Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

March 4, 2008
Ohio & Texas

The polls seem to trend for her Clintoness recently, but I hope they are wrong. Not because I want Obama, but to get over with the silly season.

In the end he is likely to win anyway and Clinton’s negative campaigning is, besides being disgusting, unnessary damage for the causes she claims to support.

Posted by b on March 4, 2008 at 18:35 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I think the time of “Politics of Destruction” is over. People don’t like seeing Rove do it, and they sure as hell don’t like seeing our own side doing it. That said, as a Texan, I don’t think Hillary has a chance here, but I could be wrong. She’s got a huge hispanic following.

Posted by: Fade | Mar 4 2008 19:17 utc | 1

I walked to my precinct headquarters here in Texas, this morning, and cast my vote for Obama. Our candidate radiates intelligence. A friend of mine describes him as charismatic, confident, and the kind of candidate Democrats have been looking looking for. If Obama is elected president he will put a new face on America.
I went with friends to the Fort Worth Convention Center to see Obama on Thursday. We stood in line for an hour-and-a-half to get through the front door. Among other things in his speech, he promised to shut down Guantanamo, and bring our troops home. The Convention Center was packed to capacity, and there were people who had to be turned away. Our local newspaper, The Star-Telegram, estimates a crowd of 11,000.

Posted by: Copeland | Mar 4 2008 20:14 utc | 2

Whomever next becomes captain of America will be under immense pressure from the rubes of the consumer class to do something immediate and palpable to fix the godforsaken economy.
To “leap upon their white horse and ride wildly off in all directions.”
Lotsa luck widdat, yo.
It will mostly be show, since that is as much as we allow the Oval Occupant any more. Whether it be a Mister or a Madame President next November, that poor soul’s main job will be to steer the economy through very rough waters, and we who own three quarters of it will provide very firm directions.
Which means Finders Keepers. Here at the Upper East Side Liberation Army, we happy one-percenters who received fully half the income this richest nation on Earth generated over the past eight years have no intention of giving it back.
Look, we stole our half fair and square. We came upon an economy without aggressive guardians, without serious oversight, and through Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) we liberated it. We took stewardship of it. Why, it would be a breach of honor and duty to hand it back to the nameless rubes who couldn’t hold on to it in the first place.
Why, if we didn’t take it away from the consumers of America, someone else would have. Did you want your children speaking Mandarin, or Russian, or Arabic? Of course not. We have heroically prevented that.
UESLA owns and operates the richest nation ever. It’s literally ours. Not yours. The new captain in the White House will know before they ever sit in that chair that the proper business of America is not merely business, it is UESLA’s wealth and welfare.
Citizens have rights, citizens have power. We are America’s real citizens, and we exercise our rights to the maximum.
You don’t. You elect crooks, and you let them ride roughshod over your laws, your rights, and your futures. You are rubes. You are consumers. You get to pay again, as always.
Heads we win, tails you lose.

Posted by: UESLA | Mar 4 2008 22:08 utc | 3

yeah, I’ll take to the streets to protest just a soon as my Sony/Apple/Nintendo device can get real time news about the protesting. I want to see myself on the hand held Sony/Apple/Nintendo thing – or else how would I know its really happening? I can’t take to the streets to protest cause I might miss the frickin action on the intertube thingy. blow-me a kiss good bye! good bye.

Posted by: animalist | Mar 4 2008 22:59 utc | 4

the Blacks have won a huuuuuuge huge victory. Obama bootstraps self into contention and after its over tonight, America’s first non-White Black president (that was William Clinton) will have beaten the GOP’s inevitable Clarence-clone to the big house.
and for the tireless White revolutionaires across the land for whom this is non-negotiable, enjoy, its your huuuuuuuuge victory too.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Mar 5 2008 1:42 utc | 5

It may not matter what happens today, as happily polls are now showing that both Rightie & Extreme Rightie from the Dark Lagoon will lose to insane McCain. So, best outcome would probably be Clinton victories/tightly fought contests, insuring that Party elders will lean even more heavily on the Party’s Neo-Feudal Baron, AGore. But I can’t imagine why on earth he’d want to bother. Soo much work plopping in the Oval Office, when he can kick back flying around the world on private jets making uncountable millions in the “green technology” universe, he did so much to promote. (You didn’t really think he made that film just for “educational purposes” did you.)

Posted by: jj | Mar 5 2008 3:01 utc | 6

Who ever “wins”, loses. Oval Office over the next 5 years is going to be a terrible place to be. Crisis management from day one – no time to plan or orchastrate an aggenda, to put a cabinet together; transition team is some guys getting hit by the door on the way out. Smart people are going to pass on cabinet appointments this time around – situations are too ugly.
Hillary and Obama are both talented and passionate people who want for some reason to be in the middle of the melee. But are there another 100 or 1,000 equally bright people willing to enter the crisis room for the long haul? The people who actually stick-handle and manage policy? Its going to be a lot of 22 hour days on a coffee and pizza diet.
If there is no continuous strength there, then America, and by extension the rest of western civilization, is going to be fucked.

Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Mar 5 2008 4:35 utc | 7

I think it’s unrealistic to believe that a Johnnny-One-Note militarist like McCain who has hugged, who presently hugs, and will continue hugging Mr. 19%, will by any stretch of the imagination be elected president.
I simply can’t process that much cynicism. What is more likely is that the American people are fixing to retch up the republicans, bile and all, and expell the whole toxic mess from their body politic.

Posted by: Copeland | Mar 5 2008 4:53 utc | 8

fyi, i was cruising around some right wing sites today and it seems many texan republicans are voting for hillary in the primary. i heard in texas you can vote for whomever you want in the primary and since mcCain is a done deal, the gop has instructed its minions to shift the primary to clinton as she’s who they want to run against, not obama.

Posted by: annie | Mar 5 2008 5:27 utc | 9

hmm
either there are a lot of rethugs switching to dems or they are fucking w/our primary.

Clermont County, a Republican-leaning county east of Cincinnati, reported scattered shortages of ballots.
Mike Keeley, director of the Clermont County Board of Elections, said at 6 p.m. that his workers were printing out more ballots to ship to some precincts after they ran out of Democratic ballots.
……
In heavily Republican Warren County, also in southwest Ohio, election officials had to restock some polling places with Democratic ballots.

here is one of the rethugs explaining it.

Yes, in Texas, one can vote in any primary one chooses. But only in one. Once you have voted in a party’s primary, you are prohibited in the same election cycle from voting in any subsequent run-off election that the other party might have to hold (which rarely happens). The next primary season, you start all over with a clean slate. You can vote in either primary. Although I self-identify as a “Republican”, in reality, I am not registered to any political party. It’s not required in Texas, so nobody does.
I used to vote frequently in the Democratic primaries, because Texas used to be a much more strongly Democratic leaning state at the local level. If you wanted to have a voice in local elections, you frequently had to vote in the Democratic primaries. I’ve not crossed over much lately, however, because the Democratic party is almost moribund in my neck of the woods. They often don’t even have candidates in many of the races.
In addition, Republicans in Texas have a winner take all system, as do most other states. That’s why John McCain was able to sew up the election so soon, and why I am free to vote in the Democratic primary.
The Democrats, democratic as they are, have a proportional system in Texas, so their delegates are apportioned. On top of that, only 75% of their delegates are apportioned by the vote during the day. Another 25% are apportioned through caucuses held in the evening. Generally, none but the hard core pary faithful go to these, and Obama generally wins big in caucuses. So, I must attend to do my bit for Hillary.

Posted by: annie | Mar 5 2008 5:40 utc | 10

Not because I want Obama, but to get over with the silly season.
i would much rather endure a longer ‘silly season’ than the serious mudslinging that will come directly after. that’s when the knives come out. it will be non stop relentless campaigning til nov either way.

Posted by: annie | Mar 5 2008 5:47 utc | 11

McCain Resurrected by MATT TAIBBI
Rolling Stone
[If only for this passage – “He’s survived because Onward to Victory is the last great illusion the Republican Party has left to sell in this country, even to its own followers. They can’t sell fiscal responsibility, they can’t sell “values,” they can’t sell competence, they can’t sell small government, they can’t even sell the economy.
All they have left to offer is this sad, dwindling, knee-jerk patriotism, a promise to keep selling world politics as a McHale’s Navy rerun to a Middle America that wants nothing to do with realizing the world has changed since 1946.” – I post it here. Nota bene: as mostbunall readers know, because I’m sorta seema be sayin’ “You go, Matty!” here on his take on McCain, it does not mean therefore I LOVE Hillary or Obama, of course. Of course! – arrrrremzhon]

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2008 6:55 utc | 12

I tried the same trick once with the Republican primary: I was pleased with any of the Democratic choices for Governmor in 1986, so I registered Republican to vote in favor of Evan Mecham, whom I considered to be the weaker candidate.
Then an independent candidate entered the race and split the Democratic vote, allowing Evan Mecham to win with a plurality of the vote (like Schwarzenegger in California).
Evan Mecham went on to be an embarassment to the state and was even impeached and forced to resign from office. ANd it was my fault…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5 2008 7:59 utc | 13

Re 8 and 12 above: agree completely.
Ohioans voted accordingly:
turnout for Dems: 2.15 million
turnout for rethugs: 1.04 million
which, by the way, is not readily apparent in the NYT where totals are given as percentages, making the contest between McC and a Dem nominee appear much more “even”. (I added up the numbers from WaPo.)
I don’t see it as a “silly season”, b. Voters are really engaged at this point and are taking the season seriously. Health care and the crashing economy and NAFTA, and Gitmo and the occupation, etc. will remain in focus, all to McC’s detriment. Hell, McC’s even attached himself to privatizing SS – how stupid is that?
TPM has some final thoughts on last night:

