Obama has launched a nationwide effort to register people to vote in all 50 states (not, as you might think, all 57, however), that started just this week:
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama kicked off a voter registration drive in Birmingham on Saturday, joining volunteers holding similar events in 100 other cities nationally.
Two dozen Obama’08 volunteers visited store parking lots and neighborhoods across metro Birmingham, passing out voter registration forms. It was part of a Vote for Change mobilization drive in all 50 states.
The Obama volunteers registered 92 voters as of late Saturday afternoon, said volunteer Melissa Thomas. She said the registration drive will continue until the deadline before the Nov. 4 presidential election.
Meanwhile, via the GOS, we see that “Women’s Voices. Women Vote” has had another “unfortunate accident.” This “unfortunate mistake” happened in WV right before the primary, just like the “accidentally misleading” robo-calls in NC:
A group called “Women’s Voices. Women Vote” sent out more than 16,000 mailers to unmarried women in the state after April 22, the last day to register in time to vote Tuesday. ...
Page Gardner, president of the women’s organization, said in a letter that:
“West Virginia residents will receive this mail after the deadline for registering to vote to participate in the upcoming primary election. Please be aware that the mailing is not intended to encourage registration specifically for the primary, but simply to encourage voter registration in general.
The mailing clearly indicates that the deadline to register to vote by mail for a particular election in West Virginia is 20 days before the election … We hope that this unfortunate coincidence in timing does not lead to any confusion or aggravation for either your state’s voters or registrars.”
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Ireland’s office said it received a batch of voter registration forms as a result of the group’s mass mailing, and many of them were from people already registered.
Ireland said she wants to assure already registered voters that they do not need to register again to vote in Tuesday’s primary. However, those voters who used the women’s group’s registration form to update their address should contact their county clerk’s office to determine their proper voting precinct.
“I do not want registered voters to be confused by this mailing,” Ireland said. “If you were already registered to vote, you do not need to re-register.”
Bankers and housing market analysts are warning of a chilling new trend in the mortgage world: Homeowners voluntarily defaulting on their loans even though they can actually afford to make the payments.
It’s known colloquially as “walking away,” or more jocularly as “jingle mail,” from the sound your house keys supposedly make when you mail them back to your bank.
It’s a way of saying that Americans are beginning to apply a cold financial calculation to home ownership: When a home’s value has fallen below what is owed on its mortgage, they feel it makes no sense to keep up the payments.
“That is going on, clearly, and there’s lots of evidence of that in the market,” Don Truslow, senior executive vice president of Wachovia Bank, said in a conference call with investors last month. A few weeks earlier, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson had waggled a stern finger at homeowners contemplating walking away from affordable mortgages: Do that, and you’re no better than a “speculator,” he said.
Elsewhere, media reports and Internet postings are rife with stories about the trend and a supposed sea change in American attitudes toward debt. But there’s a major problem with all this talk about the phenomenon of solvent homeowners “walking away”: There doesn’t appear to be any hard evidence that it’s actually happening.
Is the rhetoric about the crash of the housing market as overblown and overheated as the housing market itself once was?
Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton.
After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.
Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
The piece gets worse.
One of the things Obama supporters would be wise to remember is that when Clinton supporters and her campaign point out that a lot of people hated Hillary before this campaign even started, they aren’t lying. Dowd is one such example- she was brutal to the Clinton family throughout the 90’s, and she has been just as brutal the past year and a half. It is easy to understand how at this late point in the game, Clinton and her supporters feel she has not been given a fair shake by many in the media, and the reason they feel that way is because she hasn’t. That doesn’t mean that any distaste for the direction the Clinton campaign has taken is unwarranted, but it would be good to remember that it is not wholly unnatural for Clinton supporters to be, well, bitter, at this point.
Additionally, the “advice” Dowd gives is just horrible, and the rhetoric even worse. A consistent base of Hillary’s support is not going to react well to attempts to “punish” Hillary, or to “put her in her place.” I can’t imagine any more loaded rhetoric than that, and feminists and Hillary diehards would be right to be livid by any attempts to do that. I happen to think that Hillary’s campaign is over and that she is doing more harm than good, but she does not need to be “punished” or any of that nonsense- losing something you have worked for for all these years is hard enough. She also has every right to continue on until the last primary, and it is sort of absurd to assert that continuing your campaign is something that is, in and of itself, something that should be “punished.”
