2008 Primaries Thread

Shakey, did you read the piece on Bhutto in The New Yorker a couple of issues back?

nah I don't read the New Yorker

(altho I was never really a Bhutto-booster if that's what you're getting at)

actually, the most batshit thing i recall him saying thus far was suggesting the use of american troops in pakistan's nw frontier whether musharraf/whomever liked it or not

Or this could have been the oft-used Dem tactic of hitting from the right (i.e. Kennedy blaming Eisenhower-Nixon for a "missile gap," Mondale suggesting during the debates that Reagan was soft on communism).

rather similar to McCain suggesting we could have troops in Iraq for a 100 years.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking will not begin to reflect the impact of Tuesday's voting on national Democratic preferences until tomorrow.

Shakey, check it out, for real.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/01/28/080128fa_fact_coll

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_primaries.html

Real Clear Politics polling averages show Hillary's national lead shrinking to 2.7 points.

Hillary's eating tacos! - http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Cant_wait_for_Texas.html

A smart political scientist at Chicago gives some thoughts on Obama's "metapolitics" that I think say clearly what some of Obama's supporters on this thread have been getting at:

http://sgrp.typepad.com/sgrp/2008/01/politicsmetapol.html

I have to admit that although I'm fine with either candidate, there's something a bit depressing about the idea of a Clinton/McCain race, the idea that what's seems like such an important election might be between two candidates that their respective parties just can't get that excited about.

("fine with either" meaning Clinton/Obama, obv)

I'm finding it interesting how often people are conflating Bill and Hillary (Billary) and it makes me wonder what kind of influence he has in her campaign and in what ways she is substantially different from him?

she doesn't bang interns

(btw I'm still making my way through that NYer piece but I'm not entirely sure what you were getting at by posting it...? I'm aware of Bhutto's history, the complexities of the relations between various parties, Musharraf's intransigence, etc.)

Given how fucked up Pakistan is and the fact that they have the bomb, bombing the NW frontier might end up us giving us far worse blowback than any pay-off we might get.

I'm finding it interesting how often people are conflating Bill and Hillary (Billary) and it makes me wonder what kind of influence he has in her campaign and in what ways she is substantially different from him?

Perhaps, Michael, because the Screaming Lobster of Hope insists on the conflation?

Yeah, no shit. Americans get so trigger happy with aerial bombardment, like it's got no consequences.

otm

this makes me optimistic:

Five reasons Hillary should be worried

but i imagine you could just as easily write up a "Five reasons Obama should be worried"

Given how fucked up Pakistan is and the fact that they have the bomb, bombing the NW frontier might end up us giving us far worse blowback than any pay-off we might get.

there is obviously that potential. all kinds of scenarios are possible. I am reminded of the time we allegedly "let Bin Laden go" when a drone plane couldn't get permission to bomb a convoy, a scenario which is quite different from a "shock and awe" campaign. I'm not advocating anything specific - and Obama's comments were clearly calculated for political effect - but at the same time I agree with him in principle that we shouldn't take any options off the table, particularly in regards to an illegitimate regime that has no real control over much of its territory.

Should we bomb them before or after we stop giving Musharraf billions of dollars?

And what is this table people are always putting bombs on?

I guess my point is there are ways we could deploy force to capture Bin Laden that wouldn't necessarily result in an insane nuclear disaster (just as there are ways we could do it, clumsily, and subsequently screw ourselves and Pakistan). What would some of you guys posit as a best-case scenario? Clearly things are fucked as they are now, the Taliban is operating with impunity and we're propping up an increasingly delegitimized and useless military dictatorship that is undermining the very democratic institutions we would most like to see established. A worst case scenario is obviously insane Islamists in charge with the bomb, somehow getting one delivered via terrorists to America (which, I gotta say, seems highly HIGHLY unlikely for all kinds of reasons). Is there nothing better than these two scenarios, given how complicated things are...? Should using our own special forces in the way they're intended - quietly and deliberately and carefully - not play any role here?

I can't believe I'm advocating for some kind of military intervention at all, but the fact that Bin Laden hasn't been caught seems completely fucking ridiculous and galling to me.

NBC reports youth vote tripled in GA and quintupled in NY

This thread is now longer than the one that spawned it.

I thought "the U.S." was interested in seeing Pakistan not disintegrate, not promoting democratic institutions. This is probably not the thread for this discussion though.

Tim Russert sez that only 45,000 votes between Obama and HRC.

