Ditch "The Decider" for " The Uniter"

So what is Senator Barack Obama’s appeal? Some would argue that Obama Girl was responsible for a lot of it... What ever happened to her anyway? Regardless, here are some highlights from Barack's speech in Columbia, SC, tonight:

“We are up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics; this is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.”

- This point is EXACTLY what has gotten me so much into the election this time around. I think a broad range of people are utterly sick of the way that the country has been run by hypocritical politicians in Washington.

“We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it's the kind of partisanship where you're not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea — even if it's one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it's bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.”

- Obama has been under constant attack from both Clintons all week, and he proved himself mature enough to rise above it all and continue to reach out across the board. Is it possible to actually unite Democrats AND Republicans? You know, I really think so.

“I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be… But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we're willing to work for it.”

- I don’t know that I’ve ever really heard a politician come out and be that brutally honest about our own insecurities. We can’t just snap our fingers and fix the world’s problems. We WILL have to make those sacrifices. The message of hope that Obama carries with him has the power to provide confidence and truly inspire people.

“And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we've carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words: Yes. We. Can.”

- To this, the crowd responded with screams of “USA! USA!” and “YES WE CAN!”




I have never been so proud to be an American.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people (and monkeys do too [if they have a gun])

Digging into the files of history, I pulled out a point/counterpoint from a presidential debate. Give it a quick read and see if you can figure out who is who before you read the answer below.

Speaker One

Well, I think one thing that distinguishes is experience. I think we've dramatically changed the world. I'll talk about that a little bit later, but the changes are mind-boggling for world peace. And change for change sake isn't enough. We saw that message in the late 70s when heard a lot about change, and what happened, that misery index went right through the roof. But my economic program is the kind of change we want. And the way we're going to get it done is we're going to have a brand new Congress. A lot of them are thrown out because of all the scandals. I'll sit down with them, Democrats and Republicans alike, and work for my agenda for American renewal, which represents real change. But I'd say, if you had to separate out, I think it's experience at this level.

Speaker Two

I believe experience counts, but it's not everything. Values, judgment, and the record that I have amassed in my state also should count for something. I've worked hard to create good jobs and to educate people. My state now ranks first in the country in job growth this year, fourth in income growth, fourth in reduction of poverty, third in overall economic performance, according to a major news magazine. That's because we believe in investing in education and in jobs. And we have to change in this country. We have got to have the courage to change. Experience is important, yes. I've gotten a lot of good experience in dealing with ordinary people over the last year and month. I've touched more people's lives and seen more heartbreak and hope, more pain and more promise, than anybody else who's run for president this year. I think the American people deserve better than they're getting. Personal income has dropped while people have worked harder. In the last four years, there have been twice as many bankruptcies as new jobs created. We need a new approach. The same old experience is not relevant. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change.

(Highlight Below)

Both quotes were taken from a debate during the 1992 election... Speaker One is George H. W. Bush and Speaker Two is Bill Clinton. I think that's what we call irony; every time he opens his mouth for experience over change I want to slap him.

Bill and Little Bill

I hate to sound like a retarded Hillary Clinton blog, but something about that woman and the interest in her fascinates me. It's like nipples on men - WHY?

Every speech and debate that she has anything to do with I can quote by heart now:

"I implore any of my critics to just take a look at everything that I've accomplished. Just look at my record, I've got the most experience at leading a country. I've been fighting the Republicans for decades and I continue to do so once I've won."

Uh huh, we've heard it all before. But how much of it really counts? We'll start at the very beginning since Obama's kindergarten class essays are important enough to shape the election.

1) She was a brownie and a girl scout. Well thank god for that.
2) Then came student council, NHS, and the debate club in high school. OoOoOh...
3) A few years later she went to Wellesley College as a political science major AND president of the Young Republicans Club
4) After a brief stint of radicalism, she wrote a big senior thesis that was later suppressed when she was First Lady. That's... Helpful...
5) Can anyone say Yale? And lots of classes in child psychology. That must be how she gets Cheney to give in, she knows which color rattles are his favorite
6) A couple law internships with radicals and communists
7) She even served as a member of the impeachment staff against Nixon. Hold-Hold on a minute, Irony is calling
8) Then there's a long period of time where she was a teacher, moved a lot, got married, more school crap, and hospital work
9) FINALLY came all of the First Lady jazz. You don't need a lick of experience to get up there, just the ability to lick. According to my book, marrying into power doesn't mean that you've earned any kind of political respect. She didn't even do a good job at it! All of the bragging about being in the White House for eight years, but it's not like she was the one under the desk in the oval office all that time, Hillary must really be awful in bed (I resisted the urge to say she sucked, but we all know that wasn't her). Oh, and most of the records of her activity there are sealed (see #4 for a pretty little pattern)
10) A million scandals later, she became a Senator for a few years, yadda yadda

...What?

Ok, I can definitely see some points that would definitely help her in such a position, but there's really nothing that jumps out at me as some incredibly strong record worth bragging over. If you're going to talk the talk, walk the walk. She's got about as much going as all the rest of the candidates, I mean come on, Dennis Kucinich was a mayor at 31. Hillary's never really led anything, so again I ask: What the Hell?

