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Monday, March 31, 2008
 
Michael A. Monsoor Receives Medal of Honor

Richly deserved:

Monsoor was part of a sniper security team on Sept. 29, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq, when an insurgent threw a grenade, striking Monsoor in the chest. He threw himself on the grenade to save his fellow SEALs.


I covered Monsoor act of heroism previously here and here.

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The Good News for the Democrats

Is that they're essentially tied with John McCain in New Jersey and Michigan.

The bad news? Those are states that the Democrats have to win to stay even with the Republicans.

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Sunday, March 30, 2008
 
McCain's Blogger Outreach Effort Noted in Washington Times

In an article that mentions my longtime blog-buddy Pat Hynes:

The main reason: Mr. McCain's blogger outreach, the most extensive of any presidential campaign in either party, helped keep him afloat in the dark days last summer when the major press was sizing up his campaign grave. During those times, Mr. McCain got attention and digital ink from the bloggers he invited to biweekly conference calls, and got a chance to talk policy.

"During the unpleasantness, whenever Senator McCain put himself in front of reporters, the question was always, 'How much did you raise today, when are you dropping out,' " said Patrick Hynes, a conservative blogger who Mr. McCain hired in 2006. "And then we'd put him on the phone with bloggers, and they'd want to talk about Iraq, and pork and chasing down al Qaeda."


Patrick has done terrific work for McCain, although it's taken his toll on him as you can see from this recent photo:



Update: John Cole, who was most emphatically not part of the blogger conference calls, offers these trite thoughts:

I suppose it is only natural to go to a forum where you can be asked the truly pressing questions. Things like- “Who is less patriotic, Obama or Hillary?” Or, “Will the Democrats be content to lose the war in Iraq, or will they try to turn the US into a province of Iran.” Or, “Do you think you can be as great a President as Bush?”


If anything, Cole's commenters are even more pathetic.

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Gutter Politics

No, not Hillary versus Obama. Obam versus the bowling lanes:

Mr. Obama picked up a ball, cued up all confident-like, and sent the thing into the gutter. “We’re just warming up,” Mr. Obama assured himself, maybe.

So it rolled, one desultory frame after another. Rox hit spare upon spare; Mr. Obama knocked a few pins here and there and announced that his goal was to beat Mr. Casey. “I can’t beat Roxanne,” he said.

Mr. Obama, it turns out, was a weak centrist. His balls rolled down the center of the lane, but much too slowly to knock over more than a half dozen or so pins. “You notice I’m getting better?” he asked.


The Times fails to note his score. Thirty-freaking-seven. (!)

Look I'm not a great bowler; I never really learned to curve the ball, but even in my first game, I got a 55, and the main reason I remember that is because I've never done as poorly as that again.

And Obama is supposed to be an athlete? That's ridiculous. We all remember John Kerry's absurd attempts to look like somebody who didn't get picked last in every team sport he ever played. Is Obama going to groove one across the plate at Yankee?
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Please, Sir May I Have Some More!



You might think this is an especially hard-hitting John McCain ad. In fact, it's an ad for Hillary Clinton put together by a supporter of Hillary Clinton, to give Democrats an idea of what awaits them in the fall if they nominate Barack Obama.

McCain is too classy a guy to do this, but it sure would be devastating.
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Saturday, March 29, 2008
 
Should Hillary Drop Out?

I confess, I don't understand the argument. Consider here:

Which brings us back to those party elders and the calls for them to step in. Now, let’s be clear, those calls are coming exclusively from Obama’s adherents. And they have some logic on their side: If it’s all but mathematically impossible for Clinton to wind up ahead in pledged delegates or the popular vote—and it is—then what conceivable purpose is being served by further bloodshed?


Well, for one thing, being ahead in pledged delegates or the popular vote is not the objective of the campaign. It's being ahead in total delegates that matters. Obama's campaign has seized on the notion that the superdelegates can't thwart the will of the people, which strikes me as ridiculous. That's the whole raison d'etre of the superdelegates.

Mario Cuomo indulges himself in a little fantasy here:

Think of it, over the next eight years we could elect both the first woman and the first African-American to become president. That's not a dream: It's a plausible, achievable, glorious possibility - if our two remaining candidates have the personal strength and wisdom to make it happen. The joint statement announcing their agreement would rock the nation and resound across the globe - sweeter than any political poetry; smarter and more meaningful than any tightly intelligent political prose.


Hillary would agree, if the order is as Cuomo puts it. One of the problems that the Democrats have is that Hillary has already suggested that she could accept Obama as the VP candidate, while Obama has not indicated his willingness to have Hillary on the ticket with him. This is a tactical mistake on Obama's part.

Ralph Nader throws Hillary an anchor:

Just read where Senator Patrick Leahy is calling on you to drop out of the Presidential race.

Believe me.

I know something about this.

Here’s my advice:

Don’t listen to people when they tell you not to run anymore.
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Friday, March 28, 2008
 
New McCain Ad Has Obama Supporters Seeing Red....

But, of course, not red, white and blue:



Well, David Corn just about had a fit. Because he knows that when John McCain talks about how he loves America, what he's really saying is that Barack Obama doesn't:

Could the implication be that Barack Obama is not quite American and that he is not interested in protecting our country, which the ad describes with the feminine pronoun. In other words, the half-black dude with a funny name--who might be a secret Muslim--can't protect her.


Eric Kleefeld sees another sneaky bit:

The announcer ends the ad with this new, ultra-patriotic slogan: "John McCain: The American president Americans have been waiting for."

Could the slogan be meant as a contrast against Barack Obama, with his foreign name and background?


Rolling my eyes here. It's so unfair for John McCain to talk about how he loves America, because it makes Barack Obama look bad.
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Wright's Mansion

Oh, this looks pretty bad:

FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
 
Selective Memory Syndrome?

Matt Bai, in an otherwise reasonable post:

Why do some political missteps haunt their candidates forever, while others are easily put to rest? John Kerry saying he voted for the war before he voted against it, or Howard Dean screeching on a stage in Iowa, instantly becomes the stuff of political history, but when George W. Bush admits that he was once arrested for driving under the influence, it immediately fades into obscurity.


Say what? In fact, the news of Bush's DUI arrest almost ended up making Al Gore the president. In the last week or so before the election, virtually every poll showed Bush winning fairly easily, by five points or so in the popular vote:

More important, both polls show the same snapshot of the current state of the presidential campaign: a solid advantage for Bush.


