West Virginia exit polls

Exit polls of West Virginia voters have started to trickle in. Via my notes from CNN:

• 64% of WV voters cited the economy as their top issue.

• 45% said that the economic recession has affected them a "great deal."

• Of those who voted for Hillary, 72% said they thought the gas tax holiday was a "good idea."
  

• 43% of Obama voters also thought the gas tax holiday was a good idea; 54% disagreed and thought it was a bad idea.
  

• The gender gap is back: Hillary Clinton voters break out 55% female, 45% male.

• Obama voters are 57% male, 43% female.

I'll update as the numbers release.

UPDATE I: How will WV Democrats vote in the November?

If Obama is the nominee, Clinton voters say how they will vote:

• 36% for Obama
• 35% for McCain
• 24% will not vote
• 5% for other

In the reverse, if Clinton is the nominee, Obama voters said how they would vote:

• 51% for Clinton
• 31% for McCain
• 14% will not vote
• 4% for other

UPDATE II: Experience vs. change.

Of WV Democrats who said experience was most important, they overwhelmingly went for Clinton:

• 93% for Hillary Clinton
• 3% for Barack Obama

Who can bring about change? Once Obama's signature issue, Clinton has narrowed the gap. Of WV Democrats:

• Obama got 53%
• Clinton got 45%

UPDATE III: Shared values.

Of Obama voters, does Hillary Clinton share your values?

• 62% No
• 37% Yes

Of Clinton voters, does Barack Obama share your values?

• 70% No (rev.)
  
• 30% Yes

UPDATE IV: Controversies--Rev. Wright and unfair attacks

Does Obama share the views of Rev. Wright?

• 51% Yes
• 47% No

Did Clinton attack her opponent Obama unfairly?

• 59% Yes
• 38% No
  

Did Obama attack Clinton unfairly? The responses split evenly.

UPDATE V: Those who said the economy was their top priority and who voted for Clinton:

• 76% said it had affected them a great deal
• 58% said it had affect them somewhat
• 50% said it had affected them not much/not at all

Female voters broke for Clinton in a big way: 71% for Clinton vs. 27% for Obama.

Obama won 28% of the white vote.

WV voters also said that Bill Clinton was a "boost."

CNN called WV for Clinton the minute the polls closed due to a "wide margin."

Fox News called the primary for Clinton due to exit polls that showed 68% voted for Clinton, 32% went for Obama.

Exit poll data available from CNN's main WV page here.

UPDATE VI: WV blue-collar whites without a college degree:

• 72% Clinton
• 23% Obama
• 5% Other

White voters with college degrees:

• 55% Clinton
• 41% Obama
• 4% Other
  

POSTSCRIPT: Edited for clarity.

Sexist spiel on display

A screen grab of a story about Hillary Clinton at the Alaska Report

Ah, someone's warped mind at the Alaska Report must think it's clever to depict Hillary as "the best man for the job." Typically sexist, the image implies that only a woman portrayed as a man is made of the right stuff and inherently discounts that women are just as capable, tough, and smart to lead our nation as women.

Such depictions minimize the power of women and reinforce male dominance. The patriarchy demeans women by making such comparisons in a futile attempt to reiterate that men are superior, the paradigm to emulate, the archetype that embodies leadership. Forget Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir. In America, sexism flourishes under such misbegotten attitudes.

I won't generalize about Alaska. The facts speak for themselves. The state is a Republican stronghold, not exactly a paragon of gender equality. Alaska also "has long suffered the highest sexual assault rate in the nation... 89% of the victims were female," according to USA Today, indicating that the state foretells of extremely hostile turf for females.

Looking at the predominantly male staff of the Alaska Report, it's easy to understand how the image was selected. Dumb but predictable. Of course, the picture is inexcusably sexist spiel on display.

Reports from West Virginia

Hillary Clinton at a rally in Charleston, WV

Chicago Tribune (with emphasis added in bold throughout):

The front-running Obama made quick work of the state, flying in for a speech in Charleston before departing for Kentucky, which votes on May 20. And in those remarks he readily conceded what most expect: that Clinton will handily beat him Tuesday in the state's Democratic presidential primary....

...Meanwhile, Clinton moved eastward across the state, making an afternoon stop in the economically ravaged coal town of Logan. There, in a packed high school gymnasium, she seemingly pulled at the threads of all of her campaign themes to date, telling the crowd that she would fix the troubled economy, sever America's dependence on foreign oil and be a strong commander-in-chief.

Robby Shell, a resident of Logan, said his state would punish Obama for campaigning so little here. A Clinton blow-out, he said, "will send a message that working people, blue-collar people trust Hillary Clinton. They don't know Obama."

Boston Globe:

Clinton has tried to cast today's primary as one of the few remaining chances for party leaders to recognize that she would be a stronger nominee against McCain. "I keep telling people, no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia," she said at a morning stop yesterday at a Charleston biscuit shop.

"West Virginia used to be a leading Democratic indicator, but the last few years we've gone more Republican," said Susman, a consultant who is not supporting a candidate. "People in West Virginia like their guns, like their religion, love their country - and they like the Clintons. They relate to Bill, they relate to Hillary."

Reuters:

Clinton, a New York senator who has vowed to keep fighting despite her dwindling prospects and a mounting campaign debt, spent the day in West Virginia on Monday and showed no sign she was ready to step aside so Obama could focus on a November match-up with Republican John McCain.

"West Virginia is a real indicator of which way the political winds are going to go," she said at a rally in Logan, West Virginia. Clinton said her wins in crucial big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania made her a better choice against McCain.

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that I could be the best president for West Virginia and America, and that I was the stronger candidate to take on John McCain in the fall," she said....

...Despite calls from some Democratic officials for Clinton to quit, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found nearly two-thirds of national Democrats say there is no rush for Clinton to get out of the race.

Even 42 percent of Obama's supporters said Clinton should remain to the end of voting on June 3, rejecting the idea that a prolonged race would hurt the party....

Why do the media hate democracy? Why do they ignore a majority of Democrats? Why do they downplay West Virginia in the race for the WH? Let's review via The Reclusive Leftist:

• In 1988, Jesse Jackson took his hopeless campaign against winner Michael Dukakis all the way to the convention, often to great media praise.

• In 1980, Ted Kennedy carried his run against Jimmy Carter all the way to the convention, even though it was clear he had been routed.

• In 1976, Ronald Reagan contested the “inevitability” of Gerald Ford all the way to the convention. Few, then or since, have ever thought to criticize Reagan’s failure to step aside and let Ford assume the mantle.

• Also in 1976, three candidates — Mo Udall, Jerry Brown, and Frank Church — ran against Jimmy Carter all the way through the final primaries, even though Carter seemed more than likely to be the eventual nominee.

• Even in 1960, Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson fought the “certain” nomination of John F. Kennedy all the way to the convention floor.

In fact, until this year, it’s been an axiom of American politics that candidates are allowed to pursue their runs until they decide to drop out...

...Clearly the rules are different for penis-less lady candidates:

Yet in one of the tightest races in modern history — before the opponent has come close to clearly clinching the nomination, before a number of voters have been given the chance to have their voices heard, and when Clinton still has a chance, albeit a slim one, to win the prize, she is continually vilified for failing to see the light and bow out. What gives? ...

