Super Tuesday Results
Some thoughts on the Super Tuesday results.
Obama and Clinton are in a draw with a slight advantage for Clinton. The fight beween the racists and the sexists will thereby continue. The victory may depend on who offers the biggest bribes for the super delegates.
From the progressive point of view, Hillary looks like the better side of a bad binary choice. But no matter who wins this, the party isn't really split about them and would support both as candidates.
A real split can be seen on the Republican side. The religious nuts and ultra-conservatives will never support McCain. Huckabee is a whacko, Romney a money side flip-flopper par excellance and McCain a war mongering neo-con. Bush filled all three roles in one person.
While McCain looks like he will in the end win that race, he will not have enough base support to win against Clinton or Obama.
Another big 'terrorist' event could change that.
Posted by b on February 6, 2008 at 13:22 UTC | Permalink
next page »ha, i take that back. the report i was reading just updated..
Posted by: annie | Feb 6 2008 13:55 utc | 2
sorry, back again. there seems to be some confusion..
obama 845, clinton 836.
the dem party has a confusing system w/super delegates who pledge their votes and can swing elections. i know the obama camp has been very confident on there delegate pledges for a while now.
something else i noticed. last night when i turned on the tele there was a map w/almost all the states projecting for clinton. the ptb on the gop side are definitely pushing for a clinton win. they are creaming to run against her.
i heard it was the biggest turnout for a primary in our history w/a 15% increase in under 30 vote. that is huge.
Posted by: annie | Feb 6 2008 14:13 utc | 3
I saw the numbers on CNNI, can't find a link in newspapers, but here is what I recall:
Tuesday's Voter Turnout:
Dems well over 11 mil, rethugs about 7 mil
Both Clinton and Obama got more votes (in the 5 mil range) than McCain (under 5 mil).
I think that's a big deal.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2008 15:35 utc | 5
CA: Hil + Barack = 3.7 mil votes vs. McCain + Rom + Huck =1.97 mil votes
Bellwether MO: H + B = .8 mil vs. McC + Rom + Huck + Paul = .58 mil
And the bubbleheads keep asking what "change" means.
It means what it always has: Throw the bums out!
About 70% of Dems will back Hil or Barack. Meanwhile the rethugs are ripping each other's candidates guts out. Who's divided?
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2008 16:00 utc | 6
How, precisely, does choosing between "Coca-Cola or Pepsi" translate to "throwing the bums out"...? How does lending your support to one facet of a political dynasty "Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton" represent any substantial change in the status quo? How does following this stage managed spectacle give you your political voice, liberty and dignity?
Sorry for being obtuse here, but I didn't get all that excited over Patrick Fitzgerald, either. Just like all those sweeping reforms the Democrat-led congress has made these past two years. The disappointment once the realization sets in that none of it actually makes the slightest difference to folk like you or me and is entirely out of our hands anyway just gets too crushing. Have fun backing the indistinguishable party of your choice, though. Wake me when something genuinely interesting happens.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 6 2008 17:00 utc | 7
How about this:
Barack Obama is committed to open systems that machine-publish information about what the government is doing, thereby opening our basically unaccountable government to public audit. HRC is against it.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 6 2008 17:22 utc | 8
My serious French language daily, le Temps, compared the US pres. candidates to cars.
Cars perform, have plus points, faults, image, a target public; they are ‘marketed’, deals are made, huge publicity budgets are invested, etc.
The point was that voting has turned into a decision similar to that made when selecting a car. I thought that was spot on, as it neatly captures the various influences, and moved from considering an ‘immaterial’ product - a mix of ideology, personality, appearance, belonging to a certain type, group, holding or supporting one opinion or another, etc. etc. all that stuff the advisors tear their hair out about - right down to a crassly material object.
Obama was a sleek and imported body; Hillary was the only one who stuck out, as she was the Queen of Rent-a-Car, and had one for every occasion.
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 6 2008 17:28 utc | 9
HRC is against it?
How do we know this? What exactly is she against?
Posted by: rjj | Feb 6 2008 18:20 utc | 11
There are about 1300 regular delegates remaining to be won -- and for either of these centrist Democrat candidates to win the nomination outright means winning two-thirds of those remaining 1300 delegates.
Which is highly unlikely. They'll more or less split them, leaving both short of a lock on the nomination.
This will be decided just before, or at the Convention, and it will be decided by Superdelegates in the back room.
Wealthy white men with fat cigars, stout members of the Upper East Side Liberation Army, devoted family men, centurions of Wall Street ever keen to continue the euthanasia of the middle class.
Posted by: UESLA | Feb 6 2008 18:37 utc | 12
"While McCain looks like he will in the end win that race, he will not have enough base support to win against Clinton or Obama.
"Another big 'terrorist' event could change that. "
I have had this 'inevitability' in my mind, too . . . unless there has been some "maturation" in the body politic that eludes knee jerk responses.
I believe we have to start envisioning the reasons why another terrorist event (its almost a given, or McCain will gin up the specter) can be handled within a process more normal than the fearmongering and constitution-breaking we saw and [the dems] acquiesced to in the wake of 9/11. Envision a worse case scenario and a response other than crazed John McCain as the default position. Might as well fight the negative force of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Posted by: DonS | Feb 6 2008 18:58 utc | 14
HRC apparently has a pretty consistent approach of affirming the idea that just about all ideas should, ideally, be owned. So, for example, she opposed the idea that recordings of the political debates should be in the public domain. She seems to want them subject to copyright.
When the issue was raised, Obama wrote this letter, which included this excerpt:
I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age. But there is no reason that this particular class of content needs the protection. We have incentive enough to debate. The networks have incentive enough to broadcast those debates. Rather than restricting the product of those debates, we should instead make sure that our democracy and citizens have the chance to benefit from them in all the ways that technology makes possible.
HRC was silent.
See opendebates.org for some history on how the parties took over the debates in 1988 and have used the new format to shut out 'lesser' voices and privatize the debates.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 6 2008 19:06 utc | 15
One has to ask why on earth anyone would bother to crank up a terrorist attack, to 'fix' the election result, if such a thing were even possible, when whoever out of the 'big three' that does win will be perfectly fine for the ruling elite. Neither of the two charlatans running for the dems picked up their $200+ mill in election financing by grabbing 5 or 10 bucks off every worker, too many overheads in collecting it they would rationalise. No these scum went straight to the fountainhead of funds, the rich elites who have been starting wars and screwing everyone since amerika was young.
That mob didn't get rich by being stupid and won't have parted with their money without ironclad guarantees, and insurance by way of having maps of buried bodies.
I realise the immense cultural and social pressure on amerikans right now makes it hard not to get swept along in the river of toxic bullshit, but lets at least try and keep the pretence that one candidate is ethically superior to the others out of otherwise rational discussions.
