A Bunch of DNChildren
Saturday, May 31, 2008
If I ever forget that I don't have the patience required to have children, I will revisit this episode from today's DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee mtg:
A group of public officials -- allies of both Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama -- walked out of the hearing room to discuss their willingness to come together on a plan to seat all their delegates, each voting at half-delegate status, but representatives of the Clinton campaign from outside Florida interrupted their press conference to dispute the idea that the Clinton campaign agreed with the plan. [...]MFP and I often talk about how we wished our American cultural upbringing had encouraged more healthy, vigorous debate. I told him how, when I was studying in England for a semester, going to a public debate was a fun, raucous, educational evening. The Brits would take a witty insult with good humour, unabashedly exchange strange new ideas, acknowledge and concede points without loss of face, etc. And while there are many things about British culture I think we could get by with less of--draconian reliance on tradition, social stratification by economic class, unhealthy feelings of global superiority, alcoholism (for starters)--there's one thing I wish we could have kept more of. The ability to argue like adults.
Clinton campaign surrogate Lanny Davis stood outside the circle and interrupted, raising his voice in protest that the Clinton campaign had agreed to anything less than a 100% seating of the delegates at 100% of their strength.
Nelson noted that he was speaking "on behalf of the voters of Florida," not on behalf of the Clinton campaign.
"They're misrepresenting our stance," Davis said repeatedly.
Then Arthenia L. Joyner, Clinton's designated Florida representative, approached the circle.
"The campaign is only for 100%," Joyner said. [...]
"Are you a paid staff member for Clinton?" Ausman asked Davis.
"Actually I'm just a friend," said Davis.
"Are you a designated representative of the Clinton campaign?" Ausman, who may be a foot taller than Davis, asked.
"I am not," Davis said.
"Why don't you let the designated representative speak for Clinton and you be silent?" Ausman said, more a statement than a question. "Are you from Florida?"
"Why don't you go about your business?" Jones asked Ausman.
"As a matter of fact I will not be silent," Davis said, "you're not going to silence me." [...]
I'm starting to find all politicians appalling.
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4:38 PM
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Nothing Good to Do Today?
Head to Crooks and Liars for live streaming of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee mtg in which the Clinton campaign will both decry "VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT!" and claim that, because Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan, the voters who voted for Obama by voting Uncommitted should not have their votes counted. It's magical.
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11:11 AM
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Jon Stewart Supports the Troops. John McCain-Not So Much.
Friday, May 30, 2008
I'm now waiting for the day when Bush replaces his entire cabinet with Support the Troops magnets. It's time for life to stop imitating art!
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7:41 PM
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Republicans Want Affirmative Action from the Media
One of the things I dislike about the Pew study on how the press treats the presidential candidates is that it gives jackasses on the right a reason for fake outrage. When McCain gets less positive media coverage than either Clinton or Obama, one such jackass says this:
Glenn Greenwald crowed yesterday that Scott McClellan’s book somehow disproved the existence of liberal-media bias. He spoke a day too soon. In this case, the media doesn’t have the fig leaf of claiming that the bias comes from the natural role of the media to challenge the government. All three candidates are members of the same body, the Senate, which now runs under Democratic control, not Republican. That excuse for prior studies by Pew showing the same negative bias about Republicans can now be discarded entirely.I don't know who was suggesting that the Pew study is flawed because the media is generally more critical of people in power, but it certainly wouldn't have been me. The biggest problem I have with the Pew study is that it doesn't factor in this little thing called REALITY. The reality is that the Republicans right now pretty much suck in comparison to Democrats. So, the fact that the media chooses to only cover one small portion of Republican suckage compared to that of Democrats really doesn't persuade me that the media is partial toward liberals. Even Republicans know their presidential candidate sucks. But when Michelle Malkin and Right Wing News write negative stories about John McCain, why isn't anyone bitching at them for being part of the "liberal media"?
I know that Republicans subscribe to the "fair and balanced" standard, which means that we are supposed to overlook their lameness just so we can say as many nice things about them as we do about smart, competent, decent people. But the rest of us just don't subscribe to that belief. So, I think it's important for all of us--media included--to force Republicans to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and to not praise them just for their existence. The Participation Award has already been given out for the year. Maybe if the media actually does their job this election, Republicans will finally stop whining about how mean we are to them and start being better stewards of this country for a change. We can only hope.
