contact Obama and tell him, couteously that his idea in not just.

empty wheel lives in Michigan and is not pleased.

understand the rock/hard place situation that edwards must have been in: piss off powerful Village party leaders, or voters like me. it was a stupid gamble and he, and obama, are now paying the price. hillary either had good sense or just didn’t care about the Villagers whom she pissed off. good for her.

but there’s blame enough for everyone here, positively everyone. to me, we lost control of this ship way back when the original meeting about the new schedule was held. clearly, someone didn’t understand that some other folks weren’t kidding. i often wonder about what those conversations (the private ones) must’ve been like. anyway…playing with democracy is a dangerous game. those who fuck with it almost always lose it. you all know how i feel: at this point, i really don’t care. there’s the party, and then there’s me. they don’t care about me, so i will return the favor. pick one, call me in the morning. i am adopting the attitude of many a resident in other banana republics; i reserve my outrage for poetry and women.

Do you honestly think that Florida will matter in the general election?

If you’re so worried about that, why don’t we apportion half of their electoral votes to each party?

If Sen Clinton is the nominee, Florida matters. If Sen Obama is the nominee, Florida doesn’t matter, and we’ll lose Florida.

What’s wrong with you people?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

1. Hope and unity

2. ???

3. Ponies for everyone!

Hopefully the first of many quickies for viral fun.

Good one.

Open in the browser. Is there a blog page where you have it embedded?

FL, I could really care less what they do because any re-vote would end up the same thing. So FL results should stand as voted (maybe with a delegate penalty). (50/50 is a strawman, I’ve never heard it seriously discussed as a solution. I doubt any candidates came up with it, other than someone offering it up and the candidates agree to it)

MI is just stupid. How dare people present it as, a strategic mistake.

An election was held with only #1, #5, #6, #7 on the ballot. Numbers 2,3,4 took their names off the ballot. You can’t say what voters wanted.

Anyways none of it matter, either way, the super delegates are deciding things. They have to penalize MI & FL for screwing everything up. They deserve to lose delegates for the waste of money even holding an election when they did, with “Uncommitted” on the ballot. If the DNC doesn’t penalize MI & FL, it’s going to be total chaos next time.

(I know, scorched Earth, Bush-style politics are the new ’in’ thing)

Here’s the link.

“We have been depending on each other from the start and with all of the negativity and mean spirited behavior beginning to surface we must remain united. Yes We Can!”

A handy translation:

“negativity” refers to sinners who support the wrong candidate

“mean-spirited” does not refer to the misogynistic, ageist schwarmerei who have bullied every Obama skeptic from here to that big state out west that Zogby called for Obama.

“must remain united” means that only certain people can ride on the unity pony, after all.

Although I should say, I am happy to see Blogger Boys coming around to the highly reasonable point that the viewpoints of a supporter of a Democratic presidential candidate pulling in millions of votes are not necessarily ascribable to the candidate or some nefarious motive on the part of the candidate.

Glad to see them rejoining the reality-based community, if only momentarily. I’m sure they’ll start blaming this on that racist bitch Hillary soon enough.

TPM said Clinton is to blame for the release of Wright’s videos (Actually, Wright sells them all on his own):

But the simple fact is that we wouldn’t be seeing this stuff now if it weren’t for the fact that this is the kind of campaign Hillary Clinton’s campaign has decided to wage — often directly and at other times indirectly by not reining it in her supporters when it crops up on its own.

I honestly believe Hillary Clinton will be blamed if Obama doesn’t win the GE. How I wish I were kidding.

… she should immediately declare Obama the presumptive nominee. Even if the videos are for sale by Wright’s church. Taking advantage of material made available to the general public is simply no excuse. In fact, it’s “divisive.”

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

…. unless they had some internal divisions?

Schism is a well known fact of life for, er, movements with group dynamics like the OFB.

Nice close reading there, Davidson. I confess I missed that point.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Are they trading in the pony for a pushmi-pullyu?

um, I SAID N/T! I mean it!

