Anger Management III
The man is absolutely disconnected from the reality of the situation: Obama: Florida, Michigan are Clinton’s ‘last slender hope’
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama accused Sen. Hillary Clinton of stoking anger in Florida and Michigan over the Democratic Party’s decision not to recognize the states’ primary votes.
“They weren’t stirring it up when they didn’t need the delegates,” he said. “Let’s not sort of pretend that we don’t know what’s going on. This is, from their perspective, their last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win.”
I can’t speak for Michigan, but we damn sure don’t need Hillary Clinton to be pissed off about what the Democratic Party did to us in Florida. She isn’t stirring anything up – she’s has recognized the reality.
As Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000, you would have thought that Donna Brazile would understand the effect of disenfranchising Florida, again, but showing the political acumen of Niccolò Machiavelli, who died in 1527, she apparently felt that she had to punish the voters for the decision of the Supreme Court that robbed her of a win worth major bucks to her consulting firm.
The Obama campaign has been just as brain dead, stalling every effort to resolve the issue.
For years the Democratic Party has used Florida as a bank. They hold fund raisers just down the road from me and raise 6 and 7 figure amounts, but the local Democratic candidate for Congress can’t raise more than the low 4 figures and the state party has had more debts than cash for a decade.
When the big money donors got ticked off this year, and refused to give any more to the party unless Florida’s delegation was seated at the convention, the story was about the Clinton supporters in the group, not the fact that the Florida Democrats were angry about the treatment they had received.
All of the Democrats I know voted for Edwards, and we are all angry about what happened. The Republicans did it to us in 2000, and the DNC did it to us this year. We don’t need anyone “stirring it up”, and we damn sure don’t need Obama patronizing us – no vote in Denver; no vote in November.
33 comments
if she’d been a more competent campaign manager, she would have done more to rein in, or at least counter, all the scurrilous media attacks on gore, and we would never have got into this mess.
The only problem with Gore, is his lunatic wife, Tipper (appropriate nicname really, most don’t even remember her real name, Mary Elizabeth) and her wives club inmates, especially her bestest friend, Susan Baker. As I mentioned in another post. Surely you remember that she has precisely the same *family values* mentality as the current GOP crazies. It’s curious to me that having a major in Psychology, she doesn’t understand people better. Has anyone read her books? 🙂 She is full of contradictions. She was a drummer in an all girl band called the Wildcats, and yet created the PMRC to try to control or destroy the very music she used to perform. 🙂 Etc, etc. She made a big mistake taking on Frank Zappa, and loosing. Even the UK Crown lost a case against Zappa (up until that point, nobody had ever beaten the Crown in court) and they threw him out of the UK because they are very sore losers. LOL To be honest, I don’t disagree with a lot of her beliefs, I do disagree with her holier-than-though attitude and her belief that only she knows what REAL family values are! Sounds like a few current crazies I could mention… Spears ring a bell? Malkin? Etc, etc…
Electing Al, means electing his baggage. And the USA has more than enough problems right now. 🙂
frank zappa for president!
eh, warning labels on music videos, as baggage that’s pretty lightweight. it’s not even real censorship. and lunatic? i got plenty of those in my family tree, they’re mostly harmless. nor do i care about holier-than-thou attitudes, since i’m not having a beer with any of these people.
michelle malkin?! dude, it’s one thing to want others to adopt your values, but it’s an entirely different matter to be downright hateful about it.
i can’t be certain about it, but i don’t think al gore would have invaded iraq. yeah, i know, he’s got some troubling connections too, but that alone makes up for a lot of shortcomings.
Ohhh, there was a LOT more going on behind the scenes with Tipper! 😀 And as I said elsewhere, I have no problem with a lot of what she did or wanted to do. She did help improve the situation of the homeless, and mentally ill. It was just her whole attitude of ‘Mommy knows best!’ with regard to the entire USA that I disagree with, and Hillary learned from her. 🙂 Tipper talked a lot about pro-choice, and then took choice away every chance she got. I can’t stand a hypocrite.
