A modern campaign when you're old and gray
makes McCain complain a lot.

Maybe some tricks from Karl Rove's henchmen
will give his polls a shot.

How many gaffes will he make today?

As Barack Obama begins to apply for the job of President of the United States by looking, acting and being presidential (a performance that has paradoxically received rave reviews for his ability and been condemned as presumptuous, one can only assume because he's black), the outlines of his administration are crystalizing.  And what we are seeing is an administration that will combine a willingness to listen to a wide range of opinions, and a determination to correct and investigate the wrong-doings of the Bush Administration.

While this neither takes into account the latest  Quinnipac Poll showing McCain gaining ground in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota or Wisconsin, it also doesn't show the 4% Foreign Tour bounce that Gallup is reporting (see above).

What does that mean?  A short sweet diary below.  Hey, a steampunk's gotta work ;)

Like so many of my easily-enraged fellow Kossaks, when I see something on the internets that stirs my martini, I send a crank email, often under the moniker Wakko Warner.  Lately I sent an emails to Ralph "The Racist Mouth" Nader's campaign.  Nader's campaign is responding to complaints about his racially-tinged views on American politics 1. two weeks too late and 2. with a ridiculous robo-message that keeps responding with the same email no matter what you respond.

I have hacked it up below for your amusement and snarketeering.

Things you may have noticed recently:

1. "Hillraisers" making it known (oh the drama!) that they are unwilling to work for Obama, or would even support McCain.

2. Clintonistas continuing to claim that they can win Hillary Clinton the nomination in Denver through a superdelegate coup.

3. Diarists posting how they are unwilling unless he puts Hillary Clinton on the ticket with him.

4. A major civil rights leader making a fool of himself by talking smack about Obama while wired to a live microphone.

5. A major blogger choosing to encourage people not to give to Obama 08 by making public his own decision not to donate to Obama 08 over a policy dispute.

This diverse group has one thing in common: Fear of Change.

McCain to Deploy TruckNutz in Iraq; Obama Adopts Similar Policy

Degrassi, CANADA -- Citing a need for a more "recognizable, patriotic and awe-inspiring" presence in Iraq, Senator and Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain has put forth a two-point "TruckNutz!" plan that calls for the addition of TruckNutz! to all US and allied troops serving in Iraq, as well as on the Presidential Motorcade.

Sources in the Obama campaign say that they were blind-sided by this visionary approach to Iraq and will be considering similar options to the two-point "Add TruckNutz! to Vehicles that Need Armor and Armored Vehicles that Carry Presidents Plan."

Ahoy! Argh!! His Evil Beneficience SPX is down in the bilge, playing with whale's oil and tinder.  He left a short note to 'splane his absence, and his lack o' spleen:

I'm too annoyed by the rapid formation knee-jerk circular firing squads for coherent writing today, so I'm going down to the bilge to set fire to your ship.

Little he does know o' the bilge, ar!  Me mates be pulling him out after he keels over from the foul stench.  But enough of His Evil Beneficience, this is Kitten-Head the Pirate's day at the helm!  This here diary be a "Kossanomican," a place where you land-lubbers may explain your monikers.  We pirates have monikers too!  I'll tell you the story of mine below. But not in the foul bilge-water, ye tasty ratz!

DC, despite being only six miles wide, is a city of commuters.  And for those of us who commute, our ubiquitous mode of transport is DC's Metro, an over and underground rail that is so clean, so sterile that movies invariably find a filthier and more lively railway to act as its "public transport double."  I spend over two hours a day on this rail, which leaves me with a lot of time to do puzzles, think dirty thoughts, and read books.  Many, many books.

And the best non-fiction I've read in the past two years is absolutely without a doubt The Audacity of Hope.

Two frontpage posts came up rather quickly just now.  They are aimed specifically at me, and people like me.  I'm one of the many among the netroots who simply aren't convinced that FISA is the worst thing ever.  We are not a majority, but a voiciferous minority, one that I suspect doesn't have a coherent view of why we aren't convinced.

But the fact remains: you have failed to convince us of the righteousness of your cause, and we sing in the same choir that you do.  So I'm giving you a big shot here to convince me.  Don't link me to Greenwald, he's already failed to convince me, tell me in your own words.  And make them eloquent ones, make them persuasive, and pretend I'm a slow kid because that's how you're going to have to approach people outside the choir anyway.

As a hardened, track-marked, ready to sell my children for a good cable connection political junkie, I spent the Primary season in a state of pugilistic, partisan euphoria.  It was an halcyon time, a time of Hillary's tenacity and Barack's nimbleness, of Romney's tin ear and Huckabee's surprisingly photogenic insurgency.  Oh, and Paul and Gravel were good for laughs, and Kucinich's wife was definitely worth some airtime.  But I digress . . .

