Obama's the one... bring on McSame

I was pretty blown away by Obama's speech last night - at the end of a no doubt long political career, this one will go down as one of his finest. I was particularly impressed with Obama's remarks about Hillary Clinton [Click Here for full speech transcript]:

That is particularly true for the candidate who has traveled further on this journey than anyone else. Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.

We've certainly had our differences over the last sixteen months. But as someone who's shared a stage with her many times, I can tell you that what gets Hillary Clinton up in the morning – even in the face of tough odds – is exactly what sent her and Bill Clinton to sign up for their first campaign in Texas all those years ago; what sent her to work at the Children's Defense Fund and made her fight for health care as first lady; what led her to the United States Senate and fueled her barrier-breaking campaign for the presidency – an unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, no matter how difficult the fight may be. And you can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory. When we transform our energy policy and lift our children out of poverty, it will be because she worked to help make it happen. Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Wow - pretty deferential and humble words by Obama about Hillary, who has gone to great lengths behind the scenes to paint Obama as "unelectable," "inexperienced," and much, much worse.

I guess I might be raining on the Feel-Good Parade, but what thanks did Obama get for his kind words about Hillary last night? Certainly not what he deserved - Hillary bowing out of the race gracefully. Last night, Hillary wouldn't even Obama his moment - she thanked her supporters and issued a few other vaguenesses (see video below). Her idiotic campaign chair, Terry McAuliffe, even introduced her as, "the next President of the United States." I'd love to know how the weather is on HIS planet.

Anyway, I totally agree with Obama's assessment of Hillary, but I was not pleased that she did not concede the nomination last night. In the absence of more information, I interpret it as thus: she's waiting for Obama to stumble, or for some dirt to be dug up about him this summer. Once our corporate media's Conventional Wisdom says that he's "unelectable," (cue drug addict Limbaugh, GOP shill Drudge and facist Michael Wiener) Hillary is fantasizing about swooping in and taking the nomination. Pretty undignified, in my book, and something that almost certainly won't happen.

In all sincerity, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Hillary, but she's doing herself, her party and her country a disservice by keeping up with this charade. I very rarely wade into the cesspools that masquerade as comment sections on most blogs, but I found an excellent analogy about Hillary not conceding the nomination, and I just have to share it:

Can you imagine if the New England Patriots pulled this Hillary thing? It would have gone something like this in this year's Super Bowl in February: Yeah, we're down by three, and there's no time left on the clock, but that doesn't mean the game should stop! We had a better season! We won all of our games! Tom Brady is more likable than Eli Manning, and there are more Patriots fans than Giants fans...and...and... we'll take this to the NFL rules commission if we have to! We won! This season, we scored more points than the Giants! Our offense was ranked higher! So what if they beat us when it counted? We will not allow the Patriots fans to become invisible, blah... blah... blah...

Say what you want about sports, but that's the best damned analogy I've read yet about Hillary's refusal to face reality.

Here is Clinton's speech from last night, in two parts...

Part I:

Part II:

I don't even know where to begin with her speech. I'm quite certain that Obama will not be pleased when he sees it. Of course, she had a few nice things to say about Obama, but she didn't do what was expected of her, and what would have been the magnanimous thing to do - concede. Instead, she blubbered on about "winning the swing states," and complaining about the votes in Florida and Michigan not being counted (in so many words). I'm for counting all of the votes, too, but seriously, let's move on, senator. The Democratic Party (in my view) made a mistake, Hillary, but if you would have run a better campaign, you wouldn't be crying foul over these two states.

At this point, Obama cannot pick her to run with him - he just can't. I don't believe for one second that all of the Hillary supporters who are making noise about voting for McSame will actually go through with it. I just can't believe it. Hillary and Obama's politics and positions on policy issues are so close in so many ways, I refuse to believe that her supporters would go in the other direction and vote for McCain, merely out of spite.

By the way, from the bizzaro file, here's Terry McAuliffe, Hillary's campaign chairman, on The Daily Show last night...

I don't even know what to make of this - was it a skit? Was McAuliffe on something? Stewart (as Obama) asking McAuliffe, "WTF?" was only topped by McAuliffe saying, "Kiss my ass, Obama!" I think McAuliffe has seriously lost it. Perhaps it's his recent track record of not being able to put any of his backed candidates over the top - the two most notable being John Kerry in '04, when McAuliffe was the DNC Chair, and blowing it against Obama this year with Hillary - the nomination was hers to lose, and she lost it with McAuliffe serving as her campaign chair.

Off to the political scrap heap, Terry.

I found this on a political site last night (I think it was Crooks & Liars, under the comments section on one of the posts), and I loved it - it's about what was going on at Obama's campaign headquarters last night. I don't know if it's true, but I like the idea of it, and the very last sentence in this short little political chestnut is true, even if the rest isn't:

Every time a new endorsement was announced at the Obama headquarters in Chicago, campaign workers interrupted with a booming round of applause, followed by popping Champagne corks later in the evening. The aides are members of Mr. Obama's team — a political start-up — that is responsible for defeating one of the most tried and tested teams in Democratic politics.

That's right on - an effective, victorious political campaign really can still be waged by determined, activist citizens in this country, amazingly enough. It isn't easy, but it can be done. Now all we have to worry about is Obama beating a well-funded Republican machine that will resort to just about anything to get elected.

Despite what some people may believe, this fall will be no cake walk for Obama. The right is going to come after him with everything they've got.