And after the DUI story hit, Bush nearly lost (in fact, he did lose the popular vote, if not the electoral college).
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Florida and Michigan By the Numbers

This article strikes me as an eminently sensible solution to the Democrats' muddle with regard to those two primaries. Which of course means that it will not be acted upon.

The first question is whether Florida and Michigan voters acted like these primaries mattered, even though they knew the delegates they chose were not recognized by the national party. This can be discerned from turnout, and in the case of Florida the answer is yes.

Florida had a closed primary in which only registered Democrats could vote; turnout amounted to 46.7% of John Kerry's 2004 popular vote. The primary turnout relative to Kerry's 2004 vote in other closed primaries ranged from 39.8% in New York and 40.8% in Connecticut to 48% in Delaware, 49% in Arizona to 58.5% in Maryland. In other words, Florida Democrats acted as if their primary mattered just as much as other Democrats. By contrast, turnout in Michigan was only 23.7% of Kerry's 2004 vote, and it is an open primary. Michigan Democrats did not act like their primary mattered.


When it comes time to be prescriptive:

The third option would be to let the early primary votes stand, and select delegates according to the outcome. On a statistical basis, this is clearly the right result for Florida. The easiest solution for Michigan is to simply award the 45% of the vote uncommitted or for another candidate to Mr. Obama. This appears to be the intent of those voters, as well as the likely result of a rematch. It would reduce Mr. Obama's current edge in pledged delegates to 115 from 167. It would also reduce the adjusted popular-vote margin, that converts caucus votes to primary votes, to an edge for Mr. Obama of 466,000. If Mrs. Clinton wins Pennsylvania by the margin polls now suggest, the two candidates would be essentially tied in popular votes, with an Obama edge in delegates of about 80. That would leave the remaining primaries and the superdelegates to decide the outcome of an essentially tied race.


Of course, you can see the problem; Obama's not going to agree to anything that appears to give Hillary a chance of winning.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
 
Hugo Chavez Opposes McCain

Couldn't ask for a better endorsement.

Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed "warlike."

"Sometimes one says, 'worse than Bush is impossible,' but we don't know," Chavez told foreign correspondents. "McCain also seems to be a man of war."


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Losers Always Think They Would Have Won....

If the rules had been different. Jed Babbin checks in with a column on how the Republicans need to reform the primary system:

Reorganization of the 2012 presidential primaries will be at the top of the agenda at next week’s meetings of the Republican National Committee. First the Rules Committee, beginning on April 1, and later the “committee of the whole” will vote on plans offered by Ohio, Texas, Michigan (and others) to change the system that many party leaders concede has failed this year.


Let me guess, the party leaders who "concede" this were supporting Mitt Romney? This is just like the Democrats, always wailing about how unfair it is that New Hampshire and Iowa have such a big impact. Of course, it's difficult to conceive of a system that would have helped Mitt Romney more; Michigan, Utah and Massachusetts first?

He also gripes about independents voting in the primary:

In New Hampshire, the results were the same. According to Fox News exit polls, 39% of New Hampshire’s independents were voting GOP ballots. Sen. McCain won by about 5.5% over Gov. Romney in New Hampshire. Again, the independents apparently controlled the results.


But this ignores that many folks in the Granite State intentionally register as independent, so that they can vote in whichever primary is the most interesting. And anyway, the effect of mischievous crossover voting is probably exaggerated.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
 
Obama Speech Reactions Trickle In

Thomas Sowell:

Among the many desperate gambits by defenders of Senator Obama and Jeremiah Wright is to say that Wright's words have a "resonance" in the black community.

There was a time when the Ku Klux Klan's words had a resonance among whites, not only in the South but in other states. Some people joined the KKK in order to advance their political careers. Did that make it OK? Is it all just a matter of whose ox is gored?


Christopher Hitchens:

Looking for a moral equivalent to a professional demagogue who thinks that AIDS and drugs are the result of a conspiracy by the white man, Obama settled on an 85-year-old lady named Madelyn Dunham, who spent a good deal of her youth helping to raise him and who now lives alone and unwell in a condo in Honolulu. It would be interesting to know whether her charismatic grandson made her aware that he was about to touch her with his grace and make her famous in this way. By sheer good fortune, she, too, could be a part of it all and serve her turn in the great enhancement.


Greg Rodriguez:

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking.

Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of unity and, from his own account, created in him a desire to bring together opposing sides.


Jonah Goldberg:

It all seems so otherworldly. I feel like one of the last humans in an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movie in which all of the pod people are compelled by some alien DNA to pine continually for yet another "conversation" about a topic we've never, ever stopped talking about. And if I just fall asleep, I too can live in the pod-people's dream palace, where every conversation about race is our first conversation about race. Snatching me from any such reverie was this masterful understatement from Thursday's New York Times: "Religious groups and academic bodies, already receptive to Mr. Obama's plea for such a dialogue, seemed especially enthusiastic."


Indeed, didn't Al Gore and Bill Clinton talk about the need for a national dialogue on race? By which, of course, they meant that whites were to shut up except when it came time to acknowledge that yes, indeed, they were racists.
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Monday, March 24, 2008
 
Was It Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?

See if you can spot the flaw in this argument by Josh Marshall:

I don't know where it was. It think it may have been a reader blog at TPMCafe. Wherever it was it was a post that ran down something like ten different ways of counting the popular vote, all to the end of showing that Barack's popular vote lead wasn't nearly so great and may not exist at all. There was the count with and without Michigan and Florida, with one but not the other, including caucuses and not including caucuses. There were other options that seemed to go even further down the rabbit hole. But it did lead me to have a kind of epiphany about just where the Clinton side is at this point -- gaming out different retroactive rule changes to see who would have won the popular vote if the nomination process were operating under a different set of rules. I imagine playing poker around a table with friends. Player A has a Straight Flush; Player B has four of a kind. Then B says well, sure, if you're counting straights, but if we were adding up the numbers rather than going by straights winning, I'd have won.

How well would that go over? I remember, when I was a little kid playing chess with my dad (who unlike some Dad's never saw the point of throwing games in my favor) and sometimes when I lost I'd toss out some version of ... well, but if my rook could move diagonally, then ... You get the idea.


It's pretty doggone obvious to me. On the one hand you have poker and chess where there are specific rules as to who wins. And on the other, you have the Democratic nomination where the only rule is get a majority of the delegates to support you. It is universally agreed that neither Hillary nor Obama can get the nomination via pledged delegates.

So what does Marshall suggest? Exactly what his father opposed: a new rule that had not been agreed upon before the game. In case neither party wins the majority of pledged delegates, the superdelegates agree to nominate whoever wins the popular vote. And not the popular vote including Florida and Michigan.

