McCain and the Republican Apocalypse: A Win-Win Situation

That's how I see it, anyway.
If Rush & co. are right, and McCain's potential nomination means the end of their ilk holding sway over 50 percent (give or take a point) of the American electorate, that's nothing less than a cause for celebration.
Their influence has been a blight, nay, a festering sore on the American visage for far too long.
In other words, it's not the Republican Party, per se, that's the problem; it's what the Republican Party has become, an insular, regressive, fanatical, and mean-spirited flock with barely even lip service for the Christian ideal of compassion, and a closed door to anyone who dares speak its name anymore.
Now, coming from a Democrat who has dreamt of winning back the White House for seven long years, this may seem like blasphemy, but hear me out. If Clinton or Obama gets the White House, I will be ecstatic. However, the consolation prize of a McCain administration that irrevocably fragments this coalition of conservatives that Rove assembled to put Dubya in the White House and take the Senate, in order to dominate two (aiming for three) branches of government, is consolation indeed.
The only downside would be if trigger-happy McCain decided to go ahead and drag us into World War III.
So, yeah, I'm definitely leaning more heavily toward Door #1...

Breaking News: Florida GOP Voters Couldn't Care Less What Rush Limbaugh Thinks.

And with also-ran Giuliani's likely endorsement tomorrow, McCain's looking more and more like the nominee every day.

Is it possible that the majority of Republicans nationwide also don't care what Rush Limbaugh thinks?

That prospect is so heartening, it almost makes me forget for a second that I'm a Democrat.

Who's next, Pat Robertson? (Well, apparently so, since he endorsed Giuliani, and that worked out really well for him...)

In some areas (notably the war) Romney is more centrist than McCain; he's almost certainly more level-headed, is far better versed in economics, and (importantly) is probably way easier for either Clinton or Obama to beat in the Fall. So I guess I should be rooting for him over the Mav.

But anything that bursts Rush's balloon of imagined relevance can't help but make me smile.

One thing that Sean Hannity and I agree on.

Evan Bayh, the Clinton campaign's national co-chair, would make a great running mate for Hillary, should she get the nomination.

It even has a nice ring to it, Clinton-Bayh. No?

Hillary is smiling.

Because I'm getting the feeling my dream ticket of Clinton-Obama, or Obama-Clinton, once the dust settles, is no longer gonna be an option.

Don't we all?

Bill Clinton needs to be his "summer self," according to a longtime supporter.

What does this supporter mean about his possibly wanting to "protect his own legacy" too much, though? Surely he/she isn't suggesting...
I would agree that perhaps he wants too much to help her, or perhaps to get his old key back. I can't imagine he would have any interest in purposefully harming her campaign. For Chelsea's sake, if nothing else. Why is it I can't help worrying, either way, what's going to happen to Chelsea? :)
I guess I've empathized with her ever since those mean people made fun of her naturally curly hair, back when she was 13. I feel your pain, Chelsea.

And we have the first Nobel literature laureate's endorsement... of Barack Obama... the second black president?

Oh, yeah, and the Kennedys, too.

But who gets the coveted poet vote?

Stay tuned ;)

Sadly, Our Charming Billy...

... may indeed be squandering his capital of charm.
I hesitated to endorse this web site because I'm such a fan of the would-be first hubby, but I think, after SC, the time has come for Bill to take a little break from the campaign trail.
His harsh language is not only hurting his wife's campaign, but it's hurting his legacy. As Fareed Zakaria pointed out on "Late Edition" this morning, the party (and arguably, the nation) needs Bill, as the first popular Democratic president in recent memory to survive his presidency, to be a statesman, not a political operative.
(Some of) that stuff may have been taken out of context by the press. But the press has always had its own conscience to grapple with, and I wouldn't be holding my breath that it's going to start grappling now. But what the press does is no longer the point.
Bill's staked quite a lot, in the past, on not letting Hillary down, but let's hope that, this time around, he won't stake too much, and lose it for both of them.
Hillary's a respected senator, and he's a respected former president. They'll survive this race, one way or the other, if they can keep some perspective. Easier said than done, but they have a lot of people counting on them to do just that.

