Or, at least I think it is over. I am watching HGTV, which I occasionally do to reinforce my decision to rent. I will know my life is over when I become actively concerned about what kind of baseboards I have in my living room. Or if I become an active bowler.
Consider this an open thread.
*** Update ***
Apparently people are upset about the debate. All I can say is that it is your fault for watching, and if you do not have your mind made up by this point, you are one of those idiot undecideds I will want to beat on November 1st when you are interviewed by some man on the street reporter AND YOU STILL HAVE NOT DECIDED BETWEEN MCCAIN OR NOT MCCAIN AFTER 8 MONTHS. Seriously, while the debate performance by the media may have been shameful, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.
I will tell you what is shocking- the BSG episode I am watching. I can not believe those idiots nominated Tom Zarek for VP. Jesus- they can’t let that terrorist in charge of the fate of the human race.
At any rate, I tossed another $50.00 to the Obama campaign.
DougJ
Amen, brother. Amen.
scrutinizer
Sigh.
Time to go push the Donate button over on the MUP page. This is getting expensive…
Incertus
I watched about the last 30 minutes of it, and thought Gibson came out looking the worst of the whole bunch. When I work the tweaks out of my automatic junk-kicking machine, he’s getting a free-test ride, whether he wants it or not.
Krista
You could just build via self-contracting. Then you won’t give a shit what kind of baseboards you have in your living room, ’cause you’ll be too tired from all of the other decisions.
Dennis - SGMM
In the mean time I’ll be happy to loan you my junk-seeking boot.
Adam
You sure missed out, John…
on the baseball game, if you didn’t watch it.
I heard there was a “debate,” but my memory must have blocked out the trauma.
myiq2xu
My mom says you know you’re old when what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.
Incertus
How do you ever get anything done? That’s why I’m working on a robot. I’ve just got to keep that fucker charged and it’ll go all day.
Fwiffo
The “debate” was a travesty. ABC looked like tabloid television. I just about expected a pointed question about the whereabouts of Bat Boy.
They spent so damn much time on stupid trivia that they only had a couple minutes for actual issues. “Let’s spend 20 minutes talking about bittergate – oh we only have 30 seconds to discuss energy policy.” What a pile of shit.
Hillary was funny, making some good jokes at Bush/Cheney’s expense. Obama had a good comeback on the Ayers crap by pointing out that Clinton pardoned a couple of the Weathermen. Nothing else was memorable.
JGabriel
Fwiffo:
That seems to be the consensus. It sounds like ABC did a flawless imitation of Fox.
I didn’t see it – couldn’t find a live feed. So I’ll probably watch it tomorrow, on C-Span site, though everything I’m reading leaves me inclined to just skip it.
.
bostondreams
another classic debate. Right up there with Kennedy-Nixon. or is it Itchy-Scrachy?
myiq2xu
IOW – Obama got treated like a Democrat.
DougJ
I just gave money to Obama and wrote an angry email to Stuffy.
I shouldn’t have stopped by here and TPM. I was watching a pretty good Sox-Yankees game til I got sucked into watching the debate.
Pb
IOW – Hillary got treated like a Republican.
firebrand
That wasn’t a debate. It was like watching National Enquirer TV. Which I suppose suits both Hillary Clinton and the Republicans just fine.
AkaDad
For the first full hour, the moderators didn’t ask one substantial question. The opponents of change are scared.
DougJ
Myiq: you’re a funny motherfucker and I don’t hate on Hillary, but enough is enough with this “elitist” bullshit.
Fwiffo
Apparently the audience was getting out torches and pitchforks to go after Charlie Gibson at the end.
This was really the worst debate in history.
Kevin
Sounds like I didn’t miss anything by watching the Simpsons and Jeopardy.
crw
You can see what’s coming in October:
Senator McCain – tell us all just how much you like puppies. To help you demonstrate, we’ve brought in this basket of adorable golden retriever puppies. You have 5 minutes.
Senator Obama – tell us why Americans should vote for an Islmofascimarxisterrorelitisdefeatocrat. You have ten seconds.
AkaDad
Q. Senator Obama. Do you think America sucks or do you actually hate it?
Wisdom
For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m not bitter there are so many dumb liberals clinging to the latest fantasy candidate.
jnfr
This debate was horrible. Less substance than the light spring snow falling outside my window, and a hundred times the dirt.
The Other Steve
Has Hillary announced she is quiting yet?
jake
Ghosthunters saved us from accidental exposure to Teh Stoopid.
That would be awesome. The sight of John Puff Daddy Dead Eye McCane trying to simulate affection would completely decimate the GOP. Especially if one of the puppies nipped him.
“Aarrgh, get the hell off me you fucking c***!” [Stomp, squash]
jnfr
Seriously, my entire brain is stupider for having watched this “debate”. It’s like reading the Enquirer in the grocery store check-out line.
JGabriel
Jake wins the round.
.
p.lukasiak
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I went over to Taylor Marsh’s place, where they were praising the moderators, and told that just because they sucked in a way that was good for Hillary, that doesn’t mean they didn’t suck.
But this is the first time that Obama got hit with the kind of crap that Clinton has been getting for the last year — and it showed. Debate moderators shouldn’t suck, but they do, and that isn’t going to change between now and November, so you guys better get used to this kind of crap if your guy gets the nomination, because its only going to get worse.
See, Clinton actually was player a lot nicer than McCain would have under the same circumstances. And if Obama ever gives auch a piss poor performance in a debate with McCain, its gonna be all over…. KO might try and spin it for Obama, but that’s it. He’ll be toast with the rest of the media, who only are nice to Obama because he “not Hillary”, and really prefer McCain’s barbecue to Obama’s bullshit.
nightjar
After the war, Barrack begins his political career.
LiberalTarian
Charlie Gibson is to moderation as Val Kilmer is to Batman?
jake
[Runs pluckshake’s comment through Drunk – English translator]:
Yeah, I thought as much.
At least this means we won’t see Paul L. for the rest of the night.
jnfr
I think Teh Stupid is trickling down my throat and I will soon be flailing around on the floor, frothing and spitting up blood.
The Grand Panjandrum
Just don’t start debating yourself about whether they should be taupe or ecru … that would be a bad sign.
jc
jake,
That was f**king funny!
Conservatively Liberal
I got that impression from comments too. I guess that ABC is being flooded with complaints from all quarters that the debate sucked. Hell, even Rendell ripped in to Charlie and George about the lack of substance.
Sounds like National Enquirer TV at its worst. I am glad that the crowd got disruptive, I sure as hell would have! What the fuck is wrong with ‘news’ people who want to focus on everything but the freight train loaded with problems that is bearing down on us?
As I said before, anyone with half a brain will see that this ‘debate’ was nothing of the sort.
Dennis - SGMM
They’ve been ignoring some of them since the Carter administration, why stop now?
Conservatively Liberal
Drudge has a poll up about the ‘debate’, Obama is winning 62/38…lol
cbear
Next question Senator—recent polls show us that 85-90% of real Americans think that Senators Clinton and Obama are, respectively, a trollop and a cunt. Your thoughts???
Dennis - SGMM
ABC: “The candidate is near!”
Delia
Sigh. I didn’t watch the debate. I’m glad. It’s bad enough reading the commentary. I suppose I should make another donation to Barack, but I’ve got to make a donation to the woman who’s running for re-election of mayor of my town because there’s a stupid-ass gooper opposing her who’s pretending he’s no longer a gooper but an indy because goopers aren’t popular enough here to get elected on their own. But if she doesn’t win the town’s likely to go to hell. So I’ll get back to you, Barack.
Hillary might as well go and join the goopers now. To think I used to find Stephanopoulos cute. Sigh.
Martin
Hillary probably just lost her window. If the supers wanted to watch this play out, they’ve got to be thinking that it’s not worth the damage to the party to let this go on. The post debate numbers don’t look too bad for Obama. Clinton comes out ahead, but not by terribly much. Obama actually wins the first half, simply out of sympathy, is my guess. He’s worse in the policy stuff.
