Hillary: Punch-drunk in Cleveland Debate?

February 28, 2008

Last nights debate…really, I did not want to blog about it at all but I had a water cooler discussion this morning in the office about the debate and just now jotted down some impressions in an email and something occurred to me.

Here’s the deal – we are probably in the 14th round of a 15-round fight. Hillary has lost the last 9 or 10 rounds and Mickey is in her corner, cutting her eye and telling her she needs to land a knockout punch because she is losing on points.

MickeyShe would have to come into the round throwing some big swings in an attempt to knock Obama’s head off, but in so doing would open herself up to a defensively strategic counter-punch game plan. It’s a risky proposition but it is all Clinton has.

What we saw last night is that she doesn’t seem to have any punch left. The two started off on health care and, after watching six debates, I could turn off the sound and say their lines for them. Here are some predictable quotes:

SEN. CLINTON: ‘I think it’s imperative that we stand as Democrats for universal health care. I’ve staked out a claim for that. Senator Edwards did. Others have. But Senator Obama has not.’

SEN. OBAMA: ‘Senator Clinton repeatedly claims that I don’t stand for universal health care. And, you know, for Senator Clinton to say that, I think, is simply not accurate.’

SEN. OBAMA: ‘…we still don’t know how Senator Clinton intends to enforce a mandate, and if we don’t know the level of subsidies that she’s going to provide, then you can have a situation…where people are being fined for not having purchased health care but choose to accept the fine because they still can’t afford it, even with the subsidies.’

SEN. CLINTON: ‘You know, Senator Obama has a mandate. He would enforce the mandate by requiring parents to buy insurance for their children.’

This talk volleys back and forth and she never talks about her penalty and he never gives any detail on how many people might go uninsured. They both offer up their own experts’ opinions and they both accuse one another of being inaccurate when talking about their own plan.

No blows are landed here. These are the jabs that might be setting up a big punch, but we never see the big punch. She wants to win this round, and she might have, but in the best scenario it is a close split. Following from home it appears that they have similar plans and there are pro’s and con’s to each, but you can’t really tell the difference. If this is where she wants to win the fight, then she should throw in the towel.

Unfortunately for Clinton, this is the most substantive exchange of their debate but we have seen it several times before and it always seems to end in a pile of mostly intangible polemics. With that not working, it is time to throw some wild-ass punches and see if anything lands:

SEN. CLINTON:’ Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don’t mind. I — you know, I’ll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw “Saturday Night Live,” you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.’ (Laughter, boos.)

On Obama’s ‘Denouncing’ Louis Farrakhan:

SEN. CLINTON: ‘I just want to add something here, because I faced a similar situation when I ran for the Senate in 2000 in New York…And one of the parties at that time, the Independence Patty, was under the control of people who were anti-Semitic, anti- Israel. And I made it very clear that I did not want their support. I rejected it….And there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting.’

(to which Obama replies, ‘if the word “reject” Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word “denounce,” then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.’)

SEN. CLINTON: ‘And on a number of other issues, I just believe that, you know, as Senator Obama said, yes, last summer he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don’t think was a particularly wise position to take.’ (FALSE)

She complained about having to go first and she made reference to the media’s preferential treatment of Obama with the SNL skit. That combo came off flat and even made her seem a little peevish. I will agree with her that the media has been kinder to Obama but, especially at this point, that is part of the game and you are not doing yourself any favors by griping about it. Furthermore, when Obama referenced the alleged attacks his campaign has endured from Clinton’s camp, he was able to work in the dig:

‘ And, you know, we haven’t whined about it because I understand that’s the nature of these campaigns.’

He threw in the ‘whined’ without drawing any ire mostly because she had a couple of memorable moments that came across as whining. That looked like a knockdown to me, her knee touched the mat.

She should have stayed out of the Farrakhan exchange. She went in swinging, but this is where he landed a solid counter-punch by placating her semantical demands and using the word ‘reject.’ He seemed unflappable and made her look a little silly for pushing the issue. By the way, I loved Brian Williams comment on the audience clapping after the denounce versus reject exchange:

‘Rare audience outburst on the agreement over rejecting and renouncing.’

This is akin to the referee throwing a punch of his own. Overall, a solid round for Obama.

The bombing of Pakistan, which has been used by both Clinton and McCain and been shown to be untrue, came across as another old-world partisan ploy attempt to distort the truth. Obama’s debate skills have evolved and he is now very good at brushing off these kinds of attacks and immediately focusing on something of real substance. End result – more fodder for Obama’s ’same old politics’ attack. Clinton is staggering back to her corner.

Her jabs aren’t landing and her attempted hooks and uppercuts are leaving her chin wide open. She is blocking his punches with her face, never a good idea.

