Category Archives: Obama

I Can’t Take It!

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Rusty and I were just talking about the recent decision by the Democratic party and how we’re going to count delegates from the two states, which has left both sides somewhat unhappy.

But then we kind of realized that no one is talking about the real issues? I don’t particularly care how we seat delegates. The whole system sucks, and I hope after 2008 is over we can overhaul the way the DNC works. And I kind of had an epiphany: I feel like I’m trapped in this country, a faded emblem that used to be a beacon of prosperity and freedom.

Let’s talk about some things that actually matter.

  • I paid $53 to put gas in my car yesterday. It’s increasingly tempting to get a hybrid, but they’re in short supply. Not because they’re in high demand (though they are), but because not many are produced. American auto’s only hybrid seems to be the Ford Escape hybrid. (I refuse to count GMC’s “greenest” SUV that gets 20MPG.) A question on Ask MetaFilter today called my attention to the fact that they’re basically impossible to get, with the dealer he went to telling him flat-out that they wouldn’t order one for him. BTW, Ford just announced a $3 billion plant in Mexico.
  • We are the only civilized country in the world that doesn’t have universal health care. Americans are running into massive debt because they got sick. The typical response, beneath it all, seems to be a survival-of-the-fittest mentality that if you get cancer and go bankrupt paying for your treatment, it sucks to be you. Attempts to reform the system are consistently subverted by cries of “socialized medicine” without ever presenting a legitimate claim, just the catch phrase? (And there’s a good point to be made about how this is costing us huge money in less-obvious areas.)
  • If you come to see homosexuality as something that isn’t ‘wrong’ or ‘bad,’ opposition to gay marriage seems appallingly bigoted. I really don’t think opposing gay marriage is any different than opposing interracial marriage.
  • College is $40,000 a year. Schools throughout our country are failing. To quote, well, everyone, No Child Left Behind has left plenty of people behind.
  • Veterans are returning home and getting next to no support, or staying in ramshackle hospitals. Support our troops! Anyone? Those who oppose sending young Americans—my peers; people I went to school with; maybe me if I was born into a different family—to die in someone else’s civil war are branded as unpatriotic and not supporting our troops by the same people who can’t be bothered to waste money caring for our returning soldiers?
  • The United States economy is tanking. It probably has something to do with the fact that our schools are being surpassed by countries around the globe, that our post-9/11 xenophobia has resulted in immigration policies forcing college students who come here from abroad to leave our country, and that our health care costs are through the roof.

The thing is, I really love this country. But all around me I see signs of our great nation crumbling. At times I almost feel trapped. Can we please stop focusing on the things Republicans and Democrats disagree on, and instead work on getting things done? We all love America, want our troops to be cared for, want our schools to be the best, want to get treated in hospitals, and want our economy to thrive. Working with two parties seems to keep us from ever getting anything done, because all we can ever do is disagree. But why does it have to be that way? We all want the same things deep down. Can’t we take our different viewpoints and use them to our advantage, crafting solutions that appease both of us?

Enough Already!

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I used to have a great deal of respect for Bill Clinton. Sure, the Monica Lewinksy scandal wasn’t so great, and I was pretty peeved at how many people he pardoned on his way out. But overall, I thought he did a good job, and his continuing work on charitable causes painted a picture of a man who truly cares about helping the world.

The more he campaigns for his wife, the more I think he’s a loose cannon who may have developed mad cow. Besides all the occasions of him flipping out, this news article (with a ludicrously long URL) says it all. His Sunday speech in South Dakota accused the media of some sort of vast conspiracy against his wife, and suggested that McCain will win if Hillary isn’t nominated. (Which is odd since most polls I’ve seen suggest the opposite: we need Obama if we’re going to beat McCain.

I also used to think it was premature and tasteless to try to suggest that she had to withdraw from the campaign. I’d have loved to have seen her withdraw and give her approval to Obama, but I thought it was inappropriate for people to call her to do so. But there are increasing calls for her to do just that, and I think the time has come. Unless she finishes big in June, she’s going to seal her fate, and it’s important that she, as the linked article says, withdraws while she still has some dignity left. Between her husband’s increasingly paranoid-sounding angry speeches, and her comment about Bobby Kennedy being killed*, which still hasn’t blown over, she’s already attracting a lot of negative sentiment, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better. I can’t find the link, but a few vocal people in New York are suggesting that, if/when she loses and goes back to being a Senator, she’s going to have a lot of wounds to heal first.