...…Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history. That’s being driven by Clinton fatigue, but it’s also being driven by a concerted campaign that examines every action the Clintons take and somehow finds the basest, most self-serving motivation for its existence. Thus, in this case, when Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party. Is there a fair amount of sexism in the way she’s being asked to get out of the way so a man can have the job? You be the judge. [Emphasis added.]

No, there’s not a fair amount of sexism. There’s a huge amount of sexism, both conscious and unconscious. All this talk of Clinton fatigue is bullshit — in 2004 the party was wishing they could re-nominate Big Dog after his speech at the convention. What’s going on now is that lay-deez aren’t supposed to reach for power, and those who do are evil unnatural witches who consort with demons, eat babies, and fuck ponies for fun.

Can anybody name me a single über-powerful woman in the entire history of Western civilization who hasn’t been vilified as a freak of nature?

The sexist press corps have attempted to destroy Hillary's reputation for years. But West Virginia will send a clear signal to the media today: go to hell.

And they will send a message to Obama: we don't want you as our nominee.

Superdelegates can change their minds before casting their votes in August and Hillary Clinton has every right to take the fight all the way to the convention floor. She can win the general election in November and sweep in more Democrats on her coattails. Obama can't.

In South Dakota, whose primary will transpire on June 3, 41 former state legislators and constitutional officers have endorsed Hillary Clinton.

More importantly, swing state Democrats declared that Hillary is best for the top of the ticket:

The decision about who to support to be our Party’s nominee is not one that any of us should take lightly. We haven’t. But, after giving this important decision a great deal of thought, we are convinced that Hillary Clinton has the vision, skills and commitment to make the changes our country needs. As Democrats who have run and won in competitive Congressional districts and battleground states, we believe that Hillary is best positioned to successfully lead the Democratic ticket in districts and states like ours around the country.

As you know, Hillary has racked up victories in bellwether states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and now Indiana that are absolutely vital to winning the White House and maintaining our Congressional majority in the fall. Hillary has won the big battleground states by connecting with voters whose support we must have to win the general election. Her victories in Pennsylvania and Indiana were all the more impressive after being outspent by as much as two or three to one.

Pennsylvania was not just a victory for Hillary Clinton. It was also a wake- up call for superdelegates, forcing us to ask ourselves two essential questions: 1) Which candidate can carry the magic 270 electoral votes to win in the fall? 2) Which candidate is most likely to help our fellow Democrats in down-ballot races? We believe the answer to both of these questions is Hillary Clinton.

On the first question, Hillary has shown she can win the all-important battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida even while being outspent. This speaks to her ability to connect with voters we must deliver in the fall, including blue collar Democrats who can sway this election as they have in the past.

On the second question, Hillary has won rural and suburban districts which we as Democrats must carry to maintain our edge in Congress. Of the fifteen districts rated “toss up” by the Cook Political Report, Hillary has now won ten. Of the 20 districts we picked up in 2006 that had gone for President Bush just two years before, Hillary has now won 16. She is strong in the places we must win to hold and expand our majority.

Turning attention to today's primary, if Obama is allegedly as inspiring as JFK, why can't he win WV as JFK did?

It's as if today WV voters will deliver a famous snub to Obama, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Guide to Obamaniacs

Sapphocrat designed a useful tool (below) to navigate the mood swings and resultant behavior of the Obamabots. They discredit Hillary supporters as stupid, but, oh, wait! They need us to elect The One so be nice. If sweet-talking doesn't work, they resort to guilt trips or leave in a harumphity-dumpity huff, "We don't need you, traitor!"

A little background from Sapphocrat (emphasis in bold):

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one to notice this. Curious to learn the extent of this phenomenon, I went surfing through dozens of non-Obama blogs and message boards (I don’t call them all “pro-Hillary,” as those of us immune to the Twu-Bewiever Kool-Aid are not all necessarily Hillary supporters; many of us just see Obama for what he really is, and our blood runs cold at the thought of leaving our nation in his most incapable hands), and found: It’s everywhere.

…Which knocks on its ass the repeated claims of Obamaites who swear that their message boards and the like are somehow unique, and do not reflect the rest of the Intertubeosphere, let alone the real world. Of course, these are the same people who swore that nobody was paying attention to Donnie McClurkin, and that the Jeremiah Wright dust-up would never do a lick of damage to Saint Barry the Invincible.

…Which tells you that many Obamaniacs either don’t get out much, or simply prefer to spend all their time parroting one another’s talking points in their own little echo chambers — from which they’ve run off the vast majority of non-Obamaniacs, which in turn makes it appear as though the world is composed of nothing but Obamaniacs. Which is why they get so crazy when they’re exposed to even one of the tens of millions of non-believers, like me. But we’ll talk about cognitive dissonance again another day.

What’s so funny (or would be, if it weren’t so pathetic) is how predictable they’ve become. The pattern to their singleminded behavior is painfully obvious. In fact, I’ve created a handy little chart (which you’ll find below) that you can print out, put in your pocket, and refer to the next time Team Obamanation suddenly switches gears, and you find yourself sputtering: “B-b-b-but-but… But that’s not what they were saying yesterday!”

To keep up, the chart helps non-Obama believers identify the behavior.

Click to enlarge at LavendarLiberal.com and click the image again to enlarge further.

Until the lady in the pantsuits says

Hillary will win West Virginia by a blow-out margin on Tuesday as much as 40 points in a state that Bush won in 2000 and 2004. Clinton can bring the state back into the D column. Obama can't.

While Hillary campaigned across WV on Mother's Day, she received letters from moms expressing their support. One letter read, "It's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is.''

Later in the evening at a stop in Eleanor, WV, Clinton quoted Eleanor Roosevelt, "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water."

Clinton's campaign has drawn its strength from a 60-36 percentage advantage over Obama among white women voters in the primaries so far - though the gender gap is smaller among college-educated white women -- 54-43 percent -- according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.

"Keep fighting," another letter to Clinton had read, according to the candidate, reading aloud from the supporter's missive. "The fact is that you stood throughout the constant ups and downs of this race. You never wavered and you never gave up."

Anglachel reminded us yesterday in Democratic Blind Spots that:

Hillary = nominee = victory; Obama = nominee = defeat. Neither candidate has enough pledged delegates to get to 2209 votes without super delegates, so it is up to the SDs to decide the fate of the party in this electoral cycle. The nominee isn't the person with the most at a certain point in time, it is the person who first hits 2209.

Regardless of what the corporate press corps, which will certainly favor McCain in the fall, and the Obama camp hypes, this race is far from over. Anyone who has studied the pledged delegate scheme realizes how un-democratic the distribution of awarded delegates is.

If the Dem establishment ignores the will of the people via the popular vote, and who has carried the swing states, all key to an Electoral College victory, then they risk ignoring Anglachel's equation...

"Hillary = nominee = victory; Obama = nominee = defeat."

Joe and Valerie for Hillary

I have a lot of respect for Ambassador Joe Wilson for having blown the whistle on Bush's false pre-war intel. I also hold Valerie Plame Wilson in high esteem for her service as a CIA NOC and having withstood the Bush-Cheney slime machine that outed her as a covert agent. So I took notice when these two national security experts endorsed Hillary Clinton over Obama.