Classic. I’ll bet the media is wetting themselves over this. When McCain’s defense contractor friends special voting machines decide the election…

Hillary loses. If it is Obama v. McCain, and Obama loses, they blame HRC. If it is HRC v. McCain and she loses they blame the evil hatred she evokes to GOTV for the wrong side.

I’ll bet they love it. Did I tell you McCain is going to win (even if it takes Oct Iran surprise)

before but could the Republicans have a better friend than Mr. ’Hopey’?

Knocked out Edwards with his ’historic’ candidacy…and no you will not get me to comment on Ferraro…just forget it….

Convinced AA voters that the Clintons are racists….

Kissed up to the Liebercrats….

Uses Reichwing frames wherever possible….

Basically he’s wrecking the Dem party from the inside. The only reason he hasn’t succeeded is he’s up against The Hill who has, in the heart of battle, revealed herself to be a real hardcore infighter.

Just hoping that the most progressive, Hillary, candidate wins.

A. Citizen

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

and i’ve read that Obama actually spent over a million in FL, too.

They were all on FL’s ballot, and he lost fair and square—i’ve read that it could even be seen as a “control” election—a big, diverse state, and we saw what happens with no personal appearances, no local ads, etc.

MI is a mess tho—i think they need to re-vote, sadly.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

I don’t read everything he writes, but I think Chris is pretty even-handed. He gets crazy once in a while but he usually comes back down to earth and apologizes.

while many places like kos and HuffPo are now virtually unreadable—and more importantly, unparticipatable—unless you’re an Obama supporter—other places are now getting more love, and people are actively searching out new places, and places beyond just the big sites everyone always went to automatically before.

Plus, we’re learning really valuable lessons about false beliefs in new media as wholly different and better and more open than old, and how herd mentality may be even more prevalent online than off, and how “established” sites may be resembling the mainstream media much much more than they even realize—with the same faults and restrictions and “hurting America” (to quote Jon Stewart), etc.

(at least that’s what i get from this election cycle of Presidential Idol.)

Just as many have already lost their trust in old media to tell the truth and to hold those in power accountable and to be a check and not a cheerleader, etc—and if it wasn’t before Iraq, certainly since—many are now learning which online sites are open and which are closed, and which are more concerned with issues and which aren’t, and which are communities where dissent is allowed and not trashed and which not, etc.

Trust in a place like Kos, which has radically changed for the worse this season, can’t be regained easily.

…..is what brought down the ’New Left’ in the late 60s and early 70s. The ’leadership’ of the time declared that only one way was acceptable. Their way. Sound familiar? Should do as it is happening in front of your very eyes this very instant.

Kos declares it’s his way or the highway. I’m sure I’d be banned there if I continued to comment. I was at OpenLeft. No reason given but I was pushing pretty hard on Bowers not knowing what he was talking about with his ’creative class’ drivel and letting folks know what Progressive Punch’s ratings are vs. Mr. Hopey and Sister Beezlebub.

Now Jeralyn has warned me for taking Bowers name in vain in post where BTD starts out with this:

Chris may make other points worth pondering, I do not know. But his opening is so far off the mark, I did not take them in.

So… BTD can say, ’What Bowers is writing isn’t worth the time it would take to read it.’

But….

I can’t say, ’Bowers just sounds stupid when he gets in his, ’Obama is the one! ranting….’.

Eh?

My point is not about me or BTD or anyone else’s ’crossing some frikin’ line’ my point is that the lines are being drawn and enforced by a few at the top of the blogging pyramid.

That top can very quickly become a lonely place. I’ve purged OpenLeft and dKos with other sites soon to be so treated and….

Guess what folks?

I ain’t alone. There are springing up a whole thickets of sites by and for folks who are just sick and tired of ’The Boys on the Blogs’ frat-boy bullshit…oh, yeah I included the turgidly prosaic Bowers under that ’insult’….maybe that’s what pissed Jeralyn off.

I”m going to hide under my bed at my blog until some small fraction of the ’sphere returns to it’s senses…

If you care about the potential the ’sphere has for progressive political change you will resist assimilation and further:

Do what it takes to demonstrate to the few that….