He’ll probably take a bit of a polling hit in PA, but not that much. If he keeps it close, my guess is the supers step up after tuesday. That was the party’s worst nightmare. All damage, no gain, no harm to McCain.
Gus
Fortunately I have a paper due, so I had better things to do. Plus there was a ball game on.
jake
For the BSG
nerdsfans:Is that commercial with the photo based on Da Vinci’s Last Supper new? I need to know if the fRightWing furor has already passed or should I buy some industrial strength ear plugs to drown out the screeching.
Thx
cbear
Charlie Gibson here, Senator—“final question of the evening: do you prefer that I just lightly tickle your balls while I’m blowing you, or do want the whole finger in the ass treatment?”
p.lukasiak
I liked it better when you weren’t gonna say anything, you arrogant dickwad.
Not everyone in the country is as obsessed with politics as the blogosphere. I live in Philadelphia — and guess what. People here didn’t think that they wouldn’t have to decide BETWEEN Clinton and Obama. They were just going to support the Democrat — and they wouldn’t have any say in it
But now they do, so they are paying attention, and they haven’t made their minds ups completely, because they care about this country and not just about hating on Hillary Clinton.
SO you can take your self-righteous, above it all, arrogant attitude about undecided voters and shove it up your ass Cole. You think that just because something is important to some arrogant college teacher from West Virginia that it suddenly becomes important to everyone else — and if it isn’t important to them when you decide its important, that they suck.
No. You suck.
Andrew
BSG last supper is at least a month old. It was the season 4 promo in a lot of magazines.
Brachiator
On the positive side, I’m on the West Coast, where it’s a warm evening. I was going to watch the debate, but thanks to the comments of everyone here, I’ll have another beer instead (Sapporo Reserve, all malt beer of elitists).
I’ve long complained that the media is more shallow than biased. The comments here confirm it with a vengeance.
I pray to all the pagan gods that be that one day, a candidate will turn to one of these network boneheads and say, “Your question if so stupid that it does not deserve an answer. Next!”
I’ve been reading the obituary of the great physicist John Wheeler, who invented the description “black hole” after a long time spent in denying the possibility of such singularities (John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term ‘Black Hole,’ Is Dead at 96).
Senator Clinton’s increasingly bitter campaign is devoid of intelligence, creativity, inspiration.
I wonder whether PA voters will be able to see through this fog of a debate to a wider vision.
LiberalTarian
OMG, the BSG the last supper picture, with Six in that RED DRESS? …
Yes, geek that I am, I made the picture my wallpaper.
But honestly, I’m loving the story arc this season. Toasters with sentience. Yup, conflict inside conflict. LOVE IT.
DougJ
Whichever candidate you prefer, you should all admit that the moderation was awful. You can call ABC to complain at
818-460-7477
NR
Actually, they’re both.
John Cole
Not to get all ELITIST, but if you ignorant rubes would stop clinging to your guns and your religion and pick up a fucking newspaper, you might have been able to make up your mind before tonight.
Man, as a West Virginian, it was fun writing that. Seriously, your troll skills and your faux outrage are pretty weak, P. Lukasiak.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
CNN’s current take on the debate is actually pretty solid. They skip Wright/Ayers, touch on “bitter”, and actually start the article with the VP and “Yes Yes Yes” stuff.
I’m shocked. And wondering what they’re saying on the TV.
zzyzx
It’s a half hour into the debate on the west coast and I’m sitting on my comfy chair with First Cous on my lap and the tv is tuned to the Mariners. King Felix is dealing and I have no temptation to switch. Thanks y’all.
Dennis - SGMM
Why does the use of the word “arrogant” in connection with the words “West Virginia” sound so patently bullshit?
Desmond
I must admit I cannot understand the “undecided” phenomenon either. Either these people are really stupid or don’t get much news. I was very much decided on Obama from the very beginning.
AkaDad
I don’t believe the media is just lazy. The corporate media wants to stay deregulated, they want low taxes, and they want little to no oversight. Which party does that sound like?
MobiusKlein
zzyzx, you’d be tempted to switch if you were an A’s fan.
p.lukasiak
Gotta disagree. Superdelegates want to win, and what they saw was Hillary Clinton and some other guy up on stage who obviously would have been slaughtered by McCain tonight.
There is a reason why the super=delegates haven’t swarmed to Obama. They had serious doubts about whether he could win in november. They read exit polls. They know the electoral college map. And they didn’t like what they saw.
They know a Democrat should have won in 2000. And they know that a Democrat should have won in 2004. So, they know that “a Democrat should win in 2008” doesn’t mean shit.
Obama had everything on his side going into Ohio. The media loved him and hated Hillary, he had tons of money, and he had all the momentum. And he came out of Ohio with 34% of the white vote.
And don’t try and tell me how big Clinton’s lead was two months before Ohio — it wasn’t that big after the Potomac Tuesday disaster, when Texas and Ohio became the focus of the campaign.
And, IIRC, Obama cleaned up on Potomac Tuesday. Now I’ve been saying all along that was a fluke — that Clinton ignored those states, and Obama didn’t, and that is why he did won in places like Maryland by double digits.
So with all the advantages, with this supposed great appeal to voters that he showed in the week after Super Tuesday, he comes out of Ohio with 34% of the white vote? And you don’t think the party pros aren’t freaking out about it? And haven’t been freaking out more since “Wright”, and then “clinging”, and now “Ayres” — all of which happened AFTER Obama got 34% of the white vote in Ohio.
Look at the electoral college map, Martin. tell me how many states Obama can win with 34% of the white vote. And keep in mind that we’re talking about white DEMOCRATS, the white voters that Obama has the best shot at appealing to.
Then get back to me about how the super-delegates will want to put an end to this thing as soon as possible.
Dennis - SGMM
Andrew
Shorter lukasiak:
Hey, black person, FUCK YOU!
p.lukasiak
he, when some east coast urbanite can call some West Virginia hick “arrogant”, and som West Virginia hick can call an east coast urbanite a “rube” that we live in a great country!
nightjar
You got “white” on the brain numnut. Tells me something about your (cough) analysis.
John Cole
I just like how the left wing trolls channel the right wing trolls and throw out my job like it matters on this issue. What is next, a counter-top inspection?
Seriously, there are 100 other people on this website who will all agree with me regarding undecideds, and they range from college students to computer engineers to law students to lawyers to any number of things.
All it proves to me is that when the going get tough, the left wing trolls and Hillary die-hards really are as scummy as the right-wing Bush dead-enders.
Dennis - SGMM
I for one admire pluk’s yeoman work in adapting the reasoning of the Chewbacca Defense to contemporary politics.
zzyzx
“zzyzx, you’d be tempted to switch if you were an A’s fan.” Nope. I’d be watching last night’s Colbert then.
p.lukasiak
more like “hey Black person, we gave your guy every advantage….and he failed. Sorry, but as liberal and progressive as Democrats are, we’re not going throw ourselves on the pyre of political affirmative action and watch this country go to shit when McCain wipes the floor with your guy just to keep you happy.”
rob!
at this point, the BSG government with a former terrorist as VP seems eminently more appealing than the clusterf**k we have now.
ABC News should have their news credentials stripped. they even made me feel (slightly) sorry for Hillary, something i didn’t think was humanly possible.
Obama had a bad night, but this debate is the perfect example of everything the guy is working against.
DougJ
P_luk: I’m a big fan of your work in general. But I your tone here rubs me the wrong way. You make it sound like everyone who supports Obama is some kind of a delusional Hillary-hater who thinks Obama will magically bring peace and prosperity to the world.
I’ve defended Hillary for years. I edited David Broder’s wiki page to include all of his nutty attacks on the Clintons. I’ve written countless letters, emails, and blog comments in defense of all the bs attacks on Hillary’s cleavage and “cackle.”