Joe has repeatedly articulated reasons why Hillary would be the best choice as president, which you can read: his column, Smears and Tears: National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype, his post, Obama's Shallow Credentials on National Security Are Dangerous for the Country, and an interview and podcast of Joe and Valerie by Taylor Marsh in which Wilson criticized Obama on Iraq and Pakistan. An excerpt from the last link:

I ended by asking Joseph Wilson about Iraq and given that Clinton and Obama have the identical voting records in the Senate, what does he make of the political volleying, with Obama trying to make an issue out of his speech versus Clinton's vote on the Iraq war resolution. After all, Joseph Wilson was in the eye of the storm.

"Well, I think the fact that's dominated the narrative is an indication of how little people really understand the dynamics of the debate as it was going on at the time. And the people making a lot of hay over this weren't there. I was there. I was fighting the fight. I looked to the left of me. I looked to the right of me. I didn't see Barack Obama anywhere. I was out there and there is nobody who can deny that. ... I didn't talk to Edwards about it because he was a co-sponsor of that particular resolution, whereas a lot of us were trying to fight for more restrictive language. Being in the minority, you couldn't get that restrictive language at that time. So what happened the day after the bill was passed? Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd went down and submitted another bill which further restricted, attempted to restrict the ability for the president to act. But in actual fact, those who were there [at] the debate will remember that the American people and the U.S. Congress were sold on this resolution not because the president wanted to go to war, because he said publicly, I do not want this resolution to go to war. I want this resolution so I can get to the United Nations and get intrusive inspections. That's what Colin Powell said. That's what the president of the United States said and that's what they got. They got a resolution that permitted the president of the United States to go to the U.N. and get intrusive inspections. The great betrayal of the America people is not in that Resolution. It was in the president not allowing the inspections to reach their natural conclusions. [He] short circuited the process. That is the betrayal of the country. That is the betrayal of the Congress. That's the betrayal of the American people. That's the betrayal of the world. People who don't remember that are trying to spin this for their own particular short-term partisan interest and they should not be allowed to get away with it. The most important thing of course now, that aside, ... is what is it going to take to get out of there in a way that, one, protects our national security interests, which has been terribly compromised in the region. ... .." [Italics added.]

Continuing their support, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson affirm Hillary offers the "strongest plan" to end the war via a new ad running in WV and OR.


Transcript:

JOE: We challenged the Bush Administration when they wouldn't tell the truth about weapons of mass destruction. And they tried to destroy us for speaking out.

VALERIE: Ending the Iraq War means a lot to us and that's why we're supporting Hillary. She has been a leader in pushing the administration for a serious exit strategy.

JOE: And Hillary has the strongest plan for bringing our troops home... starting within 60 days.

VALERIE: If you care about ending the war, we urge you to join us in supporting Hillary Clinton for president.

JOE: She'll get the job done.

UPDATE: Joseph posted comments from Josh Marshall readers that viciously smear Joe and Valerie. Once upon a time, the Left Blogosphere, which has morphed into the Obamasphere, adored them for their stand against the Bush Administration. No more:

Screw him and his wife.

The Wilsons are just disgusting CESSPOOL dwellers

Hillary's second major Republican endorsement after Rush.

At least she doesn't trash Obama or mention that only white people care about ending the war.

I know they're hacks and are loyal to her husband...

they are a test case that suffering is not ennobling--if you love your reflection more than your country. Their behavior since has shown them to be limelight-loving partisan hacks

Joe Wilson was one of the expeditors of Bush I's Iraq turkey shoot and the subsequent "1,000,000 Iraqi dead are worth it" sanctions. And his wife was a friggin' CIA agent, for chrissakes, making the world safe for US vampire capitalism. Of course, they would support Ma Scorpion. That's what the Clintons do -- put a happy face on barbarism.

If these readers represent Barry's new coalition, woe to liberal Democrats.

Blaming Hillary for feminist divide

I'm grateful that Suzie at Echidne of the Snakes undertook deconstructing the specious arguments unearthed in Betsy Reed's column at The Nation. I was exhausted with headache from banging my noggin on my keyboard after reading Reed. Also glad I let my Nation subscription lapse before the primary season launched. Spared me the hassle of a cancellation letter.

Dividing feminists (line breaks replace indentation):

In the We Hate Hillary issue of The Nation, executive editor Betsy Reed blames Clinton for dividing feminists. The article has gotten acclaim in the liberal blogosphere.

I have a few problems with the article, beginning with the idea of division. No. 1, division doesn’t seem to be Reed’s real point. She wouldn’t want feminists to unite behind Clinton; she wants them to support Obama. Wanting everyone to support your candidate is not the same as disliking discord.

Using her logic, couldn’t someone say Obama divided feminists because he appeals to some and not others?

No. 2, you can’t have a rift unless you had unity before. Anyone who thinks the feminist movement ever marched in lock step needs to read some history.

Inadvertently, Reed illustrates this point by naming the different kinds of bad feminists who support Clinton (mainstream, corporate, institutional, second wave) vs. the good feminists who support Obama (antiwar, antiracist and young). The latter are more sophisticated, she says, because they are not “confined” to feminism. (Take away message: If you work full-time on feminist issues, bad. If you work for an organization that focuses on feminism, bad.)

Who supports whom is not as simple as she suggests. The petition “Feminists for Clinton” includes women who have written on race and war.

Reed runs a magazine in which male writers dominate. Socialism and feminism have had a rocky relationship from the get-go, and in the United States, the sexism of the Left sparked much of second-wave feminism.

Her article begins by describing the “torrent of misogyny” in the campaign, but she says Clinton is the wrong woman to rally around. This reminds me of arguments over rape and abortion. Feminists cannot always find a violated virgin to support. Sometimes they build their case around the person they have.

Reed doesn’t blame Obama or his supporters for any of the campaign’s sexism. No, it’s the woman’s fault. Reed says the “militaristic” “hawk” Clinton has injected sexism into the campaign by acting more “macho” than the “feline Obama.” Although she knows their votes and policies are close, she suggests what really matters is their attitudes. Let me get this straight: If Bush had carried out the same war, but he had acted more catlike, whatever that means, and less bellicose, that would have been OK? As a supervisor, I was taught to judge people on performance, not attitude, and I still think that’s a good rule to follow.

Reed talks about white women voting for Clinton, but doesn’t mention Latinas or any other women of color who support Clinton. Once again, a world of color has been rendered black and white.

Prominent supporters of Clinton believe that gender is more oppressive than race, Reed claims. (Perhaps some do, but many have denied that, including Gloria Steinem, whom she names.) She makes the point, as have many others, that people should not say one form of oppression is worse than another. But I don’t see the people who say this trashing those who think racism is worse than sexism. Shouldn’t it work both ways?

Clinton supporters don’t just give gender a higher priority, Reed says. Their campaign has been racist, “enabled” by the media. Reed rehashes racist and sexist charges discussed at length by others. For a different point of view, see Clinton supporter Anglachel in her recent posts “The Whiteness of the Whale” and “Millstone.” I hope people will read different opinions and make up their own minds.

If Reed is wrong, then she and other Obama supporters are the ones creating harmful divisions in feminism and the Democratic Party. For the sake of argument, however, let’s say she’s right. If one oppression is no worse than another, why would racist attacks on Obama be worse than sexist attacks on Clinton? One answer is that racism is trickier, according to Reed.

Clinton has, to be sure, faced a raw misogyny that has been more out in the open than the racial attacks on Obama have been. But while sexism may be more casually accepted, racism, which is often coded, is more insidious and trickier to confront.

Is it not possible that coded, insidious, tricky sexism exists, too? Why should we assume all sexism is out in the open?

