Here I come, ready or not
Hillary is "unbowed" by her third place finish in Iowa, says the AP.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, unbowed by a third-place finish in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, hailed a "great night for Democrats" and said the strong turnout pointed for sure to the election of a Democratic president in November. She said she would "keep pushing as hard as we can." ... With former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, standing to one side of her and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the other, Clinton said, "I am so ready for the rest of this campaign and I am so ready to lead."
Timothy McVeigh chose the poem "Invictus" as his epitaph. The Guardian says he handed a handwritten copy of William Ernest Henley's poem to the prison warden, Harley Lappin, just before his death. It's what most comes to mind when the word "unbowed" is used in conjunction with defeat, though somehow, I don't think the AP thinks in this way.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
But maybe a modern politician would end the poem with a different couplet.
Polls are the master of my fate:
PACs hold the mortgage on my soul.
Barack Obama's victory speech. "They said this day would never come. ... I'll be a President who finally ends this war in Iraq and brings our troops home. Who restores our moral standing. Who understands 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes."
posted by wretchardthecat at 1/03/2008 08:46:00 PM
49 Comments:
Sandy Berger a closet advisor; Madeleine Albright appearing with her at campaign events... We are in for some horrible deja vu if Clinton manages to win this thing.
Is Carville still working with her?
Hillary has got to have MAJOR reservoirs of denial in order to have stayed married to Bill all these years. She will have taught herself how to ignore reality and to forge ahead regardless of whose panties she finds under the bed or what the voters have just said.
Loath though I am to acknowledge anything that a puppet like Hillary might say to be correct, the fact remains that she is correct to be undiscouraged by the events in Iowa. The caucus system there is sufficiently screwy that I would count it as a clown show rather than as a real primary and am amazed that so many people take it seriously. Hence the reason I doubt that the way the GOP end of it finished will mean much in the future.
That said, the real primaries now begin and I think Mrs. Clinton will find herself in more trouble than she realized. Won't be long before she starts reaching for the atomic hand grenade. Partly because losing candidates use any weapon they can to stay viable for the day (No point in worrying about the long term until you are first assured of surviving in the short term!) and partly because it's not unknown for losing candidates to have a "If I die let it all die with me!" attitude towards their rivals and the party that turned their back on them.
After all, what does she have to look forward to if she loses? Years and years of hanging around in the Senate like a futile ghost from yesterday the way Ted Kennedy does? It's not like Obama who ran for a lark and can just essentially say "Oh well! What's for lunch?" if he fails to get the Presidency. Both she and John Edwards have little to go back to if they lose and I suspect that will make a difference in the way they campaign.
From the "If Only" Department...
What if a certain philandering drunken senator from Massachussetts had on a fateful night focused the full glare of his charm on the ambitious wife of the governor of a third-world southern state...
Actually, there is the horrifying possibility that the female of the pair turned out to be the only survivor of the submersion.
oops.
"...the horrifying possibility that the female of the pair would have turned out to be the only survivor of the submersion."
towering barbarian: I would count it as a clown show rather than as a real primary
Cold consolation for the ongoing political farce we are being forced to endure.
It's difficult to know what is more significant: That an out-and-out carpetbagger such as Hillary got her beskirted ass handed to her on a plate or that a certified greenhorn like Obama even managed to make the winner's circle.
Neither of these political turds are remotely worthy of the gold-plating that their respective campaigns are conjuring up. Both of them deserve to be laughed out of the electoral courtroom by judge and jury alike.
May this only bring us one day closer to the time when the name Clinton does not appear anywhere in print.
AspergersGentleman said...
Hilary Doesn't Want an ELECTION VICTORY WHEN SERGE BRIN AND GOOGLE CAN GIVE HER DIGITAL IMMORTALITY!
Every website you goto, Hil-gorithms will observe, orient, decide and act to send your data to China in exchange for Buddhist treasure.
Every Amazon purchase, you make, your rationality will be compared to that of Hilary, whose decision will have been based on the wisdom of the most people who are also smarter than most everyone else whose ever lived.
Every illicit paragraph will require a Microsoft Word Paperclip-esque intervention, with Hilary appearing to warn you of your dilletantish indiscretions!