I thought "the U.S." was interested in seeing Pakistan not disintegrate, not promoting democratic institutions

seems assbackwards to me. the latter is by far more important than the former. who cares about these arbitrary colonialist border designations.

x-post

I wonder how many dollars difference between Obama and HRC now?

In other news, some of HRC's senior staff volunteered to work without pay this month.

pakistan is approaching twice the size of iraq, has six times as many people, a more forbidding terrain and a nuclear weapon. a bombing campaign isn't going to do anything but piss even more muslims off. a ground campaign without the express and overwhelming support of the pakistani government, army and people is both absurd and impossible, leaving alone the current state of the us military.

i mean sure, keep your options on the table, but get a fucking grip on what they actually are.

You are kidding, right? We give money to Musharraf to keep the country together so the bombs stay right in our corner.

Also invading countries and massacring their people on flimsy security pretexts is, like, wrong and shit.

fwiw Clinton is probably bears as much responsibility as any other president for convincing Americans that it's ok to sort of *spot bomb* at will.

I thought I made it fairly clear I'm not advocating an invasion or massacre.

This thread is now longer than the one that spawned it.

And thus, if I'm not mistaken, the longest thread in ILX history.

Pretty sure top three are:

2008 Primaries Thread: 7253+
Your 2008 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread: 7238
try glasgow more: 6800+

I think a Chicago thread from a couple years ago might be 4th. Dave Matthews only has about 2500.

We give money to Musharraf to keep the country together so the bombs stay right in our corner.

uh, I'm pretty sure the nukes aren't being stashed in the non-federally governed northwest provinces

x-post

http://www.willisms.com/archives/shawn.jpg

the NWFP /= Pakistan

fwiw Clinton is probably bears as much responsibility as any other president for convincing Americans that it's ok to sort of *spot bomb* at will.

This can't be said often enough.

Ok, I thought when you said "keep all options on the table" you meant that we should consider bombing and/or invading Pakistan in order to kill bin Laden.

If the NW secedes, Kashmir and other provinces could follow. What military dictator worth his stashed military uniform would let that happen?

I was going to suggest a while back that we have separate threads for liveblogging the debates but I guess it's a bit late for that now

Kashmir's not seceding from anywhere and is kind of a separate issue (uh, India claims it too y'know). It doesn't even border the NW provinces nor does it have a similar autonomy so what are you talking about...?

we should consider bombing and/or invading Pakistan in order to kill bin Laden.

I don't know where we would bomb in Pakistan to get Bin Laden, I don't think he hangs out in Rawalpindi knowhutimean. A full-scale invasion is both impossible and inadvisable for all kinds of reasons. I was referring - as I assume Obama was - to targeted attacks against Al Qaeda, presumably in the NW.

fwiw Clinton is probably bears as much responsibility as any other president for convincing Americans that it's ok to sort of *spot bomb* at will.

and yes thirded absolutely. hey lets bomb Afghanistan btw did you hear I'm guilty of perjury?

I'm talking about Pakistan being a very fragile nation-state with a lot of people who want to break it up. The U.S. government has decided that the breakup of Pakistan is not in its interests, and actions that show Musharraf's weakness are likely to embolden any of the various separatist movements in the country. Anyway, I don't think this minutiae is worth debating since we probably don't disagree in any substantial way, I just thought it was weird to think that the U.S. would be ok with any level of dissolution of the nation of Pakistan.

i just spoke to my mom -- lower middle class conservative Catholic white woman, a real Dobson voter -- and she expressed dissatisfaction with all of the candidates in the republican field. what surprised me, though, was that she swore to vote for Obama in the democratic primary because she hates Hillary just that much. I hardly think she represents any trend, but I had never really thought of that electoral possibility.

Obama as fuck-the-world candidate

he's the black eminem

she swore to vote for Obama in the democratic primary because she hates Hillary just that much. I hardly think she represents any trend, but I had never really thought of that electoral possibility.

are you kidding? I thought people had been discussing that factor for months

Ha- that's exactly what my Dad did too. He's registered independent, but has voted for Bush in the past couple of Presidential elections (I guess you could characterize him primarily as an "evangelical values" voter). This time around he decided to vote in the Democratic primary for Obama - even though he doesn't think Obama is really experienced enough - just to stop Hillary. (He also doesn't like any of the GOP front-runners, though he was tempted to vote for Ron Paul.)

I wonder how much of Obama's vaunted appeal to independents is really fueled by Hillary-hatred. If it is, then it would be ironic if he won the nomination, but then saw his independent appeal dry up once Hillary is out of the picture.