As Wikipedians would say, it’s time for her to withdraw under WP:SNOW. Wait until the next round of elections, but if she doesn’t finish big, it’s time she gracefully withdraws and urges her followers to cut out the business of promising to vote for McCain if she doesn’t get the nomination. Otherwise, she’s going to fracture the Democratic party, humiliate herself, put John McCain in office, and be hated for 20 years.

* While campaigning in New Hampshire, someone speaking at an event before she arrived said something to the effect of, “Some have compared Obama to JFK… But let’s not forget what happened to him.” Hillary seemed to be genuinely horrified when she was told about the remark, but still… Double references to Kennedys being killed, both times insinuating that the same might just happen to Obama…?

Jealousy

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From NY1:

Illinois Senator Barack Obama is campaigning in Florida today. He’ll be in Connecticut Sunday to deliver the commencement address at Wesleyan University, in place of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Our speaker was alright, but he was no Barack Obama. And why did Wesleyan get Ted Kennedy, when he’s our Senator?!

Well-done

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After hearing that McCain was talking on TV about how Obama would be a good President, or something similar, I figure I’ll continue doing things backwards, and lend a compliment to McCain.

Obama caught tremendous controversy after Rev. Wright’s comments were taken out of context and played over and over in the media. He initially stood by Rev. Wright, which was the “right” thing to do in my mind. But in an election where people are already (unjustly) questioning his patriotism, it wasn’t the popular decision. Rev. Wright went on to make more statements, when Obama finally distanced himself from his increasingly offensive remarks.

Rev. John Hagee talked about how Hitler had just fulfilled God’s will, and then endorsed McCain. McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement, saying, “Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”

Well-done, sir! (Hagee then withdrew his endorsement of McCain.) And at the same time, McCain made sure reporters didn’t take anything out of context, throwing in, “I have said [before that] I do not believe Sen. Obama shares Rev. Wright’s extreme views.”

I hope the rest of the campaign goes this way: more of a friendly campaign. Both candidates have condemned those in their party that go for underhanded tactics. I confess that I’m not too fond of McCain (though I don’t have anything terribly negative to say about him), but this sort of, “Not being a sneaky bastard” philosophy is one of the things that drew me to Obama. That McCain is adopting a similar policy bodes well, I think, for America, regardless of who wins.

(Full disclaimer: it’s being alleged that Rev. Hagee’s words, much like Rev. Wright’s, were taken out of context, and I believe it. But frankly, it’s a moot point: much like with Rev. Wright and Obama, it’s not so much the truth as it is the perception.)

Elections

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Elections kind of got put on the back-burner during this awkwardly long waiting period, but Pennsylvania’s primary is on Tuesday.

Obama’s closing the gap, although Clinton still leads in Pennsylvania. But what people seem to forget is that it hardly matters: they’re close, which means that they’ll probably walk away with similar numbers of delegates. It’s also worth noting that if Hillary narrowly beats Obama, it would look foolish for her to claim it as her “comeback.”

I’ll certainly be watching Pennsylvania, but I don’t have high hopes for much of a change in Pennsylvania.

Richardson

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The LA Times has an interesting article in which Bill Richardson suggests that he had intended to back Hillary, but between her overzealous TV ads and a bunch of unceasing, rude calls suggesting that he “owed” her the endorsement because he was on Bill Clinton’s cabinet, he decided otherwise. The Clinton camp, of course, has called his loyalty to President Clinton into question, but Richardson was unphased:

“I was loyal,” Richardson said during an extended conversation over breakfast this week at the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe. “But I don’t think that loyalty is transferable to his wife… You don’t transfer loyalty to a dynasty.”

The Clinton camp, though, is still fuming:

Days later, just when interest in the endorsement seemed to wane, former President Clinton exploded in a rant about Richardson at the state Democratic Party convention in San Jose.

Flaming Pants

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I hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but Hillary spoke the other day about how she was “battle-tested” and ready to lead the country, unlike Obama. (Or so she thinks.)

CBS quotes her as having said:

“I remember landing under sniper fire… There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Wow, sounds impressive. The problem? The CBS article continues:

Problem is: that’s not how it happened at all. And we should know: CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and a CBS News crew accompanied the First Lady on that Bosnia trip.