My brother-in-law told me the other night he feels as if she is yelling at him when she gets impassioned or annoyed during a debate, and by him I mean my brother-in-law Jack. She does become defensive at times and, again, not without good reason. Tim Russert seems to have a noticeable bias, if not outright Clinton contempt. However, instead of gracefully dancing around those moments, or at least trying a rope-a-dope, she becomes confrontational. This only seems worse when Obama is collected under fire and coming into his own as a seasoned debater. He looked comfortable last night, with appropriate gravitas and a reasonable unwillingness to suffer foolish political antics. You have one candidate bemoaning that things aren’t fair and the other continues on, focused on winning. That difference is glaring, especially in the eyes of an entire generation of males, such as myself, who grew up idolizing Michael Jordan – a competitor who seemed unflappable in the most heated clutch-time moments.

Michael Jordan

She is more John McEnroe.

John McEnroe

In conclusion, her attempt to make up ground with an aggressive fight did not amount to much and may even be hurting her standing with voters such as my bro-in-law who will be voting next week in Texas…for Obama.

To wrap up this ridiculous boxing metaphor, which has even become too much for me, Rocky is bruised and bleeding and Mickey is thinking about throwing in the towel, but Rocky is a fighter and will go the distance.

And then he will lose to Apollo Creed and the movie will end.

Thank god.

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Posted by jackson

Hillary and the Problem of the Pants

February 27, 2008

I read an interesting article this morning on Salon. It was talking about Hillary’s man problem – mainly that men are supporting Obama in far greater numbers, but if he were removed from the scenario they would switch to McCain. Hillary is having problems getting love from the men in this country. It is an insightful and provocative article that discusses voting men in our country and draws parallels between the Obama/McCain connection and the buddy cop movies of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson of the 80’s and 90’s.

This made me stop and think, ‘Am I supporting Obama because I am a man who cannot fathom voting for a woman?‘ My first reaction to that thought was ‘No, you voted for Kay Bailey Hutchison and Barbara Boxer.‘ But they were running for the Senate – what if they were running for President?

I felt fairly confident that Hillary’s gender had nothing to do with my decision but I went through the thought process because I thought it would be a good exercise. Why am I not supporting Hillary?

First off, you can read my core reason on the Hillary’s Heel page on this site. I believe she could lose to McCain, making John McCain the President and I believe that is the wrong option. So, through a process of basic analytical logic, Obama would be the better choice as a result of his ability to mitigate a potential McCain Presidency.

But since making that leap, I have built more of a case around not voting for Hillary. Take today’s news for example. There is a good article in the Washington Post today about the strength and elegance of Obama’s speeches. There was not anything terribly outstanding in the article until I came upon a quote from Martin Medhurst, a professor of rhetoric at Baylor University. According to Medhurst, the many comparisons to Kennedy are natural in that both candidates are charismatic and articulate and this is further amplified by the fact that Obama’s young speech writers are well-versed in the speeches of both RFK and JFK. Moreover, Kennedy’s own speech writer Ted Sorensen has been informally advising the campaign.

All of this is fairly standard and the comparisons between this election and that of Kennedy’s 1960 come as no surprise, but Medhurst went on to say, “The main difference was that the 1960 campaign was much more substantive than the current campaign…There was no criticism of his (Kennedy) eloquence or speaking ability.”

So, the election of 1960 had more substance? This is disturbing considering the nation is presently at war, fighting off a recession and will make the first change in administration since we were attacked on September 11th. How can this election not be about substantive issues?

The Post article focuses on Hillary’s attacks of Obama’s eloquence. This is obviously an area in which she cannot match him and so we are treated to a series of attacks on Obama’s speaking ability. The ‘my opponent gives speeches, I offer solutions‘ line has been repeated in every city she stops in. What kind of substance is this? Campaign attacks often lack substance, think Swiftboating, and are probably most effective when they are reduced to sound bites that serve as mindless ear fodder for the substance-deaf followers to chant in unison.

I will repeat a piece of my previous post – the solutions she offers are the same types of solutions offered by McCain and Obama. They all have plans and blueprints to support their platforms. If she is going to distinguish herself as the candidate with actual solutions, perhaps she should have made a better case of it by adequately financing and planning her campaign. If she has a box filled with solutions then why can’t she solve her own dilemma of losing state after state? If she has the answers, surely she could spare one for herself and address her Obama problem.

With nothing of substance to offer up, she resorts to launching empty attacks. So, one thing that she has going against her is that I would like to see the campaign be about real issues. For example, Hillary making the mistake of voting to go to war in Iraq. In discussing the prospect of invading Iraq before the Senate in 2002 she said, “The facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt.” Add to this that she only exacerbates this mistake by refusing to come forward and admit her error. Her refusal to acknowledge her lapse in judgment becomes part of her circumlocutionary political double-speak that has grown stale in America.

That brings us to another point. Her double-speak machinations are her attempt to have things both ways. She constantly cites her 35 years of experience and offers up her time with Bill in the White House as valuable preparatory experience for being President herself. However, I saw her on the news in Youngstown, OH addressing many of the blue collar workers who make up a valuable part of her base. She wants to claim the Clinton White House as part of her own legacy, but will not claim one of that administration’s biggest mistakes – NAFTA, which is not popular with the hard working people in Ohio. She cherry picks the parts of Clinton’s legacy that best suit her.

