“It’s a Cookbook!”
While I could muddy the waters and discuss И.В. Сталин and his particular kульт личности, as outlined at the 20th Party Congress by N.S. Khrushchev, visitors would probably be more comfortable basing this on Richard J. Daley and his variation of the cult of personality that resulted in the Chicago political machine – the catapult that launched the career of a certain Senator.
Let’s see, DDay can start it off with The Obama Party, the 50 state voter registration drive by Obama, for Obama. Having trashed and complained about the WVWV registration efforts, Obama is going to task his followers with registering voters, after the majority of the primaries are over, because he wants to help himself and not the Democratic Party.
Ian Welsh looks at The Obama Squeeze, and the changes coming to the Democratic Party. His take is that Obama isn’t McCain, and he might not be as bad as a Republican.
Lambert looks at the direction things are going and concludes that Your Band Sucks seems to be the tenor of the Obama movement and there are no requirements that Obama actually do anything in particular.
Susie Madrak looks at the situation in Vision of the Future, and finally states the obvious answer in an update to the post: Obama is replicating his own personal version of the Chicago machine to replace the Democratic Party.
This may help Obama, but it provides no help for any other Democratic candidates. There is still no actual statement of why Obama wants to be President, or what he intends to do if he wins. To date he has released less of a program than the Shrubbery had. He offers nothing to Democratic voters.
Bringiton, after wasting a lot time trashing the state of Florida recently, finally decides to look at the Electoral College math, and reaches the same conclusion that many people with their eyes on “the prize” had already figured out – Obama’s base is in the wrong states and he will play hell in finishing a decent second in November.
Anglachel gets all wonky and checks the math, and confirms, Obama can win the nomination, but he can’t win the election, because his support is in strong Republican states. He simply doesn’t poll well in swing states.
The real absurdity is all of the people talking about how Obama is going to clean out the “dead wood” in the Democratic Party. What total piffle¹. He chose Joe LIEberman as a mentor when he came into the Senate. Everyone is talking about a possible position for Tom Daschle! Daschle was unable to retain his own Senate seat when he was Minority Leader, for crying out loud! What kind of asset is he going to be, especially since his wife is the lobbyist and former Federal Aviation Administration official, Linda Hall?
Hipparchia left an interesting link in comments as while ago to a Chicago Tribune article on Obama’s election tactics, Obama knows his way around a ballot.
That’s how he dealt with his first real challenge, and now he’s dealing with his second. He is not ready for the challenge against the Republican machine and media, because the media has been overly kind to him so far, and that will stop when the general election begins. The corporate media doesn’t like Democrats, and until he gets his new party in place he will be running as a Democrat.
1. Since this is a family friendly blog, I didn’t say bullshit.
2. To understand my title read this.
12 comments
to serve [man] indeed.
very chicago machine, and obviously it’s working. unlike everybody else, i think he’ll do just fine with the media and the republicans both, precisely because of the machine behind him.
also, the democratic party stopped being the democratic party a long time ago, instead morphing into the third way, a process driven in large part by bill clinton. obama fits right into this mold, though perhaps on the right-ish side of it. heck, mccain even took a stab at being something of a third way-er, or at least passing himself off as one, back in the day.
those of us who were hoping, with the election of a democrat for president, to establish justice and promote the general welfare are just plain sol. clearly we need a third party.
Barack Obama isn’t perfect, and he admits as much. If he’s playing hardball politics, what is Hillary Clinton playing? Nerf football?
hipparchia, we are the third party — you and me and Bryan and the entirety of blogtopia*, we are the once voiceless majority, and Barack Obama will not control our voices.
*ysctp
who shall we run on the blogtopia ticket?
and yes, she plays hardball too.
I have no problem with, and expect “hardball” politics, but electing people who won’t make any promises, or state what they are actually hoping to promote once in office is just stupid. After they’ve been elected you have lost your ability to apply pressure.
The only people who have been guaranteed anything are the Likud party of Israel. All three have guaranteed them a free hand and continued funding.
The so-called low-information voters only need to hear what they can expect to receive from a President, and they are not going to come out if they don’t hear anything. They aren’t interested in all of the “pie in sky” third way, they want a pie on their table.
Electing Democrats just because they aren’t Republicans hasn’t changed much in Congress, and I don’t expect it will change much in the White House. By refusing to impeach the current President for multiple “high crimes and misdemeanors”, Congress has told everyone who runs for President they can do whatever they want without being held responsible.
From this point on the most important selection will be John McCain’s running mate, because I don’t think he’s going to last long in the job, and we are going to be stuck with his choice for VP.
i read earlier today that mccain doesn’t feel he needs ‘diversity’ in his vp, as his base wouldn’t be happy with a black or hispanic person. i suppose this means we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not going to be condoleeza rice.
He’s more apt to go with a Southern Senator or even Huckabee to appease the evangelicals.
Bryan, you have a right to be unreasonable, and the present circumstances are shameful. Harry Reid has been excusing this state of affairs by noting that he doesn’t have a majority in the Senate unless you count Joe Lieberman, and Joe Lieberman would not convict on impeachment.
The Senate is the second half of the equation and has nothing to do with getting the process started in the House. Pelosi doesn’t “want to rock the boat”, apparently not realizing that the “ship of state” has sprung multiple leaks and is sinking.
I don’t vote for people who refuse to explain themselves. There is no point in seeking office if you don’t plan to do anything after you get there. This is an employment process, and I want the new employee to explain how they are better that the other applicants. So far, Obama hasn’t. He has killed a lot of trees saying what he won’t do, but is silent on what he will do.
My position is that you have no obligation to vote for anyone at all, if you cannot do so in good conscience.
The media has been “overly kind” to Obama thus far? What with “God damn America!” playing out for 24 hours a day on the 24-hour news channels and the continued “Hussein-fest” where the entire right wing noise machine focuses on his middle name, combined with a massive email spam campaign to convince people that Obama is a secret Muslim scary black-power Christian liberal activist who wants to, like, sneak into our bedrooms at night and “kill us ALL!”, I just don’t see it.
As for whether he can win or not, that’s a good question. I was originally a supporter of HRC before she ran her campaign off the rails, but since she is now out of the race even if you do seat Florida, that’s a moot point. I will vote for the Democratic nominee in November regardless of who it is, because four more years of Republican rule are likely to be four more years of disaster. I don’t have any big expectations for Obama — he is, in the end, a politician, not a savior — but at least he’s intelligent and unlikely to be a disaster, unlike Mr. PTSD.
– Badtux the Practical Penguin
Badtux, there was at least a minimum of a story there. Wait until he starts getting hit with the “John Edwards’ haircut” or “Hillary Clinton’s laugh” type of crap, something he hasn’t had to endure yet.
The e-mail campaign is low-level, and nothing compared to the MSM columnists repeating all of the lies about the Clinton administration that have been investigated and proven to be false.
As a recovering Mensan let me warn you not to confuse intelligence with common sense or even logical thought. There are evangelical Republican wingnuts in Mensa, and many people who could not be trusted to figure out a McDonalds cash register. Intelligence is way over-rated.
It will be a very long time before I vote for anyone based on party. The Democratic Party disenfranchised me and I won’t forget it. Obama backed that decision and blocked attempts to correct “the problems”, so I will never vote for him, and won’t be kindly disposed to any politician who supports him.