Up until 6pm Central, yesterday afternoon, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota had been frequently mentioned as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008. There were several factors which put his name on the table; He had balanced the budget using spending cuts; His friendship with John McCain; Minnesota's position in the midwest, coupled with the fact that the Republican Convention will be in St. Paul were also at play.
I didn't note the time and it looks like at least one Minneapolis-based ISP is offline at this moment because I can't get to the local blogpost, I was monitoring last night, but the finger-pointing actually started fairly early and as I'm listening to this newest press conference, it hasn't gone away.
I don't know what, if anything Tim Pawlenty would've brought to the Republican ticket, but I'm sure that day has passed. And, though it may be ghoulish to say or to think, but perhaps it will be fortuitous for the RNC to be in MN and the delegates' travels to be disrupted because it may help highlight the need for infrastructure care. Right now, I'm not thinking that the recent budget cuts had any bearing on this situation, whatsoever, but obviously, we need to pay attention to our needs and this tragedy is visible, if nothing else.
As I noted in a previous post, the media has tried to save us the trouble of voting and they've anointed "front-runners" for the primaries which don't even begin before January. Sure, a few candidates poll higher than others, but at this point in the game, it's almost all name-recognition and because the media has decided to overweight these polls by concentrating on a handful of candidates, they've unknowingly tried to develop a self-fulfilling prophesy.
One thing that has struck me about their arrogance is the idea that come November 2008, they think we'll be choosing between the former Mayor of New York and the Senator from the NYC suburbs, not to mention that they keep trying to draw the current Mayor of New York into the race. Yes, one of the New York candidates may squeak through, but there's no way the country would stand for only getting to choose between New Yorkers and though Sen. Clinton has some well-known weaknesses, I'd say that if only one candidate were to be left behind, it'd be Mr Giuliani because he has no base and Fred Thompson looms on the horizon.
Another example of their stupidity is the constant refrain that Bill Richardson is running for Vice-President.
In my opinion, they should get real and quit smelling each other's farts.
As I've noted in the past, Gov. Richardson is one of the most popular politicians among his constituents in the history of the republic. He was re-elected with 69% of the vote and that was with full knowledge that he'd be running for President and according to the Albuquerque Journal, 32% of his Presidential campaign contributions have come from his home state. While by the same token, Hillary Clinton collected 22% of her largess from her constituents and Barack Obama only received 14% of his monies from Illinois.
Needless to say, I'm not ready for Mr Richardson to concede by any means and hopefully I'll be posting some additional primary-by-primary analysis over the next few days, but for those "in the know" to think that he's running for VP shows that they haven't studied the question. Once again, as I've pointed out in the past; Sen. Domenici is facing re-election next year and if they were familiar with New Mexico politics, they'd realize that only Bill Richardson has a better than average chance of beating him.
Why would he even consider VP, if he has pretty good shot at a lifetime term in the Senate? After all, if I'm reading the law correctly, he has until February 12th to decide.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post was on Tuesday's Newshourcommenting on the CNN/YouTube debate, when he told Gwen Ifil;
You know, I actually think that, as I've watched these debates -- and this is the fourth Democratic one we've had already -- as I've watched them, the margin between the best performance and the worst performance gets smaller and smaller.
I felt like last night -- you know, I do a winners and losers column at WashingtonPost.com -- I had trouble picking losers, just because I thought everybody did pretty well. But the problem for people like Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd is that they really need a breakthrough, a big moment. And these debates haven't given them that yet.
I thought Dennis Kucinich did quite well last night. I thought Joe Biden did quite well. I thought Bill Richardson was better than he had been. And I thought Chris Dodd did well. But the problem is, what did we learn or see last night that fundamentally alters the dynamic, which is Clinton, Obama and possibly Edwards? I don't think we saw all that much that is going to make people who are watching think about this race in a different way.
Well, Mr Cillizza: How can one expect the media-defined second tier to have a breaktrough moment or alter the dynamic, when the supposed first tier gets almost twice as many opportunities to speak?
Unequal distribution of time has been a problem with most of the debates this primary season and it exists on both sides of the aisle. This is unfair and it does not provide the citizenry a chance to not only take an equal measure of all the candidates, but it also prevents their ideas from reaching the largest possible audience and our democracy is not being served.