To be completely fair, at one time she did support NAFTA and Bill’s efforts to get it enacted and was on record offering her support in 1998, but has since expressed her reservations. However, the real issue is her refusal to acknowledge that the experience she is touting encompasses the support for NAFTA, which she now finds flawed. She has had a change of mind, perfectly normal, but to stand in front of the people of OH and play the role of a crusader for the workers and a fighter of free-trade agreements strikes me, and some of the OH Valley workers, as somewhat disingenuous.

And as I am typing this, my reasons for not supporting her have crystallized into a single concept. She is extremely smart and extremely capable but she is even more political, more so than anyone else left in the race. Her double-speak, her empty plan to ask for a plan for leaving Iraqi being offered as a solution, her accusations against her opponents of negative campaigning when she actually goes negative first, her flagrant and unapologetic flip-flopping are all so…Clintonian?!?

I supported, admired and defended Bill for years. The type of politics Hillary employs are not that different from those of Bill, except that she lacks his eloquence in execution. Aha! Incredibly, it does come back to eloquence but not merely eloquence of words, also eloquence of action. Politicians are politicians and will practice their politics thusly, but Senator Clinton’s delivery is often clumsy and obvious, as if she does not respect our ability to keep track of what she has said and done. She seems to assume she is the smartest person in the room and if she tells us something is so, then it is so. She can be brusque and haughty when one points out her mistakes, dismissing them with a laugh and then reinventing her stances and ignoring legitimate criticism. If you’re going to be that political, at least give me some of the old Bill razzle-dazzle, slight of hand, wink-wink presentation.

Otherwise I will simply vote for Obama.

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Posted by jackson

The Nader Project

February 25, 2008

Before going into anything serious, I am highly amused (disturbed?!?) with the number of people who end up on this site by running a search for ‘naked Hillary Clinton.’ I am not even sure what that means, but hey – if that’s your thing then more power to you.

Moving on.

Ralph Nader. There are few words in the liberal vernacular that will draw as much venom as ‘Nader.’ There are the obvious terms of disdain: Bush-Cheney, Reagonomics, Coulter, et al. That being said, ‘Nader‘ elicits the dark bile from the deepest recessed bowels of the party.

That is somewhat interesting when considering what a celebrity he had been at one time for liberals and Democrats. He was a poster child of sorts for independent political thought – and I respect that. However, I also understand the reaction many Democrats have to Nader because he can be fingered, or scapegoated, as the reason we were saddled with George W. Bush in 2000. The small portion of votes he took from Al Gore were enough to swing an election, a country and a war. That is a lot for a guy who made his name in seat belts.

Now I find myself conflicted with what is best and what is most sinister within American politics. I believe a two-party system is inadequate for addressing true US concerns. And yet, this is the system that we have. I believe we need an active participation among voters and need a varied and diverse representation of all constituents. And yet, third party candidates sometimes serve as single issue candidates or, more often, as a swing candidate, such as Nader or Ross Perot. I believe our current system is flawed in that it makes the development of independent movements and third parties difficult. We are heavily entrenched in a two party system. So, there is a part of me that is always pleased to see other options entering into the mix.

And still, I am a Democratic who feels annoyed and angered, freely tossing around terms such as egomaniacal, arrogant and Quixotic with varying degrees of vehemence when discussing Nader. The thought that once again he could swing an election in a direction and leave us with the worst of available evils is disheartening. He could potentially be a means for undoing all that I, and many other volunteers on both Clinton’s and Obama’s campaigns, have worked hard to put together. He is a threat in that sense and at the same time a welcome addition to our democratic process.

Thus is my conundrum.

I am patriotic. Here comes another rant, btw. I mentioned in a blog some time back that ‘fascism’ is one of the most overused terms in American politics. I would quickly add to that list ‘patriot.’ Every politician who feels compelled to wear an American flag pin on their lapel and ceaselessly bandies around the term patriot should cause all of us a little concern. Isn’t it laughable the extent to which the GOP has taken it? If you do not wear an American flag on the lapel of your suit your motives and beliefs are questioned. I am offended that these people would take us as so simple that we would be given to obvious and superficial ploys such as wearing an American flag. I am offended first by their lack of respect for my ability to see through their games and then saddened to see their ploys working on so many people.

What is patriotism?

I believe patriotism is asking questions, being an active participant, having expectations, sacrificing time and money, demanding accountability and pursuing truth and transparency in our government’s dealings. I also believe we must be willing to push these causes, raise our voices and fight (if necessary) to ensure that these aspects of government are present both for ourselves and our posterity. From MLK to Shay’s Rebellion, we must be committed through one means or another of maintaining the honesty and integrity of our great political experiment.