Reed quotes sociology professor Patricia Hill Collins, keynote speaker next month at the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association, on the risk of alienating young black women from feminism. Since feminists are split in this campaign, why should black women who dislike Clinton be alienated from the movement as a whole? Why shouldn’t they want to build coalitions with women like Collins and Reed? I wish all young women, no matter their ethnicity, would learn that no one has a lock on feminism. It is not a monolith. Different women have different ideas.

Unfortunately, Reed didn't realize the diverse opinions among women, that one can be antiwar, antiracist, and pro-Hillary. Through her prism of view--look at the damning cover--blaming Hillary for dividing feminists somehow seemed justified. But it's not. From my POV, Reed's dialogue is counter-productive and divisive. I also wonder why did she exempt Mr. New Kind of Politics from alienating women? Must be good for business to appeal to Obama readers, no?

Get your game face on for Hillary

Hillary is still in this race despite the 24/7 media spiel anointing Obama the winner and the chortling over the perceived fait accompli in the Obamasphere. So get your game face on and let's roll.

In cramming a lot into one post, I've abbreviated some of the cites so click the links to understand the whole picture.

Who has our worthless media establishment cut out of the political discourse?

Older voters. For Obama, it's teh suck:

The Clinton campaign consistently includes Hillary Clinton’s appeal to seniors when it discusses why she is the better choice to face off against John McCain – but the media seldom mentions older voters, choosing instead to concentrate on Clinton’s appeal to “white working class” voters to hype the race angle in the campaign.

The Obama campaign’s use of talking points involving “new voters” and a “new coalition” is sending a message to older voters – that “old” is worth a lot less to them than “new”, that young voters are more important than older voters, and that the “new coalition” means that the concerns of the “old coalition” members are no longer critical to the Party.

And all this is going on when the Republican Party will have a 71 year old as its nominee.

Paul Lukasiak provides in-depth analysis, numbers, charts, a whole megillah.

Who joined Republicans against progressive Democrats to undermine the middle class by voting for legislation with the Orwellian name, Class Action Fairness Act?

You know who:

In 2005, Barack Obama voted for CAFA, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Who voted against it? Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer and other progressive Democrats. Even Harry Reid. Who voted with Obama? Republicans, from Trent Lott to Lindsay Graham to Jeff Sessions and Democrats Joe Lieberman and Diane Feinstein (big surprise.)

Jeralyn of TalkLeft discusses why it was a very bad bill and commenter andrys adds more flesh to some of *cough* Barry's benefactors:

Obama gives Hope to corporations - Truthdig, Apr 28, 2008

Barack Obama Inc.: The birth of a Washington machine - (Harpers, Oct 26, 2006 issue)

Obama Campaign press release - response to Harper's article - Oct. 23, 2006

A Bit More on Barack - Harper's added detail for Obama campaign - Oct. 26, 2006. This includes Obama's explanation that We can do better than burdening businesses with cases of class-action abuse.

All his talk about not knuckling under to special interests is talk. M'yeah. Smell the hypocrisy. Here's a whiff of Barry's stealthy lobbyist network from The Hill.

Polls from West Virginia and Kentucky indicate an upcoming Hillary landslide.

Do you wonder why the media have gone ga-ga for Obama as if he's got the nomination? C'mon. The media are corporate subsidiaries comprised of influence peddlers dedicated to the plutocracy. Via tngen at Corrente:

There’s a good reason for the recent Obamabot psyops, pundit declarations, general wailing and at times cajoling Clinton supporters have been subjected to since her recent Indiana victory was spun into a loss: Clinton still has a very good chance of securing the nomination.

What’s more, the next few days are absolutely critical for her and her supporters. The end is only here if we allow the latest round to depress morale and turnout for the upcoming WV and KY primaries.

Jay Cost at RCP lays out why Clinton’s down but not out. First some numbers and demographics:

Two things are holding me back: West Virginia and Kentucky.

—SNIP—

However, it is possible that she could counter Tuesday’s blowout with two big blowouts of her own in the next two weeks. This could undo most of the damage done by her big loss in North Carolina, and put her back on track....

...What happens to “It’s Over” if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. “Over” will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

Lambert weighed in:

I keep thinking that, if they really had it in the bag, they wouldn’t be screaming so loud that they’ve got it in the bag — and then attributing Hillary’s persistence to, er, psychological factors (“You know how women are…”)... Eh? ...I mean, why doesn’t Obama just release the 50 SDs he’s got in the bag and have done with it?

NOTE And I love that “elite opinion” has congealed around Obama triumphalism. This is the Village [aka media pundit class]. They’re always wrong about everything.

To quote a Daily Howler bromide I'll repeat often in the next few days: "You really can’t run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps." Big media is out of touch, disconnected in their ivory towers. They want to pitch information, not listen to info consumers. You think we have a free press in America with the public's best interest at heart? Don't make me open a can of bwahahahahaha.

What's happening to the Democratic Party? And are the Blog Boyz still members of the reality-based community?

Super-smart Anglachel analyzes the "mass psychosis that has overtaken half of [our] party" and the "dissolution of what should have been a solidly unified party." She delves into the break-up, the differences between Obama's and Hillary's approach, and a "revolution" of Barry's new "saints" demanding old sinners--Hillary supporters--to simply give up and bow to The One.

What I see rising from the other side is clearly of two kinds. Half of Obama's support is simply racial identity voting. The other half is from the faction of the party that is significantly insulated from the stark world of need and want. There is a love of the other-worldly where the beauty of the idea and the ideal matters more than the base. The political "base" is seen as base - low, uncouth, adulterated, impure, unworthy. They are not among the saved and the saints. I honestly cannot remember a previous time when so many people in the party were reviled for doing nothing except vote for a conventional candidate....

...Cultural liberals really do tend to think that people who fit the profile of Clinton voters don't have deeply held principles and are not capable of forming complex opinions of the world, little more than dupes of puppet masters like Karl Rove. They act from false consciousness, not from the rich inner life that the properly educated and worldly claim as their own. The dedication and commitment of Clinton voters is denied because those hicks can't really believe anything, and thus the saints need not take into consideration the desires of the fallen as real, let alone legitimate.

Are Clinton voters to STFU and sit down until our ballots are required at the sacrificial altar of The One? Ha! Think again. Anglachel cites Obama supporter Chris Bowers to prove her point. He wrote:

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

The New Democratic coalition is kicking the working class (and whole lot of other folks who aren't Bubbas) to the curb.

Note the Bowers echo in the words of the DNC's Donna Brazile here and whoa! A hostile response from her here. (Thank you, Joseph!)

After reading Bowers's crazy talk, I wish someone would spike the Blog Boyz Kool-Aid with lithium. Maybe their manic phase would subside and snap the boyz back to reality. Grandiosity and hubris has run amok. McCain and the GOP will make lemonade out of a chunk of Hillary supporters pegged as lemons cast aside as old.

I'm fighting for Hillary because she's fighting for us all. Let's do it.

Clinton letter to Obama on Michigan, Florida

A request to resolve the votes of Michigan and Florida:

May 8, 2008

Senator Barack Obama
Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

Dear Senator Obama,

This has been an historic and exciting campaign. Millions of new voters have been brought into the process and their enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and the principles for which you and I have fought and continue to fight is unprecedented.

