no problem appreciating the spirit and the tenor of a politician with whom I don't agree. Seriously. Besides my dad quotes the " I fought the good fight" stuff from the paul epistles all the time and not to rationalize bigotry but to console himself as an 84 year old.

so seriously, don't see a big deal here.

Sean

03-22-2008, 01:19 PM

This election is driving me crazy. :eek:

I've just been catching up on the news and I've seen everything from Bill Richardson urging Hillary Clinton to consider dropping out of the race (http://tinyurl.com/379jx9):

But potentially more troublesome for Mrs. Clinton was what Mr. Richardson said in announcing his decision. He criticized the tenor of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. He praised Mr. Obama for the speech he gave in response to the furor over racially incendiary remarks delivered by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
And he came close to doing what Mrs. Clinton’s advisers have increasingly feared some big-name Democrat would do as the battle for the nomination drags on: Urge Mrs. Clinton to step aside in the interest of party unity.
“I’m not going to advise any other candidate when to get in and out of the race,” Mr. Richardson said after appearing in Portland with Mr. Obama. “Senator Clinton has a right to stay in the race, but eventually we don’t want to go into the Democratic convention bloodied. This was another reason for my getting in and endorsing, the need to perhaps send a message that we need unity.”

...to Obama campaign co-chair Merrill McPeak, saying that Bill Clinton was seeming to imply that among the three candidates, Obama doesn't love this country, and doesn't have the interests of the country in mind. The quote from Bill Clinton (http://tinyurl.com/ytx8zn):

"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said Clinton, who was speaking to a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

It's difficult to say whether Clinton's remarks were directed at Obama, or if they were just a general desire for where the tone of this campaign should be. But given the history of negative, divisive campaigning by the Clintons, and the fact that he made these comments in the context of only mentioning Hillary and McCain, I tend to think that it was a subtle swipe meant to strengthen the recent b.s. that's had some folks wrongfully questioning Obama's patriotism.

And of course, the "controversy" over Wright carries on into it's 11th day. How long will it be before people realize that the biggest concern to date with Obama is concern over stuff he never said himself, and that he's been very clear he doesn't agree with? Am I living in bizzaro-world? If I believed in god, I'd be asking it to please let people get smarter and more honest between now and November.

And incidentally, if the job of the superdelegates is to serve as a safeguard against the Democratic Party destroying itself, then when exactly would be a better time for them to weigh in than now? According to the latest I've seen, 1 in 5 Democrats have already stated that they'll vote for McCain in November if "their" candidate doesn't win the nomination, and that's been a direct result of Hillary Clinton's negative and divisive campaign aimed at tearing down Obama as a viable candidate.

Sean

03-22-2008, 01:24 PM

yeah, the beautiful resignation speech where he quoted almost continuously form the bible and spoke eloquently about the need to completely remove all legal access to safe abortions?

yes, it was so beautiful.I think everyone's been very clear that they don't agree with Huckabee on most of the issues. The comments regarding the beauty of his resignation speech, or where he's likeable are all in reference to the fact that he's been a rare politician in how he handles himself. He seems to be a straight shooter, and a genuinely good guy who places principle over politics. His comments about the Wright "controversy" are even more evidence of this. So I think it's fair to say that we can recognize these as good qualities while still differing from him philosophically on the issues.

Strangelet

03-22-2008, 02:25 PM

blah blah blah rant rant rant...

...that leaves the clintons on the level of hannity. nice job douchebags

Strangelet

03-22-2008, 03:58 PM

Sean

03-22-2008, 06:09 PM

so basically nix the above rant based on the following clarification about Bill's comments. They are vehemently denying any attempted attack on Obama's patriotism.

http://facts.hillaryhub.com/

It would be nice if they just came out and said this unequivocally, so people don't get their message misconstrued but for the moment, I'm back to admiring bill clinton again.I had heard this rebuttle, but given how dirty and cheap they've been campaigning for Hillary, I don't know if I buy the explanation yet. Frankly, almost everything that's come out of her campaign since the run-up to Texas and Ohio has been lies that she seems to get a pass on. She's still been pushing the debunked story about Obama giving Canada the "wink wink" treatment even after all involved parties have set the record straight, she claimed that her vast foreign policy experience included a key role in achieving peaced in Northern Ireland, opening the borders of Kosovo, and working for women's rights in China, all of which have turned out to be bull-ca-ca claims, she's insisted that she was always against NAFTA even though her newly released White House papers reveal meetings in which she actively worked with women's groups to help get it passed, and she claims that she's working to get the votes of Florida and Michigan counted purely out of concern over disenfranchisement when there are actual recordings of her from before those state's primaries where she says they don't matter. Those are just a few of her latest lies off the top of my head, so given their apparent inability to be truthful about anything, I take the explanation with a grain of salt. A gigantic grain of salt. I wouldn't be surprised if Bill Clinton's comments were worded as they were very specifically so that they could add onto the ridiculous claim that Obama is somehow "anti-American" while still being able to say "no no no...you misunderstood. What he really meant was..."

I'm starting to think that thanks to Hillary Clinton, we'll be looking at a McCain administration in November.

EDIT - On the upside, brand new gallup polls show that Obama has made up his brief defecit in poll numbers from this past week. http://www.gallup.com/poll/105529/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Edges-Ahead-Clinton.aspx

cacophony

03-23-2008, 09:06 AM

I think everyone's been very clear that they don't agree with Huckabee on most of the issues. The comments regarding the beauty of his resignation speech, or where he's likeable are all in reference to the fact that he's been a rare politician in how he handles himself. He seems to be a straight shooter, and a genuinely good guy who places principle over politics. His comments about the Wright "controversy" are even more evidence of this. So I think it's fair to say that we can recognize these as good qualities while still differing from him philosophically on the issues.

see, i can't get behind that. he fundamentally approves of revoking basic human rights for all women. i don't care what a charming fellow he is. it makes him a dangerous politician and a horrible human being.

i seriously don't see the necessity in separating the man from his beliefs. i wonder if anyone would praise his character if he used the same "good guy" manner to propose manditory burkas for all women.

and before anyone says that's not a fair comparison, watch your step.

Sarcasmo

03-23-2008, 10:16 AM

see, i can't get behind that. he fundamentally approves of revoking basic human rights for all women. i don't care what a charming fellow he is. it makes him a dangerous politician and a horrible human being.

i seriously don't see the necessity in separating the man from his beliefs. i wonder if anyone would praise his character if he used the same "good guy" manner to propose manditory burkas for all women.

and before anyone says that's not a fair comparison, watch your step.

Wait, wait, wait just a second. "Basic human rights?" Such as? Is he proposing legislature to take women out of schools? Is he proposing legislature to put them back in the kitchen? Is he going to lower the glass ceiling? Is he threatening a woman's right to vote? Is he going to make implied consent legal? Is he going to require ankle length dresses? Is he going to make it a misdemeanor to beat women?

The guy is anti-abortion, as far as I can tell, and to label him as a dangerous politician and a horrible human being, simply because his belief system says that abortion is murder, seems a little far fetched. Simply put, if he were in office, no one would have to worry about their right to choose. The fucking abortion issue has been beat to death for the last 40 years, and as I see it, there's no way that it's going to be made illegal any day soon. If Roe v. Wade held up through Reagan and Bush part deux, it's gonna hold up some more.

I'm not saying that I agree with Huckabee on anything in particular, but the "he hate women" rhetoric is wearing pretty thin. Besides, think about the kind of respect that our last president/philanderer had for women. If the issue of hating and disrespecting women is so important in a president, then why was the last one so popular? Finally: we've got a lot more important things we could be fighting about. Why are we even arguing Huckabee's hypothetical leadership anyway? He's out of the race.

Strangelet

03-23-2008, 10:17 AM

see, i can't get behind that. he fundamentally approves of revoking basic human rights for all women. i don't care what a charming fellow he is. it makes him a dangerous politician and a horrible human being.

i seriously don't see the necessity in separating the man from his beliefs. i wonder if anyone would praise his character if he used the same "good guy" manner to propose manditory burkas for all women.

and before anyone says that's not a fair comparison, watch your step.
I just listened again to the 15 minute speech and about 3 to 4 seconds (the time it takes to utter "and giving a voice to unborn babies") were about abortion. The remaining 14:55 minutes dealt with grass roots politics, making government less corrupt, fixing the tax code, his family, and religious beliefs.

I'm not suggesting he didn't make crazy statements in the past about abortion, likening it to genocide and the cause of illegal immigration and such. But I wasn't talking about the past, I was talking about his speech, and the fact that he had the nobility to stand up against the obama smear when doing so could counter against his loyalty score with the neo con campaign. And hell we ought to throw in his performance during a televised debate when he responded to a question about evolution, asking in return what the hell it mattered if he believed in evolution or not, that he wasn't writing an 8th grade science curriculum, but running for the presidency and basically he didn't know how the world created if it was absolutely imperative he answer the question.

If your interest here is to reinforce how potentially damaging his views on abortion would be to women's health and freedoms, know that I am behind you 100%.

But basically I am fundamentally disappointed when people think they should put their fingers in their ears and scream lalalalalala with respect to their philosophical opponents or strip away their human will and see them as one big symbol for evil. That practice has caused enough mischief to be a symbol of evil in itself. It would allow me to consider Bush devoid of moral value and therefore, in a way, sub human. ANd that's the conditions upon which people excuse violence from ideology. I think what Bush has done to Iraq is evil if only by consequence versus intent. That doesn't mean I can't allow myself to respect something I believe he's done right. Cheney on the other hand is the anti christ, that's true.

Sean

03-23-2008, 11:52 AM

Sean

03-24-2008, 11:33 AM

And now it comes out that Clinton's recent story about arriving in Bosnia under sniper fire and having to run for cover with her head ducked down is a load of crap. Big shocker.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures_par.html

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
--Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An eight-year-old Moslem girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in the Washington Post the following day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

The First Lady's schedule, released on Wednesday and available here ( http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/FirstLady_Schedule_1996_Mar_25.pdf?mod=WSJBlog (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/FirstLady_Schedule_1996_Mar_25.pdf?mod=WSJBlog) ), confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8.45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina Bicakcic, (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document.)

You can see CBS News footage of the arrival ceremony here ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsGo_HWP-c (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsGo_HWP-c) ). The footage shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

I highly recommend watching the video link.

BeautifulBurnout

03-25-2008, 11:33 AM

She admits she "misspoke". (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/25/uselections2008.hillaryclinton)

Best. Euphemism. Ever. :D

Deckard

03-26-2008, 05:15 AM

Misspoke? Misspoke my ass. That's the trouble with lying, you have to tell another one to explain the first.

Obviously been getting lessons from Bill.
And George.
And Tony.
And......

Sean

03-26-2008, 12:06 PM

Will she ever stop? Now Hillary is starting to focus on arguing that PLEDGED delegates have no responsibility to vote according to how the people in their districts voted (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/26/more-clinton-hints-that-pledged-delegates-are-up-for-grabs/#comment-789702). Here are a few recent quotes from Hillary herself on it:

“We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment.”

The remarks echoed her Monday comments to the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News. "And also remember that pledged delegates in most states are not pledged,” she said Monday. “You know there is no requirement that anybody vote for anybody. They're just like superdelegates."

Legally of course, this is true. But it's an interesting stance to take when you consider that she was just in Michigan voicing her supposedly deep concern for the voter disenfranchisement that would result from not having a revote there. Wouldn't pledged delegates voting counter to who the people in their districts supported be disenfranchising voters across the country? Every day, I find myself more and more baffled at how anybody can justify supporting this woman's bid for the White House when her deceitful tactics are so glaringly transparent.

Does anyone here support her? I'd really love to have an honest, open discussion about why someone might still be wanting to see Hillary as President.

EDIT - and here's an interview with the pilot of the controversial flight Hillary flew into Bosnia on (http://www.breitbart.tv/html/68124.html). He says they didn't use any evasive maneuvers during their landing, and that no one has ever been asked to sit on their flak jackets (all as Hillary still claims happened) on one of his flights. I wonder if this issue will draw more scrutiny to her other exaggerated claims of foreign policy "experience", like her debunked claims about Northern Ireland, Kosovo, etc. It's certainly more pertinent to the nomination race than concerns over the fact that Obama is friends with a guy who's said some controversial things that Obama doesn't even agree with.

gambit

03-26-2008, 12:46 PM

So.....did Bill misspeak about not having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky???

OH, SNAP!

BeautifulBurnout

03-26-2008, 01:09 PM

Lovely analysis of the word "misspeak (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7314726.stm)" here on the Beeb.

And on the same wavelength as Gambit, it says:

"She's in danger of doing what Bill Clinton did in redefining sexual relations.
"She's redefining telling the truth because 'misspeaking' is a euphemism for not telling the truth. It's the language of bamboozling, which US politicians and the US military love and get away with."

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

03-26-2008, 06:05 PM

Yeah, I was completely floored with this.

Just because Bush got away with it, really Hillary.:confused:

Sean

03-26-2008, 11:30 PM

I'm pretty speechless on the brand new story out of Hillary's camp tonight:

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2645600320080327?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

A group of deep-pocket Clinton donors has written a threatening letter to Nancy Pelosi "urging" her to retract her previous statements that if the superdelegates overturn the will of the voters, she believes it will damage the Democratic party.

The paragraph from the article that really struck me was this one:

The signees reminded the House leader from California of their support for the party's House campaign committee and said "therefore" she should "reflect in your comments a more open view" about superdelegates.

I'm not much of a fan of Pelosi's overall, but I admire that she's sticking to her guns on this despite what I consider to be highly inappropriate threats from a group of rich people.

IsiliRunite

03-26-2008, 11:41 PM

I don't want to have to choose between her and McCain.....

gambit

03-27-2008, 05:56 PM

Sean

03-28-2008, 04:10 PM

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

A good article from a week ago that points out that Hillary has virtually no chance of winning. I think the Clinton campaign realizes this and are trying everything they can to get her the nomination. I find it interesting that Hillary is arguing that pledged delegates aren't so iron-clad and important anymore when she was pushing so hard to get Florida and Michigan's pledged delegates into her column. Interesting may not be the right word. Hypocritical, I think is better or macchavelian.Add on top of that the fact that she's actively trying to get both pledged and superdelegates to vote for her even if it means overturning the will of the voters, yet at the same time, when someone like Leahy suggests that he thinks she should consider bowing out for the sake of the party (http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/79888/), her campaign's argument is that this would be unfair to the people who haven't voted yet. So do they want to honor and respect the will of the voters, or do they want to overturn the will of the voters? She can't have it both ways....

cacophony

03-29-2008, 05:35 PM

to me, the whole "delegates don't have to honor the will of the people thing" is one of the most disgusting tactics i've ever seen in my years of following american politics. it's a huge warning sign. if she cares so little for the will of the people now, there's zero chance she'll give a shit about the people once she's in office. it's basically like asking for another george bush, someone who will use the presidency to run roughshod over the nation.

i realize there's little chance she'll get the nomination. but as of right now i'm committed to voting for john mccain if she does. i will not support a candidate who overtly encourages elected officials to violate the wishes of the people they serve.

Sean

03-30-2008, 12:10 AM

I know it's hard to imagine, but she just got worse...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032901909_pf.html

Hillary Clinton today:

"I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for. We cannot go forward until Florida and Michigan are taken care of, otherwise the eventual nominee will not have the legitimacy that I think will haunt us," said the senator from New York. "I can imagine the ads the Republican Party and John McCain will run if we don't figure out how we can count the votes in Michigan and Florida."

She blatantly calls for pledged and super delegates to overturn the will of millions who've already cast their votes, while at the same time claiming that she cares deeply about the voters of Michigan and Florida, and of the remaining states - and yet she still has supporters. :confused: God I hope the voters in Pennsylvania wake up to this b.s. before their vote.

Oh....and this is classic, too ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/politics/29dems.html?ref=todayspaper ) :

The Clinton campaign showed resolve in the face of the developments, rallying supporters and donors and enlisting prominent surrogates to fight back. Mrs. Clinton told aides that she would not be “bullied out” of the race.

In a conversation with two Democratic allies, she compared the situation to the “big boys” trying to bully a woman, according to interviews with them.

She has the nerve to claim that she's being bullied while she still stands behind the bullying, threatening letter her wealthy donors sent to Pelosi last week ( http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/03/27/2008-03-27_hillary_clintons_wealthy_pals_warn_nancy.html ).

cacophony

03-30-2008, 07:30 AM

"I can imagine the ads the Republican Party and John McCain will run if we don't figure out how we can count the votes in Michigan and Florida."

i don't disagree with this assessment. howard dean really screwed up here. he may become the single most important reason the democrats lose the election, if this can't get resolved. historically democrats have always lost whenever they headed to the convention with such division in the party. and it reflects poorly on the party's ability to manage itself during a time when republicans have made a platform point out of democratic incompetence.

seriously. howard dean. the man who will lose the election.