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5:05 PM
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Thinking...And Media
A few weeks ago at my volunteer gig, I was chatting with a seventh grader about a paper she was writing. Her paper was about the development of Nazism in Germany in the 20s and 30s and how the post-WWI German economy and feelings of vulnerability among the German populace were easily manipulated by the Nazi propaganda machine. In the course of our conversation, I found myself wishing that I had been as smart as this girl was when I was in seventh grade. However, at some point during our discussion, she made an incorrect statement of fact upon which I corrected her. While she didn't argue with me on the point, I observed that she wasn't quite prepared to incorporate the change into her body of knowledge. I thought to myself that if she were older and more sophisticated, she would have learned to hide her unwillingness to embrace the new information by quickly changing or expanding the boundaries of the subject we were discussing. Instead, she just sort of hesitated a bit before she continued on to her point, after which time I took the opportunity to repeat the correction.
This scenario got me thinking about how or when we choose to incorporate new or corrected information into our personal bodies of knowledge. Arianna Huffington is right when she discusses the power of repetition as a means to help us change our minds about something, but repetition, in and of itself, can only go so far. Finding new ways of repeating the same information is where it's at (as my pugilism instructor reminds me regularly). We need to find ways of presenting information that fits into an individual's mental schema, which means that, in order to be successful, we have to have some idea of how they think. And the larger, more diverse, the group of people, we're trying to convince, the more ways we need to find to repeat the information. As someone who hates repeating things, I get exhausted when I think about the job of the teacher/propagandist.
Sometimes I think about the tedious ways in which information is processed in relation to my own blogging, and I periodically examine my own goals and responsibilities in the big, wide world of left blogistan. Do I want my role to be one of philosopher, propagandist, entertainer? Maybe none of the above? How do I incorporate my layman's awareness of how people think into my blogging, and how often am I skipping over the inconvenient facts that are presented to me in the blog comments? Or how often am I dismissing contradictory information when I write my own blog entries? Is the point I'm making clear to anyone but me? And then I realize that if all of these complicating questions are relevant to my own content--when it's just li'l ol' me making the decisions--I can only imagine how important they are in the world of real writers--those who deal with editors and publishers and corporate owners.
Scott McClellan's recent book has a lot of people finally conversing about the role of the media in our society. Not that people hadn't been doing this before, but now, we're happily seeing the individuals in the media joining in on the discussion. Glenn Greenwald, who has been blogging on these subjects for a while now, wrote about a recent revelation by a former MSNBC correspondent:
Jessica Yellin -- currently a CNN correspondent who covered the White House for ABC News and MSNBC in 2002 and 2003 -- was on with Anderson Cooper last night discussing Scott McClellan's book, and made one of the most significant admissions heard on television in quite some time:Glenn goes on to flesh out these issues and provide more examples of how f'd up the media is etc, etc...and all the time, I'm reading and agreeing and thinking, "We all know all this already.JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.The video of that exchange is here. As noted in Update II below, Yellin today said that she was referring to her time at MSNBC. Yellin's admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government. Katie Couric yesterday said that threats from the White House and accusations of being unpatriotic coerced the media into suppressing its questioning of the war...
And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives -- and I was not at this network at the time -- but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.
I think, over time...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?
YELLIN: Not in that exact -- they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.
Why are we still having these conversations?". The frustrating reality: repetition.
PS Speaking of which, here's a new way of presenting information intended to correct some of the falsehoods surrounding Barack Obama:
Repeat it up.
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3:06 PM
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Friday Dead Battery Blogging
While I was trying to take a picture of the fur balls today, the batteries in my digital camera died. Not to be undone, I've got some equally fascinating pics, courtesy of Chris Jordan:
Depicts 170,000 disposable Energizer batteries, equal to fifteen minutes of Energizer battery production.
Detail at actual print size
Will somebody make some decent rechargeable batteries, already?!?And for those who are truly disappointed by lack of cat today, here's an old, fuzzy pic of the cozy balls of fuzz:
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....(not dead; just sleeping)
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1:58 PM
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Other People's Genius: He-Man President Edition
he-man: a strong, tough, virile man
Ezra Klein, and Jonathan Chait, and Matthew Yglesias join forces to take on the image of the he-man president.