One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and Michigan. Whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee will be hamstrung in the general election if a fair and quick resolution is not reached that ensures that the voices of these voters are heard. Our commitment now to this goal could be the difference between winning and losing in November.

I have consistently said that the votes cast in Florida and Michigan in January should be counted. We cannot ignore the fact that the people in those states took the time to be a part of this process and to make their preferences known. When efforts were untaken by leaders in those states to hold revotes to ensure that they had a voice in selecting our nominee, I supported those efforts. In Michigan, I supported a legislative effort to hold a revote that the Democratic National Committee said was in complete compliance with the party's rules. You did not support those efforts and your supporters in Michigan publically opposed them. In Florida a number of revote options were proposed. I am not aware of any that you supported. In 2000, the Republicans won an election by successfully opposing a fair counting of votes in Florida. As Democrats, we must reject any proposals that would do the same.

Your commitment to the voters of these states must be clearly stated and your support for a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated.

I am asking you to join me in working with representatives from Florida and Michigan and the Democratic National Committee to arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan. It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

How will Obama respond? Will he toss it off as a political stunt? What about the DNC? Will he defer to the rules and bylaws committee meeting on May 31? Or will he take a lead role in resolving the MI, FL votes? I don't see how he can ignore these two battleground states. Good for Hillary for upping the ante and bringing the issue into the public's eye.

Saying no to Obama and sexism

Brilliance from the Reclusive Leftist: "Why I will not vote for Obama even if he’s the nominee — and why you shouldn’t either"

Far too much good stuff to do justice with a snippet here and there so go read the entire essay.

Clipped some grafs to drive the point of how damaging sexism has been and is; the complicity of so-called "hope-change-unity, yes, we can" supporters who enable, deny, and refuse for whatever reason to speak out against it, or worse, utilize misogynistic speech degrading Hillary and women in general.

The Obamabots are under the delusion that if Obama wins the nomination (which he hasn’t yet, by the way), all of us in the Hillary camp will forget about the misogyny and come over to their side. Make nice for the sake of party unity. Forgive all the abuse.

Nope.

Several of us have tried over the past couple of months to explain why that won’t happen, but the Obamabots don’t seem to understand. And I know why: it’s because they don’t take sexism seriously. When women say we will not reward misogyny, we’re laughed off. The Obamabots just tell more jokes and hurl more insults and write more crass articles about how the little lay-dees have their little pan-tees in a twist.

They understand how vile racism is--and it is disgustingly immoral--but they're clueless about how despicable sexism is. Now pretend the roles are reversed. Sexism is vehemently denounced, which favors the female presidential candidate, but racial innuendoes and discrimination used to smear her African-American opponent gets a pass:

...Obama, not Hillary, is the punching bag of the media — a media that is blatantly and unapologetically racist. And I do mean blatant. Jokes every night on the cable news shows about Obama’s hair and his fondness for fried chicken. Pundits laughing about what a problem uppity Negroes are.

Across the country, racists openly ridicule Obama and his candidacy. In mainstream stores there are gag gifts playing on racist themes: maybe a (water)Melon Baller with Obama’s head on the handle, maybe a Barack Obama Shoeshine Set — you get the picture. 501c groups invoke the most grotesque racist slurs with their advertising; T-shirts say “Quit Running for President and Shine My Shoes!” Anybody who protests is branded a fool and a spoilsport.

Online, Hillary’s supporters constantly refer to Obama and his supporters as n—–s and c— -s and all the other epithets I refuse to type out. Blogger Boyz blog about those stupid lazy Negroes who are still wallowing in memories of the Civil Rights era, too dumb to get with the program and vote for Hillary.

And the lies: Obama is constantly lied about, belittled, demeaned. His record is distorted, his character impugned. Every day the pundits and the Blogger Boyz urge him to drop out of the race, to remember his place, to give up his seat to the white woman. All in the interest of “party unity.”

And nary a word of reproach from Hillary herself. No denunciation at all of the relentless racism. In fact, she actually cracks a few racist remarks herself, albeit subtle ones. She jokes and nods with the media about “letting” Obama run as long as he wants to. And when she makes speeches about American values, she talks a lot about women’s rights but never mentions civil rights. She’s strikingly silent on the subject. Even when she delivers a major address on the importance of rooting out bigotry, she neglects to mention racism at all.

Fast forward to:

If you’re an adult American with even half a lick of sense, you know damn well that there is no way black folks would stand for that crap. There is no way any self-respecting African-Americans in this day and age would take that from the Democrats. It’s inconceivable that anybody would expect them to.

Because dig it: if the Democrats carried on like that, they wouldn’t be any better than the Republicans. And they sure as hell wouldn’t deserve the African-American vote.

Why should it be any different with women?

If Barack Obama and his supporters become the new Democratic party, then the Democratic party will no longer be the party of women’s rights. There will still be women in the party, naturally, but basic respect for women as citizens will be a dead letter. It will be the party of John Roberts and anti-choicers and the most virulent outbreak of public misogyny I’ve ever seen. All the sexism of this campaign will be rewarded instead of repudiated.

And that Democratic party will not deserve my vote.

The Supreme argument

Are Obamaroids making the rounds jamming pro-Hillary blogs with fear tactics? Doncha know the Supreme Court is at stake!?! Crikey.

When Democratic senators joined the Cons to confirm Roberts and Alito, they tilted the U.S. Supreme Court to a decidedly conservative bent (see roll call at the bottom). Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog summarized in September 2007:

As one of the most conservative in recent memory, the just-completed 2006 Term has recently served as a rallying cry for progressives. The two most prominent cases (by an order of magnitude) involved hot-button social issues - race and abortion - and both resulted in significant conservative rulings. Moreover, the Ledbetter case (opinion [PDF] here), in which the Court limited Title VII’s backpay remedy, continues to receive significant attention as the Democratic Congress considers legislation to overrule it. . . Those cases (along with, for example, the Wisconsin Right to Life campaign finance decision) were all decided by the same five-Justice majority composed of the Court’s most conservative members.

Essentially, we have a 5-4 right-wing SCOTUS that favors business and wingnut interests over American citizens. Anyone paying attention rather than trying to score Obama talking points would realize the damage already done. BDBlue challenges the spiel about Roe v. Wade:

If Obama becomes the party nominee, as seems likely, those of us who are not Obama supporters will get an earful on why we have to vote for him in November. Some of these reasons will be fairly good ones. One of them, IMO, is not. That one is that of course we all have to support Obama, think of the Supreme Court. This one is often aimed at those of us who are women with the implied threat that if we don’t fall in line and be good girls, we’ll lose our rights under Roe v. Wade.

I call bullshit on this argument. I will not have my body held hostage by the Democratic - or any - political party.

High five, BDBlue, and precisely why I am voting this November for a presidential candidate who's pro-choice but the name isn't Obama. Secondly, coercive rhetoric and playing the guilt card--a hypocritical move if Mr New Kind of Politics ain't no fraud--offend my liberal conscience and I reject efforts to extort my vote. Freedom = freedom and I denounce activities, zealotry, or compromises that attempt to subvert it.

The electoral prize, IMO, is electing a liberal Democratic majority in the House and Senate. BDBlue:

McCain cannot stack the Supreme Court or any Court with wing-nut judges by himself. His nominees have to be confirmed by the Senate. A Senate that will almost certainly be controlled by Democrats, probably with an increased majority. Why should I have to worry about Roe v. Wade or any other core constitutional right? While the Democrats would inevitably have to compromise on some issues with a Republican president (just as Obama will have to compromise some to get legislation through the Senate given the unlikelihood of a filibuster-proof majority), surely a body that is controlled by the Democratic Party will fight for my right to control my body. And if they won’t, then why am I electing any of them to Congress?