To be honest, I’d prefer Al to Hillary or Barrack right now! 🙂 Fact is, It’s mostly Hillary’s (and also, Bill’s) fault Gore lost in 2000 (apart from the fact that Bush stole it). She was too busy looking out for herself, and from what I can see, nothing has changed there. I was reading up on a book excerpt at Vanity fair on what was called “The White House Civil War” between ’93 & ’99. Very interesting. 🙂 I wonder if Hillary and Bill will ever admit that the past 8 years are mostly their fault? LOL
White House Civil War
I don’t know about you, but a short-sighted selfish fool is not what I would call a good candidate for President. Oh, wait… you have one of those now! Oops…
Maybe I’ll magically travel 100 years into the future one day, and read the history of the past 20 years and next 10 (assuming there is anything to read and the Earth still exists) and learn what really happened. 🙂
Oh, wait… you have one of those now! Oops…
yep! and the present system just encourages them to breed.
a mother hen for a first lady, not even president mind you. oooooh, scareeeee! i’m not in favor of over-protectiveness, but you’ll have to come up with a lot of hard evidence to convince me that tipper gore would have taken away more of our freedoms, and more important ones, than have bush and cheney and assorted minions.
so hillary clinton poached terry mcauliffe away, leaving gore stuck with donna brazile for campaign manager, so it’a all her fault. meh. maybe gore should have been smarter in his pick of replacement campaign managers.
and this rainmaker thing. it’s true that it takes money to run a campaign, but ‘running a campaign’ has for some time now been ‘selling a brand’ rather than actual politicking. the horserace has devolved more into ‘who has the most dollars to fling around’ and less ‘who has the better ideas to fix broken stuff.’
for which we can blame the media for prefering hype and eschewing substance, and campaign managers for being snake oil salesmen instead of policy wonks.
Al Gore’s biggest problem was “playing nice”. He needed to get mad about the things that were occurring, instead of just exasperated. He let the media get away with all kinds of crap, that should have been attacked as soon as they happened. He was a collegial Senator-type, neither taking nor giving offense. That’s was a nice feature of the old US Senate before the Stalinists moved in, but it is no way to run for President. If you won’t fight for yourself, why would anyone believe that you would fight for them.
Yes, Tipper was/is around the bend in a gentile Southern way, it is easier to understand if you were raised in the South, but she was ready to fight on her admittedly limited issues. Al just wanted to explain why people were wrong.
Al Gore would have been a great President, but he has saved his outrage for the planet and the climate change issue. If he had showed some of his current outrage in 2000 we wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.
What Hillary Clinton did was seize the opportunities while Al Gore considered the possibilities. They are politicians, as she beat him to the punch.
The outrage issue is one of the reasons I went with Edwards – he finally got it, and let his attorney/advocate dogs off the leash. He scared the hell out of the media, because he would have taken them on if he had been given an opportunity. They shut down his access to ensure that didn’t happen.
I don’t care who the abbreviated unDemocratic Party picks, they are going to get “Gore-d” by the media, who will always back the corporation loving GOP. The media decided this would be an “historic” primary battle between a black and a woman, and then they’ll decide that things are too uncertain to elect an “untested” candidate. Clinton, at least, understands this, but Obama is going to be surprised.
edwards finally got it and let the dogs off the leash. that’s the reason i went with him. i knew his populism/anti-corporatism would get him shunned by the media but i was hoping he could get the message out to enough voters anyway. oh well.
i think you’re right about the ‘untested’ candidate, and clinton’s understanding of that, but because he’s got axelrod running his campaign, i think obama gets it too, and it isn’t going to be as easy to bring down as you say.
one of the many problems is this insane equating of good campaigner with good president. but hey, it sells newspapers. or so the msm thinks.
s’okay. i’m going have to float off to cuba to get healthcare, no matter who gets
crownedelected.The Obama campaign is centralizing all of the money and power – that isn’t going to work. They don’t have the resources to do what needs to be done. Naral and MoveOn have lost their non-Obama base by coming in early, and the Obama base is supposed to work through the campaign.
The problem is that “independent” groups, can no longer claim independence. They aren’t “issue oriented” any more, they have tied themselves to a candidate by jumping into the primary. That was always a joke, but the parameters of the joke have been laid down, and too many groups have stepped over the line.
The GOP hasn’t done this, and they will be attacking from many different directions, but the Dems have restricted their “field of fire”.
Bryan, You are right! Obama requested that they “send their money to HIS campaign”, so now they are in deep do- and will not be able to retaliate against McCain using Moveon.Org or other 527’s. I would like to see the tape that the Republican 527 is rumored to have that stars Michelle Obama. That is why Barak Obama came out last week and told everyone hands off using his wife in their videos. I would like to see it out in the open before the superdelegates vote. That way they will have a complete picture. And, since neither candidate has the required delegate count, and the fact that neither will be able to get to the 2,026, the superdelegates will make the decision on who the nominee will be.