***Catch the lowdown on Obama, Edwards, Guiliani, Huckabee, and Romney soon***

Backpedaling

After enjoying a long lived lead as the "indisputable" Democratic front runner, it seems as though Hillary's on the brink of spiraling down into obscurity... And there's more than several reasons why.

Bill Shaheen, a major figure on the Clinton campaign trail officially fucked up - and now he's an ex-major figure. Shaheen brought up the question of her biggest competition's electability, warning that during the general election next year, Republicans could attack Obama's troubled adolescence: "Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?"

So... Anyone who's ever experimented with drugs is potentially a dealer? Or maybe it's because he's black?

Shaheen turned in his resignation Wednesday.

Now you'd think that there could be some lessons learned from such instances like that, but Clinton and her campaign are just digging their own grave. That very night on Hardball, another Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, played off his own stunt by "not mentioning" the drug topic, all the while bringing it up to try to milk it for even more attention. Are these people completely lost? The fact that Obama has the balls to tell the world about his experiences as well as the wisdom to point out his own mistakes for doing so, is a good thing! Many voters are looking for that bit of fresh air in the political world, we haven't had that honest of a candidate in a long time. Who's to say Clinton doesn't shoot up in the back of her bus before fundraisers? Have you ever seen her wear short sleeves?

But thank god she was there today to set the record straight and make it all better. Her apology without the apology part really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

So what's all this cost her? Well here's the Iowa Democratic caucus accurate as of the 13th:

Obama - 29.8
Clinton - 26.8
Edwards - 21.8
Richardson - 7.7
Biden - 4.3*

New Hampshire is slightly more positive for her, but don't forget three important factors.
1) They're well within the margin of error, half of the polls show Obama ahead
2) A large portion of voters are afraid to go Obama unless they think that maybe he can pull it off
3) So, NH voters are going to be very influenced by whatever Iowa decides to do...

Clinton - 31.2
Obama- 28.5
Edwards - 15.2
Richardson - 6.8
Biden - 2.8*

It just goes to show you that this election isn't going to be a clean cut Clinton massacre. Though she may still lead nationally, anything can happen this next month.

So Hillary, please lay off the coke, ok?

*Polls based on the RCP Average

AFL-CIO Democratic Debate

Why not start off with a democratic labor union organizations debate when it's on a middle class white boy blog and the democrats are going to win the election anyway? Exactly. If I had to rank them all tonight:

Barack takes the number one spot
John Edwards stayed in the same place - second
Begrudgingly, Hillary handled herself successfully to third
Dennis Kucinich (Who?) moved way up to number four
Joe Biden gets fifth because he's mediocre
Bill Richardson stays in spot six so that...
Christopher Dodd can be in last place where he belongs

Dennis Kucinich surprised me by clearly being the working class candidate. Despite the fact that .7% of Americans know who he is, I definitely found myself interested with his quick, precise, simple answers to almost all of the questions as opposed to skirting the issues. All of his plans mentioned tonight appeared to provide the working class with exactly what they needed, although who knows what taxes he’d have to implement or if any of them would ever financially come to fruition in the first place, but it sounded good. He definitely moved up on my list of candidates.

Christopher Dodd came off as an ass. *Rogaine* I didn’t have too many good things to say about a lot of his opinions on random subjects, *Rogaine* but the way he handled himself really pissed me off. *Rogaine* I counted more than several times that he waved off Keith, didn’t even remotely answer the question, and even completely ignored questions to try to top another candidate’s previous question and answer – in my opinion, *Rogaine* not his night, and not a good first impression for me. *Rogaine*

In terms of some of heated frontrunner debates, I felt that Obama did extremely well. I’ll admit that I’m a little biased anyway but he fought back Clinton and Dodd’s attacks against his foreign policy. Both tried to show him off as an inexperienced politician that was getting himself way in over his head, but he came back with a strong system and plan in regards to Iraq, immigration, and his political openness. Barack also gained the approval of the working classes and AFL-CIO with the back-to-back debate against Hillary over the "not always say everything you think” issue. She kept her long-term view that one has to pay attention to what they say and follow the usual governmental decision of only revealing what they want to the populace, but Obama came right back and said exactly the opposite – that the public needs to be informed of what’s really happening in the world and decide what to do by the country as a whole. Who knows what could happen if the government decided not to lie or hide things from the people… But those kinds of thoughts are just plain unpatriotic

I still don’t see the mass appeal in Hillary. Yes she acts like a true politician and speaks very well, but that’s just the thing. She acts like a true politician. She basically defended her position as the big business democratic candidate and backed up her opinions of strict governmental control. I just don’t get it.

Despite what the analysts reported after the fact, I felt that John Edwards did do himself some justice today. True, he completely missed a chance to shine and push himself ahead, but he more than held his ground. It was mentioned that Kucinich’s strength in the debate took away from Edward’s campaign, and I can’t help but think that there’s some truth in that. Edwards is doing ok, but just ok, he needs to seriously get things moving if he wants a chance in this. My guess is that he’ll end up running as VP again, just not next to Herman Munster this time.

Chances are, they'll be some flack from some of the candidates tomorrow so hang in there for anything new. Republican debate coming up soon too, so make sure you're saving those babies from the heartless unwed teenage rape victims and gassing those goddamn convicts.

Opening Post

The group that fights off the most discrimination in the United States is clearly the middle class white male. Want his representative political views? Here you go