2008 Primaries Thread

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Perrin on the Paul bigot revival:

Whatever Paul actually believes about minorities and queers is not the real concern here. What bothers liberals, TNR's James Kirchik among them, is that Paul is the only presidential candidate who is seriously running against the state. This includes anti-imperialism and calls to end the Drug War. Given that Hillary and Obama are nowhere near this mindset -- quite the opposite -- means that anyone who is must be a bad person. If those newsletters didn't exist, hit men like Kirchik and the libloggers who support him would find something else to smear Paul with. Because, at bottom, they oppose any dismantling of the war state (recall Kos' shitting all over Kucinich). They simply want their preferred candidates to run the machine instead.

For TNR, there's another angle to its anti-Paul attack: Israel. Paul wants to end U.S. military aid to Israel, and is critical of Israeli aggression (he's also critical of Hezbollah and Hamas, but that doesn't count). This simply won't do for Democrats and many liberals, who either support Israeli violence and occupation, or are at best mum on the topic.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/01/pauling.html

thats the stupidest fucking thing youve ever posted

which of the major candidates policy proposals would, in practicality, amount to a genocide of non-white americans?

I heard some ass on Gwen Ifill's Washington Week say Edwards is done. SHOOT EM ALL.

morbs reppin for the last white guy standing

Ron Paul on Civil Rights

* No affirmative action for any group. (Sep 2007)
* Don't ask, don't tell is a decent policy for gays in army. (Jun 2007)
* Voted YES on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
* Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
* Voted YES on ending preferential treatment by race in college admissions. (May 1998)
* Rated 67% by the ACLU, indicating a mixed civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)

"genocide"s an awful big word for you to toss around, ethan.

So this Perrin fellow is pretty much a fuckin' retard, I gather?

you forgot:

* voted YES on pro-genocide bill

im not saying ron paul wants to put black folks in gas ovens but destroying every federal protection & taking us back to jim crow days doesnt bode well

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'

xp - I'm sure the states would step up the plate. God knows Alabama and Mississippi have spotless civil rights records.

don't forget that shining beacon of tolerance and humanity known as texas

ethan i don't even know how to respond to your point. i'm not trying to make ron paul out to be something he isn't. i tend to agree w/much of what he says about foreign policy and i think ghouliani (who has falwell on his team)or huckabee would be much more dangerous for the rights of people here and abroad. but its a moot point because we all know ron paul isn't going anywhere anyway. i could find good things to say about different candidates, but that doesn't mean i support everything they say or what you think the outcomes of their policies would be.

he must really be ghouliani if he's got a dead guy on his team.

more mistake son my part. good now everyone can disregard everything ive ever said.

my god atwater was such a horrible fuck

to saw that 'fiscal conservatism' is racist or code for it or whatever maybe makes sense for atwater to say in that context. but it is also part of a real american intellectual tradition that can't easily be dismissed by racist smears or because racist politicians. i have no knowledge or interest the kind of politics atwater is describing or the kind he is a part of (if you want to say they are different) so i can't speak to it.

(say not saw)

dorothy day was against welfare too

but Atwater, Rove, and their ilk transformed what was a legitimate strain of conservatism into supremacist semiotics.

wait, there is a legitimate form of conservatism?????

har har.

Obama's Plane Strikes Parked Plane on Runway
January 12, 2008 11:40 AM

ABC News' Lisa Stark and Sunlen Miller report: The plane carrying Sen. Barack Obama struck another plane while taxiing at Midway Airport in Chicago early Saturday morning.
At 2:45 a.m. Central Time, the Gulfstream 2 plane that carried Obama, nine other passengers and two crew members struck a parked Cessna 208 general aviation plane, which can carry 10 to 12 passengers.
There was minor damage to the wings of both aircraft, although no one on either of the planes was injured.
Inside Obama's plane, the hit was so small that no one realized they had clipped the other plane's wing until someone on the plane, looking out the window, noticed the swipe.
The plane, because it was taxiing and heading to park, was not under the control of air traffic controllers at that point.
Members of Obama's campaign staff, Secret Service members and two crew members were flying along with the senator.
Before leaving his Las Vegas event that evening, Obama commented that he only had one hour to speak to the crowd, so his pilot wouldn't get "cut off" and so he wouldn't get in trouble with his wife. Obama will be in Chicago today, enjoying a prescheduled day off with his family.

There's no excuse for this, the Obama plane striking a parked plane. Obama campaign needs to tell his pilots to stay awake and watch it! Also, I think Michelle Obama should be more flexible with her husband, knowing 'what time it is' in this campaign and how short the window of opportunity is between primaries. Perhaps he just should stayed overnight in places instead of rushing so 'he doesn't get in trouble with his wife' and I feel as though she shouldn't make him get back if it is too late, prescheduled or not.

Posted by: RuthieM | Jan 12, 2008 12:10:09 PM

I would have a comment but the Obama campaign has decided that their new tact is to call anyone who disagrees with them racist.

Remember folks in the new America, African Americans are not to be criticized under any circumstances that just wouldn't be culturally sensitive.

Posted by: John Romano | Jan 12, 2008 12:27:42 PM

I did not know this was a new kind of tact!