* Jonathan Chait discusses how the Hillary campaign's determination to fit into the role of he-man president has helped her personally while damaging women in the process: Clinton's campaign has defined the proper role of president in ways that are more conducive to male candidates. Men are usually going to appear more "authentic" than women shooting guns or knocking back shots in a bar. Clinton advisor James Carville declared at one point, "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two." This way of defining the proper character and style of a president may have been helpful to Hillary Clinton's efforts to beat Obama, but they're harmful to female candidate in general. To the extent that presidential qualities are defined as "manly," women have a harder time competing. Obama is trying to move the frame of debate away from the manly-tough guy stuff, but Hillary keeps dragging it back down. [emphasis mine]
I've had so many problems with Hillary's campaign that I can't count them all. And while I appreciate the dilemma she's in--given the fact that she is clearly just trying to fit herself into the he-man president image that's already been partially established for her by others, I still somewhat resent her for being unable/unwilling to help re-define the standards by which some people measure presidential candidates.
* Matthew Yglesias articulates a thought that I've been tossing about in my mind for some time now: [T]he most prominent pushers of a strongly masculinist conception of the presidency haven't been Obamaphile Webb fans, it's been a certain segment of Hillary Clinton supporters who in a weird way seem to have decided that backing a woman candidate gives them carte blanche to be as sexist as they wanna be in arguing that Barack Obama's too effeminate to be president.
I'd hate to be on the receiving end of Matt's email box after that one, but I'm glad he said it. (and posting it here reminds me of some of the benefits of having a blog no one reads)
* Ezra Klein brings the issue full-circle:Meanwhile, the sexism of our politics was far less present in Clinton's loss than the fact that she was the single woman on a stage of nine Democratic presidential candidates, and in a field, including the Republicans, of 20. Now, studies show that women do not, in fact, perform worse in primaries than men. In fact, in Democratic primaries, the evidence since 1990 is that they do better (see my article in the forthcoming American Prospect for more on this). But they run less often -- for a host of reasons, but one of which is that they think they're more likely to lose. And that idea is inextricably intertwined with a political culture in which progressives and conservatives alike get very excited over hypermasculine candidates. That's not a fight women can win, and nor, according to the election results, is it one they need to win. But perception matters when women are deciding whether to run for office, and the perception that the dudelier you are, the more likely you are to win, is a dangerous one. [emphasis mine]
Sing it, brother! There's some debate about whether or not the decision-making process for voting for President is similar to that of other high public service offices, given its larger Commander-in-Chief component, but this may be a chicken-and-egg issue. The only way we can know for sure is if we keep putting up women as candidates for President. I say, let's do it and see what happens.
* Added bonus:
How big is your magic sword?
Happy Other People's Genius Friday!
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10:29 AM
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Back Under their Rock
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sometimes, one almost feels sorry for the neocons. Here, we have one brave blogger trying to unearth what may be the greatest scandal of our time--whether or not Obama's uncle's middle initial is a T or a W--and he gets no respect. Really, he's trying to find out if Obama is telling tales out of school about his uncle's WWII service (from Sadly, No!):
...Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light did some digging and discovered a website dedicated to preserving the history of the 89th Infantry Division of World War II, the division in which Obama’s great uncle served and helped liberate the Ohrdruf satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Seeking to get to the bottom of a mystery that had been solved hours earlier, Gilbert dutifully fired off an email to the site’s owners, Ray and Mark Kitchell, thus setting up the greatest bitch slap in history...And what kind of response does our fearless blogger receive? What was the essence of said bitch slap?
Apparently, Mr. Kitchell was in no mood to play with our intrepid neocon blogger. Of course, that wasn't the end of their exchange, and after a few back and forths, it looks like Steve Gilbert's commenters are none too pleased with the response that their hero blogger received from that pesky World War II veteran. Here's some of what they have to say from back under their rock:Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.