Sean

03-30-2008, 10:54 AM

i don't disagree with this assessment. howard dean really screwed up here. he may become the single most important reason the democrats lose the election, if this can't get resolved. historically democrats have always lost whenever they headed to the convention with such division in the party. and it reflects poorly on the party's ability to manage itself during a time when republicans have made a platform point out of democratic incompetence.

seriously. howard dean. the man who will lose the election.I agree with your concerns about Michigan and Florida, but I take issue with how Hillary is trying to capitalize on the situation for her own strategic, political gain. She shines the brightest, most negative spotlight on it she can, even to the point of misrepresenting her Democratic rival's position on it in a way that could threaten his chances of winning the states in the general election. It's really just shown me once again that she's willing to destroy everything and everyone in her way to try to win the nomination, and that includes the likely Democratic nominee, Obama, and the Democratic party in general.

cacophony

03-30-2008, 03:38 PM

i wasn't really commenting on hillary's use of the situation. my comment simply is a criticism of the party as a whole, and of howard dean's gross mismanagement that resulted in the current mess. it will come back to haunt the democratic nominee. if the nominee is obama, the damage might be minimal. he seems to be enough of a populist to recover from any implication that he didn't actually carry those states in a valid contest. if it's hillary, however, the damage will be tremendous.

Deckard

03-31-2008, 04:06 PM

OK, the embed code isn't working so let's try a link instead...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNu0XRUUoic

:D

human151

04-01-2008, 02:02 AM

I like Barack obama, he is very eloquent and has some great Ideas. This church thing has tainted him a bit though.

Its definetely time for change.

cacophony

04-01-2008, 05:15 AM

i'd be interested to read your thoughts on how the church thing has tainted him. like, quantify the feelings that you associate with the taint. i'm just curious because i'm a pretty vehement atheist who disagrees with nearly every expressed form of religion, yet i didn't come out of this with altered feelings about this candidate. and i'm far from a bumpersticker-wearing-banner-waving-champaign-boosting obamahead.

Sean

04-01-2008, 11:44 AM

quantify the feelings that you associate with the taintJust had to highlight that quote. ;)

Also, I just saw an article where Hillary Clinton has likened her tenacity and fighting spirit to "Rocky" (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VP4R300&show_article=1&catnum=3). I wonder if she knows that Rocky lost?

cacophony

04-02-2008, 06:56 AM

Just had to highlight that quote.

^ i felt dirty typing it. ;)

did you hear about hillary's april fool's day joke? (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/01/politics/fromtheroad/entry3986600.shtml) she called a press conference and intimated that she might be leading up to a statement about dropping out of the race. then instead challenged obama to a bowling match.

lol, hillary. *blank stare*

Deckard

04-02-2008, 07:43 AM

Up until the last line, that was an astonishingly convincing performance.

Her acting abilities are better than I realised.

Sean

04-02-2008, 02:19 PM

I've seen an interesting poll result a couple times now and just thought it was worth sharing:

"Twenty-three percent of white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama believe he is a Muslim"

It's interesting to me in a few ways. One, because it reveals how uninformed some people out there are. I mean you have to have been living under a rock to still believe Obama is Muslim. And that's giving the benefit of the doubt to these people, because I'm sure many of them have heard reports that Obama's not Muslim, but choose to remain willfully ignorant about the facts.

Two, it's no surprise, but it's interesting that this confirms what I would guess - uninformed, ignorant people seem to associate "Muslim" with "bad". The idea that people can go out there and proclaim that they don't like Obama because (at least in part) they think he's Muslim is about as blatantly bigoted as it gets.

And finally, what does this say about Hillary Clinton supporters? I assume that these folks back her since they're Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama. Anyway, it only adds to my suspicion that for the most part, in order to be a Hillary supporter at this point, you have to either be completely comfortable with machiavellian tactics, or flat out ignorant. I feel bad lumping so many people into these groups, but I really can't see any other logical conclusions. I'm open to hearing any Clinton supporter thoughts on it though. At this point, I just don't know of any I can talk to, so it's hard for me to get a real handle on what could draw someone to her.

Anyway, here's the article where I most recently saw this poll result referenced:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/04/hillarys_wrong_numbers_obama_p.html

Deckard

04-02-2008, 05:21 PM

Twenty-three percent??? :eek:

cacophony

04-02-2008, 06:38 PM

"Twenty-three percent of white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama believe he is a Muslim"

i don't believe it for an instant. not one instant.

Deckard

04-03-2008, 03:39 AM

Here's some more data on who thinks Obama is a Muslim...

A Pew Research Center News Interest Index survey earlier in March found that 79% of the general public had heard rumors that Obama is Muslim, and 38% had heard "a lot" about this. The current survey finds that most voters have no misconceptions about Obama's religious beliefs - 53% say that he is Christian. But one in ten believes Barack Obama is Muslim. Roughly a third (34%) say they don't know what his religious beliefs are, though 9% say the reason they don't know is that they've heard different things about his religion, not that they haven't heard about it.

Notably, the impression that Obama is Muslim crosses party lines: 14% of Republicans, 10% of Democrats and 8% of independents think he is Muslim. Within both parties, ideology is a major factor: 16% of conservative Republicans believe Obama is Muslim, compared with 9% of moderates and liberals. And 13% of conservative and moderate Democrats believe Obama is Muslim, compared with just 5% of liberal Democrats.

The impression that Obama is Muslim varies by education, region, and religious background. Voters who did not attend college are three times as likely to believe Obama is Muslim when compared with voters who have a college degree (15% vs. 5%). And voters in the Midwest and South are about twice as likely as those in the Northeast and West to hold this belief. Nearly one-fifth of voters (19%) in rural areas say Obama is Muslim, as do 16% of white evangelical Protestants.

But there is little difference by age, gender or race in terms of voters' likelihood of thinking Obama is Muslim. Most notably, about as many black (10%) as white (11%) voters believe he is Muslim.

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama's affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard "a lot" about Reverend Wright's controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

Overall, the impression that Obama is Muslim has at most a slight impact on his fortunes in November - mostly because so few voters hold this belief in the first place. Moreover, Obama is only slightly less competitive against John McCain than Clinton is among the minority who believe this about him. Among the 10% of voters who say he is Muslim, 35% would still choose Obama over McCain in a general election matchup, while 61% would vote for McCain. These same voters would also choose McCain over Clinton, but by a smaller 52% to 42% margin.

Fwiw, About the survey (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1283)

cacophony

04-03-2008, 07:09 AM

^ thank you. i knew that stat sounded like bunk.

Sean

04-03-2008, 01:30 PM

^ thank you. i knew that stat sounded like bunk.Actually, from the same Pew poll report that Deckard quotes (http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/407.pdf):

"...nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

It's in the third paragraph down on page 2 of the report (or at least the number at the bottom of the page is 2....it's actually the third page of the pdf file). I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic. And actually, the whole paragraph makes it even more disturbing:

"In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

Crazy stuff.

So knowing this, I'm curious what other's thoughts are on the points I mentioned in regards to it earlier, as well as any other thoughts anyone has about it.

Strangelet

04-03-2008, 03:28 PM

Actually, from the same Pew poll report that Deckard quotes (http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/407.pdf):

"...nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

It's in the third paragraph down on page 2 of the report (or at least the number at the bottom of the page is 2....it's actually the third page of the pdf file). I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic. And actually, the whole paragraph makes it even more disturbing:

"In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

Crazy stuff.

So knowing this, I'm curious what other's thoughts are on the points I mentioned in regards to it earlier, as well as any other thoughts anyone has about it.

seriously. didn't some 50+ % of the country think Saddam Hussein was *directly* responsible for 9/11 ?

And these 23% of democrats are probably only democrats because they are in a union and their union tells them to vote democrat only because its best for the union, ignoring all other considerations. Most of the unions also support hillary clinton. so there you go.

cacophony

04-03-2008, 07:19 PM

I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic.

it just doesn't jive with the rest of the assertions in the study.

ordinarily i get behind pew's research methods. but this strikes me as total, unadulterated bunk. poor statistics. there is zero chance that 25% of democrats think obama is muslim. zero chance.

Sean

04-04-2008, 12:19 AM

it just doesn't jive with the rest of the assertions in the study.

ordinarily i get behind pew's research methods. but this strikes me as total, unadulterated bunk. poor statistics. there is zero chance that 25% of democrats think obama is muslim. zero chance.Well you're right about that, but that's not what the poll stated. It stated that, specifically, 23% of WHITE democrats who hold NEGATIVE VIEWS of Obama believe he's Muslim. This is a very specific demographic, but also, to me, a notable one.

And it actually does seem to jive with the rest of the study in my opinion. They state in the study that a full 11% of all whites think he's Muslim, period. So if you narrow it down even further, to white democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama, then it's totally believable that the percentage could double. And frankly - no offense intended here - the results they cite are based on extensive research, while your denial of the results is based on it just sounding like "bunk" to you. That's not to say the Pew study couldn't be wrong, but it certainly wasn't just a number randomly picked out of the air. I'm totally open to any information you may have seen that disproves the Pew results, but in the meantime, while it's a disturbing finding, it also appears to be accurate when you consider all the factors.

cacophony

04-04-2008, 08:02 AM

It stated that, specifically, 23% of WHITE democrats who hold NEGATIVE VIEWS of Obama believe he's Muslim.

aaaaaah okay. i finally parsed that properly in my head. i thought it was saying that 23% of white americans have the negative view that he's a muslim. but i get now what it is they're getting at.

BeautifulBurnout

04-06-2008, 04:30 AM

This (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/06/johnmccain.uselections2008) is beginning to remind me horribly of what happened to the Left in France at the last two elections. The majority of public opinion wanted Chirac out, (and didn't want Sarkozy in), but the opposition spent so much time squabbling and fragmenting that Chirac got re-elected, then last year Sarkozy replaced him with more of the same.

Well done Hills. With your smears and your dirty tricks and your selfish, self-interested behaviour, you couldn't have done much more to boost McCain other than to publicly announce you supported him. No, wait... that would prolly reduce his popularity.:rolleyes::mad:

King of Snake

04-06-2008, 08:54 AM

yeah the longer this goes on, the more I'm convinced it's gonna end in yet another disaster for the democrats.
And with Hillary still leading the polls in Penssylvania it looks like she and Obama will continue exchanging blows untill the bitter end, after which we all bette get used to president McCain.

cacophony

04-06-2008, 10:32 AM

i don't dislike mccain enough to consider his election a disaster. maybe a disaster for dedicated democrats, who care more about party affiliation than policy. but overall for the nation i don't see a disaster looming up on the horizon.

i've been known to be wrong, though.

gambit

04-06-2008, 11:24 AM

I've been on that side of the fence too (that the longer Obama and Clinton exchange blows, the better McCain has the chance to win), but in the back of my mind, I'm beginning to wonder if this might actually be a good thing for the Democrats. For one, more and more people are getting involved in the primary elections because of the drama, and there's a good possibility that will carry over into November. Obama and Clinton are continuing to get attention while McCain just hangs out in the back corner where no one notices him.

Obviously things will be different after a nominee is chosen, and I could be very very wrong. We'll just have to wait and see.

Sean

04-06-2008, 12:57 PM

I'm going out on a limb to make a prediction. This is really how I see it all unfolding:

Hillary will win Pennsylvania, but Obama will close the gap there enough to continue perceptions that Hillary simply can't come back enough to win. The next major event will be Obama winning North Carolina by a significant margin, which will solidify his lead. The rest of the primaries will still play out, but once all the voters have had their say, the superdelegates will predominantly choose to support Obama, wrapping up the nomination some time in June.

Unless Hillary wants to commit complete, unrecoverable political suicide, she will also voice support for Obama, which will go a long way towards stemming the threat of party defection we've been hearing about primarily from her supporters.

Once the Democratic support is largely unified behind Obama and the campaign focus shifts to Obama/McCain debates and such, the tide will turn in Obama's favor overall and ultimately, he will win the Presidency.

But like Cacophony, I've been wrong before. A lot. And much of this depends squarely on how Hillary behaves, so there is still a large measure of uncertainty involved.

Strangelet

04-06-2008, 05:37 PM

big news. mark penn, chief strategist (read public relations whore) for the clinton campaign has been forced to step down for his representing union-busting companies and courting Columbia into a free trade agreement not unlike NAFTA. You know, that thing the Clintons championed and now she's against?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/uselections2008.hillaryclinton (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/uselections2008.hillaryclinton)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080405/cm_thenation/45306884

Now that it has been learned that Hillary Clinton's chief strategist is lobbying -- hard -- for a free-trade pact that is broadly opposed by labor, environmental and human rights groups, a number of major unions and union groupings have called for Clinton to disassociate herself from Mark Penn.

See I think the whining and begging by democrats around the Daily KOS neck of the woods that Clinton should step down for fear of ruining it for all democrats completely misses the point. It is not Hillary's obligation to step down from her campaign. It is the democratic voter's obligation to make an informed decision. It is also their obligation to stand firm on their values regardless if their super favorite candidate gets to win or not. Of course if demos were ever good at standing firm on their values in the face of pressure we probably wouldn't be in this mess. The fact that Hillary has gotten this far, with so many stunts like the above, that is the real issue.

So as far as I'm concerned I probably will vote for Mccain. George Bush will be known for having poor judgment. And the biggest effect of that poor judgement was who he chose to surround himself with. With this jackass running her show, it shows who's really going to be four more years of Bush.

Strangelet

04-06-2008, 06:52 PM

wow. not a great weekend for those crusading for Hillary's truthiness.

she's now the ant-war voter's champion because she made some partisan safe jabs, not against the war fundamentally, but at the way bush was running it before Obama. (which isn't true, btw (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/in-oregon-clint.html))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25WH26PizmI

Honestly, what cocktail of meds do you need to be on to visualize it wasn't a vote for war, but authorization for war? It sounds like the end all high.

not to mention the uninsured pregnant dying pizza girl anecdote she likes not being true either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBfLqjzrR6k (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBfLqjzrR6k)

I mean, nobody's perfect blah blah blah. but maybe if you want to sell people on completely redoing their health care system, you might want to come up with something a little more substantive as part of your campaign schtick. Something that makes people excited about it, not shamed into it.

Strangelet

04-07-2008, 11:03 AM

actually I misspoke (as usual) about the whining over at KOS.

This from KOS himself

Of course, the primary calendar is drying up, and most of that "unalloyed good" has run its course. This thing doesn't need to drag out any longer. As I mention in the column, I won't call on Clinton to quit the race because it would be stupid to do so. It's her call to make when she's good and ready to make that call.
But aside from that, it is time for the super delegates to put this thing to bed. We're all itching to take on McCain, so let's get the main show started.
I guess I'm just frustrated that certain elements still can't make up their mind about this primary. But then they would be the undecideds, and not dems proper. So they aren't appropriate targets for a rant against waffling on assumed democratic principles.

It would just be nice for Penn voters to pony up and vote decisively. And not because I think the primary should end for the sake of democrat chances against McCain. I just don't see this choice that difficult to make, as an organized whole, regardless of what candidate. And its been a long time this country has enjoyed the mandate of a candidate winning decisively.

Sean

04-07-2008, 04:24 PM

The latest argument from the Hillary camp now is that she "has won the states with the most Electoral College votes" (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/07/blitzer-is-clinton-ahead-in-the-only-count-that-matters/), so she should be the Democratic nominee. Of course, this argument operates on the assumption that Obama would be unable to win these states in the general election because he lost them in the primary, which is a ridiculous assumption. And beyond that, if you follow her logic through, then Hillary would have to concede the assumption that she would lose Iowa, South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah, Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Vermont, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Democrats Abroad, Wyoming and Mississippi in the general election since Obama won them all in the primary.

The goal posts just keep on movin'. Holy crap....that should be her new campaign song! "Keep On Movin'" by Soul II Soul. :rolleyes:

BeautifulBurnout

04-07-2008, 04:33 PM

"Keep On Movin'" by Soul II Soul. :rolleyes:
Choon!!!

Yeah. Or rather "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby. Except that there is a total absence of any scientific reasoning in anything this woman says. But that, sadly, will not stop The Great Unwashed from believing it anyway. Meh. :mad:

Deckard

04-08-2008, 11:50 AM

With her lead in Pennsylvania slowly being chipped away, I'm left wondering just what she might have up her sleeve for her next trick.