As a patriot we should welcome Ralph Nader into the race, regardless of how that decision affects our own desires. Again, I have mentioned in other posts that the preservation and perpetuation of the Democratic party is a secondary consideration to the health of America in general. I believe that increasing participation beyond the ranks of elephants and donkeys is part of that solution.

Furthermore, I believe as patriots, there should not be pressure on either Hillary or Mike Huckabee to give up their pursuits of their party’s nominations. In the end, and it may be hard to see this in the short term, but the kind of national dialog generated through these campaigns is good for policy and good for the nation.

All that being said, and this is just more evidence of how conflicted I am on this, is John McCain better for the nation than Obama or Clinton? Assuming that Nader’s presence makes a difference, and I am not certain that it matters this time around, but if it does and he swings the election into McCain’s corner – are we better off as a people? This is where it gets very interesting. I plan on launching a Naked McCain website as soon as the general election starts, so I obviously feel he is not the best solution. So what does it mean for a decision that is seemingly in support of everything it means to have a democracy, the entrance of Nader as a third party candidate, but that might net the least desirable result for the election, as it did in 2000? Does the end undermine the means?

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Posted by jackson

Clinton Obama: Austin, Texas Democratic Debate

February 22, 2008

I am sitting here in my living room, eating some reheated Thai and watching the debate at the University of Texas at Austin. Hillary has to try and make up ground somehow tonight – but good luck with that. Not that it can’t be done, but she will have to be aggressive and sometimes this works against her.

First off, I want to keep a running count on how many times she says ‘Texas and Ohio.’ The time is 5:34 PST and I have just heard her mention them in tandem for the fourth time. Words for the day: Texas, Ohio, Experience.

While Obama talks, Hillary has been eying him the way Jenny Craig would stare down a slice of red velvet cake. She is poised to pounce. One thing that she struggles with is that she looks a little haughty when she is listening to him speak. She flays open her mask with a plastic smile, choppers ready to bite his head off – but there is a smugness to it. ‘I will eat you because I am better than you.‘

And now begins the wooing of the Latinos! I wonder how Clinton will spin the praise she showered upon NAFTA back in the day since Latinos in Texas embrace it but blue collar workers in Ohio despise it? Maybe if she were to crack open a Corona, talk about how much she loves Mexico and then slip in a comment between sips about what a clusterf@ck NAFTA was?? Maybe I need a Corona right now. I have a bottle of champagne that has somehow made it from New Year’s Eve to now…but I’m not sure about the pairing of debates and bubbly.

Ok, obviously her strategy here is to talk about a bunch of ‘how-to’s.’ It is going to be a long night of Clinton pedantically mapping out all of her solutions – in case you have not heard she is the candidate with solutions, not speeches. She’s at least half-right, she is dishing out a lecture, not a speech.

Ooh, tough question on whether we should embrace Spanish as a primary language in the US in addition to English. Hillary encourages us to learn another language. Me gusta aprender. I will apparently get a lot of enjoyment watching them tap dance through the Latino land mines tonight.

Obama does manage to work in a crowd pleasing comment about making sure we are one class of people and that Latinos are not relegated to secondary status. Hillary wants us to learn other languages and Obama wants us to respect everyone. So far, the debate is lacking in oomph. I am reconsidering that glass of champagne.

Now John King is is stirring the pot, bringing up some of Hillary’s attacks on Obama. Btw, John King is sort of freakishly handsome – and I don’t mean that in a good way. He is kind of freakish-looking but he is still slightly handsome. It is odd that CNN has both he and Anderson Cooper – pale, pasty white guys with gray/white hair and really blue eyes. Now that I think about it, Wolf Blizter also has the white hair / blue eyes thing going.

Ok, so Hillary just got in her jabs on words and speeches and not action. And, this is what I was talking about earlier, he offers a rebuttal and her face chubs up with another plastic grin…biting attack coming. I can feel it.

Snap! Obama hits back with the comment about Hillary’s ‘get real’ comments by saying that she is telling his supporters and people who have voted for Obama that they are delusional. Her grin went away but she morphed it in the last second into a muffled cackle. That got a big cheer from the crowd. Holla.

PALGIARISM! It has reared its ugly head in this debate now. Obama ripped off Deval’s words?!? This could blow up in Hillary’s face.

Snap again! Obama just called her plagiarism attacks ’silly.’ He also referred to this as the silly season in politics. And, he just worked in his own props for his speeches. Obama loves him some Obama and is mopping the floor with her right now. He is doing it without attacking her, asking her to focus on the issues and making every point he wants.

Campbell Brown is using the term ’silly season.’ I might love me some Campbell.

Clinton’s last remark went down like a Shaq free throw. CLANG! Number of times Hillary has been booed so far tonight – one. Her ‘change you can xerox’ comment bombed. Whoever wrote that for her should be fired. She looked really awkward trying to give it. She is pushing this plagiarism thing too far. She is not even getting claps from her people at this point.

