2008 Primaries Thread

bah

haha, the parties' paymasters wuill win the day, there won't be any fissuring.

I will forego voting before I vote for a future Nader candidacy.

I'm guessing you say that because you're amazed so much non-information could be in one story?

More the acrobatic positioning of the Clinton staffers trying to portray the candidacy as both a) strapped for cash (and thus the underdog) and b) doing quite well with donations (and thus a horse worth betting on).

As laughed at sufficiently way above, I know.

. There was a big sign that said "HOPE" in the window with the Obama logo in the 'O,' but I can appreciate that because the RI state motto is "Hope."

I wonder what the screaming lobster of Hope thinks of this.

oh morbs, you and your kooky misunderstanding of checks and balances.

and your desire for democratic politics to conform entirely to the opinions of a small segment of the population.

so for anyone paying attention to RI and where its 32 delegates will go (i.e. nobody) there was only one poll conducted recently:

Clinton 36%
Obama 27%

this is out of 474 likely dem voters, which would imply a pretty wide margin of error, and has so many folks undecided or uncommitted, it's hard to deduce anything from this other than the fact that clinton does have an advantage here.

Eppy, would that be the majority segment who wanted to vote us out of the war in Nov '06?

I'm kinda enjoying the shenanigans currently going on due to the WA GOP results for this weekend, where are the schmucks who went on about "voter fraud" and endless recounts in the 2004 governor election are now turning on each other.

lol Derbyshire splutters:

All this emoting over Barack Obama's wonderful, wonderful personality is starting to trigger my gag reflex.

What are we electing here, a faith healer? What is Obama's view of the executive power? How, exactly, does he propose to "bring us together"? Just by being half-black? What if I don't want to be "brought together" with radical socialists who want to jack up my taxes and shut down my freedoms of speech, property, and association? What will Obama do? Steve Sailer has been documenting the astonishing — for a guy with Obama's résumé — absence of any paper trail for Obama's thoughts, ideas, and opinions. There's just his autobiography, which is unreadable (I tried), and The Audacity of Hope which I guess (I didn't try — you can only ask so much of a guy) urges us all to be really audacious and hope a lot.

Is Obama just an empty suit, who never had a thought about anything, other than his own amazing wonderfulness, in his entire life? What, for example, does he think about conservatism? Modern American conservatism is a huge and various body of thought, with many mansions. Has Obama explored it? I'll lend him my Nash if he wants to make a start. Heck, I have read Kolakowski all the way through, all three volumes; has Obama read Hayek? Buckley? Kirk?

all ive got to go on are these books i didnt read!

http://www.obamaiswinning.com/

'unaffiliated' site pushing the idea that superdelegates should not be counted in determining the delegate leader

That NYT article sounds more and more to me like a contrived stort, allowing HRC to get the upper-hand in the ''expectations game.'' Of course, if she has -- as many expected a few months ago -- wrapped up the nomination by the end of Super Tuesday, there would be no need to managing expectations through February.

That NYT article sounds more and more to me like a contrived stort, allowing HRC to get the upper-hand in the ''expectations game.''

Yup. There's one on Slate too. Reporters love to write them because they write themselves.

I was talking to a friend at the gym last night who's honestly split between Obama, Clinton, & McCain. She thinks she's going to vote for Hilary in the primary but is going to go hear Barack speak tonight to give him a shot. I can't recall meeting anyone (my age, anyway) so genuinely undecided.

samantha bee to thread

That NYT article sounds more and more to me like a contrived storty, allowing HRC to get the upper-hand in the ''expectations game.'' Of course, if she hasd -- as many expected a few months ago -- wrapped up the nomination by the end of Super Tuesday, there would be no need to managinge expectations through February.

Fixed. I have to stop posting via cell phone. Too many typos.

Is Obama just an empty suit, who never had a thought about anything, other than his own amazing wonderfulness, in his entire life? What, for example, does he think about conservatism? Modern American conservatism is a huge and various body of thought, with many mansions. Has Obama explored it? I'll lend him my Nash if he wants to make a start. Heck, I have read Kolakowski all the way through, all three volumes; has Obama read Hayek? Buckley? Kirk?

would he ask the same of mcain (or huckabee or romney)? i doubt hes read any of the classics of left-liberal thought let alone the conservatives listed.

so apparently the removal of solis-doyle from the clinton campaign is having repercussions among certain leaders in the latino community, who -- sincerely or not -- are starting to decry what they see as the scapegoating of the clinton campaign's most prominent latino for the failure to meet the campaigns early expectations.

don't know if this is going to indicate any general trend in support among latino voters or if this is an outrage manufactured by interested parties, but it may get some traction in the press -- who knows.