(If it was a song, I'm guessing 'Unfinished Sympathy' :rolleyes: )

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-08-2008, 12:33 PM

The goal posts just keep on movin'. Holy crap....that should be her new campaign song! "Keep On Movin'" by Soul II Soul. :rolleyes:

"Fairplay" would be more appropriate. MMMM, HMMM.

Sean

04-08-2008, 12:56 PM

Well one thing's for sure. The Clinton supporters out there can stop claiming that Hillary is supposedly getting grilled by the media while Obama gets a free pass. How many days straight was the top story in virtually every news outlet about Reverend Wright, Obama's pastor, a person outside of his political world who made statements Obama doesn't even agree with? Like 12 days or two full weeks at least? Meanwhile, Clinton's own chief strategist goes to Columbia to actively push trade deals that Hillary opposes, it gets coverage for a couple days, and then it's off the front page.

Maybe I'm crazy, but a campaign's chief strategist actively pushing policies their candidate claims to oppose is a bigger deal to me than the independent comments made by an ex-pastor of a candidate are.

Let's hope enough people in Pennsylvania are aware enough of what's going on for it to make a difference....

Deckard

04-08-2008, 01:08 PM

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-08-2008, 01:14 PM

Sean

04-08-2008, 03:37 PM

Michael Tomasky writing in the Guardian yesterday reminded people of what was happening just a month ago when the Clinton camp was pushing hard on the Austan Goolsbee-trade story (http://www.observer.com/2008/wolfson-makes-it-naftagate) (and simultaneously playing the press-is-unfair-to-me card).

Hillz to reporters...

Oops!And she's STILL pushing that story, even though all involved parties have clarified that it was a misrepresentation of what actually happened. Here's what she said about it just this morning (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/08/clinton-says-penn-controversy-won’t-be-damaging/) (incidentally, check the last comment under the linked article....I got it in just before they closed the comments):

"I find it kind of curious, we took action, and I think it was appropriate," she continued. "Contrast that to Senator Obama's campaign where, as far as I know, nothing was ever done when one of his top economic advisers representing the campaign, unlike Mr. Penn who was not representing the campaign, but Mr. Obama's representative told the Canadian government basically not to pay any attention to what Senator Obama was saying about NAFTA."

Hillary has a LOT of gall.

When you add the two up, sounds like an assault on Democratic choices all the way around, no?In fairness, I don't personally feel that there's significant partisan intent in the coverage of the candidates. What I do feel is that they go for whatever the most sensational story is, and I guess a Presidential candidate's ex-pastor shouting "god damn America" is more sensational than a chief strategist pushing deals that are counter to what the candidate they represent supports is. Doesn't much matter which is more pertinent to the actual Presidential race. And as for McCain, I think it's safe to say that he's getting ignored because there's no drama around him right now. I really doubt that political agendas are driving the lack of coverage.

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-08-2008, 05:31 PM

. . .political agendas are driving the lack of coverage.

Here? In America? Oh no, never.

Strangelet

04-08-2008, 06:01 PM

In fairness, I don't personally feel that there's significant partisan intent in the coverage of the candidates. What I do feel is that they go for whatever the most sensational story is, and I guess a Presidential candidate's ex-pastor shouting "god damn America" is more sensational than a chief strategist pushing deals that are counter to what the candidate they represent supports is. Doesn't much matter which is more pertinent to the actual Presidential race. And as for McCain, I think it's safe to say that he's getting ignored because there's no drama around him right now. I really doubt that political agendas are driving the lack of coverage.

exactly, if clinton didn't already have a reputation for mercurial behind the back dealings it would be bigger news. sad really, the degree to which we learn to adapt.

Sean

04-08-2008, 08:18 PM

Here? In America? Oh no, never.That's funny....I don't recall saying it "never" happens. Why don't you go ahead and argue your stance based on evidence rather than purely on sarcasm. I believe that I made my points based on a reasonable stance that the coverage is driven by ratings in this particular case, so perhaps you can explain why you think otherwise in a substantive way.

cacophony

04-09-2008, 09:31 AM

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-09-2008, 12:07 PM

That's funny....I don't recall saying it "never" happens. Why don't you go ahead and argue your stance based on evidence rather than purely on sarcasm. I believe that I made my points based on a reasonable stance that the coverage is driven by ratings in this particular case, so perhaps you can explain why you think otherwise in a substantive way.

In time.

Strangelet

04-09-2008, 01:20 PM

Incidentally, clinton's campaign team is infested with columbian trade lobbyists.

To help make its case, Colombia had already hired at least three firms on Capitol Hill, in addition to the work by Mr. Penn’s firm, Burson-Marsteller....

....They include the Glover Park Group, the fast-growing firm set up by former Clinton White House aides including Joe Lockhart (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/joe_lockhart/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who was chief spokesman for the president. (Howard Wolfson (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/howard_wolfson/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Mrs. Clinton’s campaign communications director, was a partner at the firm but has taken a leave of absence.) ....

....The ties between the lobbying firms and the Clinton campaign illustrate the complexity of Washington’s political world, where players are often switching positions or playing multiple roles. While Mr. Wolfson has taken a leave from Glover Park, for example, he still has equity in the firm valued at $500,000 to $1 million, according to a disclosure form.

A long list of former Clinton administration aides, including Mack McLarty, the former counsel to the president; Donna E. Shalala (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/donna_e_shalala/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the health and human services secretary; and Leon E. Panetta (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/leon_e_panetta/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the onetime chief of staff, also have come out in support of the deal. It puts them in alliance with Mr. Bush and Republican leaders.

maybe this is what John Edwards was talking about when he said we needed to do more than replace republican corporatism with democrat corporatism.

Sean

04-10-2008, 01:09 PM

Incidentally, clinton's campaign team is infested with columbian trade lobbyists.

maybe this is what John Edwards was talking about when he said we needed to do more than replace republican corporatism with democrat corporatism.I think you're missing the real point though, Strangelet. Elton John cleared it all up for me when he said of Hillary's dwindling support that "I never cease to be amazed at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country" (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Elton_John_To_hell_with_them.html).

So now I finally understand that my dislike of Hillary has nothing to do with her continuous lies about her experience, or her calling for the people's voices to be heard only when it will benefit her personally, or her dirty campaign tactics that aim to destroy her fellow Democratic candidate, or her campaign that's been mismanaged so badly that it makes me wonder how she could possibly manage a country, or her chief campaign strategist who was actively pushing trade deals she says she opposes......no, it's actually because I'm a misogynist. Thanks for helping me understand myself, Elton. :rolleyes:

cacophony

04-10-2008, 01:21 PM

to be fair, i made that point long before elton. ;)

Sean

04-10-2008, 01:22 PM

to be fair, i made that point long before elton. ;)I remember...;):D

Strangelet

04-10-2008, 02:08 PM

I think you're missing the real point though, Strangelet. Elton John cleared it all up for me when he said of Hillary's dwindling support that "I never cease to be amazed at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country" (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Elton_John_To_hell_with_them.html).

Crap!!! my mysoginitis is raging again! thanks for pointing that out. i gotta go tell my wife what's happened so she can blame something besides my just being a jackass.

Deckard

04-10-2008, 05:08 PM

Why did you guys let him in? WHY?!

Candle in the Wind must surely be worse than - what was it? - moral turpitude?

gambit

04-10-2008, 10:04 PM

So if people vote for Obama because they're mysoginists, then do people vote for Hillary because they're racists????

Deckard

04-11-2008, 03:49 AM

In all fairness, I don't think he's linking it to voting patterns per se, and it wouldn't surprise me to know that misogyny has been underpinning some of the flak she's receiving.

The difficulty for people overly keen to shout 'misogyny' is that there really are a lot of reasons to criticize Clinton, and it can be extremely difficult identifying - let alone proving - where exactly any misogyny lies. Some of it is obvious - 'get back in the kitchen' kind of stuff. But the bulk of criticism of Clinton is not like this, and regardless of what may or may not lie beneath the criticism, appears completely valid when taken on its own merit.

(If someone who is prone to misogyny attacks Clinton for valid reasons, is that misogyny?)

I doubt anyone here commenting on her is doing so for misogynistic reasons.

(Well apart from Sean, that is ;) )

The point about racism could indeed be made against people seemingly fixated on, say, the Obama/Reverend Wright controversy.

Or we could go for some accusations of reverse sexism against all those women in Clinton's so-called "core base" refusing to vote for the male candidate(s). The point here is that it's a nice easy label to throw about because the accuser doesn't have to (and often cannot) pinpoint precise examples to back up their claim.

Really, I don't say this based on any personal agenda, but I'd say the most undeniable prejudice that I've seen emerge from this election campaign has been Islamophobia.

Strangelet

04-11-2008, 09:55 AM

this is just amazing.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/04/11/sot.clinton.laughs.off.pool

cacophony

04-11-2008, 10:52 AM

(If someone who is prone to misogyny attacks Clinton for valid reasons, is that misogyny?)

yes. even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

Strangelet

04-11-2008, 11:37 AM

yes. even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

ok right but that's just such pervasive human behavior I don't know how much its worth even talking about. Its just old fashioned psychological bias that could be pinned on anything, gender and race being just a few in a very long list.

its not news to say people tend to make the choice to attack something on emotional reasons and then look for more valid rational reasons after the fact.

I just don't for a minute believe that someone as polarizing as Clinton has any significant problem of misogyny working against her, compared to all other kinds of criticisms against her.

And honestly I think the burden is on people like Elton John to prove otherwise.

Just look at the direct relationship between education and support for obama. Its a smooth linear relationship, the more education, the more support for Obama.

Wouldn't you have to admit that if Clinton is justified in blaming rampant misogyny for her public relations that we'd see the opposite trend? that people with less education would be pro obama and people with more education would be pro Clinton? The assumption here is that misogyny diminishes through enlightenment.

Regardless I just think this back and forth is patently absurd. Here's a prime example.

Erica Jong : Misogyny, momism, and Militarism (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/misogyny-momism-and-milit_b_96062.html)

Elton John recently expressed surprise at the misogyny of the American media as it relates to Hillary Clinton. I have been stunned by it -- especially the random physical put-downs that are everywhere. Matt Taibbi* refers to "flabby arms" in his latest Hillary obit. Who cares? I want to ask. But apparently Mr. Taibbi does. (And how would he know? Hillary is always encased in a blazer)...

Do we want to live in a country where women's brains are judged by their arm flesh and the trimness of their ankles? I don't. I am writing from Rome where the men are just as sexist as they are in America yet there is no physical mockery of female candidates. The Italian elections are on Sunday and Monday and most of the women candidates are between forty and sixty plus. Yet no one makes fun of their looks. They are not movie stars. They wear glasses and don't all have facelifts. Nobody expects them to look like Sophia Loren. And nobody mentions their physical attributes one way or another.

So what is wrong with American men? Particularly male journalists. I think it was discovered long ago and labeled "Momism" by Philip Wylie in a virulently sexist book 1942 book called Generation of Vipers. The book went through many, many printings in the forties and fifties. It apparently struck many nerves. Momism is a kind of Oedipal obsession with the bad mother -- to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother.

Wylie's book is as livid as the Malleus Malificarum -- that textbook for witch hunters. No one could hate so much without having loved. And love is the problem, of course. You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her.

Matt Taibbi : Erica Jong Thinks I want to Do My Mother: A Response
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-taibbi/erica-jong-thinks-i-want_b_96169.html)

I feel compelled to respond to an article written in part about me by emigree contributor Erica Jong (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/misogyny-momism-and-milit_b_96062.html). According to the eight hundred year-old sex novelist, my offhand description of Hillary Clinton's arms as "flabby" means that I'm a misogynist and a sexist who is guilty of "Momism," which she describes as an "Oedipal obsession with the bad mother -- to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother." The whole of her argument is based upon my use of that one word, "flabby" -- which she argues is evidence of my typically male tendency to fixate on the appearance of female politicians. Like other sexist men, I apparently trained my monomaniacal focus on Hillary's appearance while while ignoring the paunches, liver spots and comb-overs of male politicians.
Jong has apparently never read anything else I've written. Here is a short catalogue of some of the physical descriptions I've used in recent articles about male politicians:

RUDY GIULIANI, former presidential candidate: "Virtually neckless, all shoulders and forehead and overbite, with a hunched-over, Draculoid posture that recalls, oddly enough, George W. Bush, the vestigial stoop of a once-chubby kid who grew up hiding tittie pictures from nuns." Also: "The electoral incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones' acid-bath-surviving Two-Face character." A "bottomless pit of vengeful little-guy ambition."

MARK PENN, former chief strategist for the Clinton campaign: "Penn is the Democratic version of Karl Rove. He even looks like Rove, only he's fatter and more disgusting. Up close in a forum like this, his eyes bulge out of his fat, blood-flushed head; his neck spills out of his too-tight shirt collar; and he generally looks like Jabba the Hutt, his suit bursting at the seams, with only the bowl of snackable live toads suspended at arm's length missing from the picture."

MIKE HUCKABEE, former presidential candidate: "Huckabee, who in recent years has lost 100 pounds, has the roundish, half-deflated physique of an ex-fatty. With his button nose and never-waning smile, he looks slightly unreal, like an oversize Muppet."

TOM DELAY, former House majority leader: "DeLay moves through the aisles like some kind of balding incubus, and as he passes, Republican members instinctively turn their backs on him, not wanting to be caught in the Gorgon's gaze (or, more to the point, be threatened with the loss of a chairmanship or reelection funding)."

JAMES SENSENBRENNER, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman: "An ever-sweating, fat-fingered beast who wields his gavel in a way that makes you think he might have used one before in some other arena, perhaps to beat prostitutes to death." Also: "Your basic Fat Evil Prick, perfectly cast as a dictatorial committee chairman: He has the requisite moist-with-sweat pink neck, the dour expression, the penchant for pointless bile and vengefulness."

MITT ROMNEY, former presidential candidate: An "utter tool...a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo who will say (or won't say, for that matter) whatever the fuck it takes to get elected." Also: "When it comes to the satanic art of presidential campaigning, this lean, heavily moussed political athlete is a stone prodigy, a natural who glides through campaign events with the aid of some dark supernatural power - a tie-clad, sweat-resistant cross of Roy Hobbs and Rosemary's Baby."

BORIS YELTSIN, former Russian president: "A pig... A human appendage of a rotting, corrupt state, a crook who would emerge even from the hottest bath still stinking of booze, concrete and sausage."

TOM TANCREDO, former presidential candidate: "Vengeful midget."

JOHN McCAIN, Republican nominee: "On the trail, McCain looks equally pathetic -- slow-moving, soft-spoken and physically frail. With his lecturing tone and corny jokes ('Governor Schwarzenegger and I have many similar attributes'), he recalls the moralizing granddad who's not a bad egg overall but who embarrasses the fuck out of you by waiting till your late thirties to give you the birds-and-the-bees speech."
That's just from the last few years. And yet according to Jong, the reason I decided to use the term "flabby" when describing Hillary Clinton is because, deep down inside, I want to fuck my mother. "And love is the problem, of course," Jong-Freud writes. "You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her."
I mean, wow. And I thought I was a hack.

Sincerely,

Matt Taibbi

Sean

04-11-2008, 01:11 PM

You bring up the exact point I wanted to make, Strangelet. The physical appearance of candidates has been an issue, and played a role in campaign successes, ever since the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon race, when the first ever televised debate was aired. I won't deny that there is clearly some misogyny involved for some people regarding Hillary, just as there is undoubtedly racism playing a part in some dislike of Obama. But Where Elton John is concerned, I think he's way off base. If you look back, he also railed on the US for being racist (http://au.news.yahoo.com/040427/11/oqwi.html) in 2004 because some black competitors on American Idol were kicked off the show. Nevermind that the winner that year, and the year before incidentally, were both black....Elton John basically just assumes the worst regardless of the facts surrounding the case at hand. Like the fact that Hillary is running a horrible, dirty, dishonest, disorganized, inconsistant, divisive campaign.

cacophony

04-11-2008, 02:42 PM

my point wasn't to make an argument for wholesale misogyny as the reason hillary isn't sweeping the polls, strangelet. i answered a question.

I won't deny that there is clearly some misogyny involved for some people regarding Hillary, just as there is undoubtedly racism playing a part in some dislike of Obama.

bingo. yet we're more outraged by the racism against obama than we are about the misogyny against hillary. i guess we'd only be truly offended if we liked her.

all i've ever asked is that we acknowledge that the sexism exists, that it is just as real as the racism issue. but somehow that makes all of the men on this forum chase their tails in hysterical offense.

