Tuesday, September 9, 2008

So I was wrong

So much time has passed since my last entry.    In that time,  Obama won the primaries,  and Hillary pulled herself up by her pump-straps and has endorsed her former rival.   Cynics label her support as necessary for a 2012 or 2016 run for office,   I'm certain that's partly true,  but I think that she also knows that this country can't take another four years of radical, big spending, unilateralist, christian-conservative rule.  

The sad truth is,  just as the the pundits and anchors tore down Hillary in a more forceful manner than her opponant,  Obama is now getting a dose of the same medicine.    Call it Clinton Blow-Back.  The media,  guilty over it's mistreatment of Hillary during the Democratic primary,  is giving Sarah Palin a pass on tough questions or scrutiny.  

In fact,  almost all of the fact-checking and background checks have been performed by new-journalists and ordinary citizens.    This information trickles up to the mainstream media where it is either debunked or incorporated into the soaring narrative of a tough-talking, moose-burger eating,  baby-having,  bee-hive wearing, lady-maverick.  

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Lady Nixon

She did it, and much to the disappointment of the Howard Feinman and other MSNBC wonks, Hillary is still in the race. I knew that Obama's luster would start to oxidize, even with every pundit and politico polishing his brass daily. The commentators looked forlorn as their paper Messiah folded like an origami crane in the face of the Clinton machine.

Clinton still has a serious numbers problem, she will need to wrestle super-delegates from Obama's camp. She needs to win Pennsylvania, and post well in North Carolina as well. Leave it to Mr. Feinman to tell a manic Christ Matthews that she could still lose Pennsylvania. He sounded hopeful about her eventual loss as did many commentators


Obama now needs to finish this race, and he can, but it's going to require substantive policy statements. It's going to require more than agreeing with what Hillary says in a debate and then saying "hope" at the end his sentence if he wants to lock up the win.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Fire Wolfson!

Hillary Clinton is running against her own campaign!

In last night's Democratic debate it seemed as if any Howard Wolfson inspired idea, like the over-scripted, "Change you can Xerox", which Hillary delivered like she was biting down on a cyanide caplet, only benefited Obama. He rose above it all and called the comment part of "silly season" in politics. Who is Wolfson working for? when you create softballs that the opposition can use to only further increase their credibility as a reasonable candidate.

Wolfson has never run Clinton against a serious candidate. Her 2000 and 2006 senate campaigns she ran against weak opposition. So now, with hubris and an unwillingness to shift from classic attack politics to playing Obama's game of rising above it all, Hillary has cast herself as the establishment candidate and refuses to depart from this failing strategy.

She needs to have her break-it-down moment, not scripted, not filled with zingers, where she lays out who she is and what she wants. She needs to bring a picture of her and Bill at Oxford, the one where she has long hair and he looks like Grizzly Adams, and show the audience the core optimist that she was and is.

Obama's illusion of being "real" will continue to sustain unless she's willing to burst the bubble, by bringing her whole self to the table. I hope she does it in the last debate, or we might be looking at 100 years in Iraq made possible by the Manchurian Candidate.





Saturday, February 16, 2008

Baracking up the Wrong Tree

I'll never run out of Obama title puns. I've written three entries and I'm already recycling old blogs. I am now wondering if what we need is a Democratic, Black Bush. I don't mean the Bush presidency, I mean his speaking style. Barack has a tendency to speak in half sentences and recount folksy moments on the campaign trail. He's taken to telling stories of people who "whisper" that they support him because they're Republicans.

So I stand corrected.

This guy isn't a Black Bush, he's a Black Reagan!

There is another problem though, he still faces his own liberal demons, like being the number one, most ever, super duper, bleeding heart, patchouli-pit-stinking, Liberal Senator ever! According to the non-partisan congressional poll done by the National Journal.

Grover Norquist recently said, “Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician.” - This is my central concern with getting swept up in the messianic Obama fever, conservatives are already angling to paint Obama as a McGovern. The Democratic Party's Primary has made the liberal voter base in big cities and on the coasts become tone deaf to the realities of the general electorate, which has barely shifted Right-Center to Center-Center in the last two years.

Clinton on the other hand, has proved that her support erodes over the course of time and, her husband is real liability on the campaign trail. Sometimes a good idea only works once. Bill went from What's Happenin' to What's Happenin' Now and everyone knows you can't rerun Rerun.

So, after a Obama victory in Wisconsin, which was not a surprise considering it's proximity to Illinois. The debate tonight matters, it will make or break Clinton. Oh yeah, Black Reagan, well, really didn't wrap that up, but whatever.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Steak and Mr. Brooks

The sliver of glass has disappeared,  which is either very good or,  it's making it's way to my heart as we speak.   

Flossie and I  made a delicious herb-crusted new york strip steak on a bed of arugula and a baked potato soup last night,  I think that might get to my heart first.  

We watched Mr Brooks.  Terrible,  just awful.  Demi Moore looks like she's free-basing Meth-amphetamine.  In fact,  everyone has terrible skin in this movie.  Dane Cook's face was like an ariel view of Baghdad after Shock and Awe.   William Hurt time travelled from the set of Kiss of the Spider Woman to cackle in the back-seat Costner's sedan.   A great On Demand purchase.  

Politics Later. 

Friday, February 8, 2008

Black Bush

So this is the first in what I hope to be a running blog.  I don't expect it to be brilliant or groundbreaking, but it'll force me to write daily.  

I still have a piece of glass in my foot.  I stepped on a tiny sliver in the kitchen yesterday afternoon, but it's too small to tweeze out.   Yesterday it stung, today it itches.   

The Obama Girl didn't vote in the primary.  Of course.  Another example of the misguided and fickle youth electorate. Regardless of the wonder and majesty of American's rediscovering their democracy, we still need to win in November and relying on an easily distracted electorate as your base can be risky when you need those folks to turn out for the general election as well. This is a tough call for the "bare minimum" generation who will mostly see their primary votes as doing their part. 

I watched Hillary Clinton speak for a few minutes on CNN.  She looked like a Dutch Farmer's wife,  her hair matted to the sides of her head, her face frozen in a perma-glaze of road worn fatigue, swollen into a smile.  Despite looking like a shag carpet come to life,  I see her as having charisma,  maybe it's because I had a series of dreams where I advised her on her campaign while having coffee on a gondola,  but I think she's the winner.

Obama's more a Black Bush.  A lot of slogans and talk about making you feel good and expressing yourself - that's what montessori crafts camp is for - not running the country.  Bush tried to sell himself and preacher-in-chief,  as are Barack's Obombastic speeches about lifting each other up.  I don't want to be lifted unless I'm getting out of a tub! I want a president who will rip the Republican's balls off and shove them right up their AEI.  This is no longer about feeling good, it's about getting the job done, dirty, political, insider or out. Get these cancerous Fascists out of power and humiliate them and their families for the shame they have brought this country.  

Also,

Paula Abdul told this chubby American Idol hopeful that a lot of sounds come out her,  she agrees.