Granted, there is no legal recourse to force the networks, sponsors, political parties and organizing committees to provide equal time to all qualified candidates, but there is the court of public opinion and that is why I urge everyone reading this post to sign this virtual petition and spread its address, far and wide.
Censorship can take many forms and among them is limiting the debate.
I'm watching the CNN/YouTube Debate and have wanted to say this for a long time:
Yes -- Senator Obama, you supposedly opposed this war from the start and so did I, so did the fellow at the gas station and a lot of other people; Whooptie-fucking-shit. Get over yourself and quit telling us what you believed when you had no power and no one was listening. Al Gore was a former US Senator, Vice President and the most recent Democratic nominee, when he spoke in a televised speech against the war and no one cared, so why should anyone care what some nobody assemblyman from Illinois told his wife at the dinner table and why won't you leave it alone?
Earlier, when I was compiling my snark about the lawyerness of what he said in Columbia, the announcement that Democratic candidate Barack Obama would be the keynote speaker at the commemoration ceremony in Selma crossed the wires and because it was on point for my post, I linked the press clipping without comment.
Now, several hours later and after putting much thought into the question; I have something to say. ---
Senator Obama,
I don't know what possessed you or motivated you into accepting the invitation, but I feel a few words of caution may be in order.
By virtue of your position and the amount of hype which is swirling around you, whatever you say in Selma could possibly be the most important speech of the year. I don't know that it'll be enough to propel you into the White House, but not only only does it hold the possibility of pushing you to a higher sphere, but if you're eloquent, find an universal theme and if you play your cards right from now until then; It could have a profound effect on America, our national conversation and the future of the world.
Thus far, you've tapped into something that has always ran chills up our collective spines. You've called it the "audacity of hope" and though I haven't heard any great speeches from you on this theme, I'm immediately put in mind of Bill Clinton declaring that he "still believes in a place called Hope" and Jesse Jackson punctuating his public statements with a steady refrain of "keep hope alive".
There may not be a more powerful human emotion.
Hope is the reason that many of us get out of bed in the morning and though I've tried to fault you for not espousing anything but hope; You've offered few concrete proposals, some of your verbal missteps would be disastrous, if you had any real power and your campaign has reminded me of the one from Dukakis; But, if you can somehow remain above the fray for another couple of weeks and if you can channel anything approaching Dr King, whatever you say in Selma and the fact that it'll be broadcast around the world and preserved forever on the world wide web could have an undeniable effect on our society and the way we relate to each other.
I thought you'd like to know and as I see it, there's really only a couple of ways to go. Of course, depending on who is providing you counsel, it could easily determine whether your speech will go down in history or if it'll just be something that happens in Selma.
The choice will be yours. You've been afforded a great opportunity and I sincerely hope that you can rise to the challenge
In a 1998 article for the New Yorker, author Toni Morrison declared Bill Clinton to be the first black President and on a recent Saturday Night Live, Keenan Thompson and Daryl Hammond portraying Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson did a bit with a blackness scale, where they put presidential candidate Barack Obama being a little less black than Bill Clinton.
And, during a recent report on CNN, while the following image appeared on the screen, anchor Kyra Phillips concluded; "Black or white; Democrat or Republican; There seems to be no shortage of qualified voices speaking for or against black Americans."
In that same Kyra Phillips report, we hear Sen. Obama say; "At every juncture in our history there's been somebody who has said we can't. There's been somebody who has said you can't overcome slavery; There's been somebody who has said that you can't overcome Jim Crow; There's been somebody who has said we can't go to the moon; There's been somebody who has said that we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try."
Now, perhaps Mr Obama is honest enough that he purposefully alternated between "you" and "we" to make his proclamation into an accurate statement. I'm willing to give him enough benefit of the doubt, that I'll believe he'll not actually try to claim a history which is not his own. Of course through our ancestors, we all did share in these troubles, but like my own; Mr Obama's were not burdened in the same manner as those in the South Carolina audience to whom, he directed these words.
Nevertheless, the whole thing is one heck of a conversation, as can be gleaned from the following opinion pieces;
Earlier, I made the following comment on another blog and because it's heavily footnoted, I wanted to repeat it, here.
Mike Huckabee gets hit by his local paper on January 19th, they expand upon it on the 20th and Mr Huckabee responds in this past Sunday's paper (28th) to coincide with his MTP appearance, but somehow this wasn't worth at least one question from Russert?