They ain’t shit without the many behind them.

A. Citizen

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

the biggest dissappointment for me was the stagnation at the pond. Kos I had given up on long time ago, but I liked Booman.

TPM said Clinton is to blame for the release of Wright’s videos (Actually, Wright sells them all on his own):

Melissa McEwan really summed it up when she said the following in response:

Ah, I see. So Hillary must take responsibility for her surrogates and campaign staff, as well as Obama’s surrogates and campaign staff, and neither Obama nor Wright have to take responsibility for anything. As long as we’re clear on that, then.

That explains why I’ve never gotten a satisfactory response from the Obama campaign about its co-chair Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s sexist and race-baiting statements about Hillary back in January, before the South Carolina primary. I should have been directing my complaints to Hillary this whole time.

So he should pay for a re-vote.

The 50-50 split is, obviously, unacceptable. Either way, Obama benefits from votes cast for others; whether he takes from Clinton or from Edwards, Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel.

One of the arguments against the legitimacy of the Jan. 29 Florida results is “low turnout.” Which is laughable, given the fact that it was record turnout, a huge increase over 2004, and in order to declare the “low turnout” favored Hillary, you’d have to somehow believe that only Obama supporters were dissuaded from turning out. Which is almost as funny as the idea that the bad weather in Ohio only affected Obama supporters.

But here’s a question: what if they have a re-vote in both those states and fewer people show up to vote the second time?

I’m also sort of wondering how the fact that the MI primary may be held on June 3 might affect Obama’s vote there. One of the two counties that didn’t go for Clinton in Michigan was Washtenaw County, which is Ann Arbor’s county. But UM gets out in early May. If the majority of UM students go home for the summer, how does that affect his turnout?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was afraid of lower turnout in a re-vote as well as just plain losing.

UPDATE: I have no idea how that Bible link got into my comment.

… one more thing to fix.

Thessalonians 50:50…

Cogent points. Obama floated two trial balloons: First, getting the Bush Justice [cough] Department involved; second, the 50/50 concept (thanks, Kos). Both failed badly. He wouldn’t have been pushing such obviously bad ideas, that even some C-list bloggers can shoot down, unless he didn’t want those votes to take place.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

After he’s famously rallied “people who never had a reason to vote before” (’cause, y’know, who could be bothered to save the environment, to keep NOLA from drowning, or to keep out a madman who would start wars without a cause?), shouldn’t Obama be able to disenfranchise the voters of a couple of unimportant states? I mean fair is fair.

you know he’d be fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo—like when he attacked Edwards for having Union support and ads, but when they were available for him, all of a sudden they were ok then.

And look at public financing and his promise, and now the Iraq withdrawal retreat (lost in the “monster” stuff, i think), etc…

This is just stupid. MI is Obama’s fault?

No, MI is the state Democrat party’s fault. MI is the DNC fault. You could say since Edwards, Obama, and Biden took their names off the ballot that MI is HRC’s fault for not taking her name off along with the other top candidates.

MI will be a revote and maybe even experiment in the evil mail-in voting which is so easily corruptible. The parties love this concept. It’s almost like internet voting but people don’t realize how easy it is to steal elections with all-mail voting.

What I find outrageous is that no one was standing up for MI/FL voters months ago. It was ok to strip all the delegates back then. It was ok to have a wasteful election with half the candidates removed. Now, all of the sudden it is big news. I mean really… If this primary would have been decided by the 2025 magic number a while ago, no one would have cried a tear for MI/FL voters. A bunch of political opportunists created this problem when they moved up the calendar. And now a bunch of political opportunists are making a big deal. And a bunch of money is going to be wasted.

The GOP didn’t and wouldn’t have this problem. They penalized them by 1/2 and had a normal election.

(as, to be fair, did Edwards).

That’s because Hillary was going to win the state if there was no campaigning, so he thought he would discredit that by removing his name.

It isn’t clear to me why the voters should pay the penalty for Mr. Hopey’s miscalculation — which is why a redo is in order, both for the voters, and for the legitimacy, perceived and actual, of the Democratic nominee.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.