Tag: Fox News

As more and more of us are waking up, thanks in part to Bill Clinton’s performance on the stump, to how much we don’t want to relive the Clinton years anew, the Howard Dean-led Democratic party seems poised to do the inescapable: screw up big.

In a piece titled, “Democrats: Are They Dumber than Concrete?” Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas frames the issue.

Consider this scenario, which no longer seems so far-fetched:

Barack Obama goes into the convention having won the majority of primaries and delegates. But he doesn’t have enough delegates to win the nomination.

And so the superdelegates — a group of politicians and political insiders — go into their star chamber and pick Hillary Clinton.

The fallout not only would cost Democrats the November election but would haunt them for many elections to come.

Democrats in Florida are fed to the teeth with their votes being thrown out, first by the Supreme Court and then by Howard Dean, who issued a fatwa on us after the Florida legislature changed our primary date. But the rest of the country will be feeling our pain if that idiot facilitates ramming the Candidate of Self-Proclaimed Inevitability down our throats.

Even superdelegate and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who cheered Dean on as he banned Florida from participating in selecting a nominee, has threatened publicly to leave the party if the superdelegates prematurely anoint a candidate contrary to that chosen by the people.

In an email funds solicitation today, Howard Dean said, “I think we’ll have a nominee before the convention.”

What does that mean, Howie?

Right now, Obama is ahead. Going in to Texas and Ohio, the tally stands at Clinton with 1220 delegates and Obama with 1259, out of 2,025 needed to win the nomination on the convention floor. If that’s where it happens.

Clinton has recalled Bill from the campaign trail, first not paid and then replaced her campaign manager, loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money, and pissed off Barbara Walters by not settling to just get a pundit suspended for saying Chelsea was being “pimped out” by her mom’s campaign (even as the former first daughter made headlines for handing out doughnuts in a polling place, and then remaining there after the voting started, and for taking a 21-year-old superdelegate to breakfast), but also calling for the guy’s head on a platter. As we suffered through all this, Clinton lost the last ten elections in a row.

Meanwhile, Obama sailed along, embodying the h-word,* as well as the c-word,** and winning, winning, winning.

So if Democrats resort to a superdelegate maneuver to foist Clinton upon us, then I have an answer for columnist Thomas.

“Yes. But maybe dumber.”

* Hope
** Change
*** Duh

Apparently, John Edwards is among those in the Democratic Party who fear that Barack Obama’s content-less platitudes are a souffle that will quickly deflate under withering attacks being readied against him by GOP operatives, should he become the Democratic nominee:

As he weighs a possible endorsement in the Democratic race, former Sen. John Edwards is as split as the party he once hoped to lead — and is seriously considering supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite the sharp criticism he leveled at her on the campaign trail, according to former aides and advisers.

In deciding between his one-time rivals, Edwards appears deeply divided. Several former advisers likened his thought process to a heart-versus-head split — with his heart favoring Sen. Barack Obama’s strong message of change, and his head attracted to Clinton’s tested nature and commitment to tough fights.

And:

On Obama, the [unidentified Edwards] aide says, Edwards worries “whether he’s tough enough to be President of the United States. If you look at what Edwards ran on, which is not negotiating with the special interests, taking away their power, that’s pretty different than the Obama model.”

The Edwards aide added that Obama’s lack of a health care plan with a “mandate” is a “tough hurdle for him to get over.” He added, however, that Edwards is much more in line with Obama on other issues.

While there is ceaseless debate about whether Obama’s political experience qualifies him to be president — Abraham Lincoln had less; George Bush had more, so go figure — one thing is not debatable: He has never run in a competitive race against a Republican. He held a safe seat for three terms in the Illinois Senate, and when he attempted to unseat incumbent Rep. Bobby Rush, the former Black Panther, he was defeated in the Democratic primary. His GOP opponent in the 2004 U.S. Senate race was Alan Keyes, a laughingstock African-American pundit who moved to Illinois to take on Obama but ran a shoestring operation and never launched a meaningful, much less aggressive, campaign.

Despite Edwards’ wavering, the odds favor his endorsing Obama because, for one thing, the party’s momentum is moving that way. But if Edwards did not have grave doubts about Obama’s ability to take on Republicans and his readiness to be president, he surely would have endorsed him by now.