It was always going to be the superdelegates making the decision, the way the system is set up. If you don’t have an obvious candidate after Super Tuesday, the SDs are in charge.
Frankly, I think the Dems have already blown their big opportunity, and at this point its a matter of how big a train wreck this is going to be.
Clinton will do her level best to unify the party, because she wants to be the first female President and knows she needs a united party to do that, but she is not going to be able to convince many of her voters to stay involved.
The Obama campaign has burned too many bridges, and made too many people angry. They have been attacking voters, not just the other candidates, and that is a brain dead concept.
Hillary has shown time and time again that her judgment is poor, i.e., her mismanaged campaign, her mismanaged husband, her mismanaged staff, her miscalculations, her misspeaks continually ………….
Let go and let the party come together as a united front. The forces that have driven this country apart for the past eight years must be stopped & swept from the White House … it’s time to step down and encourage your supporters to support the Democratic party. We NEED to win the Whitehouse back. Our country can’t take another 4 years of Bush which is what we’ll get with McSame.
When will this end. Enough already, Hillary. ENOUGH!!!!
Lexi, the Democratic party has already lost Florida and, probably, Michigan. The heavy case of attitude coming from the Obama camp may cost the party the working class and feminists, so you can forget unity.
Clinton keeps talking about it, but she will never be able to convince many of the voters that have been insulted by the Obama camp, to support him. His campaign and supporters have apparently never learned that you attack the opposing candidate, but never the voters.
I was unaware that it was a wife’s job to “manage” her husband.
McCain may not even carry Arizona, if we can reunify the blogs between now and November.
The blogs don’t have the power, Micheal, and their are too many instances of things that can’t be “unsaid”.
There’s a Slavic proverb about words being birds that can only be caught once. After they have been released you will never get them back.
Bryan, I disagree. The blogs have immense power when united. More power than any media conglomeration.
As for things that have been said, some bridges will undoubtedly have been burned, some people will stop talking to some people, and life will go on for the rest of us.
Almost everything that appears on television is the product of one of six media conglomerates. When it is in their interest, as in the case of the recent writers strike they band together.
There is no possible combination of bloggers that can approach the market reach of the least of the network news shows, especially when you consider that some of the highest traffic sites will be spreading the word for McCain, reflexively, if not willingly.
On the left many of the sites have squandered their credibility on this campaign, and once gone it will never be recovered. It will be a very long time, if ever before I will accept the information on a number of sites, because I have seen them distort facts, not opinion – facts, in support of a candidate.
MoveOn and NARAL are lost, because they became involved in a primary. Why would anyone trust them again, as they obviously didn’t stand by their basic principles? They allowed themselves to be swept up in a move that they felt would increase their access to power, without regard to the consequences. We have had almost 8 years of reckless behavior, and don’t need any more.
Too many people have failed to appreciate what the goal of the process really is – the November election. That is an unforgivable lapse of judgment. Understand I am not Christian in my attitudes – I do not forget or forgive bad behavior. I have spent too many years in situations where someone’s bad judgment could result in my death. I am very “hard core” about that.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have your dreams and goals, we each have our own path to follow. I will wish you luck in your journey, but it is your journey.
Bryan, have I squandered my credibility? I’m an Obama supporter. I don’t think he’s perfect, I just think he’s the best candidate we’ve got.
You’re telling me some other people pissed you off, so you’re going to take your ball and go home?
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
The Rubaiyat – Omar Khayyam – 11th century
Bryan, I think the days of the MSM (at least, in it’s current form) are numbered. I also thing such things as the blogs are transitory. Not everyone has forgotten history, or never knew it.
Whereof we cannot speak there must we be silent.
Wittgenstein – Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
Sadly, it seems that the majority of Americans prefer ‘truthiness’ to truth. Colbert invented the term truthiness in 2005, and it is already in mainstream use. Truthiness has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth and is not intended to. Poor Wittgenstein is probably despairing in his grave; but truthiness catches the Zeitgeist well and the weavers and spinners of truthiness are expert at sniffing the wind to catch the popular mood so as to weave their magic.
But it can’t last. 🙂 It never has.
Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son:
give me your blessing: truth will come to light;
murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son may,
but at the length truth will out.
