PSoTD

There's no chance I'm ever going to personally know either Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain, but this polling is very sad. Based on what we know so far, how could people NOT like Michelle Obama?

I wonder if Linda Kaiser's friends will give her shit for providing one of the stupidest quotes of 2008. It's nice to have a brain? And why does Pennsylvania so often have to be identified with statements doomed to be seen as examples of public dumbassery? Seriously, there are lots of thoughtful people here that can give a comment that won't embarrass the rest of the state's residents.

From the Laurel Manor website:

So, as this blurb shows, in the past this place has handled more than 1000 guests, and promotes that fact. This is location of the Michigan Republicans held their Max M. Fisher National Republican Award Dinner last night. Special guest: President George W. Bush. Fundraiser for Michigan Republicans. Bush is to give a speech. Big, big deal?

It drew a "crowd of about 325".

I wonder how many popped for $5000 for a photo with Bush. Seriously, in what universe would a photo of yourself with George W. Bush be worth $5000? What kind of skewed values would you need to have to make that cost/benefit decision?

As an officer in a local association, I just have to say, every once in a while you run into a person that is a combination of paranoia and ignorance that makes dealing with him or her an ordeal too stupid for words.

And sometimes there are two, married to each other, multiplying their powers of dunderheadedness to a degree that leaves the rational utterly bewildered.

Might lead to a requirement of bicycle insurance. I can see a convergence of interests getting such an idea proposed as legislation.

Because Liebermanism doesn't seem to be liberalism to me. Two year old blogging of a mistaken identity:

The Moose denounces the swiftboating of Joe.

The Moose found one of the most despicable moments of contemporary politics was when John Kerry's heroism in battle was called into question during the 2004 campaign. It was an attempt to rewrite history to depict a war hero as an opportunist. It was vile and disgusting.

Now the left is engaged in a swiftboating of Joe Lieberman. It is an attempt to falsely portray him as right wing Bush supporter. It is a vile lie. The truth is that Joe Lieberman is in the mainstream of a Democratic Party that could become a majority party. But does that party exist anymore?

With apologies to August Bebel, anti-Liebermanism is the liberalism of fools.

As the Moose has pointed out, by any reasonable standard, Joe is a liberal Democrat in good standing. Yes, he supports the war, but it is a blatant misrepresentation to suggest that he is anything but a liberal. (The good folks at the must read Lieberdem did some marvelous research on this question - here)

...

Yesterday, the lefty bloggers attempted to spread the disinformation that Joe might run as a Republican despite the fact that he has made it clear that he will caucus with the Democrats even if he runs as an independent. The left knows no limit to their hatred of Lieberman. It is deep. It is irrational. And it has the potential to damage the Democratic Party for many years to come.

Wrong then. Wrong today.

that could mean lower taxes for dozens of people. Let's do it!!!!

(Not serious, but it's hard to take her very seriously, either)

How will voters deal with Michelle Obama?

“Those are not little ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ pearls,” Ms. Taylor said. “Those are large pearls. Those are pearls you have to deal with.” It could be, of course, that voters won’t warm up to a pearls-you-have-to-deal-with personality.

I think she'd make a heckuva lot more interesting first lady than Cindy McCain.

It was the fundraisers! Or just fate.

I suppose Mark Penn wrote this just to give people one last chance to laugh at him.

I don't think it's going to work. There should be some sort of blogger-based fundraiser at some point to help Hillary Clinton with her campaign debt, and I'm sure many bloggers will do so, but while sharing the sentiment that they really don't like any of their donation going to Penn.

I can't think of one person in politics the past year who has seen their professional reputation sink as far as Mark Penn, and that includes all the zombies working for Bush.

Very classy speech by Hillary Clinton yesterday. What a great way to begin it, as well. I'd like to see some BIG Obama bloggers now blog promote some donation effort to assist the Clinton campaign in retiring their debt.

This seems a bit arbitrary to me, pricing government web sites based on the number of people in the community.

