Vlad the Vote Rigger
The Guardian has an excellent piece up on the vote rigging tactics to be employed by the Vladimir Putin oligarchy in Sunday’s Russian presidential election.
The World is seeing a retreat from true democracy in favor of phony and spun elections. Time magazine did us all a favor by shining a bright light on Putin and the dangers a man like Putin portends for the world. It’s up to the rest of us to call out those like Putin who are the enemies of constitutional democracies.
The Red Phone
Dark, ominous music? Check. Vulnerable children fast asleep without a care in the world about the ever-present threats lurking around them? Check. Low, foreboding narrator’s voice? Check.
All that’s needed now is a symbol–a symbol of fear, of universal terror… A red phone.
Check.
The Scariest Pen Ever!
Do not let this pen get close to your children; it will scar them for life. There are three waves of laughter… it’s the last one, with tinges of manic hysteria that will give me nightmares.
The Hillary I Know
Sadly, this is becoming the Hillary I know. As I’ve made the point several times in the recent past, it bears repeating now; that the Clinton campaign has failed so utterly at defining Hillary Clinton in a positive manner, it is the negative actions of her campaign that eventually end up providing that definition.
This pattern first kicked into play in Nevada where nine at-large caucusing sites were established at casinos so that casino workers would be able to participate on the Saturday caucuses; the busiest time of the week for them. More specifically, the pattern began after the Culinary Worker’s Union endorsed Obama. Up until that point the Clinton campaign had agreed to the rules, lived by them, and accepted them. After the rules no longer favored senator Clinton, however, that’s when the story changed.
Through surrogates the Clinton campaign supported a lawsuit that attempted to shutdown the at large sites, but when she won 6 of the 9, again the Clinton camp went silent.
There was Michigan and Florida, both states Hillary could have said something about long ago, but didn’t see fit to fight for the seating of their delegates until it became clear that she desperately needed those delegates just to keep up with Obama.
There was the mitigation of caucusing states… but only after this video turned out to be a failure:
The Clinton campaign has developed a pretty stable pattern at this point, one in which the rules of the game are fine right up until they no longer work for Hillary. At that point anything and everything is fair game, from “fact hub” websites to lawsuits, and Texas is no different.
We know the tale of the Clinton’s in Texas; there really isn’t much of one. They didn’t expect to have to worry about Texas–that the nomination would already be sewn up at that point. But not only did this turn out not to be true, the Clinton campaign set up Texas as their next firewall.
And then someone taught them a little dance routine called the Texas Two-Step; the hybrid delegate selection system of Texas that employs both a popular vote and a caucus. This qualifies as a big oops for the Clinton campaign that will not likely pick up more delegates than Obama in the Lone Star State even with a slim popular vote majority.
They had the opportunity to know the rules, the chose not to, and now that it’s looking real bad for them, they’re threatening to sue!
This is the Hillary I know–it fits. To be fair, the article does mention that the Obama camp has talked about lawyering up, but is unclear as to the capacity of such actions, and seems to be pretty clear on the fact that it’s not anything anyone really expects to happen. Hillary though, she brings with her the weight of the rest of this campaign season, and an established track record of trying to change the rules after the game has already begun.
Unfortunately, this is the Hillary I know, and I’m not overly fond.
Friday Blogroll Call: Admitting You’re Wrong
It’s Friday kids, so it’s time for our Friday Blogroll Call. Now, you might have noticed something of a drop off in my writing this week and for that I truly apologize, my two year old came down with the flu which really put me on my back when it comes to maintaining my normal schedule. Today’s her first day back to school, so things are sort of returning to normal, but the past week has really drained me, so I’m leading off with the Blogroll Call, and it may be the only thing I do until later on this afternoon.
McCain’s Pretzel Express
So McCain’s attack on Barack Obama is to falsely accuse Obama of not knowing that Al Qaeda is in Iraq. Of course, Obama never said such a thing.