Clinton is trying to sidestep that nasty little plagiarism ‘change you can xerox’ comment. She is steering away from that to health care. I hope she mentions Ohio soon.

Barack is taking her back to task on debating the issues and not the ’silly stuff.’ She is watching him very closely right now. I wonder if she can breathe out of her eyelids like Fernando Valenzuela?

He just brought up Hillary’s former tango with health care – her biggest failure, outside of her current campaign planning. He gives her props for trying but quickly paints it as a back room deal, with the American people left out. He is also painting her into the corner as the old ways of Washington. This is a theme for him tonight.

Campbell Brown is winning some love from me right now. She has just enough fire in her to shut down both Clinton and Obama when she needs to move on to a new topic or take a commercial. Hillary is throwing her some serious glares right now. I got twenty that says she and Bill go Tonya Harding on Campbell when she tries to leave the university tonight.

Hillary is forcing her way with the panel – bullying them so she can make her point. She is making some good points here but not doing much for complaints that she does not know how to compromise or how to play fair.

Hillary is answering as to whether she thinks Obama is qualified to be President. She rarely answers questions directly. She is listing her resume. Remember the time when they asked her what her greatest weakness was and she answered by saying she is just ‘impatient to bring change to America?’ At times, her inability to answer a question makes me want to punch myself in the face. She reminds me of one of those first dates in which the gal is less interested in talking to me and more interested in trying to impress me with all the things she has done. Yawn.

Obama at least touches on the idea of being qualified and having the ability to make the right decisions and then mentions her lapse in judgment in the vote to invade Iraq. She has nothing to say about that. I will give it a half-snap.

Side Bar: Is Bill Clinton to blame for every politician’s desire to mention someone they have recently spoken with in a local town meeting who shared their problems with them? The mother in Brownsville, the soldier at Fort Hood – I get it. You were in Brownsville and you talked to some people – some of them are sad and you care about that.

Now they are supposed to be talking about how the surge in Iraq, which they both opposed, is working. Clinton does some tap dancing and Obama is going back to hammering her on her ‘Invade Iraq Mistake’ and he gets to lump John McCain in with her.

Egad, now he is making a play for all the vets we have down in Texas. I love the guy but transparent tactics like this in debates always annoy me.

Commercial breaks are filled with diabetes testing and bath tubs for old people. I guess I am not the expected demographic for tuning into this debate. I do have to admit that bath tub looks like a pretty cool thing to have, especially if I can get my hands on some of that viagra.

Earmarks – Obama has $91mm and Clinton has $342mm attached to their respective bills in the Senate. Is McCain better in this arena of wasteful pork barrel spending? Hillary hits back with McCain’s support of Bush’s wasteful taxes showing his lack of fiscal foresight. She sounds good here.

She claims she will get us back to fiscal responsibility. Remember when she had to loan her campaign money because they used it all up? Did you know she is charging interest on that, btw?

Wow – CNN even has Jorge Ramos from Univision tonight – he is like the long, lost Latino brother of Anderson Cooper and John King. They all have gray hair and blue eyes. Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?

Campbell Brown is hot. Maybe I have a thing for smart brunettes?

The last question – what event in your life tested you most. This should be a good time for one of those non-answers of which Clinton is so fond.

Hmmm…Obama sounds like he is about to go into a past in which he did drugs but quickly veers into his early experiences as a community organizer. It ends a little flat.

Obama is done and it is up to Clinton to wrap things up. I hope Clinton takes this time to verbally bitchslap Bill on his infidelities. Oooh, she generically refers to her ‘crises.’ It actually is an effective moment.

She is telling us about when people ask her how she does it, she doesn’t think it matches up to what the American people are going through in their own lives. I just threw up in my mouth.

Clinton is now spinning another of her personal stories – I think she is actually trying to work up another cry. Apparently she could not summon any tears so she is waxing a little bible beltish with her talk about her calling and her blessings.

Wow, Clinton can ramble on, but the crowd did respond to her well. This is working for her. Clinton came across as very personable there. This was a good moment. You can tell Obama wishes he had done a little better. She did a nice juggling act tonight of appearing knowledgeable and throwing some punches, albeit softer ones. Again, she tanks at times when she attacks and we saw that tonight.

My honest take is that Obama did not win this one tonight. He does look Presidential, more so than in any debate so far, but I was not wowed. She came out early on sounding comfortable talking specifics. I think he could have scored some points by drumming her a little more on trying to force the debate away from the issues and onto the ’silly’ parts of politics. He did however seem much more comfortable than in previous debates. She, in turn, did not score the major victory she needed, and there was nothing new that she had to say. However Clinton closed strong. This might be a draw, which is bad news for Clinton.

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Posted by jackson

Braindead

February 20, 2008

Taking a quick look at the news today I see that Fidel Castro is stepping down, Lindsay Lohan is stripping and Barack Obama is a plagiarist. I spent a lot of time looking at the news today, mostly to see if I could find any more naked Lohan photos. When that didn’t happen I read more about Hillary’s latest attack, but, despite name of this website, did not look for naked photos of her.

