I've seen quite a few claims around here about how this or that potential Vice Presidential candidate will help deliver Ohio for Obama or McCain.  

They won't.

As someone who lived my first 18 years in Ohio, and then lived all over the USA, I need to add my perspective and put these notions to rest.

Follow me beneath the fold for an exploration of this very unique state.

Observers might wonder why we are so furious with Obama over one issue.  I want to address that from my perspective.

For me, the disappointment that I feel isn't primarily about disagreeing with his position - although of course I do.  It isn't even about his meta-move to the "center" of late.

No, I think I am most sad because it is clear that the poisonous Beltway 'conventional wisdom' mentality has now infected Obama.

In today's New York Times, David "the plural of anecdote is data" Brooks examines the stats on Obama's donors to conclude that successful educated professionals tend to overwhelmingly support Democrats.  

I suppose it is nice that Brooks, a national columnist paid millions for his supposed insight, is finally acknowledging what has been painfully obvious to everyone else for years.  But beyond this he gets it entirely wrong, and in so doing provides some sobering insight into the conservative brain (such that there is such a thing).

My personal take on why the Hillary Clinton campaign failed to capitalize on all of its inherent advantages is as simple as it is somehow disappointing:  They simply failed to actually consider or care about the true electoral map and delegate math for the Democratic nomination.

Disclaimer:  I'm not sure if "snark" is the right word for this - the events outlined in this diary have not actually happened, but if they did, I don't think the reactions would actually be too different than hypothesized here.  So here we go:

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By now we've all heard how, at a press conference yesterday, Hilary Clinton killed, skullfucked, and cannibalized a cute defenseless infant.  I have collected some of the reactions from her campaign, supporters, and the media.

In Hillary Clinton's 'victory' speech tonight, she said

Elections are won in the swing states, and I am winning the swing states.

(applause)

Enough enough enough!  Hillary, Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe, and the DLC... listen up... for the last fucking time, you stupid corrupt idiot assholes

1. stop running the campaign of 1996 over and over!

2. Winning or losing a state in the primary doesn't mean one will win or lose it in the general

Stop it.  Just stop it.

Let's say we have a person born into a wealthy, old established WASP family in the suburbs of a major city in the Northern tier of the country.  This person grows up around similar people, then atteneds an elite college for undergrad, and then obtains a professional degree from the top Ivy League institution in their chosen field.

Then, some years later, we find that this person, in spite of being a multi-millionaire at the very epicenter of power in America, in a way that is transparently painful adopts some of the trappings of working class culture, speaks with a fake accent laced with rural colloquialisms, rails against educated people, and is somehow widely accepted by the white working class as one of their own.  We would be shocked that such a thing could be pulled off.

I was shocked when George W. Bush was able to do it, and I am equally shocked now that Hillary Clinton is doing it.

In the ever-changing Clintonian metric of voters that actually matter (tm), the HRC campaign seems to have finally settled, by the Pennsylvania primary, on the white working class.  Yep, the good old solid white working class.  To hear them say it, joe sixpack types are obviously the necessary people for a Democratic victory in November.  

But my my, this is certainly a DRASTIC and abrupt turn around from the historical Clinton and DLC position - embraced as orthodoxy from 1994 through 2007 - that the upwardly mobile "suburban moderates" were the key to Democratic victory.  Follow me below the fold for a brief look at this dramatic change of heart of convenience.

I read a surprising article and it motivated me to enagage with my Kos friends in some amateur speculative demography - one of my favorite pursuits!

According to a survey, a majority of people who listen to classic rock would pick McCain for president over the Democrats.  You can check it out here:  http://news.yahoo.com/....  The gist is this though:

It also found that John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, was the top pick for the Oval Office for men and classic rock partisans -- those people who tune in to stations playing music from the "original classic rock era" of 1964 to 1975, comprised of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd.

I must say I found this both surprising and disappointing.

An analysis of the ideas of Mark Penn, serial campaign loser and Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, provides interesting insight into what has gone wrong with her tragic campaign, and with DLC-style strategy in general.

Free thinking, non-conforming, libertarian Democrat that I am, I am shocked (shocked!) to find myself, of all people, in righteous indignation over some of the grammar that has been practiced lately here.  I am referring the most obvious, annoying, and sloppy mistakes around - the use of apostrophes.  I can't even tell you how many times I see things like "The Saudi's, Iraqi's, and Republican's all know..."