The whole point of the non-impeachment, continuing funding for the murder and rape of innocent Iraqis, plus the legalisation of torture and imprisonment without trial that the dems have masterminded in the last two years has been to demonstrate to the elites "that we can play the game too. We're not boring do-gooders, put one of us in charge and everything will continue as per usual."
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2008 19:22 utc | 16
Politics in These U.S. of A.
My favorite sentence of political analysis from across all the intertubes today:
Brad Plumer reports that Karl Rove (and I sort of admire the spare elegance of Rove serving as an election analyst for Fox News; I mean, why not just skip the middleman) threw cold water on the idea of a McCain/Huckabee ticket.
And the People Who Made it Happen
From the same blog, an excellent bit of history on the U.S.A.'s war on Vietnam: Worst American Birthdays: Edward Geary Lansdale
Posted by: citizen | Feb 6 2008 19:36 utc | 17
I'm really trying to be less of a Pollyana here (I do acknowledge all the candidates and cohorts are up to their ears complicit), than an odds player. McCain is a virtual certainty for more war and gleeful stoking the apocalypse. That's basically all I'm saying; and I should have said it more explicitly.
Posted by: DonS | Feb 6 2008 19:36 utc | 18
@monolycus
I was trying to respond to your "Wake me up when..." with my link @8.
@beq
glad the link does work for you. Thanks for letting me know. Despite all my reading with links here, I have found myself floundering in the slough of "What's the Difference". I do take seriously Monolycus' and others' articulation of the "ratchet effect" between Dems and Reps, but at the same time I also believe the moment will be ripe for serious realignments when the U.S. economy flatlines - and at that point it will truly matter what kind of person we have in the office. So, I'm looking for evidence of how these folks think and act.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 6 2008 19:45 utc | 19
@DonS sorry bout that it's still the wrong side of 8.00am here and I am somewhat underwhelmed by the alacrity with which the world has bought into the sham. I imagine Obama vs Clinton was at the top of Azerbaijani news bulletins too.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2008 19:53 utc | 20
McCain is a virtual certainty for more war and gleeful stoking the apocalypse
aren't they all? the Amurkan Way of Life (carburbs, SUVs, cheap air travel, factory food, 4000 sf homes w/24x7 AC and heat, meat-heavy diet, ultra cheap slave labour goods from far away FTZs) is a virtual certainty for more war and gleeful stoking of the Apocalypse or whatever other fairytale serves to justify the wars to steal the resources and keep the slaves in their place.
is any one of these candidates willing to tell the Amurkan people the true cost of their precious "way of life"? no? then they all are, de facto and by rigorous necessity, committed to continuing the piracy, occupation, liquidation etc. that is required to sustain the AWOL. partisan politics is icing; the real "party" is the Church of Infinite Growth w/its soothing fantasy that everyone can be fossil-affluent. and just about every Amurkan voter, regardless of partisan affiliation, is a paid-up member of that church.
my buddy rootless is as bewildered as I am by the HRC/Obama hoopla:
I don't know which blogs you've been reading lately; I've been dropping by Feminist Law Professors, Crooked Timber, BitchPhD and a few others. What's striking is that these--and others they link to, like Katha Pollitt and Pandagon, and even some of the music blogs-- have been in a dither of indecision over whether to vote for Obama or Clinton in the primaries today. And this dither is explained by the dazzling OK-ness of both of them, and the tea-leaf reading about "electability," and the hand-wringing over whether to strike a blow against patriarchy or against white racism (since evidently one has to choose.)This is nutso. Both candidates are mainstream Democrats, which tells you every single thing you need to know about what sort of President they'll be. Olmert has both their cell phones on speed dial, both are solidly on board with military Keynesianism, neoliberal economics, privatized health insurance, growth and car culture. That's not to say they'd be indistinguishable from Bush once in office; as to Federal judgeships, science policy, and trying to rebuild the wrecked Federal bureaucracy, both would be very different from the current lot. But they'd be different in ways indistinguishable from each other. So why isn't this a coin flip, or a shrug from the sidelines? All these bloggers--and maybe even me, I don't know--will vote for the Democratic nominee in November; they won't vote for McKinney, they'd rather be boiled than vote for Nader, and they're consumed with a desire to get the Republicans out.
Once the Democrat is elected, there'll be the usual shortish honeymoon before these same bloggers are smacking their foreheads and lamenting that they've been fooled yet again. Happens every god-damned time, and they never, never, never learn; maybe never learning is what really defines their politics, rather than any particular position on a particular issue. But it's very disorienting to see these smart people dangling a pocket mirror in front of their eyes and throwing themselves into a self-induced hypnotic trance.
I responded
and they will all fail to vote for Nader or McKinney precisely because they know that all the rest will fail to vote for Nader or McKinney, i.e. "they're not electable because we have all told each other that they are not electable, and I won't vote for anyone but the mainstream candidate because I know no one else will vote for anyone but the mainstream candidate." it's a huge game of Prisoners' Dilemma -- actually quite related to the way in which a tiny handful of armed guards can control a thousand prisoners because no prisoner wants to be the first to break ranks and rebel.even though the thousand prisoners could easily overpower the guards if they acted in concert, no one is going to act without the assurance that everyone else will; and no one wants to act unwisely and bring down retaliation on self and all the others if the attempt fails. and like prisoners, the frustrated and hogtied electorate get obsessed with minor details of the conditions of their confinement, being prohibited by their own fear and the guards' brainwashing from even contemplating a major jailbreak; it suddenly matters very much which kapo is assigned to your block and whether today's bread ration is a gram heavier or lighter than yesterday's, and who got the extra half-cigarette in the craps game during exercise break.
this self-defeating trance is, I think, precisely what the winner- take-all system and the electoral college are designed to induce; a fear of losing the WTA stakes so extreme that it makes the electorate ultimately manageable -- completely manageable -- by the elites who groom and put forward "safe" candidates.
Debs is Dead #16, as in many #'s, is dead right, except that the things elite bother with do include false elections and fake terrorist attacks.
Personally, suspect Gore will be put in after coasts go (great name, like Tony Snow and Chertoff (Devil's own in Russian, predates revolution), or, if coasts wait past November, son of Cain.
Posted by: plushtown | Feb 6 2008 20:36 utc | 22
With Debs on this one. Any fabricated or not terrorist incident would not benefit the rethugs, but rather play right into the conspiracy minded narrative. Americans are already paranoid (about everything) as evidenced by the high turnouts, especially among the young. People are suspicious about the WOT, the economy, and corruption in their own government. Most anything discussed openly here at the moon, when expressed to Mr. or Mrs Clueless is met not with revulsion or disbelief, but with a sheepish resignation or an uninformed recognition (without the facts) that all the flotsam is drifting in the same perilous direction towards a waterfall. Even the soundbite media cannot prevent this general drift to impending dread. So instead, they translate the narrative from facts and events into a personalized emotional melodrama of reactions disconnected from their causes. Besides, reducing everything into a squabble heightens emotions, vents anger, sells tickets, and most of all removes from the equation any chance of connecting to the true cause of their frustration. And all the while, preserving and maintaining a kind of order, that keeps a lid on a system thats in obvious failure mode.