FYI: Former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee announced the formation of an exploratory committee on Sunday's Meet The Press.
I like the idea of Barack Obama, it's just that I'm having a problem getting behind him because I'm not seeing any substance. Instead, I'm hearing a lot of pablum and benign phrases, but no specific ideas or tangible plans for the future.
There's still time for him to change and as he finds his footing, perhaps he can get some knowledgeable people in his corner, so that he can develop or endorse some concrete proposals, but all I'm hearing is just a bunch of empty rhetoric and because the media is so enamored, I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to resent his candidacy.
Just today, there were headlines every which way; "Obama calls for universal health care" and if you read the articles, they all quote him as saying; "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country". Well that's fine and dandy Barry, but how do propose we get there?
Hillary has a lot of knowledge about health care and the idea of universal coverage. I can't say for certain that her '93 plan was right, but it is a foundation and reportedly, she's about to introduce a bill to expand current coverage for children. Bill Richardson has been busy setting up health insurance programs, here in New Mexico and though I don't know the ins and outs of the NM system, I do know that our problems are mostly with delivery because I'm not hearing any complaints about the programs.
Obama apparently thinks that universal coverage is a worthy goal, but he's not saying how he'd lead in that direction. Heck, I think flying cars are a good idea and just the other night, I watched a futurist predict them, but there's still not one parked in my garage.
For another example of Senator Obama's ability to dance around an issue, I suggest you go back to the Charlie Gibson interviews that I linked from a previous post. Once again, compare what Hillary says about Iraq to how Mr Obama responded to the same question. One candidate offered strategic options which could help us achieve our goal, while the other mouthed a bunch of words.
I'm not the only one who has noticed this tendency from the media darling. John Edwards has been quoted as saying; "Identifying the problem and talking about hope is waiting for tomorrow," which some bloggers have said was directed toward Senator Obama. While in a Washington Post piece which I'm about to link, Al Sharpton was quoted as saying about the Obama campaign; "Right now we're hearing a lot of media razzle-dazzle. I'm not hearing a lot of meat, or a lot of content".
The Sharpton quote comes from an article discussing the reluctance of established black leaders to give him more than tepid support. It's a similar situation, as was recently written-up in Salon. Though it should be said that in her op-ed, Debra J. Dickerson goes a lot further by declaring him not black, but instead, she describes him as being a child of an African immigrant.
The argument is rooted in similar territory to that of the WaPo, in that he wasn't really part of the civil rights movement and hasn't paid his dues, so to the leadership and the African-American community, he's mostly an unknown. Though, I do have to say in Barry's defense, he really is of the generation that came of age after the major battles were won and because he spent so much of his youth living in Hawaii and overseas, by the time he got to the mainland, things were remarkably different.
But, it also looks like he's going to need a Sister Souljah moment to reassure the black leadership. Perhaps, if he starts talking policy specifics, he'll be able to overcome their fears without being confrontational, but the easiest way would be for him to say something negative to indict an element of the white establishment and such an act, may or may not not help him in the long run.
I've said in a couple of my posts that I wasn't making an endorsement. Over the past several days, I realized that I've never publicly endorsed anyone during the primaries and I usually wait until after the convention to put up my yard signs. Sure, if you ask me what I think, I'd share my thoughts as I've been doing in this space, but I've never actually endorsed a non-nominated candidate.
While on the other hand, I have been more open with my opposition to certain candidates and because I like to play the game, I'll only actively oppose, those whom I don't think would be able to win or be competitive in the general election.
Thus far, Barack Obama hasn't gotten to that point and it is very early in the process, so he can still change.
Sometime, hopefully soon, the man is going to have to say something and risk alienating somebody. Right now, I feel there's a lot of people seeing their own reflection in his candidacy and perhaps if Mr Obama were to rediscover his spine or find his voice, the Democratic party will be able to avoid Narcissus' fate. ---
After the President's State of the Union, I moved from the computer to the television and because I was hoping for a new Boston Legal, I immediately switched to ABC and caught some of Charles Gibson's post-speech wrap-up.