Brain Fitness

Speaking of brain stuff, I was just watching this fascinating program on PBS. Here's a clip.
While the implications of "neuroplasticity" offer hope particularly to seniors, it's never too early to start taking care of the ol' gray matter and forming beneficial habits, not just to keep it fit longer, but to improve its function in the here and now.

Ron Paul to John McCain: It's the economy, stupid.

The question from the Florida debate that McCain didn't precisely answer.

Some People Never Learn

Interesting cognitive-behavioral study on the role of genes affecting dopamine reception on learning, with possible implications for addiction and obsession/compulsion.

But Who's Counting?

Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

Giuliani: He'll F* You Up

OK, after reading this New York Times article, now I'm really liking Rudy's Florida strategy (and his snowball's chance in Miami, at this point, of a comeback.)

But don't tell him I said so.

Sad on so many levels...

... one being that such a thing is taking up courtroom time from cases of injustice against women that will never even be recognized or considered, much less brought to court.

Forced annulment keeps Saudi Arabian couple apart.

An Embarrassment of Riches for Black Women Voters

Tough choice... but long overdue, and probably one MLK would have been pleased to see.

I've been a stranger to blogging this past week, and have kept away from all the various primary-related melodramas, while trying to do some more in-depth research on the candidates, and mull things over...

And I still have no idea who I'm going to vote for myself next month.

I wish everyone would try to play nice, though. (Or if "nice" is too much to ask, then at least fair.) Is that too much to ask?

A good website...

... never hurts a good cause.

I was impressed with Amnesty International's anti-Guantanamo site

Tearitdown.org

Check it out; sign; pass it on, if you please.

Karl Rove: Quoting Shakespeare, Trying to Be Relevant...

How stupid does he think America is?

Oh, wait a second, this is the same America he gleefully manipulated for seven years...

Well, maybe we're slow, but we're not that slow. (I hope.)

More on humor, fear, postmodernism, Republicans, overanalysis, bears, etc.

On further reflection, perhaps Colbert, a Gen X-er who attended college in the '80s, is, in addition to the earning of a respectable living through the facilitation of laughter, attempting to deconstruct the news. Why didn't I think of it before?

Unfortunately, as with Western philosophy and literary theory, I don't know if cable/mainstream journalism is going to deconstruct itself (to reveal a newborn Walter Cronkite sitting on a lotus, underneath it all) so much as slowly and crappily devolve to the level of Fox News (although PBS may hold out for awhile... as Bush said in his remarks on the economy earlier this week, "I'm an optimistic people.")

But to prove I haven't completely forgotten how to laugh in the presence of a Republican presidential candidate, these lines from a McCain event today made me giggle, even more than the letter he likes to mention from the former drunken sailor who resents being compared to members of Congress.

OK, and I laughed at Huckabee on Colbert, too. But the prospect of him as our next president still scares the hell out of me. OK, McCain scares me a little bit, too. The last pol known to have broached the subject of criminal human-bear relations was Scooter Libby.

MCCAIN: And what happened? We presided over the largest increase in the size of government in history, but more importantly -- more importantly -- we allowed corruption to creep into the way we did business, my friends, and we've got to fix it. And as president, I'm going to fix it.

You know, a few years ago, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana.

Now, I don't know if that's a paternity issue or a criminal issue...

The Colbert Bump

First of all, I may as well take this opportunity to express my joy that Stewart/Colbert are back on the air, even if things are a bit weird both for them and their viewers (not to mention the writers) in light of the continuing strike.

That said, what exactly is Colbert thinking with this free publicity for Huckabee? Sure, he's a nice guy and his sense of humor plays well on the show, but is that worth endorsing the darling of the social conservatives of the Far Right?

I hope Colbert isn't just doing this for the free laughs, because, just like his questionable foray into joke-candidacy, they come at some price for the nation outside of TV-land.

Which is evidenced by this straight-faced article on CNN.com, a further blurring of the lines between real and joke news. As much as I love Colbert, I didn't find it all that funny.

Quote du Jour: Hillary Clinton, "I found my own voice."

I almost got a little weepy myself when I heard that line from New Hampshire last night, just because it's what I've been hoping for ever since she started this campaign.