As an aside, last night on the Rose show was a bizarre interview with woman who is a kind of media critic of television commercials (needing such a person speaks volumes about our culture) who attempted an analysis of superbowl commercials, as if they were a medium whereby important cultural information was being transmitted. Predictably, she said this years commercials showed a significant shift toward compromise, reconciliation, light hearted humor. Sheesh, only in America.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 6 2008 20:49 utc | 23
To my mind: 'Throw the bums out' (@6) - written as a description of the meaning of the 'change' theme, not an exhortation by me (I say drag their sorry asses to the Hague) - is being ignored by the press, as is the meaning of the voter turnout. The press loves a resurrection story (many more tv minutes and print inches on McCain) and is ignoring the real story, namely voters are voting Dem waay more than they are voting rethug. This is the traditional way voters express their discontent with the ruling party and the consequences of 8 lousy years, wars, trashed economy, indebtedness, bankruptcy, loss of jobs, vanishing middle class, loss of standing in the world - all of it. But the horse race loses its legs if the point is driven home that either Clinton or Obama is much more attractive to most voters than whatever the oppo can offer up. Nobody is talking about a Dem Landslide or Clean Sweep, which is what the primaries, at this stage, seem to be suggesting. Just imagine the reverse - if the rethugs were outpolling the dems 1.5 to 2 times their oppo. Never hear the end of it. The electorate is awake and sees that things can get much worse than what G. Bush has already wrought and they are clearly expressing a desire to banish the party in power. Whether or not a Dem prez will give them what they want is another story.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2008 20:58 utc | 25
Debs is Dead, you are a wonder!
You have us. You have described our mentality, paradigm, and perspective to the last detail.
Well done, indeed.
We would long since have offered you an officer's commission in the Upper East Side Liberation Army, and all the right connections to make you a qualified overseer of the hoi polloi -- if only you'd show a little more rah rah for the cause. . .
You see the game so clearly -- can you not let go of those irritating scruples, join the winning side, and let God sort out the unwashed multitudes? After all, they all have their various Heavens to go to, after they die. They will tell you themselves that it is the only reward they seek for all the effort of living.
C'mon, hoist the black flag, throw the chum overboard, and let us introduce you to all the right people.
Posted by: UESLA | Feb 6 2008 21:04 utc | 26
hamburger
the other night - on cnn - with that gonnoreah ridden golem wolf blitzer - a cretin commentatrice - sd that - but accidentally - that the ratings were much much better when they were covering the democrats
fpr me, they are like a steamroller stalled on a sentence - repeated into rigor mortis
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2008 21:26 utc | 28
r'giap,
It was Blitzkrieg himself who - early this a.m. in Germany - announced he had important info, and especially for his peerless team, that the turnout numbers were surprising. After blah, blah, he dropped his voice and pointed out the large discrepancy is something of a monotone. More blah blah and cut to a commercial. Later Gergen announced his shock that both Hil and Bar had polled more votes each than McC. It was interesting to me that both commentators thought they had some 'news' - yet I haven't seen them or anyone else repeat it since - not that I have been looking at the tv all day, I haven't.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2008 21:38 utc | 29
"C'mon, hoist the black flag, throw the chum overboard, and let us introduce you to all the right people."
These people? Asia Society
Posted by: pb | Feb 6 2008 21:55 utc | 30
joe liebermann - what world is he from ? he's so slimy - there isn't anything semitic about him - he is like an age old calvinist with his erection hanging out of his pants in public - he's really a contemptible piece of work - & i wouldn't like to be around when he ejaculates
leiberman gives the human species a bad name
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2008 22:09 utc | 31
From the progressive point of view, Hillary looks like the better side of a bad binary choice.
How so?
Lol, r'giap. Touche'
Well, it's the year of the rat; he should thrive. [sorry rats]
Posted by: beq | Feb 6 2008 23:29 utc | 33
beq
yes - he's really like all those character(in his case characterless) actors in 30' & 40's film noir - playing the rat. something unholy. there was this too in the unshaven face of senator mcarthy after a few bourbons & it was also there in the overfed face of j edgar hoover before he went down on his assistant clyde tolson & condemned another american communist to a living hell
it is perfectly illustrated in the face of that crimal par excellence, tom delay
one part creepy, the other part chilling
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2008 23:43 utc | 34
@32 - Nell
Me says: From the progressive point of view, Hillary looks like the better side of a bad binary choice.
Nell asks: How so?
Me says:
- Universal healthcare. Obama's concept can not deliver it.
- "Vision" stuff like this: Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth.There's more of such in that speech and others ...
- Check his position on Pakistan - he would troops in there to "hunt the terrorists"
How far from John McCain?
"I believe we are still the last, best hope of Earth."
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2008 1:05 utc | 36
@UESLA Thanks for the offer but I regret that I must respectfully decline. Our agents have already recovered a complete UESLA membership list, ready to be 'processed' when the time is right.
Lol I was thinking about the ubiquitous nature of this inane contest between Arthur and Martha already and planning to link it up with a comment about how I had a preferred team picked for the Superbowl even though I loath amerikan football (and no Rick; not because it is amerikan, but because it is already what god's game Rugby, is currently striving to be, a TV scripted drama with more resemblance to a soap opera than a sporting contest). I had selected the NY Giants and not because they were the underdogs nearly as much as an almost visceral loathing for the eager to please pap pouring outta the mouth of the patriots quarterback, anytime the sports news was on whatever channel, anywhere in the world.
Some how we can all get sucked into these often predetermined dramas, no matter how pointless they are, or how lose:lose any result may be.
We just have to see how many posts MoA has received since a sort of spontaneous collective decision was made by MoA-ites that even though we may be repelled by the 08 election farce, that we wouldn't completely ignore it. We humans can't help ourselves but to push our sticky-beaks into even the most mundane drama, especially when subjected to so many facets of it that at least one tiny fragment must be a subject we have an interest in.
Whether expounding every bit of the candidates' life in huge detail was a deliberate strategy to attract viewers or it is a by-product of having to fill every second between the commercials with blather, doesn't matter much anymore. It works, everyone has become hooked.
Of course even that thought is not new. I stopped off in my in box on the way here and decided read what Tom Englebert has been saying lately. This piece by Tom sums up better fascination of the farce better than I could.
