Archive for the ‘Election '08’ Category

That One-Term Pledge

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

It’s that time of the campaign season where everyone settles down and speculations long and hard about VP speculation. Hopefully it will last long enough to get us to the Olympics, followed by the Democratic Convention, the Republican Convention, and the September-October sprint to the Election. How else will we be able to survive this mess? For now, I want to tie in some speculation at The Crossed Pond about Sarah Palin as VP with the idea (nearly a reality) that McCain could make a one-term pledge.

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Posted in Campaigns, Election '08, McCain | 6 Comments »

Can Barr Be McCain’s Nader?

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Terry “libertarian Democrat” Michael has an op-ed at the Politico making the case for Bob Barr’s potential appeal not only to ex-rEVOLutionaries, but also to a broad cross-section of conservatives disaffected with McCain and the GOP. What’s more, Barr could just possibly rehabilitate (or habilitate?) the Libertarian Party brand back (for the first time?) to respectability. Money quote: (more…)

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Posted in Election '08, obama | No Comments »

Barrmentum

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

I haven’t had the chance to go through the whole thing yet, but here’s Bob Barr bloggingheadsing with Jane Hamsher. Bob Barr is making sense! He certainly sounds a lot more compelling than any other presidential candidate I can think of this week. And he wants to join forces with the left to fight warrantless surveillance. That’s the idea!

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Posted in Election '08 | No Comments »

The Audacity Of Risk-Aversion

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

You know, call me a naive youth, but I’d been holding out a little hope that Barack Obama’s weaselly hedging on the new (awful) FISA bill was just a tactic to allow him to mitigate the risk of voting against a bill the White House, the RNC, and the McCain campaign is suggesting could be the difference between whether hard-working Americans live or die. I.e., Obama could have been trying to make himself sound like the voice of centrist, moderate, non-ideological wisdom, emphasizing his support for the bill in general and expressing his opposition to telecom immunity sotto voce, so that when it came up for a vote, he could claim that the immunity-free legislation he supported was a sensible compromise, and that the Republicans were extremists who insisted on getting 100% of what they wanted or else they’d walk. That might not have been a very effective tactic, given that Steny Hoyer has already quite voluntarily allowed the Republicans to frame their 99% non-compromise as a centrist, moderate, non-ideological compromise, but hey, it would have been consistent with Obama’s usual manner of positioning himself when he takes the liberal side in a lost cause. (Cf. his vote against confirming John Roberts on the Supreme Court.)

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Posted in Democrats, Election '08, Republicans, abuse of power, sheer lunacy, surveillance/privacy, your friend the state | 1 Comment »

Every Knee Shall Bow, Every Tongue Confess that the President “Is All That”

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
-Handel’s Messiah

Presumptive Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, Barack Obama, has apparently sold out by endorsing Steny Hoyer and the Democratic-controlled Congress’s plan to both give George Bush all the power he could want to eavesdrop on Americans’ international communications in secret, and grant retroactive immunity to lawless telecommunications companies (tho Obama says he will fight in the Senate to strip the immunity provision; that means he’ll make a pretty but futile speech, and then vote for a bill with amnesty that will pass the Senate, too). Well, yes, I am profoundly disappointed, but feel no sense of betrayal. Only a fool invests emotionally in any candidate; still greater fools expect the POTUS to be Our Savior. Indeed, such expectations of presidents have rendered the Executive office the danger it has become.

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Posted in "cults", Campaigns, Democrats, Election '08, Republicans, obama | 6 Comments »

Locked and Loaded — But Obama May Want to Upgrade to the (Rhetorical) Howitzer

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Barack Obama appears to understand the Right-wing Noise Machine, and rather than getting all defensive and mewling whiney protests, he declares he is going to take it on: (more…)

Posted in Campaigns, Democrats, Election '08, obama | 9 Comments »

Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Bob Barr: Or, an Authoritarian By Any Other Name…

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Do not vote for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr — if you are a libertarian, you’d have to be schizophrenic to do so. Do not vote for him even if you decide Obama can’t win, or even if for some unfathomable reason are in the tank for McCain and decide he cannot prevail. For if there is one defining attribute of libertarians of any stripe, it is opposition to drug prohibition. Yet, as Radley Balko observed in 2005, Barr has advocated that: (more…)

Posted in Campaigns, Election '08, free speech, libertarianism, the drug "war" | 39 Comments »

Should Obama Pick HRC as his Veep?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Unless he absolutely needs her to beat McSame, I say no. She — and her prominent shills such as former CIA analyst, TeeVee talking head and blogger, Larry Johnson — has done too much damage to his campaign. And, as John Cole notes, the guy whom it seems she’s anointed to lobby Obama for the slot, Robert Johnson, has been among the nastiest. Quoth Cole from a Johnson interview: (more…)

Posted in Democrats, Election '08, obama | 9 Comments »

Press-Corps-Induced Psychosis Syndrome — Soon to Be Included in the DSM IV

Friday, May 30th, 2008

If the Democratic primary season does not end soon with an official nominee — and heaven forefend if it extends to a brokered convention — I shall demand sedation from my physician and spend the months preceding the Democratic National Convention in a sensory-deprivation tank. And no, I am not only tired of the infantile, ginned -up media outrages over my candidate, Obama. Hillary Derangement Syndrome is alive as well.

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Posted in Democrats, Election '08, the media | 1 Comment »

(Update) If I Were Obama…

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

I’d be doing all in my power to convince Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to switch parties and accept the Veep slot. On many issues Hagel holds impeccable conservative creds — but is quite good on war/foreign policy — and being a pale dude from the heartland he could assuage those voters who think Obama is unpatriotic, extreme, and “hates whitey.” And, as the first linked article shows, Hagel can and does say things about McSame that Obama would have some PR problems proclaiming. Among other things, Hagel is a well-decorated Vietnam combat vet. That would make him the perfect harbinger for replying to any insinuations that McCain’s suffering in the Hanoi Hilton renders sensible his contemporary, horrific foreign policy.
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Update: This is the unpleasant problem Hagel might help solve: Obama Faces Uphill Climb vs. McCain Among White Voters
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Posted in Election '08, Republicans who have had enough, obama | 16 Comments »

Horseraceblogging

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

I’m on deadline for a book review due tomorrow night so for the moment I only have more primary-blogging to offer. More in a day or two. Meantime, my cobloggers continue to put up awesome stuff.

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Posted in Democrats, Election '08, Uncategorized, race in America | 3 Comments »

If Space Aliens Were a Voting Bloc…

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Dr. T. gets it right:

Look, it’s really quite simple: If there were a significant population of undecided gray aliens in Pennsylvania, right now Hillary Clinton would be talking fondly about her abduction by aliens and all the life lessons learned on that space ship. She’d be scolding Barack Obama for the way he demeans them. Obama, in turn, would say that he understands their bitterness when the US government has spent decades promising change but instead dissecting their kin in Area 51.

Posted in Democrats, Election '08 | 4 Comments »