Keep it clean, tempers are flaring. The goal is November.
BTW- I forgot to acknowledge our anniversary (someone else had theirs today and it jogged my memory). Again. I forget every damned year. Balloon Juice finished year number six last month.
by John Cole| 78 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Keep it clean, tempers are flaring. The goal is November.
BTW- I forgot to acknowledge our anniversary (someone else had theirs today and it jogged my memory). Again. I forget every damned year. Balloon Juice finished year number six last month.
by John Cole| 88 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008
New poll data:
The momentum in the Democratic nomination race has clearly swung toward Barack Obama. Not only has he won all of the post-Super Tuesday contests, but he has steadily gained in Gallup Poll Daily tracking to the point where he has overtaken Clinton as the national leader for the first time, holding a statistically significant lead in each of the last three tracking poll results.
Obama’s standing has improved among most Democratic subgroups over the past several days. But one of the more substantial shifts has been the changing preferences of middle-aged Democratic voters, who have moved away from Clinton and toward Obama in the past week. Obama has also made gains among three other groups that have favored Clinton throughout much of the campaign — women, Hispanics, and self-identified Democrats. Obama and Clinton are now running even among these three key groups in the most recent Gallup tracking data.
Watch out for fat women wearing viking helmets.
by John Cole| 67 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008
The Clinton campaign, ready to lead on day one, demonstrates more competence:
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign failed to file a full slate of convention delegate candidates for Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.
This despite the possibility the primary proves critical and despite Clinton owning the full-throated support of Gov. Rendell, state Democratic Party leadership, Mayor Nutter and, presumably, the organizational skill all that entails.
And despite a Rendell-ordered extension of the filing deadline that could be viewed as more than just coincidental.
***The shortfall was brought to my attention by western Pennsylvania attorney Jack Hanna, a Democratic state party regional caucus chairman and Obama supporter.
Hanna says before the deadline extension Clinton could have been 21 delegate candidates short. One late filing was by former Mayor John Street.
“It seems to me they did not pay sufficient attention to the details,” Hanna says.
And it seems to me, in a state that could be important, in a state known for bad winter weather, a forward-looking campaign might be, well, more forward-looking.
You know, so as not to slip up.
No one could have predicted there wouldn’t be any WMD. No one could have predicted they would not greet us as liberators.
(via Marc Ambinder via the comments)
*** Update ***
More competence:
The Chinese facility that supplies the active ingredient of the widely used blood thinner heparin was never inspected by the Food and Drug Administration because the agency confused its name with another just like it, agency officials said yesterday.
After eight years of this under Bush, I am ready for some actual competence. The Hillary campaign, which can not even field full slates of delegates, follow agreed upon rules (see Michigan and Florida), or concern themselves with the vagaries of election law in their firewall states, have not really been oozing competence lately. Slash and burn negative attacks- they got that covered. Competence- not so much.
About That Competence and Inevitability ThingPost + Comments (67)
by John Cole| 85 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
I was, like, so totally going to support Obama in the primary, you know, but like now that it is uncool to support him and now that I found out he didn’t write that “I have a dream” stuff and the fact his wife hates Amerikka, I might just have to vote for Hillary.
/moron
That, folks, is Hillary’s campaign message to you in the 48 hours. A real winner, no?
Discuss.
This post is in: Election 2008, Assholes, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
Michelle Obama hates her country! Really! That is what all the right-wing blogs have to say, even Captain Ed (how did he get a reputation as a straight shooter when he is just as hacktacular as Red State) and John Podhoretz and the deep-thinking Bryan Preston at Hot Air, so it must be true, because they would never lie! I think Bryan Preston said it best:
How sad. I certainly don’t want such a vain pessimist as First Lady.
Me either! Now what did she say?
“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd today, “because it feels like hope is making a comeback.” “and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
The way these guys on the right manage to gin up controversies over NOTHING and then have it widely repeated and circulated is simply amazing. They are so good at the bullshit, that to read them, they honestly sound distressed. These people need about 12 years in the wilderness, getting it right and proper from an energetic Democratic congress and Democratic President. These hacks, these flacks, these out rage pimps, these phonies and these bullshit artists that took over the Republican party need a jolly good political rogering for about a decade.
*** Update ***
Michelle Malkin Taylor Marsh disgraces herself.
by John Cole| 83 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Politics
In case there was any doubt the plagiarism absurdity was straight from the top:
As Clinton crisscrossed Wisconsin yesterday, she returned to what has become a central theme of her retooled, sharper-edged campaign, saying at one point: : “There’s a difference between speeches and solutions, between talk and action.”
Speaking to reporters last night, Clinton was asked about her campaign’s accusation of plagiarism against Obama. She said she had no idea what impact it will have on Tuesday’s vote. “I leave that to all of you to figure out,” she said, then added: “Facts are important. I’m a facts person. If your whole candidacy is based on words, it should be your own words.”
I can’t find the video right now, but there was one news report last night juxtaposing Hillary speeches with her opponents speeches, and what do you know- Hillary, by her standards, is one big fat plagiarist. Worse even than Obama! Crazy, I know!
At any rate, we will see today if this recent turn to going negative works for the Clintons. And really, that is all this is about- drive down Obama’s positives, and hope you turn away enough support that you close the margin. This is nothing about increasing support for Hillary, this is about eroding his.
Nothing that should surprise you if you lived through the last 8 years of Bush/Rove and the previous 8 years of the other Clinton. I will say it again- I will vote for the Democrat in November no matter what, but I sure would love it if Hillary’s group is knocked off their perch. It isn’t even so much Hillary as the sleaze around her. Wolfson of the upper lip sweat, the despicable Ickes, and the always odious Mark Penn, who looks like he came out of a Central Casting call for pedophiles. It would make me really happy to see those folks sent packing.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Fidel Castro resigned as president and commander-in-chief of Cuba, after almost 50 years as the country’s leader, the official daily Granma said.
“I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander-in-chief,” Castro wrote, according to Granma in its online edition. “My only desire is to fight as a soldier for my ideas.”
Anyone who thinks Castro won’t remain in control is kidding themselves. Perhaps though, some good will come of it and the Cuban people might be spared his four hour speeches.