Sean

04-11-2008, 03:32 PM

this is just amazing.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/04/11/sot.clinton.laughs.off.poolI read about this on CNN's website (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/11/clinton-laughs-off-colombia-questions/), and read some comments after that I found typically stunning. Most of the comments were critical of her, but here are some of the ones in defense of her:

Jenn April 10th, 2008 8:18 pm ET
Such a ridiculous question. Hillary you are the strongest candidate. We need you in the White House!

Hillary '08.

Black Man for Hillary April 10th, 2008 8:20 pm ET
When Obama laughs off the "silly" questions about his NAFTA snafu, Rev. Wright, Rezko, primaries in FL and MI, people think he's being "oh so witty."

Bill Clinton gives speeches for money. Were his speeches about Hillary wanting a free trade agreement with Columbia? NO.

gary April 10th, 2008 8:28 pm ET
YOU GO HRC. YOU ARE THE ONLY DEM. CANIDATE THAT HAS THEIR OWN MIND. YOU HAVE BEEN THERE FOR US THROUGH THE YRS. O.B. HASNT DONE ANYTHING FOR THIS COUNTRY,BUT THE YOUNG ARE SO TWISTED FROM HIS CON MAN WAYS ,THEY HAVE NO REALITY ABOUT OUR COUNTRY.THIS COUNTRY WILL FALL IF O.B. EVER GOT ELECTED OFFICE. IT WOULD BE WHAT THE NAIVE O.B. SUPPORTERS WILL DESERVE. O.B. SUPPORTERS ARE THE WORST HATERS. THAT IS ONE CHANGE O.B. HAS BROUGHT TO THIS RACE.

Xavier April 10th, 2008 8:35 pm ET
Here we go again,
the media digging up something that happened in 2005.
Hillary Clinton's position is clear, she is against a Columbian trade agreement at this time.
By having strong position on this topic, she is showing that she is independant of Bill. This is her campaign, and her supporter's campaign. Lets ask the questions that do matter: Iraq, the Economy, rising student loans, and many more.

Unlike the silence of the other candidates, Hillary Clinton continues to voice her strong opinions on the Economy, Health Care, Iraq, and "free" trade, even if they aren't the easiest to tackle. She is a candidate with clear views, and a clear stance on what she wants to get done for the US.

Xavier, California

Spider April 10th, 2008 8:38 pm ET
No obomination

Hillary '08

mark ordiz April 10th, 2008 11:32 pm ET
stop rattling you… Obamaniacs… COME APRIL 22, PENN FOLKS WOULDNT FORGET THE SCARE OF YOUR LONG TIME PASTOR… RADICAL RELIGIOUS EXTRIMISM TAMED BY YOUR RACE SERMON… YOULL LIVE BY ITS HORRORS. AND FOR US HILLARY SUPPORTERS WE WILL STOP IT.

HILLARY-EDWARDS 08!

So my conclusion at this point is that Hillary supporters have to be either willfully ignoring the glaring faults of their candidate, or flat out ignorant.

Strangelet

04-11-2008, 04:51 PM

my point wasn't to make an argument for wholesale misogyny as the reason hillary isn't sweeping the polls, strangelet. i answered a question.

Actually I didn't assume you were completely, but a lot of people in the news are right now because of the comments by clinton surrogates and now Sir Elton. Not to mention the fact that activity on these forums have included accusations that some of us tail chasing men have unresolved gender issues as the basis for our loathing of Hillary.

all i've ever asked is that we acknowledge that the sexism exists, that it is just as real as the racism issue. but somehow that makes all of the men on this forum chase their tails in hysterical offense.

I've never not acknowledged sexism exists and I think people have a right to be frustrated when they take careful crafting of arguments and pwn a politician's moral fiber only to be labeled as frenzied misogynists.

Seriously I think we're going in circles.

Rog

04-11-2008, 07:52 PM

well i think you,re all tooooooooooo serioussssss:D:D:D

Sean

04-12-2008, 12:28 AM

bingo. yet we're more outraged by the racism against obama than we are about the misogyny against hillary. i guess we'd only be truly offended if we liked her.I can't decide where I stand on this. Clearly the racism has gotten more attention than the misogyny, but I wonder if that's actually because the racism has been at least a bit more rampant or prevelant? Or maybe not.

all i've ever asked is that we acknowledge that the sexism exists, that it is just as real as the racism issue. but somehow that makes all of the men on this forum chase their tails in hysterical offense. I think the only point that the men here are really trying to make is that while sexism does exist, it seems like the percentage of men who would fall into the "sexist" category is pretty low here in the world forum, and in the dirty forums overall. So we're basically on the same page. :)

Sean

04-12-2008, 01:25 AM

Looks like there's a smackdown going on. I feel like only one of these people is telling the truth regarding a story that the press lobbed out at them all earlier today about Obama saying that many Pennsylvanians who have lost good jobs and are facing things like looming forclosures tend to feel bitter. I don't think I'm being biased when I say that Obama appears to have won the argument about this in the Boston Globe to me:

The McCain campaign also criticized Obama for the comments, saying that "it shows an elitism and condescension towards hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking."

'I'M IN TOUCH'

In Indiana, Obama bristled at the suggestion he did not understand voters' concerns.

"Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain -- it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch?" Obama said.

"Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch?" he told a crowd in Terre Haute, Indiana. "No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. ... People are fed up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter."

Clinton, whose father was from Pennsylvania, said in Philadelphia she had a lot of affection for the state and enjoyed traveling through it.

"It's being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well, that's not my experience," she said.

"As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard everyday for a better future, for themselves and their children," she said.

I like that Obama went after both candidates hard, but did it by clearly focusing on issues that we all experience and want to see improved in very fundamental, day to day, real-life ways. I believe that he's so consistantly aware of the things so many people respond to because that's the way he thinks. He understands the shared needs and wants of the vast majority of us, and says he wants to focus on them constructively as President. Sounds good to me.

Clinton's argument makes me feel like she pretty much just wants me to trust her...just roll up my sleeves and get to work in the comfort of knowing that I can leave the big decisions up to smart people like her, and then everything will be all right. The only problem is, I can't trust her because she's blatantly lied to me so many god damned times. And just after she almost, just barely acknowledged that she may have "misspoke" to us just this one time, freakin' Bill comes out wagging his finger again, basically saying "Hillary told the truth, and she told that true story about Bosnia only once, late at night, like at 11pm, that's late for her, so it was really, really late and she was really super-exhausted", even though in reality, she told the Bosnia lie multiple times over at least a month, often in the mid-morning hours. If she's so tired that she's delusional at 11pm every night, then what's she going to do when the phone rings at 3am? And the Bosnia story was a lie, not a "misspeak". No sane person accidentally believes they were once dodging sniper fire while running across the tarmac in Bosnia with their young daughter. And certainly no one then genuinly tells the entire world that story because they truly remember it that way. There are only two explanations: One, she's clinically delusional which is an unacceptable quality in a Presidential candidate, or two, she lied about the story because she thought it would strengthen her claim of significant foreign policy experiences, and she didn't think she'd get caught at it. And I don't believe she's delusional, I think she's a selfish liar. So if I can't trust her, and she's not even telling me that she understands what issues most of us really need addressed to simply make life better, then what can I expect to get from her as President? Only what SHE thinks is best for us, she doesn't want to allow us to have a voice in the decision. And some of what she HAS said she thinks is best doesn't sound to me like it would be best for most of us. Like her heavily mandated health care plan. If she's President, she wants us to do what she tells us to do. That's not how I want it done. I want to be listened to and well considered on important issues that I need fixed, not talked down to and misunderstood.

And McCain is just taking little jabs that aren't landing, but he's got time to keep trying to land a big punch while Hillary and Obama keep fighting each other. A fight that Clinton keeps insisting should continue. Thanks, Hill! Hope the sarcasm's laid on thick enough there.

So go Obama!

cacophony

04-12-2008, 06:57 AM

So my conclusion at this point is that Hillary supporters have to be either willfully ignoring the glaring faults of their candidate, or flat out ignorant.

personally, and this may be overly cynical, i think there's a strong need to identify with victims in a portion of the population. we're a culture of victimization and we love nothing more than to back someone whose injustice we feel we can partake of. i honestly and truly believe that the most vehemently outspoken hillary supporters are more driven by their perception of her persecution-by-media than actual qualifications. it's not that they ignore the faults, it's that they don't believe in them. hillary is a victim, and they can participate in that victimization by proxy by supporting her until the bitter end.

and there you have it. my elitist view of the idiocracy of america.

cacophony

04-12-2008, 06:59 AM

Clinton, whose father was from Pennsylvania...

WHY DOES THIS MERIT MENTIONING, NEWS MEDIA?!??!

Deckard

04-12-2008, 07:42 AM

...and there you have it. my elitist view of the idiocracy of america.
No need to feel you're being elitist. Openly acknowledging this idiocracy remains one of the biggest taboos of the current time - one that's far more insidious than the usual political correctness boogeymen the media likes to tear into.

</ot>

Strangelet

04-12-2008, 04:56 PM

No need to feel you're being elitist. Openly acknowledging this idiocracy remains one of the biggest taboos of the current time - one that's far more insidious than the usual political correctness boogeymen the media likes to tear into.
</ot>

i'm ready to concede the point

King of Snake

04-14-2008, 02:55 AM

BREAKING NEWS!

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early (http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks)

;)

BeautifulBurnout

04-14-2008, 06:59 AM

BREAKING NEWS!

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early (http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks)

;)

Awesome.

Dunno if anyone read the "tickertape" latest news scrolling across the bottom too? FAF. :D

Strangelet

04-16-2008, 08:27 AM

See, this is why I resist the urge to be bitter about the intelligence of the common human

In Pennsylvania, the [bitter] flap seems to have marginally helped Obama more than hurt him: 24% said his handling of the issue made them think more highly of him; 15% said it made them think less highly of him; 58% said it made no difference in their views.
How surprising would this be if you only understood the tastes and awareness of society from listening to pundits on 24 hour news stations?
And if it is surprising, should we be thinking of a more appropriate model than the idiocracy? Maybe something that expresses the public not as apathetic morons first and foremost, but casualties of a shock and awe campaign of manipulation, one that is increasingly wearing thin?

Basically, what those in power should remember, is people smarten up real fast when their fundamental dreams and needs are thwarted.

Deckard

04-16-2008, 12:46 PM

I admit that's actually surprising to me. And encouraging.

should we be thinking of a more appropriate model than the idiocracy?

Yes - to some degree.
I tend to resort to visions of an "idiocracy" more out of despair than anything else (like when reading about Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania returning to double digits following "bittergate"), but of course you're absolutely right that the source of much of this analysis/punditry needs to be viewed in some context as well, and these latest poll ratings are sufficient to, at the very least, re-evaluate the way I've been viewing it all up til now.

Also, as a general aside to no-one in particular, let me just make clear, in case it's not obvious, that my tendency to lapse into despair at what I see as widespread ignorance - whether it's Hillary's support, or the belief that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, or the number who believe that the world is only 8,000 years old and the Lord Jesus is their saviour - my inclination to roll my eyes at these things is never originating from a craving to elevate myself or just be a smug git. It is genuine despair that I feel. And some frustration.

Strangelet

04-16-2008, 01:15 PM

Also, as a general aside to no-one in particular, let me just make clear, in case it's not obvious, that my tendency to lapse into despair at what I see as widespread ignorance - whether it's Hillary's support, or the belief that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, or the number who believe that the world is only 8,000 years old and the Lord Jesus is their saviour - my inclination to roll my eyes at these things is never originating from a craving to elevate myself or just be a smug git. It is genuine despair that I feel. And some frustration.

I'm with you there, mate.

cacophony

04-16-2008, 02:30 PM

Sean

04-16-2008, 04:56 PM

Troy McClure

04-16-2008, 05:15 PM

Since the debate is tonight, I found a drinking game for everyone to participate:

April 16th Democrat Debate Drinking Game (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/04/calm_your_jitters_with_the_democratic_debate_drink ing_game.html) Although, they forgot to add to have a drink if Hillary utters 'you know'. I think it was for fear of alcohol poisoning.
--Jason

Strangelet

04-16-2008, 05:25 PM

Strangelet

04-16-2008, 06:54 PM

hmmph can you believe this horse shit?

45 minutes of a 90 minute debate focused on bitter-gate jeremiah wright and the weather underground? what a fucking hit job.

Sean

04-17-2008, 11:25 AM

hmmph can you believe this horse shit?

45 minutes of a 90 minute debate focused on bitter-gate jeremiah wright and the weather underground? what a fucking hit job.Well I didn't realize until I just now read it, but one of the moderators, George Stephanopoulos, was a former Clinton staffer. He "helped run Mr Clinton's 1992 election campaign and acted as his press secretary and advisor on policy and strategy before joining the ABC"

But aside from that, I think the hit-job approach may have backfired. For one, Obama consistantly steered his answers back to actual policy, while Hillary was on endless attack mode....and it culminated with Obama calling her out on her hubby's pardons of terrorists when he was President. That seemed to shut her up.

And more importantly, Hillary was backed into a corner where she finally had to admit to the world that "yes, yes, yes", Obama can beat McCain in the general election. Claiming that he couldn't win was the previous centerpiece of her argument against him to superdelegates, and more indirectly to the remaining voters. She can't use that argument anymore without being called out as a liar at a time when voters have already overwhelmingly concluded that she's not trustworthy. I'd say she shot herself in the foot with a shotgun on that one.

I think the debate ended up making Hillary look petty and negative, while Obama remained relatively steady. There was focus on Obama's controversies, but those controversies have proven through polls to not hurt him. He could afford to maintain a status quo there....although hopefully since so many people watched the debate, some have had their questions about him answered and can move on from stories about Reverend Wright and "bitterness".

Strangelet

04-17-2008, 01:11 PM

I agree. And I think you are right to take solace in the points you raised if you support Obama (which I do)

But personally I think even if you were a staunch Clinton supporter, you should be frustrated by last night's venue. It was nothing short of tabloid pandering, breaking the election process down to a maury pauvich show for the first 45 minutes. And I just tried to convince myself we aren't an ideocracy! ;)

David Brooks at the NYT says this (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/no-whining-about-the-media/index.html?hp)

I understand the complaints, but I thought the questions were excellent. The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities. Almost every question tonight did that. The candidates each looked foolish at times, but that’s their own fault.
We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.
There's so much objectively wrong with this statement no matter who you support. Asking Obama about his relationship with the american flag, whether or not Rev. Wright loves his country and if so, does Obama love his country more? Yes that succeeded in making Obama visibly uncomfortable. So what?

I can ask David Brooks why his mother is such a whore, and I'm sure I would succeed in making him uncomfortable too, it doesn't mean its good fucking journalism. I think people see through this. They know its only good to make someone squirm if you're asking legitimate questions about issues and policy, not through character attacks entrenched in base psychological archetypes like the american flag and unquestioning patriotism.

Also, notice that Clinton and the moderators get a blank check to basically put on their karl rove pants because that's what they expect from the general. By that logic I can go up and punch a spousal abuse victim in the face and say, you may not like it but you should expect it when you get home tonight. Sidestepping any awareness that it is this kind of media activity that's helping people win based on fear of gay marriage.

And interesting enough, George Stephano-whatever, actually appeared on both Hannity's radio show and another right wing radio show where he heard about the Weather Underground connection. So quite literally they were getting their talking points from the neo con media.

But yes I am as optimistic in the body politic. Especially how the audience started cat calling the moderaters at the end.

Sean

04-17-2008, 03:54 PM

Strangelet

04-17-2008, 04:03 PM

My point is just that when you look at the net outcome, I think it will ultimately work in Obama's favor. Look how he used it today (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2008/04/obama_attacks_debate_we_set_a.html).

point well taken, and thanks for the link. I think i've spent this campaign half optimistic and half pessimistic.

cacophony

04-17-2008, 07:46 PM

Strangelet

04-17-2008, 10:19 PM

cacophony

04-18-2008, 07:41 AM

i dreamed last night that hillary clinton was in atlanta, going door to door to press the flesh with voters. she came to my house and was asking me small-talk chit chat stuff and i mentioned that i'm knocked up. she handed me a cup of liquid and said, "well you're going to love this, it's a health drink that's really good for pregnant women." i drank it and immediately started having a miscarriage. she raised an eyebrow, smiled, and left.

i wonder what it means. :rolleyes:

Deckard

04-18-2008, 07:52 AM

It means you shouldn't eat just before bedtime.

(oh, and that Hillary's the anti-Christ.)

cacophony

04-18-2008, 08:00 AM

^ tell that to the crazy hungries in my belly.