I read a couple of articles and the reader comments that followed. That’s when the question arose, ‘How dumb are we?’ It’s not a question of whether we are dumb, it is a question of quantifiable depth, breadth and coverage. It’s like the old punchline, “My Dear, we have already established that. Now we are merely haggling over the price!”

I think we can go straight to the ‘we are dumb’ conclusion by looking at what the politician’s are using on us. Politics is an ancient game. Once civilization started coming together, circa 10,000 years ago, and we stopped randomly clubbing and killing each other and started doing it with purpose and design – some crafty cat used his skills at animal husbandry, agriculture, or something else that would have seemed really cool to a bunch of people emerging from the ice age, as leverage and became a leader, a chief, a big kahuna. Since that very first big kahuna, the game has gotten much more complex and the politicians have gotten craftier, if not always smarter. They have mastered the arts of persuasion and manipulation and they know what works.

So, Clinton comes out swinging over the last week and claims “There’s a big difference between us — speeches versus solutions, talk versus action…” I see in the comments section below the article the Clintonites and friends of Bill all falling in line and regurgitating the rhetoric ‘Obama is all style and talk but no substance.’ Frothing at the keyboards, they go into a frenzy of thoughtless soundbites. They are mindless zombies who have drank the kool-aid and are muttering in refrain the rants of their fearless leader.

Oh look – irony! Yes, I support Obama and yes I worked on his campaign here in California. And yes, Obama supporters can be rabid. I have posted on the Cult of Obama myself. I will not spare these supporters any grief because they often offer retorts to the mindless minions of Clinton that are as painfully unthought out as those of the Clintonites. My buddy, who is in Houston right now running the show for Obama, and I would joke around during the campaign here in Cali that our volunteers would just walk up to someone’s door, ring the bell and when the door opened they would just stare blankly inside and say ‘Change.’ It probably happened a few times.

What gets me is something along the lines of a dinner I was at a few nights back when another of my buddies tells me he thinks Obama is all talk. I ask him why he says that and he tells me, ‘Obama gives great speeches but where are the solutions. ‘

I ask him if he has gone to Obama’s website and looked at his plan or read his Blueprint for Change.

He then says, ‘So, exactly – all he has is a website.’

Yes, he has a website…with a plan. What does Clinton or McCain have? My friend only stares at me, bewildered, and begins to reach for his beer. Do you think Clinton is carrying around a box of solutions? Does she have anything more than a plan which she has outlined on her website? More bewildered beer drinking is all he can offer. He had not thought it through. He heard someone say that Barack is all talk and he bought into it. He had nothing to back it up, just an unfounded utterance.

This is a guy I consider fairly bright but he did not investigate, look or give real thought into what he was spewing out into the arena of general consumption. It is nothing more than the equivalent of me hearing a dog barking and then casually saying to my neighbor, ‘Bark, bark.’ I have no idea what the actual bark meant and am just repeating sounds. All sound and fury, but there is no merit to this attack.

I get it – Obama gives a good speech. So, Campaigning 101, try and turn his strength into a weakness. Pray that Americans are gullible enough to think that you standing in front of them giving a speech is any different than Barack doing it, albeit his has more flair.

While I am on the debunking bus, here’s another myth for you – Hillary has more experience and will be ready on day one. I have posted on this before as well. She has been elected to exactly one position in her career and has greatly exaggerated the experience she does have, as outlined brilliantly here in Slate by Timothy Noah.

But you don’t need Noah to tell you that Hillary has flooded her resume with exaggeration and hyperbole – think about it yourself. She is running a campaign than did not plan for anything after Feb 5. Her strategy was to position herself as the inevitable nominee. Not only did she underestimate her opponent, but she took the American voter for granted. She thought she could will and manipulate them for her own purposes. Now she has had money problems with the campaign, a messy shake-up in her management, has been outmaneuvered by Obama, was forced to go negative out of desperation and is trying to reinvent herself late in the game to save any shred of hope she has of staying in this thing.

If she had the experience she needs she would have planned a campaign that took nothing for granted.

If she were ready to lead on day one, she would not need to reinvent herself now.

If she were a candidate with real solutions she would have an answer as to how to beat Obama instead of being outworked, outplayed and outclassed by him for ten states in a row.

The good news is that we don’t have to be dumb. We can stop and think about things for a minute. We can change – that’s something I believe in.

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Posted by jackson

Clinton and Obama to Wisconsin, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas

February 19, 2008

We have a couple of interesting contests coming up tomorrow, Hawaii and Wisconsin. From what I have seen so far, both will likely go to Obama, although Wisconsin will be close. Clinton, as is becoming her standard MO, is launching more attacks to try and slow Obama’s momentum.