I'd wonder about this.

Supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested she would like to be Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, but close advisers to Sen. Obama are signaling that an Obama-Clinton ticket is highly unlikely.

Some in the Clinton camp also noted a possible deal-breaker for a party-unity ticket: Bill Clinton may balk at releasing records of his business dealings and big donors to his presidential library.

Before they include such a comment in the story, maybe they ought to consider the situation - what was Bill Clinton going to do if his wife was the nominee? If he was prepared to release the records at that point, why would he balk if she were the VP candidate?

What would Hillary Clinton do if John McCain offered her the VP spot?

This assessment of McCain last night in his speech is spot on. It WAS creepy, especially the little chuckles.

Three images from last night’s TV coverage will stay with me for years.

1. McCain’s reptitious, ill-timed, and creepier-than-usual grin … like the Cheshire cat on sedatives.

I think that over the next three months, Hillary's speech last night will be seen as another major bungling of her campaign. She is not in the position to try to negotiate, as David Gergen said last night, a "coalition government", and that IS how she sounded last night. Let me say that again: reality does not put her in position to act as she did last night.

Saying she's going to take some time to decide what's next is absolutely fine. There's a political reality to this, though, and it is this - nobody else is going to wait. Obama is moving forward. McCain is moving forward. The news media is moving forward. It's over, regardless of when she wants to admit this on stage.

What isn't politically savvy is this notion that she's somehow representative of nearly 18 million voters now, and that she somehow is supposed to negotiate for them. She is not, no more than Obama is representative of nearly 18 million voters. They are now representative of delegates. Those delegates are representative of the voters. Delegates that want this wrapped up, delegates that want the strongest position in November, delegates that want to win. They know that Clinton won't be the candidate. There will be a swift and strong movement to prove that, and to take Clinton off the media pedestal of candidacy. There's no need for her muddying up the actual candidate's message.

She has to know that. She also has to know that last night's speech wasn't particularly diplomatic, or healing, to the entire Democratic Party. She has to know that it would tick off Obama supporters. She has to know that the oxygen for her publicity as a candidate has perhaps a few more days left before it starts to diminish to the layers now enjoyed by Biden and Kucinich and Dodd.

She has to know that if she tries one more speech like last night, she's going to get the royal shove up her backside publicly by the party leadership.

What she seems to not understand is how much the calendar is going to work against her now. There's no need for Obama to select a VP candidate right now, and in fact there's plenty of reason for him to hold off, as it is a process that generates free positive media coverage for his candidacy and he should hold that as a buildup to the convention. We're heading for a couple of months where Obama and McCain will have the stage, that cooler heads will prevail on the direction of the fall campaign, and most importantly, where Obama can appeal directly to those primary voters for Clinton and review polling data to see how he's doing. He can run trial balloons for VP and see how people react.

She's not in position to call the shots for her being VP now, and as time goes by, whatever strength she might have is going to disappear. Any effort for her to do so now should be resisted. If she doesn't understand the power dynamic right now, there's very little to suggest that she'd understand it from the position of Vice President.

Put another way - Vice President is NOT Co-President. And there's no way that Obama should select as a running mate someone who seems to think it could be. And there's quadruple no way that Obama should select a VP candidate that pretends there could be a co-presidency but would make no leadership effort to take such responsibility:

Though some might think her remarks self-delusional, Clinton wasn't kidding herself; earlier in the day, Clinton had told lawmakers privately that the race was over and she would consider being Obama's vice president. Her public defiance reflected a shift in the balance of power that came with Obama's victory. Now that he had won the race, he would need to woo Clinton if he wanted to prevail in November.

"Obama has work to do," the outspoken Clinton adviser Lanny Davis told reporters in the hallway outside the gymnasium here. "Senator Clinton can't do it for him."

Well, I already didn't think she was a leader. Thanks for confirming, Lanny.

