Mailing from moveon.org. I got it because my ice floe hasn’t yet drifted out of wi-fi range.

This week, we’re spinning up a massive program to register half a million young voters in swing states. This is the year of the young voter, and we all need to do everything we can to make sure every last young person votes on Election Day….  Read more 

What are you expecting?

My picks, with 10 being the most certain:

Shout-out to McCain’s service - 10
Shout-out to the Clintons — 10
Shout-out to the Kennedys — 10
Shout-out to the ladies — 9
MLK-speech anniversary — 9
Change/gridlock/aisle reacharounds — 9
Something said with obviously false humility (such as his wife being his better half) — 9
McCain = more Bush — 9
Wow, someone with my background got nominated — 9
Faith/religion — 8
Biden as foreign-policy expert — 8
Shout-out to young voters — 7
It’s about you, not me — 7
Katrina — 4
Universal Healthcare (in any other context than it being Hillary’s mission) — 3
GLBT rights — 3
Getting out of Iraq without at least once qualifying it as “responsibly” — 2  Read more 

For the last several months, I’ve had the craziest idea in the world: that Barack Obama might benefit from energizing (and perhaps even expanding) the Democratic base, rather than expecting skeptical progressives to force themselves to decide that his candidacy is likable enough, or expecting Hillary and Bill Clinton to make up their minds for them.

Has anyone considered this option, of Obama making like Ronald Reagan and exuding boundless enthusiasm and pride for his party’s agenda and blistering criticism of the opposing party and an unwillingness to dignify its ideas?

I know the Republicans are staggeringly popular right now, and Obama is famously untalented as a speaker, but maybe, maybe, maybe?

Some of you know that I am an, er, critic of Israel, but I am a big fan of parts of its English media, especially the newspaper Ha’aretz, and not just on its Mideast coverage. Here’s an intriguing column by Bradley Burston on the US election. He’s basically written Obama off.

Take a long walk in this land of dreams and all you’ll see is Obama. Obama lawn signs, Obama bumper stickers, window placards, lapel buttons, anklets. In souvenir stores, Obama t-shirts compete successfully with longtime best-sellers touting Bourbon Street and carousing alligators.  Read more 

Last night, Hillary Clinton gave a pitch for the ages.

How good was it? A tribute to her is now far and away the highest-rated post on Democratic Underground, a site full of dedicated lefties who until yesterday were keenly aware that she was an entitled, Rovian, racist, assassin-witch who was bent on destroying her party. On msnbc, the speech sent tingles almost visibly up the Obama-lovin’ / Hillary-hatin’ legs of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow.  Read more 

In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s speech last night, there is a lot of talk about how not nominating Clinton for VP is “Obama’s biggest mistake”. That is simply not the case. Obama should not have “needed” Clinton as VP in the first place, and the fact that he does is a symptom of his actual ’biggest mistakes.”

Obama’s biggest mistakes, in order, were:

1) Not participating in further debates, and ignoring states like West Virginia and Kentucky. That wasn’t just a missed opportunity to introduce himself to more voters, it was a signal to voters that they didn’t matter to him. It also provided evidence to those doubtful of Obama that he lacks the personal characteristics that a President needs to govern in the face of pressure and adversity.  Read more 

Very recently, this thread on Clinton Derangement Syndrome erupted into flame over Bill Clinton’s famous Sister Souljah Moment when I mentioned it as a possible cause of dissatisfaction with him felt by some people (me included) during his presidency. You know, things were different then, and we never imagined things could get this bad. Ah, the memories.  Read more 

Thou shalt not break Obamawin’s Law:

No lessons shall be learned (or even considered) from the mistreatment Hillary Clinton received and/or the uncritical treatment Barack Obama received during the 2008 primaries.

The only acceptable reason to revisit this year’s Democratic primaries is for something constructive, like shaming Hillary for not taking evil advice that wasn’t offered to her by her campaign director.  Read more 

Throughout the campaign, we’ve heard many people tell us how fundamentally conservative the country is and that Obama is doing precisely the right thing by capitulating to the right wing.

This msnbc.com headline — “McCain takes 5-point lead over Obama” — shows that Obama has been too conservative with his conservatism.

Trashing the 1st and 4th Amendments wasn’t enough. Softpedalling on the Iraq exit wasn’t enough.  Read more 

What are the chances that Obama will pick a VP who might impress “holdout” Democrats (a list of such candidates, IMHO, would include Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, and Al Gore)?

What are the chances that he’ll pick someone to the right of Hillary (Bayh, Kaine, etc.)?
 Read more 

Observations on Obama and McCain at Rick Warren’s anti-establishment-clause summit…

Obama

Led off by citing Matthew about “the least of us.” If you’re going to play the religion card, this is the better sort of framing. Slippery slope, though, ain’t it?

