2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

freakin' me out with yr. symmetry.

http://www.naderexplore08.org/

"fearful" symmetry, huh?

1,000 new answers by midnight

ok, healthcare:

hillary needs to require the mandate because, besides being a good populist-sounding talking point, it would give her greater bangaining strength with insurance companies and health care providers. it seems probable to me that these negotiations would be piloted by lobbies who would guarantee their clients' co-operation in exchange for de-regulation or tax-breaks for the insurance and / or health care industries.

am i on the right track so far? y/n? i just want to drill down on this issue because everyone takes for granted that universal health care would be a nearly prohibitive measure to actually enact.

-- elmo argonaut

Posting this over from the other thread, 'cuz it seems like a good point. Is it true? Does a universal health care plan really require 100% buy-in to generate the $$$ necessary to leverage a manageable price?

I can not take part in this historic thread.

this in re: to g00blar

It's fucking hard, and strange, and random, to run a presidential campaign--even with Bill's experience with nat'l campaigns, anyone that thought she would 'know how to do it' and therefore have it easy is pretty much an idiot.

never said it'd be easy, but the clinton campaign thus far made some pretty foolhardy assumptions regarding (1) their underestimation of obama's legitimacy as a threat to her nomination, (2) their inability to plan beyond super tuesday and subsequent frontloading of their expenditures (leading to the financial troubles in jan 08), (3) their lack of control over bill's role in the campaign, who's been an on-again, off-again advocate. they took a lot of shit for granted and it's been catching up with them up to this point.

Does anyone believe that having whatever skills it takes to win your party's nomination have much relation to the skills it takes to be a president?

building coalitions, selling yourself and your ideas, managing/leading a staff. this is debatable, obv, but i think there is some overlap between the two.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0107064/MyImages/noraodonnell.jpg

Obligatory Norah O'Donnell content.

okay, mark halperin has posted this image and "DEVELOPING":

http://markhalperin.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/bsmk.jpg

which is confusing the hell out of me.

http://thepage.time.com/2008/02/12/white-lights-lead-to-red-lights-which-indicate-the-exits/

I will be sad watching the old thread slip down the New Answers page, like I was when Leonardo DiCaprio slipped down under the cold waves at the end of Titanic.

Health care (deep breath):

While it's true that eliminating free riders should lower insurance premiums (since those free riders, presumably people with few health care costs, could absorb the high costs of others), it seems to me like that's premised on having a single-payer system where there's one big pool of risk, not a whole bunch of separate pools (e.g. separate insurance companies) that just happen to include everyone. Plus, as Obama points out with some cause I think, just because there's a mandate doesn't mean everyone will actually sign up, as the Massachusetts plan has shown, in which case you still have free riders, they just owe the government money.

What has to be kept in mind in all of this is that what we actually need is a single-payer system, but we're never going to actually get that, so any "universal" health care plan is necessarily a compromise. It's just a matter of what you're deciding to compromise on.

thread should have been called THE REAPENING

Those are people who interpret exit polls on teevee. He means that we are now awaiting... Wait for it... exit polls.

http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2008/02/07/21/CORRECTION_People_Tyra_Banks_Mike_Huckabee.sff.standalone.prod_affiliate.81.jpg

to christen the new thread

i hereby christen this ship, the u.s.s. clownpants

wau

HRC on teh gays.

Huckabee: Able to see his dick since 2007!

In terms of costs, this is the image you want to keep in mind:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8565/Figure1-3.gif

That shows what's going to happen to Medicare/Medicaid costs as time goes on. If they continue growing at the same rate they have been (i.e. 2.5%), then they're going to take up 20% of GDP by 2050. ZOINKS.

Context here:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8565/Chapter1.5.1.shtml

i kinda feel slighted that the most prominent queer pundit out there right now is andrew sullivan.

Since 2008, Proud to be an official Dicklist member!

huckabee needs his own cable news show so we can watch him slowly fatten up again

M Bison, I agree with you abt Clinton's 'foolhardy assumptions'. I just don't think those mistakes have much to do with her 'managerial acuity' or whatever. Basically all the mistakes tell us is that she's not totally crushing Obama. Doesn't 'planning past Super Tuesday' just mean 'winning past Super Tuesday'? I don't know, I'm rambling, but I think most of the narratives about Hillary dropping the ball are much more something constructed by the press than anything really insightful. That said, I hope she's done.

i kinda feel slighted that the most prominent queer pundit out there right now is andrew sullivan.

