Spa Day and Codpiece Dreams

Well, Pennsylvania’s behind us and here’s where we are now [sigh]:

Hil needs a spa day — she needs someone speaking to her soothingly, and gently pushing the bangs off her brow. She needs to be reminded she’s a daughter, a wife and a mother as well as just one of the [Kevlar] guys; that she doesn’t need to spit nails, pretend she has gonads and lie her ass off in pursuit of every vote she can garner.

Lie? Yeah, well — lie. Wednesday night she said she was going to continue to fight hard for us poor counted-out [nay, bitter] disenfranchised types [implying she herself is being victimized by insensitive Lefty’s and vicious pundits who don’t believe she can canoodle her way past the, largely unchanged, numbers.] Do YOU believe that’s why she’s fighting?

Do you believe she’s had a sudden populist epiphany and now regrets those years she proudly stumped for humongous profit with Wal-Mart? [An aside — there’s a food run going on at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club … welcome to the new century.] And I’m sure, years back when she said that poor Southern white voters could just get screwed, she was only kidding. Surely her decade of whining about ‘politics of personal destruction’ foisted upon her by Republicans was MUCH worse than what she’s accomplished lately in her own bid for Big Dog [and frankly, with more cause.]

Everything Hil says these days rings just a little off and slightly hysterical — I guess that’s why polls show some 60% of Dem’s question her credibility. Yesterday she said in a stump speech that when she was in China, she’d been warned to keep her mouth shut but she’d advocated for women who were being treated poorly — I had to pause; did she? Is that true? What will the vetting bring? [… if we notice it at all, that is — we’re a little slow on the uptake; rhetoric-bloated, if you will.]

I don’t hate Hillary — I just think anyone who is sure to the point of self and national destruction that nobody deserves to be president but themselves is … ummm … ego-stunted.

Mrs. Clinton is first and foremost a politician — which means she’s an opportunist, embroidering the truth a little [a lot] to make herself look better [best.] She announced that she’d won PA by “double digits” — rounding that 9.2 win up so she could tootle her horn and make it look like a resounding Obama defeat; then her people announced that she has the “popular vote,” but only if you count Michigan and Florida, neither of which will be seated, and if you ignore the caucus’s [full of MoveOn activist types.] New math, doncha know.

She sent me an email telling me that “the Tide Is Turning.” I know, she needs the hype to get the money — she needs to convince that she’s the Comeback Kid and that the race is wide open, even though she only gained a handful of delegates and pushed forward slightly. It’s a kind of fantasy that we play out, in respect to democratic principals and name-recognition — that there can be another Clinton win. Oh, there might … long shot at best … if she whomps up enough racism to make Obama’s message of unity moot; if she brands him unelectable because he’s not white enough. [Watch the Pub NC ad here, as typical of what we’re gonna see.] And she could shake up the combat considerably if Rush Limbaugh’s Chaos Theory holds — if enough Pubs go temporarily Blue for the nomination, supporting Hil as they may well have done to the tune of 160,000 in PA [no Independents were allowed to vote in that primary.]

One of my problems with Hillary is that she needs, needs, needs. She needed the Right Wingers to leave her alone, and now she needs the Left Wingers to stand down. She needs to transcend any notion of her sex hindering her as a possible president but it defines her because she keeps promoting “sexism” to her advantage. She got too much attention when she was the front-runner, now she’s getting too little due as the under-dog. She sends Big Bill to the dog house, calls him back in, sends him back out. She needs more money, she needs more Superdelegates, she needs new campaign managers every couple of weeks.

She needs, needs, needs … a day at the Spa, an umbrella drink and a good book. She is what I would consider a “high maintenance” personality. In every family, there’s probably going to be a kid that ‘acts out’ — they need the attention, they need it so badly that they stir up negatives as a sure-fire way to get the parents dealing with them — and the ‘good kids’ take their position as second banana while the family attends to the needy one. That’s how we run a nomination process in this country?

And our second banana in the Dem family is clearly an aloof, thinks-he’s-all-that guy. Obama … the black guy from the mean streets of Chicago … is an elitist, and will be until the cows come home [or knock over the lantern to burn the Windy City down again.] Did you hear that when he was offered a cuppa Joe at a greasy spoon in PA he asked for a glass of OJ instead? Did you know that he even EATS like an elitist? MoJo outed him for sure, in case we didn’t know that. Obama may not even BE a politician, he hasn’t mentioned Monica once, or pointed back to the long laundry list of reasons why the Clinton years made us sick of in-fighting, anxious about litigation and frustrated with half-truths. Yeah, that ‘good kid’ in the Dem family — he’ll just go on to success after success while we attend to the needy one.