At some point I need to be enlightened. I guess I just don't understand why we have elections that allow people to vote in the primary when they cannot vote in the general election. This seems to me to be stupid policy for the Democratic Party. If, somehow, the Democratic primary election was determined by the delegates delivered by the Puerto Rico primary, how would that sit with the rest of the voting United States?

In other words, why in the hell would we allow voters that cannot participate in the general election determine who would be in that general election? I have plenty of sympathy for the political limbo that Puerto Ricans may feel they are in, but this process allowance isn't moving any closer to resolving their situation at all.

In all these polls about "Hillary Clinton’s Swing-State Advantage" in a head-to-head versus McCain, I have not seen anything about the possibility that the strongest Hillary advocates actually have an incentive to say they would vote for McCain over Obama, regardless of whether they would or not. The Clinton campaign has primarily been ONLY about this "advantage" over the past few weeks, and the most partisan Hillary supporters certainly should have gotten the message that this is what is perceived to be their strongest argument left. If polled, why would Clinton advocates say they'd support Obama over McCain? That defeats their own campaign.

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to beat Rudy Giuliani this November for President.

If there was only a way for me to continually drop bucketloads of turds on Scott McClellan, I might be able to communicate the feeling I have towards him and his book right now.

In fact, if I had the time I'd invent the McClellanator, a perpetual motion machine driven by a community's sewage that used gravity to bucket and then drop the sewage contents on McClellan.

And if I were a Godlike entity, I would make it so McClellan lived forever yet could not move and could not avoid the perpetual turd-delivering McClellanator.

These are the times where I regret the limitations of my power.

The Superdelegate Transparency Project is pretty useful, developed by Sourcewatch.

And I thought it was pretty close to certain that Obama was going to win the Democratic nomination, that there was a split party out there, and that it was important for the Democrats to replace the Republicans in power in the White House, that I'd have decided that it's time to start writing about reasons that the "fractured Democrats" should consider Obama again, rather than continuing to write articles essentially promoting the perceptions of the fracture.

The Australians have something called "National Sorry Day".

New Poll Finds Big Shift Toward Obama

A new poll released today in California finds political momentum shifting dramatically toward Barack Obama—and away from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain—in the nation's most populous state. According to a survey conducted over the past 10 days by the Public Policy Institute of California, 59 percent of likely voters here now have a "favorable" impression of Democrat Obama, while a majority view both of the other candidates unfavorably. In a state whose Democratic primary Clinton won in February, 51 percent of voters now say they have an unfavorable opinion of her; 53 percent of voters feel the same way about Republican McCain.

Obama, meanwhile, seems to be making strides across nearly every constituency. If the general election were held today, 54 percent of Californians say they would vote for him, compared with 37 percent for McCain. That gap has widened by 8 points since March.

I wonder if this has to do a lot with public perception of how Obama's dealing with Hillary Clinton at this point. Her campaign efforts are portrayed by the press as a "threat" to Obama, and yet he generally appears calm and controlled under that threat. Her very campaign is now making him appear - dare I say - presidential. What she's doing in the spring in order to try to beat him may actually help him in the fall.

From the California Catholic Daily:

Even in the face of an estimated $20 billion budget deficit, a bill that would raise revenues by imposing a 25% tax on earnings of the pornography industry is meeting with stiff resistance in the California legislature, with opponents claiming it would drive a multi-billion-dollar industry out of the state.

The bill, AB 2914, authored by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, would levy a 25% tax on gross revenues from the sale of pornographic magazines, photos, books, films and videotapes, and on the gross earnings of live sexually explicit entertainment and pay-per-view pornography provided to hotel guests.

According to a legislative analysis of the bill, it could raise up to $665 million a year in new revenues for the financially strapped state.

At a May 12 hearing, opponents testified that imposing a 25% tax on porn industry profits could drive the business out of California, at a cost in jobs and other revenues of as much as $3.5 billion. It would have an especially hard impact, witnesses testified, on the San Fernando Valley, said to be the "porn capital of the world."