A photograph shows Clinton talking to Attkisson on the military flight into Tuzla.

And pictures CBS News recorded show the greeting ceremony when the plane landed… [T]here was no sniper fire either when Clinton visited two army outposts, where she posed for photos. And no sniper fire back at the base, where she sang in a USO show starring Sinbad and Sheryl Crowe.

It’s great that she was over visiting troops in Bosnia, don’t get me wrong. It’d just be nice if, you know, she didn’t start wildly embellishing tales. And in an election where every move gets scrutinized, didn’t she realize that her lying would set her up for comments like this one:

Mike Allen of Politico.com said: “Who knows if she misremembered, misspoke, exaggerated, whatever. It makes the case for Sen. Obama that all this experience that she’s been talking about is at least partly in her imagination.”

Also, the comments on CBS News are rapidly plummeting in quality, and may soon surpass Youtube in terms of insanely bad comments…

Enough Already

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I used to like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They were both well-qualified, I thought, and the country would be in good hands either way. But I worried that Hillary had too many people who were opposed to her for one reason or another, so I thought Obama had a better chance of getting the Democratic nomination. I still supported Hillary, mind you, just not as much.

That all ended several months ago. It seems to me that every time she opens her mouth, she comes across as more and more bitter. She’s polarizing the Democratic party, and embarassing us at the same time. While she’s better than McCain, getting shot in the face is better than burning dying in a fire.

If you’d asked me in February to pick my top two Democratic candidates, I’d have said Obama and Richardson. And I haven’t wavered on that. (Clinton dropped from third place, though, to dead last among the Democrats.) They complement each other perfectly. So I was ecstatic when Richardson just came out in support of Obama.

Of course, the Clintons were not pleased. Which brings up another point of mine: I used to like Bill Clinton. Sure, he could have exercised some better control in personal matters, but if that’s the biggest criticism eight years later, job well done. But now he’s getting nasty and negative. I saw a survey somewhere that showed that his approval rating (yes, they apparently do track approval ratings of past presidents) has gone down since he started campaigning for Hillary. Fail.

But in the linked article, Richardson explains that he doesn’t think he’s “crossed” the Clintons, nor that he owed her his endorsement. But the best part of all is this little bit:

Richardson was asked Sunday about James Carville’s comment that Richardson’s Obama endorsement “came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver.” Carville is an adviser to Clinton’s presidential campaign and a CNN political analyst.

“Well, I’m not going to get in the gutter like that,” Richardson said. “And you know, that’s typical of many of the people around Sen. Clinton. They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency.”

He’s starting to exhibit something that Obama rocks at: people come at him with some sort of low blow, and he manages to say exactly the right thing to deflect the attack and end up making the attacker look like the idiot. (Remember when someone started questioning Obama’s patriotism because he stopped wearing his little flag lapel pin? His response was that he’d noticed that the flags often served as a replacement for “true patriotism.”) And… Did Carville mean to equate Hillary with Jesus in his analogy?

(Also, I have to wonder… How is it not a conflict of interest to be “an adviser to Clinton’s presidential campaign and a CNN political analyst?” Are they familiar with the Republican jibe that CNN stands for “Clinton News Network?”)

In conclusion… Where’s my Obama-Richardson ’08 bumper sticker?

It’s Florida

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What is it with Florida and screwing up elections?

Right now there’s a big debate over what to do with their election results, which officially don’t count, and in which no candidates were allowed to campaign. Hillary did anyway, and, unsurprisingly, won.

Of course, counting the votes is unfair–only one candidate campaigned, and she was breaking the rules in doing so. So obviously, it would favor her. But then again, not counting the votes would be equally unfair–you’re disenfranchising a whole state.

Right now, I suspect that, as with Florida and the 2004 general election, 2008’s Democratic primary is going to be very close. And we’re going to end up with a big fight over Florida, the outcome of which will swing the vote one way or the other.

Except I think we’re at a critical juncture. A united Democratic front can take back the White House in 2008. A bitterly-divided Democratic party, feuding over the nomination, is going to lose. And if we get into a “credentials fight” at the DNC, it’s going to be the latter.

So, from the 49 other states–actually, 48, as Florida isn’t the only one with problems: please, figure out how to hold an election!