The New York Times backs Hil but their editorial board isn’t so impressed with her tactics — Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic thinks she’s a closet Republican, as do I. Here’s a fun read on all the candidates with South Park graphics; and here’s one I almost posted on Tuesday about PA expectations, but didn’t [in deference to you Clinton supporters] … it holds up on Thursday.

All that I want to see in the candidate — black man, white woman, cross dresser or pig in lipstick — is the ability to rise above the mechanics of dirty politics and behave as the commander of a great nation would; give me a glimpse of what dignity and candor looks like, real leadership. Perhaps, after eight years of George Bush, we’ve forgotten what that looks like.

I despise that we are exposing the ugliest part of our psyche in this contest; and shifting our attention to the uneducated and unyielding bias of a nation that aches for change yet settles for ancient hatred and race-baiting — same-old, same-old. [Well, nobody said growing up would be easy.]

Me, I don’t think the Dem’s can lose in November, even though the ugly stuff is surfacing now and Hillary is helping that to happen. We will have to beat back the racist, elitist and “inexperienced” stuff if Barack takes it — or the baggage Billery has collected, not just in the 90’s but in the EIGHT YEARS that nobody’s been watching [and don’t think there isn’t plenty of “new stuff” to examine.] But I can’t imagine the nation choosing McRib, with a decades-long record of cronyism we haven’t even begun to examine, to lead us into another 4 years of Bushism; we’re dumb, but not that dumb!

And up to this point, although I’d have to grit my teeth, hold my nose and swear like a sailor, I’d have voted for Hillary as the Dem nominee without pause as the lesser of evils — a canny, connected politician, top of the 3D food chain, that would lean to the Blue but who would run the country to center, consort with the lobby’s and continue to cozy with big business; find reasons to stay in the Mideast because she’s a hawk at heart.

That was, of course, before she mentioned Iran. I had to wait a few days for the press/blogosphere to catch up with my horror at Hillary’s statement on Good Morning America, telling the world that she would be capable of “totally obliterating” Iran.

Pardon me?

By gawd, Hillary Clinton DOES have a working penis! John McCain is probably envious and the Bilderberg cronies, the Fellowship Foundation members, are likely beaming with pleasure — and frankly, with that amount of testosterone, I don’t want the phone in EITHER of their hands at 3 AM!

Obliterate? And Obama took it in the shorts because he said “bitter!”

This is what Fareed Zakaria says about Iran in this months Playboy interview:

Z: We have to come with terms with the fact that Iran is a real country and has legitimate security concerns. Look at the neighborhood: You have a nuclear India, a nuclear Pakistan, a nuclear China, a nuclear Russia and a nuclear Israel. The United States has 150,000 troops on one Iranian border, and 50,000 US and NATO troops are on the other border. You have an American president who keeps saying this is an evil regime that has to be changed. Iran is not just being paranoid. If you were in that situation, you would buy some insurance, and in the world of international relations nuclear weapons are insurance.

P: But doesn’t a nuclear Iran concern you?

Z: If you want Iran to denuclearize, you must recognize that it will need some assurances relating to security. The first step would be having a dialogue. Barack Obama said he would talk to them, and he was vilified, called naive, but you want to talk to these people.

[…]

The reality is that Iran is a serious country. No matter who governs it, Iran has security concerns. The nuclear program was started by the shah of Iran, not the mullahs. Negotiating with them does not mean they won’t be very tough. Remember that the best thing for Castro, the Iranian hard-liners and so many others has been to have the United States as their enemy. We play into their hands. If we were to take a more sensible view of Iran and North Korea, to name two, we would recognize that time is on our side, not theirs. We in the modern world have the answers; they don’t. Iran has a totally dysfunctional economy. The government isn’t particularly popular. It’s no a recipe for long-term success.

Obliterate. Now there’s a concept for a tense, anxious nation to chew on. Our needy child will do anything for attention. Obama appears to be the only one willing to hold a conversation before considering mayhem — but then, he’s elitist and “hesitant” on these big questions as he [gasp!] pauses to THINK before he answers questions.