Another significant consideration are state elections and referendums. The fight to roll back pro-choice has been and will continue at the state level, for example: petition drives, ballot/legislative measures to ban abortion (South Dakota), add restrictions (California), and amend state constitutions to define a "person" as a zygote (Colorado, Georgia). Supporting the right to choose and the right to privacy begins in local communities and states.

I have never stated that I will stay home in November. I will vote in the general election due to referendums and local, state, congressional, and presidential candidates vetted and deemed worthy of my vote. I erased Obama from the list long before Super Tuesday. The more I see him, hear him, and learn about his liaisons, public record, and policies--I know how to visit his website--the more satisfied I am with my decision.

Case closed.

POSTSCRIPT: Senate Democrats who voted to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice in 2005:

Baucus (D-MT)
Byrd (D-WV)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT) WTF?!
Dorgan (D-ND)
Feingold (D-WI) WTF?!
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT) WTF?!
Levin (D-MI) WTF?!
Lieberman (DINO-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Wyden (D-OR)

Senate Democrats who voted to confirm Samuel Alito to the SCOTUS in 2006:

Byrd (D-WV)
Conrad (D-ND)
Johnson (D-SD)
Nelson (D-NE)

Indiana's late voter tally

Charles Lemos asked poignant questions about the delayed voter totals from Lake County, IN, which didn't release until after midnight:

...the suburban part of Lake County noted that they had submitted their result to county officials by 7:30PM Eastern Time. And yet the results were not released. Why? The Mayor of Gary suggests it was because “they were being extra careful.” Careful with what? A computer? Or filling out paper ballots? For the record, Lake County uses a combination of the failed, unverifiable MicroVote Infinity DREs and paper-based MV-464’s voting machines, according to Verified Voting’s database of voting systems. More bizarre was that the absentee ballots had not been counted. Normally, they have been counted by the time the polls close. Why weren’t they counted? Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary danced around the issue and fail to offer a cogent explanation for the delay. . . Did Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary suddenly realize he needed to push the button? Something is not quite right and it needs to be explored further. There was no transparency in Lake County, Indiana and officials there need to be held accountable. I’d start by asking the Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary, Indiana a few questions. And it is the Department of Justice that should be asking those questions because the Mayor Tom McDermott of Hammond is correct, there is the appearance of impropriety.

Watch the confrontation between Gary's Mayor Clay and Hammond's Mayor McDermott. When McDermott began challenging Clay's lame excuses, he speculated that "something corrupt may be happening"... and... Poof! Results magically jumped from 58% t0 98%, slicing Clinton's lead to a narrow win.

Mayor Clay had boasted of an Indiana shocker:

"Let me tell you, when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you're looking at something for the world to see," Clay, an Obama supporter, said in a telephone interview from Obama's Gary headquarters. "I don't know what the numbers are yet, but Gary has absolutely produced in large numbers for Obama here."

Clay said the results were late coming in from Lake County because of the large numbers of absentee ballots that had to be counted -- about 11,000. Under local practice, all of the cartridges from voting machines in Gary and nearby East Chicago are first collected at the local airport before being driven to the county headquarters to be tallied with the results from the rest of the county, he said. He said there were no major technical problems holding up the count....

...In March, Clay predicted the race would come down to Gary, telling the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times that tonight on CNN, "They are going to point at Indiana and say Hillary Clinton is leading by one point but Gary ain't come in yet."

Ahem! If there were no technical glitches, then why was the count delayed? Isn't it also strange that voting machine cartridges are gathered at the local airport... and a few went missing? WTF? Something very odd happened in Lake County last night. Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita is also critical of the late returns (see also "Lake County questioned about slow vote counting" video at this link).

Watch the YouTube provided by Charles Lemos. Something wasn't right.

What does it all mean? IMO, FrenchDoc gets it right.

Primary split

On last night's primary results, Riverdaughter speaks for me:

The votes were close in IN and not so close in NC. But we all know why this is. Indiana was an open primary. We don’t yet know how many crossover votes there were to make havoc. Plus, Obama *should* have had a major geographical advantage and Chicago media market spillover. It *should* have been a blow out for him in Indiana as well. It doesn’t look like his urban-youth-DINK-Republican crossover vote was enough though. Most of those Republican votes will not be staying with us for the general, of course. He won urban areas where African-American votes are highest. He did the same in NC where he won the middle of the state where 2/3 of the population lives. And 35% of the state is African-American.

I think what we’re seeing here is a real racial divide. It was engineered, deliberately, by Obama’s campaign in order to separate African Americans from the Clintons. It has worked spectacularly well. Obama consistently wins urban and southern AA voters, by lopsided margins. It didn’t have to be this way. There was no reason for the African-American community to spurn Clinton. But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies- experience, knowledge base, earned coalitions, even interest. Obama has not reached out to the working class, to women, to the elderly, the loyal base of the Democratic party. But he has managed to exacerbate the fault line in the party when it comes to race. There’s no doubt about that now.

Winning NC does not make me like him more nor do I have an elevated desire to vote for him. Let me dispel the notion that he and his supporters have about me voting for him in the fall: unless Florida and Michigan are seated and have an impact on the nomination, I will not consider the nomination legitimate. That doesn’t mean I’ll vote for John McCain. It just means that I don’t know what I’ll do when I stand in front of that button. And don’t hang this on Hillary. If it comes to that, I’m sure she would do her best to GOTV. It has nothing to do with her. It has to do with how deeply offended I am by how Obama has split my party on racial lines and pitted race against their regular party members, as if there was a real split there to begin with. As if I were the enemy....

Reminiscent of Obama's stereotypically wrong and bitter arrogance, Donna Brazile, divider extraordinaire, said on CNN last night:

BRAZILE: Well, Lou, I have worked on a lot of Democratic campaigns, and I respect Paul.... But, Paul, you're looking at the old coalition. A new Democratic coalition is younger. It is more urban, as well as suburban, and we don't have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics. We need to look at the Democratic Party, expand the party, expand the base and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. [Emphasis added.]

Here's a hint: to unify the party, don't insult the "old coalition" that's halfway out the door should the superdelegates choose Obama.

POSTSCRIPT: See also Lambert's NC/IN primary wrap-up and hat tip to TalkLeft's Brazile vs. Begala on CNN: Brazile's Blowout. Maps from CNN.

Obama attack ad misquotes Krugman

Krugman asked, Is Obama misrepresenting what I said?

I don’t have a link to the ad itself, but apparently there’s an Obama ad citing something I said about McCain’s gas tax holiday as a way to attack Hillary Clinton.

I did not say that the Clinton proposal would increase oil industry profits. If the ad implies that I did, it should be retracted.

Below is the Obama ad attacking Clinton with the erroneous claim, "Experts say" Hillary's "gas tax gimmick" will "boost oil industry profits." Note the cite, The New York Times, April, 28, 2008, a reference to Paul Krugman's column, "which discusses Sen. McCain's plan, not Hillary's plan." Details here.

