2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

McCain, at a town hall meeting in this Philadelphia suburb, was asked if he had concerns that anti-American militants in Iraq might ratchet up their activities in Iraq to try to increase casualties in September or October and tip the November election against him.

"Yes, I worry about it," McCain said. "And I know they pay attention because of the intercepts we have of their communications ... The hardest thing in warfare is to counter someone or a group of individuals who are willing to take their own lives in order to take others."

wtf

No, Ethan, it's FUD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

The speech Obama just gave at this rally in Indiana a moment ago re-addressed the Jeremiah Wright issue waaaaaaay better than any of his cable news appearances last night did. I think he may have gotten on top of this after all.

I just saw the clip from "Hannity & Colmes" -- he was as unflappable as ever.

Johnny, the gist was?

He made mention of Robert Kennedy speaking to citizens of Indianapolis while standing on the roof of a car, sharing the news of MLK's assassination, telling people this was not the time to fragment and further divide among racial lines, but to come together and lift each other up. He also said that he will not stand for any assumption on anyone's part that the views expressed by his pastor are also his own.

That's what I wanted to see. Not just a rebuke of those things, but a turnaround of the conversation.

I can't find a pic of RFK at that announcement, but I did find this, the transcript & audio of the event.

McCain, at a town hall meeting in this Philadelphia suburb, was asked if he had concerns that anti-American militants in Iraq might ratchet up their activities in Iraq to try to increase casualties in September or October and tip the November election against him.

Hasn't been one of their lines for like 4-5 years now? Not that such considerations shouldn't be made, but this weird-ass myopic narcissism, that all shit in the world occurs just to affect America & its voting patterns in certain elections.

^^^This. But the correct term is not myopia, it's PARANOID NARCISSISM.

omg omg i'm sitting in a coffee house in s. minneapolis, never been here before, and mayor rybak (obama's mn campaign chair, i believe) is sitting next to me with a table full of ppl talking convention stuff -- can't really hear what's up but shit is seeeeriouuusssss

give her some advice from this thread

tacos/obama 08

-- jhøshea, Tuesday, February 12, 2008 4:26 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

r.t. rybak is a dude lol feminized liberals

wait, Minn is going to be where the RNC takes place, right? See if you can snag a pass and worm your way in.

how's the dem senate primary going there, anyway?

"mayor i'd like to present you with what i'd like to call 'the morbius plan'"

xp ciresi bailed. franken 08! :/

We in Oregon also have a GOP senate seat that's being targeted. I've met one of the candidates.

Hahahaha, Franken. Apparently so obnoxious at my HS they - the district - paid for him to go to Blake by way of expulsion. I have not paid much attention to this one yet.

MN is going to be where the RNC takes place and if you look upthread you will see that one poster is already going for workses and may have AAA pass.

Gff, is K Ellison also there? He is co-chair of MN Obamarama.

no k. ellison; congress is in session so i hope he's keeping busy.

the mayor has left the building. exciting!

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (6173 of them)

is it time for Thread 3?

Hoos, I think they have to get to 10,000 posts and crash half of ILXors' browsers before anyone does anything that sensible.

was just thinkin cause the other was locked @ Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (7238 of them)

Only if you call it P2008: OUR MESSAGES, LET US SHOW YOU THEM.

...if you say that in a Scottish accent it means you've been to the shops and have come back with stuff.

can we call it

MY FRIENDS, THE THIRD 2008 PRIMARIES THREAD

Every time I hear "my friends..." I throw up in my mouth, a little.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-leon-roker/guess-whos-coming-to-din_b_91666.html

can we call it

MY FRIENDS, THE THIRD 2008 PRIMARIES THREAD

-- gr8080, Sunday, March 16, 2008 12:13 AM

^^^^ a hoos likes this idea

Tracy Morgan on SNL responding to Tina Fey's Hillary endorsement 3 weeks ago: "Bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch."

ha

The "McCAIN IS OLD" sketch was hilarious.

FINALLY! They found something for Darrell Hammond to do this season.

Ad for a Belgian university:

http://i32.tinypic.com/2u7ro00.jpg

Obama's Indiana speech yeseterday.

good shit.

Amid all the righteous noise made about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it was David Gergen on Anderson Cooper's show who made the most pertinent observation. The veteran GOP operative with bipartisan ties informed the audience that black America is having a different conversation than white America, so one cannot apply the CNN, Fox, or MSNBC framework to African-American concerns.

Gergen's insight came and went with little comment, since the Wright media spasm is largely a white creation. Who cares what those with no political power think? That it took a power broker like Gergen to make this obvious, important point further reveals how fixed our "national dialogue" remains....