But I just don’t see how anyone can see that her attacks on Obama for being “elitist” are reprehensible bullshit I mean, come on! You can defend it with “McCain will do worse” but so fucking what? It’s bullshit, the same way the crap about Hillary’s cleavage and cackle were bullshit.
Can’t you just fucking admit that? And admit that I have every right to hold it against Hillary when she pulls this kind of crap?
JGabriel
Well, at least The Daily Show should be good tomorrow. Stephanopoulos & Gibson gave them plenty of material to work with.
.
p.lukasiak
no, I’ve got the electoral college on the brain, numnuts. And I’ve got the demographic makeup of 50 states on the brain, numnets.
The finish line is in November. Being ahead by a few paces in April doesn’t mean shit, if you can’t beat the competition to the finish line. And tonight showed why Hillary Clinton’s decision to focus on Novermber was the right one, because she’s obviously ready to take on McCain, and has positioed herself to do so — while Obama doesn’t have the first clue about what to do when the shitstorm really hits.
Andrew
p.lukasiak says:
nightjar
Maybe you should throw yourself in front of a train instead.
Dan
John clearly suffers from Zarek Derangement Syndrome.
John Cole
Actually, Josh MArshall said it best:
Of course the Hillary supporters all hate Josh Marshall now more than they hate Fox News. I sure picked a helluva time to leave the GOP.
I think I may join the Constitution party with Keyes. He is at least entertaining.
jnfr
I have no question about McCain vs. not-McCain. I am voting for whoever is not the Republican candidate. I admit, though, that I am a political junkie who watched this debate because…it was on.
I have paid with my brain and my sanity. Please don’t mock me further.
Andrew
I do declare that I would like to join the Cult of Gaius. The extremely hot female groupie to dorky looking male ratio looks to be about 10 to 1. Even with Baltar bedding the choice zealots, I figure us dorks would have a shot with the second tier babes.
mightygodking
Yes, Hillary Clinton does very well in debates when the moderators attack her opponent near-continuously for fifty minutes and she gets to join in.
I am sure this will happen in any potential Clinton-McCain debate, because Hillary Clinton is much, much better liked than John McCain by the press corps.
AkaDad
Winning in every metric equals fail?
Your ideas intrigue me…
DougJ
That’s the key point. Bullshit is bullshit, no matter who’s saying it. How is this different that the parent who beats the shit out of his children and says “well, they’ll have to tough to make it in the world I’m doing them a favor”?
And all this crap about Obama had every advantage and blew it? Come on: both candidates ran good campaigns in most ways, broke every fundraising record. I’m not happy with the last six weeks of Hillary, but this was Ali-Frazier, not Foreman-Moorer. Nobody blew anything.
It’s not that the party loves Hillary less, it’s that they love Obama more. Though, personally, I’m starting to love Hillary less.
Kevin
The Mariners? Don’t you mean the A’s?
(looks at the score)
oh, never mind.
jnfr
Isn’t Gaius one of the monkeys in the old Planet of the Apes movies. “Damn you! You killed them all!”
That movie was better for my brain than this debate.
p.lukasiak
I never said they weren’t reprehenible bullshit, Doug. They almost as reprehensible as Obama’s swift-boating of Clinton on the race issue in South Carolina — and the continued efforts of Obama supporter to cast Clinton as a racist.
For over a year, Clinton politely reminded people that she’s ready to win against whatever the GOP throws at her, just trying to get the message across that Obama isn’t ready to do that.
Clinton was running an entirely positive, overwhelmingly issue-oriented campaign for nine months. All the Democrats were running positive, issue oriented campaigns. But they weren’t getting any traction — Clinton was better on the issues than the others, because she’s been working toward this campaign for eight years (and that’s something that smart politicians DO if they want to be President. They get ready to run, then they run.)
So everyone went negative on Clinton. She didn’t go negative back, she just defended herself. She didn’t want to go negative — that isn’t how she wanted to win.
But now she’s not in the lead, and she’s finally acting the way that her critics have been LYING about her acting all this time, and you want to complain about it?
I call bullshit. Hillary wasn’t doing this when she was being accused of doing it — and no one gave a damn if it hurt HER chances in November. But now suddenly you are all concerned with “the Party’s” chances in November. Funny, you didn’t seem so fucking concerned when the Obama campaign was lying about Clinton running a racist campaign. Do you think MAYBE IT HURT THE PARTY TO TELL BLACK VOTERS THAT THE LIKELY NOMINEE WAS A RACIST?
apparently not. You’re just happy that you and the rest of the Obots can now stop LYING about the kind of campaign that Clinton is running, because she’s finally doing the stuff you’ve been lying about her doing all along.
Yeah!!!! You’re right!!!!! Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ!!!!
Of course, what you’re really celebrating is creating an anti-Christ, but that doesn’t matter to you, now does it?
Dennis - SGMM
So, the candidate who couldn’t get a majority from her own party will be able to win in November – even though only 39% of Americans currently view her as “honest and trustworthy.” Mmmmkay.
TenguPhule
In other News, Big Brother Bush wants your Genes.
Republicans really are intent on using 1984 as a fucking blueprint to start from.
John Cole
Back to the major point of contention in this thread- the undecideds. I really, in all honesty, have no clue how people could be undecided at this point. This has been the longest campaign I can remember, and I honestly think it has been so god damned long that by the time someone wins, they will not even get a 100 days of reprieve after the inauguration because it is already going to feel like their second term.
Seriously.
And if you think I have no sympathy for undecideds in the primary, let me tell you this much- I give people a week after the Democratic nominee is decided to make up their minds whether they are voting McCain or not McCain. They get one week. We, as a country, have all been wearing the blue dress for 8 years now, and it should take people all of five minutes to decide if they want four more years of Bush or if they want something different. After a week, undecideds get nothing but a middle finger from me. No attempts to persuade, no cajoling, no reasoning. If they can not figure out whether they want more Bush Republicanism or no more Bush Republicanism right fucking now, they are a lost cause.
TenguPhule
Cheapskate.
TenguPhule
I submit to you the theory that many people are simply fucking idiots.
myiq2xu
Anyone want to see a video of
John McCain’s bitchConservatively Liberal?:Leave Barack Obama alone!
TenguPhule
And now you know what it was like for us here in 2004.
Desmond
There’s some speculation that this debate may end up a net positive for Obama, despite his generally poor performance. Just out of sheer revulsion towards the moderators and the opportunistic bullshit from Hillary.
Dennis - SGMM
1) They don’t give a shit anyway.
2) They haven’t paid attention in their whole adult lives.
3) They’re a couple of sandwiches shy of a picnic.
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
p.lukasiak
yeah. because he didn’t win in every metric. He didn’t win in the states that matter in November, and he didn’t win with the voters that Democrats need to get to win in November.
Do you know why John Kerry lost by about 1% in Ohio? Its because he had his ass kicked in South East Ohio. Do you know why Obama lost by 10 points in Ohio? Because he had his ass kicked by Clinton in Southeast Ohio.
Don’t talk to me about “metrics” because you are obviously full of shit when you do. The only “metric” that matters is 270 Electoral college votes…. and if you think that winning in Georgia and South Carolina and Idaho and Utah means jack shit in terms of the only metric that matters, then maybe you’re not full of shit. Maybe you’re just Short-bus stupid.
Desmond
Apparently ABC shut down their comments page! Ha!
nightjar
Well. what power we have to do that. The “messiah” meets the ‘Anti-Christ”. Isn’t it supposed to rain locusts now.
TenguPhule
Because Blue States will vote for Republicans if Empress Hillary is not on the ballot.
Better trolls please.
Dennis - SGMM
I’ll take J. Kenneth Blackwell for two hundred, Alex.
DougJ
Is she running one now?
I was a law-abiding citizen for 30 years, then shit turned bad so I robbed people. But the guy I’m running against thinks you’re bitter so vote for me.
AkaDad
P Luk
How can Hillary win when her disapproval ratings are at 54%?
p.lukasiak
then you really are an idiot, because people don’t focus on decisions that they don’t have to make until much closer to the time they have to make them.