Any suggestive fandango you purchase on the Internet will be compiled in a Hilta-base, where it will be sold to Nigerian Buddhists to extort you, the better to free themselves from earthly pain via your money.
Alderman Williams said...
O' for the days of a chicken in every pot!
With Obama, every American shall get to quarter an illegal and a bureaucrat to monitor the quartering.
Every American flag shall be shat in and buried in barren inner-city parks to fertilize organic garden renewal projects.
Obama will apologize for Nick Berg, the neocon and forge a coalition of the willing to dig up Theo Van Gogh and create a Hajj festivity with his coffin. Obama's closeness to technology entrepreneurs will ensure the audio/video production on the game will be top-notch for hard-to-please Muslim audiences.
Obama can offer a subsidy to Americans by buying some of their Carbon debt if they lend their documents to illegals or flaggelate themselves on youtube during the Shiite holy day of Muslim Mosh Pit.
Clitorus-free vaginas will become the in-thing, as women feverishly apply foundation and blush and all manner of plaster to try and disguise their immodest genitals.
Obama will erect a Memorial to the undocumented Thoreaus whose larger-than-life ambition clashed with our puritanical insistence on harmful "Drug War" enforcement.
Most of the criticism of Hillary is correct. Her election would bring a horde of discredited hacks back to the trough. Albright and Berger and the rest of the mediocrities are now aged without gaining wisdom. There is no good reason for anyone not tied into the lowest form of retrograde machine politics to support her.
All that being said Obama as President would be worse. Hillary's cynicism is her strongest feature. Like her spouse she is capable of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Her jealousy and arrogance would mitigate a tendency to defer to the worst elements in Old Europe and the UN. Obama would simply cave in. Listen to him, on the most critical issues of our age he is aligned with the Soros crowd. Do him the courtesy of believing his rhetoric. Obama would withdraw from the war.
Let us hope the Republicans get their priorities right and get past the Huckabee boomlet. We need to coalesce around a candidate and a platform that will rally the nation and our allies.
The Front Page of the NY Times has a Video which shows the "logic" of the caucus.
Very fair, very much like Iowa, says the Hillary gal.
(if so, for a tiny minority of political junkies)
Can't you see some guy or gal with a family, that works 60hrs/wk, taking the time to go play politics at the Caucus?
Desperately seeking Neither Of The Above [Mark Steyn]
This is as bad as it could be for Mitt. It wasn't a close finish, and it's hard to see how his numbers in New Hampshire go anywhere but south. As for McCain, granted that he couldn't lose, he had a great night. Fred decided to court Iowa assiduously whereas Mister Maverick refused to drink the ethanol, and the difference between Fred's courtship and McCain's disdain is currently one point. Most of the Thompson-Giuliani vote in NH and some of the Romney support, too, will migrate to Maverick over the next few days.
Where I disagree with Ramesh is in the idea that this provides an opening for Rudy. Assuming Huck manages a strong third in NH, we'll be locked into a Huck/McCain fight and anybody looking for a neither-of-the-above is unlikely to settle on Rudy, who'd be at least as polarizing as those two.
I'd also disagree with Ramesh's idea that this was a good night for Christians reaching across the aisle. It would be truer to say that for a proportion of Huck's followers there is no aisle: he's their kind of Christian, and all the rest - foreign policy, health care, mass transit, whatever - is details. This is identity politics of a type you don't often see on the Republican side.
The only effect, I think, that comes from a poorer than expected showing in either of the first two primaries is the possibility that your funding may dry up by going to another candidate with a better showing. This presupposes that your supporters are inclined or can be inclined to go to another candidate.
In Hillary's case she has plenty of funding already and those who support her don't seem to be inclined to go to another until she doesn't have any hope of winning the nomination. That is far from the case now. The denial Nahncee talked of extends to her supporters and I see her in this to the bitter end.
On the Republican side Huckabee did what was expected and will get some funding boost but must do well in a substantial number of the up coming contests too. Romney was the only one hurt and he also has the funding and the base of support to go on. Unlike Hillary however he is not a "bitter-ender" and if he doesn't come back in the next month or so will most likely drop out and throw his support to another while looking for a VP slot in so doing.