To me, it is a glaring symptom of the type first, think later mentality that seems to be getting worse lately.  Stream of consciousness is great for open-mic night at the coffee house, but not for blogging.  Why not actually try to make sense, and make it easy on the eyes?

I am all for a healthy dose of 'tude like "I don't need your rules, man" but folks, this is getting really out of hand!  Some of these diaries and comments are making us look like total idiots.  We all know that the MSM likes to surf around here looking for things to take things out of context to make us look bad - why are we making their job easy?

I used to be more or less on the fence between Cinton and Obama.  I used to think that the vitriol in the candidate diaries was ridiculous, and that they would both make solid general election candidates and presidents.  I almost voted for John Edwards in the California primary even though he had already dropped out - that's how much I thought Clinton and Obama were both pretty a-ok.

Obama's embrace of that gay-bashing preacher troubled me, but I saw more of his commitment to tolerance and then I felt better about it.  Clinton's vote for the war troubled me and I wrote a diary about it here, got a few great answers from her supporters, and then I actually felt better about it.  

But now, I've come to the reluctant conclusion that Hillary is probably a complete disaster.

I hate candidate diaries and I don't want this to be one.  However, on this particular nagging issue I really do genuinely want to get the perspective of people who support Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  Let me emphasize that I will enthusiastically support her in the general if she wins the nomination, and this is not an attempt to belittle her but rather to assuage some of my own misgivings.  

What I want to know is this:  As a supporter, How do you deal with her Iraq war vote?

I went to vote today here in deep blue Palo Alto.  When I checked in, as the woman working the polls flipped through page after page of her list, I was happy, but not surpised, to see 'DEM' next to almost every name.  After the perpetual rain of the past few weeks, those three letters and today's beautiful sunshine glinting off of the evergreens and palm trees and mountains made me happy once more to call the Bay Area my new home.  Then something somewhat surprising...

In a disappointing bit of tired conventional wisdom hackery, today's NY Times has an Op-Ed extolling the down-home virtues of contemporary country music.

The piece is basically a rehash of the standard, tired old meme that Democrats/liberals/blue-staters are a bunch of silly snobs who are out of touch with the 'real' Americans and their more authentic culture.

Among other gems is this stunner:

Country music – not jazz, hip hop or blues – is the most authentic and popular form of music in America today.

Authentic?  Is this possibly the same contemporary country music that I hear - the one that is nothing but bubble gum diva pop very thinly and poorly disguised with a transparent veneer of twangy 'tude?

This ridiculousness got me thinking about this whole meme of 'authenticity.'  I am sick and tired of the stupid yet widely accepted notion that only people with certain (often working class) values and lifestyles are 'real,' while the rest of us who live differently are silly, fake, ungrounded, and flighty.

First, a telling anecdote:  The second most famous alumnus of my high school (the most famous being Charles Manson) was hippie-turned-yuppie Jerry Rubin.  Rubin was a prominent 60s radical activist, complete with long hair, beard, and drugs, who then morphed into a Wall Street wheeler-dealer who advocated the continuing march of corporate capitalism.  I bring this up not to explore the ethics of this odd transformation, but rather to point out that it would be impossible today.

Why?  Well, because today Rubin's resume would be in a pile with 100 others, up against 100 people who did not have gaps in their employment history, and who instead had the right background and right internships. It's amazing: 35 years ago a BA in sociology from the University of Cincinnati, with a several year gap as an unemployed radical no less, could get you a job on Wall Street!  Today that same degree, even without the activist years, will put you in fierce competition with similarly qualified people for jobs slinging lattes at Starbucks.  Why does my generation need to work so hard to be middle class?

This diary has been in the back of my mind for a while but recent events make it timely.  I realize this is a very contentious topic.  

My hope with this diary is to make the case that gun rights are not just compatible with, but an important component of, a liberal, progressive, freedom-oriented approach to American politics.  I am going to mostly avoid getting into debates about the pros and cons about specific gun control measures, in order to focus on the broad theme, which is that the American left should abandon our sometimes widespread embrace of gun control because it is in fact antithetical to our values and interests.  

I believe that a liberal opposition to gun control stems from the following four basic principles, which I will address in turn:

I have noticed there has been a lot of talk at DK about race lately so I thought it would be a good time for me to dive into a highly controversial subject among those on the left.

I oppose affirmative action.  I can boil it down to two main reasons:

1. It is largely ineffective, often even counter-effective, in dealing with the big problems it is trying to solve

2. It is unfair