And that’s smart, because things can change between the time you can make a decision, and when that decision has to be carried out — and if things change in the interim, they either have to go through the whole decision making process over again, or take the risk that their decision could turn out to be completely, nind-numbingly stupid given the circumstances at the time the decision was implemented.
And thanks to complete DICKWADS like you, who have been trashing Hillary Clinton every chance they get, McCain doesn’t look like such a horrible choice. And nobody knows who this Obama guy really is…. but the more they hear about his past, the scarier the idea of turning the country over to him seems.
And if people made decisions the way you want them to, you know what? Obama would already be toast. The GOP wouldn’t wait to see who the nominee would be before taking him down — heck, people only get a week after the nomination to make their decision under your system, and another white woman might go missing that week and the right-wing smear machine won’t get the press it needs.
So be grateful that people don’t act the way you should, because at least it gives that idiot savant you are supporting a chance to get his act together if he becomes the nominee and the real shitstorm hits.
Oh, as of right now, both Clinton and the Magical Unity Pony are trailing McCain, and if people make decisions the way you want them to, we’d have a Republican in the White House for the next four years.
Christ, Cole, do you EVER stop and think before you write? Do you really not understand that you aren’t the center of the universe, and the yardstick by which virtue and judgement are measured?
Dennis - SGMM
Silly. If you take the 46% who do approve of her and add the 39% who think she’s honest and trustworthy you get 85%. It’ll be a landslide I tells ya’.
J. Michael Neal
I’m unemployed, and I approve this message.
p.lukasiak
buy yourself a calendar.
then check the history of Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign.
Then do the math.
Conservatively Liberal
Shorter p.luk: I am trying to save the Democratic party! But I am still having problems pounding the last nail in on this cross I am nailing myself to. Can you lend me a hand?
Clinton had every single advantage going in to this. Well placed former campaign and party people in the media and party, the primaries stacked up the way she wanted them, the name brand of Clinton to run under, a former president as her husband to campaign for her, a huge super delegate lead before the primary even started, being called ‘inevitable’ in winning the primary, and on and on and on and on…
She has had advantages that Obama could only dream of having! Obama has had so many obstacles to overcome, obstacles that Hillary would never be able to say she understands. She has come from the top and is trying to ‘win’ the top spot at all costs. Obama came from nowhere and he is working hard to earn every single vote he has been given.
Lately, whenever Hillary opens her mouth you already know that nine times out of ten it is so she can say something negative about Obama. She has made this all about her relentlessly attacking a member of her own party in every single dirty way possible. Obama has worked to stay above the belt, and Hillary has been pummeling him below it.
Some of her supporters may say that this shows that she has what it takes to win, but they are delusional (and even that is being too kind). The primary is about the party, the general is about the country. Hillary has been fighting this like it is the general, like Obama is the “enemy”. This has exposed a side of her that is very ugly, and I hope it turns off other independents like it has my wife, my daughter and myself.
If she has this handed to her by the supers over Obama’s lead, this country deserves McCain. I sure as hell will not vote for her if that is the case, and I know I will not be alone. If she wins this fair and square, that is another thing. But I do not see how that is possible now.
John Cole
I think you are an asshole.
Actually, I lied. I didn’t have to stop and think about that at all.
Can you point to one substantive point where Hillary or Obama’s position has changed in the past month? All I have seen is meaningless trivial attacks the past couple ofweeks, no change in policy. The only other thing I have seen is more people think Hillary is unelectable and both of their negatives have increased. Heckuva job, Brownie.
Just as an FYI- I am the center of the universe when it comes to my vote. I vote for who I want. Funny thing, that.
The Grand Panjandrum
Thanks cleek.
Good news. Not everyone is undecided.
AkaDad
I checked, and the difference is, she didn’t lie repeatedly back then.
Pb
STFU, p.luk — you don’t even know the difference between a Democratic primary and a general election, and Hillary would get creamed in the general. Read a poll, sheesh.
As for the black vote, I think the black voters of South Carolina and subsequently across the country were smart enough to see what was going on for themselves, thank you, they don’t need a white guy to tell them that they were really secretly brainwashed by the Obama campaign, you bitter elitist you.
jake
Never mind the mystery of undecideds. I’m still trying to figure out why anyone bothers with this tedious mewling wank of a human being who daily does incalculable damage to our nation’s Irony-O-Meters. Behold:
Bwaha, I say. Bwaha!
nightjar
Man, I am so sick and tired Clintonites raving we have to nominate Clinton or the big bad GOP will play mean. Newsflash, genious the shit they’ll sling at Obama is a pittance of the material they have on Hillary. Most of it’s wingnut bullshit but that won’t matter. Clinton lost this race for one reason, she ran a lousy campaign, because she thought dems owed her the the crown. She didn’t have a plan or money after South Carolina and made a tactical decision to drag Obama in the gutter where the Clinton’s excel, at least against republicans. And guess what, Obama wrapped it up in a bow and shoved it back down her piehole. So get over yourself and your arrogant certitude and support the winner, or join the wingnuts.
4jkb4ia
But if the debate was a joke, how well or poorly Obama did is immaterial for the general. A debate with McCain will be more of an opportunity to represent the Democratic brand and we may have fewer of these idiot questions. McCain is stuck with representing the Republican brand. He has come off as a good debater because the other Republicans were so over the top.
Missed the entire thing. The vision telling me to go to the grocery store was by the Nile: there was plenty of water.
Brachiator
An odd bit of revisionism that could have come straight from the Clinton camp. Quite simply Hillary Clinton pissed away a great deal of the black support that her husband had gained because she was politically inept, not because she was racist. Obama supporters had nothing to do with this.
This gets to the heart of things. In 1968 his supporters sold Tricky Dickie as “The New Nixon: Tanned, Rested, and Ready.” So for over a year, we got glimpses of Clinton V2.0: Pantsuited, Rested and Ready.
But all of this stuff about her being ready to win tries to bypass the fatal flaw of her campaign, namely that instead of demonstrating to the American public that she was the best Democratic Party candidate, she strained to pretend that her husband’s achievements as governor and president were somehow her own, or that she obviously had been president-in-training, or that she had achieved some independent foreign and domestic policy victories during her husband’s career.
Her phony claim to competence had as many mutually exclusive twists as Dubya’s rationalization for invading Iraq. And when this failed to sell her to any besides her core supporters, she stooped to outright lies.
You speak as though Clinton was somehow OWED the nomination. I don’t give a rat’s ass about HER chances in November if she could not convince me that she deserved the nomination.
And she doesn’t.
Kudos on the double-twist victim card. Senator Clinton isn’t deliberately running a viciously negative campaign because she is desperate to win the nomination. No, in the Opposites Day universe, she is only being nasty because Obama supporters made her do it!
I’m an atheist. Hillary Clinton is the anti-Particle!
Nope. Not at all.
What matters is whether PA voters embrace fear (Clinton, McCain) or hope.
myiq2xu
Barack appreciates it. Michelle wanted some more of that $99 lb Iberian ham, and you know how she gets when she doesn’t get what she wants.
Pb
AkaDad
To be fair, we need to move on from Hillary’s blips, but Obama needs to keep explaining, all the way to November.
4jkb4ia
From a small amount of phone banking on Super Tuesday, you would not believe how many people will tell you they are undecided a week before the election. They all get to vote. Also with the quality of our MSM the candidates have every opportunity to give the voters better quality information about themselves.
myiq2xu
C’mon Paul, Barry should win three or four times more states than McGovern.
He might even do as well a Dukakis.
4jkb4ia
I.e. direct campaigning can give better information about a candidate than media narratives.
DougJ
Bobo on tonight’s debate:
“I understand the complaints, but I thought the questions were excellent. The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities. Almost every question tonight did that. The candidates each looked foolish at times, but that’s their own fault.”
What a sack of shit that guy is.
Go give every book that fucker ever wrote a shitty review on Amazon. I have.