Congrats, Hil, on winning PA, a state custom made for you with its older, bitter and very-very-white constituents — but what you accomplished, in essence, was to extend the campaign into June and beyond; and since you and Barack are exhausted, physically if not mentally and financially, the whole of the national conversation just got more problematic … gaffe’s will continue and telling little pieces of true intent will leak out whether you want them to or not.

Spa day, Hil — umbrella drink. Hurry!

Jude

Clinton Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran
Robert Scheer
April 23, 2008

How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton’s eminently sensible and centrist–to a fault–opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.

On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to “totally obliterate them,” in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.

Shouldn’t the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat?

Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency.

Clearly the heat of a campaign is not the proper setting for consideration of a response to a threat from a nation that is a long way from developing nuclear weapons. Obviously the danger of Iran’s developing such weapons can be met with a range of alternatives, from the diplomatic to the military, that do not involve genocide and at any rate must be considered in moral and not solely political terms. Or is it base political ambition that would guide Clinton if she received that middle-of-the-night phone call?

If so, it cannot be assumed that Hillary Clinton as president would be less irrationally hawkish and more restrained in the unleashing of military force than John McCain. The latter, at least, has personal experience with the true, on-the-ground costs of militarism gone wild. Yes, I know that McCain still holds out the hope of winning the Iraq war that both he and Hillary originally endorsed, but for Clinton to raise the rhetoric against Iran in the midst of a campaign is hardly the path to Mideast peace, whether it concerns Israel or Iraq. It is bizarre that a politician who bought into the phony threat about Iraq’s nonexistent WMD arsenal now plays political games with the alleged threat posed by Iran.

The war has accomplished only one major change in the configuration of Mideast power: Iran now holds uncontested supremacy as the region’s key player. Whatever chance there is for stability in Iraq now depends on the blessings of the ayatollahs of Iran, whose surrogates were put in power in Baghdad as a consequence of the American invasion. It is totally hypocritical for Clinton or McCain to now talk about getting tough with Iran over the nuclear weapons issue, when both contributed so mightily to squandering U.S. leverage over Tehran.

To meet that potential nuclear weapons threat from Iran requires a serious, non-rhetorical, multinational response that makes clear that no nation has the right to obliterate the population of another, and that nations, even our own, that claim that right should be challenged as unacceptably barbaric. Instead, Clinton played into the thoughts of fanatics throughout the world who believe that might makes right and who take the United States–which spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined (including many billions on new sophisticated and “usable” nuclear weapons)–as both their enemy and an example to emulate.

What better argument do the ayatollahs need to justify their obtaining a nuclear “deterrent” than that the possible leader of the first nation to develop nuclear weapons, and the only one to ever use them to kill people, now threatens the people of Iran with obliteration? ++

Channeling McCain: Hillary Clinton’s Monstrous Threat
Dave Lindorff, BuzzFlash
Wed, 04/23/2008

Tough guy Hillary Clinton, on the morning of a critical primary vote in Pennsylvania, uttered a monstrous threat, saying on ABC’s “Good Morning America program that if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel while she was president, “we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Think about that a moment! A country that we view as a theocracy, run dictatorially by a bunch of self-appointed religious fanatics, whose rule is enforced by an army of equally fanatic quasi-military thugs and enforcers, launches an attack on America’s ally Israel, and Clinton says her response would be to incinerate the people of that country — people who are as powerless to stop such an attack as would be the people of Israel or the United States.

Is this the way we want the world to work? Is this the way we want our government to act?

Granted that if Iran’s leaders were, for some crazy reason, to decide to launch an unprovoked nuclear attack on Israel, it would require some kind of response by the U.S. and other nations, but is the appropriate response the slaughter of tens of millions of innocent Iranian citizens?

Of course not.

The destruction of Iran’s government might be a logical response. Certainly the incineration of the Religious Council might be appropriate, or the leveling of the country’s military headquarters and its command and control system. But killing the country’s people, who are civilians and have no say over such things, is pathological.

Clinton, hoping to prove her testosterone levels are high, and to win votes and much-needed campaign swill from backers of Israel, is channeling her inner McCain.

What makes this particular threat so disgusting is that Clinton knows better. Unlike McCain, who appears to relish the thought of death and mayhem, whether in Iraq or Iran, and who presents his history of bombing dikes and hospitals in North Vietnam as heroic exploits, she opposed that war in Indochina once upon a time. I assume that among other things she opposed the Indochina War because she thought it was wrong for the U.S. to be slaughtering millions of innocent peasants.