Arizona Republican legislators are so worried about depressed turnout among their base in November if their senator, John McCain, is the GOP nominee that they have introduced a bill that would put yet another anti-gay marriage before voters on the general election ballot this fall. Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts documents the absurdity:
The real purpose of this ballot measure, of course, is to throw out red meat to entice voters for Mike Huckabee — who has made homophobia a hallmark of his presidential campaign — to go to the polls.

But wait … Didn’t we already vote on that, you ask?

Well … yes. We did. In 2006, the Protect Marriage Arizona amendment was put to a public vote, and it failed. Not because voters support gay marriage – most don’t – but because the proposal reached too far, outlawing domestic-partner benefits to government employees who decide to take a pass on a trip to the altar.

(Because, you know, anything straight people want to do is just fine.)

But wait. Don’t we already have a state law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, you ask?

Well … yes. We do. But you know how those activist judges can be.

But wait. Hasn’t the state law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman already been upheld by those activist judges, you ask?

Well … yes. The Arizona Court of Appeals in 2003 ruled that the law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is constitutional.

So naturally, legislative leaders on Monday introduced a proposed amendment to the state constitution, decreeing “only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state.”

All but three Republican legislators have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, which would do absolutely nothing to ban gay marriage.

The real purpose of this ballot measure, of course, is to throw out red meat to entice voters for Mike Huckabee — who has made homophobia a hallmark of his presidential campaign — to go to the polls.

Of course, the initiative may be as unnecessary politically as it is legally if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, since rightwing Christians have a propensity for racism as well as homophobia.

Atrios:

Clinton campaign people would be wise to listen to Rachel Maddow, who suggests that Clinton could win points by going after McCain, instead of Pat Buchanan, who thinks she should attack Obama.

I’m not suggesting that criticism of Obama is off limits, just that if Clinton wants to prove she can kick conservative ass, she should start doing it.

CBS/The Politico:

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) trails his Democratic opponent by 17 points in a recent poll, further bolstering the argument that Democrats’ best hope for making gains in the Senate starts in New England.

In a poll released today by the University of New Hampshire Sununu trails former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen by a margin of 54 percent to 37 percent, with 7 percent undecided and a 4.5 point margin for error. These numbers are largely unchanged since last July, showing that Shaheen continues to poll well in a state that has trended strongly toward Democrats in the past election cycle.

Sununu’s campaign has countered with an American Research Group poll taken in December that showed Sununu up 11 points, so it’s clear that methodology and the polling sample could be further debated and analyzed in this race.

Democrats have an edge in the Senate this year:

Democrats possess a field advantage in 2008, needing to defend only 12 seats, while Republicans must defend 23. In addition, five Republicans and no Democrats have announced that they are retiring. The open seat gap between the parties is the biggest in 50 years.

It’s fair to say that you’ve officially become the Democratic frontrunner when George Bush lies about your record:

Appearing today on Fox News Sunday, President Bush laid into Sen. Barack Obama, claiming he would “attack Pakistan” and “embrace” Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“I certainly don’t know what he believes in,” Bush said when asked if there had been a “rush to judgment” about Obama. “The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he’s going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad.”

Bush added he doesn’t think people know enough about Obama — but wouldn’t comment on why, if that’s the case, so many are supporting him.

In fact, Obama has not advocated either for attacking Pakistan or embracing Ahmadinejad. Obama has said that the U.S. should be willing to strike against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan if the country’s president Pervez Musharraf refuses. Obama also said during a debate last year that he was willing to meet with leaders of Iran and other U.S. rivals without preconditions, although he did not commit to doing so.

Does anyone seriously believe there are more voters who loathe Hillary Clinton than there are racists in American today? Peggy Noonan, the right’s resident moonbat, appears to believe this — and she asserts that the GOP would not dare run a racist ad against Barack Obama.
If Sen. Corker or former Sen. Jesse Helms were forced to be truthful — let’s say by waterboarding them — both would admit they did not care that their victories were attributed to racist ads. Neither will Pres. McCain.
As expatriot columnist David Seaton put it, “I smell a rat.”