Also, I think Michelle Obama should be more flexible with her husband, knowing 'what time it is' in this campaign

HIRE THIS MAN:

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Current Nat'l Democratic Picture

HRC getting nearly 50%.

my god atwater was such a horrible fuck

most karmic brain aneurysm ever

“Atwater was a trusted advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was also a political mentor and close friend of Karl Rove. Atwater invented many of the techniques of modern electoral politics, including promulgating reputation-destroying rumors. His opponents have characterized him as the ‘happy hatchet man’[1] and ‘the Darth Vader of the Republican party’.

Atwater was also a musician. He briefly played backup guitar for Percy Sledge during the 1960's, and frequently played with bluesmen such as B.B. King. Atwater recorded an album with King and others on Curb Records in 1990 entitled ‘Red Hot & Blue’.”

I remember reading an article on Atwater in the early '90s where he referred to something (forget what) which 'offended his libertarian principles', to which someone replied 'Lee Atwater isn't a libertarian, he's a utilitarian -- he'll say anything he needs to say to get his guy elected'.

http://www.tmz.com/2008/01/12/hillary-advisor-busted-for-dwi-in-new-hampshire/

HRC on Tim Russert's show: she bein' feisty.

How so?

So this Perrin fellow is pretty much a fuckin' retard, I gather?

Did you read the whole fuckin' post?

yup! pretty stupid

lessee, apparently calling paul out for having his name on a bunch of racist and homophobic shit is suspect because it was done in TNR, which aired both the bell curve shit and is still a pro-war magazine on foreign policy stuff. perrin doesn't actually go to bat for the racist/homo-hating newsletters, just airs a crypto-zionist reason for TNR to not like it.

(while we're on the topic, dude says "When Israeli fighter jets were pounding Lebanon in 2006, it took weeks for leading libloggers to type the slightest negative word" uhhh none of the ones i was reading! but whatev)

then there's this:

I might be mistaken, but so far as I know, Ron Paul has not left the campaign trail to oversee the killing of a black man. Liberal hero Bill Clinton did in 1992, flying back to Arkansas from New Hampshire to witness Rickey Ray Rector take the lethal needle. (Since Clinton was our first black president, did that constitute black-on-black violence?) Clinton also expanded the police and prison state, in which a large number of African-Americans are trapped, and shredded the safety net for the poor, among whom reside many African-Americans. Does this make Bill Clinton a racist? Hush yo' mouf!

which is pretty rancid in itself. but also is built on a pretty stunning logical fallacy: that thinking ron paul's close association with racists and homophobes is bad is the same as thinking bill clinton's record on criminal justice is good

Democrat John Edwards on Sunday waded into a dispute between his rivals, criticizing comments by Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband that some have considered disparaging to Barack Obama and black people generally.

"I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that," Edwards told more than 200 people gathered at a predominantly black Baptist church.

Sen. Hillary Clinton recently was quoted as saying King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while Bill Clinton said Obama was telling a "fairy tale" about his opposition to the Iraq war.

Edwards did not name either of the Clintons in his speech, but turned the argument back on them.

"Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long and are living a fairy tale," he said.

I'll tell you this: I've studied various strands of American right wing political philosophy and beliefs, and have had many conversations with rightists of different temperaments, and when it comes to seriously defending First and Fourth Amendment rights (what remain, anyway), I'll stand with libertarians like Ron Paul. I may not agree with most of his beliefs, nor that of the anti-statist right overall, but I know that Paul and others like him aren't looking to tap my phone or break down my door in the middle of the night. Think the Branch Davidians were paranoid?

i mean, this has nothing to do with the substance of the 'liberal attack' on paul -- that he is probably a racist and homophobe and has an awful voting record on race and sex issues -- an argument that DP handwaves away by saying "I may not agree with most of his beliefs," while dismissing it because of where it was printed, on a totally unrelated issue (TNR's pro-israel editorial line)

this is like reading comprehension 101, the guy doesn't make any sense.

whew that's kind enough serious engagement with 'red state son'

man is edwards content with doing obama's dirty work or what?

kind OF enough

clinton surrogates getting NASTY

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/bet-chief-raps-obama-in-sc/

Jimmy Carter: See, I got solutions to all your problems—I got 'em right here in my big, hairy ballsack.

Obama gets McCaskill - http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/01/obama_slams_clintons_meet_appe.html?hpid=topnews

man is edwards content with doing obama's dirty work or what?

I don't think he has another good option. As I understand it, he wanted (pre-N.H.) to push HRC out of the race. Once it was down to him and Obama, he was going to attack Obama as soft and not a "fighter." It's not a bad strategy, at all, but you have to get HRC out first, and that's not happening (anytime soon, at least).

Giuliani: 'Hey I like God too, you know.'

Polls this far out aren't really worthwhile, but still, this one maybe suggests I shouldn't be so worried about an HRC/McCain matchup

Is Obama really going to go up against Robert L. Johnson? Seriously? Does he not realize that Robert L. Johnson is the only black billionaire widely respected by African Americans? Does Obama not know the Charlotte Bobcats are only of the few teams able to beat the powerhouse Boston Celtics?

Seriously, this primary season is fucking stupid. There has been nearly no policy debate. Polls, endorsements, scandal. Who fucking cares?

newsflash: elections are popularity contests

I gotta hand it to Rudy G for bragging to an evangelical church that he prays to Mary