Yeah, I know the woman who brought on the so-called "tear heard 'round the world" voted for Obama, in the end, explaining that the human moment she was seeking in Hillary was fleeting in the skilled politician. But, to me, that means about as much to the New Hampshire outcome (if you'll forgive the awkwardly limited analogy) as Norma "Jane Roe" McCorvey regretting her abortion means to the validity of Roe v. Wade as a judicial precedent.

The point is that, when the chips were down, New Hampshire voters saw, not an alternate strategy emerging, because even the "Clinton machine" doesn't work that fast, but a glimpse of something genuine from Hillary herself, and this resonated with, not just women, but independent voters and young voters, people who maybe wanted to like Hillary and get to know her, but weren't so sure Hillary wanted to be liked or known.

She and the voters were kind of like two kids in high school who dig each other but aren't quite sure how far out on a limb they should go in expressing it (yeah, I'm all about the brilliant analogies tonight... my apologies. I was up following last night's damn NH coverage well past midnight ;)

So, yeah, everybody, including me, got the GOP race right (except just how much McCain would come back by) and everybody, including me, got the Dems all wrong. But then everybody, including me, was pretty much just reading the polls, and watching pundits rehash the polls. And nobody was polling at the moment when everything changed.

Who knows what will happen next? I can't even project what my own vote will be when I finally cast it in one of the less influential primaries next month. I've certainly given up trying to guess what anybody else is going to do.

But I can say for sure that I heartily endorse this article by Erica Jong from the Huffington Post:

Tears & Fears

Let's just learn patience and try not to predict the outcomes in this amazing year. Yes, pundits have to pund. Columnists need to fill up columns. TV newsreaders need to seem prescient. But maybe we can't predict the changes that have surged in America as we watched rich, old, white men lie and cheat and steal elections, as we watched them enrich their cronies while impoverishing average Americans, as we saw their hunger for oil and their disdain for our lovely green planet, as we watched, horrified, as Mr. Kerry and Ms. Pelosi feared changing course more than they feared the Repugnicans.

So now we have to do the hardest thing of all: not rush to judgment, wait, cultivate watchfulness not opinion mongering. Can we do it?

Our democracy may depend on it.

Kafka had this word over his desk: WARTEN (WAIT). Every writer must learn to do that while the unconscious works and underground forces prevail. Maybe countries have to do that too.

Speaking of American knights-errant...

... if Mark Penn is out of the Clinton campaign, (and no one's saying yet that he is or should be, although the question has definitely been posed... OK, well, I for one posed it, not so subtly, but I don't think I've got quite the clout to gain Hillary's ear ;) But if Penn were to go, would he only be replaced by Bill's old team of Carville and Begala?

This isn't just about gender, but Hillary's had her own team for awhile, and I don't know if their style meshes with the style of Bill's team... I personally think she needs to listen to some more female voices at this point.

That said, the quixotic romantic in me did find Clinton's indignation charming, here... or maybe it just brought back pleasant memories of the Chris Wallace smackdown on Fox News ;)

More importantly, though, he made some good points (as he often does when he's pissed off, versus collectedly parsing language. Perhaps the same could be said of his wife.) But I like Obama, and I'd be happy with him as a nominee, because I think that, like Bill, he could learn on the job despite his limited experience. But I do think the press has been treating him with kid gloves from the beginning. We really do need to know what he's all about and what he's going to do, in detail, before we elect him.

And while I'm wearing my feminist hat...

(Don't ask what kind of hat ;)

... I saw Susan Faludi interviewed by Marie Arana, Washington Post Book World editor, on C-SPAN yesterday regarding her new book The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.

It was a fascinating discussion of how, in Faludi's view, the U.S. psychological reaction was defined by the assignment of regressive gender roles. The discussion also placed this reaction in the historical context of captivity narratives dating from the early frontier days, comparing the revision and co-opting of captivity stories like that of Cynthia Ann Parker with that of Jessica Lynch, and the historical frontier women's self-reliance with that of the female first responders on 9/11, whose efforts were written out of the story by the resurgence of the gender-exclusive terms "firemen" and "policemen" to describe the World Trade Center heroes.

Mark Penn: Time to kick him to the curb and go on, girl?

This Time Magazine article and other post-Iowa chatter about the Clinton campaign may be asking this question too late...

Is Penn's strategy -- of packaging Hillary as "inevitable" and playing from the beginning as if the nomination was in the bag and all that mattered was positioning her as electable in the general -- the wrong one?