Let's face it, for media and candidates alike Primary 2008 has been Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Gladiator, The Apprentice ("You're fired!"), and American Idol rolled into one -- and a ratings wonder as well in which nothing fails. Two testy opponents meet elbow to elbow in a debate in Hollywood -- with the camera flicking to the star-studded audience as if it were the Oscars… Gasp! Is that really George from Seinfeld? -- and no sparks fly; yet the story has wings anyway. Barack and Hillary were cordial! Were "a black man and a white woman" the "perfect future running mates"? Could they team up as "a Democratic dream ticket"? Or would they be back at each other's throats, just the way John McCain and Mitt Romney have been?It couldn't matter less, not when everything in Campaign 2008 glues American eyeballs to screens without a writer in sight. Who needs on-strike vendors of fiction when a teeming crew of stand-up pundits is eternally on hand to produce political fictions at a moment's notice? Can anyone deny that more of them have been predicting, projecting, suggesting, insinuating, bloviating, and offering authoritative conclusions than at any time in our history? If that isn't "historic," what is, even if so many of their predictions prove wrong in the morning light?
It's been feeding-frenzy time in medialand -- and it's your enthusiasm off which the media's been feeding.
Aaarrgh! The bastards have us coming and going! I have been unable to resist trying to deconstruct the articles to try and discover what the hell it is these media outlets have been saying.
For example the NZ fish-wrap I read The NZ Herald , appears to marginally favor Obama over Clinton, but the Oz rag I also absorb with my morning caffeine fix, The Sydney Morning Herald is devoutly pro-Clinton. Of course the issue isn't with what they are saying nearly as much as why? Why the hell would any rational human being in amerika have a preference out of either those two, let alone a fish-wrap from the south of the planet, where we live in the certainty that no matter what else is going to happen; us getting fucked over by northern greed heads is as inevitable as death and taxes.
Yet there we go taking an interest in things we have no control over again. Not just us in the South, everyone.
What the hell do we think we are doing? No matter how deeply we clutch the knowledge that if our 'personal favourite' is elected, by 30th of March 2009 we will all be expectorating the new prez's name as if it were a phlegm encrusted fish-bone, we still have a preference.
This is absolutely no different to my selection of the Giants for the superbowl. it doesn't matter a damn how little I know about the game much less the teams, because I think I know one thing which I felt strongly about, I bought into the whole shabby enterprise of Superbowl 08.
We're all fucking dingbats, so dingbatted its easy to see how it is the elites can treat us so contemptibly.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 7 2008 2:05 utc | 38
Hamburger wrote that (t)This is the traditional way voters express their discontent with the ruling party and the consequences of 8 lousy years, wars, trashed economy, indebtedness, bankruptcy, loss of jobs, vanishing middle class, loss of standing in the world - all of it." and then "Whether or not a Dem prez will give them what they want is another story."
But it's not another story. It's the same goddammed story (My Pet Goat...?) that we've been seeing for years and years and years. Voters don't matter. Discontent doesn't matter. Putting a new face on the same old agenda is what they do, it's what they have always done, and it's what they will continue to do. Two years ago the Democrats won a majority in the US congress (the judicial branch, mind you, where authority should lay... not in the person of the head of the executive branch!) Didn't that represent voter discontent? SO FUCKING WHAT??? What have they done except to reinforce precisely the things that voters were discontented about in the first place?? Who's going to stop them? Vote them out of office where they continue to draw fat paycheques as consultants and lobbyists? That'll teach 'em! I'll bet that porcine Karl Rove rues the day he ever went against the almighty discontented voters!
Yeah, right.
And what about citizen's suggestions that Obama has paid lip service to certain ideals that will strike a populist chord? Is he going to get the nomination as a result? No. And so fucking what if he did? His voting record as a senator does not indicate that he is terribly interested in ending T.W.A.T. and repealing the PATRIOT Act and following through on anything except more lost blood and treasure in overseas wars.
Meet the new boss, guys. Same as the old boss. Except you WILL get fooled again. You set yourselves up for it EVERY FUCKING TIME! Each election cycle puts a powerful and vivid image in my head of Lucy Van Pelt pulling away a football just as the hapless idiot Charlie Brown tries to kick it based on her assurances that "this time, it will end differently." I've made my peace that the game is rigged; I've made my peace that nobody is seriously interested in changing the game... just don't insult me by pretending that I'm not being played. Or, if you're not an American, don't stab me in the chest with your accusing finger and smugly inform me that this is what Americans wanted. This is what you decided. Bull and shit. Americans have no more say in how these things go than you do. But the great big game of pretend that we call "democracy" is to act like things are full of hope and possibility and that we get the government we deserve.
These electoral games aren't purposeless. By giving you the grand illusion (or, as Leo Strauss would have it, the "Noble Lie") that you have a voice, your overlords diffuse the likelihood that you'll do anything really efficacious to cost them money. And they can add with a smug little smirk that "this is what you wanted." And the more excited we get about the game, the more information about us they have to put in our files, so we end up with even less freedom by playing the game than we had before. (Love the final sentence in that WaPo link..."You've chosen it." Fuckers just can't resist their little jokes.)
DeAnander nailed it dead on... "(T)he frustrated and hogtied electorate get obsessed with minor details of the conditions of their confinement..." And that's why I'm getting so pissed off. I have no patience for games. That's what this whole process has become. We can endlessly analyze and agonize, and we will, but at the end of the day, none it makes any fucking difference. Just because you have me by the balls does not mean my heart and mind has to follow.
So we have two candidates who could have been (and were) predicted eight years ago. HRC was promised the Presidency for voting for the war and McCain was promised the Presidency for his snivelling endorsement of Bush the Younger in 2000. Avaricious, interchangeable corporate whores and lapdogs for the monied. Entirely predictable and entirely disgusting. Cashing in my chips; this game isn't going anywhere.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 7 2008 6:40 utc | 39
Of course you're right Monolycus - but as Debs is Dead points out when the shit hits the fan, we all go home stinky, whether we want to or not. Because the shit industry is in overtime production, as the fans are on warp speed. And this is just the beginning. All my alternative (political) haunts (digby, sadly no, group news, etc) have capitulated and have swan dived into the fray, the better of which, with a tacit acknowledgment of how utterly disappointing the democrats post 2007 have been - but are still yet, in high gear commissar mode. As if against all evidence (which they even admit to) the Democrats will actually make a difference. I frankly don't get it. Unless its the prenenial aphrodisiac allure of the skunk cabbage bloom. Which doesn't translate here at the moon.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2008 10:44 utc | 40
From the comments in this thread it is easy to see that more and more people are fed up with the "Same dog - Different head" scenario they get dished out every election. The system sucks coz it is designed to suck.
Instead of lamenting how bad the US political framework was, is and will be, any suggestions on how to (sorry to use the term) change it? Is the US condemned to be ruled by kleptocrats into all eternity or is there still some sane way to bring about the revolution needed to get rid of the ugly outgrowth the US political elite has become?
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 7 2008 11:38 utc | 41
Juan Moment asked "...is there still some sane way to bring about the revolution needed to get rid of the ugly outgrowth the US political elite has become?"