In fairness, he does recognize what he's doing later. It's not a rule, you see, it's just his opinion as to what the superdelegates will do:

The Clinton campaign is entitled to do whatever it wants to get superdelegates to come over to her side to even out the pledged delegate deficit. My take is that whatever the arguments, the superdelegates aren't going to go against a clear pledged delegate leader. And I think they'd be extremely ill-advised to do so. But the superdelegates do have this power under the rules. But these constant efforts to say the rules aren't fair are just silly, and truth be told I think they're more undermining of the Clinton campaign than they realize.

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Two Degrees of Separation

In an otherwise pedestrian recounting of Sara Jane Olson's brief release and return to prison, there's this interesting picture:


Reading from left to right, Sara Jane Olson and Bernadine Dohrn. One of them plotted to explode a pipe bomb under a police car. The other was involved in a plot to explode one at an officer's dance at Fort Dix. One of them held a fund raiser for Barack Obama prior to his first run for public office.

Note also this caption under the photo:

Sara Jane Olson and former fugitive Bernadine Dohrn chatted before Dohrn was to lead a panel discussion about conspiracy prosecutions of political activits in 2000.


Because, you see, Olson was not a bank robber, kidnapper and murderer; she was a political activist.
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
 
Some Spare Outrage?

Glenn Greenwald tries to make a little guilt by association here:

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds today linked to what he called "EASTER THOUGHTS" from one of his favorite right-wing blogs, his namesake, "Instapunk." That Easter post has a large picture of a crucified Christ along with a lovely religious poem.

Immediately beneath that righteous celebration of Easter is a somewhat less charitable post purporting to take up Barack Obama's invitation to speak about race.


Now, I understand that those of us on the center-right don't care for Greenwald; he's a self-righteous and arrogant bastard. And Instapundit isn't to blame for the fact that a blog he linked to has some nasty stuff on it that he didn't link. But....

It does seem like we could spare a little outrage for the post at Instapunk, which is indeed in very poor taste.

On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn't it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees -- and jeans belted just above their knees. I'm an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It's impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. It's like a broadcast dare: Go ahead! Call me a nigger! And then I'll cap your ass.

Here's the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it. Which would be fine. Except that black people are not a community but a political party. They can squabble with each other in caucus but they absolutely refuse to speak the truth in public. And this is the single biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country. The dammed-up flood of good will in this nation for black people who want to work for their own American Dream is absolutely enormous. The biggest impediment is the doubt created in each and every non-black American by the clannish, tribalist, irrational defense of every low act committed by any black person. If you're offended when Republicans defend Richard Nixon or when Democrats defend Chuck Schumer, imagine what it's like when black people swarm the streets to defend Jeremiah Wright.


I live in a place where I see lots of white kids with shirts down to their knees and pants belted just above the knee, who have beat up old cars with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations, etc. And I don't think "nigger", and it's not because they aren't black. I think "kid", or in my less charitable moments, "punk kid". Everybody does dumb things when they're young. What did old folks think of me when I tooled up next to them in my beat-up Mustang with the stereo blasting "Smoke On the Water" some 30+ years ago?

By labeling them "Nigger", Oldpunk is focusing on the wrong aspect. It's not that they're black, it's that they're kids. He goes on to list a group of famous blacks that he considers to be "Niggers":

- Jeremiah Wright
- O.J. Simpson
- Marion Barry
- Alan Iverson
- William Jefferson
- Louis Farrakhan
- Mike Tyson


That's a pretty varied collection of people. Wright and Farrakhan are bigots but they aren't in the same class as Tyson or Simpson, who are thugs. Marion Barry? He's clearly a drug abuser, but that's pretty small potatoes; there are certainly plenty of white people his age who do the same things. Iverson's something of a jerk and a hothead. Jefferson may be a crook, but the only real connection he has to the rest of this list is skin color.

The idea that "Nigger" can be resurrected as a catchall for blacks with character flaws ranging from drug abuse to murder ignores the history of the word.
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If a Conservative Did This

You know there'd be hell to pay. Erica Jong compares Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to two animals. Obama is the stallion. And Hillary?

Um, she's a beaver.

We need beavers and we need stallions. Beavers get the work done. Stallions inspire us. And they both have limitations. Stallions have fragile legs (think Barbaro). And beavers are nothing without their teeth.


I'd like to say that she ties this all together brilliantly by suggesting that what we need is a "beavallion", but instead she just gets all weepy about how the Democrats are blowing it.

Update: Crazy Politico checks the rest of Erica's post and finds her math is as far off as her analogies.

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Saturday, March 22, 2008
 
SLA Member Sarah Jane Olson Back in Chokey

Good to hear that she'll still have to serve a couple more years for her part in the murder of Myrna Opsahl.

Authorities arrested Olson - known as Kathleen Soliah during her SLA days - just before midnight Friday at Los Angeles International Airport. Olson, 61, had spent her brief freedom with relatives in Palmdale. She was minutes away from boarding a plane with her husband to return to family in Minnesota when eight corrections officers stopped her.


Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it. Six years seems quite a long stretch for murder, doesn't it?

But it turns out that a clerical error resulted in her release and so she's headed back to the rockpile for another two years.

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Barack's Typical White Grandmother

I didn't pay too much attention to Barack's anecdote about his grandmother showing racism because she was nervous when she passed a black man on the street, or when he commented the other day that she was a "typical white person". Unfortunately for Obama, he wrote about the incident in his book, and his grandmother does not come off as racist:

"A man asked me for money yesterday. While I was waiting for the bus."

That's all?"

Her lips pursed with irritation. "He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."


Sounds to me like she had the situation sized up pretty well; any panhandler who remains aggressive after you've given him a buck is clearly up to no good.

Sorry Barack, but I'm rapidly getting the feeling that you're the racist here.
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Eleanor Clift Fudges

In an otherwise reasonable column on the Obama/Clinton battles:

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat.


Gee, Obama lost Texas by 100,000, Hillary got 100,000 votes from Republicans, so if we exclude Republicans, Obama would have won? Congratulate yourselves if you weren't duped by the little sleight of hand there. In fact, Obama got more votes from Republicans than Hillary did, according to the exit poll:



In fact, working the numbers out reveals that Hillary got about 116,000 votes from Republicans in Texas, while Obama got about 134,000, so if Republicans had been excluded, Hillary would have won by 18,000 more votes. Of course, you can probably figure out whom Clift is supporting. Note that she assumes Republicans only voted for Hillary because she's the weaker candidate. Why did Republicans vote for Obama? It can only be because he's good and noble and wants to bring us change and hope.

