Archive for June, 2008
I’m going to take a little political hiatus and blog about the rest of that big wide world for a few days, so here is some spring cleaning before I hiate.
Liberal bloggers are already bemoaning Obama’s meander over to the center, now that we’re into the general election. This seems justified when looking at his recently announced foreign policy working group, which appears rather old, stodgy, and fails to signify that refreshing break from the past we’re looking for (Warren Christopher is still alive? Kudos on getting all those votes counted in Florida, Warren). It’s a little disappointing that Obama would just round up the usual suspects on foreign policy (sans pompous ass Richard Holbrooke), when his failure to do so in the primaries was one of the biggest selling points of his campaign.
On the other hand, liberals get way too worked up about small things, like the fact that he cut an add for a conservative Dem in Georgia over a more progressive challenger in the primary. The key to achieving a Congress we can live with is ousting weak Dems for strong ones, but I think Obie has got a lot on his plate right now, and I’m not all that concerned with every Southern Democrat he endorses.
With respect to the media’s sexist treatment of Hillary, I have always felt similar to those during the OJ trial who said it’s too bad Mark Furman framed a guilty man. Which is to say it was unconscionable, it is a bad sign for women and Democratic candidates in the future, but it doesn’t in and of itself justify supporting her candidacy, and should not make us lose sight of the fact that Obama is a badass and Clinton is not. But as a show of unity with women everywhere, we are helping to break the tallest glass ceiling in America; the FTP blogroll! We are adding bloggers Digby and Echidnes to the right side of the menu.
I had some issues with what Tim Russert viewed as the most relevant questions to ask politicians, but there is no doubting that he was a good-hearted man who took his job very seriously. I’m sure I’ll miss him even more once I learn who is going to replace him on MTP.
June 19th, 2008
I’m not really sure how closely y’all follow various events during the campaign, so sometimes I don’t know what balance to strike between insidery and accessible. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Anyway, you may or may not have heard that more than a few folks were happy to learn Obama was keeping Dean on as head of the DNC, as the nominee of the party usually gets to decide how things are run at the old Dee En Cee.
But of course, the nominee always keeps the chairman, even if his name is Terry McAuliffe and he sucks as much as he blows. What they also always do is install their own man as well, who often goes about running things. Obama has indeed installed his own guy. But a couple days ago he praised Dean’s 50 state strategy and announced that his campaign plans to follow suit and have an office in each and every state.
So while the Obama camp certainly has its own ideas on how things are going to be done, they acknowledge the importance and effectiveness of Dean’s plan, which is essential to longterm Democratic success, and is detested by the DLC and Clintonistas. Working to broaden the electoral playing field verse playing defense in a small number of battleground states is a key ideological argument within the Democratic Party (with a god damn no-brainer of an answer), and we should be thankful we have a candidate who is going to stomp out the nattering nabobs of negativism who couldn’t see the bigger picture if it had enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
The path to a better country isn’t 270 electoral votes long. It’s much bigger than that, with 60 senators and wimp-proof congressional majorities, and all 50 states feeling they are involved in the political process and that their voices are being heard. It’s also idealistic and preachy, but don’t tell the path that.
As one last note, some have said that Dean has lost his soul/isn’t the same since becoming chair of the DNC, blah blah blah. In terms of his expressed opinions, there may be a sprig of truth to that. But in terms of “strategery”, he’s got Dems doing exactly what they need to be doing, despite the vocal opposition of some big hitters in the party, and despite Democrats own hard-to-suppress instincts to snatch defeat from the jaws of an overused line.
June 13th, 2008
I wanted to say some things after Hillary conceded. But a lot of what I wrote seemed like rehashing stuff I’d said before, or that had been said by others a thousand times since her concession. So I ditched most of my rehearsed speech, but I’m gonna dust off some of the old clichés and piece together a couple odds and ends in honor of the next president of the United States… Rudy Giuliani!
Even back when Hillary was Senator Inevitable, there was a substantial amount of discontent among progressives in the party over the idea of her as nominee. I’m not sure if those doubters ever would have had a loud enough rallying cry — and possible Obamalternatives may never have entered the race — if Hillary’s stance on Iraq hadn’t given them the substantial issue to make their case on. But as sure as a preposition ended my last sentence, party activists were not happy with Clinton for going along with the single biggest blunder of the single worst Administration in the history of America.
I’ve remarked before that it took a perfect storm for Obama to win the nomination. Hillary’s war vote opened up space on her left, peaceniks in Iowa had the first say in deciding if Barack should be taken seriously, infighting and money mismanagement in Hillaryland coupled with insane fundraising and a better understanding of required delegate math in Obamaville helped him offset her victories in big states with blowouts in caucus states and Obama strongholds, and so on.
However, as I’ve also said previously, and I will be saying again many, many times before November; these are all ancillary reasons for why Barack Obama is going to be on the ballot this fall. He’s also an amazing candidate. And we can thank Clinton for toughening him up, but I think history will help show that this election was won by Barack more than it was lost by Clinton or McCain or anyone else.
I was excited about Gore as president in 2000. I’ve always liked him better than Bill, and we share the same favorite issue; the environment. But what he’s done out of office would not have been possible as president, and it seems now that the best thing about a Gore presidency would be that George W. would still be smirking at a mirror in Texas. Similarly, I liked Kerry and thought him the most liberal choice in 2004 (I like Dean more now than I did then), but his biggest draw was that his last name wasn’t a synonym for a woman’s a shrub. And as Dubya has pissed away Bill Clinton’s balanced budget savings and last-minute attempts at forest conservation, it looks like Bubba’s biggest accomplishment was being elected as a not-Republican during some lean years for Dems.
I guess that is a long way of saying I’m glad we finally have someone to vote for, not just something to vote against.
June 12th, 2008