Transcript:

Announcer: More “low road” attacks from Hillary Clinton…Now she’s pushing a “bogus” gas tax gimmick…Experts say it’ll just “boost oil industry profits” ….they’ll “simply raise prices and pocket… the difference.” Clinton aides admit it won’t do much for you – but would help her politically. So here’s the choice…Clinton gimmicks that help big oil…Or Barack Obama… a real energy plan and a $1000 middle class tax cut to help families truly pay the bills.

Mr. New Kind of Politics doesn't live up to his promise, does he?

POSTSCRIPT: Link to the ad in case the embedded ad above craps out. Hat tip to TalkLeft.

Monday catch-up, Tuesday predictions

Since I've been somewhat unplugged for the past few days, checked in with various sources for a little catch-up. As we head toward Tuesday's primaries...

SurveyUSA tracking poll in Indiana:

24 hours untill [sic] votes are counted in the Indiana Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama in the symbolically important popular vote, and possibly by enough to pick up more than a trivial number of net Convention delegates, according to SurveyUSA’s final pre-primary tracking poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati and WHAS-TV Louisville. In 4 tracking polls over the past 5 weeks, Clinton has never polled lower than 52%, Obama has never polled higher than 43%. At the wire, they finish: Clinton 54%, Obama 42%.

SUSA's tracking poll for North Carolina:

On the eve of the North Carolina Democratic Primary, with 25% of votes already cast, Barack Obama has no breathing room in his hope to defeat Hillary Clinton in popular votes, according to SurveyUSA’s 8th and final tracking poll, conducted exclusively for WTVD-TV, the ABC-owned TV station in Raleigh. On the final day of the fiercely fought campaign, it’s Obama 50%, Clinton 45%. There is no foreseeable outcome in North Carolina, regardless of which candidate wins the popular vote, where one candidate collects significantly more Convention delegates than the other. Therefore, the exact final vote totals have much more symbolic importance than real importance.

VastLeft's list laid out an excellent Clinton vs. Obama summary of why Hillary over Barry... point by point.

Jerome Armstrong put up two ads: one "closer" from Clinton and one from Obama, "probably his most negative ad to date." Jeralyn at TalkLeft offered a transcript on the Obama ad. Irony alert! Mr. New Kind of Politics uses a negative attack ad to accuse, "And what does Hillary Clinton offer us? More of the same old negative politics."

Clinton and Obama talked with local gay media in North Carolina and Indiana. The Obama interview was his first with local gay press. What took him so long? QNotes, which covers both NC and SC, posted the Clinton interview here, Obama interview here. In Indiana, the LGBT magazine, Reality, "along with bloomingOUT, The Bloomington Beacon, The Letter, Indiana Equality and The Word," asked questions of the candidates and published their responses here. (Via)

Riverdaughter coined the new term--“Mitchellism”--and defined it as: "The tendency of the media to see American politics through its own eyes and to over value its impact on the voting public."

This tendency has been noted before by other bloggers who have referred to the Washington DC press corps and pundits as The Villagers, that self-selected authority of knowledge of what the voters will or will not tolerate. High-Brodersim is another variation and is the belief that the root of the problem in American politics is too much partisanship and if the Democrats would just sell out all of their beliefs and try to meet Republicans half way, there wouldn’t be any more fights and there would be unity and much rejoicing and we could all buy the world a Coke. Barack Obama is a disciple of High Broderism.

Funny un-ha-ha how the Obamasphere hasn't noticed the similarities between "post-partisan" rhetoric and High Broderism.

Riverdaughter went on to say, "But I have noticed a curious thing happening this primary season. I don’t think the voters trust the media much these days." I agree. Here's why: from a big picture perspective, an annual report on The State of News Media 2007 stated, "The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows." In its "Public Attitudes" section, the report reiterated:

...the public’s confidence in 2006 according to some indices continued to slip.

And perceptions of bias, and the partisan divide of media, appear to be on the rise.

All that comes, of course, against a background of more than 20 years of growing skepticism about journalists, their companies and the news media as an institution. As we have noted in other reports,since the early 1980s, the public has come to view the news media as less professional, less accurate, less caring, less moral and more inclined to cover up rather than correct mistakes.

I suspect the disconnect between the public, which includes voters, and the media has widened this year.

Sometimes Bob Somerby's candor tickles me when he analyzes media bias:

COHEN (2/12/08): My Feb. 5 column was critical of Hillary Clinton for supporting a bill to make flag burning illegal. I have since learned from a reader that Barack Obama also supported that bill.

That’s right, dumb-ass! Clinton supported the flag-burning bill. And Obama supported it too!

But then, more than half the senate’s Democrats supported that bill, in June 2006. It was brought to the floor by Dick Durbin, Obama’s biggest senate supporter. Everyone understands the politics of these bills–everyone but [Richard] Cohen and [Gail] Collins, that is. Because they’re two of the world’s biggest androids, they keep singing the same tired songs.

Shhhhh! Don't tell the Hillary-haters at the Orange Sippy Cup™ who criticize Clinton over the flag-burning amendment. Their CDS-suffering heads might explode with reality.

Speaking of a lost grasp on reality, a Cannonfire update on the robocall controversy involving Women's Voices, Women's Votes demonstrates that "another Obamabot attempt to do the GOP's work" is still ticking as if it's "never been discussed before!"

Yesterday at the Left Coaster, eRiposte debunked the hoopla over the gas tax holiday:

Aside from the usual jokers rending their garments over it, I don't find the gas tax holiday back-and-forth to be particularly earth-shaking. I already linked to two Paul Krugman posts that touched on the gas tax issue in previous posts; one of Krugman's posts was a specific critique of Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain's different proposals and another was an op-ed where he again mentions the gas tax issue in a broader context. I agree with Krugman's view that Sen. Clinton's proposal is "pointless not evil".

All politicians pander and I've never said Sen. Clinton is above pandering. That said, her proposal has been misrepresented or distorted by the Obama campaign (see here and here) and by some in the media (see here). Sen. Obama's own history of pandering and his repeated voting in favor of a gas tax holiday in 2000 (when gas prices were much lower) make his current pronouncements on this matter, um, amusing....

My new friend Declarations of Pride posted a rallying cry: On Tuesday, the game will change!

On Tuesday, Hillary will vastly pad her lead in the popular vote. On Tuesday voters will show momentum for Hillary by way of votes of confidence for her that were once not thought to swing her way. Voters will change the game on Tuesday because the luster of inspiration isn't enough to make change happen. The voters will change the game on Tuesday because the Senator from Illinois is becoming less consistent. The voters will change the direction of the wave of democracy on Tuesday because electability is more important that hope alone. Hope can only be fulfilled if the hopeful win. Otherwise that hope was just a dream, and it appears that democratic voters are waking from the Obama dream as it turns to a nightmare where McCain could be President.

Voters are changing the game. Voters are continuing the shift in opinion. Whereas Barack was once seen as the only option, buyers remorse has set in, and the voters are changing the game to who they see as the GE winner: Hillary! Hillary has demonstrated over and over again a winning strategy that includes more than hope for change, but details, plans and understanding of how to make change happen. The voters are changing the game because they know that hope of change alone isn't enough. For change you have to have a plan. For change you have to have an understanding of the problem. For change you need stamina, charisma, and the will to fight on in the face of your enemies. Otherwise, your only hope is to return to sleep and dream of a reality that never had a chance.

Couldn't have said it better!

CREDITS: Cropped photo originally shot by Barbara Kinney.