Sane...? You been on Mars or something? We passed that point a looooooong damned time ago. Years ago I said "If we don't do something about this now...". We didn't. Nobody wanted to give anything up to make it any better. They preferred to wait for a valiant white knight to come and make everything better for them. This ain't "time was" anymore. They own you. Get used to it.
beq asked "So none of you who can will vote?"
I haven't missed a single election (Presidential or midterm) for the past 21 years (since I first became eligible). You conjure up a compelling reason why it makes a difference and I'll reconsider, but my position at the moment is that it's a rigged game, it's a waste of my time and it gives them data about myself I don't feel like blithely handing over anymore. I am tired of being played just so I can feel like I did my civic duty and participated in the big farce.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 7 2008 12:38 utc | 43
Mono @ 39 -
It sort of looks/sounds like you are yelling at me so I write again that the point I want to make about the primaries to date that is being ignored/repressed but is huge in my estimation is that, FOR EXAMPLE (this is an observation, not an endorsement), Hil got A MILLION more votes in CA than McCain, yet coverage of McCain is all about his resurrection, him being a maverick, Limpballs hates him. etc., not about real turnout numbers that predict at this stage a huge rejection of the ruling party come Nov. I want to see that story covered, i.e., the documentation and explication of the electorate's rejection of the Bush-Cheney admin, documentation of and repeating to death what people expect of a Dem. admin. If they would cover the very real likelihood that the rethugs are doomed in Nov., universal health care would have a chance of being "baked into the cake" in the next Dem. admin. (just like the press already has done with the $800 "rebate" "taxpayers" now expect and will blame the senate dems if it doesn't happen immediately). I see the continuing struggle between Hil and Bar as the opportunity to keep health care, the economy, ending the occupations, etc., before the public and, at the same time, tie McC to Bush, building the expectation that change means throwing the corrupt war-mongering bastids out.
OF COURSE (since you're relying on caps to make your point) the chances of a Dem prez, even a Dem prez + Dem Congress to make real progressive change is diminished for all the reasons you and everyone else here, including me, believe, corps having everyone by the balls.
Nevertheless: My point is that there is a huge story that the rethug party could be crushed in Nov. This likelihood and all its implications need to be in the news and discussed. The numbers so far tell us that Americans want the bastids out, they want hope, they want an accountable government.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 7 2008 13:15 utc | 44
Thanks Hamburger. It is huge. I can be ignored for so long. People are paying attention now. [thanks little boots; your "legacy"]
They may have done nothing and be more of the same but changes made in 06 are still better than what was going on with Delay and co. before.
Wish I was eloquent.
Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 13:26 utc | 45
Hey beq - thanks.
Tom Tomorrow says it better.
Wish I could paint.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 7 2008 13:45 utc | 47
Hamburger, yeah I was doing a little yelling. Wasn't aimed at you. Sorry if you took it personally.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 7 2008 13:52 utc | 48
@ Juan 41
Eternity is a long time, but I'd bet on kleptocracy for the forseeable future, and probably well beyond. Nothing lasts forever, of course, but human failings do recur with the same persistence as physiological needs, and the only thing less desirable (to me) than government by kleptocrats is a government of saints or incorruptible ideologues.
Meanwhile, it may be of interest to see some comments on the Obama-Clinton
duel from within Obama's natural constituency: these two articles from the Black Commentator website show an invigorating diversity of views, the first MOA negative, the second MLK positive.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Feb 7 2008 14:05 utc | 49
Lol Hamburger.
Look, fwiw, I've been voting since I turned 18 too, no matter what. Once when faced with a bunch of local candidates for dogcatcher and such, I didn't have any idea who these people were or what they were for so I eliminated everyone who used a nickname or just initials (it seemed to be the thing to do then) and voted for those who simply used their names. Even that felt good if not exactly right.
These young people who are turning out need to keep involved.
Just sayin'.
Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 14:05 utc | 50
beq@42,
I'll vote 3rd party (Nader, McKinney,...) if one shows up on the ballot here in Alabama. otherwise I'll sit it out.
no way I can pull the lever for warmongering rethugs or me-too warmongering dems.
Posted by: ran | Feb 7 2008 14:18 utc | 51
We passed that point a looooooong damned time ago.I think I know how you feel, but somehow I can't shake that feeling that we ought to give our kids more hope than that. To being defeatist on this matter, robbed of any optimism and aspirations, is in the elite's script exactly what people who see through the farce are meant to feel. By us resigning we support their doing.
I do have a vision that one day a meaningful transformation of the US's political landscape will come about. My guess is that it will be achieved by using the aristocracy's own weapons against them. Money and the courts. If every tenth US American gives $100 to the cause, creating a pool of approx 2.5 billion dollars, a lot can be done. If the same day a law like the Patriot Act is introduced tens of millions of US citizens turn themselves in for petty crimes like having a burned Ray Charles CD at home, smoked some pot, having a Muslim friend, not filed their tax return on time, etc...the judicial and law enforcement system would be hopelessly overloaded. I know, If's and more IF's, but which ever way, I so hope that one day enough people will find the conviction needed to invoke the closure of this "two parties - one scheme" chapter in US history.
I suppose too many people in the US have still too much to loose. But change can happen gradually, pain free even. As the proverb goes, 'where there is a will there is a way'. Maybe it will take a few charismatic people to grab the pacifist green left in the US by the horns and run with it, never have the times been better to state a case against the intellectual intimacy on Capitol Hill.
In my humble opinion what has to stop is this lame arse congress rubber stamping everything the President does, put the checks and balances back in place. This however won't happen until other parties or groups of independents appear on the political scene to finally put a spanner into the their self-serving works. If the US is really a democracy worth its salt, and enough people shed their ideological blinkers, such alternatives are bound to emerge one day. Until then, I am with ran, no support for either of the two parties.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 7 2008 14:59 utc | 52
Well I'm registered independent and always have been. I am proud not to support either party but will give what I can (not much) to a candidate if one blows my dress up. But what's important now, I think, is to have overwhelming numbers to keep them from diddling with the elections the way they have ever since the arrival of the abominal voting machines.
Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 15:07 utc | 53
And the point of downplaying the massive diferences in participation between the reps and the dems primaries?
Hm, I would guess that it would be bad policy to let people think that a candidate can be voted for on other criterias then electability...
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 7 2008 15:54 utc | 55
and this quote seems apt here:
'It honestly doesn't occur to them,' said Ford. 'They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.''You mean they actually vote for the lizards?'
'Oh yes,' said Ford with a shrug, 'of course.'
'But,' said Arthur, going for the big one again, 'why?'
'Because if they didn't vote for a lizard,' said Ford, 'the wrong lizard might get in.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 7 2008 15:56 utc | 56
Every time I hear or read election coverage, it reminds me of something I read in a biology book years ago, about schools of fish in which the "leader" of the school is chosen after various fishes emit chemical signals into the water.
