Nothing to see here, keep moving

I didn't watch Hillary's speech last night, or any other part of the convention so far. Because, well you know, I don't really care what the Socialists, I mean Progressives, darn it, the Democrats have to say. But it was apparently the best speech she has ever given. As far as I can tell that's not saying much. She has a tendency to tick off a laundry list of programs, which does not make for riveting oratory. One thing about Obama, even when he is saying nothing, it sounds good.

His speech tomorrow night must be going to be a grand one. The backdrop certainly lends to his Godlike persona. I might watch that one. Somebody remind me when it is going to be on.

Congratulations Senator Obama

While it is obvious I'm not a fan of the Senator from Illinois, I see clearly the significance of his likely nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency.

It is wonderful to see that America has advanced to the stage where a black man can be a serious contender for the highest office. And he is indeed a serious candidate. Previous candidacies by Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton were not truly serious. Those two represented black America only. Senator Obama, despite attempts by the Clintons to prove otherwise, is a candidate for all Americans.

I do not wish to see this man elected, but his nomination will make it possible for a black man or a woman, thank you Senator Clinton, to vie for the office in the future without the question constantly arising about race and/or gender. There are some good candidates ideologically nearer the center who may be more willing to enter future races thanks to the Democratic primary this year.

Congratulations Senator Obama.

Everybody is against Hillary

President Clinton is sure there is some sort of conspiracy to keep Hillary from winning the nomination. He claims she is the one that is electable in a general election, inferring that Senator Obama cannot win.

The Clinton "win at all cost" play book is only hurting the party in the long run. But then, it is not about the Democrat's winning, it is about Hillary winning. I can't say I will be saddened when these two exit stage right.

Hillary is a woman?

Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto; what do they have in common? Obviously they are all women, and they are all women who rose to the top of the government in their respective countries. Peggy Noonan in her incomparable way discusses the difference between the first three of these women and Senator Clinton. Her bottom line is that they didn't make their femininity an excuse. They played the game with the big boys and won.

What Ms. Noonan doesn't say, that seems evident, is that Ms. Clinton belongs to the party of the victim. Of course she didn't lose the nomination because Senator Obama was a better campaigner, or because people didn't like her ideas, or because the voters just don't trust her. No, she lost the nomination because she is a woman and misogynists just would never stand for a woman being the nominee. She is the victim.

If she had won the nomination we would be hearing that racism is the reason that Senator Obama didn't win the nomination. He would have been the victim.

These people, meaning the liberals (damnit, I keep forgetting they are progressives now,) are not adults. They are two year olds. It is never their fault that things don't work out. Someone or something else is to blame. And by God, something should be done about it. Americans are such narrow minded, bigoted, misogynists that they just can't see what is best for them. Puhleeze!!

End of rant.

Hillary... again

How much can you pander without looking totally ridiculous? If the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the mechanism to break up OPEC, why hasn't it been done in the past 12 years? This is just ridiculous.

Et tu Hillary

I have never doubted that Senator Clinton was an intelligent woman; until now. Her gas tax holiday, which Sen. McCain also verbally supports, is just plain stupid.

I know Americans are largely economically illiterate, but the way to reduce the price of gasoline is not to increase demand through artificially lowering prices; they will pop right back up. And to state, "I am not going to put in my lot with economists" is really nutty. She wants to be President but if economists disagree with an idea she will just ignore them. That is like ignoring your doctor because you don't like what he tells you.

Read the whole article here.

Let's not pile on Michelle Obama

It was suggested that I comment on Michelle Obama's college thesis. There is an email circulating that has some fairly inflammatory comments ascribed to her.

I read (so you don't have to, though it's not bad writing for an undergraduate) her undergraduate thesis from Princeton entitled "Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community." There is nothing remarkable about her thesis. She was doing an analysis of the affect that being black at Princeton might have as you relate to the Black community. The quotes cited in the email do exist but they are pulled wholly out of context. The most outrageous quote is "...Blacks must join in solidarity to combat a White oppressor." The context is important, she is referring to the Black Power Movement of the 1970's and the entire quote is; "It is possible that Black individuals chose to or felt pressured to come together with other Blacks on campus because of the belief that Blacks must join in solidarity to combat a White oppressor." She goes on to state that the situation (in 1985) is different and Black students are more integrated into campus life.

She clearly identifies with the "Black" community in preference to the "White" community, but who can blame her for that. She was a minority student at an Ivy League University.

I read articles from "The Guardian", "The Times", "Financial Times" and sometimes "The Sun", as well as the occasional piece from Australia, because it is nice to get a perspective of America from the outside. (Cousin Mark is in shock I'm sure.)

This opinion piece in todays "Times" is interesting in that it rings true. I definitely agree that for all the many flaws of the Republican party the primary produced the only electable candidate in John McCain. He is not a right-wing conservative, he doesn't have the baggage of the lunatic religious right and he is on the sane side of the immigration issue.

Go. Read.

We're all bitter now

It seems what Senator Obama really meant by his “bitter” comment was that small town American’s who are falling behind economically do not vote their economic interest when they vote Republican; they are hewing more closely to cultural issues.

I will accept that. All he needs to do now is explain why the wealthy in Manhattan and Hollywood support Democrats who do not share their economic interests. Could it be that they find cultural issues more important? But of course they are so much more intelligent.