Comment moderation update

I've added cyberstalkers who annoy me to my previous policy on comment moderation. A reminder:

I'm fairly tolerant of dissenting opinions but abusive, sexist, racist, or inflammatory language that annoys me, I will not tolerate. If you don't like it, exercise your First Amendment rights at your own blog.

For the record, there are only two persons that I have banned from Haloscan:

1) one from Texas who posted sexist rants on a few different topics using the B-word repeatedly. I disemvowelled his creepy posts.

2) a cyberstalker from Arizona who, today, used a computer from Pima Community College in Tucson and a different name while complaining about the ban. Since I've only banned two people, it was easy to figure out who he was despite the sudden name change.

My next step is to enable Haloscan comment moderation that many blogs use. Now I better understand why using moderation before allowing a comment to post has become customary.

A lesson learned.

Unbridled misogyny

Joseph Cannon reported this gawd-awful Hillary-bashing news from O-bots go psycho:

And a new O-bot post at the Daily Cheeto bears this lovely title: “Senator Obama please take your foot and step on her throat!”

What's next from the DailyKooks? A call to waterboard Hillary Clinton into submission?

Sick.

The pledged delegate sham

Super-smart Paul Lukasiak breaks out why the pledged delegate count is a ridiculous metric for selecting a nominee:

As far as Obama’s supporters are concerned, a voter in Ohio is worth only 1/23 of a voter in Alaska. In Alaska, 8,877 voters chose the state’s 13 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, or 683 voters per delegate. In Ohio, 2,194,851 voters chose that state’s 141 pledged delegate. That’s 15,566 voters per delegate.

Or perhaps Obama’s supporters really think that a voter in Ohio is worth only 1/37 of an Alaskan voter. Based on the support of 4480 more people, Barack Obama picked up 5 more delegates to the Democratic Convention than Hillary Clinton in Alaska.. That’s 896 Obama supporters per extra delegate. Clinton picked up 7 more delegates than Obama in Ohio, based on her support from 229,873 more Ohioans, or 32,839 Clinton supporters per extra delegate.

In other words, if the Democratic National Committee treated the votes of Alaskans and Ohioans as equal, and gave Clinton an extra delegate for every 893 supporters in Ohio, Clinton would have received not 7, but 257 more delegates than Obama from that state. But thanks to the way in which the DNC allocates delegates, and DNC’s willingness to permit different states to select their Convention delegates in an undemocratic fashion, Clinton gets only 2 more delegates from Ohio than Obama gets from Alaska, despite the fact that Clinton’s combined popular vote advantage from these two states is over 225,000.

This is just one of the absurdities that lies at the foundation of the argument of Obama supporters that the person who wins the most pledged delegates during the primary season has a right to be the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 2008. [Emphasis added.]

Paul offered a tremendous amount of information. I've clipped the opening grafs. Click over for the full picture. Part of Paul's conclusion deserves more attention than the A-List fauxgressives have acknowledged:

As of right now, Obama’s delegate lead is almost entirely from “caucus” states – states where each voter is provided with far more weight than in the primary states, and gives individual voters in heavily Republican states three times more influence than voters in crucial swing states when it comes to electing delegates.

Obama lead in primary states is only 8 delegates. Obama 8 vote lead in primary states is based on getting 71 more delegates than Clinton from states that haven’t voted for a Democrat for President in the last three elections, and where Democrats have lost by an average margin of over 16 points in the last three years. In terms of the primary vote totals, Obama is only close to Clinton thanks to these heavily Republican primary states, where he has a lead of more than 813,000 in the popular vote.

Clinton has dominated the primaries in crucial “swing states” and “heavily Democratic” states, garnering the support of over 51,000 more voters than Obama in these states, and winning 63 more delegates there....

...When Obama supporters argue that the delegate count is the only thing that matters, they would have you believe that the outcomes in Ohio and Alaska are not significantly different – only 2 delegates separate the outcome in the two states, and that is all that is important.

It is this kind of thinking that loses Presidential elections. [Emphasis added.]

I've posted previously that I had never paid much attention to the party's peculiar methods of nominating a presidential candidate. Jeebus! Eyes wide open now.

While the Blog Boyz continue their screeching about the pledged delegate count, my response to the Obamasphere is their argument is based on an astoundingly stupid and undemocratic system. UYATUPYRIO. Shame on the party. Paul asked the ultimate question: "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ONE PERSON = ONE VOTE?"

Friday shortcuts

T.G.I.H.

I've got a health issue I need to deal with this afternoon. I'm uninsured, one of the 47 million, so if you would like to help out, hit the PayPal button and thank you kindly.

A few goodies from the bright side...

VastLeft at Corrente posted a linked article by Prof. Adolph Reed on Obama that's a real eye-opener. Must read.

Anglachel calculated the delegate math and Howard Dean--heck, the party--is in a pickle. But you knew that, right? She articulated some ideas that are new.

Indianapolis Star endorsed Hillary via Taylor Marsh.

Egalia at Tennessee Guerilla Women reported: Black Group Issues Outrageous Ultimatum to Super Delegates.

Oh, dear. Obama's O'Reilly Whines by BTD at TalkLeft. And the Obamasphere got Drudged again. The doctored Kantor video that smeared the Clinton campaign by... oh, go read TalkLeft for the links and a snippet via Atrios. BTD: "Moral of the story? The Left blogs have lost their way." Unsurprise! Can't wait to see what Bob Somerby has to say about it all.

Riverdaughter explained why it's been a very bad week for Obama. M'yeah.

Paul Krugman showed no mercy and tells it like it is: "To be clear, both Democratic candidates have been saying things they shouldn’t; Hillary Clinton shouldn’t have endorsed the bad idea of a gas tax holiday. . .But I think Mr. Obama is doing much more harm to the Democratic cause by echoing Republican attack lines on such issues as insurance mandates and Social Security. And now he’s demonstrating his post-partisanship by giving Republicans credit for good ideas they never had."

Larry Johnson discussed Hillary, Iraq and Iran from last night's O'Reilly interview and gets into the details of why Clinton "understands these realities."

That's all for now, folks! Back later.

Hillary Clinton, Bill O'Reilly, part II

I agree with Taylor Marsh who posted the YouTubes from last night's interview, this is Hillary at her best:

This is how you "take on" Fox News, to use the Obama team’s words. You do it with charm, though knowing the facts helps a lot. . . Review on the Bill O’Reilly two-day interview: flawless. Obama couldn’t come close to this performance, nor could any other Democrat. It takes a woman to tame Bill O’Reilly. It’s clear he enjoyed it. So did she.

If you get the chance, go tell Taylor thanks for getting the videos online for all to view. Mucho props!

Videos below from May 1 are in two parts.

In the first video--Part 3--Hillary explained her position on Iran, deterring them from obtaining nukes, getting out of Iraq, how ending the U.S. occupation will impact the Iran/Persian-Iraq/Arab relationship, the fallacy of oil prices rising due to troop withdrawals, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Taliban, AQ, and supporting and working with the pro-democracy forces in Pakistan to reduce terrorism.


In the second video--Part 4--Hillary discussed waterboarding, how torture is wrong, ineffective, and not in the best interests of America... immigration, sanctuary cities, deporting criminals, fixing the problem with a "sensible comprehensive immigration resolution" instead of using the issue as a "political football."


To see the previous interview that aired on Apr. 30, click here.