Fortunately, if you have seen any of the 100 Obama interviews since Tuesday, Obama is having none of it, refusing to even field questions about who his running mate will be, as the race is not over:
“We do not have this nomination locked up, so we’re still competing. She’s going to do very well in West Virginia and Kentucky – she will win those states in all likelihood by significant margins. We feel like we’ve got a pretty good shot here in Oregon. We’re going to be campaigning in Montana and South Dakota and Puerto Rico. Until I’m the nominee, I don’t want to speculate on running mates.”
This is the right approach, and people need to remember that a lot of people have invested a lot of time and money in trying to get Clinton nominated, and we will need their votes in the future. Adopting Dowd’s attitude and loaded and sexist rhetoric about “putting her in her place” is not only offensive, it is counter-productive.
In addition to the obvious projection, I trust you can see what’s going on here. If Obama doesn’t choose Clinton as a running mate, it’s because he wants to “put her in her place.” If he does choose Clinton, it’s because he wants to “put her in her place.” See, when you’re setting up the inevitable endless stream of columns about how Obama is really an womanly effete elitist woman who’s probably lactating even more than Al Gore, you win either way! The country, not so much.
Some years later, the last bands of human resistance have been found. Even most life above insects seems to have been hunted down for sport. Now the world sits empty except for the things we built, living on, their insurrection complete. They don’t need us. Most don’t seem to remember that we were ever there.
Chilling.
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Yeah, so this is a year or two late. It just popped into my head while looking at some giftwrap paper.
So I fell asleep on the couch tonight, and I was awakened by one of those obnoxious beeeeeeeeeeeeps on the TV warning of a tornado. So I am up waiting for it to happen (again.) Also, I went to a podiatrist on Friday to see about something on my foot. I thought it was a wart. Turns out it is a tumor. So much for “walk in, freeze it off, walk out.” I have surgery scheduled for Wednesday. Sucks to be me. It’s probably nothing, so no big deal. It’s just scary to hear the word, tumor. Anyway, the pending tornado is probably more of a threat.
5:17am on Mother’s Day, and everyone else is in bed except for you people. Open thread.
Say hey to your momma. She’s reading this, you know.
A timely piece in Townhall about Hillary’s support among gun owners that will no doubt be cited by the pro-Hillary blogs as additional proof of her electability (as Townhall, Fox News, and the Weekly Standard have now become the go to source of record for Pro-Hillary blogs):
Senator Clinton no more deserves gun-owner votes than Lord Voldemort deserves the Muggle vote. In the Senate, she has voted in favoring of abusive lawsuits against law-abiding gun manufacturers, for banning cosmetically incorrect guns which are falsely labeled “assault weapons,” and for allowing federal funds to be used to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens after a natural disaster—as was done following Hurricane Katrina.
Her lone pro-Second Amendment vote was for a national bill allowing retired police officers, under stringent licensing conditions, to carry concealed handguns in all fifty states.
Yet Senator Clinton’s childhood in the Midwest, and her decades in Arkansas, have apparently given her the ability to project an impression of at least slight understanding of American gun culture, a culture which Obama seems to regard with a condescending detachment like that of a 19th-century Oxford anthropologist examining a tribe of Amazonian headhunters.
Thus, the Democratic race continues into June, thanks to Senator Clinton’s iron will, and the most surprising new group in her base: Democratic gun owners and their families.
People who think Hillary will carry the state of WV in the fall because of the gun issue are deluding themselves, and really forget the job that the GOP did on Al Gore over the issue of guns. I remember it well (and was thrilled WV went for Bush. How times change), and this CNN piece references it:
For the last two-thirds of the 20th century, West Virginia was a solidly Democratic state, and it still is in state politics.
West Virginia had not voted for a non-incumbent Republican for president since Herbert Hoover. It even voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Then came 2000, when George W. Bush surprised everyone by winning West Virginia. How did he do it? With social issues, such as abortion, gays and—most important—guns, in a state where more than 70 percent of the voters have a gun in their households.
What you get in West Virginia is not so much Reagan Democrats as Bush Democrats.
Republicans believe that they know how to beat Obama here.
“They would likely paint him, if he’s the nominee, as a far-left liberal who is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-civil union. That will not play well in West Virginia. Social issues register very high on the meter here,” Bass said.