We are still in the Pre-season part of this race.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/04/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
////////////////
During the 90's the best bible study I took was on the book of book of Judges. The Evil period in Jewish old testament history. There's a back and forth sing song in the book that goes. "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes."17:6,21:25 Followed later by "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD;
For those who understand their zeitgeist by bumper stickers & country church billboards --its helpful to remember that there was a brief three year period in the mid sixties when you could see on bumper stickers and country churches billboards the sign "God is my co-pilot". Similarly there was a brief three year period couple years ago when you could see bumper stickers and country church billboards that said "God is my pilot."
Huckabee’s win in Iowa confirms the emergence of a post-racial America, where the fog of racial hate is dissipating and thereby revealing the cold reality of class differences. For so many years Republicans have played the populist rhetoric as racist code but now a funny thing is happening; all those rough tough working class heroes just aren’t looking for code words anymore. Generally, they don’t care about race, some of their best friends are black. What they do care about is their class position, health care, jobs, schools, etc. And most of all they know all the overdue bills left by the Bush Administration are about to come due. And let’s just say many have grown slightly leery of our wealthy elite, and the plethora of wealth-friendly candidates (that is, most major Republicans and Democrats) fighting it out to best represent that elite. And so they have chosen Huckabee instead.
It used to be that only blacks ran populist Christian ministers for President. Small wonder since given the obvious failure of Marxism, Christianity is the only ideology popular with Americans that aims to help the plight of the less well off. So it is a very useful tool to hammer away at the class interests of the wealthy elite. And Huckabee seems to be willing and able to use it.
So in the coming weeks look for the wealthy political elite to engage in a furious round of character assassination on Huckabee. He is now more of a threat to their positions of power than Benazir Bhutto was to the Islamist elite in Pakistan. Elite media terrorists will be trying to ram rhetorical sunroof levers all over Huckabee’s person. While our elite would always prefer any of the wealth-worthy Republicans they could in the worst case always live with a spineless establishment Democrat to carry out the dirty work of balancing the budget on the backs of the working class. But as the attacks on Huckabee gain momentum, more and more working class Americans, of all races, will understand this, so look to see Huckabee’s popularity grow, especially among disgruntled Democrats. If the winners in Iowa do turn out to be the candidates for the general election, look to see Huckabee do much better than expected among black voters, who will vote for their cultural and economic interests over the guy from Harvard who shares a few genetic traits with them, if nothing else.
We may be seeing a seismic shift in American politics of the type not seen since 1968, in which year the racist vote finally deserted the Democrats for greener pastures chez the Republicans. In 2008 it could be the populist vote, representing the aspirations of poor and working class Americans finally abandoning the worthless Democrats and realigning with a newly populist Huckabee-led Republican party.
I don't know Kevin. There are many conservatives who say that except for social issues Huckabee will sell out on every other issue. He will concede more US sovereignty to unaccountable international institutions and continue to allow the country to be swamped by illegals.
It is easy to overestimate Iowa, as it is the first real test of the candidates.
Reagen did not win Iowa in '80 nor did Bill Clinton in '92 (failed miserably) see the Jawa Report.
Ideas are important, but never forget the machine. A national Clinton machine has been in place since 1991.
Obama is an empty suit for empty heads. His "Unity" means about the same thing as Osama's "Peace" - the individualists must give up and submit to the collective.
Towering Barbarian said:
"Hillary ... is correct to be undiscouraged by the events in Iowa. The caucus system there is sufficiently screwy that I would count it as a clown show rather than as a real primary and am amazed that so many people take it seriously."
Marcus Aurelius said:
"It is easy to overestimate Iowa, as it is the first real test of the candidates. Reagan did not win Iowa in '80 nor did Bill Clinton in '92 (failed miserably)..."
Towering Barbarian and Marcus Aurelius are correct. The Iowa and New Hampshire elections are nothing but MSM political theater and irrelevant. Giuliani was wise not to expend any resources on such a pointless exercise as the Iowa caucus.
If Giuliani or Hillary lose in the California THEN the election becomes interesting. Until then its all MSM spin and nonsense.
