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To: Interested Parties
From: Clinton Campaign
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Re: Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground [Get ready for a good one.]

The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can’t win there, how will he win the general election?

[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.] Read the rest of this entry »

GLUB!
FLIBBERJAB!
YOU MAGGOTS!! GET DOWN AND GIVE ME 50!!!

STOP PUTTING THOSE THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD OR NEXT IT WILL BE STADIUMS. NO, SUICIDES!!! NO, I’LL MAKE YOU DO SQUATS ‘TIL YOU PUKE.

OK. enuff imagining myself as the personal trainer to fallen angels.

Scott

I have been poking around at the very progressive, left-leaning, democratic website The Daily Kos for a few weeks now and there has been alot that has surprised me about it, which I may blog about at some time in the future. Since that site is almost always about politics, I was surprised to find a link to a diary there (they call Blog posts, “diaries”, at the Daily Kos) that was beautiful, personal, poignant and VERY VERY sad.

For those of who were raised by loving parents in very non-dysfunctional families, this diary will make you want to call your parents and tell them you love them.
For those who weren’t so blessed, (I can think of at least one friend that I would guess could relate very well to this story), I wonder if this might help you exercise exorcise some demons.

Either way, I encourage you to read it. It’s beautiful.

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

Wow. A potentially very effective new way to fight AIDS is being researched.

With the added benefit of giving me a Blog Post Title that gives the appearance of extreme smartness.

As an added bonus, the article gives some technical details about how HIV (and fighting it) works.

LINK

Today I predict:

DEMOCRATS

Obama beats Hillary in Texas by 5 points.

Obama beats Hillary in Vermont with a blowout.

Obama essentially ties Hillary in Ohio or maybe he loses very narrowly in the popular vote.

Hillary narrowly beats Obama in Rhode Island.

I am hoping for a blowout by Obama and if it happens I think I will be able to tell you why tomorrow, (hint, its the grassroots, the ground game, that’ll make it happen.).

REPUBLICANS

McCain clinches the nomination tonight.

————————-

UPDATE

Lets review

Texas - Although I was VERY surprised he didn’t win the popular vote in the primaries, he did beat Hillary in the Caucuses, giving him a net gain of plus or minus 1 delegate in Texas. So there is s sense that he WON (or almost won) Texas. Betcha haven’t heard THAT from the Media. DELEGATE COUNT –> HILLARY 97, OBAMA 96.

Vermont - Obama beat Hillary big as I predicted. DELEGATE COUNT –> HILLARY 6, OBAMA 9.

Ohio - Hillary trounced Obama in Ohio. DELEGATE COUNT –> HILLARY 77, OBAMA 64 .

Rhode Island - Hillary beat Obama pretty good. DELEGATE COUNT –> HILLARY 13, OBAMA 8.

I used Slate’s delegate counter to get those numbers and it is an interesting tool to PROVE mathematically that Hillary cannot get the nomination unless she persuades many superdelegates to vote her way, which could cause a civil war at the convention in Denver.

As I predicted, McCain clinched the Republican nomination.

In more political news - Ron Paul suspended his candidacy today. I think he should continue running as an independent.

IMHO.WINK. NOD.

Scott

There are many reasons why I support Barack Obama as our next president. But probably the number one reason is based on my belief that our current foreign policy is INCREDIBLY arrogant and misguided and that it has made us less safe from terrorism. You see, it totally makes sense to me that in a world where everyone hates us, including our allies and especially in those Muslim countries that serve as a breeding ground for militant Islam and terrorism, recruiting and raising money for terrorist attacks against us is very easy. I think in the long and short term, we need to present a face to the world that shows not our might but our promise as a beacon of freedom, prosperity and possibilty to the world. We desperately need a foreign policy that is humble and that shows the world what can happen when you give people freedom and the real possibilty to rise ut of poverty and despair.

I read both of the articles linked below within the last few weeks and they both make a similar point about the effect an Obama presidency could have on the world. They both ask us to think about what it might be like.

Andrew Sullivan: Goodbye to all that. Why Obama Matters.

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power. We have seen the potential of hard power in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen its inherent weaknesses in Iraq, and its profound limitations in winning a long war against radical Islam. The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in.

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

The other obvious advantage that Obama has in facing the world and our enemies is his record on the Iraq War. He is the only major candidate to have clearly opposed it from the start. Whoever is in office in January 2009 will be tasked with redeploying forces in and out of Iraq, negotiating with neighboring states, engaging America’s estranged allies, tamping down regional violence. Obama’s interlocutors in Iraq and the Middle East would know that he never had suspicious motives toward Iraq, has no interest in occupying it indefinitely, and foresaw more clearly than most Americans the baleful consequences of long-term occupation.

This latter point is the most salient. The act of picking the next president will be in some ways a statement of America’s view of Iraq. Clinton is running as a centrist Democrat—voting for war, accepting the need for an occupation at least through her first term, while attempting to do triage as practically as possible. Obama is running as the clearer antiwar candidate. At the same time, Obama’s candidacy cannot fairly be cast as a McGovernite revival in tone or substance. He is not opposed to war as such. He is not opposed to the use of unilateral force, either—as demonstrated by his willingness to target al-Qaeda in Pakistan over the objections of the Pakistani government. He does not oppose the idea of democratization in the Muslim world as a general principle or the concept of nation building as such. He is not an isolationist, as his support for the campaign in Afghanistan proves. It is worth recalling the key passages of the speech Obama gave in Chicago on October 2, 2002, five months before the war:

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war … I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

The man who opposed the war for the right reasons is for that reason the potential president with the most flexibility in dealing with it.