She doesn't mention Rush Limbaugh's exhortation to his Texas listeners to vote for Hillary. Why? Because it doesn't fit her argument. Rush specifically urged them to vote for Hillary not because she was the weaker candidate, but because it would keep the race going.

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Friday, March 21, 2008
 
Poll: Obama's Speech Fails

Oh, it's still getting plenty of accolades, but if the goal was to erase the stain of Reverend Wright's remarks, it was a failure:

“Taking all this into account, are you more or less likely to support Obama for president?”

Less likely (52%)
More likely (19%)
About the same (27%)
No opinion (2%)


Note in particular that the "About the Same" category is not necessarily supportive of Obama's candidacy; I had no intention of voting for him before the Wright scandal, so it certainly didn't move the needle in my case.

And get this staggering result:

Even so, the poll displays no numbers flattering to Obama. Most startling is that blacks by 56% to 31% said the speech made them less likely to vote for him.
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
 
Has Obama Hit the Iceberg?

It's beginning to look like it. He's down 16 points in Pennsylvania.

Clinton of New York leads Obama of Illinois by 16 percentage points -- 51 percent to 35 percent -- according to the Franklin & Marshall Poll conducted for the Tribune-Review, WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and other news outlets. Nearly one in seven likely Democratic voters -- 13 percent -- are undecided.


And an amazing 28 points in West Virginia.

The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race shows that Clinton attracts 55% of the Likely Democratic Primary Voters while Obama is supported by 27%. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.


And in a national poll, he trails Hillary by seven points.

The March 14-18 national survey of 1,209 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters gave Clinton, a New York senator, a 49 percent to 42 percent edge over Obama, an Illinois senator. The poll has an error margin of 3 percentage points.


And there are signs of desperation as well. His surrogates are trying to prevent a revote in Florida and Michigan.

The Democratic National Committee said it would accept a proposal for a new round of balloting in Michigan, but the bill has been bottled up in part because Obama's campaign has raised objections to it.

Among those objections is that the legislation says that if an individual voted in the Jan. 15 Republican primary, he or she would be disqualified from voting in the do-over primary in June. Robert F. Bauer, an attorney for the Illinois senator's campaign, raised other potential problems with the latest Michigan proposal for a revote, saying it would be "unprecedented in conception and proposed structure," as no other state has ever "re-run an election in circumstances like these." While all sides had hoped they could avoid the controversy, the nomination standoff has made the results in Michigan and Florida potentially scale-tipping.


Remember, Obama got his start by similar skullduggery, challenging the signatures on his opponents' nominating petitions and getting the other contenders thrown off the ballot. He's no stranger to hardball tactics.

A lot of people have bought the meme that Hillary can't catch Obama. That's true in terms of the pledged delegates (barring a miracle), but it ignores the obvious; if Obama's sinking the superdelegates won't stay with him.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
 
Ron Paul's Legions

I got a chuckle out of this story:

Ron Paul says the legions of newcomers his presidential campaign brought to the Republican Party are getting the cold shoulder from John McCain and from the party.


Paul typically grabbed about 4-5% of the vote with his antiwar, anti-Federal Reserve stance. It's hard to see the overlap with McCain. The Ronulans should like his pork-busting efforts.

The Texas congressman says neither he nor his supporters have heard from Mr. McCain or Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan since March 4, when the Arizona senator accumulated enough delegates to clinch the party's presidential nomination.


Well, Mitt Romney didn't wait by the phone; he went out and announced that he was willing to take the second slot on the ticket. Has Paul conceded? As far as I recall, he only suspended his race when he went back to secure his congressional seat. Is he officially out? Nope:

Mr. McCain hasn't approached Mr. Paul's voters because Mr. Paul has not called to say he is ending his run, says McCain campaign senior adviser Charles Black.


Cart before the horse, there, gentlemen!
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
 
A Candidate We Can All Support



The seldom-remembered finale of the Snoopy songs by the Royal Guardsmen. Cute but a bit too sappy.

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Oddball Note in Obama's Speech

Generally a good speech, and Obama successfully moved the focus from the anti-Americanism of his pastor's sermons to the anti-White people aspect. But there was one really jarring note in the middle of Obama's well-worn story about Ashley eating mustard sandwiches:

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.


Say what? What is he trying to say there? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Update: Allahpundit does an excellent job of highlighting some of the dodges that Obama's soaring rhetoric hides:

“[R]ace is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now,” saith the prophet, politely eliding the fact that he was only too happy to ignore it for 20 years when it was being belched at him from the pulpit in its most wretched form and then for another 13 months as a candidate until ABC dropped it on his plate and rubbed his face in it. Now, with his ass in a sling, suddenly it’s time for the great conversation. If any other politician tried a move this transparently cynical, to nudge the conversation away from his own craven tolerance of racial hatred to some sort of redemption narrative by which to hold that against him is to be, in effect, objectively anti-progress, the media would vivisect him. Instead, expect a full-body orgasm on “Hardball” tonight as the thrill in Chris Matthews’s leg spreads accordingly. Our commenters laughed at me the other day for calling him a spectacularly shrewd politician. How do you feel now?
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Monday, March 17, 2008
 
Great Minds Think Alike

Bill James shares his theory of when a college basketball game is no longer in doubt:

* Take the number of points one team is ahead.
* Subtract three.
* Add a half-point if the team that is ahead has the ball, and subtract a half-point if the other team has the ball. (Numbers less than zero become zero.)
* Square that.
* If the result is greater than the number of seconds left in the game, the lead is safe.


I have thought about this a fair amount myself while watching basketball games and my own formula is much simpler, although probably not entirely as accurate. My theory is that if the team in the lead is up by ten points plus the number of minutes left in the game, the lead is safe. Consider this using James' formula:

Lead is 11 points with 1 minute left. James agrees if the team with the lead also has the ball; but says the lead is only 94% safe if the other team has the ball.

This highlights the main problem I have with the article; what does 94% safe mean? Does it mean that 6% of the time teams come back from being down by 11 points with one minute left? And if you get a 12 point lead with two minutes left but the other team has the ball, James says the lead is only 60% safe. That seems a little out of kilter, doesn't it? I'd guess the vast majority of teams in that situation go on to win; way more than 60%. So let's say he's starting from 50% and these percentages are the amount they collect of the remaining 50%. Even there you'd be putting the 12-point leader at 80% to win the game; I suspect 99% is more likely.
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Who Gave This Woman a Soapbox?