On the one hand, it succeeded in shaking off the labels that had plagued her since the first rumors of her candidacy: that she was too polarizing, too liberal, unelectable...

Painting her as the candidate of experience and de-emphasizing her progressive side did quiet those incessant objections. As did the more hawkish persona she was developing in the Senate with votes such as the infamous Iran resolution, which personally disappointed me... and, of course, her refusal to call her initial Iraq war authorization vote a mistake.

These tactics worked to overhaul her previous image, and maybe they gave her the front-runner status she held for so long... that and her unrivaled debate performances, one after another.

But will this rigid new image cost her in the end?

Where's the real Hillary we knew and loved? (or hated? But that's the thing. She could vote for all the hawkish resolutions the Senate could come up with and she's not going to get Newt Gingrich's endorsement. That's just the way it is. Some people aren't going to win every heart. Hillary's never going to be an Obama or a Huckabee, or even a Bill Clinton. But not every president has been a populist or had a million-dollar smile.)

Maybe it would have been better not to gloss over her rough edges, the things that would make her a hard sell in November. Because Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, are hungry for change, and Democrats are the ones who will say who's around in November. They proved in Iowa that electability is important, by effectively ending two candidacies that were perfectly valid but had failed to take off. They want someone to rally behind. But their mantra is CHANGE.

The question is, how can the first serious female candidate for the U.S. presidency, a woman with an impressive 35-year career working for progressive goals, who's already given us a viable health care plan, the proto-health care plan of today (as first lady, back when she would have gotten more points for keeping her mouth shut and worrying about the White House decor) not be associated with the word "change?"

Someone wasn't watching the ball. I don't think it's necessarily too late to turn things around, but the boss needs to do it her way, from here on out.

The Granite State

Enough said.

New Hampshire GOP backs out of Fox debate for excluding Ron Paul (and Duncan Hunter. The latter might be excusable, as he's probably polling beneath Snoopy at this point, but Paul beat Giuliani in Iowa and is outraising everyone, so that's kind of hard to justify.)

Live free, NH!

Oh, and speaking of New Hampshire, I know I said I wouldn't make predictions, and I won't, but just saying, with all the independents and uncommitteds running around up there, things are looking pretty darn good for Obama and McCain at this point... if I were a betting sort.

Welp, I was close...

... although completely wrong in saying that the top two would be "insanely close." In fact, both Obama and Huckabee had fairly commanding leads, given how close the race was expected to be among the top contenders. We're talking more than a percentage point here.

My original predictions (I had second thoughts on Paul vs. Thompson, but I do think they'll be justified in libertarian-minded New Hampshire) were pretty much in line with the results, except that I underestimated Obama's power to bring people out. I guess I'm not the only one. Still, I feel a bit ashamed of myself, even after hearing a speech that stirred something in me beyond the partisan or cerebral, (hope?) for not recognizing that he had it in him, and that Iowans had it in them. At this point, I'd be equally pleased to see Clinton and Obama take New Hampshire (and each have a good shot at it) but I'm not going to make any predictions :)

Just watched a Democratic caucus from Des Moines on C-SPAN...

... and it looked pretty much like the live feed below ;)

Seriously, though, it's a crazy, convoluted process, but sort of wonderful in a way, too... Democracy should look a bit messy sometimes, as long as it's fair and there's no literal bloodshed.

Hillary got (metaphorically) slaughtered in that precinct, mostly because few of the second-tier candidates' supporters chose to "realign" with her.

Obama kicked butt. Good on him. I'd be perfectly happy with an Obama win in Iowa, even if it means I got my picks completely backwards... I don't know if this precinct is representative of the state, but, if it is, oops.

Well, Hillary's always got New Hampshire. It's Edwards who really needs this win.

And on a lighter note, here's some live feed from Iowa right now...

As you can see, caucus races are quite complicated.

Kathy Stangl's legacy

She's placing what will probably be her last vote for Joe Biden, mostly due to his health care plan.
All votes are equal, but this one seems to carry a little something extra along with it.