In '04, I used to hear this refrain all the time from Repubes: You're not so much for Kerry, you're just against Bush. There was more than a kernel of truth in that. I don't apologize for being so anti-Bush back then (or now), but that's not really a good reason to have backed Kerry, I suppose. (I originally wanted Dean in '04, but I campaigned very, very hard for Kerry in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.) However, I can't wait to push this back in Republicans' faces this year - "It's not that you're so much for McCain, it's that you're against Obama." It's been well documented that McCain is still having a very hard time wooing the Republican base, but now, the base will simply attack Obama anyway.

It's going to be one bumpy ride, but it's a ride I'm looking forward to.

I urge you all to go to Obama's Website and make at least a small contribution, even if it's just $5 or $10. Every little bit will help in his campaign this fall.

One other quick note - and I only got to see a few tidbits of coverage as I was jumping around from all of the coverage I TiVo'd last night (I was at a concert), but I found some clips of ABC's coverage on the 'Net this morning and it was an abomination - a stark example about what I detest about our corporate media.

Right as Obama was giving his acceptance speech, evidently ABC cut into regular programming to bring viewers about five minutes of his speech, before cutting away to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos talking about his historic speech. Hey guys, shut up and let it happen. Thank God these two aren't sportscasters - imagine them doing commentary for the Super Bowl... Tom Brady [Smirk] Eli Manning fades back to throw the winning touchdown pass, and the network cuts to Gibson and Stephanopoulos talking about the winning touchdown pass. Morons.

Then again, I shouldn't expect much more from Gibson, who feels the media asked all of the tough questions and raised all of the issues with the Bush administration during the run-up to the war in Iraq. Brilliant! (See Below)

Stewart's Matthews-McAuliffe Douche Off

Jon Stewart made good sport of the exchanges between MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Terry McAuliffe, Hillary's campaign manager, during the evening of the West Virginia primary last week. If you haven't seen it, take a look - it really is pretty funny. Stewart dubs the exchange a douche off, and that about sums it up.

Chris Matthews was, well, being Chris Matthews, and I have little use for Terry McAuliffe, considering his track record against Republicans. This is the DNC Chairman who couldn't even beat George Bush in 2004, for Christ sakes. Why Hillary picked him to chair her campaign, I will never know - it certainly wasn't for his recent track record of success against Republicans.

Anyway, thank God for people like Stewart. What makes his show even better is that you just know there are execs over at Faux News who would kill to have a show half this funny. Maybe it's why the network's ill-fated answer to The Daily Show was dubbed The Half Hour News Hour. Too bad it lasted about as long as President Bush's oil company.

Out with the old, in with the new...

Tuesday night marked a seismic shift in the Democratic Party, and in U.S. politics. It finally looks like Obama is going to prevail in the battle to be the party's nominee, and I'm happy about that on so many levels, and I'd by lying if I didn't say that a big part of that happiness is that Obama is going to face McCain, and not Hillary, despite what some of the vapid personalities on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, are trying to accomplish - to propel Clinton the nomination (more on Limbaugh's Operation Chaos in a separate post). I like Clinton in many ways, and of course I would vote for her, but I just think that Obama is the best candidate right now for the Democrats.

I heard Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe on NBC's Today this morning, and I was actually encouraged by what I heard. I'm paraphrasing, but he insinuated that after the last primary on June 3, that the party would have a nominee.

Good.

I always relish it when the so-called "expert" talking heads get it wrong, or when they don't get their way. The only reason I wish the Democratic race would have been decided long ago is so yaps like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh could stop flattering themselves, thinking that they are somehow influencing the Democratic race. My theory - their candidate is so boring, the the Republican Party is in such tatters, they really don't have anything better to talk about, so they offer up slander, witticisms and hate speech about the Democrats. Hannity, Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and their ilk remind me of dorks who aren't allowed in to a high school or college party, so they sit out on the sidewalk, hurling insults in a pathetic display of ignorance.

Anyway, based McAuliffe's appearance on Today, the party will have a nominee soon enough. There will be plenty of time to raise money, and to highlight to American would should already be stunningly obvious - that McCain is the wrong man, the wrong personality and the wrong ideology to get us out of the disgraceful state of affairs that Bush has dragged us all into.

Picture from HuffPo

Yo, Carville - to the Dean's office!

Would James Carville and Howard Dean just shut up already? There's nothing worse than sore winners, an that's exactly what these two sound like right now. I wonder how much they'd be whining if the Democrats had been unsuccessful?

To be fair, I don't know all of the facts, but I think Carville (Above) makes a number of good points. To leave that much money on the table is inexcusable, especially when there were some very close races. I was very disappointed that Lois Murphy didn't prevail in her race vs. Republican Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania's 6th District, a district I used to reside in. The race was so razor thin, I wonder if a little more infusion of cash by the DNC would have helped. It sure wouldn't have hurt.

Murphy was the victim of lots of Republican dirty tricks, too, including Robo calling by the Republican National Committee.



But, Dean deserves his due, too. The man's got balls and a backbone, something Democrats were sorely lacking when Terry McAuliffe was chair of the DNC. McAuliffe is a very smart businessman, but he couldn't deliver for the Dems. A pick-up of six governorships and both houses of Congress looks mighty good on Dean's résumé, and those pick-ups will play a critical role in the '08 election, too.

Dean's also a good fundraiser, but as Carville rightfully states, you can't leave money under your mattress in an important election, either. Money will play a critical role in '08, but it will come down to the party nominees, too. More on that in a bit.