Putting up their dukes in New Hampshire
This nominating nut, a process that traditionally lasts through Spring, has been compacted into a single month, and making a “sound bite” out of it does not serve us — it will culminate with a thing called SuperDuperTuesday, when a number of states will all have their say at the same time. Until then, the whirlwind of caucus and primary, some only Republican, some only straw polls, some votes that don’t count, will take us all over the map and confuse the hell out of us.
History was made last Thursday and a clear Blue vision born for 2008 — there is no question that Barack is an inspiring candidate. Read/Watch his Iowa speech here; he knows how to bring it home. Biden and Dodd have folded their tents, as have a couple of Pub down-tier players, so we’re narrowing the field. Too early, in my opinion — but now it’s crunch time.
And now the ugly stuff begins. Swiftboaters are geared up, long-shots are back, the “vote share” prospects that kept the Iowa caucus civil is no longer on the table. The nasty ads are already coming up, and Big Bill has said that the media proceeded unfairly with his missus, forcing Hil to go negative now. Pundits will strut and prompt and kill off hopes with a vipers tongue. In this passion play, it’s inevitable … this is political theatre, and that’s how we do it.
Now we’ll hear the differences between these candidates, but it will likely be in attack form — and it’s all Obama’s to lose, since he’s had a free pass up til now. Whoever’s Number 1 gets the heat. Number 2, Edwards in this case, is being ignored due to the shock ‘n awe of Number 3’s failure to impose her platform of same old, same old, blindsiding the expectations of the establishment. Hil has just this weekend to come up with a reason why we should accept eight more years of the twenty year Bush/Clinton dynasty — that’s going to be a hard sell.
I obviously have deeper thoughts about all this, but I’ll save them for later — here are three pieces of interest; Mike Moore’s commentary on Thursday night … a blog post from the day before that sums up, for me, why Edwards is the guy the bloggers and the base hearken to … and the last article made me laugh out loud.
While I do feel a tad sorry for Hil, who didn’t see the train coming, I don’t feel badly enough not to appreciate snark [of course] … so here are my entries for the Phunniest Hillary stuff of the week — first the ledeline that made me giggle:
Analysis: Clinton goes for young voters
… then there’s the snarkiest ‘toon:
… and the snarkiest quote, from Barack Obama:
“This feels good. It’s just like I imagined it when I was talking to my kindergarten teacher.”
So, on to New Hampshire and the convoluted democratic process of choosing Just One Person to take on the godlike power of American mythology. What a deal!
Jude
“It’s the War,” Says Iowa to Hillary — And a “Happy Blue Year” To All!
Michael Moore
January 3, 2007
Friends,
There was no doubt about it. The message from Iowa tonight was simple, but deafening:
If you’re a candidate for President, and you voted for the war, you lose. And if you voted and voted and voted for the war — and never once showed any remorse — you really lose.
In short, if you had something to do with keeping us in this war for four-plus years, you are not allowed to be the next president of the United States.
Over 70% of Iowan Democrats voted for candidates who either never voted for the invasion of Iraq (Obama, Richardson, Kucinich) or who have since admitted their mistake (Edwards, Biden, Dodd). I can’t tell you how bad I feel for Senator Clinton tonight. I don’t believe she was ever really for this war. But she did — and continued to do — what she thought was the politically expedient thing to eventually get elected. And she was wrong. And tonight she must go to sleep wondering what would have happened if she had voted her conscience instead of her calculator.
John Edwards was supposed to have come in third. He had been written off. He was outspent by the other front-runners six to one. But somewhere along the road he threw off the old politico hack jacket and turned into a real person, a fighter for the poor, for the uninsured, for peace. And for that, he came in a surprise second, ending up with just one less delegate than the man who was against the war from the beginning. But, as Joshua Holland of AlterNet pointed out earlier today, Edwards is still the only front-runner who will pull out all the troops and do it as quickly as possible. His speech tonight was brilliant and moving.