Maybe this is how they do it?
On NPR yesterday morning, they were so busy analyzing the primary results that they barely had time to discuss the lethal storms that whacked the South. You OK, beq?
Posted by: catlady | Feb 7 2008 16:10 utc | 57
Yes thanks, catlady.
Though they don't like to admit it around here, this isn't really *The South*.
Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 16:32 utc | 58
The really sad thing to me is the prisoners' dilemma aspect: yes the system is rigged, but not so rigged that if, say, 100 mio people voted for McKinney that event could be hidden. But 100 mio people will never do that because then "the wrong lizard might get in". Aaaaaargh [bangs head on keyboard]...
And this is largely because of a failure of trust; no one prisoner trusts all the other prisoners to rebel at the same moment, everyone is afraid of being hung out to dry, being an idiot who voted with a small "lunatic" minority and "spoiled" the election for everyone.
Truly, the Survivor and Big Brother and Amurkan Idol shows codify the zeitgeist: mutual mistrust, rule by clique, ruthless conformity, and a trivialisation and flight from reality so severe that it can hardly be described. All of it symptomatic of any decaying aristocracy, but in this case the decaying aristocracy seems to be almost the entire culture... how long can fin de siècle drag out before some new paradigm takes hold?
I think the new paradigm is taking shape right now, in all those US households that, losing nearly everything - jobs, benefits, cars, houses, are now spending cash only to survive on a daily basis. Retail sales sucked for Jan. and Wal-Mart sales were in groceries, not the rest of the store. Gonna be a lot of formerly middle class voters in Nov.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 7 2008 18:02 utc | 61
Romney quits.
It took him $30+ million to learn that he'll never be president. Stupid guy. It cost me 'nothing to get that lesson.
Yeah, right, as I was saying ...
As with the sub-prime, CDO, SIV, credit/banking/liquidity/insolvency blowout,Tweety et al. in Nov will be crying "How could we have known, who saw this coming?
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 7 2008 18:17 utc | 63
b
romney is one dumb motherfucker waiting for a social distribution of his capital
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 7 2008 20:09 utc | 64
Looks like its Ol' Gluehorse for the freeps, heh, heh, thats what they are calling him (McCain) on LGF. Have to admit, it makes me smile.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2008 20:17 utc | 65
me #3 the ptb on the gop side are definitely pushing for a clinton win. they are creaming to run against her.
Limbaugh wants to raise cash for Clinton
"The reason I'm raising money for Hillary is because, apparently, my party, the Republican party, is relying on fear and loathing of Hillary to unite the party," Limbaugh said.
He worried that she was in danger of losing the nomination to Barack Obama, who doesn't inspire the same fervent rage among GOP voters.
i wonder if republicans are going to try to vote in the dem primary to shove for a clinton win?
Posted by: annie | Feb 7 2008 20:44 utc | 66
Clinton Lent Campaign $5 Million, Considers More
After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton [i.e., Bill's "Clinton Foundation"]
Posted by: manonfyre | Feb 7 2008 20:44 utc | 67
Fuck it, I'll be voting John McCain 2008, just as I voted Bush last time.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2008 21:03 utc | 68
Ari Fleischer: "There is no doubt … we hope and pray every night to run against Hillary Clinton."
Buchanan: John McCain ‘Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi’
“The Myth of a Maverick”: Matt Welch on GOP Frontrunner John McCain, via Democracy Now
excerpt:
MATT WELCH: . . . The basic McCain strategy– you know in 1999 McCain advocated this policy of rogue-state rollback which is basically preemptive war three and a half years before Bush ever thought of it.AMY GOODMAN: He threatened North Korea with extinction.
MATT WELCH: He threatened North Korea with extinction, and he elucidated this doctrine by which– wherever there is an authoritarian dictator, we support the insurgents. And, if we support the insurgent and the dictator cracks down, then we have to defend the insurgents with US force. And any time we make a threat and someone calls our bluff, we also have to use US force. It is incredibly interventionist militaristic approach towards foreign policy that he has had all along. That’s the reason why neoconservatives have flocked to his cause and championed it over the years.
So, after September 11th, Bush started to embrace those ideas. That kind of policy structure grafted onto Bush and so it was natural that McCain and Bush would become closer over that time. And then– starting around 2004 and 2005, when McCain started eyeing the presidency in 2008, he began this long, slow suck-up to the right, particularly social conservatives, and also to Bush because he wanted to be the sort of front runner of the Republican establishment.
Posted by: manonfyre | Feb 7 2008 21:35 utc | 69
I realise that this query will establish my backwoods political naivety for once and for all, but unashamed as I am to be a naif I shall ask it.
manonfyre linked to a NYT article about HRC lending her campaign $5 mill of her own money.
My question is where and when did Clinton acquire $5 mill, probably more? The article goes on to say that she has a relatively few contributors in comparison to Obama who has substantially more (in number) donors who can still 'donate' more bribes before they reach their limit, Clinton's 'donors' have already maxed out their bribes.
I'm pretty sure that Whitewater and Obergruppenfuhrer Ken Starr would have carried on fit to burst if the Clintons had anything like $5 mill sloshing around at the time of the Clinton I prez. I also seem to remember numerous articles telling us that the Clintons left Pennsylvania Ave with the proverbial ass hanging outta their britches, flat broke.
If there was any veracity to any of that or the Starr witch hunt we would have to assume that HRC has amassed $5 maybe $10 mill in liquid assets (ie cash and negotiable securities not long-term investments) during her two terms as senator for New York. Am I the only person to think that she would struggle to do that on her salary and expense account? So. Where did the money come from?
If the immediate answer is Cigar Bill and his worldwide lecture circuit, shouldn't amerikans be asking if that is strictly kosher? Shouldn't Clinton the First be considered a donor who is restricted in the amounts he can 'donate' just the same as any other?
I realise that most amerikans take the billionaire status of their national political figures for granted, but surely one of the first steps to take in 'fixing the system' would be to no longer concede that it is OK for these public servants to cream off vast sums of money for themselves. Much less be able to create dynastic family units whose assets don't belong to a a particular individual unless they need to; at other times the slush fund has a few intended recipients but no immediate owner.
I find it amazing, as the poms would say I am gob-smacked. That the Clintons can let it out that they, who claim to have been acting in the public good for their entire working lives, have been able to quietly drop a lazy $5 million on themselves and push that as a positive.
Trip these pricks up on the cost of their never-ending gab fest. That's my tip for starting the struggle to get human beings with acceptable human values into amerikan national politics.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 7 2008 22:50 utc | 70
It brought me up short too Debs. She just said it like it was egg money.
Can we suppose that maybe it wasn't her money but a donation from the dark side?
Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 23:12 utc | 71
Here's a treat I thought I'd share. Today my favorite local poet stopped by and enlightened me by dropping the following. It so moved me I had to ask his permission to spread it around. Follow along boys and girls... This simple but sing/song rhyme carries a very powerful punch.*
super duper Tuesday blueswinning, spinning, who will lose?
O let me, with a puff of air,
settle in this deep despair
where knowledge finds the old charade
is living well, and loves to play
with voters, pollsters, candidates
like banking on a fat rebate
to quickly spend, to stimulate
this glut we grip, our stupid fate
like faces spread across the screen
those little parts of a big machine
mean nothing save a brand of style
that though may shift will always smile
for a camera lens is not your friend
and exit poll cannot cement
the growing rift between the scale
of soaring Eagles and lowly Snails
like bailing water with holy pails
or riding trains toward broken rails
or trapping wind in shredded sails
or catching lizards with pop-off tails
the growing rift is wide and deep
and follows us from day to sleep
and greets us like the sun each day
to whom believers unwitting pray
but that's a story for another time
the story now is who will rise
as winner of the cardboard fight
to fashion words to blur our sight
and laws to strip us of our rights
while they siphon faster than before
and gear us up for another war
because shadows cast from long ago
kill the high and fill the low
and from above confuse below
so those who seek will never know
what is real, and what is show
and that's the way it's gonna be
like a stupid pop song on repeat
until bridges fall and banks go broke
and rivers dry and skies all choke
and plastic wrappers hold no food
and giant tankers hold no crude
and maybe then we'll finally see
America's brand of hostility
and maybe then we'll finally know
the future's now, and can't be sold
*Forgive the sports analogy...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2008 23:23 utc | 72
Shhhhush... not now Debs is dead, we're in trance, don't mess it up...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2008 23:31 utc | 73
WRT Limbaugh and the Pub trogs saying they are dying to run against Hillary.
Why are they being so candid? so helpful?
People rarely tell their adversaries what they really really want, do they?
Posted by: rjj | Feb 8 2008 0:24 utc | 74
Bill Clinton has not been a public servant for 8 years.
Bet the only people who made less after they left office were Carter and Kennedy. Maybe not even Carter.
Somewhere there is a list.
Posted by: rjj | Feb 8 2008 0:29 utc | 75
For the most part, the Clinton's cannot be effectively accused of anything. The prosecutorial bank of indictments is like a credit card that has been maxed out. Public credulity has gone through an ordeal similar to Pavlov's dogs, and the brain will no longer process accusations. And I think this is what the Clinton machine counts on, once they obtain the final consolidation of power in the White House.
Obama is the true cipher of Hope. An article of faith. He has signaled his desire for an accommodation with the lizards, like someome who counts on outfoxing the devil. If you are an American, it depends very much on whether you have personally crossed the event horizon of paranoia, as to how you evaluate the occasional flashes of the sinister, that you may see in the man. The leap of faith is what is at stake when voting for him.
Alternatively, you have McCain, the sword of Our Lord. And when you vote for him you will affirm that a jamboree of death is at the top of the list of things you covet. McCain knows where the tree of American psychosis is, and he knows how to shake the thing and make it give up its apples. The democrats are about to surrender to the terrorists. Don't you see?
How can an American rely on his or her judgment when faced with the dilemma? Am I a sexist? a racist? a real American? What counsel may I take before I divide and conquer my soul? After I read the accounts from Haditha, upon whom should I confer real power? Shall a Clinton grind out the meal for bread? Shall Obama present the check to the Bank of Justice? Shall McCain pull the trigger in a dream within a dream?
I imagine Clinton Bill does make a huge amount from lectures and from the recent book sales. Because they are still married (ha!) their assets and property would be considered as owned between them jointly. Also, money collected (and not spent) from her senate runs, I do believe becomes her personal property. I understand John Kerry had quite a substantial stash left over after the election. I'm not absolutely sure about this though.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 4:33 utc | 77
Looking a bit further, Clinton had 13million left over from her senate run, which by law can be transferred to the presidential run. Tonight someone (who should know, a senators sister) told me campaign funds not used can be used personally) I guess that is wrong. I suppose however, that like business expenses the line between personal & business can get blurry, so it is possible Clinton has stashed her Senate war chest separate from the presidential one and may be borrowing from it for this run. Conceivably, she could even arrange a personal loan using the Senate money or her ability to raise money as collateral, to then be paid back by the presidential campaign. What she is calling a "personal" loan can mean lots of different things and she does'nt have to disclose anything to us.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 5:46 utc | 78
I doubt that this appreciation of Obama from the Open Democracy site will convince anyone here, but the case is, nonetheless, rather well argued. It fits right in with Copeland's comments in 76.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Feb 8 2008 7:08 utc | 79
Uncle - now I'm living on blues power.
Hamburger - I think Romney did a quick calculation much as you did, and decided to live to run again in 4 years.
ran - Protest vote. If you want to be asked, you need to demonstrate, including what you think of the options. What better way? Write in. If that's not possible, find another way. Don't give up your rights. Even when presented them on a meaningless platter, with the hope that you will walk away.
Posted by: small coke | Feb 8 2008 7:19 utc | 80
Don't underestimate the Loot Clinton scoops up on lecture circuit. He's loved internationally. I heard someone astute say that if HRC starts getting chewed up on the stump, she'll withdraw so that his fees aren't adversely affected...Esp. now that romney has withdrawn so rethugs can get on w/business, it wouldn't be surprising to see her withdraw if her numbers keep trending down...Great...Obamination is even further to the right (details on that later when i emerge from the depression induced by the latest "election" garbage).
Posted by: jj | Feb 8 2008 7:32 utc | 81
Damn, Hannah, I mean no disrespect, at all, at all. But, the Open Democracy article lost me at, "The United States presidential race is the most exciting and energising in years."...
I'm yet again, with Monolycus from above. What his comment along with my poet friends aphorisms reminded me of is R.D.Laing's Knotts:
They are playing a game.(1974: p. 1)
They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
I'm sorry I can no longer go along with the charade. And 'I'm getting old', as Neil Young Once sang, and I'm prolly younger than most MOA's here. I have all but given up on seeing any 'change' in my lifetime. Except the slow decay of entropy. Yes, I ooze myopia but then again, I'd like to think that though I can't change the madness I see around me, I can at least name it. Because when you name it, you own it, and what you name can't own you.
At least that's what the poem in the bibliotherapy book entitled, The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis gave me.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 8 2008 8:08 utc | 82
@ small coke
now I'm living on blues power.
Apparently, I'm tied to the Whipping Post ...lol
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 8 2008 8:54 utc | 83
Bill Clinton has made 40 million in lecture fees since leaving office. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2007/clinton-speeches/list/>List of fees collected by event.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:07 utc | 84
Yeah, especially in light of what could Bill Clinton say that would be worth $150,000.00 to anyone. Although I've heard through the grapevine that a similar fee is charged by Paris Hilton to make an appearance at selective Hollywood parties. Same idea I suppose.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:32 utc | 86
@ Uncle. No offense taken: your position is well founded on empirical evidence. Obama is very much a mystery to me: I have never heard him
talk (except for very brief sound bites) or read what he has written.