Now she’s talking about slaughtering not millions of innocent Vietnamese, but tens of millions of innocent Iranians.

What a fine display of leadership potential we have here!

As far as I’m concerned, Clinton has just disqualified herself for the job of commander-in-chief of the world’s most awesome military power.

We’ve had our experience with a power-crazed, jingoistic leader, and we’re living with the ugly results — five years of pointless bloody war. At least so far, though, George Bush has kept his finger off the nuclear button (unless reports prove true that small nuclear bunker busters were employed secretly in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Now Clinton is saying she’s ready to push that button.

Folks, if you haven’t already got reason enough to reject this woman — her lies about her support for NAFTA, her red-baiting of Barack Obama, her lies about her visit “under fire” to Bosnia, her corrupt financial history, etc. — this latest statement about her readiness to incinerate a nation of 70 million people for the actions of their leaders ought to do the trick.

Hillary Clinton is the Democratic answer to John McCain.

They both belong where they are, in the Senate, where they can do no harm. ++

Hillary: so macho, she’s ’scary’
Judith Timson, Globe and Mail
April 24, 2008

She’s mowing down everything in her path.

There was Hillary Clinton on early morning television yesterday, fresh from her Pennsylvania primary victory the night before, in what I call full mental jacket (plus necklace), deliciously upending every gender stereotype on the block by being the most macho politician on the airwaves.

The senator was being challenged to explain her latest campaign ad that showed, among other threats to American security, a picture of Osama bin Laden, as if to convince voters that without her, the terrorists would surely win.

“I would consider him a person we must take out,” she replied serenely, making me wonder for a moment whether she was secretly thinking Obama and not Osama.

How macho is she? She makes George W. Bush look like a wimp, John McCain look tender-hearted and her main rival Barack Obama look like a whipped puppy.

How odd - and no doubt disappointing to his supporters - that even though he’s still ahead in the delegate count, the man viewed as the tastiest political candidate since John F. Kennedy doesn’t seem able or willing to confront the full-on tenacity of his main rival.

Lukewarmly congratulating her on her victory and then, having hightailed it to Indiana where he reverted to his impressive but now familiar rhetorical grace, Mr. Obama looked like he needed, well, a shot of testosterone to take the lady on.

In fact, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd mischievously wondered: “As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?”

Ms. Clinton is now viewed as so “scary” and even mean in her campaign tactics that The New York Times editorial board, who once (in what now seems like another century) endorsed her for the Democratic nomination, pleaded with her to “call off the dogs.”

In another interview Ms. Clinton gave recently, she said that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president, “we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Whoa. That kind of commander-in-chief cojones, combined with an almost otherworldly resilience and determination on the campaign trail - despite Hillary deathwatches and pundits and party members calling for her to quit - has evoked equal amounts of admiration, terror and, well, irritation in Clinton watchers.

We can’t get enough of this fascinating psychological case study, a middle-aged woman who positively glows from within every time she gets knocked down and bounces back up.

“The American people don’t quit and they deserve a president who doesn’t quit either,” she said triumphantly in her Pennsylvania victory speech. That speech was charming and inclusive and low-key compared with her campaign tactics.

The way she has attacked Mr. Obama - which, however assertive, is arguably well within the boundaries of cut and thrust politics - has made some high-profile Democrats squirm.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore recently endorsed Mr. Obama, saying the Clinton campaign had become “disgusting.”

Yet there is grudging respect for her from many sides. During CNN’s coverage of the primary results, conservative pundit Bill Bennett expressed his awe of Ms. Clinton’s stamina, calling her the “Energizer bunny” (after which he immediately wondered whether he could call a female politician a bunny).

Well, she ain’t soft and cuddly, that’s for sure. But she’s still, despite the macho behaviour, very much a woman. In fact, Ms. Clinton may be changing behavioural standards for female politicians everywhere, crashing through the ultimate psychological glass ceiling: the one that ordains that women have to be “nice” or else they will be seen as “bitches.”

Whether you consider her to be authentic or a five-star phony, Ms. Clinton is no longer trapped in the bitch ditch. With a ferocious command of facts at her fingertips - no one seems as policy-prepared as she does - and that Olympian tenacity, she seems all of a sudden to have transcended gender.

