mycatharsis.com

I’m sure there’s a method to her madness that I’m just missing.  She seems to have really painted her career into a corner with her ‘win at all costs’ mentality.  She must know she’s doing herself more harm than good.  I thought there was a political truth that when an opponent’s digging a hole for himself, you sit back and let him dig, lest you look like you’re piling on.  Yet that’s exactly what she’s doing, and I think she’s starting to feel the blowback from it, she’s allowing Obama’s troubles to hurt her as well.  She almost seems politically tone-deaf, to a degree not unlike our current president.

And the Vice Presidency?  She must know her attacks give her no shot at it, that even if Obama wanted her as his running mate, and I can’t imagine why he would, he probably couldn’t do it because she would be the ultimate distraction during a general election.  Could he really trust her not to make an ‘innocent’ slip-up or two along the way that costs him the election, but preserves her chances in 2012?

She’s painted herself into a real corner here.  So much of her future relevance in politics depends now on Obama’s future irrelevance.  How powerful could she be if Obama wins the presidency? And does it with a large mandate for his vision?  Even at her current job as Senator, will she feel that she’s going to be marginalized?  What does she do about it? In that light, I can see some sense what she’s doing now, running despite having almost no chance to win, and dragging herself down in the process. As long as it drags down Obama as well, it helps preserve her 2012 campaign.  This theory makes a lot of sense, but is also incredibly cynical. Unfortunately, after seeing the Clintons in action for 16 years, that cynicism can’t be easily dismissed.

That does it.  I have to admit that for awhile I’ve been torn about whether to vote for Clinton or McCain if a general election came down to those two.  No more.  McCain clearly has more class than the Clinton’s or the sycophants the Clinton’s have always surrounded themselves with.  The Clinton campaign leaking the photo of Obama in Somali (and Muslim looking, that’s why they did it) dress was distateful enough, appealing to all the basest instincts of voters, instinct they claim to abhore, but exploit time and time again.  For Clintons campaign manager to then come out and say Obama should be ashamed about this whole episode, god, these people have no class and treat all of us like idiots.  They got away with it from 1992-2000, and they think it will work for them again.    This time though, I have serious doubts.  If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton in her position, she’d have been written off from this race a long time ago.

At least they’re reminding us of the TRUE legacy of the Clinton years.   Time had sorta dulled those memories, their increasingly shameful (and that’s saying something for these pieces of work)  win at all costs mentality brings it all back.

Cool, this is a huge win for him, I think. Listening to his speech on MSNBC right now, one of his best, and longest seemingly … paraphrasing here …

You want someone who has taught the Constitution, respects the Constitution, and will honor the Constitution of the United States of America!

Always music to my ears! His 11 years as teacher of Constitutional Law at Chicago IS a huge point in his favor with me. The constitution truly has seemed almost an afterthought with this administration at time, and I can’t imagine that being the case with someone with Obama’s decade of teaching it. Dream ticket Obama/Paul 08? And the thing about him, is yes, he’s very eloquent, but there’s an unmistakable vibe with him that he’s the real thing. Even smarter and more balanced than he already shows himself to be, understands what it takes to be effective politically (talks about the power of mandates and coalitions tonight), is very diplomatic and can be effectively bipartisan. McCain’s speech was effective as well, I thought, but more negative in tone, purposely. An attempt to ground Obama, but when Obama is speaking too, it’s next to impossible to give the best speech that night…

Showed up bright and early today before work, at the wrong voting place! They added a location in the last two years, now I just have to go across the street to vote, apparently.  So I’ll brave the crowds after work tonight.  My heart is telling me to go with Ron Paul, but both my head and heart also say Obama, and I think that’s who’ll I .  Quite a divergent duo there, but they both offer great new, fresh ideas that the entrenched powers won’t touch.  Some of these ideas are not talked about as much, but are very important to me, mainly because they are the baby steps we need to start taking if we ever hope to rein in our government.  Obama’s pledge to restore transparency to government (putting all bills up for public review before signing, etc) is just one of these.  I also feel his approach to both the mortgage crisis and health care is more flexible and more grounded in reality than Mrs. Clinton’s.  Her plans for mandated universal coverage and a mortgage rate freeze both seem like bad ideas that will make problems a lot worse in the long run.  Obama’s plans for both seem more flexible and likely to help in the long run.  Not to mention this idiocy about ‘plagiarizing’.   They will say pretty much anything that helps them out, no matter how hypocritical it makes them look.  And they will disavow it just as quickly if the trial balloon goes ‘pop’.

Is there anyone left for this administration to alienate? In short, yes.   Today Barack Obama reaffirms his belief in the ‘individual rights’ mantra of the Second Amendment, while George Bush’s Department of Justice asks the Supreme Court to adopt a ‘reasonableness’ standard
as it considers Washington D.C.’s gun ban.  At best Bush’s supporters can say there is little to no difference in their positions on the right to bear arms.  At worst, you can say the Bush administration has abandoned one of it’s strongest supporting groups,  to an extent that many gunowners can reasonably conclude that Obama would be a better protector of their ownership rights than President Bush, especially when Bush’s general regard for the Constitution and the rule of law is considered.

Another Clinton supporter plays the race card. But has he been paying attention? FlamingGrasshopper has compiled the popular vote totals, it’s surprisingly hard to find a page out there these numbers, glad he did!

http://flaminggrasshopper.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/rep20080211.htm

http://flaminggrasshopper.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/dem20080211.htm

In short, Hillary Clinton has amassed nearly 9 million popular votes, Obama 8.5 million. 18 million total. The Republicans? Only 12 million total, McCain has the most at 4.9 million. Morton Kondracke has noticed the disparity, and with that kind of disparity, the trend is pretty clear!