His position on intervention in Pakistan is hair-raising, his health care proposal seems notably weaker than those of HRC or Edwards, he has, to my knowledge, never made a "false step" from the point of view of the monied classes in the U.S. But, most interesting to me, is the fact that he seems to know how to win elections: the fact that he hasn't been steamrollered into oblivion by the Clinton machine is a remarkable political achievment, and one that suggests he might even survive the predictable Republican slimefest. To what end, of course, is eminently debatable. It's a cliché that American elections are much more a cross between a fundamentalist revival meeting and mud wrestling match than a debate at the Oxford Union, but I'm at a safe enough distance to be able to enjoy the fol-de-rol and Disneyfied pageantry, the pomp and pomposity, the stone-dumb stupidity and the evangelical exaltation. The show is amusing enough to justify attention. Seriously hoping for good governance as an outcome is like going to the circus hoping for a discussion of Heidegger.
I'll shut up at this point since it's increasingly clear that my inner confusion is being put on display to no useful purpose for the habitués.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Feb 8 2008 9:41 utc | 87
Quite the contrary Hannah, its how the race shapes up.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:46 utc | 88
Round for the house, barkeep, and turn up that jukebox...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 8 2008 9:58 utc | 89
HKOL, let me clear up the mystery of Slimeball Obamination for you. Ever hear of James Earl Carter. Yea, that guy, the one better known as Pres. Carter. How did he morph from unknown Ga. Gov. into the WH? Simple. Zbig selected him to groom & stuff into WH; the same way Zbig selected Obamination. And before Zbig selected him, Georgie Soros selected him to back for xUS Senate. He's far better from their viewpoint than Carter, as Carter actually had substance so was harder to control. Obamination is in the Bill Clinton mold, another breast beating jelly-fish, a raging narcissist whose only pre-occupation is self-aggrandizement...another empty suit w/a "Will Do Absolutely Anyting for Self-Aggrandizement" sign around his brutal neck.
Now, look sonny boy - say you'll consider Arnie Schwarznegger-Kennedy for a Cabinet Post. That'll pressure Kennedy Clan, or impt. segments of it to back you. That'll break Clinton's hold. Since he controls the party, that'll free up other party regulars to back you. The dike will have been breached. Since you're a raging narcissist & the idiot masses are trained to feel uplifted in their presence on the Idiot Box, you should be off & running. Then throw in Sexism, & the fact that most people really don't want to relive the pain of the Clinton Years...and you should be in the clear...
Posted by: jj | Feb 8 2008 10:23 utc | 90
in case anyone is interested, i just finished w/my caucus. for my precinct 7 delegates for obama, 1 for hillary. over 150 people showed up from my precinct alone, which is a lot for my neighborhood. the auditorium was packed w/about 10 precincts. they moved it to the school instead of the old church basement. the auditorium was so full our precinct had to convene in the lobby.
Posted by: annie | Feb 10 2008 0:26 utc | 92
I half assed tried to go to mine, but was too crowded. People were parked up to 1 mile down a country road from the caucus. Results were 79% O, 20% C, 20% undecided. Supposed 70-80% dem turnout, amazing number. A whole lot of people putting a whole lot of faith in these two. I still don't get it.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 10 2008 0:49 utc | 93
A whole lot of people putting a whole lot of faith in these two.
in wa state? nah. i think people are coming out in droves because for once the nomination isn't already a done deal by the time our caucus rolls around. they pushed it up this year, that and the tight race coming out of super tuesday means our caucus counts.
at my caucus everyone basically said there was no difference in the two, neither were calling for immediate troop withdrawl. the last caucus kucinich was still in the race and my precinct was almost 1/2 kucinich. but w/him and edwards out the choice is down to two.
the sentiment i heard for the most part..is that the gop hate clinton so much everyone knows its going to be a bloody fight all the way thru w/her as the candidate and it will mobilize the gop around anti clinton. McCain and the war are not that well loved to attract the gop voters. that is why i think you are seeing people rally around obama.
oh, one other thing! at the last caucus the kucinich gang brought all these resolutions we voted on that were then entered into the state caucus convention. there were tons of them. this time the caucus organizers avoided this but i got all upitty and requested we vote on a resolution to be entered into our party platform.
it passed unanimously! i don't have the exact wording (my neighbor sara, a lawyer, she helped me word it) ... basically, for the party to open dialog w/the democratically elected representatives of the palestinian people and the israeli people for the purposes of peace in the region...
some people came up and thanked me for calling for a vote.
of course, it won't do any good. but last time i was one of the delegates that made it to the state convention. when the resolution was read and the whole place stands up it kinda brings tears to your eyes. that's what happened last time. then it gets killed somewhere in committe. someday tho, someday, they can't ignore us forever.
Posted by: annie | Feb 10 2008 1:58 utc | 94
another thing, my neighbor sara's brother is james longely, the director of gaza strip (and iraq in fragments) and her mom went to palestine and worked on the film, she is an activist. sara was chosen as one of the delgates going to the state convention, she will make sure the resolution gets read..again.
Posted by: annie | Feb 10 2008 2:04 utc | 95
I hope you're right,
I hope you're right.
On the last comment,
I really hope you're right.
I'd much rather be wrong,
than remain cynical.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 10 2008 2:07 utc | 96
I'm at a safe enough distance to be able to enjoy the fol-de-rol and Disneyfied pageantry, the pomp and pomposity, the stone-dumb stupidity and the evangelical exaltation. The show is amusing enough to justify attention. Seriously hoping for good governance as an outcome is like going to the circus hoping for a discussion of Heidegger.
lovely graf, HKO, delightful reading... but I have to ask, is any of us really at a 'safe enough distance' from the US? bases in 200 countries, right?
Crooks and Liars has the video up from speeches Obama and Clinton gave last night in our state capital at a big dem confab. I just got through watching both. Neither perfect, both pretty good, in my opinion.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Feb 10 2008 15:40 utc | 99
It seems like the Republicans even cheat the voters in their own primaries.
A Little Weird
As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end. But then with 87% of the returns counted, the Washington state GOP, which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results. That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off. But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.Sounds like Kibaki in Kenya ...Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on the 87% returns. Now, I think it would be borderline for a media organization to declare one candidate a winner when the margin separating first and second was 1.8% with 13% of the results still uncounted. But for the officials holding the election to declare the result on that basis is simply bizarre. But that's what they did.
The release says final results are not expected to be available until Monday.
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Obama and Clinton are in a draw with a slight advantage for Clinton.
not where it counnts. i think obama ended the night w/slightly more delegates.
Posted by: annie | Feb 6 2008 13:53 utc | 1