Was this what we wanted? If so, I wonder why Ms. Clinton’s toughness is making some of us uneasy in a new way. Now I’m hearing women who once were drawn to her clearing their throats.

This isn’t exactly what we meant, they say. “She’s really starting to bug me,” said one woman, worried about Ms. Clinton’s bruising effect on the Democratic chances of winning the election.

Yet all I know is that while her approach may not be “nice” or filled with hope or idealism or any of those very fine Obamaesque themes, if I had to slog through crap of any kind and end up a winner, I’d channel my inner Hillary to do so. She is one tough mother.

Whether she can also transcend character or baggage or even numbers to win the nomination is quite another matter.

But for the sheer delight - and intrigue - of watching her, she’s still the best thing that’s ever happened to women in politics. ++

Hillary’s Smackdown
GAIL COLLINS, NYT
April 24, 2008

Philadelphia - The clamor for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race has reached new levels of intensity since the Pennsylvania primary. Of all the things Hillary has done, Obama supporters find her tendency to win large elections in swing states as by far the most irritating. If she beats him in Indiana, they’ll be surrounding her house with torches.

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is back!” cried Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the cheering crowd at the victory bash on Tuesday.

While half the nation’s Democrats groaned in their living rooms, the other half happily watched as their girl refused to go down for the count. “Yes we can!” shouted the crowd.

Memo to crowd: Even though Obama has taken to promising “straight talk” lately, stealing another campaign’s slogan is still tacky.

Memo to Clinton campaign: While everybody understands that money is tight, charging supporters and faithful volunteers $5 for a plastic cup of soda at a victory party seemed like an overreaction. There must be a middle ground, perhaps involving the occasional bowl of complementary potato chips.

“This is one tough woman!” an ebullient Representative Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania told the crowd. He was so excited he referred to the primary as “the key to the beginning of the end for our next president,” which was probably not the exact message he meant to convey.

The one thing all Democrats can probably agree on is that Hillary is indeed one tough woman. When the three presidential candidates taped greetings to be played during a televised “Monday Night Raw” wrestling match, she was the one you’d least want to get into the ring with. (And by the way, was that really a good plan? I know these days a politician has to get on the air any way possible, but isn’t wrestling fixed or something?)

Finally, at the victory party, Hillary herself emerged, to the tune of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Let’s all try to rally around this song because the alternative is watching her go through nine more primaries to the theme from “Rocky.”

Then out came Chelsea and a pink and glistening Bill Clinton, fresh from that peculiar radio interview in which he referred to a mysterious memo that he said proved the Obama campaign played the “race card” in South Carolina. When asked about it later, he accused the reporter of not caring about the issues.

The Clintons embraced for a long time, during which Hillary patted her husband’s back. It was hard to tell if that was a gesture of affection or an attempt to quiet him down.

“The American people don’t quit, and they deserve a president who doesn’t quit either,” the once-and-future candidate told her supporters.

Ever since Barack Obama’s campaign took fire with his call for a politics that was bipartisan and sensible and uplifting, Hillary has been telling her party that this was a pipe dream, that politics was frequently mean and irrational and that it got more so the higher you went.

In Pennsylvania, this worked really well for her. When Hillary was cheesy (see: gun lessons from Dad at Lake Winola) or negative, that was just her showing what you need to do to win. But when Barack attacked her for attacking, he was reverting to old politics. And if old politics are all we’re going to get, why not hire Hillary? Forget about another Morning in America. Clinton’s on the move, and it’s a dark and stormy night.

Although Obama has seemed way off his game lately, the odds are still really, really good that he’ll get the nomination. The superdelegates are just waiting for him to win something so they can rally. And once the fighting is over, there’s no question that Hillary would rally her supporters behind him. (This is a woman who sat down for a chat with arch-conservative-right-wing-conspirator Richard Mellon Scaife just to wrest an endorsement from his little fringe newspaper in Pittsburgh.) And within a couple of weeks, Bill Clinton would be treating Barack like a surrogate son and forcing him to play golf.

And if it should go the other way, can Barack Obama do the same for her? Yes he can.

If you want to worry about something, worry about the way both of them have been pandering themselves over the edge. There was the dreaded read-my-lips, no-new-middle-class-taxes pledge during the Pennsylvania debate. Then Hillary tried to demonstrate her toughness by announcing she would “obliterate” Iran if it messed with Israel. And when it comes to political piñatas, we’ll always have Nafta. They both went into the tank on agricultural issues back in Iowa, so heaven knows what they’re saving for Indiana.