I have to say, this is one of the most vapid posts in a long history of vaporous posts at the HuffnPuff. Compared to Jane Smiley, Jim Lampley seems positively erudite and sophisticated. Writing on the evils of Hillary:

Clinton, of course, is not Cheney. Dick Cheney is the mad master of corruption, a person who literally doesn't know what integrity is. But Hillary is too smart not to know, and she has made up her mind to shelve her integrity for the sake of ambition. And let me be clear what I mean by corruption -- I have no idea what her financial gains have been over the years, and I don't care. What I mean by corruption is any and all support of the criminal policies of the Republicans while calling herself a Democrat, in order to gain power.


Typical airheaded liberal who thinks that Democrats should disagree with anything the Republicans come up with. But she's got a slot at the HuffnPuff, and it's not hard to gather that she pays some attention to politics. But get this:

Obama is not a known quantity. I have seen him one time and listened to one speech, and I was reasonably impressed by that speech. But Hillary Clinton is a known quantity. If you like the world that the Bushes and Clintons have made in the last twenty years, then you should by all means vote for her. But as of this week, I don't see her as the person I want answering the red phone.


She's listened to one speech? Sheesh, I'm in the "no way I'd vote for Obama camp," and I've listened to a half-dozen speeches of his and the audiobook of The Audacity of Hope. Maybe she's in the fruitcake 5% that is considering voting for Nader, but otherwise it seems insane that she's posting her thoughts on a major liberal blog with that ridiculously slender amount of attention paid to a major candidate.
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Sunday, March 16, 2008
 
More Manson Family Killings?

I have always had a fascination with the Manson Family, dating from the time in 1971 when our local paper ran a long article on the trial of Manson and his followers. I devoured the book Helter Skelter, one of the few non-fiction books I've read more than once. Turns out there's an investigation going on into whether there were other murders at a ranch where the family hid out.

And the results of just-completed followup tests suggest bodies could indeed be lying beneath the parched ground. The test findings -- described in detail to The Associated Press, which had accompanied the site search -- conclude there are two likely clandestine grave sites at Barker Ranch, and one additional site that merits further investigation.

Next step, the ad hoc investigators urge: Dig.


One of the investigators turns out to be the sister of one of the people murdered by the family, actress Sharon Tate:



"After the murder, my mom became a shell of herself," said Debra Tate, who was 17 when her sister, actress Sharon Tate, was killed. Her younger sister Patti was 11. "I filled in at home, as best I could."

Debra Tate's mother, Doris Tate, emerged from years of depression when she heard that a Manson family member was seeking parole.

She gathered 350,000 signatures, helping keep the murderer in prison. She also lobbied successfully to change state law to ensure the rights of victims' family members to make statements during sentencing and parole hearings.


I suspect the member who was up for parole was Susan Atkins. Atkins is by all accounts reformed, but at the same she participated in several particularly gruesome murders. This is one area where I am definitely conservative; prison is not, as liberals say, a place where one is supposed to be rehabilitated. I don't care that she's changed; she did terrible things and should have been executed for them years ago (her sentence was commuted to life after California's death penalty was set aside for a number of years in the 1970s).
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
 
Zogby: McCain Beats Clinton or Obama

Not exactly the most trusted name in polling these days, but it's a significant result:

In the McCain-Clinton-Nader match-up, McCain leads mainly because of a significant advantage among independents. Among those voters, he wins support from 45%, compared to 28% for Clinton and 15% for Nader. McCain wins 79% support from Republicans, while Clinton wins 75% support from Democrats.
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Hostile Obama Supporters?

I feel a little schadenfreude when reading this diary about the strong-arm tactics of the Obama people.

Sadly, the majority of the administrators have allowed this hostile environment to develop in our online community for anyone who isn’t planted firmly in the Obama camp. They've routinely ignored personal attacks and allowed disruptive, spam-like posts to go unchecked whenever anyone expresses support for Hillary or challenges something their candidate has said or done. There are however several front-pagers who have managed to avoid taking part in the attacks on Hillary and for that I’m grateful. But the site has grown to the point where they simply can’t – or won’t monitor it.


Let me say here that I have been surprised by the vitriol on the portside directed against the Clintons. Now if it had been coming from the conservative blogs, I wouldn't have been surprised.

And I suppose I shouldn't. Having tacked rightward to gather support for a general election matchup, Hillary suddenly finds herself up against a candidate of the angry left, in a year where the liberals are supposedly bound to win and are not inclined to support a centrist. Yes, Obama was not the original candidate for these people, but the latest converts to the cult are always the most fervent.

At any rate, the people who've fought in this tough race with the Obamaniacs have found them to be rather nasty; expect ugliness to flourish when they're not going up against their nominal allies.
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Friday, March 14, 2008
 
Obama's Spiritual Mentor?

This looks pretty bad.

Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America."

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."

In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."


Yes, everybody has somebody like that in their family. But the difference is that we can't choose our uncles; we certainly can (and do) choose our churches and pastors. What does it say about Obama that he chose to associate himself with this one? Mona Charen:

Obama's book is strewn with hints of his far left sympathies, as when he tells an African cousin who complains about the hardships of life in Kenya that things are no better in America. Or when he suggests that the lives of poor black young men in the inner city are blighted by white racism. He never says it explicitly, but it's there.
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Thursday, March 13, 2008
 
Are the Stars Aligning for McCain?

After what seemed like a miracle comeback in the Republican primaries, John McCain may be getting the wind at his back as the general election season approaches. Public support for the war in Iraq is rising.

According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
 
I Just Want to Celebrate...

A close friend of mine went into a coma for 11 days. And came out of it. He's got quite a bit of rehabilitation to do, but we were prepared for the worst and got about the best we could ask for.

:)
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Talking Points Meme

Geraldine Ferraro apparently has caused a bit of a fuss by stating the obvious: That Barack Obama is where he is precisely because he is black. Well, Josh Marshall thinks that's self-evidently stupid:

Can anyone seriously claim that it's an asset to be an African-American in a US presidential race? Happily what we're now seeing is that it does not in itself seem to be an eliminating factor in a presidential race. But an advantage? There's no doubt that Obama's race is the central factor in allowing him to consolidate almost unanimous support from African-American voters, especially in the South. But African-Americans make up only about 13% of the population. And does anyone doubt that that advantage he gains there is not balanced at least to a substantial degree by resistance to voting for him among white voters?


Yes, I can seriously claim that it's an asset to be an African-American in this race. Why did Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice get so much attention as potential candidates? Because many, perhaps most, white Americans are yearning for a solid black candidate to arise who will give them the opportunity to show that no, they are not racists.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
 
Obama and the Daley Machine

Rick Moran does some great blogging.