Then all eyes point to Ohio and Texas and March 4th. Her margins in Ohio still look strong and I would not be surprised if she takes it. However, I believe Obama will win Texas. I put together some information about the little known eccentricities of my former home that will help deliver the state to Barack here.

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Posted by jackson

All Donkey, All Partisan – A Wisconsin Tale of Irony

February 16, 2008

Hillary often appears to be itching for a fight. She launched a negative ad in Wisconsin, essentially firing one over the bow of the USS Obama, and when he replied via his own ad – she fired off another, more heated one. Wisconsin is now the land of Negative Ad Oneupsmanship.

Apparently, she has started getting more donations, fattening up her coffers and is using that to advertise in Wisconsin, while she campaigns in Texas and Ohio. The irony dripping off these people is enough to shampoo a thousand donkeys. The ad says Obama is ducking debates with Hillary and that he is scared to talk about his health care plan because hers is the only one that covers everybody. New Negative Hillary Ad. Which is funny because it is just not true, as you can read on FactCheck.

Clinton stretches things a bit, too. Even her plan – which, unlike Obama’s, includes a mandate for individuals to get insurance – would leave out a million people or perhaps more, depending on how severe the penalties would be for those who don’t comply. She won’t say how her mandate would be enforced, but has said that she was open to the possibility of garnishing wages.

I have said this in several other posts, but demanding debates is what you do when you’re behind. Right now Barack is out meeting with voters in Wisconsin while Hillary and Bill are mending their firewalls. For a candidate who believes the people of Wisconsin need to hear what they have to say, Clinton has an odd way of going about it – more irony – and not lost on Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle:

In a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, he said Mrs. Clinton has been “very disingenuously” attacking her rival. She’s fixated on this one debate, Mr. Doyle said, while Mr. Obama has been engaging with Wisconsin voters “day after day, in community after community.”

“The fact is he’s the one here in the state having a one-sided debate,” he added.

The governor also disputed the specific charges made by Mrs. Clinton in the ad, saying “to claim he’s some kind of lackey for big oil is laughable.”

You want more irony? Clinton’s latest ad is in rebuttal to an Obama ad that claims her negativity is more of the ’same old politics.’ So, someone tells you that your attacks demonstrate your adherence to old political tactics and then you attack them again, harder. Hmm. I have been using the term ‘irony’ loosely here in much more of the diluted vernacular sense. In truth, it is more obtuseness than irony. I am not even sure if there is room for irony in politics. Hillary seems willing to paint herself into the corner as the partisan fighter without any help from Barack. There is another article on CNN today with Bill claiming Barack is ignoring his legacy and that we need Hillary to fight.

Granted, disagreements and fighting are a necessary part of a healthy political process, but the Clinton’s ‘Fight First, Talk Later’ mentality is a stagnant remnant of Bill’s time in office, which had so much promise but fell victim to near-sighted political idealogues, rhetoric and partisan hacks.

I actually read Bill’s book – the whole thing. I also have a talking Bill Clinton action figure (heh) on my bookshelf. I have for a long time been a big Bill fan. However, I believe it is not so much that Barack is ignoring Bill’s legacy as it is that Bill is tarnishing, and maybe destroying, it himself with his ongoing abject lack of objectivity. I realize he is in a very unique situation, but his behavior, in my opinion, has already ceded the position of elder statesman to Al Gore for the Democratic party and he is serving as a visual reminder of the partisan rift that stymied his presidency and defined the 1990’s.

What might Bill Clinton’s legacy be? Perhaps a President Hillary Clinton who appears ready to take on all the same old fights and use all the tired political games to get her message across. If her attack ads are an indicator, this is what another Clinton Administration has to offer.

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Posted by jackson

States Hillary Clinton has Won – What, No Swings?

February 15, 2008

While doing some research on Texas strategy, a question started bugging me: How many ‘meaningful’ states has Hillary won?

If you go to CNN’s Election Center, you can get a breakdown of just about everything you would need.

Clinton wins: AZ, CA, NM, AR, NY, NJ, TN, MA, NH, NV

By ‘meaningful’ I am referring to states that may be in play in a general election, aka possible swing states. Either Democrat should have no problem winning CA, NY, NJ, MA and NH. Hillary has been emphasizing her wins in ‘big’ states, but we should win those regardless. This leaves Hillary’s winnings as: AZ, NM, AR, TN and NV.

Arizona has gone Democratic once in the last four elections, 1996 to Clinton, but barely.

New Mexico has gone Democratic three of the last four elections, but went to Bush in 2004.

Arkansas, Tennessee and Nevada went to Bush the last two times, but was won by Clinton the two previous times.

Arizona should go to McCain. New Mexico is a bit of a maverick state but often trends Democratic. It could be in play, because of McCain’s appeal to Latinos, but was essentially a wash between Hillary and Barack. Clinton could win Arkansas, her adopted home. Tennessee has shown signs of trending Democratic but would be a fight. Nevada, which was won by Hillary but where Obama collected more delegates, is considered a swing state.

