“Am I nervous at all? Do I look nervous? I am having a great time. This is a strategy we selected — it is the only strategy that can work for us and it’s a good one… and given the nature of the race which is wide open, we think it is going to turn out to be a smart strategy." – Rudy Giuliani.
A Green Case For McCain
One might even wonder if a McCain presidency, combined with a Democratic Congress, offers the best chance for a bipartisan-yet-still-decent emissions-reduction bill to get enacted and stay enacted. (Think Schwarzenegger and health care in California.) I’m skeptical, but it’s not an outlandish argument.
The Clinton Temptation
Hilzoy has a must-read post. Money quote:
Many Democrats, myself included, believe that the Clintons were subjected to an unprecedented campaign of vilification during the 1990s. We are angry about this. Since I share this anger, it should go without saying that I find it completely comprehensible. But I don’t think that it would be a good idea for us to nominate a candidate who brings it out in us, especially not in an election that truly has the potential to reshape the political landscape.
Most obviously, when Hillary Clinton is attacked, it makes a lot of us angry all over again. And it seems to me that a lot of Democrats don’t just get angry in whatever way the current attack warrants. We have a lot of leftover anger from the 1990s, and it tends to spill out. I don’t think this is particularly useful if we want to win.
Those Stimulus Plans
Which would do more damage: Clinton’s or Obama’s?
Cyclists For Obama
A key constituency makes its choice.
Red State Dems
There’s a stampede away from the Clintons.
An Emotion Map
How to get around a big city and avoid the stress.
Ganging Up On Obama
Charles Rangel and John Lewis weigh in. Lewis:
"He is no Martin Luther King Jr. I knew Martin Luther King. I knew Bobby Kennedy. I knew President Kennedy. You need more than speech-making. You need someone who is prepared to provide bold leadership."
Here’s Rangel, providing the final touch to the Clinton strategy of accusing Obama of bringing up race in the first place:
"How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’ … for [Obama] to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It’s absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law."
Obama did not say that King could have signed a law. He did not say "race." He merely called Clinton’s condescending LBJ comment ill-advised. Rangel did, however, bring up the cocaine issue again, unprompted. Clintonite Robert Johnson, who clearly lied outright on saying he wasn’t referring to Obama’s previous drug use, tries this gambit:
"White America is saying, ‘He’s safe for us, he should be safe for you guys.’ We’re letting other people pick our leaders."
He sees the Obama candidacy as a nightmare for the Clintons with whom he vacations. It is. But they are finding ways to smear and marginalize Obama and rally their machine and its beneficiaries against him. That’s politics. It’s not as if I expected any less from the Clinton machine. Maybe others did. You can see this as a sign of worry from an endangered establishment, or simply an indication of who actually wields power in the Democratic coalition, and how they intend to keep it.
Mona Lisa Is Lisa
An ancient mystery finally solved.
Quote For The Day
"What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union. The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It’s wrong and people need to know that… People should not permit the Clintons — both Bill and Hillary — to have an unfair advantage in Michigan," – former senator Don Riegle.
