Democratic Central
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you mad.
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Democratic Central
Progressive blogging in Central Virginia
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Fri May 16, 2008 at 07:56:32 AM EDT
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Huffington Post has the video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And the gentelman, James Rubin, who teased this jem out of McCain has an oped in the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Here's the money:
RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"
McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
So the question becomes can McCain shoot straight: have the Republican's ever run such a sloppy Presidential candidate? |
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Fri May 16, 2008 at 01:43:44 AM EDT
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Ten days ago I posted a diary with the title 'Dream ticket redux?', in which I asserted that the logical explanation for Hillary Clinton's behavior (continuing to campaign after she has lost the Presidential nomination) is that she intends to force Barack Obama to accept her as his VP nominee. A major problem with my thesis was that I did not offer any scenario for how she could actually do this. Today a dKos diary titled 'How Clinton could force her way onto the ticket as VP' presented a precise -- and apparently plausible -- scenario. It is taken from another posting that appeared today on RealClearPolitics, titled 'If Clinton Wants VP, Obama Can't Stop Her', which claims that the superdelegates will be pressured to vote for her as VP:.. imagine its June 4th [Wed after last primary] and [Bill] Clinton calls.. "I know Obama has enough votes to win, but I wanted you to know Hillary has decided to run for vice president at the convention. You know there are two roll call votes at the convention: first president then for vice president. I know you are voting for Obama for president. Fine, but I want your commitment to vote for Hillary for vice president." The postings explain the likely feelings of the Clinton delegates, who are fiercely loyal to Hillary and who constitute nearly half the delegate votes, and of the superdelegates, most of whom have feelings of loyalty to Bill Clinton. Read the diaries and see if you agree with the conclusion. And consider what I said in my first 'redux' posting:Hillary Clinton is carrying the flag for an historic cause.. -- she is the champion for boomer women's equality -- and she cannot allow that cause to be seen to lose. I think that she and her advisors concluded that they must do everything they can to win the only thing that she can still win, the VP nomination. |
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Fri May 16, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM EDT
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 Andrew Johnson, who became President when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, was never well-received by the Republican Congress. Johnson had an ambiguous party status. He was the only southern Senator not to quit his post upon secession, and became the most prominent War Democrat from the South, supporting Lincoln's military policies during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, where he proved energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion. He was nominated for the Vice President slot in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He attempted to build up a party of loyalists under the National Union label, but he did not identify with either of the two main parties while President.
His difficulties with the Republicans started almost immediately, by being generous with former Confederate leaders. Johnson, of course, was from Tennessee, which made him suspect to begin with. Then he let the Southern states hold elections in 1865 in which prominent ex-Confederates were elected to the U.S. Congress; Congress refused to seat them. Congress and Johnson argued in an increasingly public way about Reconstruction and the manner in which the Southern secessionist states would be readmitted to the Union. Johnson favored a very quick restoration, similar to the plan of leniency that Lincoln advocated before his death.
Johnson-appointed governments in the South all passed Black Codes that gave the Freedmen second class status. In response to the Black Codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the re-admission of the ex-rebellious states to the Congress in fall 1865. Congress renewed the Freedman's Bureau, but Johnson vetoed it. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront at the Black Codes. Trumbull proposed the first Civil Rights bill.
Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the Freedmen at a time when eleven out of thirty-six States were unrepresented and attempted to fix by Federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the Union." Johnson said it was an invasion by Federal authority of the rights of the States; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government." Johnson, in a letter to Governor Thomas C. Fletcher of Missouri, wrote, "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men."
The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north and South, aligned with Johnson. However the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto, and the Civil Rights bill became law. |
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Fri May 16, 2008 at 00:52:41 AM EDT
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| There has been a lot written here about predictions for President -- but how about the Senate? The House?
First, even House Republican insiders are expecting to lose 20 seats to the Democrats this fall. There are few good candidates coming to run against Democratic incumbents -- even first-term Democratic incumbents. The NRCC has spent heavily losing the lost three special elections, and they have no cash on hand (according to some reports, they have more debt than assets right now). They fear being down to 180, or even to 170, seats. Tom Davis, whose job it has been in recent years to raise money and recruit candidates, is retiring, and is disgusted. He was quoted yesterday as saying that the Republican brand is so bad right now, "If we were dog food, they'd pull us off the shelves."
In the Senate, look for at least 5 pickups:
In Virginia, Mark Warner leads Jim Gilmore 55% to 38%.
In New Mexico, Tom Udall leads either Republican 60% to 36%.
In New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen leads incumbent John Sununu 50% to 40%.
In Colorado, Mark Udall leads Bob Schaeffer 45% to 43%.
In Alaska, Mark Begich leads incumbent Ted Stevens 48% to 43%.
In Texas, there is something of a surprise -- incumbent Jon Cornyn, who we would think would be safe, leads Nick Noriega by only 48% to 44%.
In North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole should be doing better than her 48% to 43% over Kay Hagen. http://www.publicpolicypolling... |
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Thu May 15, 2008 at 11:57:24 AM EDT
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| In Larry Sabato's "Crystal Ball," he has characterized the states based on how Kerry and Bush fared in 2004.
He sees 173 Electoral Votes in "safe Republican" states, meaning that Bush carried the state by more than 10%. It's a group that includes two states that might be in play for Obama -- North Carolina (15 EV) and West Virginia (5 EV).