He’s referring to Noonan’s column in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal column on Friday, in which she waxed poetical about Obama, who is quickly becoming the GOP’s second favorite Republican, after Joe Lieberman:

But Mr. Obama will not be easy for Republicans to attack. He will be hard to get at, hard to address. There are many reasons, but a primary one is that the fact of his race will freeze them. No one, no candidate, no party, no heavy-breathing consultant, will want to cross any line–lines that have never been drawn, that are sure to be shifting and not always visible–in approaching the first major-party African-American nominee for president of the United States.

Baloney. Noonan has forgotten, deliberately perhaps, the ad produced by the Republican National Committee to run against then-Rep. Harold Ford, conservative African-American Democrat who was running for the U.S. Senate against a lightweight former mayor of Chattanooga, which exploited ancient fears about black men and white women, especially in the South:

A new Republican Party television ad featuring a scantily clad white woman winking and inviting a black candidate to “call me” is drawing charges of race-baiting, with critics saying it contradicts a landmark GOP statement last year that the party was wrong in past decades to use racial appeals to win support from white voters.

Critics said the ad, which is funded by the Republican National Committee and has aired since Friday, plays on fears of interracial relationships to scare some white voters in rural Tennessee to oppose Democratic Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. Ford is locked in a tight race, hoping to become the first African American senator since Reconstruction to represent a state in the former Confederacy.

“It is a powerful innuendo that plays to pre-existing prejudices about African American men and white women,” said Hilary Shelton, head of the Washington office of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the country’s oldest civil rights organization.

A former Republican senator, William S. Cohen of Maine, was more blunt. Cohen, who was also Defense secretary under President Clinton, said on CNN that the ad was “a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment.”

Ford saw his lead in most polls evaporate after the ad started running. Corker won the seat, 51 percent to 48 percent.

Speaking of “rats,” in 1990, future professional Clinton-hater Dick Morris and GOP message-meister Alex Castellanos, the “father of attack ads,” produced the most famous racist ad prior to the anti-Ford nastiness, for the U.S. Senate reelection campaign of Jesse Helms, the segregationist scourge of North Carolina. As a former Charlottean who voted for Helms’ opponent, Harvey Gantt, when he ran successfully ran for mayor, I was, and still am, outraged over this:

[…]

And just in case you didn’t see the original.

Rush Limbaugh, whose criticisms of John McCain put him in danger of becoming irrelevant, could still have a way out: hate everybody.

That’s the only winning strategy for Rush, Ann, Laura, and all the other blathering conservative big mouths, according to industry experts.

Robert Mathias, managing director of Ogilvy PR’s Washington office, said conservative hosts need to begin adapting to the changes occurring in the Republican party or risk losing their audiences.

“Mr. McCain’s victory creates a little bit of a loss of standing, but it is not a sea change,” he said. “The party is not moving in lock step with conservatives, and if there is in fact a change occurring and if these guys don’t adjust they will lose some of their audience.”

[President of radio consulting firm Jacobs Media Fred] Jacobs said it’s now a win-win situation for the likes of Mr. Limbaugh and his conservative cohorts. Regardless of who now makes it to the White House, they will have an adversary they can complain about for four years.

“He is actually guaranteed some great material now,” Mr. Jacobs said.

Added [Talkers magazine publisher Michael] Harrison, “They can now be critical of both parties, which puts them in a much better position.”

There is probably a very large demographic out there that does, in fact, hate everybody. Some of them have begun leaving comments on Pensito Review. They are not Republicans, think John McCain is a dangerous hawk, and see Mike Huckabee as too flaky-Christian to be trusted with the Constitution.

At the same time, they don’t want a female president and they damn sure don’t want that particular female to be president, and they are only just now getting in touch with their racist side. As they do, they are finding it really matters to them that the president be a white male.

Rush rose to fame during the Newt Gingrich Contract With America years, when both he and Newt pursued the same winning strategy. They just watched which direction the crowd was already marching, then ran out in front and yelled, “Hey everybody, this way!” It’s worked for a long time and there’s no reason it would fail now. FOX News should get a clue: hating everybody is the best way to engage their audience.