Says Bill Clinton was right about workfare. Over the course of the hour, Obama lists several things that Bill did right, such as Bosnia. Funny, when his wife was still in the race, you’d never hear that the Clinton era was so good! Also, he pops in “sexism” now and again as an issue. Just in time to repudiate all that misogynistic press against Hillary, right?  Read more 

Tomorrow (Saturday) from 8:00-10:00PM EDT online, and on Fox News and CNN.

Just from the anticipation, my bucket runneth over.

The subject line comes from MoveOn.org’s latest mailing.

What have they or Obama done to fight for votes like mine (Boomer, feminist, secularist, Constitution-defender, Bush-hater)?

Not a damn thing that I’m aware of. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why they decided to split their constituency by conducting a straw-poll of their members and going all-in with the winner.

I keep forgetting: post-partisanship is only for Republicans’ benefit.

Andrew Romano:

…are there enough rank-and-file Republicans whispering their support at Obama rallies to actually make a difference on Election Day?

As I discovered from examination the last 18 months of head-to-head general election polls, the answer is an emphatic “no.” In fact, John McCain’s share of the Democratic vote has typically been larger than Obama’s share of the Republican vote.

No worries — there are still several more Amendments Obama can burn to light the way for potential recruits from “the party of ideas.”  Read more 

We’re in a world gone mad, aren’t we?

[“Left Behind” series] Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, in the statement issued through their public relations firm, said they don’t believe Obama is the antichrist mentioned in the biblical prophecies in the Book of Revelation. Their series of 16 novels has sold more than 63 million copies worldwide.

“I’ve gotten a lot of questions the last few weeks asking if Obama is the antichrist,” Jenkins said in the statement. “I tell everyone that I don’t think the antichrist will come out of politics, especially American politics.”

LaHaye added: “I can see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist….  Read more 

Please note that cooler heads prevailed, and that statement ends with:

(by publicly praising the candidate whose campaign rode dirty on him).

msnbc.com headline: “Bill Clinton to speak at Democratic Convention — Speaking role offered by Obama campaign to end tensions, NBC reports.”

It’s like a fairy tale come true, isn’t it? And it will end all the tensions! Woo-hoo!

By letting the Big Dog re-establish himself as a party leader, I feel that Obama is reaching out to voters like me!

As to those avid Clinton supporters who still haven’t warmed up to him and may even resent him, Obama said, “We’re not talking to those people, we’re talking directly to the Clinton campaign people and staff.”

Oh….  Read more 

Leonce Gaiter:

Democrats have been accused of antipathy toward religion, but that is not the case.

I’m glad this Obama supporter is successfully debunking myths like this one:

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems….  Read more 

Claire McCaskill on Obama:

“They say that he is arrogant. That he’s unpatriotic. Blah blah blah blah blah,” she said.

“I know this man. He is humble. He is devoutly Christian. He loves his family more than anything else in the world. He cares about family. He reveres our men and women and uniform. And he is as red white and blue as you can possibly get.”

“He will tell you that this election is not about him, and he means it,” said McCaskill. “He will tell you it is about you.”

PATRIOTISM “ISSUE” PROPHYLACTIC: The patriotism ding on Obama is a bunch of crap. He’s as patriotic as any other candidate (or any other leader of a narcissistic “movement”).

Could someone please round up all the U.S.’s economists so they can tell me again why Hillary’s plan to tax oil companies and give the proceeds to the average Joe was such an abomination?

The new Obama ad trumpets his proposal to revive a windfall profits tax on energy companies and asserts that McCain favors tax breaks for the oil industry.

“A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate,” an announcer in the ad says.  Read more 

msnbc.com headline: “Obama says McCain running ’cynical’ campaign”

As a more famous blogger regularly observes, please kill me:

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

Oh noes!

Those are the mad negotiation skillz that are going to get us universal health care?

And on the question of whether it’s better to be rigid or to get something done, one acronym:  Read more 

Who’s this Krugman guy? He’s got a really good blog:

As we all know, the Bush administration essentially brushed aside all notion of due process. It locked up and tortured people it said were “enemy combatants”; it engaged in warrantless wiretapping; and so on.

We weren’t supposed to worry our pretty little heads about this, because we were supposed to take it as a given that these were people we could trust not to abuse their power.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department was interviewing job candidates, and asking,

What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

In other words, there was a combination of power without oversight and a deeply creepy cult of personality (which was obvious long before we got the latest specifics.)

I think we were lucky to get out of this with democracy more or less intact.

Let’s not count our chickens, OK?  Read more 

Like Glenn Greenwald, I am now properly chastened out of my purist pursuit of picayune progressive platforms like the First and Fourth Amendments.

Two things are clear:

1. The only thing in the world that matters is an Obama victory.  Read more 

George W. Bush:

“Ours is a conditions-based strategy.”

Our next C-in-C, Barack Obama:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday the size of a residual U.S. force left in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat troops would be “entirely conditions-based.”

“It’s hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now.”

“Barack Obama is ultimately articulating a position of sustained troop levels in Iraq based on the conditions on the ground and the security of the country. That is the very same position that John McCain has long held,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.  Read more