Good day
Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div
“Like 90% of this administration, they don’t have the foggiest idea what we went through or what we saw at Ohrdruf.”I fail to see why this commenter would be concerned about diminishing anyone's service. As we've seen from John McCain's stance (or lack thereof, since he didn't show up for the vote) on the new GI Bill, it's not their service that we care about. It's whether or not they stayed in long enough to get themselves killed. Because if you aren't in war long enough to be killed, you cost us money when you get back. And no one wants that:Not to diminish anyone’s service, but the 89th only got to Europe in March of 1945 and saw less than two months of the war.
Also, only a handful of soldiers went into Ohrdruf, and from what I have read they were only there a very brief time.
[John McCain] should understand how hard it is for veterans to transition back into civilian life.John McCain's way of transitioning back to civilian life was dumping his wife and marrying an heiress. If veterans had any love for their country, they would just man-up and do what McCain did. Or simply die in war. It's the American way.
In other words, stop costing us money and not being helpful in your responses to our stupid inquiries about the details of Barack Obama's uncle's past, you anti-American veterans!
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9:53 AM
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Barack the Vote
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Time to get funky:
I know I should ignite the people like Obama
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9:03 PM
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Liberal Media v. Rationality
Pursuant to Scott McClellan's recent book release, Glenn Greenwald notes the following conundrum:
In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":While I appreciate Glenn's ire here, in a "minimally rational world" the bizarro notion of the "liberal media" would have been quashed long before Scott McClellan pointed out the absurdity. Here are just a few other things you'd have to believe in order to believe the media is liberal:If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods. And most notably of all, McClellan actually uses cynical scare quotes when invoking the phrase which, in conventional political discourse, is deemed the most unassailable truth of all: The Liberal Media.
The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would completely ignore an anti-war speech by Ted Kennedy.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would give Bill O'Reilly an Emmy Award.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would be all about the xenophobia.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would be all about the misogyny.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would regularly slander liberals.
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4:08 PM
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Astronewts
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
-West WingBARTLET: "He's up there with four red belly Japanese newts. He wants to see how a newts inner ears, which are remarkably similar to humans, are influenced by the absence of gravity. Do you know what he calls them? C.J?"
C.J: "Astronewts?"
BARTLET: "One hundred percent right."
Heroes have gotten a bit of a bad rap lately. Phrases such as "hero-worshipper" and "cult follower" have been hurled about as if they were deadly weapons. And while I agree that looking for a savior is a tremendous waste of time, having heroes isn't always a bad thing. Be they fictional or real, personal or public, charismatic or nerdy, heroes can inspire us to expect more from ourselves. We all should be heroes.
Speaking of which:
Morning Edition, May 19, 2008 · Buffy the Vampire Slayer saved the world and the sanity of NPR's Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq.
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11:29 PM
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Obama Campaign GOTV Madness and Aftermath
Monday, May 26, 2008
This Saturday, MFP (My Favorite Person) and I spent some of the day registering voters. Here are the details of our misadventure:
First, I must offer some insight into the character and attitude of MFP. After having worked 10-12+ hours a day (often, including weekends) for the last couple of weeks, he had left home before 7am on Friday morning and didn't get home from work until after 11:30pm Friday night. And yet, when I told him Saturday morning that I was going to be volunteering at one of Obama's Get Out The Vote events, his attitude was "What time do we need to be there?". In spite of his mental exhaustion (or perhaps because of it), he was eager to spend the day on his feet in the warm sun doing something useful. For him, this venture wasn't going to be a drag or simply a way to help out his country (including me)--it was an opportunity to learn something new and hang out with me in the process. The dude's simply amazing.
While we got a late start on Saturday morning, we were lucky enough to quickly catch a bus headed straight for the GOTV event. Showing up almost right on time (and we only jay-walked once), we found the group we were meeting fairly quickly. The only problem was that the actual organizers of the event hadn't shown up yet. After chatting with the other volunteers for several minutes, MFP and I quickly discovered that most of them had come prepared. Having had experience with these things in the past, they had with them voter registration forms, clipboards, Obama buttons, pens, signs, and stickers. So, rather than wait any longer for the people in charge to show up, we divvied up the goods, exchanged cell phone numbers, and went straight to work. The fact that there were so many volunteers who were passionately engaged and prepared to help the neophytes such as MFP and myself said a lot about the quality of the organization. While I was mildly disappointed in the organizers, I was highly impressed with the organized. And since everyone makes mistakes or gets up late or has a bad day, I was reminded of the value of a decentralized organizational structure, in which all parties take responsibility for the success or failure of an initiative.