Mandatory use of corn in highway paving materials?

Please, no more issues talk until we figure out who’s going to run against John McCain. Let’s concentrate on who’s meaner and who’s more snobbish and who had a neighbor who once belonged to one of the world’s most inept terrorist groups.

It’s O.K. by me if Barack and Hillary keep running against each other. Just as long as they keep it personal. ++

My winning strategy
Forget delegates, rules, votes: I deserve it. I’m Hillary Clinton, and I approved this message.
Rosa Brooks, LA Times
April 24, 2008

Thank you, Pennsylvania! What an incredible margin of victory you gave me! Ten percentage points over Barack Obama. Count ‘em! Ten!

All right, 9.2 points if you insist on actually counting. But they said I had to win by double digits to keep my campaign alive, and I think 9.2 points counts as double digits. And I am alive! And kicking! And punching and biting and kneeing my opponent in the groin!

Oh, we know what the pundits are saying now. They’re saying that most polls showed me ahead by 25 points in Pennsylvania a few months ago. But is it my fault if people just don’t like me as much as they used to? Thanks to me, they don’t like Obama as much as they used to either.

And you know what? I think I deserve a little bit of credit for that!

Who said elections were supposed to be popularity contests, anyway? Go ahead, like Obama better if you want to. I read the polls too. Americans think Obama is more “trustworthy” than I am, more “sincere” and “down to earth,” less “cold” and “mean.” According to the polls, a majority of Democrats actually think he ought to be the presidential nominee. Well, who needs them!

Presidents don’t need to be popular. Look at George W. Bush. He has the highest disapproval ratings in the history of public polling, but he still gets to live in the White House, and Congress still funds his wars. If he can do it, I can too!

But you know, what I really want to do here is talk about a fundamental misperception many have about this race. People seem to think my opponent has some kind of “lead” because he’s won more “delegates” and more “votes” and more “states” than I have. But are we going to decide this important race on the basis of such arbitrary metrics?

Start with the delegates. How is it fair for the Democratic nominee to be selected mostly by elected delegates?

Sure, it’s in the Democratic Party rules. But let me ask you: Is this a country of rules? Once again, take a look at our current president. Does he let rules bother him? Laws? He does not!

He believes in power, and he’s made it clear that not even Congress’ laws bind him when he’s exercising his executive prerogatives. The same principle should be applied to me when I’m exercising my prerogatives as would-be executive.

On that theme, let me remind our party’s pledged delegates of another thing: Just because you made a pledge doesn’t mean you have to keep it.

For instance, I pledged in August 2007 not to campaign or participate in states that broke Democratic Party rules by holding early primaries — as in Florida and Michigan. But you don’t see me sticking to that pledge, do you? I kept my name on the Michigan ballot when Obama honored the pledge and withdrew — which just goes to show you, he’s too naive to be president — and I swore that the Michigan vote “is not going to count for anything.” But guess what? I had my fingers crossed!

You “pledged” Obama delegates, do you catch my meaning?

Let’s turn to “votes.” My opponent seems to think it matters that he’s ahead in the popular vote. But Mr. Popularity isn’t ahead in the popular vote if you count the votes I got in those nullified Florida and Michigan primaries. And pledge or no pledge, I’m counting those votes, even if no one else is.

Of course, my opponent also claims to have won victories in more than twice as many states as I have. But what makes those states so special? I won by 42 votes in American Samoa. Also, let’s not forget, a lot of Obama’s victories came in states that held caucuses, and everyone knows that caucuses bring out Democratic Party activists, who don’t support me, so how can this be fair?

Still, the naysayers ask, do I have a strategy for winning the nomination? Yes, I do! Will I win? Yes, I will! My message boils down to this: Superdelegates, pay no attention to polls or votes or elected delegates or states. There are better and more appropriate ways for you to decide how to pick a winner.

Take anagrams: My name, rearranged, spells out “Only I can thrill.” My opponent’s full name, rearranged, forms “I am a hack, abuser, snob.” Given his history of elitism, I think this surely must be taken extremely seriously.

Superdelegates, it’s up to you now. Are you going to let arbitrary factors like elected delegates and votes influence your decisions? Or are you going to focus on the most important issue, which is that I believe I ought to be president?

Remember, no matter what, I am so going to be president of Pennsylvania. ++

“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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1 comment April 24th, 2008