I still believe the whole exercise is quixotic, i.e. Hillary wins the Democratic primary by default and then the general election by default because we're in economic recession. I'm not happy about this. I'd like to see McCain or Giuliani as President but it's not going to happen.
The next decade is going to be very "interesting". I don't believe Hillary is up to the challenge. We need a tough SOB like Giuliani as President to clean up the mess after the stuff hits the fan.
Eggplant,
Thanks for the second.
I can not say for certain Hillary is the nominee. I think John Edwards has significant experience in running political machinery and has an idea that resonates with the base. He can beat Hillary, I do not think Obama can.
We need to appreciate the role geography played in Iowa with Illinois (Obama's home state) bordering Iowa, Obama's team had their core group of volunteers right next door.
Rush is relaying broadcasts describing Hillary's post-caucus headquarters as funereal, sure no one likes to lose, but winning Iowa is like having your lead off batter get a hit it is a good thing, but there is a lot more game to play.
Marcus Aurelius said:
"I can not say for certain Hillary is the nominee. I think John Edwards has significant experience in running political machinery and has an idea that resonates with the base."
I guess one could argue that if John Kerry could win the Democratic nomination then by the same process John Edwards could. However Hillary is a ruthless politician. She'll say anything and do anything to achieve political power. Her husband is obviously a very skilled politician and Hillary has much of the Democratic political machine behind her. However there is this special something about Hillary that makes people dislike her (perhaps the ruthless ambition?).
Again, I think if she were elected President and informed that L.A. had just been nuked, she would fold under pressure and someone else required to assume leadership. Likewise, I don't think Hillary has the deep strategic insight that our current President has in terms of keeping our major cities from getting nuked. Probably the only guy out there who really has that sort of insight is Giuliani.
The moonbats are "correct" in saying that Giuliani would be "worse" than Bush. I see their opposition as a significant endorsement for Giuliani. The moonbats dislike of Hillary is also an endorsement for her as well.
peter: Obama is an empty suit for empty heads. His "Unity" means about the same thing as Osama's "Peace" - the individualists must give up and submit to the collective.
I'm going to ask some very not-nice and extremely politically incorrect questions:
1. Is anyone else concerned that Obama's prior exposure to Islamic culture will make him overly sympathetic to Muslim causes?
2. As a person of color, will that negatively affect Obama's disposition towards decisions regarding largely white America?
3. As a totally inexperienced and unqualified leader, will Obama exhibit a tendency to experiment with less orthodox or more risky strategies in dealing with foreign policy issues?
4. As a multiculturalist, will Obama be less inclined to alienate our Islamic enemies?
Personally, I think all of the above are distinct possibilities and even the vaguest chance that any one of them could come into play makes Obama a potential threat to America's national security.
Obama would be very likely to be an extremely weak President in the Jimmy Carter mold. I remember by 1979, we were losing a country per continent per year. However, I think he would be a very formidable candidate, especially in the P.C. world we live in, where questioning the surrenderists' patriotism is strictly verboten. I'd rather Hillary be the Dem candidate.
Kevin --
As usual you are completely wrong.
Obama represents the aspirations of the terminally hip, cool, and bored wealthy white voters in the Iowa Caucuses. Which is to say the base of the Democratic Party.
Working white people will NEVER vote for him because it is too expensive to do so. They know Obama will simply replace them out of jobs and educational opportunities by Affirmative Action and a coalition of Blacks and Latinos maximizing a resource grab at the expense of working-class and middle class whites. Add to that policies of public safety and security (Obama promises soft-on-black-crime) and working/middle class voters struggling to buy houses as far as possible from violent black urban centers and violent latino gangs will vote against that man and his policies in the privacy of the voting booth.
Working class white voters attracted by first George Wallace and then Nixon and successors may or may not be racist. But it's stupid to pretend that wealthy white voters interests in moralizing at the expense of wages, personal security, and educational opportunities for working class white voters do not play the majority of decisions.