The shifts were only supposed to be two hours each, but once we got started, MFP and I were on a roll. At about 2:30pm, we took about a half hour for lunch. From there, we went back out and planned to pack it in by the time the next shift started at 4pm. However, at 4pm, we were in the middle of registering people so didn't make it to the meeting place again until it was too late to find anyone there. So, we went back out for another shift, and didn't end up turning our registration forms in until around 5:30pm. After about five hours of shaking hands, congratulating new voters, and baking without sunscreen (did I mention we were running late?), we had collected about 30 new registrations and changes of address along with about $25 in button donations. By all accounts, this was an above-average haul that is probably attributable to excitement about this upcoming election, my loud mouth and exceptional sign-holding capabilities, and MFP's earnest and approachable demeanor.
After we turned in our forms, we started the lovely walk home, which generally takes under an hour. However, on the way, we stopped to watch a new Japanese flick called Love and Honor, which happened to be showing right as we were passing by (MFP's opportunistic tendencies strike again). I enjoyed the movie, but it felt more like a Japanese romantic comedy than the fairly slow-moving, contemplative films I normally see coming out of Japan. There was also a discussion of the film afterward, which because the respondent needed a Japanese-English translator for both question and response, took quite some time. And since the questions seemed a little pointlessly pretentious, we didn't get so much out of that part. Then, we climbed the ginormous hill toward our neighborhood and stopped in for dinner at the Greek place down the street only to get home around 10:30pm. All in all, a good--albeit long--day.
Some highlights:
1. The majority of the people we registered were young--just out of high school. New voter registrations were more satisfying for both of us than those who were just changing their addresses--even though both were important. For the new ones, I often asked the registrant in a joking manner whether they felt any different after they registered. Nope.
2. We each ran across our share of people who told us they couldn't register because of felony convictions. This surprised me. Being an elitist myself, I don't personally know any convicted felons (of which I am aware), and I've always thought of a felony as a serious crime. But talking to three (3) felons in the space of a few hours convinced me that our legal system is in need of some major changes--no surprise to many, I know! MFP had the same thought after talking to a couple himself. If anyone out there thinks it's a good idea for a significant portion of our population to be disenfranchised by their mid-twenties, I've got a subprime mortgage loan to offer you. And while I don't know exactly which one of my elitist tendencies compels me to want these individuals to be fully engaged members of our society again, I couldn't help but empathize with their various situations. Not good...not good at all.
3. One new registrant just out of high school said that normally she would not be registering to vote at all right now. But Barack Obama had spoken to her school a few years ago, and at that time, she told herself that if he ever ran for president, she'd vote for him. So, she registered with MFP on Saturday. The lesson here seems to be: inspire them and they will show up. Not a bad lesson, if you ask me.
I'm sure there are more highlights that I'm forgetting right now, but this post is long and probably boring. Needless to say, we'll be doing more of these in the future, so stay tuned...and GOTV.
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5:02 PM
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In Honor of Memorial Day, John McCain Defends a Position on the New GI Bill That He Failed to Take
ALBUQUERQUE — In a Memorial Day speech to veterans and their families here, Senator John McCain kept alive a debate about a new G.I. bill making its way through Congress, which he opposes, arguing that his own counter-proposal would be better for the military.Question: When a senator strongly opposes a bill, is it not a custom in the senate to vote against said bill?
Mr. McCain faced criticism from Senator Barack Obama for opposing the measure to expand veterans’ benefits, but the Arizona senator declined to take on Mr. Obama directly in defending his position, as he did so forcefully last week. Mr. McCain has expressed concern the bill might lead to reduced enlistments.
From the Boston Globe:
The Democratic National Committee accused John McCain of being AWOL from the Senate vote yesterday for a new GI Bill to provide better education benefits for returning veterans. McCain was in California on a campaign and fund-raising trip, while both Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, left the campaign trail to vote for the bill, which passed by a veto-proof 75-to-22 majority.Question: In missing the vote on the new GI Bill, is McCain demonstrating a loss of short-term memory or of moral courage?