Sean

04-18-2008, 06:19 PM

i wouldn't be too overconfident in obama's favor. i've talked to several undecideds today and they all felt like obama failed to give substantive answers to many of the questions. the impression he left with those still deciding is that he wasn't able to move past his usual rhetoric and show real knowledge and understanding of economic issues.

don't shoot the messenger, this is just what i've been hearing all day.This is absolutely fair....I definitely felt that he was slightly off his game in the debate, but not in a damaging way...at least not to me personally.

What it comes down to for me was that he pretty much maintained status quo - no big slip-ups, no big strides forward - but Hillary gave up her biggest argument against Obama, and I think that'll really hurt her ability to sway superdelegates (as if she was able to sway them before)...and this election will definitely be decided by superdelegates. She can no longer argue to any of them that she believes Obama is unelectable without being squarely, and fairly, labeled a liar about it. They've surely all seen or heard that she answered "yes, yes, yes" when asked if Obama can beat McCain in November. And her argument now, that she said he "can" win, not that he "will" win, is absolutely useless and weak. That's where I see the net benefit for Obama.

And once the nomination is sealed up, he can focus on fighting one rival, McCain, instead of facing two. As soon as McCain has to start answering questions about Iraq and the economy, I think we'll see an increase in overall support for Obama.

And Cacophony, your dream sounds bizarre and creepy, but also sounds perfectly reasonable and to be expected to me on some visceral level...;)

Sean

04-18-2008, 06:27 PM

Scathing critique of Hillary's campaign from Robert Reich, "Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Labor and a friend of both the former president and his wife for four decades":

"I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past twenty years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical."

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/04/heilemann_robert_reich_to_endo.html

Strangelet

04-18-2008, 08:15 PM

yeah he's the same guy I quoted here

http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forums/showpost.php?p=93787&postcount=5
(http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forums/showpost.php?p=93787&postcount=5)
and I think he's awesome smart.

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-18-2008, 08:22 PM

i wonder what it means. :rolleyes:

Frightmares as such are rather quite common with first pregnancies. And I'm guessing this is your first. Not necessarily with Clinton in them, but hey, it is election year and it's obviously something else of great importance to you.

Congrats BTW.

cacophony

04-18-2008, 09:35 PM

thank you. and it is my first pregnancy although i've never needed that excuse to have bad dreams. :p

Deckard

04-22-2008, 02:39 PM

A South Carolina pastor says he wasn't trying to be political when he posted a sign in front of his church linking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden.

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1671652.jpg

:rolleyes:

(And another :rolleyes: for the stories about Hillary's regained momentum that will shortly follow tonight)

Sean

04-22-2008, 03:40 PM

Okay, here's the thing about Pennsylvania. In my opinion, it won't change anything, no matter how it's spun.

Let's say that Clinton wins as she likely will in Pennsylvania....what's she gonna do, pick up like 10 delegates on Obama? Right now he's up by around 144 total delegates including superdelegates. So losing 10 drops his total to 134. Next up is North Carolina where he currently has a 15.7% lead (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nc/north_carolina_democratic_primary-275.html). That means that out of the 134 pledged delegates there, he could pick up around 20 more, erasing Hillary's gain of 10 and then adding 10 more to his lead putting him up by 154 delegates overall. Beyond that, there are no big delegate states left. So Hillary is done. She can't win unless Obama makes a mistake like coming out saying that white people are the devil and he likes kidnapping and cooking up babies for dinner. Short of that, this nomination race is over.

gambit

04-22-2008, 05:46 PM

gambit

04-22-2008, 05:47 PM

King of Snake

04-23-2008, 01:59 AM

well, as was predicted, Clinton seems to have won the state by 10 points, 55% to 45% for Obama.

"Because of you, the tide is turning." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7359957.stm)

of course, there doesn't really seem to be any more tide to be turned since Pennsylvania was the last big state.
Unless she now suddenly starts winning all the other states with decisive numbers, but as Sean pointed out that's not very likely with Obama well in the lead for N-Carolina.

Deckard

04-23-2008, 02:53 AM

yup ...which doubtless she knows, of course.

Some interesting thoughts from another BBC piece...

"One of the things that makes Mrs Clinton so psychologically fascinating is her tendency to portray everthing in terms of conflict and confrontation.

And one of the characteristics that makes her so interesting politically is that she is a much better candidate when things are going badly than when they are going well."

...and on the strategy she's adopting...

"The big question of course, is just what Mrs Clinton's strategy in all this really might be.

Does she think that if things are not settled before the party's summer nominating conference in Denver that she will somehow simply emerge victorious from a knock-em-down, drag-em-out fight on the convention floor?

Or does she believe that it might yet be settled behind closed doors between the party bigwigs who are long term investors in the Clinton brand?

Or is it something cruder? The belief that if you simply hang in there long enough, and the race is close enough, then something might emerge to trip your opponent?

My view is that it is a little of all three, but mainly the last point, the belief that events can trip up even the most sure-footed of candidates."

Obama just needs to watch himself - the Clinton camp have shown themselves to be adept at stunts and traps.

Strangelet

04-23-2008, 09:00 AM

Obama just needs to watch himself - the Clinton camp have shown themselves to be adept at stunts and traps.

This "bitter-gate" thing. I think we saw cultural stupidity of historical proportions, folks. 99% of the news pundits I watched either couldn't grasp the truth of it, or just decided to go along with clinton's case that the comments were offensive and elitist. Combined with 99% of Obama surrogates who took a defensive, guilty stance, and Obama's own rambling incoherent rebutttal at the debate. It all added up to Clinton's strategy of combing through obama comments, finding one that could be spinned as a wedge issue for the demographics of the current primary state, and running with it.

So hopefully Obama and his surrogates will be able to respond with more certainty. Because the inability to respond to something so spectacularly stupid just adds to the stupidity.

As it is I can't watch the news these days.

Sean

04-23-2008, 11:27 AM

Agreed. The thing that's bugged me about the news coverage on all of this is that there's been very little factual reporting, but tons of editorializing. Every "news" show on CNN is nothing more than a panel of Clinton and Obama supporters simply spouting their own campaign's rhetoric, and the news-people don't call them on any of the spin, half-truths or outright lies they tell.

And some of the same people are saying Hillary's low on money so she'll be in big trouble because she won't be able to get her message out, but she has tons of free opportunities through the "news" to say whatever she wants.

And all that being said, she won Pennsylvania with 55% of the vote and picked up 14 pledged delegates last night. In order to overtake Obama, she needed to win every remaining state with 65% support, especially Pannsylvania. So coming in 10 percentage points shy of what she needed in the largest remaining state means that while she won the battle last night, she looks to have decisively lost the war for the nomination. And once North Carolina comes in as the win it likely will for Obama, the numbers against her will become even more impossible. Add the results of an extremely close race in Indiana where they'll likely split the delegates pretty evenly, and she'll need to win the following, final states with something ridiculous like 85% or more of the popular vote in each.

And Obama got another superdelegate today, the Governor of Oklahoma. So much for turning the tide...

stimpee

04-23-2008, 12:32 PM

Strangelet

04-23-2008, 12:56 PM

Sean

04-23-2008, 12:56 PM

Americans deserve "a president who doesn't quit" eh? what, even when the numbers are so bloody obvious that its stupid to carry on? Clinton gained 14 votes over Obama. 80 to 66. Big deal. 10 states left i think. Mathematically possible but highly unlikely. lets hope she gets some sense soon. or runs out of money.What I loved about the "President who doesn't quit" quote is that I agree with her. We do deserve a President who doesn't quit. Unfortunately for Hillary though, she simply won't be the next President, so she should really feel free to quit any time she likes.....

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann summed it up pretty well today (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04232008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/too_little__too_late_107751.htm).

"Hillary Clinton refuses to die. Having been given up for dead after losing Iowa, she rebounded in New Hampshire. Then a string of 11 straight consecutive losses - followed by a win in Ohio and a tie (in delegates) in Texas. Now, she's won Pennsylvania.

Problem is, it doesn't mean anything."

Strangelet

04-23-2008, 02:00 PM

Awesome!! we may see a john edwards endorsement of Obama within days

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/edwards-backers-team-up-with-obama/

BeautifulBurnout

04-23-2008, 02:47 PM

Awesome!! we may see a john edwards endorsement of Obama within days

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/edwards-backers-team-up-with-obama/

Well that's encouraging. I had to turn the radio off this morning when Hillz came on. I am disappointed that, once again, sharp tactics seem to be winning over sincerity.

I really do have a bad feeling about all this now. Meh. :(

Jason Roth

04-23-2008, 03:10 PM

Awesome!! we may see a john edwards endorsement of Obama within days

This should have happened 2 months and $100,000,000 ago.

Sean

04-23-2008, 03:14 PM

Well that's encouraging. I had to turn the radio off this morning when Hillz came on. I am disappointed that, once again, sharp tactics seem to be winning over sincerity.

I really do have a bad feeling about all this now. Meh. :(Don't have a bad feeling. Hillary's tactics are working with older voters who are less inclined towards the idea of "change". Pennsylvania has the second largest population of people who are 65+ in the country - that's largely what was behind her win there. It'll be spun by Clinton's camp as much more than it is, because it's absolutely too little too late for her. She's still behind on all fronts, and has no logical way to catch up. She even needs two thirds of the remaining superdelegates, her last hope, to overtake Obama, and in the past couple months, he's been getting around 80% of the superdelegates who decide to support one candidate or the other. Hell, he got another one this morning - edit - ...and a second superdelegate this afternoon (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/23/obama-camp-announces-another-superdelegate/).

Fear not, young Janie. :D

Strangelet

04-23-2008, 04:56 PM

Actually I'm not too confident either. Cllinton seems to have both the media and the GOP firmly behind her. All of a sudden North Carolina is completely uninteresting to the media and Indiana is the new tie breaker, all based on Clinton logic. The GOP is also running anti obama ads featuring Rev Wright, even against the wishes of McCain.

I really don't think I'm being paranoid to suggest there are some very powerful people who have decided they've had enough of the Obama movement.

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-23-2008, 10:25 PM

I really don't think I'm being paranoid to suggest there are some very powerful people who have decided they've had enough of the Obama movement.

As well as very powerful spin c*xsters.

I prefer to be optimistic and view this as The Democratic Party having two very influential figures who have a desire to lead.

Deckard

04-24-2008, 09:45 AM

I think these videos are fairly well done, although too heavy handed towards fox news whereas it seems all news networks are complicit in this political narration.

Anyhoo, this is what the american voting audience is subjected to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8SZvWzP58s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8SZvWzP58s)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjvNSpsPu1k
Oh good god, I've just got around to watching these.

I had no idea it had become this bad! Seriously, words can't express how much anger I feel about the level of stupidity swishing around here.

In the richest nation on earth... what is going wrong???

(and no, we're not hugely better over here either, in fact we're headed point blank in the same direction as you if our broadcasting codes of conduct/media ownership rules are further "liberalized" as is planned by the Tories in the name of "opportunity", but that's another topic.)

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

04-24-2008, 09:51 AM

Oh good god, I've just got around to watching these.

I had no idea it had become this bad! Seriously, words can't express how much anger I feel about the level of stupidity swishing around here.

In the richest nation on earth... what is going wrong???

(and no, we're not hugely better over here either, in fact we're headed point blank in the same direction as you if our broadcasting codes of conduct/media ownership rules are further "liberalized" as is planned by the Tories in the name of "opportunity", but that's another topic.)

Last I checked, it's a thing called greed.

BeautifulBurnout

04-24-2008, 09:58 AM

Something the law geek in me stumbled over while looking at links and comments in relation to Hillz... linky to legal pleadings (http://www.paulvclinton.com/pp_complaint_022504_njw.pdf). (Starts to get interesting at around para 70)

Why is no-one talking about this lawsuit taken out against the Clintons and their fundraisers by Peter F. Paul, the guy who organised the Hollywood Tribute to the Clintons in 2000 costing him more than £1.9 million as well as donating to Hillz' campaign in NY, on the basis that Bill would be an ambassador for his company when he left office? When The Washington Post revealed that Paul had a criminal record from the 70s, Hillz was very quick to lie her ass off regarding his contributions. (Paras 79 et seq.)

If his complaint is to be believed, he was further coerced that his plans to work with the President wouldn't "work out" unless he made a further contribution that he had pledged, of $150.000 in stock. (para 87)

These are just highlights, but needless to say Clinton never kept his promise of a working relationship with Paul on leaving office. And Hillz never declared his £1.9 million "in-kind" contribution to the Federal Election committee, although she did declare a fictitious £366k or so from Stan Lee Inc, Paul's associate company, which never happened. (Para 106 & 107)

This is the first time I have ever heard about this at all during the Presidential campaign. I can understand the Obama camp not wanting to get into the ole mud slinging contest, but McCain is going to have this woman on toast for breakfast if the Democrats are stupid enough to select her. Seriously.

Sean

04-24-2008, 11:41 AM

Sean

04-24-2008, 05:49 PM

The Daily Show really skewered Hillary yesterday (http://www.spike.com/video/2974551?cmpnid=716&pt=sr&refsite=7103). Especially starting at -3:50...

BeautifulBurnout

04-25-2008, 02:05 PM

The Daily Show really skewered Hillary yesterday (http://www.spike.com/video/2974551?cmpnid=716&pt=sr&refsite=7103). Especially starting at -3:50...

Absolutely hilarious - and spot-on, too :D

Strangelet

04-27-2008, 04:28 PM

BeautifulBurnout

04-27-2008, 04:45 PM

I'm sorry. I can't watch this kind of porn. Makes me barf after only a minute.

Sean

04-28-2008, 12:39 PM

Oh Hillary I love you smooch smooch smooch. Oh Fox News! smooch smooch I'm going to cream my pant suit!! smooch smooch. Hey what do you say we just... uh... turn off the cameras and continue this circle jerk more privately....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV4VyYWUW8kThey were positively giddy! Since when has Fox News been such a fan of hers, giving her every opportunity to push her rhetorical talking points, and even pushing brand new false stories about Obama for her? I guess since they realized Obama could actually beat McCain maybe?

Well maybe this will make you feel better (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2008/04/obama_on_fox_news_sunday.html). It's Obama on Fox yesterday....they certainly didn't fawn over him like the giggly blonde did with Clinton, but I think he did a good job. I just like that Obama is more of a direct talker - he answers with substance versus flat out rhetoric like Hillary was doing in the clip you posted, Strangelet.

And I stand by my assertion that what we're seeing from Clinton is nothing more than the final grasps at tiny, weak straws by her campaign. The press just loves to drag it out and make it sound tighter than it is because it's good for ratings. After the next primaries a week from tomorrow, Clinton will have lost any momentum she just gained in Pennsylvania, and she'll have no more significant opportunities to get it back.

BeautifulBurnout

04-28-2008, 01:50 PM

Interesting analysis on the Beeb website today about Hillz' claim to the popular vote.

It's the maths, stupid! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7371367.stm)

Strangelet

05-04-2008, 06:28 PM

Pressed to name an economist who supports her plan to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that commuters, truck drivers and other gas customers know it would make a difference.

All those economists are for elitists :rolleyes:

cacophony

05-04-2008, 07:36 PM

18 cents a gallon is not a plan. 18 cents is nothing.

here's what i want to know about the gas prices. gas prices rise when the price of oil rises. the price of oil has been rising because of speculation. there's no change in supply, there's just as much gas as ever. but a bunch of dickweed investors are speculating and driving the price per barrel up.

now, something like two weeks ago congress held a special meeting about food prices, which are rising similarly. the concern was specifically about commodities like wheat. the reason they held the meeting was to determine whether there really was a real reason for the rising price of wheat, or whether speculation was driving it up.

why is it okay for speculation to drive up the price of gas, but not food? more pointedly, why is it okay for the price of ANYTHING to hinge on the speculation of dickweed investors? is it such a crazy notion that things should be priced according to availability? supply and demand?

our whole economy dangles by two threads: china and wall street.

i want ONE of the candidates to address this. i want someone to just say, "the gas tax isn't the issue. the issue is speculation." i feel like none of the candidates really get what the problem is as long as no one addresses that. we're all paying more because of speculation. why is that okay? SOMEONE address that.

Troy McClure

05-07-2008, 03:17 AM

Senator Obama won North Carolina pretty convincingly tonight, 56% to 42%. Senator Clinton won Indiana 51 to 49. I'm guessing the total delegate count from Tuesday is going to be about 100 for Obama and 87 for Clinton. I don't expect Clinton to quit, but her only reasonable hope is that Obama screws up beyond repair.

There's also talk of her going the 'Nuclear Option' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/04/clinton-camp-considering_n_100051.html) route.