Affirmative Action is only politically possible when the majority has only a marginal hurt. Now that Whites are in many places not 80% of the population but more like 40%, you will see WHITE IDENTITY POLITICS in spades. It will not be the KKK, or lynch mobs. But you will see racial block voting by a beleaguered minority that used to be the majority. Threatened by exclusive social networks they can never enter, Spanish replacing English, and racial hatred/violence.
The identity politics will be coded, but certainly there. Wrapped in symbols of the American nation and aimed directly at those downsized, unprotected, and threatened by changing neighborhoods they cannot escape.
[It is worth noting that unlike other states, Iowa is less worried about Illegal Immigration.]
Huckaboo is not a populist. He is a moralist. He'll go the way of Pat Buchanon (won Iowa in 92) and Pat Robertson (won in 88). Jimmy Carter and GWB went on to victory after a corrupt President had voters looking for moralism. GWB has many flaws but corruption is not one of them.
The true populists are Romney and Fred, who offer support for border enforcement, deporting illegals, and thus HIGHER WAGES for working class people. Open Borders means Mexican-level wages and people know it. It also means displacing Americans and English with Mexicans and Spanish. Both Romney and Fred generally oppose Affirmative Action which hurts working/middle class whites to benefit Blacks and Latinos (including, instantly, Illegal Aliens from Mexico -- who upon entering the country are instantly eligible for all sorts of preferential treatment denied working class whites).
In short NEVER has race mattered more, since race determines winners and losers in resource allocation and who runs the country. That wealthy white elitists are determined to replace ordinary white working people should surprise no one. Nor that it will be resisted.
Huckafool of course is Open Borders for everyone. Being a GWB Christian-Liberal moralist ala Jimmy Carter. That alone will doom him from people facing pocketbook competition from cheap, exploitable Mexican labor.
Kevin, please do us a favor and provide a link to the source of the material you are "borrowing" for your posts.
Charles,
While many conservatives may be concerned about unaccountable international institutions in the end I suspect most vote their pocketbook. So if they are wealthy they will not vote for Huckabee, whatever his position on the UN is.
But you hit a very important point about curbing illegal immigration. Due to his Christian worldview, it is very unlikely that Huckabee is going to out-tough the field on the supply-side of immigration. The parable of Lazarus would seem to teach a different approach towards those already here. But the supply-side, building walls and evicting illegals is exactly where the wealthy elite -- who enthusiastically support the third world-ization of America -- want the debate to remain. For they know it is hopeless to solve the problem by only concentrating on the supply side. You can build the strongest wall in the world but the untouched demand will only pull the illegals towards finding other ways, such as taking boats take boats towards the thousands of miles unguarded Pacific and Gulf coastlines.
But if Huckabee really wants to raise the economic level of his supporters, and all politicians do, then that will be impossible if he does not stop the influx of illegal immigrants. But this is where he strikes true fear into the wealthy elite. They well understand that raising the standard of living of the bottom half of the American people would just attract more illegal immigrants, therefore the refusal to discuss any demand-side solutions. But Huckabee will need to finance whatever programs he has and what better way than a robust penalty system for companies hiring illegals? It is a bit like counterinsurgency work. If working class Americans of all stripes got the message that illegals were stealing a slice of their pie (and many do get it already) then the sea that the illegals swim in would be drained. Harsh financial penalties would be the order of the day for any company that so much as sniffs at an illegal worker. So in order for Huckabee to succeed he will have to attack both the supply and demand-side of illegal immigration so that he will have a chance to immplement any economic programs he may be planning.
But one thing is sure, if we take the other six frontrunners, McCain, Giuliani, Mitt, Hilary, Obama, and Edwards, none of these clowns will lift a finger to stem the flow of illegals. Their wealthy backers would just never allow it. Huckabee’s backers, the working class stiffs, will insist on it.
I know it's just Iowa, and there really weren't very many voters involved, and their selections are probably not representative of the opinions of the Nation at large.
And yet, I feel like a young British school boy, looking at an old map, and scratching his head, and wondering why so many distant places were once painted pink?
I'd rather Hillary be the Dem candidate.
I'm just the opposite. I could live with a President Obama on the grounds that no one could possibly be stupider than Jimmy Carter, and we survived him. But Hillary scares the bejeebers out of me.