So many questions, so little media interest in the real John McCain.
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4:15 PM
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In Honor of Memorial Day, Fox "News" Advocates Killing Presidential Candidates
TOBY
There is no law. There is no decency.
JOSH
He’s just getting that now.
Here's Liz Trotta, a Fox News contributor, discussing the [Hillary RFK remark], first mixing up Osama and Obama, then offhandedly suggesting that "knocking off" both would be great "if we could".
I know Faux News has a history of casually suggesting that we kill American Presidents (named Clinton) as part of our patriotic duty. But I always figured that presidential candidates would fall below their kill line. Apparently, finding new lows to reach is what Fox is all about.
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12:09 PM
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Obama's Gaining Ground in Clinton Country
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The thing I just haven't gotten to understand throughout the copious amounts of media coverage of the Democratic primary is this: Why don't we more often factor Obama's newness into our discussions of how this election is playing out? This question seems like such an obvious one to me and one that I've had in my mind for a while now that I've figured it must be a dumb one. When we talk about why Obama hasn't yet brought around the under-educated working white voter, maybe we should inject the reality that these are often low-information voters and that Clinton has had a gazillion year head-start on acquiring name-recognition and familiarity. She also has Bill's name recognition, which probably makes her, in these voters minds', a known quantity. And while these facts may help Clinton's electability case for this moment in time, the bizarre notion that Obama can't carry a large swing state in November because he lost it to "the best brand name in Democratic politics" back in April-May is clearly absurd.
Case in point, after having been destroyed by Clinton in California on Super Tuesday, he's now the leader in a general election match-up poll against John McSame:
Less than four months after losing the California primary, Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in projected November general election matchups, a new Los Angeles Times/KTLA Poll has found.There are a variety of reasons for why Obama's now winning, but couldn't one reason possibly be that the low-info voters are starting to get a better sense of him after 3 more months of election coverage? According to the LA Times article:
Obama, the Illinois senator who has inched close to his party's nomination, would defeat McCain by seven points if the election were held today. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose fortunes have faltered since her Feb. 5 drubbing of Obama in California, would eke out only a three-point victory, the poll found.
The poll appeared to illustrate that Democrats, at least in California, are gravitating toward the candidate who is broadly expected to eventually seize the party's mantle. Obama now runs better against the Arizona senator than does Clinton among many of the groups that powered her victory in the state, among them Latinos, Catholics and those without college degrees.Imagine that. Polls change; people change. And while the article does illustrate Obama's eventuality as the nominee as one reason for his improvement against Clinton, here's another one:
Lena Neal, a Democrat from Perris, described herself as a former Clinton supporter who had turned to Obama as the primary season progressed. "He's just a down-to-earth person, just a reachable person," she said.So, Lena Neal, who lives in a small SoCal suburb, which is controlled by Republicans and now, according to Wikipedia, described as the "epicenter" of the housing crisis, has moved over to Obama because he's "down-to-earth". Whether or not Lena is one of these low information voters I don't know. However, something tells me that a lot more voters are going to be coming to that very same conclusion in the months ahead. Once Obama gets more time on the campaign trail and more time to catch up to his rivals in face and name recognition.
It may seem like this campaign has gone on forever to those of us who follow this stuff. But for a lot of people, it has barely started. So, rather than looking at this election as having unearthed an unbridgeable chasm that separates Obama from certain demographic groups indefinitely, maybe we should look at it more as a soundwave. Eventually, Obama's message will catch up to the rest of the country. All he needs is seven months and a lot of noise.
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Nothing New byslag
at
8:24 AM
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Other People's Genius: "Who's Being Naive Now, McCain?" Edition
Friday, May 23, 2008
Since McCain's been busy trying to brand Obama as "naive and inexperienced", this edition of Other People's Genius is dedicated to him.