He lists the following states, with 76 EV, as "leaning Republican" (Bush won by 5% to 10%) -- Arizona (10 EV), Arkansas (6 EV), Virginia (13 EV), Missouri (11), Colorado (9), and Florida (27).
There are 106 Electoral Votes in "true battleground states" -- states that were won by less than 5% margin: Nevada (5), Ohio (20), New Mexico (5), Iowa (7), Wisconsin (10), New Hampshire (4), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), Pennsylvania (21), and Oregon (7).
The "leaning Democratic" states, where Kerry won by between 5% and 10%, total 120 EV -- New Jersey, Washington, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, California, Connecticut and Illinois. While the results here won't be cakewalks, I see little evidence of a threat to Obama in any of these states.
Finally, there are 63 EV in states that are solidly Democratic.
As I look at Sabato's numbers through the 2008 lens, I see 201 EV that are pretty solid for McCain. I see 242 that are solid for Obama. I count 112 EV to be fighting about. Depending on who the VP nominee is, I see the following states as up in the air -- North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Obama would need to pick up 28 more EV. The easiest way to that number is to win either Pennsylvania or Ohio and Wisconsin. |
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Thu May 15, 2008 at 11:15:36 AM EDT
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 Valerie Jarrett is one of those insiders in the Obama campaign that we don't hear much about, but if this is the kind of person he's likely to rely on, I feel better.
Valerie Jarrett is a 1981 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School (Go Blue!). For those of you who do not know law schools, Michigan is one of the top 5 or so in the country. (It's also where I went, graduating in 1979 -- I did not know Ms. Jarrett, as far as I know.) They don't let in many dummies.
She is from Chicago; her father is a pathologist, the first African-American to receive tenure at the University of Chicago's Department of Biological Sciences. Her mother is a child psychologist. Throughout her career, Ms. Jarrett has straddled the divide between races, classes and the public and private sectors. As a court-appointed overseer to the desegregation of public housing in Chicago, she negotiated between the city, residents of down-and-out housing projects such as Cabrini-Green, and real-estate developers who were replacing the projects with mixed-income communities.
As the chairman of the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, she juggled the concerns of hard-driving traders and New York bankers who bought a sizable stake in the sliding exchange.
And most recently, as a board member of the committee to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago, she has forged cooperation between corporate leaders and the African-American community on the South Side, where most of the sporting and residential venues could be built. http://online.wsj.com/article/...
This woman -- not Jeremiah Wright -- is who Barack Obama listens to. |
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Thu May 15, 2008 at 11:00:00 AM EDT
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 The RNC has rolled out a new slogan -- "The Change You Deserve."
I have two responses to this. The first is a psychological issue -- are they trying to hijack Barack Obama's "Change You Can Believe In?" Does this effort legitimize Obama's slogan? It seems to me that when they embrace that as their slogan, a few things happen. First, they solidify the notion that this election will be about change. No incumbents need apply. Anyone who is seen as an agent of the status quo may be selling used cars next January. Second, though, and somewhat more ominously, it sets up a contrast -- "Change you believe in" vs. "Change you deserve". The Republican/anti-immigrant/anti-minority message is against people -- particularly other people -- getting things that they don't deserve. Affirmative action? Rewards people who don't deserve the job. There was an undercurrent in the Clinton campaign that Obama didn't "deserve" the nomination, that he "cut in line" to get ahead of Hillary. This line is an appeal to the Clinton supporters to come join John McCain and the Republicans.
The second response is to note that "The Change You Deserve" is the trademarked slogan for the psychotropic drug Effexor. Effexor is primarily used as an anti-depressant, but it also has another prescribed use -- as a remedy for premature ejaculation. And while we're talking about Effexor, I had another reaction, looking at the ad -- notice the part where it says: "REALITY. You have options." Only the Republicans would be looking for options to reality this year. |
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Thu May 15, 2008 at 10:41:18 AM EDT
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| Newhouse News Service, as republished at talkingpointsmemo.com -- http://talkingpointsmemo.com/n... -- has an interesting analysis of why Barack Obama is losing in Appalachia. He attributes it to the Scots-Irish -- Jim Webb's people -- who grow up in a culture that says that if you get in a fight, you keep fighting, even if you're losing; that says that you have to make sure that the other guy is marked by the battle (black eye, etc.); that says that if you don't have any scars, you're not a fighter. And they look on Obama -- successful, Harvard Law, great speaker, very bright, no scars -- and see someone that they are used to looking at with scorn as a "pretty boy." Obama has actually won 5 of the 10 whitest states, and 12 of the 20 whitest states. He just gets killed in Appalachia.
John McCain, on the other hand, is someone that the Appalachia culture can respect. He was tortured in Vietnam, and lived to tell about it. He's got the literal scars. He's not a pretty boy.
This is why some have argued for a Jim Webb vice-presidency. As Webb himself has said, Once Democrats, Webb says the Scots-Irish created the "core culture around which Red State America has gathered and thrived." But he does not believe they are irrevocably lost to the Democrats.
"In fact," Webb wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2004, "the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African-Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries." I just wish that I thought that Jim Webb was the right guy to make that happen... |
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| Mad About Gas Prices? |
High gas and oil prices are brought to you by Virgil Goode. We can't really promise that Tom Perriello will bring lower gas and oil prices, but he certainly can't do worse.
To find cheap gas in your area, click on the image and go to the site...
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