Susan Eisenhower has endorsed him?
The Right And Obama I
A reader writes:
I live in Vermont. This state is known for its progressiveness but, like every state, we definitely have our hardcore conservative Republican constituency. Today, I was at the video store in my very rural town and I overheard a man and a woman, other customers, loudly talking about politics. It was one of those out-loud conversations that inevitably involves everyone else in a 30 foot radius. Here’s what I gathered:
They’re both ok with McCain, although not very excited, but they really love his support for the Iraq War. As they browsed the movies, one of them added that he didn’t like William H. Macy, the actor, because he heard he was against the war.
They are as anti-Clinton as you might imagine. The thing they agreed about most passionately was that they would never vote for her. One stated – and the other strongly agreed – that if Clinton wins "we’re screwed".
And then their tone changed.
It was as if they stopped talking about politics, all partisan edge dissipated, and started to talk about a party at the neighbor’s house. The woman then offered up "… but I like Obama. I don’t know, I’m a conservative Republican, but I might vote for him". The guy totally agreed.
Andrew, it wasn’t just the fact that these 2 pro-war self identified conservative Republicans were considering voting for the Democrat. It was that the thought of Obama, and consideration of his candidacy, caused them to lose the typical rules, assumptions, and partisan demeanor… like a giant exhale.
It’s why he’s going to win.
The Ugliest Hotel In The World
Correction Of The Day
"In the Jan. 23 issue of Wednesday Journal, River Forest Village President Frank Paris is quoted saying, ‘I’ll answer any question except if you ask me how many times I sodomized my parent. Those kinds of questions can’t be asked.’ What Mr. Paris actually said was, ‘I’ll answer any question except if you ask me how many times I sodomized my parrot,’" – Wednesday Journal, River Valley.
Evil
Some don’t want to use that word about the Islamofascists. But they use women – perhaps with some mental retardation – to kill innocent children delighting in a pet shop. It may not be a very helpful fact in crafting effective strategies against them, but it is a fact.
If they aren’t evil, nothing is.
Two-Day Post-Edwards Tracking
Rasmussen has it a tie:
The last two nights of tracking were the first without John Edwards in the race. For those two nights, it’s Clinton 44% and Obama 42% meaning that Clinton’s support is essentially unchanged. This suggests that many former Edwards supporters now support Obama, many others have yet to make a decision, and few currently support Clinton.
A week ago, she was eleven points ahead. Si se puede!
Face Of The Day
An Iraqi man, injured in a bombing at a pet market, lies on a hospital bed on February 1, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq. At least 64 people were killed and many other were wounded when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a two separate pet markets in Baghdad, Iraq. By Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images.
Coulter-Lash
Expelling a toxin.
The LA Times Endorses
Not sure what difference it makes, but their argument is solid enough:
In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long — a sense of aspiration.
Obama and the Urban-Rural Divide
Jonathan Raban notices something important:
I’ve been to those counties, their miles of lonely roads where you can drive for half an hour before encountering another vehicle, their scattered ranches and isolated towns, their seasonal creeks marked by lines of spindly cottonwood trees, the overwhelmingly Caucasian cast of their people. Out there in the mountains, sagebrush and high desert, Obama carried the day by far greater margins than his overall loss of the popular vote to Clinton across the state, and came out of the caucuses with one more delegate than she did.
Remember that in 2004 every American city with a population over 500,000 voted Democrat, and the Republicans won by taking the countryside and the outer suburbs. The blue state/red state division is better expressed in terms of the persistent conflicts between the big cities and their rural hinterlands, over land use, water rights and environmental, class and cultural issues. Red states are simply those where the country can outvote the urban centres, while in blue states the opposite is true. The perception that America has liberal coasts and a conservative interior merely reflects the fact that the coastal states are home to the largest metropolitan areas with the most electoral muscle. Last time around, for instance, Bush easily won the heartland state of Missouri, but was as crushingly defeated by Kerry in St Louis as he was in the cities of New York, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.
So Obama’s victory over Clinton in rural Nevada says something important about his ability as the apostle of national reconciliation.