Pooh
This was almost funny the first 36 times you used the line. Please try harder, before we return you to the trollbot store as defective.
myiq2xu
She likes it that way.
Pb
Wow, myiq2xu is Cartman.
zzyzx
King Felix pitched a complete game, Obama might have picked up his 4th SD of the day, and I didn’t watch a second of the debate due to the warning. Sounds like a good night :)
myiq2xu
He he he
The WATB fanboiz are whining on the phone lines to ABC.
mightygodking
Boy, if every state was New York, Hillary Clinton would win in a landslide!
DougJ
The questions sucked. What’s that got to do with who people support? I’d say the same thing if it had all been about Hillary’s cleavage and pantsuit.
What the fuck is your problem, Hillbots? Hillary is great on substance. Why are you defending a debate based on bullshit side issues? That doesn’t play to her strengths.
The Grand Panjandrum
Heh. Annie “the Tuzla Tigress” Oakley loses to the 21st Century Dukakis. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
myiq2xu
Fixt
Obama kicks ass in Red states that are voting GOP in November!
zzyzx
“Obama kicks ass in Red states that are voting GOP in November!” Such as Washington, Maryland, DC, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Josh E.
It is strange that Hillary thinks attacking Obama from the hard cultural Right is a good strategy in a Dem primary. Piling on the Ayers thing was extra nice. I remember when it was only wingnuts who tried to smear people by associating them with left-wing radicals.
myiq2xu
Yeah, and people use six-guns to hunt ducks.
NR
You do realize that your own candidate said tonight that Obama can win the general election, right?
Or was she lying again?
crw
Bush was a piss poor debater, and he got elected twice. I don’t think it’s worth sweating too much over our candidate’s debate performance one way or the other.
I said it earlier this year and I think I’m going to go back to my original opinion. This year, all this kind of douchebaggery is doing is whipping up the crazification factor. Normal people don’t give a flying fuck through a rolling donut about this crap. Not when the economy is in the crapper and they hate where our country is headed. Relax. Worry less about irrelevant electability crap and more about who’s more likely to fix our horribly broken executive branch.
AkaDad
I think all politicians should wear suits and pantsuits that are made from flags.
AnneLaurie
4) They’ve fallen for the MSM’s damnable “It’s just another sporting event!!1!1” Theory of Elections, and since they don’t have a hometown team they’re waiting for the playoffs.
When the history of our era is written (assuming anybody survives who might take an interest), there will be a long chapter on why “the media” decided that politics should be treated as a form of entertainment exactly equivalent to professional wrestling or college basketball. And on how “the media” then convinced a large portion of the American public to trade in their (OUR) civil rights and social polity for a handful of
magic beanscheap platitudes and expensive media buys.ThymeZone
It’s a real shame that the threads tonight have been queered and turned to shit by yet another troll storm, yet another series of “electoral anlaysis” by the insane lukasiak, and yet another series of ankle bites by the obnoxious and tedious myiq, two people who have had essentially nothing to say for three months but have managed to say it over, and over, and over and over again, week after week and thread after thread, and thereby making anything that looks like a discussion of these primary campaign events somewhere near impossible, and even if marginally possible, unpleasant, and skewed and (in my view) perverted by their arrogant theft of this bandwidth for their own selfish purposes.
But anyway, that’s what happened, and there isn’t anything that can be done about it. But the fact is, the story of what happened tonight is not what superdelegates are going to think of it, because we don’t know, and because it isn’t likely that this debate will have had much of an effect on that anyway.
What is the story of tonight is that there may have been a tipping point in terms of the public’s horrified realization that their “news” media is completely, hopelessly dysfunctional, and toxic, and a true threat to the ability of Americans to govern their country, and that something needs to be done about it.
Comments at ABC’s website are approaching the 10k point tonight, and the theme of the majority of the comments is simple and clear: Shame. Shame on ABC news and the foolish and petty moderation of that debate, an important opportunity in an important campaign, lost to foolishness and absurd questions, lost to farce. Shame on them.
The operative word, no matter how you slice it, is shame. It’s a true shame, a tragedy, that this happened, and maybe it has awakened enough real outrage that something can start to be done about it. It seems to me that this signals the potential end of the tv news organization as the standard by which we judge the dissemination of news and information in our society. The conversion of “news” into farcical nonsense is complete.
The good news is that the people see this and are ferociously upset about it … read the comments at ABC news. I don’t expect reform at ABC, but I do expect that people are going to start looking for other avenues of information access and other ways to get access to candidates and exchanges of views.
firebrand
p.luk: who the fuck do you think you’re kidding? How the hell are Hillary, you, and the rest of the Clintonbots positioning themselves to run against the Republicans in the fall? You’re already running as Republicans right now!
LiberalTarian
Gawddammit.
Another perfectly good BSG thread shot to hell.
Did anybody ask hill or ob if they thought no six was wrong to do what she did with the toasters?
Say, John Cole, you ARE watching the current season, right??
Martin
I thought BSG was dead to them after the opener to season 3? I don’t thing wingers forgive.
AkaDad
I would want to send Bush and his fellow war criminals to the Hague, but they all wear flag lapel pins.
miq2xabillion.
Yep, but every state isn’t a blue state. That’s why Kerry lost and Clinton would also. Every day I cling to the dear Lord in gratitude that she won’t be the Dem nominee.
p.lukasiak
Doug, that’s just dead wrong.
Explain to me what Clinton did to “piss away” almost 70% of black support before the New Hampshire primary.
Other than not be black, Clinton do a damned thing to “piss away black support.” Check the polling. Its all there in the cross tabs.
The minute Obama announced, Clinton’s AA support began to fade. Not because of anything she did, but because she wasn’t black. And the more positive press Obama got, and the more of a viable and legitimate candidate he looked like, the more black support went from Clinton to Obama.
And I don’t have a problem with that. Put a gay candidate on the ballot, and they’d really have to suck for me not to support him/him. Its identity politics, and it happens, and there is no point in complaining about it.
But anyone who thinks for a moment that a white guy with Obama’s schtick and (lack of) record would have gotten 70% of the Black vote in South Carolina when there were proven quantities like Clinton and Edwards on the ballot is simply insane. African Americans aren’t college students who think you can change the world overnight, and they don’t just vote for somebody with a good line of bullshit. They vote with a sense of history, and with a recognition of who has best served their interests in the past, and is likely to do so in the future.
The “flaw” in identity politics is the assumption that if someone looks like you, they will think like you and serve your interests better than someone who doesn’t look like you. History cedes to identity.
And anyone who can’t acknowledge that the sole reason that Obama gets overwhelming support in the black community is because he is black cannot be taken seriously when it comes to discussing politics. If you can’t be honest enough to admit that, you won’t be honest about anything else.
Because there is identity politics with white people too. If your black, you have to work harder to get white votes. Obama was able to do it in Iowa, because he had tons of time to get that job done.
But Iowa is retail politics. To win, you have to be able to attract white voters wholesale, and Obama doesn’t seem to be able to do it. And there is a reason for this — what attracts you to Obama doesn’t mean shit to most voters. They want solutions, not “processes”. They are pragmatic, and they want someone who will get things done — not just a promise of change.
Obama got where he is not because he’s earned it — he got where he is because of Hillary-hate and identity politics.
And deep down, I think all you Obama supporters know this, which is why you act so insane moot of the time. Even if you have “good reasons” for supporting Obama, you realize that most of his support has no rational basis at all.
And it scares the crap out of you, so you trash anyone who tells you the truth, because the truth is the guy isn’t ready.
Conservatively Liberal
myiq sure loves getting him some goats. :D
empty
Yeah. Those Fuck Hillary threads were really classy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Actually one serious policy point emerged from the debate tonight. Hillary stated that she would extend our strategic nuclear deterrence umbrella from Israel to other (presumably non-Shia controlled) muslim countries in the Middle East. In other words Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and possibly other countries as well.