David Ignatius - Transitioning from Cold War thinking to something new

To prepare for the next stage of the U.S. presidential campaign, try this thought experiment: Imagine the television footage of Barack Obama’s first trip abroad as president — the crowds in the streets of Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Shanghai, Paris, Islamabad. Now try to imagine the first visit by President John McCain to those same cities.

McCain is a great man, and he would be welcomed with respect, deference, perhaps a bit of fear. Obama would generate different and more intense reactions — surprise and uncertainty, to be sure, but also idealism and hope. Now tell me which image would foster a stronger and safer America in the 21st century.

Obama has liabilities as a candidate, but his inexperience paradoxically may actually bolster one of his core arguments — that he would give America a fresh start.

Read both articles. They are excellent.

As the picture above clearly proves. THIS article on Faux News is clearly not fearmongering. Run for your lives!

Hat tip goes to Daily Kos where there are some hilarious quotes and comments such as:

Ah ha! Islamovacuums! Tiny, frisbee-sized Islamovacuums on wheels that will follow us home if we leave Iraq, and suck up all our FreedomzTM, which they hate!

Don’t laugh! If it can seek and destroy dust bunnies, it can establish a worldwide caliphate! Be warned! Beeeee waaaaaaaarned!

Quail and quake at the possibilities: Anvils suspended from balloons, gobs of traffic-trapping glue on our rural desert highways, back-strapped rockets combined with roller skates for hit-and-run missions, and, Merciful Heavens, GIANT ROADSIDE CATAPULTS!!

Who knew that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were just like the freshman classes of MIT and CalTech?

MORE

I resolve to never be an asshole for Jesus.

Click HERE to listen to (or buy) the song Good Man, by David Wilcox

And the lyrics are below.
Good Man
by David Wilocox

Let me apologize in advance
For the way my friend behaves
He’ll pick a fight and take a holy stance
He’s so proud that he’s so saved

I hope you don’t judge Jesus
By the things my friend will say
He holds a bible like a dagger
And he twists it just that way

He just loves conversation - like a cat loves a bird
I guess he’s always been a good man - in the worst sense of the word

The good knights went out to save the day
In the age of the crusades
A sharp sword on a tortured soul
They were sure the point was made
Any tool can be a weapon
If it’s used with that intent
The devil’s great at quoting scripture
And confusing what it meant

So all the evils done for Jesus - it is a history so absurd
But there will always be a good man - in the worst sense of the word

They ‘jacked a plane to make a sneak attack
They were trained to die in flames
Their last words were to God above
Just to praise His holy name

For all the terror and destruction
They felt no sense of shame
You gotta wonder why religion
Can make people so insane

But their devotion was unquestioned - follow straight and never swerve
The devil always needs a good man - in the worst sense of the word

Thabiti Anyabwile is a black convert to Christianity from Islam and a reformed evangelical pastor on the Cayman Islands and, although not an endorsement by any means, he has a very thoughtful reflection on Obama’s candidacy. Here’s a longish excerpt:

Advancing Equality. If Obama is elected, what my mama told me for years over the kitchen table in an effort to motivate my school performance and expand my sense of the possible, “You can even be president of the U.S. if you want to be,” will have been realized vicariously in Obama’s successful bid.

And can I be honest? This is probably the only thing my mama ever told me that neither she or I believed. I got her point; strive and achieve and let no one hold you back. But perhaps the insertion of that four-letter word–”even”–betrayed an exaggeration she and I both recognized but never admitted out loud. I never daydreamed about the oval office the way I daydreamed about hitting that last second fade-away jumper to win the NBA finals… or even the way I daydreamed about being a college professor. The presidency was more than daydreaming; it was mythic. And now, in my lifetime, there stands a man who happens to be ‘black’ by social definition making not only a credible run but a compelling run for the presidency. Perhaps you didn’t know that black parents for decades have tried to motivate their children with the promise that they can be president of the U.S. if they set their minds to it. And perhaps you didn’t know that black children and parents for decades have entirely doubted the possibility of that ever really happening. So, perhaps you haven’t recognized the depths of the signal effects of a possible President Barack Obama. I do. And though I think she probably mis-spoke, I know what Michelle Obama means when she said, “For the first time I am proud of my country.” Certainly there are lots of other ways that I (and I would assume she) am proud of my country, but for a lot of Americans there is nothing quite like this candidacy to stir genuine and deep pride.

Upsetting the Phalanx of “Race”. Not only am I proud of my country, and proud in this moment, but I am proud of how Obama has conducted himself and how the country has responded. Here’s what I think is happening in part: very fundamental assumptions about identity and allegiance are being realigned. Personally, if this is an accurate assessment, the re-alignment of racial attitudes and interaction would be an important enough issue to cast a vote for Obama.

Read the whole thing. It’s excellent.