How come Mark Penn wasn't the one who was fired? Isn't he the architect behind HRC's campaign?

clintons <3 <3 <3 mark penn for eva !!!

stories about campaign staff get no traction ever in the press

How come Mark Penn wasn't the one who was fired?

How about bcz the non-firing was a substance-free media event?

Eppy, would that be the majority segment who wanted to vote us out of the war in Nov '06?

I was unaware of a national referendum on that subject

stories about campaign staff get no traction ever in the press

i guess in the world of travelling campaign coverage, journos have to continually bargain for access to the candidate and spreading the campaign-approved storyline is one way to ensure favor. but i guess if a reporter takes on the campaign staff itself, they face being denied access or being left behind. so i guess what you say is largely true.

that said, i really wish there would be more investigation into Maggie Williams and her long-standing relationship with Clinton, and how that reflects how she would staff her administration -- rewarding blind fealty with access and power, conditional on continued loyalty. hmm, remind you of any other recent administration?

xp: I guess the National Journal didn't do that one

won't the National Journal ask Morbs his opinion?

screaming lobster of hope says: obama candidacy is "smoke & mirrors"
link

pot:kettle::black

quit bringing race into this

we need to get a flip-flop meme on john mccain going, like yesterday. the dude has moved around on every important issue more than once. this 'maverick' thing is bs, he's just stunningly inconsistent, from any ideological vantage point.

together, we can start a meme on this thread. . .a meme that will change the world.

tpm election central: clinton campaign instructs surrogates to refer to super-delegates as "automatic delegates"

whatever the fuck that change is supposed to signify, i don't get it

That they're "automatically" going to vote for HRC.

swinging for the zing thread, que, i like it

i didn't mean we as in ilxors i meant we as in people who don't want john mccain to be president

all haw haws aside, should the mcain meme be a variation on bomb iran?

what if we called him... JUAN mccain?

highlighting his unceasing belligerence doesn't seem like a way to get his core admirers to like him less.

saying that he's actually kind of shifty, unpredictable and (whisper) dishonorable seems like a better attack to me. if you want to get rovian about it.

http://michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/1shutmac.jpg

dishonorable might be a tough sell for him though. it might fly with the younger crowd but not the boomers. unpredictable and shifty, sure.

Yeah, the GOP is way ahead of you guys as far as things that truly bring McCain down. Just save them off somewhere before the GE campaign Republicans conveniently forget all those insults from earlier in the year, that's all.

rolling 2008 list thread for shit to keep mccain from becoming president

ha right i guess we do have a thread for these things!

If Michigan and Florida hold emergency re-do primaries, Clinton would probably still win, right?

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00015

I'd like to see McCain defend his vote to shield telecos from liability when they spy on us at the behest of the nanny state in violation of the law.

This is a lot bigger than the V-chip bruhaha.

Fluffy, you sweetly naive soul, that's only done to keep us safe from the terrorists. And here you are complaining!

Cockburn & St. Clair:

Barack Obama and his supporters... would do well to remember that since the mid-1970s the Democratic National Committee has spent countless hours plowing firebreaks between expressions of the popular will in such caucus and primary votes and the ultimate selection of the nominee.

Gary Hart learned this the hard way in 1984. ...Short on money, Hart then aimed, exactly like Obama, at the caucuses to show momentum. After Super Tuesday, Mondale and Hart were neck and neck. Then Hart cleaned up in the caucuses, just as Obama is now doing. The two split the big states. Mondale won New York and Pennsylvania. Hart won Ohio and California. Then, in the weeks before the Democratic Party convention Mondale and the Democratic Party machine went into action at the various state conventions. Hart watched aghast as his hard-won delegates melted back into the smoke-filled rooms and emerged with Mondale buttons on their lapels. The coup de grace came with Mondale's efficient capture of the Super Delegates, who went to him almost en bloc.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02112008.html

(also, AC is much more sanguine about McCain being a loser than I think is wise)

This is an interesting point. how is it relevant to this thread?