When was the last time the US did this? Please name the last country to be offered the explicit guarantee that a WMD attack on it would be treated exactly as if the US homeland had been nuked, triggering a fully retaliatory response?
What effect would this have on the foreign policy of these countries?
Is this in effect a license for the Saudis and their sunni allies to up the ante in their proxy war with Iran currently simmering in Iraq?
This is not small beans. If she is nominated, is elected, and sticks with this, then that pledge is the only news from tonight’s debate that anyone will remember a year from now.
Martin
In case some of you missed it, Clinton admitted that she lied in the debate. For the dead-enders, I know you think we all hate Hillary when we say she’s a liar, but the alternative is that we’re right and she is. Seems she confirmed that for us:
That’s not an admission of a mis-speak. It’s an admission of a lie. And for what its worth, it was bullshit for the moderators to jump on that topic as well. Snipergate isn’t worthy of a debate topic either when real shit is going on.
And I finally figured out for myiq how Hilary wins the popular vote. Technically anything Barack earns after he and Michelle got married is half hers, so she really is entitled to half of his popular vote. But Bill is constitutionally restricted from running again, so he’s not allowed to claim half of Hillary’s. Obama needs to win 2x as many votes as Hillary in order to earn the nomination. The Hillary supporters have been right all along – she’s been winning this whole time.
And Hillary has a clear path to victory in the general since she’s entitled to half of Bill’s votes from ’92 and ’96. McCain would need to win 3x as many votes as Hillary to win. Slam dunk.
I don’t know why you guys get so obscure with showing how Hillary leads with Democrats with yeast infections or some shit when the answer is so patently obvious to anyone who cares to look at facts.
ThymeZone
Um, I don’t think “classy” is on the table here.
What I bitched about is two guys who have one stupid thing to say and say it over and over and over and over again, and over and over, and still over and over, even though nobody here wants to hear it.
We’re talking about harrassment, basically. We’re talking about threads skewed into their little corners of nonsense time and time again.
They don’t have to be classy, but it would be a nice change if they actually had something to say that they hadn’t already said 250 times before.
empty
How on earth do you get that? Iran does not have a nuclear weapon so an umbrella which protects against nuclear attack would do nothing vis-a-vis Iran.
Chris Johnson
She said what now?
I understand Obama’s said essentially ‘nothing is off the table’ w.r.t response to unspecified acts ‘o war- I’ll take that from him because I see it as more ‘answering with an intelligent response instead of a pandering one’. I trust him to not run amok.
Hil said what, exactly? I know there was something about ‘massive retaliation’.
LiberalTarian
You know, I’ve always thought H Clinton got a bum rap.
But, c’mon. Life sucks. She hasn’t lost her house, her job, her future. Let Obama have the nomination already. She’ll have to get her ego jollies elsewhere, cuz I can’t get with her on the victory at all costs platform.
It’s called a pyrrhic victory hillbots. If she really gave a fucking damn about common USA folks, she would have fought tooth and nail against the bankruptcy bill and all the other little deaths the American middle class has died over the last 7 years.
But, she played safe politics. Sure, it isn’t fair. Get over it. She will lose for winning at this point, because people just don’t like a Democrat who stomps the underdog. Enough already. Get over it. Be a great senator, actually do some progressive things. Be governor of New York, and in 8 years, if you still have all your faculties and fire, go for pres again. But for now, put down the shot glass. Support the OHB.
Conservatively Liberal
Her defenders on Tuzla are not going to skip a beat. They are going to go from “This happened like she said it did!’, to ‘She is the only candidate who is honest!’, and they won’t skip a beat in doing so.
She lied, but as noted above, it is of no relevance to what should have been a debate about issues facing this country. Not wasting time on non-issues like they did.
It seems a lot of people are pissed about this, and they have a right to be. ABC hit a new low, and I hope they get it with both barrels from the public. They have earned it.
Josh E.
There we go. Now we’ve established both dem candidates are unqualified frauds whose electoral success cannot be realistically attributed to a rational weighing of their relative merits.
Is that what they do? Is that how they vote? Please provide more of your fascinating insights into the voting behavior and thought processes of African Americans! Impart to us your sophisticated analyses, Professor!
gypsy howell
Meanwhile, from a parallel universe
Chuck Butcher
I watched the damn thing, well, most of it, I was dealing with phone calls regarding delegate selection for part of it. Yes, with a US Senator’s regional aide and DNC functionary while I’m trying to watch Gibson try to get Democrats to play Republican talking points.
Hillary looked desperate and divisive the first hour of Obama attacks, much better the second hour of policy. Obama looked ‘unity’ as he tried to stay above the personal fray and good on policy. He did catch her out on a couple things. I don’t believe Hillary gained anything with undecideds and neither lost with their supporters. what this won’t do is look good to supers for Hillary. The attacks looked as though they came from weakness and did no real damage to the target. She needed to look strong and convincing and she didn’t, not even with the moderators help.
What people like Pluk miss is that it isn’t a question of who can beat whom in a particular state between Democrats, it is who can beat McCain in a D/R contest and do downticket good in an electoral race.
John, undecideds? I don’t know, they do it and not out of idiocy (entirely). Some of it may be from not being particularly politically oriented and some of it may be from seeing it through a lense you and I don’t. Since I don’t see it, I can’t call it, but maybe they just don’t see enough difference for them to get excited about. If you start out with a poor enough view of politicians it’s not hard to get there, and not exactly uncalled for.
NR
Good god, you are full of shit. Obama didn’t just win Iowa; he also won Idaho, Alaska, North Dakota, Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Missouri, Maine, and Virginia.
What are those if not overwhelmingly white states?
Martin
You gotta be fucking kidding me. Clinton walked in with a cash advantage and the last Democratic president (with strong approvals) not only stumping for her but going to be standing in the White House right beside her, not to mention the pick of the crop of Democratic strategists and campaign staff out of the machine. Any candidate with that on their side should have walked away with this, as the media predicted she would do. That he’s even in this position is practically a miracle.
Clinton fucked this up. Obama was outraising her in the 2nd quarter of 2007 back when he was polling in the mid 20s nationally. How did she let that happen? He had offices in states that even after Iowa Clinton couldn’t bother to visit. She was leading african americans 57-33 at the end of October and those numbers were going UP. She threw them all away with the MLK statement. She never planned past 2/5. She dismissed caucus states. She hired shitty staff – and after 8 years of shitty staff, nobody wants shitty staff any more. Dear God, short of being an actual incumbent, how much more of an advantage could she have had? That she’s in this position after so many fuck-ups is a testament to that. Guiliani started out in the same position and got buried early on the same mistakes.
NR
That’s the truth. With all her institutional advantages, she would have walked away with the nomination with even a halfway competent campaign. Instead, she ran on “inevitability,” expected Super Tuesday to be a coronation, and didn’t have even a vague hint of a plan for after that.
Hillary dug her own grave. The problem is, now she’s trying to pull the entire party down into it with her.
Brachiator
A. I’m not Doug.
B. You are changing your original tune. You originally claimed that Obama swift-boated Clinton on race in South Carolina. This is manifestly untrue. But it is easily demonstrated that a great deal of Senator Clinton’s black support evaporated because of comments that came from Bill and others in Clinton’s camp, comments that are still coming from Clinton supporters (e.g., the founder of BET’s stupid comments).
There is more than mere identity politics at work here. I don’t think that Condi Rice would bring much in the way of black support to a GOP ticket if she were magically plucked to be McCain’s VP pick.
Edwards was damaged goods, tainted by his previous defeat in presidential/VP election. He obviously didn’t have much support from anybody, or else he would still be a candidate.
And then, we have Senator Clinton, whose record as a senator actually represents a lesser record of elected experience than Obama. Apart from this, her sole claim to anything is as the spouse of an alpha male. Her appeal is to the primitive belief that the spouse of a leader must somehow be magically endowed with some of the same leadership qualities of the leader himself. She would never have even been elected to the Senate had she not been able to exploit her connection to her husband. Her entire candidacy floats on the lie that just because she is a smart, strong woman AND Bill Clinton’s spouse, she has passed some mystical commander-in-chief threshold.