The Clinton campaign got rough and nasty over the last week-plus. And they got results. That may disgust you or it may inspire you with confidence in Hillary’s abilities as a fighter. But wherever you come down on that question is secondary to the fact that that’s how campaign’s work. Opponents get nasty. And what we’ve seen over the last week is nothing compared to what Barack Obama would face this fall if he hangs on and wins the nomination.
So I think the big question is, can he fight back? Can he take this back to Hillary Clinton, demonstrate his ability to take punches and punch back? By this I don’t mean that he’s got to go ballistic on her or go after Bill’s business deals or whatever else her vulnerabilities might be. Candidates fight in different ways and if they’re good candidates in ways that play to their strengths and cohere with their broader message. But he’s got to show he can take this back to Hillary and not get bloodied and battered when an opponent decides to lower the boom. That will obviously determine in a direct sense how he fares in the coming primaries and caucuses. And Obama’s people are dead right when they say, he doesn’t even have to do that well from here on out to end this with a substantial pledged delegate margin.
At the end of the day, the winner of the pledged delegate race has the strongest claim to the nomination. Everything else is spin. But it’s a strong claim, not incontestable.

Overall a continuing primary struggle exposes the damage bushco has wrought as voters continue to express their concerns and the press is forced to cover them. I would hope that by the PA primary April 22 that the Dem nominee might be better defined, but even if the Hil-BO contest drags to the convention, that’s doesn’t necessarily entail irreparable damage to the party. All the MSM focus on the Dem “split” is distraction from the big retch coming in Nov.
Of course, for myself, I am not hopeful about USA prospects. The country is f*cked as far as I can see. But watching voters engaging in historically huge numbers does impress me and this signals that they are becoming aware of the tragic state of the nation and who and what delivered it.

Posted by: Hamburger | Mar 5 2008 11:22 utc | 14

The dem party needs to take the Clintons to the wood shed and tell them to get the f— out. These people have no shame. Now I know why I never voted for Bill. They will say and do anything to win and leave nothing but bombed out cities in their wake.

Posted by: jdp | Mar 5 2008 12:45 utc | 15

Hmm – yep – looks like the outcome was a big win for the Republicans.
I thinks both Dem candidates should now resign from the race.

Posted by: b | Mar 5 2008 15:38 utc | 16

Obama is distrusted by many ‘progressives’ in the US because he constantly uses right wing talking points. Even Paul Krugman agrees with me that this strategy makes it impossible to govern from the left.
By mentioning this, I’m definitely not part of the Unity plan.
I’ve read charges of racism are leveled at Clinton. Anyone care to comment about the misogyny directed at her campaign? After all, Patriarchy is the “most popular ideology in the world”.

Posted by: Bruce F | Mar 5 2008 16:48 utc | 17

I am not necessarily for Obama. I may vote for Nader I don’t know yet. I just don’t like the Clintons belief they are entitled to the Presidency because, well they are the Clintons. We’ve had two family rule for too long.

Posted by: jdp | Mar 5 2008 18:47 utc | 18

Bruce F., Oybamination does not use “right wing talking points”. He is a right-winger. You’d have to go far left of Chomsky to find someone as far left as he is to the right.
Where the hell are the activists? Why aren’t they showing up & saying Hell No – NONE of these elite shills represents us?
The only fun thing about this contest to see who can most efficiently manipulate the masses into destroying them, is watching Clinton attack Oybamination. It’s the first time it’s ever been acceptable, much less demanded as a matter of course, that a Woman attack an alpha male. That is delightful to watch. No wonder males are so hysterical.
@jdp, I agree w/you, as Bill Clinton turned the Dem. Party into the Repug Party, as they were busy morphing into the FaRT Party – that is an amalgam of Fascists, Reactionaries & Theocrats – and nature hates a vacuum. (I voted for none of the above.) But you are overlooking how virulent sexism is. Bill is the only thing that protects her from it. If she had the same resume as the 2 male candidates she’d be laughed off the stage. (As a woman, she’d never have made it to the Senate w/Insane McCain’s background.) God knows why since Patriarchy is on the brink of destroying all life on the planet. But most people are far too clueless to grok it.

Posted by: jj | Mar 5 2008 20:29 utc | 19

The ugly Hill – Barack contest weakens the Dems. Short term, and long.
McCain with Diebold can beat either.
Note how the media have hyped the Dem conflicts, and skimmed over (relatively speaking) the divisions on the right – Ron Paul, Huckabee, etc.

Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 5 2008 20:58 utc | 20

Back to Main