Live-blogging Iowa, sort of: The Ron Paul Factor

After reading this article in the Huffington Post, pointed out by Mr. X, I'm happy to conclude that Thompson is probably going to be edged out by Paul. Which is as it should be. People are fired up about Paul; he has a message; he stands for something. Whether or not I fully embrace it personally, it's something real, that comes from a genuine grassroots place... Thompson, I think, would probably rather just play a president on TV.

The showdown between McCain and Paul is probably going to be too close to predict right now, so I'll just leave my predictions be in that respect, but say I'd be happier to see Paul win the bronze, even if it means McCain's out of contention... I prefer The Candidate Formerly Known as Maverick to Huck and Romney, but that's not saying a lot.

And I guess I'll stand by my original Dem projection, just because of Edwards's second-choice appeal, although he would be my third choice, personally.

Second Thoughts on Iowa: Obama, et al.

I heard one of the speeches he gave today to his young, energized base of supporters in Iowa, asking them to defy the conventional wisdom that they wouldn't turn up tomorrow, that everything would go as expected -- in Iowa; in the battle against the GOP machine for November; back in Washington next January, etc.

The man makes a good case for himself. We'll see whether it sticks in his core enthusiasts' young minds when the caucuses open tomorrow in chilly Iowa.

But I have to say that I'm glad I'm not an Iowan right now. I'd be quite happy to see Hillary in the White House... not just because she's a woman... but because she seems like the right woman at the right time. I think that, if she got in there, she'd do a fine job.

On the other hand, I find Obama much more likable, more honorable, less cynical; and, as for Edwards, I like what he's saying, although I can't help but wonder how quickly he'd be willing to change his tune (even faster than Hillary, I suspect) when it comes to the general race...

I think Dodd, Biden, and Richardson would all make excellent presidents, and, if it weren't for the whole UFO thing, I'd be totally on board with Kucinich and his zany peacenik agenda...

And if I swung the other way, there's much I admire about Ron Paul and John McCain -- the personal integrity of both and the foreign policy attitude of the former; I find Giuliani oddly charming in his inability to justify his hopelessly campaign-toxic personal life; was moved by Romney's tears on "Meet the Press" (even if they turn out to be as fake as everything else about him. What can I say? I'm a softie sometimes.) And that Mike Huckabee has a fine sense of humor, even if he is a Right Wing nutter. Since Tancredo's out and Duncan Hunter's hanging by a thread, the only one left that really bugs me is Thompson, and that's mostly because he just seems so ambivalent about it all. I get the feeling he doesn't really want the job, which is just as well, because, at this point, he's not going to get it.

Anyhoo, here's one of the lighter moments of Obama's speech (I assume he's paraphrasing himself and his colleague here, but who knows?)

OBAMA: ... and when I got to Washington, I did the same thing, passing the toughest ethics package since Watergate, so that lobbyists could not buy meals or give gifts or lend corporate jets to members of Congress.

(APPLAUSE)

And if they wanted to bundle money, they had to disclose it for the first time.

(APPLAUSE)

And I have to say, it wasn't easy. It wasn't just lobbyists that opposed it. My colleagues opposed it, too, some of them.

I remember, there was one senator, when I told him how we were going to ban meals from lobbyists, he said, "Well, what am I supposed to eat?"

(LAUGHTER)

You expect me to eat at McDonald's?"

And I said, "Well, actually, many of your constituents do eat at McDonald's."

(LAUGHTER)

But since you make over $160,000 a year, you can eat at Applebee's. You can afford it."

(LAUGHTER)

You can go upscale, a fine dining experience...

Happy (Nonstop) Election (Coverage) Year!

I don't normally engage in fruitless speculation (at least on this blog) but I haven't posted in a week (didn't know what to say about the death of Benazir Bhutto; what can be said? It was a loss for anyone hoping for even the semblance of democracy in Pakistan any time soon.)

But I need something to opine on to start off the year. Since 2008 is, let's face it, going to be pretty much focused on the presidential election, at least here in the States (and it will be pretty hard to ignore anywhere else, I imagine) I'm going to give my baseless predictions for the breakdown in Iowa. In each case, the top two are going to be insanely close.

Dems:

1. Edwards
   
2. Clinton
   
3. Obama
4. Richardson
5. Biden
6. Dodd
   

GOP:

1. Huckabee
   
2. Romney
3. McCain
4. Thompson
5. Paul
6. Giuliani