Now is the time for withdrawal symptoms.  Shocking hallucinations of Vitter crawling across the ceiling in a diaper conspire with my shaking hands to make the death march that is the news in July unbearable.  And the impressive mishandling of John McCain's political campaign just ain't the methadone my monkey needs.

I can only assume that John McCain is impotent.  He must be, because no one is paying a lick of attention to him.  Apparently the startling defeats of Al Gore and John Kerry by a know-nothing, unvetted, uncurious, sneering anti-intellectual, mama's boy and political light-weight through the use of lies, fear and finally outright cheating really didn't make an impression on anyone.  

Amazingly, a man running to extend virtually every despised policy of the Bush Administration is receiving much less attention from the Netroots than Barack Obama.  Barack Obama, who has been forthright about what he supports and where he intends to take this country.  Who has written a blueprint for change that is the single best-reviewed political book of the last decade, if not more.  Barack Obama, who is talking about transcending the very "He said the 60s were bad and the 80s were good" kind of tribalistic political sniping and malignant quote-snipping that has infested the recommended list.

From my Pennsylvania Avenue office I can see the streets are seething with masses.  The spontaneous protest of pending FISA legislation has worked the American people into a froth, a fury, an anger so overwhelming that they've taken to the streets to protest against the possibility that Corporate Telecoms could be given retroactive immunity for following the Executive Branch's wiretapping directives.  This heinous act could result in (ok, I'm actually unclear how this undermines the Constitution, especially given the comparisons out there like

1 John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts
2 Abraham Lincoln's revocation of Habeas
3 FDR's internment of Japanese Americans
4 McCarthy
5 Nixon

but I'm not Constitutional scholar like Barack Obama) lots of bad stuff.  

And Barack Obama hasn't done a darn thing to support this massive populist movement.  What could he be thinking?

Who doesn't like baby white tigers?  Couldn't you just cuddle those baby maneaters still they go squish?  And Matt, for gawd's sake, keep dancing! Like Douglas Adams, I could never quite get the hang of Thursdays.  Things like Matt's dancing and this, Dance Monkeys! Dance! help keep my endorphin levels up.  But then I also have panic attacks that require some gay 80's R&B.

Damn, and I lost a bet. Lara Logan CAN get even hotter.

My mother believed deeply in the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Despite her own poor health as well as my father's, she went door to door in my hometown, Vincennes, Indiana, campaigning for Hillary before the Hoosier Primary.  She phone-banked and donated probably more than she could afford.  And, in what was one of the happiest moments of her life, she attended a rally where Bill Clinton spoke (that's her below the banner in the purple paisley jacket!)  She swooned that night; Bill's still a damn handsome man.  

I am damn proud of her for getting out and participating this most important year, in this most important election.  But we didn't speak for over a month after the Hoosier Primary.  My mother was bewildered and hurt when Tim Russert called it over.  Hillary's quest for the nomination, and my mother's hopes to see a woman her own age, a woman she identified with deeply, wouldn't be over until the last votes were counted.

My little Hoosier family always had more than its share of idiosynchrosies, one of the more secret of which was our tendency to listen to comedy recordings on the holidays.  You see, after the grandparents, aunts and fifth cousins 10 to the power of 23 removed had gone home with their leftover trays and presents in hand, my parents, sister and I would clean up and do the dishes to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant on Thanksgiving, and George Carlin at Christmas.

I fear that my years of voting, arguing, living, breathing, fighting and just being generally partisan on behalf of the Democratic Party must come to an end at midnight tonight if Barack Obama doesn't don his Superman Cape and Elven Ring of Power and fix everything, exactly like I wanted, by midnight tonight.  If he doesn't save the world by the time I turn into a pumpkin, I'm giving my partisan vote to the GOP to show my righteous indignation at all the things I cannot change.

There will be no formal impeachment of George Bush, Richard Cheney and the rest of criminals in the Executive Branch.  They will not be tried for lying to the American people, with destroying evidence, with hiding their failures.  I tell you this not because it's right, but because it's true.  But I also tell you that this election is an impeachment of their actions, an electoral indictment that will punish them as a party for crimes against a nation.

And in many ways that is fitting.  Not perfect perhaps, but democracy never is.

The media, with no small amount of nudging from Hillary Clinton and her supporters, is in a period of self-reflection over whether they, and the American people, have been misogynist.  Chris Matthews has been cited, as has (inexplicably since they are women) Randi Rhodes (who I reject and denounce as crass and ignorant, but not sexist) and Robin Ghivan (whose commentary on Clinton's cleavage was just plain bizarre, but not surprising in an age where candidates underwear and tattoos are also covered) as well as the "Iron my shirts" heckler and the case of the junkstore Hillary Nutcracker.  There are many other examples worth exploring, debating, and probably denouncing, as well. (h/t to dhonig)

However, what has been missing from the commentary is any consideration that Michelle Obama is a woman too.