Possibly that might be because she is *not* stupid, but she'd be using her intelligence to demand that she be put in charge of my life and tell me how to live. I also think she'd use the Presidency as a power trip to somehow punish Bill and that is not what I want my Commander in Chief thinking about.
Well, I hope Hillary is the candidate for the same reason I hoped Howard Dean would be the candidate - I know they will lose the general election. I think Hillary is repulsive to a lot of us. I got that feeling about 3-4 seconds after I first saw the Clintons on TV. It was on 60 Minutes, right after the Super Bowl, and this obvious, classic liar was whining about pain in his marriage, and this scary, glassy-eyed creature was bobbing her head up and down right next to him, standing by her man. Repulsive, I tell ya, repulsive - right off the bat!
C'mon, she can't get elected, can she? But it is the Dems' turn to win... Sheesh, that is scary.
NahnCee said:
"I could live with a President Obama on the grounds that no one could possibly be stupider than Jimmy Carter, and we survived him. But Hillary scares the bejeebers out of me. Possibly that might be because she is *not* stupid, but she'd be using her intelligence to demand that she be put in charge of my life and tell me how to live."
Hillary is definitely scary and she certainly craves absolute power. However we can not afford to have an empty suite in the White House, e.g. Obama.
For what it's worth, my minial requirements for the next President are very pragmatic:
1) The next President will keep my family from getting nuked.
2) The next President will not bankrupt the federal government.
3) The next President will not wreck the US economy.
Oddly enough, Obama probably fails ALL of these requirements. Hillary probably fails requirement 2) (Hillary-care would bankrupt the federal government). I think(?) McCain and Giuliani pass all of three requirments.
Tony said:
"C'mon, she can't get elected, can she? But it is the Dems' turn to win... Sheesh, that is scary."
Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Need I say more?
While no doubt Hillary practices the third way of politics (i.e. no way let the wind take you) I have heard her stand up to hostile crowds of the Dem base and tell them Saddam was a bad man and the world is better off because of our action.
Still I do not look forward to a D in the Whitehouse, but of the three Hillary is the most capable of defending the nation and the least capable of ruining it by domestic policy.
Sounds like Kevin is still working on that Marxism 101 paper.
Fact is Kevin there are lots of us who, without regard to race, gender, or income, are most concerned with the future of the Good Ol' USA and the possibility that any of the leftoid Dems, and more than a few of the Repubs, would sink us further into the amoral socialist abyss.
About 2,500 years ago the Greeks started kicking around the idea that ordinary citizens were more likely to have a decent life without a king around telling them how to live every moment of it. They only had a short run but enough human creativity was released to keep the dream alive for another 23 centuries or so.
Not so many years ago it seemed that no matter who occupied the WH that we could muddle through, but I am not so sure anymore.
Peter said:
"Not so many years ago it seemed that no matter who occupied the WH that we could muddle through, but I am not so sure anymore."
I wonder about that myself.
I've thought for a long time that the country is tired of the Bush-Clinton Dynasty's. Hillary's aura of inevitability was misplaced, generated mainly by the media - Hillary unfortunately for her believed her own press. The Obama phenomenon in Iowa was a repudiation of the aforementioned dynasties. Watching the returns last night the main theme from both sides was change, change, change...
Change to what?
I'll venture to say - no more Bushes and no more Clintons in the White House.
All that being said, Iowa was crucial for Obama to win. It gives him the media bounce (and frenzy) to carry NH, then on to Super Tuesday. I give him today a 75% chance at the Democratic nomination.
As to Huckabee, he's probably a one-offer, maybe he'll carry South Carolina but I don't see him carrying any other states (at least not enough to win him the nomination).
So the question is...
If Obama wins the democratic nomination, who'll run against him? Looking at the Republican field I see a bunch of grumpy old white men, with one exception - Guiliani. He's upbeat, optimistic and charismatic. All the traits Obama has shown during his campaign. The major difference is Guiliani has what it takes to be President. I keep thinking of an Obama Presidency being rolled over time and time again by all those "world leaders" out there.
Is Guiliani palatable enough for the social conservatives? Who knows?
