Category: The Dish

The latest data from Gallup analyzing the Democratic race among those with less education and income. No meaningful change. The scandal of Obama’s alleged elitism seems restricted to … elites.

If this pans out in the actual primary, then a very large number of pundits and bloggers and pols are going to be revealed as hopelessly out of touch with the country they are talking about. I’m beginning to think that this past week was a serious tipping point for the media elite. And it’s worth noting one individual in that elite who didn’t join the throng: Matt Drudge. Sometimes a condo in Miami is more in touch with rural Pennsylvania than anyone in the Beltway.

Senator Clinton’s previous remarks about the white working class are now confirmed. Alan Wolfe adds:

A lot of people compare Barack Obama to Bobby Kennedy. To me, he most resembles Bill Clinton, at least the Bill Clinton I knew then.

Which is also partly why I supported Clinton in 1992 as well.

"I know I will be cut off from many within the Christian community, and if so, then they didn’t get the point of the life of Christ. I believe by me living my life honestly and authentically now, I am able to be a better person and a better Christian. We all know there are so many other gay people in the Christian industry; they’re just all scared. I was scared, but now I’m no longer afraid," – Azariah Southworth, host of the popular Christian youth TV show, The Remix.

Poulos bemoans the thinness of his breakfast cereal.

A new map that adjusts US carbon emission by population. Suddenly, Texas looks like the worst offender.

A. J. Rossmiller is underwhelmed by the argument that blogs are more meritocratic than the MSM. Matt offers a succinct rejoinder:

The only way for a blogger to succeed in having a lot of readers is for a lot of people (relative to the modest scale of blog enterprises) to genuinely find the blog worth reading. The MSM doesn’t really work that way. A newspaper is all bundled together. So as long as The New York Times is worth reading (which it is) and Bill Kristol has a New York Times column (which he does) lots of people are going to see Kristol’s columns. Him keeping his job just depends on him continuing to have the favor of the NYT high command. And then the mere fact of his presence on the op-ed page makes the columns "important" and worth reading for anyone who wants to participate in "the conversation."

Blogs are a little stickier than a pure meritocracy. But because they are not physically bundled and free, they are obviously more susceptible to market forces. Yes, getting into virgin territory first helps. Not many blogs have been update daily since Clinton was president, as this one has. But every day is new, and reinvention is key. If you read the Dish in 2000 and 2008, you’d read two very different products. There are no laurels here; and no resting.

"They went off the rails. That’s it. They took a majority that took 16 years to build and they destroyed it … There was a fundamental misunderstanding about how to govern. The concept of red versus blue is a tactic, not a strategy. In the long run, in order to mobilize your base, you tend to become more intense and your positions become more vitriolic, and you drive away the independents. Then you are no longer a majority," – Newt Gingrich on what has happened to the GOP over the last eight years.

He is, of course, right. Just late. Some of us have been saying this for years.

Way cool:

Delving deeper, Samson revealed that the wallpaper is constructed by "sandwiching" a number of layers together that combine to produce light:

"The back layer is a silver-based solution that conducts electricity, while the layer above this contains phosphorous pigments that light up. On top of this is a flexible, transparent ITO conductor layer, with regular wallpaper placed on top to act as the final, outwardly visual layer," he explained.

An analysis of Clinton’s Pennsylvania ads. She’s playing the Rove ad everywhere she can. What else has she got? Ben Smith:

This is the kind of pounding Obama’s critics used to say he’d never faced, and would never survive.

By the way, I’ll live-blog the debate tonight.