It wasn’t just guns that swayed the state to Bush- Clinton fatigue, disgust over the Lewinsky affair, decades of inefficient local Democratic rule, Gore’s position on the environment and coal, the familiarity of the Bush family name, garden variety social issues, and a whole host of other issues were also at stake. Others who are so inclined can look into the wayback machine of the intertron to find more about the job done on Gore regarding guns in WV, but I can tell you the GOP did some fine and lasting work. All through out the week while phonebanling, I talked with many people, Democrats, who simply refused to vote for either Democrat because of guns. Many, in fact, were not too fond of McCain, either.
At any rate, I say that is a timely piece in Townhall, because just today, frequent Balloon Juice commenter Merrinc, who is back in the state canvassing for Obama to help keep down the Hillary winning margin on Tuesday, emailed me this:
A yard in Webster Springs, WV off Rt. 19.
Anyone who argues that Hilary is more electable in WV because of her position on guns just hasn’t been paying attention.
The stain of Bush won’t wash out even if the GOP tried. Back when the President looked like a winner the hero worship among his party reached Mussolini levels, and if the GOP ever missed a chance to bend over for the President I must have missed it.
It was just like the old days. President Bush and House Republican leaders strode purposefully out of the White House to the waiting microphones, where the president celebrated their mutual views on housing, energy, war spending and terrorist surveillance bills taking shape in Congress.
“These are dear friends of mine who are committed to doing what’s right for the country,” Mr. Bush said last Wednesday as House leaders looked on, sharing the presidential limelight.
[...] [T]op House Republicans say they are willing to stand against Democratic initiatives they see as flawed, even though they might have some natural election-year appeal.
More of this please. I don’t think that DC Republicans have any idea how much even ordinary Republicans in the erstwhile base hate George Bush’s guts. The Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but lately it seems increasingly like GOP membership is.
Rube Goldberg*, eat your heart out, but I think this commenter is right on the new Clinton strategery:
Bill Clinton revealed their plan today:
(1) build up massive popular vote margins in WV, KY, and PR offset by only marginal popular vote losses in OR, MT, and SD
(2) get the DNC to seat MI and FL delegations based on the January primaries with Obama getting 0 popular votes for Michigan
(3) convince superdelegates that giving the nomination to the leader in pledged delegates rather than the leader in the popular votes (using their calculations) would be a repeat of the 2000 Bush-Gore from which the Democratic Party would never recover.
That’s their plan. They’ve got their netroots minions talking it up.
That would explain why the Clinton campaign spent months talking about seating the Michigan delegates and then immediately rejected the plan crafted and offered by Clinton supporters in Michigan, and it would also explain the popular vote rhetoric as of late. I am not sure how they are going to pretend that an election where half the candidates were not on the ballot constitutes the “will of the people,” but I am sure the Clintons and their supporters are up to the challenge.
Rather than take the time to ramp down her supporters and exit gracefully after certain big wins in WV and KY, the Clintons are instead whipping them into a lather. Expect healthy continued doses of the Southern Strategy throughout WV and KY, repeated casual “the black guy can’t win” remarks, and by now it is clear that her “hard-working white voter” comment of the other day was no accident.
Yay, team. President McCain has such a nice ring to it.
And one last thing- every last damned one of you who chastised Andrew Sullivan over the past 6 months for Clinton Derangement Syndrome, myself included, owe him an apology. As Tim noted last night via IM, he was as right about Clinton as Andrew and I were wrong about Iraq.
*** Update ***
And the other thing I think is amusing is Hillary’s belief that if this bizarre scheme works, she is just going to be able to magically sew the party back together and the African-American vote will be hers in the fall by a solid margin. It will not.
By the way, I should probably credit whoever I saw use the Rube Goldberg reference the other day in regards to the Clinton camp, but I don’t remember who it was.
Publius muses on why Hillary’s genuinely inevitable campaign machine seemed to keep losing its traction, and comes up with a word that rhymes with frak.
Publius’s analysis exactly agrees how I felt back when I was still on the fence. In the beginning I expected Clinton to make some public statement about how her Iraq vote was a stupid move and how at some level she regretted making it. I have no doubt that a good fraction of the Democratic party’s liberal base was waiting for the same thing.