When given any opportunity to demonstrate that she had any presidential qualities independent of her husband’s aura, she instead ran to cover in distortions and deceptions. By comparison, Obama and every other Democratic Party contender is more qualified than Senator Clinton.
Yep. This is the essence of Senator Clinton’s desperate attempt to appeal to women, to older voters, and to white people at the expense of all other Americans.
So, you are saying that Obama’s black supporters don’t think that he would make a good president. Interesting.
And the Clinton maenads who insist that it is time for a woman president don’t give a rat’s ass about Clinton’s particular qualities. Her gender is enough for most of them. Others hide behind a facade of feminism, but really yearn to see Bill back in the White House, large and in charge, and engage in some kind of weird, anti-constitutional fantasy that the two of them would operate some kind of dual-presidency.
So far, Senator Clinton has only promised to work hard. If she were really all that pragmatic, wouldn’t she have run for office long before? And even here, who knows what would have happened had Rudy not dropped out of the Senate race the first time he was up against Clinton.
I don’t hate Hillary. I don’t care about any of that crap. But Hillary is not where she is because of anything remotely resembling merit. She married into the firm. She is a female version of Dubya, and the ineptitude and nastiness of her campaign suggests that she would combine the clumsy powergrab of George W. and the paranoia of Richard Nixon.
And what damns her the most is that she appears to believe that just because she was hanging around the governor’s mansion and the White House, that she has magically absorbed executive and managerial competence, but she has not demonstrated much of anything at all.
It is so entertaining that you can’t see the degree to which almost everything you say applies to the chimera of the Clinton candidacy, which ultimately is little more than the marital nepotism that infects third-rate countries. Senator Clinton is little more than an angrier Eva Peron.
Oddly enough, I haven’t trashed you at all, only your comments. And more than this, I have noted that it is now not up to supporters on either side, but to the voters in PA, who can either choose to put a merciful stop to Senator Clinton’s delusions of grandeur. Senator Clinton isn’t just unready, she is a disappointment.
Martin
You’re kidding, right?
Clyburn wasn’t the only one. Every AA acquaintance of mine was supporting Clinton based on Bill’s record prior to that statement. Every one. Every one switched to Obama on that statement. Every one.
9 months after Obama announced Clinton had a 24 point lead with AAs and climbing. He was outraising her consistently at this point, so it’s not like he was an outsider – she had the votes solidly. Don’t fucking lie to us. Obama didn’t take the lead on the AA vote until that statement. That statement drove Ted Kennedy to endorse Obama immediately. That was a HUGE fuck up for her. Obama didn’t win the black vote nearly as much as Clinton threw it away. She had the lead until that moment.
TenguPhule
I remember when someone objected to Hillary being attacked personally as ‘sexist’.
How quickly standards fall when you’re buried in shit.
TenguPhule
Democrats who run like Republicans deserve to be shot like Republicans.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Hillary’s comment was made in the context of a back-and-forth over the issue of Iranian nukes.
A lot of people are wringing their hands over this issue thinking that Israel is the state which has the most to fear. I don’t think so, in fact I suspect that some of the anti-Semitic rhetoric from the Iranian leadership is designed to throw us off the trail.
Some things in the region make more sense if you stop looking at them as being so Israel and US centered, and focus on the problem that Saudi Arabia and Iran are enaged in a cold war for influence and power in the Middle East, and partially a hot war by proxy in Iraq.
If the Iranians get nukes they will be first and foremost Persian/Shia nukes, and can be used to intimidate the Arab Sunni powers and bolster Iran’s claim to regional dominance over the Middle East. Under those circumstances, the Saudis may be forced to back down in their confrontation by proxy with the Iranians in Iraq.
If we provide a nuclear umbrella to the Saudis vs. Iranian intimidation, that would shift the regional power balance back in favor of the Sunnis, enabling them to be more aggressive in backing anti-Iranian factions in Iraq.
Lots of speculation, I know. What started me thinking along these lines is that the Bush admin. policy in Iraq, and especially the Anbar awakening seem much more rational if you look at the strategic picture from the point of view of Riyadh rather than Washington, DC.
Remember those visits that Bush and Cheney keep having with our Saudi friends. I’m guessing the gist of those meetings has been: “you stupid fools let the Shia djinn out of the bottle, and now it’s your problem to put it back in, and if you don’t like it, we can always pull another oil embargo on you – 1973 bitches!”.
How Hillary got sucked into this gambit I have no idea. When she started to talk about extending our deterrence umbrella to Arab states I sat up and took notice, because that came out of nowhere. I just now caught Countdown on late night rebroadcast, and Pat Buchanan noticed this too, and he was pointing out what a big deal this is.
tBone
And here I thought the debate was going to be the dumbest thing I was exposed to tonight. Sorry for doubting you, p.luk.
ranger three
Tom Zarek is the final Cylon.
bighead
Ummm….. no. The only “metric” that matters in the general election is 270 electoral college votes. The metric that matters in the primary election is 2,024 delegates, and in every conceivable metric, Obama leads in delegates, and barring 66%+ of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates voting for Hillary, he will continue to lead in delegates going into the convention.
So you assume that he will win the exact same percentage of white voters based off of how he did in 1 state?? Even though he won in Iowa, which has a population that is 97% white, Minnesota which is 86% white, Connecticut which is 86% white, Idaho which is 97% white, Kansas which is 91% white, Wyoming with its 96% white population, and Maine which is 98% white?
The fact is, Obama has won this thing. Hillary just hasn’t realized it yet…
P.S.
Hahaha, that just made my night… but then again, I’m just an idiot that’s been brainwashed and fooled by Obama into supporting him…
bighead
P.P.S.
Worst… Debate… EVER!
Michael D.
Would someone toss Obama $100 for me? I mean, I know it’s illegal and everything, given that I am a non-citizen. But at least think of me when you do give your money.
DrDave
done
I think the kids got a little too worked up this evening. Fact is, on issues of policy and ideology, Hillary and Obama are millimeters apart. Millimeters. And in the end, Democratic voters must and will come around.
McCain will, before long, have to actually campaign against the Democratic nominee, be it Obama (more likely) or Hillary (less likely). And when that happens, the country will have a clear choice:
Get out of Iraq now or stay until we “win”
$4,000,000,000,000 more debt added to the national IOU or a change in policy to move again toward balanced budgets, and a stronger dollar
2 – 3 more Scalias on SCOTUS (And make no mistake. This is one of the BIG 3 issues in November.)
Etc, etc, etc.
The majority of this country (and the vast majority of those who are paying attention) are really unhappy about where we are going and will not sign on for 4 more years.
So please calm down.
myiq2xu
I can tell how well Hillary is doing by the derangement level of the fanboiz.
Right now she’s kicking ass and taking names.
DrDave
Gail Collins:
Brilliant.
Keep your eyes on the ball, gang.
bago
Actually I use a zapper when hunting ducks. And what the fuck do you think balloon juice is?
bago
Ok, you can’t top this.
zzyzx
“and barring 66%+ of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates voting for Hillary, he will continue to lead in delegates going into the convention.”
You’re forgetting that nearly 70 of the remaining SDs are add ons that will be decided by how the states vote. Playing with the numbers shows that Obama will gain a net of 3 or 4 out of those, which means that Clinton needs 3/4 of the uncommitted SDs after the add ons.
flyerhawk
Pretty boring debate.
Obama lost points on his cling to guns and religion response. Given the fact that he knew it was coming he should have had a solid response. Instead his response was strained. Hillary did pretty well with her follow-up to that.
After that, however, things went downhill for Hillary. Her response to sniper-gate was pretty disjointed. If you are going to give a mea culpa you can’t throw out excuses.
