Posts by Neil Morrison
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Florida is "getting this kind of treatment", as Clinton put it, because it flouted the orders of the DNC and was disciplined.
It was the Florida Republican party that sitched things for the Dems. The Florida Dems were quite prepared to go back to the original dates - the Republicans made sure they couldn't.
It's a debacle, but blaming Obama is nuts
how was I blaming Obama - this is just politics as usual. I don't take exception to what he is doing but what Clinton is saying is true. And the Clintons are perfectly entitled to point this out.
Good God, Obama's not a saint, thank god for that, he's playing politics with Florida and Michigan to his advantage. I'm amazed at the level of outrage for merely pointing this out.
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And Neil, how do you explain away Bill Clinton pushing this button:
I don't have to explain away - what Clinton is saying is true. Obama doesn't want the vote of Florida counted unless they either beneift him or do him no damage. Either way it's underhand.
My Rage-O-Meter waddles all the way up to 2. They would both do exactly the same if their positions were reversed.
I take it you are aware of the legal battles Obama waged to get his Democrat opponets off the ballot when he first ran for the Illinois Semate.
Do you think he took his name off the Michigan ballot out of the goodness of his heart?
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...and I do get that Clinton bears absolutely no responsibility for anything done in her name -- let alone the words that come out of her own damn mouth -- that's politically inconvenient.
provide some of those words and let's see.
I think that the issue surrounding the quite different demographics of Obama and Clinton are complex and because the media has only time for snippets of arguments those arguments often come across sounding a bit off.
Take the talk of white working class voters. Now, team Obama have been making the claim that they have a New, Winning Coalition of Afro-Americans plus the college-educated. That may be true. Or it might not. But since this argument implicitly says that the Dems no longer need the white working class to win in Nov, how is Clinton supposed to put forward the opposing position that, yes - the Dems do need the white working class, without saying it?
Add to that that we’re talking about the Appalachians- where the Clinton's come form then you've got a mix that is hard to talk about in an adult manner.
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I forgot to say that the way the voting is going it might be that Clinton gets the plurality of votes but loses the nomination.
The race is so close it will be the vagaries of the Dem primary system that will determine the outcome (e.g. she won the popular vote in Texas but got less delegates). Not that I mind, either candidate is fine by me, but please excuse the Clinton supporters for thinking this aint over.
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IMHO, both McCain and Clinton are playing up to racial (and racist) anxieties...
I'm not concerned about McCain but if you are going to continue to make that sort of accusation about Clinton then how about providing some evidence.
Media Matters has a frankly astonishing summary of the various whispering campaigns directed against Obama by a variety of wingnut commentators and broadcasters.
And that the first bit of that story highlights how complete nonsense gets to be accepted wisdom -
On January 17, the day after Obama announced the creation of his presidential exploratory committee, the conservative website InsightMag.com published an article reporting that "sources close to [a] background check," which was supposedly "conducted by researchers connected to" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), discovered that Obama "spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." The article further reported that the "sources" said "[t]he idea is to show Obama as deceptive." These "sources" also speculated that the "the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended" might have taught "a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims."
Media Matters goes on to say that the claim that Clinton was behind this was debunked by CNN, AP and ABC. But that story, which was planted by various right-wingers, did the rounds very eary in the contest and very effectively muddied the waters with the Dems - especially for Clinton.
Might I suggest that a lot of the a lot of the wackier claims about Clinton are based on such unchecked stories. I think they tend to go unchecked because her support based is not well represented in the pundocracy - the echo chamber taks over.
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A moral panic is just going to market it to a mainstream audience, and there's probably no one who wants that, or for a whole new class of criminal to be created out of a few harmless people who want to explore their heads.
My impression is that the hallucinogenics don't seem to form the economic basis for a great deal of the nastier criminal activity (compared to p). Maybe because they're not addictive.
I quite liked the odd bit of LSD. It's always a bit embarrassing to find enlightenment in carpet patterns but that's a small price to pay for a bit of entertainment.
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I do think it's entered the stage where it's destructive for the party, though not 'general election losing destructive', but more 'two sides of the party will find it increasingly difficult to come back together strongly' destructive.
I think the end game could possibly become destructive. Here I think Clinton has to play things quite carefully. But since the last primaries aren't that close there's a good chance things will cool down a bit. I'd be really interested to know what Hllary's after as a bottom line, and what Obama might be prepared to offer.
On the other hand...
polls, eh. I tried to find some sort of poll average on this but RealClear don't seem to have one. But they do have both Obama and Clinton continuing to move ahead of McCain. So if that's the bottom line then there's no damage, in fact the reverse.
But that could all change. If there was clear evidence that her continued campaign could lead to a lose in Nov then I'd say she should stop.
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I get a bit grumpy with the collective madness of the pundocracy but the good news is they are way out of touch with Democrat voters - 64 percent of whom want the race to continue.
59 percent of African-Americans want Hillary to be Obama's running mate. They're not paying attention to the pundits clearly.
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Yeah, but 'everyone' 'knew' he wasn't going to actually get the nomination so it was fine to let him run. Run Jessie, Run
Ah, so he wasn't a self-obsessed destroyer he was merely allowed to run because he had zero chance. Whereas the message to Hillary is don't run - you might win. Interesting way to run a selection process.
The phrase "don't fight to the convention, give it up now for the party" now has a lot more weight than it used to in American politics.
But that assumes that her giving up is in the interest of the party.
Given that that argument is only put foward by Obama supporters and Obama will win with just a plurality of votes it looks a bit high-handed for just one half of the Democratic party to be telling the other half that they don't have the best interest of the party at heart.
The phrase has weight with some Obama supporters - not with a majority of voters and not even with Obama himself who only did the Hillary should drop out bit for a week or so - and decided it wasn't a good look. He's quite bright.
But things have changed - running a close race is now seen as some form of treachery. (I sort of suspect that this is a lot to do with it being so close and that each draws quite distinct and loyal support although the netroots have a lot to answer for).
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should be -
Jessie Jackson fought all the way to the convention with half the delegates of the front runner.