What an amazing night, not just for Barack Obama, but for America. I know that Senator Obama is so much more than simply the color of his skin, but all of us must acknowledge — and celebrate — the fact that one of the whitest states in the U.S. just voted for a black man to be our next president. Thank you, Iowa, for this historic moment. Thank you for at least letting us believe that we are better than what we often seem to be. And to have so many young people come out and vote — and vote for Obama — this is a proud moment. It all began with the record youth turnout in 2004 — the ONLY age group that Kerry won — and they came back out tonight en force. Good on every single one of you!
As the only top candidate who was anti-war before the war began, Barack Obama became the vessel through which the people of this Midwestern state were able to say loud and clear: “Bring ‘Em Home!” Most pundits won’t read the election this way because, well, most pundits merrily led us down the path to war. For them to call this vote tonight a repudiation of the war — and of Senator Clinton’s four years’ worth of votes for it — might require the pundit class to remind their viewers and readers that they share some culpability in starting this war. And, like Hillary, damn few of them have offered us an apology.
With all due respect to Senator Obama’s victory, the most important news out of the caucus this evening was the whopping, room-busting turnout of Democrats. 239,000 people showed up to vote Democratic tonight (93% more than in ‘04, which was a record year), while only 115,000 showed up to vote Republican. And this is a red state! The Republican caucuses looked anemic. The looks on their faces were glum, tired. As the camera followed some of them into their caucus sites, they held their heads down or turned away, sorta like criminals on a perp walk. They know their days of power are over. They know their guy blew it. Their only hope was to vote for a man who has a direct line to heaven. Huckabee is their Hail Mary pass. But don’t rule him out. He’s got a sense of humor, he’s downhome, and he said that if elected, he’d put me on a boat to Cuba. Hey, a free Caribbean vacation!
Bottom line: People have had it. Iowa will go blue (Happy Blue Year, Hawkeyes!). Whomever your candidate is on the Dem side, this was a good night. Get some sleep. The Republicans won’t go down without a fight. Look what happened when Kerry tried to play nice. So Barack, you can talk all you want about “let’s put the partisanship aside, let’s all get along,” but the other side has no intention of being anything but the bullies they are. Get your game face on now. And, if you can, tell me why you are now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary. You now take more money from the people committed to stopping universal health care than any of the Republican candidates.
Despite what your answer may be, I was proud to sit in my living room tonight and see you and your family up on that stage. We became a bit better tonight, and on that I will close by saying, sweet dreams — and on to that other totally white state of New Hampshire!
Yours,
Michael Moore
Why the Blogosphere Went for Edwards
BooMan23, Frog Pond via Daily Kos
Wed Jan 02, 2008
I feel like writing this now, before any caucus or primary results, while my feelings are uninfluenced by events that right now remain uncertain. I don’t think the mainstream media or the people that work inside the Beltway really understand the blogosphere at all. We may not fully understand them either, but we have a better grasp of what makes them tick than they have of what makes us tick. We’re fighters. Fighting is pretty much all we do.
This whole movement was born of a vacuum. The primary vacuum was in the media. We discovered in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq that the media was not only shutting out our voices, but they were distorting the facts, and the facts were, therefore, going unrebutted. And we discovered that we could publish our voices just as easily as the New York Times could publish the lies of William Safire, Judith Miller, or Dick Cheney. We discovered that we could factcheck the articles appearing in the papers and the warmongers appearing on our television.
We found a truth deficit and set out to provide the truth that was lacking. For those of us that have been doing this for years, we are steeped in this contrast between what is reported and what is true. We know who the liars are. We know who the lazy reporters are. And we know who has been battling with us (Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd) and who has not (Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford). We now have comrades-in-arms…people that we have been standing with day after day after day. And we have enemies that have undermined our mission at every opportunity.