Or if you prefer putting your money where your mouth is …

Candidate	Total Raised as of 12/31/2007
Clinton	118,301,659
Obama	103,802,537
Romney	90,076,402
McCain	42,094,077

(I’m sure a sizable amount of Romney’s was from his own fortune, and that’s not including the massive $32 million Obama raised in January.)

The other candidates would eat a squirrel (Huckabee 2) to face the kind of discrimination Clinton and Obama are facing at the ballot box and bank.

I liked the job both Hillary and Barack did, although I think Obama won by putting himself on equal footing with Clinton and looking every bit as inevitable as Hillary wants to.  I liked Clinton’s answer on Iraq, it sounded the most well thought out of anybody’s in either party.  But Obama gave a great response himself and I was struck how conservative he sounded when he made the point that we have greater concerns than just Iraq, including Afghanistan and China. Obama’s answer that he just wouldn’t be ready, but “right on day one” was the line of the night, without a doubt.   He IS a pheonomenon, and I find his popularity, even among Republicans, very interesting.   A serious man concerned about the direction of the country, and not so concerned with political calculus, a pervasive force in our politics since 1992 at the very least.  He seems very genuine and more concerned with doing good than looking good. And, except for Ron Paul (a phrase I find myself using a TON lately), he seems to be the only candidate so concerned!  As president, he would be a welcome change from the ego-centric leaders we have had for the past twenty years or so, and I am getting increasingly excited about his candidacy. This despite my softening views toward Hillary Clinton, who is nonetheless an integral part of the ‘focus group’ mentality that I’ve been sick of, well, forever I guess.
Obama’s answer on immigration was similarly welcome to me.  I’ve contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign a couple times, and now seriously think I will contribute to Obama’s as well, despite their wildly divergent views.  Frankly, both Democrats sounded much better to me than the Republicans on the whole.  It used to be the Dems were the party of spin, focus groups, white lies, and misdirection.  Quite frankly, that seems to have changed the last few years, to the point that the GOP is now playing these games, and the Democrats seem to have stepped into the void left when Republicans abandoned truth for political expediency.  And I think the American people, while perhaps not all give enough thought to their vote, I do think we have overall a very good B.S. detector, and thus I think the Democrats are placing themselves in a very favorable position for the general election, where someone like Mitt Romney would have a very tough time, as he has had to embrace a very conservative platform, a platform that is seemingly falling out of favor.  McCain, ironically, would have enough problems of his own for NOT embracing that platform, at least in his job as Senator.

That about sums up the New Hampshire primary for me. Obama was unable to put Clinton away and Ron Paul’s chances for success were doused with cold water.  I wonder why the polls predicting an Obama blowout were so off, maybe with only four days between Iowa and New Hampshire, most people were enamored with Obama, but didn’t feel comfortable enough to vote for them.   Clinton, after all, dominated in most all of the New Hampshire polls until Iowa.  Their speeches pretty clearly illustrated the differences between the two.  Obama’s speech was more to rally the supporters, look towards the next primaries, and, most of all, involve his followers in his campaign, while Clinton’s speech was mostly about her (”I have found my voice … et al”).   It seems typical of most of their speeches, and is partly why I enjoy Obama’s speaking style so much and can’t stand Clinton’s, and dread the thought of listening to that self-centeredness (and, as in the 90s, being praised by a fawning main stream media, no less) for another 8 years.

Obama’s speech last night was amazing. Inspiring, patriotic, reasonable and hopeful. You know he’s liberal, but you also get the impression that he’s pragmatic and will do what is best for the country, as opposed to what is good for him or the party.  A goosebumps kind of speech.  I sure hope he’s the Dem’s pick, I mean the difference between him and Clinton/Edwards? Wow, just leaps and bounds. I enjoyed watching the returns, but really wasn’t putting much stock in what happened, remembering Tom Harkin got 70 some percent in 1992.  But Obama just about had me believing I was watching history.  He brought to my mind the eloquence of Reagan and Kennedy, a once in a generation kind of candidate.  If he wins New Hampshire, he may successfully take the mantle of inevitability away from Senator Clinton, which would leave her with, politically speaking, nothing that I can think of.

Huckabee’s speech was excellent as well,  on content very close to Obama’s.  His urging not to hate, but to love seemed to me at least somewhat a repudiation of the angry nativism most all the other candidates are so eager to pander to.  I like his views on immigration, taxes, and abortion, but worry about him on the economy, which I think may be THE issue of 08, even if Iraq takes a turn for the worse.  But I like that he’s convinced me that he would try to do the ‘good’ thing as president, which goes a long way when his main competitors will do whatever is best for his own popularity, no matter the expense to others (Romney), seems rather uninterested in running (Thompson) or seems like he would make President Bush look like a beacon of openness and accountability in comparison (Giuliani).

And Ron Paul might be disappointed with 10%, but he did end up at the maximum level of his polling numbers. Double figures in Iowa, for him, really isn’t bad.  I wanna see how he does in Wyoming on Saturday, I think he has a legitimate shot at a top 3 or even higher finish among the GOP there…

Hugh Hewitt mentioned in his column something I’ve been saying for awhile, but not many people seem to be considering.

Maybe illegal immigration doesn’t matter that much after all?

Nope, I really don’t think it does, and I can’t understand why the talking heads  don’t notice it.  The one candidate seen as most soft on immigration won 95% white Iowa.  The one candidate who defined nativism as his pet cause didn’t even make it to Iowa, never rising above 1% in the polls.      Huckabee was the only GOP candidate talking about compassion for illegals, and he was the only candidate to come from nowhere and rise to the top of the pack!  In short, a vocal minority is still a minority ….