For me, this election isn't about who's in or who's out or who's up or who's down. It's about the common threads that tie us together - rich and poor, young and old, black and white, Latino and Asian, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We are united by common values. We all want a better world for our children, and we want the best for our country. And we are committed to putting a Democrat back in the White House.
Today came further confirmation that Oregon is not an important part of the Clinton campaign's strategy for victory. From the Oregonian:
Wolfson and the Clinton's chief strategist Geoff Garin spent and hour Friday walking reporters through the argument for nominating Clinton. It basically boils down to this: Clinton has won the states that matter - battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida -- and Obama has not. Clinton, they say, has a better chance of winning those same states in November against McCain than does Obama.
The subtext, of course, is that the states Obama carried or is expected to carry, such as Oregon, aren't as important because any Democrat is likely to win them in the fall. Only Clinton is in a position to win the states that are likely to determine the election, they said.
Oregon is not important - the Clinton campaign could care less about ousting Gordon Smith and keeping this purple state transitioning toward blue.
In the great tradition of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, we have high-profile Democrats refusing to campaign against Republicans in Oregon.
Sen. Ron Wyden has made it clear that he will "go along to get along" and not campaign against Oregon's junior Republican Senator, Gordon Smith. According to Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff:
"Just as Sen. Smith has supported the Republican nominee in both of his last two races, Sen. Wyden will support the Democratic nominee for 2008, but he won't campaign against Gordon, and he will continue to work with Sen. Smith on the state's behalf for the next two years," Kardon said
The additional twist here is that Josh Kardon is also the chair of Hillary Clinton's Oregon Steering Committee.
Bill Clinton is a real class act. He rolls into Oregon, runs 2 hours late on schedule, and then when he does speak, he chooses to slam a local Democrat and Reed College professor to try to score some cheap political points:.
Earlier in the day, Clinton played up to his audience, derisively reading a quote from a Reed College professor suggesting that it was "old politics" for the Clinton campaign to send the former president through a series of small towns.
"When Hillary's campaign announced that I was going to come here and to other small communities, some of the political pundits in Portland said we were wasting our time," Clinton told the crowd in Junction City. "It really matters what happens in rural America."
There is a fast and furious discussion going on at BlueOregon right now in response to a bullshit-laden post by Josh Kardon, chair of the Clinton Steering Committee in Oregon. The focus of his Dana Perino-style nonsense: Barack has missed opportunities to seal the deal, so Hillary is better!
When challenged in the comments to lay out the course for Hillary to achieve the nomination, Paddy McGuire, a member of Hillary's Oregon Steering Committee, responded:
Iraqi lawmaker to U.S.: Back off or 'all options are open'
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi lawmaker warned the U.S. military Sunday that if it doesn't immediately end its attacks on Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, "all options are open to us."
Hillary has been working very hard to sew the seeds of discontent in Florida and Michigan. She has been selling that disenfranchisement snake oil like there's no tomorrow!
So we have no real choice - someone must ask Hillary: "ARE THE VOTERS IN FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN BITTER?"
Is it ok for Florida and Michigan voters to be bitter, but Pennsylvania voters are not allowed to be bitter?
All along (well, at least since she started losing) Hillary has wanted us to believe that they are bitter. Bitterly bitter:
Hillary, you had better be absolutely clean on this "my dad taught me to shoot" thing. Because I am reading. I am reading now every public statement you have ever made regarding guns. And if this is another Bosnian sniper fire story - I'll be letting the world know.
My first question is - have you ever spoken before about your father teaching you how to use a gun? I'll be checking. If not, that sure would be interesting.
I did find this, however, from a speech you made in 2003 to the League of Conservation voters:
Make sure you bookmark this and send the link to any Clinton supporter who starts shedding those crocodile tears about disenfranchising voters in Michigan:
Then, the CLINTONISTAS began arriving. Angry, morose, cell phones and laptops jammed in huge purses, attired, as usual, in elastic waist man-made fabric pantsuits with long jackets to camouflage their familiar Hillary-type physiques. They were ready to kick some Obama butt. They huddled amongst themselves, adrift in a sea of Obama blue T-shirts, plotting every way possible to take delegates for their candidate, as losing a battle as that was.
Hillary Clinton stacked the deck to secure a primary nomination by Super Tuesday. The Clinton campaign considered February 5, 2008 as the "end of the campaign". A deliberate part of that plan involved stripping Michigan of Florida of delegates. But her plan backfired. Now we see the crocodile tears and the faux righteous demands to see the Michigan and Florida delegates seated.
The crocodile tears that are now being shed about Florida and Michigan are the latest and most disingenuous of the Clinton campaign. The fact is that the idea of drawing a line in the sand so that you would end up with a de facto national primary was from page one of the Clinton playbook.
Having twenty or thirty states vote on the same day, the theory went, would favor the candidate with the most money, the most experience and the most organizational support with connections with many local governors and mayors already on board.
Geraldine Ferraro: Sweatshop Landlord
Long Hours, Low Pay, Rancid Conditions Are Commonplace at Senate Candidate's Building
March 10th, 1998 12:00 AM
A SOHO building partially owned by U.S. Senate candidate Geraldine Ferraro and managed by her husband, John Zaccaro, has housed 35 Chinese garment-manufacturing companies over the past few years--many of them nonunion and some apparently illegal.
While an attorney for the current tenants insists they are not sweatshops, a Voice investigation has uncovered an array of conditions identified with sweatshops: piecework pay; 15-hour days; seven-day work weeks; boarded-up windows; blocked exits; crowded, filthy facilities; gut-wrenching fumes; and fly-by-night corporate shells.
Back in 1992, Geraldine Ferraro was outraged by attempts to link her and her husband to the mob because of their ethnicity (NYT, 10/8/92):
*Sept. 8 -- With a week before the election, Mr. Abrams accuses Ms. Ferraro of failing to release documents that would show her and husband's partners in at least eight corporations or partnerships. Ferraro aides say Mr. Abrams is trying to suggest that she has mob ties, and Ms. Ferraro, denying any interest in the companies, lashes back at Mr. Abrams: "Guilt by ethnicity has been succeeded by guilt by postal address."
Guilt by ethnicity! It is so very wrong to make allegations about someone based purely on their ethnicity!
I was surprised to see Angelina Jolie, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, invading the front page of the WaPo online today:
The request is familiar to American ears: "Bring them home."
But in Iraq, where I've just met with American and Iraqi leaders, the phrase carries a different meaning. It does not refer to the departure of U.S. troops, but to the return of the millions of innocent Iraqis who have been driven out of their homes and, in many cases, out of the country.
This is the best reason I can think of to vote for Barack Obama: only he can create a true, progressive majority. A progressive majority will effectively move a progressive agenda.
The question of who can best build popular support for a progressive governing agenda is related to, but distinct from, the question of electability. Given a certain ceiling on Clinton's appeal (due largely to years of unhinged attacks from the "vast right-wing conspiracy"), her campaign seems well prepared to run a 50 percent + 1 campaign, a rerun of 2004 but with a state or two switching columns: Florida, maybe, or Ohio. Obama is aiming for something bigger: a landmark sea-change election, with the kind of high favorability and approval ratings that can drive an agenda forward. (emphasis added)