But where she really dropped the ball was when she kept trying to harp on the various gaffes that Obama has made. It was fine for her to keep talking about bittergate. But she started looking desperate when she focused on Wright. And she looked downright silly when she tried to point out how bad Obama was because of Ayers. Probably the highlight of the evening was when Obama brought up the fact that Bill Clinton pardoned 2 Weather Underground people.
Hillary also seemed really snippy. Random cackle after Obama made a rather silly distinction about how he hasn’t mentioned Tuzla but of course his campaign has. The cackle is not the way to react to that. And then she gives a snotty response to Charlie Gibson mentions that Obama had gotten a bit more of the time and that they would correct it.
The last 45 minutes were basically both candidates promising candy and blow jobs for the American people. There was nothing that they both couldn’t pander over.
In the end it was Obama with a TKO. No major gaffes by him and Hillary reinforced her negatives. Say good night, Hillary.
I’m not sure why people think this debate was any worse or better than the other ones.
p.lukasiak
no, I’m not kidding, dickwad.
Obama had 69% of the black vote in South Carolina by January 6.
That was BEFORE Clinton talked about MLK and LBJ — and anyone who thinks that there was anything racist about those comments is an idiot. If pressed, Clymer will even admit that he was off the mark with his criticism. Clymer wasn’t reaction to what Hillary had said, but to what he’d been told she’d said.
You need to learn to discuss thing with facts, not anecdotes — because unless and until you do, you’re just full of shit. I talked about how Obama had nearly 70% of the black vote in South Carolina in early january to show you that Clinton did nothing to piss away the black vote.
You, like the rest of the fucking Obama zombies, CAN’T EVEN FIND A FUCKING CALENDAR. The poll I’m citing was don Jan 4-6. Clinton’s “MLK” statement was on January 7th.
AND YOU’RE SUCH A MORON THAT YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THAT SOMETHING CLINTON SAID ON JANUARY 7TH HAD AN IMACT ON POLLING DONE BEFORE JANUARY 7TH?
Oh, and don’t even try the “Bill CLinton’s fairy tale remark happened before that” bullshit — because Obama was already at 57% of the black vote by the middle of December.
While you’ve been fellating yourself with visions of a black guy that you can relate to in the white house (not one of those horrible “Maxine Waters” type blacks, but one that puts every effort into making white people comfortable) I’ve been studying polling data. So don’t even TRY THIS TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT CRAP, because I know what the polls were saying, and when they said it.
p.lukasiak
okay, I’ll try and explain this one more time. The finish line is in November. If you aren’t good enough to cross that finish line first, then it doesn’t matter where you are at any other point in the race.
And are you really this stupid? Obama isn’t getting to 2024 without super-delegate help either. Only an idiot would not recognized that Obama failed just as much as Clinton has failed, because both their goals was to win enough delegates in the primary season to secure the nomination. THEY BOTH LOST. Losing by a little less doesn’t matter. THEY BOTH LOST.
flyerhawk
Folks, don’t forget to pickup Paul Lukasiak’s new book How to win debates and influence people
nightjar
So now your calling Obama an “Uncle Tom”. Kiss my ass you racist piece of shit!
p.lukasiak
gotta love the denial mechanism that Obots have — its impervious to logic.
Iowa was a caucus state where Obama was able to spend months doing retail politics, and came away with a plurality. Kansas, Idaho, and Maine are all caucus states — and if you think that Democratic caucus goers are in any way a reflection of the overall electorate in that state, you really are an idiot. Obama won in Connecticut — one of the most ‘liberal’ states, and a state that has been a hotbed of ‘Democratic anti-DLC’ activism thanks to Lieberman because he carried the 9% of black voters by 3 to 1. (Do the fucking math — that’s his four point win.)
And Clinton didn’t bother to do anything in Minnesota until the last minute — big whoop that she lost to Obama there.
Why is it so impossible for Obots to do actual, relevant, “apples to apples” comparisons? Why do they think that 20,000 Idaho Democrat caucus goers has ANY relevance — 600,000 people voted in Idaho in the 2004 general election. Democrats a practically a fringe party in that state — more INDEPENDENTS voted in the 2004 election in Idaho than Democrats.
Do you really think that Obama’s ability to get 2.8% of the people who voted in the 2004 general election in Idaho to show up for a Democratic caucus means ANYTHING? Are you that completely out of touch with political reality?
You’re denial mechanism is so intense its pathological. Bringing up Iowa, or Kansas, or Idaho, or Maine just shows how completely incapable you are of separating relevant from irrelevant facts, because as unreliable a predictor of general election results that primaries are, in terms of reliability primaries look rock solid next to caucus results.
This is why there is really no point in trying to have a serious discussion with Obots, and why there is no downside to simply calling you a bunch of idiots. There’s no point in treating you with respect, because you can’t face reality, and insist that completely irrelevant crap is important.
Josh E.
The lastest edition has a new bonus chapter explaining how the darkies are all votin’ wrong.
p.lukasiak
I’m racist because i point out that Obama has gone out of his way to represent himself as non-threatening to white people?
The real racists are the Obama supporters who embrace Obama because he offers you absolution from the “sin” of benefitting from institutionalized racism. You just love hearing Obama tell you that white resentment of affirmative action is the equivalent to the anger and frustration of millions of African Americans whose life choices are proscribed by conditions created by 400 years of slavery and discrimination.
He panders to you, and you eat it up. It would be funny if it wasn’t so counter-productive to really addressing the impact that both historical and current racism still has on the day to day lives of black people.
OBAMA SAYS ITS OKAY TO IGNORE RACISM!!! WE’RE GONNA “TRANSCEND” IT, BECAUSE ITS REALLY NOT RACISM THAT IS THE PROBLEM, ITS “THE PROCESS” IN WASHINGTON!!!!!
My only question, given that I pretty much have the same perspective on this stuff as Jeremiah Wright, is whether Obama is just playing people like you for dupes. I mean, Barack Obama learned what it really means to be black in America from Pastor Wright.
This is why Obama has a “Wright” problem — the massive disconnect between what Obama says, and what Wright says, about the nature of race in America. Wright has always been radical, and the question isn’t why Obama stayed in his church, the question is why Obama would be drawn to someone like Wright in the first place. Since I don’t have a problem with Wright, I can ask that question.
p.lukasiak
hey, I don’t come here to try and influence you — any more than I’d try to hold a rational debate at Bellevue. What’s the point of trying to have a rational debate with someone whose political “perspective” is the equivalent of thinking that spiders are always attacking you?
Ben
p.lukasiak,
Then, why are you here?
We just want to know.
Svensker
How’s everything going in here? I can’t see my screen for all the frothy spittle.
nightjar
Now we get the white guilt card. The kitchen sink, kitchen and house.
Big Yawn.
flyerhawk
No Paul, hurling repeated insults at everyone is not rational debate.
Suggesting that you know the reasons why people vote for Obama and that those reasons are all wrong, if not straight up immoral, is both arrogant and condescending.
There once was a time when liberals believed in social justice. Apparently now ostensible liberals such as yourself believe that we aren’t interested in social justice but simply mollify our pangs of white guilt.
Your argument is a complete mish mash bouncing between Obama is trying to be an Uncle Tom to Obama is secretly a latter day Huey Newton.
borehole
Say what you will about Lukasiak, the stuff he posts here is still more readable than that crap piece he wrote for Corrente. It’s like a Young Republican wrote a satirical essay mocking feminism for his college paper.
Billy K
Somebody please write a Pie Filter for Safari. I’m sick of manually Pie-ing these assholes.
ntr Fausto Carmona
Because the coronation is going down in flames to this rowdy upstart and his uncouth sycophants, and only she, Saint Hillary the Vetted and Flawless, can save us worthless mongrels from the ruin of McSame.
Blue Raven
Put down the mirror and pick up the thorazine. You’ve been screaming at your own reflection again.
TenguPhule
And now you know why you’re always mocked here.
Mazareth
Just dropped $50 on the Obama campaign. I usually only send $25, but doubled the amount because of the travesty broadcast last night.