* Speaking of naive, the Situationist addresses the particularly conservative trait of "naive cynicism":
Those attributional styles also help define the walls of the broader liberal-conservative crevasse. Broadly speaking (with some notable exceptions), conservatives tend to be more dispositionist and progressives tend to be more situationist. That is true, in part, because, as Situationist contributor John Jost has demonstrated, (e.g., here), conservatives exhibit stronger needs for order, structure, and closure, a more potent sense of system threat, greater intolerance for ambiguity, and a greater acceptance of inequality, among other things — interior factors that align with the elements underlying dispositionism.I love it when science helps to explain my own personal observations. It makes me feel omniscient. Of course, that could just be my bias talking.
As this blog is devoted to documenting, despite being the dominant framework, dispositionism is a less accurate attributional approach than situationism. The mystery of how dispositionists nonetheless maintain confidence in their attributions is only explained by understanding a dynamic that we call “naïve cynicism”: the basic subconscious mechanism by which dispositionists discredit and dismiss more accurate situationist insights and their proponents.
As we explain in a forthcoming article, naïve cynicism predicts that, like most humans, dispositionists put great faith in the veracity of their perceptions and conceptions of how the world works. They see themselves as objective and reasonable and expect other reasonable and objective people to reach the same conclusions as they do. As a result, when a dispositionist encounters a situationist attribution that conflicts with his own causal story, that person experiences a cognitive conflict, and naïve cynicism provides a ready resolution: explaining the opposing attribution as the product of bias, ignorance, or some other flaw. Rather than engage the substance or merits of the conflict, naïve cynicism involves an attack on the perceptions, cognitions, or motivations of the individuals and on the institutions associated with the situationist conception. Without it, the dominant person schema—dispositionism—would be far more vulnerable to challenge and change, and the more accurate person schema—situationism—less easily and effectively attacked. Naïve cynicism is, thus, critically important to explaining how and why certain legal policies manage to carry the day—and why certain presidential candidates carry an election.
* Steve Benen reports that Joe Biden's been schooling McCain on foreign policy:
The election in November is a vital opportunity for America to start anew. That will require more than a great soldier. It will require a wise leader. Here, the controversy over engaging Iran is especially instructive.All good questions. I hear McCain's going to deal with the dangers by giving Iran the dreaded stink eye. Many a global catastrophe has been averted using that very tactic.
Last week, John McCain was very clear. He ruled out talking to Iran. He said that Barack Obama was “naïve and inexperienced” for advocating engagement; “What is it he wants to talk about?” he asked.
Well, for a start, Iran’s nuclear program, its support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and its patronage of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Beyond bluster, how would Mr. McCain actually deal with these dangers? You either talk, you maintain the status quo, or you go to war. If Mr. McCain has ruled out talking, we’re stuck with an ineffectual policy or military strikes that could quickly spiral out of control.
* Cliff Schecter at FDL cites the Heritage Foundation who determines that maybe McCain really isn't the economist he admits to not being (sometimes):
Like other analysts, Riedl was mystified by McCain's argument that previous year's earmarks automatically become a "permanent part of the budget." "I don't understand how they come up with that," he told me.Ten billion here, ten billion there, and still it takes a while to get to a hundred billion. McCain's almost as good at math as Clinton has become.
Excluding those programs McCain has promised to preserve, the draconian slashing of earmark expenditures might save around $10 billion a year. But that is still a long way from the $100 billion in savings that McCain says that he can identify "immediately."
Happy Other People's Genius Friday!
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Nothing New byslag
at
11:42 PM
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Is Barack Obama Muslim?
Click here to find out.
As Matthew Yglesias says: "I hope if we all link, the Google ranking will go up."
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Nothing New byslag
at
4:45 PM
3
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Friday Computer Geek Blogging
Apparently, somebody's not happy with my network settings:
Fine! DHCP, it is then.
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Nothing New byslag
at
4:19 PM
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C'mon Superdelegates. Do We Have to Beg?
[I don't have an image for this...nor do I want one]
So, Hillary's thinkin dark thoughts:
My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out. [emphasis mine]Or, if you prefer to see the ick in technicolor:
I got nuthin. I have no idea what Hillary meant by this statement. But it's freaky and gross and should be rejected AND denounced.
And Eugene Robinson is right:
Hillary Clinton is after the White House, and if that means using the Florida and Michigan "issue" to tie the party in knots until the convention, so be it.From your keyboard to Dean's eyes, Eugene.
If that's not what party leaders want, they'd better do something. Because Clinton is going to keep moving forward.