I've been pretty hard on the Obama campaign, and still am; but if anything would soften my view, it's this bullshit furor over Jeremiah Wright. If you are white and don't listen to black talk radio, now would be a good time to start. Wright's opinions are not deemed crazy there, and you'll hear much stronger denunciations of imperialism and racism than you ever will on a white liberal's show. Sure, some dementia is present: this is America, after all. But contrast the opinions exchanged between African-Americans to those expressed on the corporate kabuki programs, or worse, white reactionary broadcasts. Which do you think is closer to what's actually going on?

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/03/land-of-chains.html

http://i25.tinypic.com/2ldj2oh.jpg

HAPPY ST PATTYS BITCHES

lol the ups guy was all heres yr obama tshirt

popular delivery that day, was it?

kudos you are truly black irish today hooray

from first read @ msnbc:

After releasing all of Obama’s Rezko records and sitting with Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reporters on Friday, the Obama campaign has upped the ante for Team Clinton. Yesterday, the Obama camp asked Clinton to release all of her tax records, disclose all of her earmarks, and make the donations to the Clinton presidential library and foundation public. The Clinton camp, in response, says Obama should release his tax returns for every year he's been in public office and every earmark he requested as a state senator. The pushback is obvious: try to cloud the lack of disclosure in the Clinton campaign with questions of lack of disclosure on the Obama front. This is the road the Obama campaign clearly wants to go down. The question is whether bareknuckles politics ultimately hurts Obama's image or whether a fight for disclosure brings back the bad news of the Clinton years Democratic voters -- and superdelegates -- might be tired of.

seems so bizarre to me -- The Clinton camp, in response, says Obama should release his tax returns for every year he's been in public office and every earmark he requested as a state senator. i.e. "i'm going to challenge you to do something that i'm extremely reluctant to do myself, take that!!!"

more interesting stuff from first read:

Clinton’s super problem: By our count, the Clinton campaign hasn’t publicly announced the support of a new superdelegate since just after February 5. Indeed, since Super Tuesday, Obama has gained 47 new superdelegates, while Clinton has lost seven (including Eliot Spitzer). Does Clinton have a bigger problem on the superdelegate front than folks realize? Why do we think party leaders -- who saw the Democrats lose governorships, state legislatures, and the control of Congress during the Clinton years -- suddenly jump on board the Clinton campaign? Isn't this the reason the Clinton campaign has only been able to keep uncommitted supers from climbing board Obama's bandwagon but they haven't been able to woo a new super to their side in a month? ? Isn't this also an explanation for why the Clinton campaign has done so poorly in the caucuses? The caucuses are made up of the activists who follow this stuff closer and think about things like electability and who can help the party keep Congress, etc. If Clinton's not winning over caucus activists, why should we believe she'll win over a large enough chunk of superdelegates to overcome Obama's pledged delegate lead? Ultimately, her best chance is to convince supers that Obama is completely unelectable on par with McGovern, an argument that might have been helped a tad by Rev. Wright.

And beyond the supers... Heed the Grand Moff Ickes:

A pledged-delegate loophole for Rodham?

After the 1980 battle between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, her chief strategist Harold Ickes noted, the party changed a rule that required pledged delegates to stick with their candidates no matter what. The current rule, adopted in 1982, states that pledged delegates "shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them." A "good conscience" reason for a delegate to switch, Ickes told NEWSWEEK, would be if one candidate—such as, say, Clinton—was deemed more "electable." If delegates believe she has a better chance in November than Obama, Ickes said, "you bet" that would be a reason to change their vote. (He added, however, that the campaign is "focused" on winning over uncommitted superdelegates "at this point.")

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/17/many_voting_for_clinton_to_boost_gop/

For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.

IT'S RUSH HOUR

sooo both democrats and republicans believe obama to be more electable and he has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates

hmmmm

seems so bizarre to me -- The Clinton camp, in response, says Obama should release his tax returns for every year he's been in public office and every earmark he requested as a state senator. i.e. "i'm going to challenge you to do something that i'm extremely reluctant to do myself, take that!!!"

You've never been married, have you.

it would not surprise me in the slightest if hillary goes after the pledged delegates (assuming this thing goes to the convention, which i still don't think will happen), but i don't know how successful she'd be. aren't pledged delegates some of the most adamant supporters of the candidate they pledged to support? barring some enormous catastrophe for obama (and no, i don't think wright is going to be that catastrophe, even though he is/will be a problem), i don't see obama's pledged delegates ditching him.

xpost - ha, i haven't been married, no. i know what you mean, we've done similarly hypocritical things in personal relationships. i guess i was saying it's a bizarre move for the campaign because it's just so transparent - hillary's very clearly, very publicly shown reluctance to release her tax returns (it was even asked at one of the debates), so it seems like a weird move to make when it could so easily backfire.