Logically, McCain is suggesting that it is inconsistent to talk about striking at Al Qaeda bases in Iraq after a withdrawal. Of course, this is only true if you do not distinguish between the notion of occupying another country with 130,000 plus troops and the notion of limited, surgical, tactical strikes against Al Qaeda bases after a withdrawal. He thinks Americans are too stupid to understand the difference. But, hey, what did you expect from John McCain … “straight talk?” He can’t win if he has to talk honestly about the failed policy of invasion and occupation in Iraq that he supported.
Obama’s response to McCain’s misleading attack was perfect: “I have some news for John McCain. There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.”
The Inner-Circular Firing Squad
All or nothing. That’s what awaits you as a political strategist in national politics. If your carefully groomed horse wins, you are heralded as a genius, a political mastermind. Just look at Karl Rove.
But if you lose, scorn is heaped upon you with aplomb. You’re a disaster and if you let it happen too often, you’re a serial loser. Ask Bob Shrum.
Obama Still Winning The Fundraising Race
The Clinton campaign would initially seem to have some real good news to announce today; the camp has is on track to raise $35 million dollars by the close of business tomorrow.
Obama And The LGBT Community
LGBT rights create a pretty important and somewhat personal topic to me. In general, I support the rights of the LGBT community for the simple fact that I oppose bigotry in all of its many guises.
But there are also reasons that hit closer to home, like my brother whom I would like to see married some day, and provide my little girls with a cousin for them to tease. There are close friends and people I have known and have had the utmost respect for, and to think that in some regards they have to suffer as second class citizens eats away at me.
Julius Baer drops a Press Release
Checking my inbox I found a press release from the banking firm Julius Baer. Now, if you’re having problems remembering, Julius Baer is the firm that successfully sued to have the whistleblower website; Wikileaks.com, shut down. This raised something of a stir, particularly amongst those who are particularly skeptical of the comings and goings of major corporations.
According to them, it was all a misconception:
Amateur Hour
This kind of amateur hour crap from the Obama campaign is the kinda stuff that really pisses me off. I thought the days of absolutely stupid political moves from Team Obama were buried decently in the past, but just when the campaign looks tight and disciplined, an unnamed top staffer rung up Canada and told them not to worry about the harsh rhetoric coming from the candidate regarding NAFTA… he doesn’t intend to stand by it.
Stupid, stupid.
McCain Ineligible For Presidency?
Right, so there are lots of reasons why I’m sure folks may believe Senator John McCain would be ineligible to take up residence in the White House; he’s too old, too tied to Bush policies, too willing to hop off the Straight Talk Express for the sake of a little political expediency, too tied to lobbyists and too tied lying about it, and my personal favorite, because he has an R after his name.
But would you believe one of the things that makes him ineligible might be because he just might not meet the constitutional requirement of a “natural born citizen”? Yeah, me neither.
Finding The Path
Chris Cillizza asks an interesting question today; What constitutes an actual win for the Clinton campaign on March 4th? It’s an important query, one that goes straight to the heart of what to expect on March 5th and ultimately the fate of the Democratic nominee and his or her path to the White House.
But I think the question is also a little more complex than that.
William F. Buckley Jr. R.I.P.
I know this is probably the last place anyone would expect to find this but here goes. The world lost a class act today when William F. Buckley Jr., conservative icon and founder of the National Review, passed away at the age of 82.
Rest in Peace.
One Million
I’m still in the camp that says Obama should honor the pledge to use public financing, but Marc Ambinder comes up with a pretty solid argument against it. 1,000,000 donors without lobbyist or PAC money is pretty damn democratic, and if he does decide to stick with the donors, Obama’s going to railroad McCain.
Bias
Bostondreams over at the TM Experience picks up what is THE quote of the campaign season from a Clinton supporter:
Er… um… this is just embarrasing. That “bias” is what the rest of us call winning elections. The Clinton camp should look into that some time.
What Do You Think? (Moderators)
How many debates have we watched now? Between at least twenty Democratic debates, maybe half a dozen Republican debates (I know there’s more, but I haven’t watched them all); I would say I’ve watched between 25-30 debates this primary season. One thing that really strikes me now that it’s very likely we’ve seen the last debate of the primary season and rarely if ever do the actual moderators get praise.