Regarding the speculation issue for food prices, maybe the candidates would appear weak if there isn't a singular concrete reason to blame high prices when speaking to an audience? Their opponents would try to exploit that. I'm just throwing anything out there, and probably am not making sense.

cacophony

05-07-2008, 08:30 AM

if clinton wins the nomination by fair counting of all primary votes (excluding simply seating michigan and florida without a re-vote) then i'll support her campaign in the fall. if she seeks a loophole and uses divisive, shady methods to win the nomination i will vote for john mccain without apology or crisis of conscience.

i will not support a candidate whose only path to victory is to use underhanded and shrill methods.

personally i don't think michigan and florida should have been omitted from the primary season and i hold howard dean ultimately responsible if these shenanigans end up costing the democrats the white house. but the situation being what it is, hillary did not win those two states by fair and equal campaigning. she was, essentially, the only option as far as both states were concerned. had they been included in the normal primary season it's not unlikely that she may have ultimately taken the majority of votes, but it is highly unlikely she would have swept all delegates the way she is claiming to have done.

Strangelet

05-07-2008, 09:33 AM

i will not support a candidate whose only path to victory is to use underhanded and shrill methods.

Right but there seems to be a clear cut argument that this is already the case. at least the path to a close second place. The exit polling showed a dominant majority of voters think Hillary has "unfairly" attacked Obama. I'm not sure what benefit it is to wait and see how she's going to use the Rules Committee meeting on May 31st to lock her nomination against her deficit of delegates, to decide her method is shrill and underhanded to a degree that her presidency could be considered dangerous to the country.

I mean we know what she's going to do. Why decide if she's electable based on whether or not she gets away with it? Again I'm talking to the general democratic voter, here, not you cacophony.

BeautifulBurnout

05-07-2008, 10:28 AM

Wondering why Hillz cancelled all her breakfast tv interview spots this morning. Is it a sign that reality has punched her on the nose so she will pay attention to it? :confused:

I dunno. Her "victory" speech last night was kind of bizarre - on the one hand she was talking about being on the road to the Whitehouse... doesn't seem to be the same road we are looking at somehow but hey... but... BUT... for the first time she seemed to acknowledge that she might not be the candidate and talked of rallying round whomever is selected.

Even with her so-called "nuclear option" of Florida and Michigan, it is unclear how even she can claim to have the people's mandate somehow.

Sean

05-07-2008, 10:31 AM

It's just a relief to have the media and everyone else finally off the back of the Obama campaign for a bit. Last night was exactly what he needed. A big night to kill that false perception that was being pushed of Hillary maybe having some kind of big comeback.

I won't be surprised to see her stay in through June, but there's really no justification left for Hillary to keep campaigning against Obama. The Republicans are showing signs of weakness ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10138.html ), and if Hillary had any real concern for the Democratic party, she'd bow out now and throw her support behind Obama to get maximum benefit from the current situation.

But I don't believe for a second that she'll do that. She'll stay in and offer only one lingering contribution - making it harder for Obama to win the general election by continuing to try to raise questions about his electability, and blaming him for Michigan and Florida.

Strangelet

05-07-2008, 11:40 AM

Wondering why Hillz cancelled all her breakfast tv interview spots this morning. Is it a sign that reality has punched her on the nose so she will pay attention to it? :confused:

Good question. Thought about that myself this morning. I don't for a minute believe the decision was based on an emotional response to last night's events. Its more believable that there is some strategy at play. She's too much in control of herself.

What is she avoiding? My best guess is she doesn't want to be asked how she can possibly win at this point, and be forced to give the honest answer that she can still win by strong arming the dnc rules and regulations.

This thing has to be pitched, marketed and sold, presented in a controlled way, not through ad hoc questioning but by a staged press conference.

cacophony

05-07-2008, 11:50 AM

Right but there seems to be a clear cut argument that this is already the case. at least the path to a close second place.

i guess that's sort of my argument. if they find a way to fairly hold a revote for michigan and florida and she still comes out ahead and that tips the balance and puts her in first, i might consider supporting her campaign post-nomination.

but we know that's not going to happen. howard dean is going to dig the hole deeper and there's no good solution. so her only way to come out ahead is to be subversive. which means the only way she can come out ahead in a realistic scenario will be to do the things i refuse to support.

and therefore john mccain will have my vote.

i suppose the simpler thing would have been to post, "obama is the clear front runner, if he doesn't get the nomination i'll vote mccain." but why be simple when you can be convoluted?

cacophony

05-07-2008, 11:53 AM

...if Hillary had any real concern for the Democratic party...

ah, there's the rub.

Sean

05-07-2008, 01:40 PM

ah, there's the rub.Yep....unfortunately.

And of course Hillary replaced those cancelled morning interviews with a speech at a college (I think) in West Virginia. When my wife said from the other room that Hillary was about to speak, I had a brief moment where I thought "wait...she cancelled all her morning appearances...is she gonna drop out of the race right now?" I went and watched until it was clear that she wasn't dropping out, and then I stopped watching.

And as I'm sure everyone's seen, Hillary loaned her campaign another 6.5 million dollars recently (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90GU9C00&show_article=1).

And they're saying that it looks like Obama's picking up at least 4 superdelegates today (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i23h4XqvR0Ph96aWYyZ4PgI54YCwD90GU9VG0), including Jennifer McClellan of Virginia, who used to support Clinton.

And lastly, Hillary now says she'll stay in the race "until there's a nominee" (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Clinton_In_until_theres_a_nominee.html#comments). That's a positive change from saying she'll stay in through the convention.

All in all, a good day for Obama supporters.

cacophony

05-07-2008, 03:01 PM

most of the democratic party leaders are starting to put internal pressure on the campaigns. rahm emanuel (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90245826) said on NPR this morning that he felt very strongly that there would be a candidate by the end of may. he had a peculiar firmness to his voice, too. without putting it in so many words the implication was that enough of the superdelegates agreed to not let it drag out into june.

he also said something interesting that i think was very targeted at clinton. he said, "the way the loser loses will determine how the winner wins." meaning, if the loser bows out gracefully and throws everything into uniting the party and backing the nominated candidate (and by this he meant by end of may, not by the convention) the democratic candidate will go into the general election strong. but if the loser continues to hang on and insist on dividing the party, the democrats will have no chance in november.

he was very neutral in his remarks but it felt very strongly like he was referring to clinton. perhaps that was wishful thinking, but he was basically saying michigan and florida just had to be let go because it wouldn't be resolved until the convention. take whoever is the winner in may and back that person. and in delegates and popular vote that's obama.

Sean

05-08-2008, 11:18 AM

And now Hillary is really pushing the divisive point that she has white support that Obama doesn't have. Here's an article on it (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/clinton-touts-white-support/), and here's an audio quote from Clinton herself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfidftLe5Z0) on it.

I had been thinking she should stay in the race as long as she wasn't doing anything destructive, but it's clear to me that she is incapable of that. No surprise really, but I'm now hoping beyond hope that the floodgates of superdelegates opens for Obama as soon as this gets more widely reported - which will probably be on all the cable election coverage shows this evening. We really don't need Hillary out there pushing divisive ideas like this, especially when we know it can't change the outcome of the nomination race.

EDIT: They finally decided on a way to seat Michigan (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24518437/).

Seems fair enough to me. And both campaigns are talking with Florida to solve that one too.

EDIT AGAIN: Whoa! Hillary's team has rejected the plan submitted by Michigan Democrats! (http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/hillary_campaign_says_no_to_ne.php) So now who's blocking the seating of their delegates?

I'm so sick of her on this issue. She keeps claiming that "we must let the voters of Florida and Michigan be heard", yet the entire concept that her continuing campaign is predicated on is to have superdelegates overturn the will of the voters of the entire country. How is it that no news organization is reporting that blatantly obvious, hypocritical point?

cacophony

05-08-2008, 04:49 PM

someone explain to me the logic behind the michigan delegate allocation. why the 10 delegate split? how did they decide on that?

i'm not agreeing with clinton at all, because frankly i don't think the delegates should be seated, but i don't really see how any realistic results correlate with what they came up with. i don't know, maybe i missed the explanation in the article.

also:
Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary and was to get 73 pledged delegates under state party rules, while Obama was to get 55. The state also has 29 superdelegates.

not bad for a guy who didn't campaign. that should say something for his electability, eh? and as someone born and raised in michigan, i can assure everyone that there's no overwhelming "elitist" population there to explain it away.

Strangelet

05-08-2008, 07:28 PM

someone explain to me the logic behind the michigan delegate allocation. why the 10 delegate split? how did they decide on that?

They got an ass and they pulled the number out of it.

If these things came from a computation it would be Clinton = 0, Obama = 0, based on the agreed upon rules, and anything different is a measurement on what it takes to shut certain people up.

It was very very stupid to rig this system up so that a state could ever endanger their own voting. I guess the DNC thought they could make the punishment insanely draconian assuming that states would read from it : just don't fucking go there and everyone is happy. The DNC probably never thought this would happen and the states probably never thought they wouldn't get away with it.

That's my hope.

Regardless, nobody is stupid enough to believe that Clinton, when she said this in her "open" letter to Barack Obama today,

I am asking you to join me in working with representatives from Florida and Michigan and the Democratic National Committee to arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan. It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.
...that she's so sincerely expressing a gut wrenching sympathy for stolen voices. And that her weeping and gnashing at the establishment's injustice towards the voters is only coincidental to her own demise within that establishment. I mean, what stopped her voicing this sympathy before super tuesday? MI and FL had just as much of a voice then as now. And the more frantic she pleads their case has *got* to strike dramatic contrast in people's minds the difference in her attitude back then versus now.

Sean

05-08-2008, 07:56 PM

Personally, I don't think Michigan has any grounds to seat any delegates for the reasons you guys stated. But since Hillary and so many others are whining about it, then I have no problem with the plan they presented based on the ass method Strangelet outlined. And hell, seat Florida too, because it won't change the outcome of the race, but it might shut some people up, and at this point, that's what I want is for people to shut the f@#k up.

At it's heart, I know Hillary doesn't give a rat's ass about the voters - we know that because she still wants superdelegates to vote counter to the will of the majority of voters. But I want her to go away, and this might help.

stimpee

05-09-2008, 08:43 AM

Looks like McCain has a crazy pastor too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZbIGJrDkg

Strangelet

05-09-2008, 09:08 AM

No this is ok. you can call islam the institution of the anti-christ, you just can't say that maybe somehow israel's actions and the american relationship with israel may have at some point contributed in some small way to 9/11

See the difference? The former is extreme but understandible, the latter is unpatriotic, anti-american, and worth media skewering.

cacophony

05-09-2008, 05:22 PM

god i love youtube comments. from the video link posted above:

The Communist Party of China has one dogma of religion denial from the establishment. An atheist denies relation with communism. However, atheists protect ignorantly in Chinese human-rights persecution and a true figure. Moreover, a Chinese propaganda agent praises an atheist.
I think that their religion denial is full of deception, and exposed the logic breakdown.

what

it makes me proud to be an american.

Sean

05-10-2008, 10:43 AM

:confused:

So the poster knows some words, but not how to use them I guess.

Deckard

05-10-2008, 02:04 PM

"My supporters are the dumbest fucks in the country, too stupid to punch a ballot with their fat little fingers"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Lstkiexhc
:D

(yes some of you will have seen the clip used before, but this one's particularly well done I thought ;) )

Btw, Sky news are now reporting that Obama now has more pledged superdelegates than Clinton...

Sean

05-10-2008, 04:39 PM

"My supporters are the dumbest fucks in the country, too stupid to punch a ballot with their fat little fingers"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Lstkiexhc
:DThat is absolutely brilliant. Some of the best writing I've seen.

Btw, Sky news are now reporting that Obama now has more pledged superdelegates than Clinton...That seems to be the consensus (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080510/D90J0A7O0.html). It appears he has 275 to Hillary's 271.5. So now she's losing in every way, even if you count Michigan and Florida. Delegates (which are what the nomination process is based on), popular vote, number of states won, and superdelegates. Pretty hard to argue that you're the stronger candidate when you're the loser on every single front possible.

I know she'll win West Virginia and try to claim some sort of momentum from it, but at this point, it will change nothing. She's done, and everyone knows it except for her.

cacophony

05-11-2008, 08:44 AM

she knows it. she's just grappling with her pride at this point. or, from what i've read, bill's pride. apparently he takes her presidential bid as a commentary on his own presidency and he's almost as driven to force her success as she is.

i wish i understood what was going on in her head. at this point the math can't possibly work out in her favor. the only way it could ever work was if delegates started wholesale rejecting the voter allocation and superdelegates started flooding back to her side. yet somehow she's convinced that she's serving some purpose by staying in.

Sean

05-11-2008, 09:38 PM

West Virginia putting it's best foot forward...

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station...

...which goes along nicely with this a couple paragraphs later...

500 people...crammed into the Williamson Fire Department building on Friday to attend a rally by Bill Clinton, the former president. He told them his wife represented “people like you, in places like this”

Way to go, West Virginia. :rolleyes:

Oh....and I have to paste this paragraph too...

Most people questioned said they mistrusted Mr Obama because of doubts about his patriotism and “values”, stemming from his cosmopolitan background, his exotic name and the controversy surrounding “anti-American” sermons by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Several people said they believed he was a Muslim – an unfounded rumour that has circulated on the internet for months – despite the contradiction with his 20-year membership of Mr Wright’s church in Chicago. Others mentioned his refusal to wear a Stars and Stripes badge and controversial remarks by his wife, Michelle, who described America as “mean” and implied that she had never been proud of the US until her husband ran for president.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a50425a-1f86-11dd-9216-000077b07658,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1

Deckard

05-12-2008, 01:59 AM

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station...
People this stupid deserve Hillary as president.

They really do.

Sean

05-12-2008, 10:42 AM

People this stupid deserve Hillary as president.

They really do.They really do, and it makes me sad. It's always discouraging to have the worst elements of your society highlighted in front of the whole world.

cacophony

05-12-2008, 04:29 PM

i love how the media has now jumped on the "crucial" west virginia and kentucky support. yes, because two states populated by backwoods hill people with no education and no better prospects than the coal mine should be the litmus test for a candidate's success nation-wide.

i'm sorry, did that sound like a harsh assessment of west virginia and kentucky? i stand by it. wastelands, both of them.

Sean

05-13-2008, 09:39 AM

So I've just seen a couple of stunning articles. First up (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014_pf.html) is one that gives examples like these:

In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

and...

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

and...

Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

And yet the Obama campaign has chosen to respond like this:

The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."
Ray McCormick was notified of the incident at about 2:45 a.m. A farmer and conservationist, McCormick had erected a giant billboard on a major highway on behalf of Farmers for Obama. He also was housing the Obama campaign worker manning the office. When McCormick arrived at the office, about two hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera and wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was told Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident.

And all of this while Hillary has actually complained about sexism in the campaign. Quite a difference in character displayed by the way they've each handled their challenges.

And meanwhile, here's a new Obama t-shirt that's been put out:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2008/05/13/88686180_obama.html

So when Hillary's out proudly bragging about her overwhelming support from uneducated whites who earn less than $50,000 annually, I feel pretty certain that I know who the majority of this demographic really is. As far as I'm concerned, Hillary can have 'em.

mmm skyscraper

05-13-2008, 11:26 AM

And meanwhile, here's a new Obama t-shirt that's been put out:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2008/05/13/88686180_obama.html

The shirt is probably a reference to this incident:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/limbaugh-caller.html

Strangelet

05-13-2008, 11:54 AM

yes, rush limbaugh is not even trying to hide his racism anymore, as can be seen by this video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvXz2xaLNMQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvXz2xaLNMQ&eurl=http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=barack+the+magic+negro&hl=en&sitesearch=)

its one of the good things about this election. All the bigots are getting sifted out of the sand like glowing nuggets of gold for the world to see as they really are. (yes sean hannity I'm talking about you). So we gots names and addresses. Step 2 is the coast to coast tour of the happy magical sterilization van.

Sean

05-13-2008, 12:37 PM

And here's something interesting from an interview on FOX News today with Clinton's campaign chairman (http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/mcauliffe-says-media-in-the-tank-for-obama-2008-05-13.html). Read through to the last paragraph - that's where the best bit is:

Terry McAuliffe, campaign chairman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), said Tuesday that the former first lady is hamstrung by a biased media.

“Clearly it has been a biased media, no question about it,” McAuliffe said on Fox News. When asked how much of the mainstream media is “in the tank” for Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who leads Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, McAuliffe estimated that about 90 percent of the media favor Obama.

“It is what it is. We’re not complaining,” he stated. “We have to deal with the hand we’re dealt with.”

McAuliffe added that “every independent study has said that this is the most biased coverage they’ve ever seen in a presidential campaign.”

He also praised Fox News, which is often viewed as a conservative media outlet, as “one of the most responsible in this presidential campaign.”