Elitist!

How McCain was selected

We all came together…Republicans came together; "the Mexican haters, the Muslim haters ,and the oil executives, and the gun nuts, and the gay bashers, and the home schoolers, and the clinic bombers and we put aside our differences,... all except for the Ron Paul nuts." (Profanity)

It's the little things that count

Low-information signaling is the use of minor cues to form impressions about political candidates. Joe Klein of Time dismisses these as “stupid things”, but he is dismissing the actual importance of this signaling. Low-information signaling is the actual information that leaks through to the public around the framing the candidate and his campaign create. His examples of stupid things are whether you know how to roll a bowling ball or wear an American flag pin. All of the references he uses are to perceptions of recent Democratic presidential candidates; Dukakis in a tankers helmet, John Kerry wind surfing and Bill Clinton eating junk food at McDonalds. I suspect we all get an image of the three of them when we read that and the only positive one is that Clinton is a regular guy.

Journalists like to dismiss this type of evaluation as unimportant because it is not issue oriented. Samuel Popkin, a political scientist, in “The Reasoning Voter”, implies that low-information signaling is an important part of a broader definition of issues. Voters look to this information to determine if the candidate is someone they like. The elites like to dismiss the importance of the average voter looking at a candidate and making a mental note of whether this is a person they would like to sit down and have a beer with. In the three examples above it seems the answer is two no's and a yes. It would be embarrassing to be seen with Dukakis, Kerry is just not average enough to relate too and Clinton would be fun to drink beer with.

The low-information signaling is used to square the candidate’s public persona with what seems to be his/her real personality. This is why Senator Obama is having a difficult time shaking the Rev. Wright controversy and his comment about the bitter small town folk. These two things do not square at all with what he says from the campaign hustings, but when aligned with other low-information signals they have a ring of truth that someone is trying to obscure.

This is not something that any of us is immune to. It is likely (about a 75% probability) that the party affiliation will determine our eventual vote, but in the primary these signals come into play. How else can Senator Clinton’s loss of the nomination be explained? She is, based on resume, the better candidate, but almost no one sees her personality as aligned with her official persona. This is what has hurt her. The “sniper fire in Bosnia” comments openly exposed what had been low-information signaling. People just do not trust her.

Obama again

It seems that, as Cousin Mark says, I am picking on Obama, but I am really trying hard to like him. But it seems that he is serving as an empty vessel into which everyone is pouring their hopes. The flaw here is that the vessel has begun speaking his mind, if only when he thinks that only sympathetic souls are listening. It is beginning to look like the Democrats are, again, going to nominate an unelectable individual; see McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis.

Senator Obama is an earnest idealist, but history does not bear out his speaking points. He has NEVER acted in a bipartisan manner in the Senate. His voting record is highly liberal, or I guess I’m supposed to say progressive since liberal is a dirty word; he is arrogant and can’t hide it; he is elitist; he is tainted by the Chicago political machine; he associates himself with a racist black theology (and he is not even authentically an American black). All of this adds up to the core Democrat vote in November and not much of the persuadable electorate; that damnable mid 40% level.

It is hard to imagine Senator McCain, with his long history in the public eye, ever producing anywhere near the negatives that Senator Obama is piling up.

I thought the Democrats would nominate Senator Clinton with her negatives of almost 50, (truly a disaster) but they may actually make a worse decision. Let us all hope that Senator Obama proves to be a better candidate than he looks to be today.

We are not worthy

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Thus spake Lord Obama in reference to people who live in small towns.

The arrogance and condescension in that comment is breathtaking. First of all, how the hell would he know what it is like to live in a small town; he being of Chicago. Secondly, I assure you, having always lived in small towns, that the people living there are not in some way inferior, backwards rubes, as his comment implies. The mix of ignorance to sophistication is roughly the same as a metropolitan area. But interaction exists. In a city you can cling to your own group, in a small town you must mingle with others. To me that is a positive.

But what would I know. I bitterly cling to my guns and antipathy for people who aren’t like me.

Asshole.

End of rant.

Uh-huh

Obama Suggests He Would Have Left His Church If Wright Had Not Retired

This sounds too convenient. It just does not pass the smell test. After twenty years as a member he would have left if the Reverend had not retired last month? There's a rock in Ireland that I do believe the Senator kissed several times.

Hillary plays dirty

Big surprise: Hillary backers go dirtier. They are now threatening Speaker Pelosi.

Senator Clinton has been caught in yet another lie, so the proper response is to lash out at the rest of the party. The Clintons seem to think the Democratic Party is actually the Clinton Party and any apostasy should be punished.

It is not clear that Senator Obama is a better choice for the Democrats, but at least he is winning with the voters. Where do the Clintons come off with threatening anyone who does not buy into the Hillary inevitability. Senator Clinton seems to be nothing but bold, grasping ambition.

Gravel for President

"Fed up with being excluded from the debates and otherwise marginalized, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska announced today that he will seek the Libertarian Party nomination for president," reports a New York Times blog.

Isn't this like a high school kid who takes up Dungeons & Dragons because he's fed up with not being able to get a date? (J. Taranto)

Now what is Ron Paul going to do? Will we have a convention floor fight between Paul and Gravel for the Libertarian nomination?

Follow this link to see how truly weird Sen. Gravel is. Remember this video is a Presidential ad.