What I am getting at here is that Clinton’s best showings have been in states the Democrats should win hands down. In swing states, it is either close or she loses. (Iowa, Oregon, Colorado, Missouri)

Furthermore, Obama’s strong showing in states such as Louisiana (which went for Bill Clinton twice), South Carolina and Georgia means the south might be in play and his sweep through the Midwest so far further makes his case as the candidate with Swing State appeal.

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Love in the Time of Color

February 14, 2008

Today is Valentine’s Day. Do you remember being in grade school and doing arts and crafts leading up to Feb 14th each year? We would always take little paper bags and decorate them with construction paper hearts. You would put your name, prominently, at the top so that everyone would know whose bag it was.

Then, after all the cutting, gluing and decorating, everyone would place their bag in a line on the chalkboard or on their desks. All the kids would break out their Valentine’s Day Cards, with the Muppets, Loony Toons or whatever else was hip back in the day, and start delivering.

Nerd Alert: I would always spend the night before sorting through the cards, making sure I did not send the wrong card to the wrong person. First, I would divide things into two piles: one with cards that might be construed as romantic (at least to a 9yr old) and the second that was of the safe variety.

Then, I would go through and designate the most suggestive card for the girl in the class I liked the most. I essentially ranked all the girls in my class and matched them up with their correspondingly appropriate valentine, as only a 9yr old can do.

Every year, in my class, the popular kids would get the most and the best valentines. I was a middle-of-the-pack kind of kid, so my haul was generally pretty average: some cards, a lollipop, maybe one card that implied a cute girl liked me and some chocolate kisses. The popular kids’ bags would be overflowing and they would get way more candy than the rest of us. (am I still bitter about this??)

The thought behind this is the metaphor it provides for our election year. We have Hillary, John M, Barack, Ronny and John E all looking through their bags and checking out their valentines. John M, Hillary and Barack’s bags all look pretty fat. John E is not too stoked with his take on the day and Ronny did not get a ton of valentines, but the ones he did get are interesting.

Hillary is the one girl in the class, but she is not getting all the love she wants and she looks, well, kind of pissed off. Barack’s bag is overflowing with valentines and candy and he has a big smile. John M has quite a few valentines as well but man, this kid looks old. I wonder if he was held back at some point?

Barack is the only black person in the class and this kid has lots of valentines. No one seems to be factoring into their pre-Valentine’s-Day-card-ranking ritual that Barack is a different color. No one seems to care. He is getting the love.

I heart him as a candidate because – yes, he is amazing with soaring speeches – but to limit him to merely his oratory skills is parochial, short-sighted and arguably Machiavellian. He is laying out a vision of a future I want to be a part of – a better future. He is inspirational in how he is convincing people that we can be better, we can work together and we can be the element of change we have all been waiting for. He is the kind of leader who can be more than just a President, he can be a catalyst for progress. When was the last time we found an American leader that inspiring?

On this Valentine’s Day, Barack’s bag is full because he speaks to the best of what we have to offer as people. Some people will claim that is naive and that anything that bears the slightest semblance to hope should be barred from discussion in the political arena. Those people won’t receive as many valentines because we all have dreams of a better world and the desire to make it so.

I sent a valentine to Barack this year – not the one with Miss Piggy making goo-goo eyes at Kermit, but the one with Fozzie that says ‘I could not bear it if we were not friends.’

You gotta give love to get love.

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All Her Base Are Belong to Barack

February 13, 2008

Here’s the deal – I actually ripped that headline off from an email I received from MoJo and I am, frankly, unapologetic about it. I wish I had thought of it first, but since I did not…I will ‘borrow’ it. I am laughing about it right now.

See, there are creative geniuses out there spinning stories about Clinton’s political plight and whether she can recover from the last couple of weeks that have seen her lose by large margins while simultaneously losing the foundations of her base. Her stalwarts: the old, the women and the Latinos all saw significant percentage drops as Obama has peeled them away.

So, back to the original point here, why am I flouting my flagrant theft of MoJo’s headline? Do you remember ‘All your Base…?’

All Your Base, if you are techy or geeky or spent a lot of time on the web in the 1990’s, this phrase is going to make you giggle. The fact that it still comes up from time to time is testament to its underground staying power. You had to be in the know even to recognize there was a joke being made when someone shouted out ‘Somebody set up us the bomb.’ If you weren’t in the know, you would be the oblivious guy while others were smiling wryly and snickering to themselves.

I even had friends to whom I would explain what it was and it still was lost on them. I would go into a detailed account of the story and why it was funny, but they would not get it. It wasn’t for everyone.

In case you missed it, here’s a recap:

It was one of those moments, a bookmark in the explosion of a dotcom world in which our inner-nerd was finally embraced. It was a counter-cultural phenomenon as can be seen here:

The fact that it popped up in a MoJo email has pretty much made the rest of my day.

Let the Clinton campaign be warned, “You are on the way to destruction.”

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