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John McCain and the Boeing Deal

It's hilarious how hard the libs are stretching to smear John McCain, because every time they try, then end up helping him. Case in point: Sam Stein's column at the HuffnPuff today:

McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, played a crucial role in blocking the deal to build air tankers from going to U.S.-based Boeing, instead paving the path for EADS to score the loot. He framed his decision as an example of political integrity; Boeing has previously been exposed of contract abuse. But a review of campaign finance donations and lobbying records suggests that money and personal lobbying may have also been in play.


Stein establishes that McCain received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from EADS. That's right, fifteen thousand. Apparently Sam thinks this some kind of princely sum. And he glides over why Boeing didn't get the deal:

Finnegan was referring to McCain's 2003 investigation into Boeing's billing practices and lock on the tanker business. That investigation resulted in the company losing out on a $23 billion deal to lease tankers to the Air Force.


And why did Boeing lose out? You won't find it in Stein's column; for that you have to look over at the National Review:

When McCain finally received the e-mails, the Boeing tanker deal exploded. The investigation revealed malfeasance, resulting in a $615 million fine for the company. Boeing’s CEO, Phil Condit, was forced to resign. The company’s CFO was sent to prison. Darleen Druyun, who had served as the second-ranking civilian official for Air Force procurement, also went to prison. She pled guilty in 2004 to steering the tanker contract and other deals toward Boeing in the hopes of later securing lucrative jobs with the company for herself and her family members.


Gee, what's a little thing like that, compared to FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!

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Justice for Elton John Richard

Our longtime blogger buddy Chris pointed this sad story out to us.

Elton John Richard, a US Marine who served two tours in Iraq, found a smalltime hood named Daniel Romero in his Albuquerque garage apparently trying to steal his Bronco. A fight ensued; Romero fled with Richard in pursuit, yelling to his neighbors to call 911. Richard eventually shot Romero to death; it is disputed as to whether this was in self-defense or as the crook tried to escape over a fence. Here's Richard's version of events:

The motion states that Romero threatened that he and his "homies" would harm Richard and that Romero continued to attack Richard as he followed him, waiting for law enforcement to arrive.

"The fact that Romero was the constant aggressor in the situation was expressed by every single neighborhood witness that night," the motion states.

Prosecutors have said they believed Richard shot Romero as he scaled a fence about a quarter-mile from Richard's home.

Blackburn argues in the motion that after following Romero over the fence, Richard found himself cornered and that Romero suddenly swung around and raised his arm as if he was raising a firearm.

"Faced with such an immediate and impending threat from the man that Richard reasonably believed had attempted to invade his home, that was visibly under the influence of intoxicants, and had threatened Richard repeatedly, Romero was shot through the chest in self-defense," the motion states.


Prosecutors put the Marine on trial, originally for murder, although he eventually pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter. Judge Pat Murdoch sentenced Richard to two years in prison. In a measure of how worthless Romero's life was, he also required the Marine to pay restitution of $500 per month for the next four years.

Now, you know how it is. We should not have people chasing down smalltime hoodlums and shooting them. But two years in prison seems a pretty stiff sentence for doing society a favor, and even Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, has called on the judge to reconsider his sentence. Richardson has also signaled his willingness to issue an order of clemency if Richard's family requests it. This would leave the conviction on his record. Assuming that what they claim is true, that Richard was simply following the man so that he would not get away, and that Romero was indeed attacking him while being pursued, he should receive a full and complete pardon.

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Monday, March 10, 2008
 
Spitzer: I Am A John American

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing, has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a law enforcement official and a person briefed on the investigation.

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The VP Choice Effect

I've already looked in the past at the presidential nominee's home field advantage and concluded it was worth somewhere between five and seven percentage points. That is, presidential nominees tend to do about five to seven points better in their home state than they do nationally.

It seems logical to assume that the VP nomination has a similar effect; all other things being equal (which of course they aren't), a state that has a VP nominee should tend to vote a little more for that ticket than they might otherwise. We would assume that the effect would be smaller than for the presidential nominees.

So I put together a little spreadsheet that analyzes the past impacts of VP nominees. I'll illustrate with John Edwards, John Kerry's running mate in 2004. Edwards was from North Carolina, which Bush took by 12.44 percentage points in 2004. By contrast, Bush won North Carolina by 12.83 percentage points in 2000, so Edwards improved things by about 0.39 percentage points.

But that's not the whole story. Remember, Bush actually lost the popular vote nationally by 0.51 percentage points in 2000, and won by 2.46 percentage points in 2004, so there was a national trend for Bush to pick up 2.97 percentage points. Thus, the indicated improvement for the Democrats from having Edwards on the ticket appears to be about 3.36 percentage points.

Of course, there are lots of other things going on in the race, so it's impossible to say that was definitely the Silky Pony effect, but it appears to fit in well with prior years. I went back for the last 16 veep nominees. I excluded sitting vice presidents for two reasons. First, they only run with sitting presidents, and it seems far more likely that voters vote on the performance of that president rather than for their local boy as VP. And second, we don't face that situation this year.

Year VP Nom State Result Prior Trend Effect
2004 Edwards NC -12.44% -12.83% -3.0% 3.36%
2000 Cheney WY 39.79% 12.97% 8.0% 18.82%
2000 Lbrman CT 17.57% 18.14% -8.0% 7.43%
1996 Kemp NY -28.86% -15.85% -3.0% -10.06%
1992 Gore TN 4.65% -16.34% 13.3% 7.71%
1988 Quayle IN 20.15% 23.99% -10.5% 6.65%
1988 Bentsen TX -12.60% -27.50% 10.5% 4.40%
1984 Ferraro NY -8.01% -2.67% -8.5% 3.13%
1980 Bush TX 13.86% -3.17% 11.8% 5.23%
1976 Mondale MN 12.88% -5.51% 25.2% -6.82%
1976 Dole KS 7.50% 38.16% -25.2% -5.45%
1972 Shriver MA 8.97% 30.12% -22.5% 1.30%
1968 Muskie ME 22.23% 37.68% -23.3% 7.83%
1968 Agnew MD -1.55% -30.96% 23.3% 6.13%
1964 Hmphrey MN 27.76% 1.38% 22.3% 4.07%
1964 Miller NY -37.25% -5.26% -22.3% -9.68%

Average 2.75%

As you can see, 12 of the 16 nominees did improve their ticket's anticipated performance; the only ones who failed to do so were Kemp in 1996, both Dole and Mondale in 1976, and Bill Miller in 1964. Cheney in 2000 appears to have improved his ticket the most in his home state, but it should be noted that only Al Gore in 1992 appears to have swung his home state over into the winning column. And even there caution is in order; Bill Clinton was also a southerner and that may have had more to do with winning Tennessee than the presence of Gore. Overall the average VP appears to have resulted in a 2.75 percentage point improvement in his home state over what the ticket would have done without him (or her, in Ferraro's case). This seems a reasonable estimate. It's about half the presidential home field advantage.