Shakespeare – The Merchant of Venice
The wonder of a classic education! 😉
Cheers. 🙂
Michael, the Republicans refused to count my vote in 2000, and the Democrats did it to me in 2008. The first rule of US politics is don’t attack voters, and both have done it to me, personally.
I have been told that I must vote or the Republicans will win. That is the only argument presented. There has been no cogent argument presented as to why a Democrat should win, only that a Republican shouldn’t. I look at foreign affairs and national security and there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference to be found. There is a lot talk, but the policies beneath are the same. The policy advisors all belong to the same “club”. There is nothing new, only a rehash of the old.
I have been at this too long to accept promises from politicians, and that is all that is on the table. Even among the promises, there is nothing about my concerns.
What about the Supreme Court? What about it – is there any guarantee that a Democrat will appoint a better nominee that a Republican, when both must go through a nominally Democratic Senate? I have no such confidence.
The media made sure, early on, that there would be no left of center candidates competing. Clinton is the left side of the survivors, and she would have been considered a moderate, at best, 20 years ago. The two parties are center right Democrats and hard right Republicans, there is no party on the left.
This isn’t about your credibility, Michael. You see things through your life experiences. Your experiences are not mine. I’m not questioning that you believe what you say, but accept that I don’t believe it because my experiences tell me it is not to be.
Bryan, I don’t think I’ve ever told you that you must vote. Frankly I’ve always maintained you have the right to withhold your vote.
You can stay home and watch Barack Obama win.
Of course, Kryten, the reason they are classics is precisely because they are applicable to all places and all times.
Memory is plastic, which enables humans to accept the absurd as fact in the face of all reality. If one comments on this, they are called humorless, dull, and without any wonder. The wonder is that we have managed to survive so long, a condition that may be rectified if something isn’t done about the way we live.
Americans have gone from a people who dreamed of a future, to whining ingrates who are only concerned with the current year.
Politicians embrace truthiness because it has it’s escape clause built in – i.e. “I changed my mind when I discovered it wasn’t true.”
Michael, I’m not staying home. There are real issues that actually affect people’s lives on the November ballot, and I will be voting on those issues, especially on constitutional amendments and supreme court judges. I just won’t be voting for a Presidential candidate, even if there is a Democrat on the ballot, which is not certain at the moment.
Bryan, there will be a Democratic candidate on the Florida ballot.
How you choose to exercise your franchise is your business.
Michael, you still don’t understand the Florida Republican Party.
Bryan, the Florida Republican Party has already done their dirty business to you, and all the DNC needs to do is seat your delegates with 1/2 vote each, which is what the RNC did to their Florida delegates. The rules and bylaws committee is likely to approve this tomorrow.
That is not a return to status quo ante, that does not address the constitutional amendment that was passed because of their actions.
The only thing that is over is my connection to and support for the Democratic Party.
Do you want to explain more about the constitutional amendment?
Read All Politics Is Local, which explains the whole thing.
Every local government and school district in the state is screwed, and the DNC helped the Republicans do it to us.
Well, that property tax cut is a problem you’re going to need to address, but I’m sure boycotting the presidential election isn’t going to do much to solve that.
Well, that property tax cut is a problem you’re going to need to address, but I’m sure boycotting the presidential election isn’t going to do much to solve that.
true, but there’s no sane reason to support, either with votes or with money, any group that teams up with the opposition, whether purposefully or inadvertently, to ruin state and local government.
hipparchia, so don’t support the DNC if you blame them. why should that have anything to do with voting for president? punishing the candidate for what the committee did? punishing the rest of the country for what your state legislators did?
my state legislature is teh suxxor and it’s all your fault! wah! make it stop!
i understand, and even admire to some extent, the power plays and calculations on all sides, but this is/should be/coulda been a banner year for the democratic party and democratic voters. having all the big name democratic presidential candidates campaigning here in florida, laying out their plans and visions for us in person, asking for our votes — that would have gone a long way toward helping to turn forida blue, both presidentially and in state and local governments.
a president obama would crack the color barrier and a president hillary clinton would crack the gender barrier — both are long-time dearly-wished-for goals of mine, even if i have to live under a cautiously centrist president to get one of those goals — but my life is not going to get measurably better if my state gets turned into mississippi in the process.
i’m punishing the rest of the country for what my state legislators did?! dude, the two remaining democratic party candidates are to the right of the majority of the citizens in this country. why are you inflicting your right-center candidate on us?
hipparchia, where’s your alternative?