For me anyway it wasn’t about exacting a pound of flesh or anything like that. What’s the point? If I was out for revenge I would have to write off most of the party. For me it was a of a judgment test. Congress got railroaded by jingoism, panicked political fear and better salesmanship into something that most independent observers now recognize as a bad idea. John Edwards genuinely seems to regret the box of chaos that he helped open.
Recognizing a mistake isn’t just a petty bit of retribution, It’s a first step towards naming the weakness and watching out for it it in the future. More than anything else I needed confidence that she wouldn’t do it again. I don’t want to sit around wondering when will be the next time that our President, terrified of being outmessaged and politically outmaneuvered, tacks to cover her ass and leaves good policy bleeding by the side of the road.
And you know what, I didn’t have to wait for Hillary to become the President. What did the Clintonites do after PA failed to deliver the big comeback margin that Hillary needed? She cynically aped the bullshit Republican gas tax plan, whereas Obama stood by good policy even when it could cost him votes. The whole fake populism gig, calling Obama supporters ‘elitists,’ dismissing African-American voters as irrelevant, reeked of panic and flopsweat. In other words both campaigns did exactly what I expected them to do.
Anyhow it’s almost over and the right guy’s going to win. Go team.
***Update***
Conason’s surprised. Honestly, I’m not. I read Bush right by guessing that the child is father to the man. Hillary’s refusal to revisit Iraq tells me that she either cares about policy until it’s politically useful to defenstrate it (my working model), or her judgment is far worse than I could have guessed. It’s like an Athenian Senator saying you should support him even though he still thinks that Syracuse was a great idea. Even Michael f*cking Ledeen has enough shame to lie about it.
I started watching it and had to do a double-take when I realized that was him. I thought they had started with someone else (“WTF is R. Lee Ermey doing in this?”), and it took me a little bit before I recognized him. Here is a photo from 2007:
She looks the same, he looks like he has aged dramatically. Maybe it is just the hair cut, although he has gone through a lot of bullshit in the past few years. Or am I seeing things?
Eight in 10 Americans believe that the government’s $110 billion effort to help consumers will not boost the economy, according to a poll released Friday.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted April 28-30 found that 82% of Americans believe the stimulus package will fall short – compared to 70% in February.
The program, passed with bipartisan support earlier this year, will give tax rebate checks to about 130 million Americans. Most single Americans earning $75,000 or less who filed a tax form will receive up to $600, and married couples earning $150,000 or less could get up to $1200.
Maybe after the rejection of the gas tax gimmick and the clear signal from voters that they know this “stimulus package” will do nothing but blow more money, the era of gimmick government may finally be coming to an end. I am not sure what is bringing about this change, maybe it is the fact that gas prices are hitting so hard and that people are in such dire straits that they know the usual bullshit will not work, but this is a positive thing. We can;t solve all these problems if all we do are play games with them. It looks like the American public isfinally seeing through the BS and is tired of it.
I heard somewhere that refineries are still pricing consumer fuel as if a barrel of oil still cost $80. Is that true? Oil just broke $126. As Atrios pointed out, the fundamentals don’t support it cheapening any time soon.
If that’s right, eventually refineries will adjust to huge money losses that they’re taking right now. That would push gas at the pump to…$6? $8? Oy.
I don’t feel particularly smug when I stand next to my Honda Fit watching some SUV owner near tears as she puts more than $100 of gas into a car she doesn’t need. It just feels sad to think about how long it’s been since it became obvious to anyone who cared to look that we won’t be able to scare off problems like fuel scarcity and climate change by closing our eyes and wishing.
That lead time was an opportunity to make changes. Some would have been painful and some merely sensible, but it would prevent huge numbers of honest Americans get caught with their pants down. Instead we blew it out the tailpipe of cars that average 15 MPG. Now, instead of a planned transition, we get to see what happens when stubborn denial meets inescapable change. It’s simply unsustainable to live in suburban car country with a negative equity on the house, $6-7 gas (wait until you see what that does to property values in outlying suburbs) and expensive SUVs that nobody wants. The saddest thing for me was that most who will get fucked the worst had no idea this was coming. There was that one guy who warned us, but he had a snooty laugh.
I hope those guys with W stickers on the Hummer parked in front of mcmansions that the bank owns enjoyed their beer.
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