What struck me as I watched him interview Hillary Clinton, followed by Barack Obama with essentially the same questions was twofold, first I noticed the way both candidates played to their base in response to his question about the health care proposal, then I noticed the specifics in Hillary's approach toward Iraq, while Mr Obama seemed content with platitudes and empty rhetoric.
There's no way that I can do justice with a compare and contrast on the candidates' answers about Iraq and stay within the "fair use" provisions of the copyright law, so I invite anyone and everyone to play both of the above-linked clips and make their own judgements. Of course, if you'd like to follow-up with a comment to this post or a transcript of your own, please feel free and while I'm at it; Please note that if you load Hillary first, the Obama plainly visible in the sidebar is from this morning, so you'd have to scroll down or follow my link to get his response from last night, which would put the two candidates on equal footing.
Nevertheless, here's a transcript of their responses to Mr Gibson's health care question, so that I can illustrate my thoughts about their answers; how each appeared to play toward their base and how they have different approaches toward the issues.
Hillary Clinton
But with respect specifically to the health care proposal: The details we know so far are really troubling. I mean we're talking about exchanging one regressive tax deduction for another, and funding this alleged expansion of health care by cutting money to public hospitals and community health centers. So, we would be decimating the safety net in order to try to use the tax code to create more opportunities for people to go into the market, whether or not they can buy anything. So, we'll have a lot of time to debate that.
Barack Obama
What I saw that concerned me is that I don't see a way of controlling costs through this process and for ordinary families right now, one of their biggest concerns is rising co-payments, deductibles, premiums. It's not clear that the overall system is going to see significant cost containment and that I think is something that has to be addressed. And quality improvements, making sure we get more bang for the buck that wasn't part of the proposal. It does appear though that potentially you could get some additional coverage and so, one of the things we've got to look at is given the amount of money the President is proposing to spend, at least on the tax revenue side, are we going to actually get the most coverage that we could, or are there other approaches. But, I think that's a conversation that we should have with the President.
Unfortunately, I didn't see a Charles Gibson with any of the other candidates and I'm not finding anything online, so in the interest of fairness, here's a link to a thing John Edwards did on MSNBC and another to his written statement which was released, almost immediately following the official Democratic response. And, I know that Bill Richardson did an on-camera with the local ABC/CNN affiliate for their late news, but I didn't see it and I can't find any clips of him anywhere, so here's a link to his campaign's written statement which is dated last night, but wasn't available on the website, as late as 4 AM, Mountain.
Finally, because it's me and I like linky-dinky posts, I'm going to throw out links to the things Ms Clinton and Mr Obama did with MSNBC and try to throw particular attention toward that of the Senator from Chicago because it too, illustrates a couple of points.
I realize that most people who read my rantings have no idea about Bill Richardson or they just recognize him as a public figure, left over from a previous administration. And, once again as I've said about other candidates: This is not an endorsement, but I did feel this would be an opportune time for me to elaborate on a couple of things which could be in the wind.
First of all and as a student of politics, the list of people so adored by their electorate is pretty small. When I first came to New Mexico, I had the same opinion of Mr Richardson as everyone else; He's just an opportunistic politician. What I didn't realize is that he's very, very skilled in the art and that he would actually do well, as Governor.
On the night of his announcement, the local television stations did man-on-the-street interviews, where I don't think a single negative thing was said about him. After all, he was just re-elected with 69% of the vote and the most recent poll shows him winning the NM Democratic Caucus, if they were held today, ahead of the rest of the field. What may be even more surprising to those unfamiliar with Mr Richardson, he also polls one percent better among New Mexico Independents, than he does among registered Democrats.
In the past, I've suggested that Gov Richardson may be well suited for the vice-presidential position, perhaps to balance out a younger candidate and to open doors in the West, but now that he's been re-elected and the dust has settled, I have to believe what he told George Stephanopoulos, when he said that he has no interest in the number two slot.
What I've yet to hear on the national stage, Pete Domenici will be 76 in 2008, which means if the Richardson presidential bid fails to find traction, he may be wanting to hold the door open for a run at the Senate and this could be one of the reasons, why so much of his announcement hoopla has been centered around his accomplishments and the State of New Mexico. Barring something completely unforeseen and especially in the event of Mr Domenici's retirement, Bill Richardson would have a lock on the election.