Implications for 2008? Here's where things get really complicated. We cannot assume that McCain will carry the country by the same 2.46 percentage points that Bush did in 2004. And we cannot assume that the Democrats will win big as some of the polls are indicating. It seems safest to start both parties at even, by deducting 2.46 percentage points from the Republican net percentage in each state. This tips three states that Bush carried in 2004 into the Democrats' column: Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio. Obviously Ohio is the most important of those three; if McCain carries all the states Bush did except New Mexico and Iowa he still wins (barely) with 274 electoral college votes of the 270 needed. Thus it would seem that an Ohio politician like former Senator Rob Portman would be a logical choice.

Of course, there are lots of other variables in the race. It is well-reported that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination that the state of New Jersey may come into play, which might indicate a prominent NJ politician like Christie Todd Whitman could swing the Garden State to the GOP. That would have the added effect of capitalizing on the resentment some women may feel with Hillary not getting the nod in the Democratic Convention, although it would not help McCain with the conservatives. But McCain could lose Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa and still win by picking up New Jersey.

For the Democrats, a lot depends on whom the nominee is, but Florida and Colorado would both seem to be within reach. Colorado's governor is Bill Ritter; the only problem is that he has even less experience in elective office than Barack Obama, having been elected in 2006. Bill Nelson would be the obvious choice for Florida.

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Sunday, March 09, 2008
 
Nice Profile of Michelle Malkin

Not surprisingly, though, it reveals much more about her critics:

Two years ago, in the midst of an Internet contretemps over military recruiting on college campuses, left-leaning activists posted her home address and phone number -- and photos of her house and neighborhood -- online. They apparently were trying to exact revenge because she had published information they felt she shouldn't have.

The Malkins found a new home. For now, only a few friends know exactly where to find them.


The vitriol with which the Left greets conservatives is noted. Has anybody noticed that virtually nobody vilifies liberal columnists? We may joke about "Slow-Mo" Dowd, but nobody on the conservative side is publicizing the location of her abode.

Update: Mrs M talks about the piece here and notes that she didn't agree to an interview with the New Yorker. Could it possibly have been this part of the introductory email that turned her off?

I’ve been reading and watching with interest your commentary on the election, and — particularly with McCain rising — I think this could be a great time to look at your work and career and influence.


As most of you probably know, Mrs M was not supporting Senator McCain in the primaries, and so the bit about looking at her influence is pretty clearly intended as a slap. But even if she did not get her wish in this instance, she's still a hugely influential person in the blogosphere. On most issues where I have disagreed with her in the past, I have generally come to the conclusion that she was right and I was wrong--Brownie and Harriet Miers come to mind right off the top of my head.

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Saturday, March 08, 2008
 
The Politics of Moaning

Mark Steyn covers the historical grievance competition that is the Democratic race:

As Ali Gallagher, a white female (sorry, this identity-politics labeling is contagious) from Texas, told the Washington Post: "A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, 'My ancestors came to this country in chains; I'm voting for Barack.' I told him, 'Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I'm voting for Hillary.'"

When everybody's a victim, nobody's a victim. Poor Ms. Gallagher can't appreciate the distinction between purely metaphorical chains and real ones, or even how offensive it might be to assume blithely that there's no difference whatsoever.

On the other hand, Barack's ancestors didn't come here in chains, either: His mother was a white Kansan, so was presumably undergoing menstrual hell with the Gallagher gals, and his dad was a black man a long way away in colonial Kenya. Indeed, Obama would be the first son of a British subject to serve as president since those slaveholding types elected in the early days of the republic. As some aggrieved black activist sniffed snootily on TV, Barack isn't really an "African American" – unless by "African American," you mean somebody whose parentage is half-American and half-African, and let's face it, no one would come up with so cockamamie a definition as that.


A pure delight!

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Friday, March 07, 2008
 
Hillary Speaks the Truth



The Obama supporters are furious at her for this statement, but I buy the argument that she's selling.
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McCain's Legendary Temper Erupts!



Oh, my, Vesuvius wasn't that forceful! Thanks again, New York Times, for taking the fuse out of another supposed bomb.

Let me add here that I covered the whole supposed "McCain for Kerry VP" story back in 2004, especially at Kerry Haters, and I dismissed the possibility right from the start, as did most sensible observers. John McCain was already looking, in the summer of 2004, as the odds-on candidate for the GOP in 2008. Why would he take the job of Kerry's VP, which if the ticket were successful, would have him without a party and terribly unlikely to become president barring illness or other incapacitation of Kerry?
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It's Three AM. When All the Monsters Come Out.

Well, Samantha Powers is out at Team Obama.

Power's interview Monday was published Friday in a Scottish newspaper, even though she tried to keep it from appearing in print.

"She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying.


Of course, she's got the order all wrong; you don't make the inflammatory statement and then say "that's off the record." You've got to specify that something's off the record beforehand, and you probably won't get agreement if it's a substance-free opinion like that offered by Powers.

Meanwhile Larry David is clearly headed for a top spot in the Obama campaign with suggestions like this one:

Here's an idea for an Obama ad: a montage of Clinton's Sybillish personalities that have surfaced during the campaign with a solemn voiceover at the end saying, "Does anyone want this nut answering the phone?"

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Obamania



Well, if Jessica Alba supports him....
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Thursday, March 06, 2008
 
Politics, Chicago-Style

Rick Moran has a terrific post on the Chicago way of doing business. Why aren't the media paying attention? Do they need this story tied up with a bow?

Did you know that Obama got his first state senate seat by forcing all the other candidates for the Democratic nomination off the ballot?

Meanwhile, the Marathon Man has done yeoman work on the Rezko story, with update after update. Keep scrolling and checking his links.
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Honesty from the Obama Team?



I'm flabbergasted.
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Bomb Blast at Military Recruiting Center in NYC: Liberals to Suffer Disproportionately

Story here:

New York City police officers and firefighters cordoned off much of Times Square for more than two hours after a small explosion — set off, the authorities said, by an “improvised explosive device” — damaged the front of the Armed Forces Career Center on the traffic island bounded by 43rd and 44th Streets, Seventh Avenue and Broadway at 3:43 a.m., officials said. No one was injured, and after a temporary interruption, subway service was restored.