I'm conflicted in that if a Huckabee wins the nomination and is running against Obama, I'll probably just sit it out.
How soon everyone forgets history. Bob Dole won Iowa in 1988 and went where? GHW Bush won in 1980 and went where? Dick Gephart won in 1988 and went where? Tom Harkin won in 1992 (76%) and Bill Clinton got 3% of the vote (so Mrs. Clinton did way better than her husband). Obama and Huckabee win Iowa in 2008. So what! Exactly how many delegates did they win? And then in the next "big" contest up in NH, how many delegates are at stake there? This is long process (or at least it used to be). Wake me up when the big states vote on February 5th. That is the date we will know who will be getting the nomination, at least on the Republican side. I know McCain and Huckabee are the flavor of the moment, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the Republican primary voters in CA, PA, NY and elsewhere are going to say "Heck, no!" and go for Rudy.
The Democrats, meanwhile, could have a cat fight all the way to their convention. Hillary has the money to stay in the fight and, remember, the primaries are not "Winner Take All". Even if she comes in second, she still gains delegates. The key will be the 25% of the Democratic delegates to the convention that are at-large and super delegates. Hillary will be pulling out all the "you owe us" chits on those folks. Of course, if Obama wins most of the primaries, but loses at the convention...... To paraphrase Betty Davis, "Buckle your seat belts, get out the popcorn; it's going to be one heck of a ride."
" However Hillary is a ruthless politician. She'll say anything and do anything to achieve political power. "
---
Obama checkmates most of the Clinton's options, simply because he is a "person of color."
Similarly, in running against Huckabee, the MSM will have little trouble finding something at least as monumental and fatal as "maccaca" in Huck's past.
If Huck were to counter-attack and point out that Obama's minister is patently racist and anti-Semitic, not only would this true charge fall on deaf ears, but Huckabee would garner additional criticism!
Through a strange system, for the GOP, Iowa has almost half as many delegates as NY!
---
GOP:
New York: 101 Total Delegates
Iowa: 40 Total Delegates
Explained by:
BONUS DELEGATES Each state can earn additional delegates by meeting one or more of the following requirements:
the state cast a majority of its votes for the Republican presidential candidate in the previous presidential election, the state elected Republicans to the U.S. House or Senate, selected a Republican Governor or state legislative majorities, and / or the state holds its presidential primary election after March 15th (this is to discourage states from holding early primaries).
Bonus delegates are awarded based on the number of party members elected as Presidential Electors (2004), Governors (2004-2007), House members (2004-2007), Senators (2002-2007), and state legislatures (2004-2007).
Well this is a huge cauldron, and every one us having his say. I think, personally, that whatever else is going in, the wheels are coming off the Clinton Bus/machine. When something is as tightly controlled as the Clinton Bus/machine is, any unpredicted circumstance is enough to send the whole thing spinning out of control. It's a bit like the architectural design of a tall building: it must be designed to sway with the wind, or it will buckle and collapse. The Clintons are not capable of accommodating flexibility. They are about to buckle and collapse.
It will be fun to watch the edifice fall, that's what I say.
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Whiskey,
Sorry for not being clearer but I was not arguing that working class whites were going to vote for Obama. I actually stated the opposite, that poor blacks would be more likely to vote for Huckabee in a general election than Obama. My larger point was that working class whites would no longer be tied to the most voracious practitioners of identity politics: the rich. For years the rich, who by definition are a tiny minority, have bamboozled the working class into voting for them either by vicarious association, (similar to the phenomenon of “wiggers” (white men acting black)) the rich have convinced some people that they too could be part of the club of wealth through constant media bombardment. The other way the working class were led astray was through the spreading of racial fear. My point is that the racial fear part is over so that more and more working class whites are free to vote for economic interest, thus their votes for Huckabee. It is interesting to note that the Christian groups who are attracted to Huckabee are the same people who consume the least amount of American wealthy media cultural garbage on television.
Your point about illegal immigrants is correct except that it is not a racial issue. Illegal immigrants are detrimental to the economic well-being of working class Americans because of their extremely low economic status, not the colour of their skin. The more you make it a racial issue the more you make it impossible to come to a consensus about stopping the influx.