I’m sitting here listening to a speech Barack Obama made yesterday in Coralville, Iowa. He’s saying all the right things. Here’s an example (paraphrased): ‘If you have been steeped in the common wisdom of Washington DC that says it is a good idea to invade Iraq, you can’t be the best person going forward to question and change our foreign policy.’ And that is exactly right. That explains so clearly what it means to have been in the fight on the side of the blogosphere versus what it means to have been on the sidelines within the consultancies of the Capitol. But Obama hasn’t really embraced us. He’s gone his own way. And that explains why, in the end, the blogosphere broke heavily for John Edwards.
No, I don’t mean people turned their back on Obama because he didn’t pay the proper respect to the blogosphere. That isn’t what happened. Obama didn’t embrace our way of doing things. Worse, he began to use rhetoric we had spent energy to debunk. He went even further. He tossed aside one of our central insights…an insight won through hard experience: we cannot compromise with the Republican Party…we must smash them.
Perhaps because his wife is such an avid reader of blogs, Edwards’ campaign tapped right into our zeitgeist. He came out with our insight front and center. You want Edwards’ message? Here it is: ‘Fuck David Broder, fuck Joe Klein, fuck Chris Matthews, fuck FOX News, fuck Tim Russert, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Defense. We don’t need them. They won’t negotiate in good faith. They’re stacking the deck against us. And we can beat them by telling the truth and getting organized.’ That’s Edwards’ message, and that is the message we have internalized both through our successes and our failures.
What’s funny is that Obama is saying many of the same things, in his own way. The policy differences between Edwards and Obama are minimal. But Obama’s tone deaf to the blogosphere. And, as a result, the blogosphere didn’t trust him. Take Armando:
- …we do not criticize Obama’s political style on aesthetic grounds; we criticize his style because we think it will not work to actually EFFECT CHANGE. We believe that despite his being touted as the change candidate, his political style is the one LEAST likely to achieve progressive policy change.
His ’style’ will be ineffective. Why did so many of us conclude this? It’s because we have watched Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi try to negotiate with the Republicans (in the minority, the majority, no matter) and it does not work. We have watched the Dems talk tough and then back down time and time again. We’re done with conciliation and we don’t believe bipartisanship is possible without first crushing the Republican Party down to a stump.
Ironically, Obama might be the perfect candidate to provide the kind of crushing victories this November that will make true bipartisanship possible again. I definitely think that is a possibility. In fact, I feel his chances are strong enough that I can’t endorse Edwards over Obama. I do hope Edwards wins in Iowa, but not necessarily because I prefer him to Obama. More than anything, I want Edwards’ style to be vindicated. I want partisanship and combativeness to be rewarded. And I want Clinton/Lieberman/Ford/Carper/Carville/Begala/Penn to lose.
In any case, this is the best I can do to express why the blogosphere went for Edwards. None of the candidates were going far enough on policy, but at least Edwards was representing our fighting natures. And that, in the end, was decisive.
Hillary Repackages Herself as a Black Man
Andy Borowitz, HuffPo
January 4, 2008
In what some party insiders are calling a Hail Mary bid to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today attempted to repackage herself as a black man.
In the wake of her disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, there was consensus among Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aides that her presidential bid needed to be rebooted, but few party professionals expected her to change her race and sex with only five days to go until New Hampshire.
According to Clinton strategist Mark Penn, however, Mrs. Clinton’s decision to become an African-American man was thoroughly consistent with her history as a “change agent.”
“Hillary is all about change, and changing her race and sex is just the most recent example of that,” he said.
Speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton thanked her supporters for “keeping it real” and promoted her just-released autobiography, “The Bodacicty of Hope.”
“This election is about whether or not America is ready to elect a black man President of the United States,” she said. “I believe I am that black man.”
Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton was dismissive of rival John Edwards’ comparison of himself to Seabiscuit, remarking that “in addition to being a black man, Hillary has for many years been a world-class horse.”
Mr. Clinton made his comments in an interview on PBS’ “Charlie Rose Show,” in which the former president, looking bleary-eyed and unshaven, touted Mrs. Clinton’s victory in last year’s Belmont Stakes.
Elsewhere, embattled G.O.P. presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled a new campaign slogan, “What the Huck?!”
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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