So Hillary's campaign has basically turned to racists and Fox News as arguments in an attempt to keep her campaign viable. If you had asked me a year ago who Hillary Clinton of all people would be courting for support in the nomination race now, I can't say I would have ever seen that coming.

King of Snake

05-13-2008, 05:53 PM

she and her campaign seem to be going from bad to worse :(

Deckard

05-13-2008, 06:33 PM

It's always discouraging to have the worst elements of your society highlighted in front of the whole world.
I don't think too many people will judge the whole of America like that, at least no-one with half a brain.

That Washington Press piece you linked to is truly depressing though. A year or so ago, when I first heard people asking "Is America ready to elect its first black president?" I laughed at what I thought to be the quaint patronising tone of the question. Of course it is! This is America! But more and more I'm starting to wonder just how prevalent that kind of outlook really is, and the role it might play come election time. Certainly in those states anyway. I really can't get my head around the kind of primitive mindset it takes to think like that. I mean, don't these people go see the odd Denzel Washington movie, watch Oprah, listen to black artists, read up on American history? Or is it a reaction against certain aspects of modern black culture? I'm not saying the cultural zeitgeist rids every last nook and cranny of bigotry, of course it doesn't. But this level of ignorance, in this day and age? Clearly I need to get out of my liberal circle a bit more! (A circle that's based in the most economically deprived and traditional heartlands of the Welsh valleys, with few non-white faces other than my partner, I might add..!)

Sarcasmo

05-14-2008, 12:19 AM

I don't think too many people will judge the whole of America like that, at least no-one with half a brain.

That Washington Press piece you linked to is truly depressing though. A year or so ago, when I first heard people asking "Is America ready to elect its first black president?"

It still is. While the Post has done it's job of digging up some truly reprehensible people, it can still be attributed to that noisy and troublesome 10%. I haven't been stumping for Obama, but I haven't run into that kind of vehemence, and I work for the military. What it does show you is just how critical the brain drain is in this country. People are pathetically undereducated, and all of our "news" outlets are part of the problem.

And cacophony, West Virginia and Kentucky both have wonderful forests and camping and hiking as attractions. Not that I'm on the tourism council, but if we moved all the people out of those states, West Virginia and Kentucky would be cool places to live.

Sean

05-14-2008, 11:19 AM

Well, Clinton wins West Virginia by a huge margin last night, and Obama still picks up two more superdelegates this morning:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90LEC081&show_article=1

"Obama has picked up about 30 superdelegates in the last week, altogether a bigger prize than West Virginia offered either candidate in the lopsided primary."

That was pretty much the last hurdle as far as I can tell - how people would react to a big Clinton win in West Virginia. Looks like it made no difference to the people who remain in a position to influence the outcome of the nomination race.

I feel so relaxed right now. :)

Deckard

05-14-2008, 01:43 PM

Me too.

It's hard to think what else she could now pull out the bag (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/) to turn this around.

(I know I know.... may have been genuine.... )

Strangelet

05-14-2008, 02:57 PM

Me too.

It's hard to think what else she could now pull out the bag (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/) to turn this around.

(I know I know.... may have been genuine.... )

See I'm sure it was sincere (parts at least) but the fact that its questionable is what is tragic about clinton.

Deckard

05-14-2008, 03:59 PM

"I confirm the endorsement (of John Edwards)," Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed to reporters.

:)

Troy McClure

05-14-2008, 04:01 PM

This just came through the interwebs:

Edwards to endorse Obama (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/edwards.obama/index.html)

I think it also means Senator Obama would get Edwards' 19 pledged delegates, too?

Sean

05-14-2008, 04:49 PM

cacophony

05-14-2008, 06:38 PM

i don't know whether the link above was intentionally linked to this story or not. since the comments are about "she" i have to assume the content updated. this is what i just read:

CNN) – Barack Obama has personally apologized to a Michigan television reporter for referring to her as "sweetie" as she tried to ask a question. The comment came earlier Wednesday when WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar asked Obama at a campaign stop, “How are you going to help the American auto workers?”
Obama told Agar to "hold on, sweetie," and said he would address that issue with her later. Agar said she never got an answer to her question.
According to WXYZ (http://www.wxyz.com/news/story.aspx?content_id=13d1f66a-488b-46d3-9d3b-6632e0a8f1f7), Obama personally left a voice message for Agar Wednesday afternoon, apologizing for both not answering the question and for calling her "sweetie."
"That's a bad habit of mine," Obama said in the message. "I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.
"Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next," he added.
Obama also took some heat in Pennsylvania last month for referring to a factory worker as "sweetie."

i've got to admit, this is a pretty goddamned big blemish, in my opinion. i have a range of hot button issues but if i were to have one big, round, shiny master button, this would be it.

it speaks volumes about a man when he speaks in such a diminishing way to a woman. i've got a serious problem with this.

Sean

05-15-2008, 11:45 AM

i don't know whether the link above was intentionally linked to this story or not. since the comments are about "she" i have to assume the content updated. this is what i just read:

i've got to admit, this is a pretty goddamned big blemish, in my opinion. i have a range of hot button issues but if i were to have one big, round, shiny master button, this would be it.

it speaks volumes about a man when he speaks in such a diminishing way to a woman. i've got a serious problem with this.I can understand the "hot button" aspect of it, but at it's core, I have to say that I feel it's unreflective of who he really is. Nothing in Obama's actual treatment of women indicates he in any way views them as inferior. For example, I doubt he would have been able to marry a woman as strong and intelligent as Michelle Obama if he had some kind of latent, sexist tendencies. I would agree however that it would be a good idea for him to try to break the habit of using a word like "sweetie" for exactly the reasons you cite. Although I don't believe for a second that he's a misogynist, I do believe it's a poor choice of words. Luckily, he appears to recognize and acknowledge this in his comments.

That aside, here's a great example of how Hillary's continuing strategy of questioning Obama's qualifications has been a big mistake. Even in an article about how she thinks her supporters should absolutely vote for Obama if he's the nominee, here's the sinkhole of crap she's created:

In response to Clinton's comments, Republican National Committee Spokesman Alex Conant issued a statement:
"Just as Sen. Clinton herself has questioned Obama's qualifications to be president and enact change, so do many of her supporters."

Way to go, Hill.

Also, Cacaphony, your guy is in the news today saying that statements made by Bush this morning are "bullshit":

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/15/biden-calls-bush-comments-bulls-t/

I say Biden for VP.

And lastly, Obama has picked up four more superdelegates this morning, as well as at least six of John Edward's eight pledged delegates from South Carolina.

Strangelet

05-15-2008, 12:05 PM

Sean

05-15-2008, 12:27 PM

Speaking of women's issues....

Try getting through a couple comments left on the NARAL website after the women's rights group threw their support towards obama. Hell hath no fury....

http://www.blogforchoice.com/archives/2008/05/naral-prochoice-6.html#comments

yikes! :eek:Daaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnn!! :eek:

The last comment on there is pretty solid though (By Kayly Newcomer on May 15, 2008 2:16 PM).

BeautifulBurnout

05-15-2008, 01:54 PM

it speaks volumes about a man when he speaks in such a diminishing way to a woman. i've got a serious problem with this.

Sorry I completely disagree. What a bunch of stuff over nothing! I have an unfortunate habit of calling people "love", "darling" or "sweetie", whether they are male or female, gay, hetero or transexual in casual chat (Eddy from AbFab, eat yer heart out :p). It is nothing to do with diminishing them in any way, but simply a linguistic tick.

Sometimes it can slip out when, if I had thought about it better, I would have realised that it was a tad over-familiar or innappropriate. But when that does happen it is usually when I am feeling in a "comfortable" position with someone.

And as for the harridans on the Blog for Choice, they need to stop wearing their sexism quite so blatantly on their sleeves. (Especially the moron who referred to Obama as "O Hussein B", who will take out a harassment suit against NARAL if a fundraiser ever calls her again. WTF? ) I am so bored with the "a woman need a man like a fish needs a bicycle" militant tendency now. The only woman Prime Minister we had in this country did absolutely NOTHING to advance the cause for ordinary working women. The predominant changes in sexual equality and freedom of choice happened under male PM's and predominantly male cabinets.

Things have moved on since the 70s, sisters. No need to keep rattling the bars on your cages of patriarchal opression - the doors were blown wide open years ago, if you opened your eyes wide enough to take a look...

Deckard

05-15-2008, 03:36 PM

I can understand why some people would find it annoying Cacophony, infuriating even. It's not a good way to speak.

Whether he really is the kind of person to view women in that demeaning way, I'm not so sure. I see nothing else that points to that, and it would seem at odds with what I know about him. Language is frequently formed by habit (itself informed by culture) rather than a direct reflection of those views. I'm not excusing that habit, and I don't dispute that he was wrong to use it - but neither am I sure we can be so quick to assume that it "speaks volumes" about him.

Occasionally phrasing things in a way likely to offend can indeed be indicative of that person's true attitude - but not always. Sometimes it just betrays clumsiness, laziness or - as he said - a bad habit. Sometimes a certain word is just more rife in a certain culture where it doesn't generally offend as much as its roots might suggest. His apology was swift and gracious, though no doubt we could argue over whether it was strategic or genuine (my guess: both), but I'm certainly not going to jump to any conclusions about his attitude to women from this single habit.

(Btw with all the excitement surrounding his candidacy, I'm aware of the danger of idolising him so much that we turn a blind eye to his faults. I consciously try to avoid that and I don't believe I'm doing it in my judgment of him here)

King of Snake

05-15-2008, 03:41 PM

Troy McClure

05-15-2008, 05:59 PM

Well to some people, he might as well have said ho or worse. It is something that Senator Obama needs to change about himself because perception about his personality is under a bigger microscope as each passing day goes by.

I'm not sure that any 'big' endorsement carries as much weight now as it would have a few months ago. They want to be associated with a front-runner just as much as the next group.

Jason

Strangelet

05-15-2008, 07:18 PM

Welllllll....

I don't think obama passed any woman up for a raise, and I don't think obama ever told a woman their opinions didn't matter because of their gender, or even treat them with condescension.

I understand "Sweetie" has a tone of condescension, and that words and language are impregnated with culture and their philosophy, but you can take all the "man" out of woman and trade every a for a y, its still not necessary nor sufficient for equal rights for women. I think everyone needs to understand that asap.

Strangelet

05-16-2008, 08:42 AM

Deckard

05-16-2008, 10:35 AM

I wish I could come up with a phrase like words and language are impregnated with culture and their philosophy
when I'm drunk. :D

Sean

05-16-2008, 11:56 AM

I wish I could come up with a phrase like
when I'm drunk. :DHe's such a show-off.
;)

cacophony

05-16-2008, 04:57 PM

I say Biden for VP.

absolutely. the dude's awesome.

Sorry I completely disagree. What a bunch of stuff over nothing! I have an unfortunate habit of calling people "love", "darling" or "sweetie", whether they are male or female, gay, hetero or transexual in casual chat (Eddy from AbFab, eat yer heart out :p). It is nothing to do with diminishing them in any way, but simply a linguistic tick.

one man's meat is another man's poison. that's cool if it doesn't bother you. it bothers me. no amount of "i do it too" is going to make it okay in my mind. and i'm sorry if it makes me a sexist pig but it's a much different matter when a woman says it than when a man says it to a woman.

it's never okay to address an adult woman in terms you might use to address a child. never okay.

cacophony

05-16-2008, 04:58 PM

pff what's wrong with calling someone "sweetie"?!
It's not like he was calling here ho or bitch :rolleyes:
Ok it may have been a tad too "affectionate" for the occasion but I mean come on.. "sweetie"? Is that really so bad?

what's wrong with calling someone nigger or spic or fag?

you don't get to determine what someone else finds offensive, particularly when you don't belong to the group in question. sorry, life's not fair that way.

BeautifulBurnout

05-16-2008, 06:13 PM

LOL this post brought to you by 4 shots of scotch.... what pap... I mean, even more than usual

Ahahah! Thank f00k for that. Cos I really did wonder if it was just me not really understanding what the f00k you were on about :p

BeautifulBurnout

05-16-2008, 06:17 PM

what's wrong with calling someone nigger or spic or fag?

you don't get to determine what someone else finds offensive, particularly when you don't belong to the group in question. sorry, life's not fair that way.

I am sorry if I offend here, but now you are being silly. NO WAY is calling a woman (or anyone else) a sweetie anywhere near in the same league as calling someone a n.... (can't even bring my self to type that word) a spic or a fag. Period.

Deckard

05-16-2008, 06:26 PM

There's obviously some sort of general consensus on severity of offence, though, isn't there Cacophony? If Obama had said "bitch" instead of "sweetie" I'm sure we'd all agree that that would have been worse.

I've known people who have been offended by the word "madam". As you say, we don't get to determine what someone else finds offensive.

Incidentally, I don't remember the last time anyone called me fag and just said it out of habit, and meant no disrespect. Can you imagine Obama being confronted by a gay reporter and saying "Just a second, fag!" :D

Is that your point - that you think the consensus is wrong or unfair?

Sean

05-16-2008, 06:44 PM

what's wrong with calling someone nigger or spic or fag?Well those are inherently derogatory labels. The sole intent behind those words are to insult someone - unless you're a rapper. "Sweetie" is, at it's foundation, a term of endearment. My wife and I call each other sweetie on occasion. So these comparisons aren't appropriate.

you don't get to determine what someone else finds offensive, particularly when you don't belong to the group in question. sorry, life's not fair that way. That's absolutely true, but I would also add that if you know your reaction to a word like this is particularly strong based on your own personal pet peeves, then shouldn't you also acknowledge that the person who says it doesn't necessarily deserve the full brunt of your frustrations? I'm having trouble articulating what I'm thinking here, so here's a simplistic analogy to clarify. Say the color green just pisses me off. I hate green with all my soul. If I see someone wearing green, I'm not exactly justified in running up to them and cussing them out over it, because my problem with green is just that - it's MY problem with green. They didn't know I hated green with a passion, and I shouldn't expect them to know it. And I also shouldn't conclude that they're an asshole because they wore the color I hate.

I know the analogy's imperfect but am I getting the point across okay? Again, I can see where it's the wrong choice of words on Obama's part, so I'm not saying this is only your problem and he can say whatever he wants. But it's clearly not an indication of his overall attitude towards women as far as I've seen.

cacophony

05-16-2008, 07:56 PM

Is that your point - that you think the consensus is wrong or unfair?

i'm saying consensus doesn't have anything to do with it. for example, the consensus would be that cunt would be much more offensive. but if someone called me that i'd be far less offended than if someone spoke down to me by calling me "sweetie" especially in a professional environment.

i had a friend who is scottish and italian and she used to call herself "scotty mcwop" as a nickname. there are a lot of people who find the elements of that name derogatory. the consensus might agree. but it's subjective. and it's personal.

okay so you guys don't like my examples so let's go for something a little more parallel. what if a white candidate was asked a question by a black male journalist, and the candidate replied, "hold on, boy." it's not the wicked "n" word (which, for many, holds no more power than any other word anymore) but it's a diminishing way to address someone of that particular profile.

if "sweetie" had responded by calling obama "boy" who would have committed the worse offense? i would say their offenses would be equivalent. it's a diminishing way to address someone. it makes the addressee small, and it's offensive in all ways.

would we be having the same discussion if a black member of this forum was offended that the word "boy" was used to address a black man? somehow i don't think so.

cacophony

05-16-2008, 08:25 PM

Well those are inherently derogatory labels. The sole intent behind those words are to insult someone - unless you're a rapper. "Sweetie" is, at it's foundation, a term of endearment. My wife and I call each other sweetie on occasion. So these comparisons aren't appropriate.

you just summed it up. YOUR WIFE. not a coworker, a contemporary, a professional in a professional relationship.

let me ask you this, is something only derogatory if it's intended as derogatory? if someone says something derogatory but they say something that reduces your humanity, is it not derogatory? is the offensiveness purely dictated by intent?

let's go back to the example in my previous post. have a look at this photo from 1939 (http://www.shorpy.com/comment/reply/3352). look at the ages of the guys in the photo. now read the caption, which is the original from 1939. is referring to those young men as "boys" derogatory? the photographer seemed to use the word as a reflexive colloquialism. so is it derogatory? i was actually just having a conversation with a coworker the other day about his personal experience with the word "boy" and he would say yes. would you argue with him that he would have no right to be offended because the photographer certainly didn't intend it that way?