Don't forget Morbs.

ban g00blar

In terms of negotiations, giving insurance companies tax breaks or deregulation would kidna defeat the purpose, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. They're going to be more regulated, if anything. The idea is to basically bring them in and say "everyone in the goddamn country agrees that you're screwing us over, so this is what's going to happen." The obstacle is more going to be hospitals and medical professionals, I suspect, who are all against it because it'll lower their salaries.

i mean, can i get a source on queer interests in politics without being subjected to this hack's 7,285 virulent anti-hillary posts?

xpost

haha, i didn't forget morbs but sadly he is not nearly as prominent a political commentator as he should be.

I just saw that Obama commercial linked on the other thread. It is massively dope.

i just heard james carvelle say "senator obama" but it sounded like "santo bama"

General posts to the obamahiphop forum
Are The Clintons Haters? Jan 14th @ 1:49 AM

James Carvelle could make "activist judges" sound like "santo bama".

hillary is def a hater

i just heard james carvelle say "senator obama" but it sounded like "santo bama"

LOL

lol >>> http://tinyurl.com/3ch8wj

thanking u

"His name rhymes with the word Iraq. His second name also does not need to comment, but Obama surname only one consonant differs from the embodiment of evil names (meaning Osama bin Laden. - "Newspaper. Ru") "- notes columnist The Daily Reveille.

Depraved, however, to wound that Obama - Half (his father - black, the mother - white). Therefore, there is no guarantee observers say that black voters will support him, not Hillary Clinton, wife of the ex-president, whose American "blacks" just adore.

Obamy

Can't wait until the weather is Obamy outside my office.

what about Aravosis? (AmericaBlog)

In terms of negotiations, giving insurance companies tax breaks or deregulation would kidna defeat the purpose, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. They're going to be more regulated, if anything. The idea is to basically bring them in and say "everyone in the goddamn country agrees that you're screwing us over, so this is what's going to happen."

I don't think that's the idea at all. That kind of draconian, oppositional, top-down imposition of a system would never fly in the free-market U.S., and I can't imagine either candidate trying it. Instead, I imagine that insurance co's and the gov't will work together to come up with agreeable rates and situational (symptom-based) response/cost plans. The companies involved will want certain guarantees and concessions, though expanded enrollment will be sizeable perk right off the bat. The more people the gov't can promise, the better their leverage - especially if the new heads aren't high-riskers who couldn't get insurance any other way.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080212/pl_afp/usvoteobamajapan

Murakami noted that Barack Obama's birthday, August 4, happens to be "Chopsticks Day" in the city.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20080212/capt.sge.iku58.120208071510.photo00.photo.default-421x512.jpg?x=283&y=345&sig=mNl7zDxUxGQkZ1r4fBkp_g--
<3

why tf is julian bond trying to get the dems to seat MI and FL???

http://www.mccainblogette.com/docs/postings/020708/20.jpg

shockingly, more Americans know of John Glenn's NASA career than his Senate career, which ended roughly co-terminously

well if thats not photoshop fodder

Drudge are also flagging up a story about Bill Clinton and his good pal Rev. Wright!

Has someone called the karma police on behalf of Obama?

WaPo has the passport story ... it was supposed to break tomorrow morning, but I guess we'll see it soon.

Or, maybe not, from Drudge:

MORE... WASHINGTON TIMES SET TO SPLASH THE DEVELOPMENT, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE REPORT... MORE..

i just turned on Larry King and Obama is on via satellite but i think theyve already moved on to other topics

[Ohio:] For Obama, it’s a 17-point swing against him since the last SurveyUSA poll taken just three weeks ago, going up from up ten on McCain to down seven. Clinton has slipped four points over the same period but still leads McCain by six.

If the polling continues to slide for Obama in Ohio and Missouri, and if McCain continues to do well in Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Democrats simply cannot afford to nominate Obama. That, in fact, is the express mission of the superdelegates — to avoid a general-election disaster like George McGovern, and not to simply rubber-stamp the popular vote or the pledged-delegate leader.