It is laughable that you would think a true American Aristocrat like Mitt Romney would commit class treason by stemming the flow of illegal immigrants. His whole life has been devoted to lowering wage costs so as to maximize his and his social class' wealth. And there is no better tool that illegal immigration to lower the wages of working class Americans.
With all your rants against aristocrats and the wealthy elite hoarding women through polygamy, your support for Mitt Romney is the perfect example of doublethink. So are your empty words against the wealthy elite and your subsequent rejection of Christianity with all its inherent power to work towards the social justice your wealthy bettors so deeply fear.
Eggplant,
Remember the Dems' slim majority in Congress, which exalts Pelosi and Reid to their fool's paradise, was won by a total of ~40M votes for hundreds of Democratic candidates in hundreds of elections, in the mid-term election in 2006.
Bush was re-elected in 2004 in a vote for one guy - President, by a record ~62M votes for him and/or his policies of standing firm in this world war.
Now that we are winning the war in Iraq... American voters have common sense. Surrender is really not a popular word in the American lexicon.
Obama, I think has defined the contest correctly in saying it's time for the whole sixties political debate to end. We are facing a new world where Marxist analysis doesn't fly nor does a return to the cheery street where Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and Donna Reed seldom face any real challenges.
Now we face an America playing with Monopoly money,shuttered industrial cities gasping for air, an unease in the air. Barbarians are not just at the gate. A lot of them are already inside scaring the horses and making Pancho Villa seem like a piker.
Obama defines the issue, but doesn't have near the stones for the challenges ahead. Forget Edwards. You can't sue the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Hilary reminds of an old Phil Ochs lyric:
"Aging empty people almost to their knees
Complain about the present using memories
Never found their pot of gold
Wrinkled hands and weary bones
Each line screams out you're old, you're old ,you're old."
What horse can we ride into the looming night. Probably nobody but McCain the old warrior and Rudy the Prince of the City. The rest are"gargling in the ratrace choir"
Hillary and Bhutto in China
One thing Clinton certainly didn't do is remember the good times she and Bhutto shared as leaders at the United Nations' infamous Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, in 1995. At the conference, the two women were on opposite sides, one Ivy League grad arguing for every girl and woman's right to abort innocents (that would be then first lady Clinton, who earned her law degree at Yale), another Ivy League grad arguing to protect all human life (Bhutto, a Harvard alum).
Bhutto wasn't perfect by any stretch. Her tenure was riddled with corruption, she had friends we'd call enemies -- but she still managed to offer the world an alternative model of feminism. As she argued for protecting the most innocent, she sounded more feminist than those who claim to speak for all women. In a speech at the opening of the gathering, she warned: "To please her husband, a woman wants a son. To keep her husband from abandoning her, a woman wants a son. And, too often, when a woman expects a girl, she abets her husband in abandoning or aborting that innocent, perfectly formed child."
In reporting at the time, her speech was explained as being a condemnation of violence against women. Fair enough. But it was more than that: She was arguing against the forced abortion of female babies, and she was also arguing on behalf of innocent human life.
Bhutto heard "the cries of the girl child," and she said: "This conference needs to chart a course that can create a climate where the girl child is as welcome and valued as the boy child."
Serrin Foster, executive director of the group Feminists for Life, emphasized in a statement memorializing Bhutto, "Bhutto also refused to choose between meeting the needs of women or between protecting unborn children from abortion." Foster pointed out that Bhutto called the common practice of gender-selected abortions "tragic," and said it "still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized."
Dennis Prager made an interesting observation:
Obama did not smile once in his 16 minute speech.
He compared this with Mitt, who smiled a lot, and noted a stark contrast in image, between the smiling Politician, and the more noble public servant.
So even though Obama said nothing of substance, he wins.
Doug: Foster pointed out that Bhutto called the common practice of gender-selected abortions "tragic," and said it "still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized."
Maybe, just maybe, this might be a slight indication that our world is not yet quite so "modern and civilized" after all. I, for one, would think that Islamic fanatics flying fully loaded passenger jet airliners into occupied skyscrapers should be rather sufficient proof of this.
The only question remaining is how to deal with such cretins.
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