Superdelegates activate!
UPDATE: Yglesias has a good UPDATE: On a more serious note, the difference between the current race and other previous campaigns that may have lingered on into June is that given this year's primary schedule there simply aren't enough delegates left at stake for future primaries to make a difference. If she were holding out for a June primary in California that she thought would let her catch up, that'd be a very different story from the actual "waiting for Puerto Rico" scenario we're currently in.
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Nothing New byslag
at
3:30 PM
0
dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)
Random Acts of Nonviolence
I have violent tendencies. Sometimes when I'm out and about someone does or says something that makes me want to punch them. Hard. However, unlike today's war-mongering set, I prefer to control my violent tendencies and find more productive ways to express myself. Consequently, I'm starting a new category of posts called Random Acts of Nonviolence as a way to both help alter my response mechanisms and reward myself for not going around punching people. Hard.
Today's edition of Random Acts of Nonviolence is about a guy who sells papers near my neighborhood grocery store. Periodically, when My Favorite Person (MFP) and I walk by him, the guy says stuff beyond "Would you like to buy a paper today?". In a kind of creepy, overly enthusiastic voice he may tell us to "smile now" or "be good to each other" or whatever, and that's all fine and good if you don't mind having random people tell you what to do. But every now and then, he'll say to MFP as we walk by, "Remember, she's always right." Few things bother me more than being patronized, and one of those things is being patronized by a complete stranger. Consequently, when he makes these kinds of comments, I have to grit my teeth, smile, and control my urge to punch him in the stomach.
However, since dispensing karmic justice is one of my lifelong goals, I sometimes think I should do more. Maybe not go so far as to punch him in the stomach, but possibly take the time to explain to him the error of his ways. That, in general, women find being condescended to more offensive than he realizes. However, the guy's kind of odd--in the creepy odd way--and he spends his days outside of my neighborhood grocery store, so giving him a good set down may make things a little more awkward than I'm prepared to deal with. Can anyone think of some clever ways for me to possibly turn this random act of nonviolence into a random act of diplomacy? Maybe some funny comment I can make that lightens the mood and also happens to get the point across?
FYI-I once asked MFP if he is ever demeaned by random strangers on the street, and he said no. Interesting.
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Nothing New byslag
at
1:08 PM
4
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Dear Democrats, It's Time to Get Serious
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Word is that Obama denied Hillary the VP slot, which explains her most recent bout of "tenacity". I'm with Arianna Huffington:
So it's time for the uncommitted superdelegates to stop their dithering, come out of hiding, hop off the fence, endorse Obama and officially bring this nominating process to an end.Hillary's not going to leave; the Superdelegates need to step in. If they have a purpose at all, this is it. I've already emailed Howard Dean asking that he pressure Superdelegates to get moving.
The Democratic leadership -- starting with Pelosi, Reid, and Dean -- should begin working behind the scenes to get all uncommitted supers to immediately commit. Let Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana have their say, but start bringing the curtain down now.
And let's not just wait for the party leaders to put pressure on the superdelegates. Let's start putting pressure ourselves. Below you will find a list of all the uncommitted superdelegates. And this link will lead you to profiles of them. Please call or email the elected officials and track down the DNC members who live in your state and let them know that you want them to stand up and be counted. Now.
Please use this form to tell Howard Dean to push the Superdelegates off the fence!
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Nothing New byslag
at
9:06 PM
5
dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)
Character Assassination Games
Having an utterly lackluster candidate of their own, Republicans have been in the process of making Barack Obama "unacceptable" to voters. How do they do this? In the usual way--lying. First, Politico reports on the unprecedented quantity of viral emails intent on assassinating Obama's character:
What began as a demonstrably false attempt to cast Obama as a Muslim has now metastasized into something far more threatening to the likely Democratic nominee. The spurious claims about his faith have spiraled into a broader assault that questions his patriotism and citizenship and generally portrays him as a threat to mainstream, white America.
The spread of these e-mails has forced Obama to embark on a campaign to Americanize his image and his biography. Pivoting away from his pitch to a primary election audience uninterested in flag-waving and nationalism, he’s returning to the message that first brought him to the national spotlight in 2004: the idea that his is the quintessential American story