^^^ hotair.com

http://images.politico.com/global/clintonwright2.jpg

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Jeremiah_Wright_was_White_House_guest.html

I am an Obama supporter, but am now taking another look at Hillary Clinton. I am turned off by the way Obama has handled the Wright situation so far. I felt offended by the way he seemed to stereotype whites as racist in his comment about how his grandmother is a "typical white". I felt inspired by his words and campaign of hope, but his essential acceptance of Wrights words in church casts doubt onto his judgment. I am now concerned if my judgment that Obama was the stronger candidate against McCain was correct. I hope the media continues to pursue this story, because I for one still have concerns about the inconsistencies in Obama's story and the impact of this controversy on his electability in the general election.

Posted By: thornton | March 20, 2008 at 07:47 PM

the next set of polls will be more favorable to Obama. getting 2M people to watch a 40 minute vid on youtube is a good start. of course a better way to convince whitey he's not the devil is to keep calling talk radio stations and discussing how his brackets are going.

discussing

All of those polls are meaningless. I said so when Senator Clinton was up, I said so when Senator Obama was up and now I’m saying it now that Senator McCain is up. Direction surveys do not begin to harden till mid-August at the earliest.

actually theyre only meaningful when obama is up

dumb question, but what sorts of things did wright say that were so amazingly offensive? the stuff i heard on the radio was, frankly, a bit paranoid around the edges (the feds selling crack to the inner city, etc.) but not particular offensive.

particularLY

"god damn america"

so were people actually OFFENDED at that or just "offended"?

eh who knows?

I think typical white people enjoy being offended about things.

is it just me or is the clinton campaign's behavior in this campaign growing more disingenuous, dishonest, and craven by the day? and it seems to be working. i'm really depressed.

(sorry for not being too sophisticated about this, but i'm so busy with work that i can only stick me head out and read a bit of news on occasion.)

i say this as someone who was by no means a clinton-hater in the past.

thats pretty much the consensus of this thread

I think for every person genuinely offended by "God Damn America" there are five more people who are just sort of startled by it and not really offended but are worried that if they don't act offended their co-workers will think they're not patriotic enough.

the scary thing about the wright flap is that in the wake of 9-11, bizarro nationalism created a climate of fear and self-censorship lest anyone be branded unpatriotic. six years of royal executive fuck-ups later it's acceptable (if not encouraged) in most quarters to mock the head of state, ruling class etc. but god forbid you implicate the country itself (in practical terms the voters who elected these buffoons but in bizarro nationalistic terms George Washington, Gen. Patton, Elvis, det. john mcclane etc.) the fear mongers immediately return to center stage with their brand and everyone cowers, even piling on the guilty party so their own patriotism won't be questioned.

I thought after Iraq and a laundry list of other blemishes we could handle an open/honest discussion about America's place in the world and God's heart, but apparently the architects of this rah-rah culture worked some impressive voodoo shit on us back then that will continue to rear its ugly head from time to time.

or what hurting said.

i generally believe the feds did sell crack to the inner city kids

the scary thing about the wright flap is that in the wake of 9-11, bizarro nationalism created a climate of fear and self-censorship lest anyone be branded unpatriotic.

I think America was pretty much always like this.

yep xp

oh yeah like most countries, but it became particularly toxic and powerful afterwards.

i generally believe the feds did sell crack to the inner city kids

I thought this was related one of the things that John Kerry dug up around '85 or so, with the Iran-Contra funding and drug-running to the U.S. etc.

huckabee amazingly honest, clear-headed and forgiving: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/huckabee-defend.html

maybe he can replace McCain as the batshit conservative it's ok for liberals to like.

That's fine with me if he brings some inclusiveness and optimism and forgiveness and tolerance to the table.

He also wants to bring guns and creationism, so I'm not totally onboard.

we have posted the huckabee thing like five times already

i generally believe the feds did sell crack to the inner city kids

what GS level was that job?

(sorry about the repost, missed some hidden messages)

like I've said before, the news cycle on this thread is about an hour

I think typical white people enjoy being offended about things.

you can take my capacity for hypocritical phony outrage when you pry it from my cold dead frontal cortex.

stuff white people like

i didn't get a ticket for tomorrow's rally, but i did get to see the obama caravan roll into downtown tonight. 5-0 was everywhere, about 3 dozen motorbike cops. I was on my bike and stopped as they roared by me. I was the only guy on the street at the time, and I waved. I think I saw him on his phone.

in other news, we've hit 8K messages on this thread, time for a new one?

Yes, a new one.

yep

2008 Primaries Thread 3: Oh God It's Still Happening

Symmetry required gabbneb to end this.

symmetry got raped and thrown off a hotel balcony.