Month: January 2008

Edwards’ Final Push

Jane Hamsher so wants to believe:

I like Edwards message, it appeals to me, but I got the sense that if I wasn’t already on his team I might not be persuaded by listening to him. Edwards speaks like a man who is convinced he’s right and will doggedly pursue his message whether people want to hear it or not. Which I respect. but Huckabee has a sense of himself as a man with a message that is right for the time, and all people need to do is hear it and they’ll think so too. The populist frame is not all that different, but one message is alienating, the other enfranchising.

If Obama is the Democratic nominee, many Republicans will cross over to vote for him. If Huckabee is the Republican nominee, will left-wing populists and blue-collar Dems cross over for him?

On The Verge

Iowascotolsongetty

A reader writes:

In case you were looking for the mood of any actual Iowans today…

I am a 31 year old single, professional female, and Iowa native living in Iowa City. I will be a first-time caucus goer tonight. I switched my affiliation from Republican to Democrat only a couple months ago. After many months of being drowned in candidates here in Iowa (I think we ceased having real commercials on TV about a week ago, its been nothing but back-to-back political ads for days), I fully expected to feel relief that this day was finally here. More because I knew tomorrow all the incessant phone calls would stop (Mitt Romney’s campaign called once while I was listening to Obama speak) and life could get back to normal.

I was really surprised to find that when I woke up this morning and saw "Caucus" written on my calendar for today, I was actually excited. Excited to get to participate tonight. Excited when I came to work and found a decorated "O" cookie on my desk from a co-worker. Very excited to be among the very first in the nation to cast a vote for Barack Obama. The only other time I’ve ever been excited or optimistic about a candidate was for John McCain back in 1996, during his plaid shirt days, but even then I wasn’t motivated enough to caucus.

She’s what Richelieu is talking about.

(Photo: a Friendly House gymnasium January 2, 2008 in Davenport, Iowa. Scott Olson/Getty.)

“Stopping The Militant Gays”

Jim Talent says Romney has been consistent with respect to homosexual rights over the years. I like the idea of "militant." You’re "militant" if you want to commit to another human being and be included as an equal in your own family. I think what Talent means is that it’s ok to be gay as long as you are ashamed. Sorry, Jim. Those days are over. For ever.

Hewitt Desperation Watch

I can’t help myself:

Will Republicans listen to Estrich (and Rush, and National Review etc?)

Maybe they will. Romney can still win Iowa. I should confess that despite my actual support for the integrity of John McCain and (if I had to pick) the corrective medicine of Ron Paul, a small unsavory part of me wants Huckabee to pull it off tonight. Why? To stick it to the GOP elite who cynically use people of faith for their own partisan purposes. And to damage the hideously phony and hollow Romney.

Kos, Obie And The “Vichycrats”

Why the hate? A Kossack reader writes:

My take is that Kos and folks like him in the netroots, including myself, are what the militant feminists were for the women’s movement. We’re sick and tired of Republicans in general, this administration in particular, and what passes for liberalism in this country that we’ve got nothing but contempt for the ‘battered-wife’, mainstream Vichy Democrats the beltway press, in our view, glorifies. Because Obama has seemingly criticized the partisanship we crave we thus see him as attempting to align himself as a battered-wife, Vichycrat against those who have done the most to organize resistance to this evil, evil administration sitting in Washington. This makes us angry because we see it as both disrespectful and counterproductive.

But, I support Obama despite this because I understand political reality and I love what he represents – a transition away from white baby-boomers bickering over the cultural changes of the 60s and 70s towards a politics that is truly representative of the multi-cultural, polyglot, open society that America is today.

So, while I wish Obama would stand up and rip out Dick Cheney’s heart in front the soulless one’s family and proceed to eat it raw on live television, I’ll just mutter under my breath, hope for the best, and love him for who he is. He’s got my vote even if isn’t going to douse the Bush’s with gasoline and light them on fire. That’s the netroots job anyway.

Evil: Not So Banal

A new study:

People do great wrong, not because they are unaware of what they are doing but because they consider it to be right. This is possible because they actively identify with groups whose ideology justifies and condones the oppression and destruction of others.

The hardest thing to understand about the Jihadists is that they really believe they are doing good. Even as they murder innocents. That’s what God’s sanction will do for you.

Malkin Award Nominee

"I no longer see the Left as a set of political opponents. I understand them now to be what they are: An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all. Or, as a wiser man than I put it, The Evil Party," – Red State’s Thomas, who is retiring from blogging.

Hilzoy’s farewell note here.