Right now, it looks like most national polls put him in single digits and I'd watch for him to make his move in New Hampshire. I don't know when he'll reassess his position and if Senator Domenici were to announce that he'll be running again, Mr Richardson might put his ambitions on the back burner. But, before anyone counts him out of the presidential race, I'd take a look at the man because there aren't many politicians more able, so he might just surprise you, as he has me. ---
Barack Obama announced last week; Bill Richardson has either announced his intentions or he's going to do it on Sunday, while Hillary Clinton is stepping into the race. I wonder how well, this all bodes for one of the "other" guys, once all is said and done. ---
Notes: An explanation of the title can be found on Wikipedia and to any casual visitors looking for candidate or election coverage, I suggest you follow the tags.
This situation may change and though it still isn't an endorsement, I am going to take this opportunity to say that not only did John Edwards have to beat a formidable incumbent for his Senate seat, he also had the good sense to announce via YouTube with their embeddable player. Unfortunately, it seems that neither of these things describe Barack Obama because it appears that the best I can do is offer a link to his video announcement.
PS) Yes, I did search YouTube and iFilm before making this post.
Senator Obama has since updated the video page with a link to biographical information, another to get a transcript of his announcement and they've now wrapped the video in an embeddable player. Better late than never, I guess you could say because in the beginning, there wasn't even a link back to his campaign's homepage.
I'm not necessarily endorsing the candidacy of John Edwards. For the most part, I'm probably going to remain fairly neutral until the field is more full. But, since he was the starting point of my last post and because one of his phrases is starting to get some play, plus I'm kind of intrigued by his "National Day of Action" on January 27th; I'm doing as he asks and I'm sharing the following video.
John Edwards announced his candidacy for President on Thursday and after doing so in New Orleans, he went to Iowa for a town meeting and a session with reporters, plus he met with a handful of bloggers for a few minutes. During the blogger portion of the program, he was asked for his perspective from being on the "Council of Foreign Relations" and co-authoring a report about Russia with Jack Kemp, whether he thought the Russians would be helpful in our negotiations with Iran.
The following is a transcript of his response;
That's a hard question. I don't... so far, they've not been very helpful. I think actually what's happened with Russia is that they've moved away in their relationship with America and the West, largely because they've moved away from democracy.
Putin has sort of taken over, has centralized the government, got a iron hand on the country now and the result is that it's harder for us to get them to do things, they need to do. They don't pay a lot of attention to us; They pay a little more attention to us and the Europeans and the Japanese, when we act together, but Russia plays a critical role, particularly with trying to deal Iran and the UN Security Council.
Now, there's not a lot new in his quote. The media has given some tacit coverage to the deteriorating relationship with Russia and I've even noted a couple of circumstances on the pages of my journal.
Instead, what struck me as I was watching the video with the bloggers; When Condoleezza Rice was first named National Security Adviser, she was heralded from the mountaintops as an academic with past government service, who was an expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union. Obviously, expert or not, she has apparently fallen down on that job because though we generally leave each other alone, I don't think anyone would describe the US and Russia as having particularly good relations.
Her failures in the Mideast have also been pretty well documented, both as National Security Adviser and as Secretary of State.
There's been nothing to contradict that she was warned before September 11th; She purposefully marginalized Richard Clarke and there really wasn't any risk of a mushroom cloud originating in Iraq. More recently, she's done nothing to try and bring the Palestinians and the Israelis together; She allowed Israel to bomb the hell out of Lebanon, including many civilian targets and any discussion of foreign policy must come back to the quagmire in Iraq. Plus, of course, there's also the situation with North Korea.
Which leads me to the inevitable question; Ms Rice may be brilliant on paper, but can anyone, anywhere, point to a single achievement?
A couple of people have recently posted YouTube videos in their normal format. I wish the function would be extended to the other major film archives, but YouTube is better than nothing and as a test of this added service, I'm posting an old clip of Hillary Clinton's pre-taped skit for the New York Legislative Correspondents Dinner. It's not very deep and only mildly amusing as these things go, but there is an "interesting" exchange for political junkies starting at the 2:25 mark or just under halfway through.
And because lame political humor isn't everyone's cup of tea, I decided to add a link to the "Trapped in the Closet" segment from the South Park episode which supposedly Tom Cruise won't allow to be repeated. Though, I don't know that I believe that story.
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occupymytime