Republicans in the legislature have indicated they would vote against the bill because it is a tax increase and they oppose any tax increase of any stripe. Under state law, tax increases require a 2/3 majority of both houses of the legislature.

This is kind of a strange tax issue. One of the things that concerns me about what government entities choose to "special tax", for whatever purposes and whatever special rate, is the investment by that government into the success or failure of the subject of that tax. I know that there are some that speculate that such a tax in California would squeeze the porn industry out of California, but I think there's just as great of likelihood that the porn industry would receive special business benefits from future government policy once the state government got a taste for the tax revenues.

In other words - governmental protection. I don't care either way if California would do this, but I think that those looking at this issue ought to realize the potential. Looking at a tax policy as a way to drive an industry away might actually backfire because of a government's need for revenue.

Here's something I find interesting about Kentucky. In a primary where Obama was hammered by Clinton, on an election day where a U.S. Senate seat and several US House seats and several state legislature seats had primary races for election in Kentucky:

Obama received more votes than all the Republican candidates for President in Kentucky.

Are Republicans in Kentucky really that disinterested in this primary? Are they lazy? Or is it a sign that Republicans are THAT disorganized and distanced from their national party at this point?

And where's the media on reporting this?

Jonah Goldberg calls the idea horrifying and says it would send cold shivers down his spine - if he had a spine.

I'm sold. Attorney General John Edwards it is!

There sure are a lot of her supporters out their claiming she'd help make a "dream ticket"...

I still like the idea of choosing her for Supreme Court Justice.

Apparently the Clinton campaign and their supporters believe that she's still the inevitability candidate in November, if she can just overturn the current status of delegates for the primary races. That's the only sense I can make out of the "Obama can win, Hillary will win in November" argument.

However, I think that campaign theme has been discredited already. Why would somebody buy that as an argument for the fall when the same argument has been so clearly destroyed in the spring?

From Hillary's speech last night:

And I will be back. As we move on now to the next contests, in Kentucky and Oregon, in Puerto Rico, in Montana and South Dakota, tonight I'm thinking about Florence Steen from South Dakota, eighty-eight years old and in failing health when she asked that her daughter bring an absentee ballot to her hospice bedside. Florence was born before women had the right to vote, and she was determined to exercise that right, to cast a ballot for her candidate who just happened to be a woman running for president. Florence passed on a few days ago, but I am eternally grateful to her and her family for making this such an important and incredible milestone in her life that means so much to me. I’m also thinking of Dalton Hatfield, an 11-year-old boy from Kentucky, who sold his bike and sold his video games to raise money to support my campaign.

That Hatfield kid seems to have "political operative" written all over his future. I do kinda wonder what kind of reception he'll be getting at school for selling his bike and games to give money to a failing political candidate.

Bad strategy for the pledged delegate leader to devalue delegate pledges.

Man, that guy's annoying and ill-informed. Hopefully after this campaign, he'll never get hired for another national gig again.

Senior Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," rejected the idea that the campaign was over.

He predicted victory in the next primary, on Tuesday in West Virginia, where Clinton is heavily favored.

"If Barack Obama wants Hillary Clinton out of this race, beat her. Beat her in West Virginia, beat her in Puerto Rico, beat her in Kentucky," Wolfson said, citing other upcoming contests.

Dude, he IS beating her. Look at the delegate count! There's no requirement for a total skunking of a candidate of victory in any states.

When is a 20% election victory in a state not a victory?

Perhaps when the victorious campaign has bragged about 40% margins. I'm not sure Terry McAuliffe is doing the Clinton campaign any favors...

MR. McAULIFFE: Has it become an avalanche today? No. Did it become an avalanche after Tuesday, when you and others were all on the air saying it was over? No. Which should make you say something. We are now coming up to West Virginia on Tuesday. The last poll had Hillary up 43 points. She's up 40 points in Kentucky.