That's absolutely true, but I would also add that if you know your reaction to a word like this is particularly strong based on your own personal pet peeves, then shouldn't you also acknowledge that the person who says it doesn't necessarily deserve the full brunt of your frustrations?

i want to point out that the only reason this story even appeared in print, that it came to my attention, is because enough people it saw as bothersome enough that it bubbled up to the surface of all of the election static.

so it's not that *I* have a personal problem. it's that enough of us have a personal problem that the word had a big enough impact to create a stir. i may be the only one on this forum "who hates green" but that doesn't make me the one bitter woman in the whole world.

i'm trying to think of how i can explain how sweetie is offensive but cunt and bitch are not. the thing is, sweetie is worse BECAUSE it's not intended to insult. meaning the user lives with the belief that it's okay, it's flattering, it's endearing. like the photographer casually captioning his photo with "boys", the fact that it's such a reflexive unconscious use makes it much worse because it means the diminishing term is more ingrained, less questioned, more colloquially accepted. at least with the profane terms the intention is to hurt and insult. you can fight harmful intent. what you can't fight is an ingrained assumption that it's okay to address certain people in our society as though they were children.

Deckard

05-17-2008, 06:05 AM

I get what you're saying about it being more more insidious than those other more overtly offensive words. I get that it can be intended as patronising (and therefore demeaning) and, even when not intended as such, some people will still deem it so, as you and others appear to. In that sense, I completely accept (as does Obama himself) that it's not something he should have said, given that risk.

What I think pricked people's ears up here though was your statement that "it speaks volumes about a man". I think it doesn't take into account the often indirect nature of the way casual language is adopted, and instead tries to attribute some sort of deep misogyny onto any man who has adopted that habit from whatever culture he happens to have learned it from. That's my problem with your position.

My parents used to talk about 'coloured people' because it's how their time and place thought it appropriate to describe non-white people. They didn't realise the underlying demeaning nature of the phrase (seeing the world as white vs non-white, non-coloured vs coloured) but since explaining this to them, they've tried to get out of the habit. But you know what? They still do it occasionally, and a look of embarassment falls over them when they realise what they've said. Are my parents racist? Short answer: no. (Longer answer: no more or less than most people). Do I think their occasional slip into a bad habit "speaks volumes about them"? No I do not.

cacophony

05-17-2008, 07:29 AM

i don't consider a descriptive like "colored" to be a similar thing, though. that's like saying "indians" instead of "native americans" (incidentally I have an uncle who is chippewa and he rolls his eyes when white people say "native american." he says, "call me an indian, i don't care." again, consensus doesn't determine offensiveness)

the reason i think it speaks volumes is that it speaks of a subconscious view. maybe not an important part of someone's personality, maybe not a large part of their makeup, maybe nothing so insidious as outright bigotry. but it is a view of a very small distortion in someone's perception. would he have used, "sweetie" if the journalist were a man? highly doubtful. therefore there was, at least on some subconscious reflexive level, an evaluation of the speaker's gender and rather than addressing the speaker neutrally his brain reflexively picked up a word reserved for addressing women.

did i explain that clearly? he didn't just reach into his brain and pull out a universal word. in a lightning-fast reflex moment he looked at PERSON and saw WOMAN and pulled a pet name out of his brain. there is a level of evaluation and selection there that speaks to a person's view of the world. now, does it mean "obama hates chicks, man"? absolutely not. does it mean that maybe he tends to see women in a man/woman dynamic and his brain reaches for the expression of affection in those circumstances? probably. does it mean that maybe he's inclined to associate women with a susceptibility to flattery? perhaps. a lot of people wouldn't think that's a bad thing. but enough of us do. it can be very insulting to be treated as though you can just be flattered when you really want answers. like you'll just flush and giggle and go on your merry way, appeased.

if a man had addressed him and he needed to say, "just a minute," does it seem likely that he would have used a pet name? it's possible. i'm willing to grant that with a man he would have said, "just a minute, chief." if someone wants to find some evidence that he's a nickname kind of guy and he applies them liberally across all people, i'd be happy to accept that he's a reflexive nicknamer. but from what i can see that doesn't seem to be the case.

the point is the use of the word does speak volumes about him. it speaks to that reflex, the evaluation and selection of language when stimulated by a human being of a particular description. the tricky thing is, the "volumes" it "speaks" isn't spoken in a universal language, or a language that any of us from our remote viewpoint can really truly understand. none of us have been to a backyard barbeque with him and observed that he calls all men "chief" and all women "sweetie." we know what we can see of him through editorial media. and we have to make our judgments on that.

so to me, based on that view through the window of editorial media, it says a lot. it doesn't have to say a lot to everyone else.

Strangelet

05-17-2008, 09:54 AM

Taking what you're saying about reflexive comments, and how they, without our even wishing, can reveal volumes of sometimes offensive assumptions, attitudes and behaviors, I'd like to suggest a different outlook on this. Maybe something no more or less justifiable, but definitely more pragmatic.

1. Low hanging fruit

Take Michael Richards (Kramer) for an example. Does his racial blow up indicate volumes of subterranean hate beneath the surface of his clownish, silly exterior? I really have my doubts on this. I mean nobody likes to be heckled, and everyone gets stressed at their job, only a handful of people (let us assume) carry racial rants lurking down in their darkened souls. So just out of probability he just lost is temper, wanted to go for these guys, had nothing else to go on but appearances, the most striking of which was their skin color, and then boom pow, he's the kkk grand wizard. Doesn't make it right. But it does put it in context to the situation.
Its this low hanging fruit talked about in In Human Bondage. The character with the limp foot that's really a symbol of his homosexuality. He makes the observation that whenever people don't like him, its the foot that always comes up first.

In either situation it wasn't the skin color or the foot that is the cause of people's ires. but they use those immediate apparent aspects of someone when they are angry, and therefore not as thoughtful or intelligent, and want to go for someone.

Is this subconscious? Are these tips of ugly iceburgs? I guess the point is there's too much speculation to make a fair assessement of someone's inner dialog.

2. Smoke without Fire

My wife is in the magazine/fiction world. As both an editor and a writer she's seen the sexism played out on both ends. She's commented several times about how men with little talent but a lot of arrogance/confidence manage to slide through the filters and onto bookshelves and magazine racks, meanwhile women writers second guess themselves, become defferential to dominant male editors whose opinions the women allow to hold sway over their career and how they define their own work. And now a new trend of women having better success by sending in glamour shots with their transcripts to the agents.

And isn't situations like this the fucking problem, more immediate, less dependent to speculation, more objectively verifiably wrong, than a politician who gets three hours of sleep a night calling someone "sweetie?"

And wouldn't you have to admit the more offense, the more emotional, intellectual expense you pay out to these more speculative situations of reflexive language you are making it more likely that these more real situations keep going on unchecked? And so forget about Obama, send him up the river if you want, there's still the problem of how this strategy of branding people for these Don Imus like moments may do more harm to your cause than benefit.

Deckard

05-17-2008, 10:18 AM

Some good points in the above posts. No time to do them justice right now, but just to say, I see yet another person (this time, arch manipulator Karl Rove) has used that word, effete, to describe Obama.

Effete. I keep hearing that. Is it a coincidence that my thesaurus lists one of the sets of derivatives as being effeminiate, unmanly, girlish, feminine, soft, timid, lily-livered, wimpish?

The whole skinny, intellectual, mild-mannered aspect of Obama is what I find so utterly at odds with mainstream American political culture - the tough macho posturing that seems to dominate it (and beyond). Rove is no idiot, he knows the word works as an insult, he knows the feminine=weak link just as he knows the Muslim=enemy link.

I find these kinds of attacks, constantly flowing from various sources against Obama, far more offensive than his reflexive use of the word sweetie. I simply can't begin to imagine him using such tactics himself.

cacophony

05-17-2008, 01:13 PM

let me be clear, i'm not in any way trying to portray this as an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. while it's an issue for me, do not make the mistake of deciding it's THE issue to me. it's a blip. it's a blip that matters to me, but there are a lot of things that matter to me.

it does, unfortunately, taint my opinion of him as a man. however, i never make the mistake of convincing myself that politicians are beyond egotism and arrogance. it's a necessary personality trait in order to make it this far. so while i think it speaks volumes about the way his mind ticks over when he sees a woman (more reflexive than the michael richards example, which isn't a good parallel) i think it's quite likely that there are other worse flaws and other more important good elements to his persona.

but i do see it as a flaw. and it does disappoint me. because i want him to be better than this. i guarantee you, mccain has "sweetied" his fair share of female colleagues, but i don't want mccain to be better than he is. i'm not looking for inspiration and change and progressive thinking from mccain.

no politician is either going to win or lose my vote over something like this. but it does indelibly mark him in my mind. it disappoints me on a point that should have been a gimmie.

and to address the question of whether it clutters the argument against sexism to focus on the "small" things, i would argue that we're at a point in society where the big things can't be completely eradicated unless we highlight the small things. the small things are insidious. they are the building blocks that support the big things. point out the insidious ways in which sexism is still allowed to invade our language (effete is a good example, female = weak) and we're forced to examine how it's possible for the big sexism to still persist in this day and age.

Sean

05-18-2008, 12:35 AM

you just summed it up. YOUR WIFE. not a coworker, a contemporary, a professional in a professional relationship.Point taken, but my point also still stands, which is that the examples you gave are inherently derogatory, while the term "sweetie" is inherently a term of endearment. That being said, I will reiterate that I understand, in a case like this, why the use of the word "sweetie" is seen as diminishing. Just to be clear, all we're arguing as far as I can tell is exactly how offensive it actually is, and how much it really says about a man.

let me ask you this, is something only derogatory if it's intended as derogatory? if someone says something derogatory but they say something that reduces your humanity, is it not derogatory? is the offensiveness purely dictated by intent?This is actually what I was getting at earlier. No, offensiveness is not purely dictated by intent. But by the same tolken, offensiveness is also not dictated purely by perception. All I'm saying is that we need to measure both sides of the situation - how the word is perceived coupled with the actual intent - in order to objectively determine how big a deal something like this is.

The best way I can explain this is by sharing something that once happened to me. A friend of mine from college was an intense feminist. I mean really, really intense. She was over at me and my roomate's apartment one day, flipping through a magazine, and she came to some advertisement that had a picture of a young female model in it. She seemed kind of flustered by it, showed me the picture, and said something like "do guys really find her attractive?" I looked at the picture, and I said something like, "yeah, she's a pretty girl". My friend responded with a look of shock and said "GIRL? A pretty GIRL?!?", and then went on to berate me for using the word "girl". I explained that the model looked like she was younger than me (I was around 19 at the time), and since I didn't think of myself as a "man" yet, then it's only natural that I didn't think of this model as a "woman" yet either. My friend asked what I would call my male friends who were around my age, and I said "not men...probably guys". Her final angry point was that it isn't "guys and girls, it's guys and gals". So I said "okay, she's a pretty gal then", and that was the end of it.

In my friend's mind, I was behaving in a sexist way despite the fact that what I said was intended in a completely benign way. Frankly, to this day, I will maintain that my use of the word "girl", despite the offense my friend took to it, did not speak in any way to my attitude towards women. It only spoke to my overall attitude towards maturity, and when people of either sex reach adulthood. My friend's perception to the contrary didn't change that fact of my intent in the slightest, regardless of how strongly she felt about it. And incidentally, we remained close friends. We even came very close to dating, but never quite pulled the trigger because she got back with her ex-boyfriend.

Anyway, I don't offer this as a perfect anaolgy - I only offer it as an example of how perception and intent are all relative to the situation. As you said, we have no way of knowing exactly what motivates Obama's use of a word like "sweetie", but I think it's safe to say that his overall demeanor and treatment of people doesn't seem to support the idea that we should take his use of it in the worst possible way. I'm not saying that's what you're doing exactly, I'm just trying to word my thoughts clearly here.

let's go back to the example in my previous post. have a look at this photo from 1939 (http://www.shorpy.com/comment/reply/3352). look at the ages of the guys in the photo. now read the caption, which is the original from 1939. is referring to those young men as "boys" derogatory? the photographer seemed to use the word as a reflexive colloquialism. so is it derogatory? i was actually just having a conversation with a coworker the other day about his personal experience with the word "boy" and he would say yes. would you argue with him that he would have no right to be offended because the photographer certainly didn't intend it that way?It's funny you should use this picture as an example, because yes, I would take some small issue with someone accusing the photographer (or editor who wrote the caption) of being offensive by using the word "boy". The first thing I thought when I opened the picture after reading what you had written was "well they do look to be young boys". I mean, how old would you guess they are? I would guess around 15 or so myself...maybe even younger. I don't consider 15 to be a man, I consider 15 to be a boy. So maybe it was meant as derogatory, but there's a very fair argument to be made that it was not. I would never claim that your coworker had "no right to be offended", but to assume the worst is unfair to the person in question (the photographer in this case), and is not a way of approaching situations that I personally ascribe to.

i'm trying to think of how i can explain how sweetie is offensive but cunt and bitch are not. the thing is, sweetie is worse BECAUSE it's not intended to insult. meaning the user lives with the belief that it's okay, it's flattering, it's endearing. like the photographer casually captioning his photo with "boys", the fact that it's such a reflexive unconscious use makes it much worse because it means the diminishing term is more ingrained, less questioned, more colloquially accepted. at least with the profane terms the intention is to hurt and insult. you can fight harmful intent. what you can't fight is an ingrained assumption that it's okay to address certain people in our society as though they were children. And this is something we fundamentally differ on. I understand your point, but I flatly disagree that an instance of someone like Obama using the word "sweetie" is "much worse" than someone calling a woman a "cunt" or a "bitch". Yes, you can fight harmful intent, but my feeling is that you don't have to "fight" the use of a term you view as derogatory if the intent is not malicious. Deckard gave a great example with his parents. He didn't need to fight them on it because they weren't trying to be hurtful. All he seemed to have to do was point out that what they said could be taken as offensive, and they adjusted. Easy as pie, and everyone's happy. As an example to the contrary, my college friend DID choose to fight me over my benign use of the word "girl", and all it accomplished was taking an innocent situation and turning it into a confrontation that we both left feeling frustrated.

In this case with Obama, he immediately recognized how what he said could be perceived, and apologized. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of the issue. Now if he starts showing a pattern of true disrespect towards women that stretches beyond the isolated bad habit of using a word like "sweetie", then yes, I will agree that his use of the word is quite possibly indicitive of something more. At this point however, that's not the case, so I just personally see this as a pretty minor issue.

jOHN rODRIGUEZ

05-18-2008, 01:32 AM

cacophony, it's really just the way boys talk with each other. And I know you're still going to reem me on for saying that.

Will it change your mind if rebut that I cringe when I hear "(the letter after O) control' no matter how empowering they say it is supposed to imply?

Sean

05-19-2008, 12:18 PM

Just saw this buried in an article about the two Democratic campaigns planning to merge for the campaign against McCain (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/17/AR2008051702425_pf.html):

"There's gale-force pressure for Obama to choose a Clinton loyalist as a running mate to heal the party but avoid putting her and her formidable baggage on the ticket," said one Obama ally in Washington. "You hear the names [Ohio Gov. Ted] Strickland, [Indiana Sen. Evan] Bayh, and [retired general] Wes Clark almost constantly, and it's no secret that Jim Johnson and Tom Daschle are purveyors of that wisdom."

It just seemed like one of the more definitive short-lists I've seen so far.

Sarcasmo

05-19-2008, 04:12 PM

Well, I'm about as anti-pc as they come, and I found the comment just a little bit irritating, myself. Not from a man vs. woman perspective, but from a professional standpoint. Using terms of endearment or affection is only acceptable, in a professional situation, when the two people involved know each other personally, and only "off the clock."

When you use a familiar form of address with someone, especially when engaged in their line of work, it undermines their authority and legitimacy. This woman is a reporter, who was called-upon by her bosses to cover the democratic front runner for one of the most important elections in recent history, and the "sweetie" comment reduced her, in front of her colleagues, to a bush-league greenhorn.

I've had many friends of higher (sometimes much higher) rank than myself and, after close of business, I felt comfortable addressing them by their first name, by nicknames, or just their last name, but back on the job, I would never use any of those terms in front of their colleagues or mine. It sends the wrong message to my subordinates (the fact that I could address someone of a higher rank so familiarly could start rumors of fraternization or favoritism) and superiors would be perfectly within their rights if they dressed me down for not giving them the respect of their rank.

I realize the exchange did not occur between two members of the armed forces, but these are two professionals, and for one to withhold professional courtesy from the other shows either elitism, thoughtlessness, or just plain old bad manners. If Barack Obama is not a sexist, but simply possessed of a "bad habit," it's one that he absolutely needs to rid himself of, and now, because whether he is a sexist or isn't, is an elitist or isn't, his image simply cannot survive such verbal gaffes in the future. It's things like this that snowball and sabotage you before you even get a chance to get anything done.