Not surprisingly, some connected this to the Code Pinko demonstrations at various recruiting stations including Times' Square:

The Times Square recruiting station "has been the site of regular antiwar protests since the start of the Iraq war." Given the increasing virulence of attacks on the military and on military recruiting facilities by antiwar groups like Code Pink, most notably the repeated confrontations in Berkeley, one could speculate that a liberal group is the most likely culprit. So far, however, there are no suspects.


Well, John Cole had a cow:

Some jackass threw an incendiary device through the window of a recruiting station in Times Square, so you all know what that means- another 5 weeks of LIEBERALS HATE AMERIKKA from the chest-thumping, cheeto-munching chickenhawk brigade.


Because, you know, there is no way a liberal could have done that. Forget about the Weather Underground fruitcakes from the 1970s (Barack Obama would certainly like you to).

Cole actually used to be a pretty readable guy, but he's gone from moderate conservative to screaching lib in the course of a year or two. And if anything, his commenters are even more nutty:

The Other Steve Says:

I’m curious how Skipper Ed knows that these are not foreign terrorists?

Could he perhaps have some insight into the crime? Maybe a Fire in the Reichstag type insight?
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
 
Hillary Dodges the Fork; McCain Sweeps

With wins yesterday in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, she has clearly managed to avoid the fork yet again. Although the delegate count is not as favorable to her prospects (Kos estimates she may have picked up only one delegate), the effect of winning puts the wind at her back, especially now that the sine wave of media coverage may be turning against Obama.

Jonathan Alter wrote a column yesterday on the delegate math, claiming that even if Hillary won the remaining 16 states, (she lost Vermont last night), she could not catch up in the pledged delegate total and therefore she's doomed. Of course, what this ignores is that if she did get on a winning streak there would be a reason. Either her arguments would be resonating with the people, or Obama would have hit the iceberg, and the superdelegates would probably be jumping into her corner. Essentially Alter assumed that the superdelegates will stick with the pledged delegate winner, which is silly.

Meanwhile, Senator John McCain nailed down the victory last night and Mike Huckabee has dropped out of the race. While there is some speculation that this may benefit the Democrats by keeping the attention of the nation on their contest, if the headlines are "Hillary Accuses Obama of X" and "Obama Assails Hillary's Proposal on Y", it's hard to see how that helps the Donks.

Indeed, if we look at recent history, nailing down the nomination and watching the other party battle it out works pretty well. In 1968 Nixon nailed down the GOP nomination early and watched as the Democrats had their unpleasantness in Chicago. In 1976 Jimmuh Carter sealed the deal and had a ringside seat for the Ford/Reagan imbroglio. And in 1980 Reagan benefited from an early win and a Carter/Kennedy dustup.
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
 
Obama Just Pandering on NAFTA?



I haven't been paying much attention to this issue but it looks like the notion that Barack's a different kind of politician is wishful thinking:

The meeting was first reported last week by Canadian television network CTV, which cited unnamed sources as saying that Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama's tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.

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Dog Bites Man

That's not supposed to be surprising news. But when dog=press corps and man=Barack Obama, it can be.

Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. "That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged."

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. "We're running late," the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.

Before he beat his hasty retreat, however, Obama found time to assign blame for the tough questions suddenly coming his way. "The Clinton campaign has been true to its word in employing a 'kitchen sink' strategy," he protested. "There are, what, three or four things a day?"
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Monday, March 03, 2008
 
Fund Covers Obama's Rezko Ties

If you need a primer on the Rezko deal, this covers well what is known so far.

"We have a sick political culture, and that's the environment Barack Obama came from," Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, told ABC News. He notes that, while Mr. Obama supported ethics reforms as a state senator, he has "been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state, including at this point, mostly Democratic politicians."


Meanwhile, ABC News is pointing out that Rezko's lawyers may subpoena Obama as a witness (please!):

But former prosecutor Fardon, now with the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins, says Rezko's defense lawyer could use Obama "to show that Mr. Rezko is somebody active in politics and political fundraising and there's nothing unto itself nefarious about that fact."


Translation: That's the way things get done in Chicago.

With all the focus on the Obama connection, the actual details of the Rezko trial may be interesting.

Prosecutors allege that Rezko misused the power he gained from his prowess as a fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, scheming to extort kickbacks from firms seeking state business or regulatory approval. But Rezko's lawyers will attack the credibility of Stuart Levine, the government's key witness, questioning his memory of events because of his alleged heavy use of cocaine, crystal meth and other illegal drugs.


The article notes that Levine had a $25,000 a month (!) drug habit.

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Sunday, March 02, 2008
 
Garden State A Tossup Between Obama and McCain

This is very good news.

In New Jersey, Hillary Clinton holds a double-digit advantage over John McCain in an early look at the race for the Garden State’s 15 Electoral College votes. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state found Clinton earning 50% of the vote while McCain attracts 39%. Clinton leads by twenty-one points among women but trails by two among men.

However, if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, the race in New Jersey will begin as a toss-up. The Rasmussen Reports election poll finds McCain with 45% support and Obama with 43%. McCain leads by twelve among men while Obama has a five point edge among women. This is one of the few states where Clinton outperforms Obama in general election match-ups against McCain (Florida is another).


The Garden State is worth 15 electoral college votes and if McCain can pull it away from the Democrats, then Obama's path to the White House will get much trickier. This is, of course, a poll that Clinton should be shouting from the rooftops about.
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Saturday, March 01, 2008
 
Say What?

Get this absurd description of the Weather Underground:

A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of media interest in a professor named William Ayers, a former member of the radical Weather Underground (technically an early-'70s collective, but in spirit a '60s hangover), who once served on the board of an anti-poverty group with Obama and donated $200 to his campaign.


An early-'70s collective? Like the Symbionese Liberation Army was a food bank, and the Manson family was a commune?

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Feeling Sorry for Michelle Obama

Gosh, look at how tough things have been for her:

As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lasting burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle age, to pay off their debts. “The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you’re in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids,” she says.


Save for your kids? For what? Oh, so that they don't have to pay the lasting burden of student loans? And most studies indicate that the salaries do keep up with the cost of paying off the debt. Unless you do as she suggests, which is not to go into the corporate arena:

A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”


Boo, hedge funds! Of course, as York points out, going into community service hasn't been quite the sacrifice for Mrs O that she would like to claim:

In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.

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