They really didn't play the expectations game very well this week. A gigantic blowout is to be expected, and anything less than a gigantic blowout will raise as many questions about Clinton - where did her expected voters go - as Obama.

This is why we don't, and shouldn't, use polls for decisionmaking OVER election results.

California voters would change their February primary vote for Hillary Clinton to a vote for Barack Obama if the vote were held again, according to an exclusive poll commissioned by CBS 5.

While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%.

The poll was conducted on May 7 and 8 and has a margin of error of 4%.

One of the arguments that I find rather unconvincing is that superdelegates should somehow weigh an unofficial poll as highly as an official election/caucus. What the hell is that all about? Do we throw out the votes for any election because of a contrasting poll? Regardless of how supposedly scientific a poll may be, why is it even considered to be on a par with an official election?

And yet, the argument about electability is just that. Polls saying that one candidate does stronger than another candidate with certain segments of the population. Polls saying that one candidate does better than another against McCain.

Polls are unofficial. Elections and caucuses are official. They do not carry anything close to the same weight.

George Stephanopoulos thinks Hillary Clinton is still in the race because she's maneuvering for the VP slot.

Could be, who knows. I think if it were offered to Clinton, she'd HAVE to take it. Otherwise, she's giving somebody else viability for the next Democratic Party Presidential Primary that has no incumbent.

And she could see her future possibilities even further hindered if Obama selected another woman as a running mate.

I suspect we'll see Obama start up the VP possibility tour soon. Those kinds of stories not only provide new interest in him, but take away news space that Hillary Clinton desperately wants.

Hillary Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Ed Koch:

As Democrats coalesce around Sen. Barack Obama, one of Hillary Clinton's must outspoken supporters is not mincing words: the party is walking needlessly and unaware into a general election buzzsaw.

"I believe Obama probably will win [the Democratic nomination], although in politics you never ever can count anybody out," said former New York Mayor Ed Koch. "I think Hillary is doing a magnificent job and is a great candidate and if anybody can pull it out, she can. But my honest opinion is, it probably won't happen. And that he will be the candidate and that he will lose."

Koch's argument, while never voiced in public by Clinton, is thought to reflect the opinion of the senator and her key aides.

Remember George Bush's theme of 2004 - vote for me or the terrorists win? Clinton's gone to the fear tactic: vote for me or the Republicans win.

Do we really want a President that wants to rule by fear for another 4 years? Isn't that a reason why we're opposed to McCain and the Republicans?

I guess there's a possibility that Hillary thinks this is helping Obama. Since so many Republicans despise the Clintons, perhaps some are so reactionary that they will do anything to prove Hillary Clinton wrong. So if her campaign says that Obama can't win - maybe those Republicans will vote for Obama in response!

Who knows what that campaign is thinking anymore.

BTW, Hillary is threatening to do some severe damage in any future election in which she might want to run for the Democratic Party nomination for President again. She's getting closer to the "if not now, not ever" line of campaigning, which seems politically unwise. And that's pretty much how I see Hillary Clinton - as not wise enough politically to achieve her political goals. And that's not good enough for President this time around, either.

The American Military Branches.

The few, the strong, the brave and some convicted felons could well describe today’s Marine Corps. In the Army, more convicted felons can be all they can be too, as all branches of the military relaxed their standards allowing 861 felons to join the ranks in 2007, according to data released April 21 by the Congressional Oversight Committee.

From arsonists, to burglars to car thieves, each branch of the military saw a rise in waivers extended to convicted felons in an effort to meet the needs of war.

...

The lowering of standards by the military is no surprise to Morten G. Ender, Ph.d., sociology program director in the Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

“In the last war in Viet Nam, there was a draft. This is an historical pattern. This is nothing new,” he told The Final Call. “What’s new is the all volunteer force. The military now has to rely on the corporate model. If people don’t come to your business you have to compromise your standards or lower your expectations.”

“This is no surprise. An all volunteer military coupled with war and an unpopular war at that, no surprise this is happening,” he said.