I’ve doubted this possibility before, that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (who’ve both done well ahead of the pack back when there was a pack) might ultimately end up both on the ticket as President/Vice President. I’ve also been angered when some pundits insist that Obama absolutely MUST invite Hillary as his running mate (since it appears he may be ahead now in super delegates as well); I don’t think any candidate is required to pick his or her failed challenger as veep.

On the one hand, I think it would be exciting to see a biracial man identified most often as black and a woman of any color assume the top spots. Senators Obama and Clinton are both brilliant, committed people with much to offer ALL of America, and not just the blue staters.

On the other, I do not know if it would be enough of an advantage to Obama to bring in Hillary’s supporters to his camp to offset the negatives among which I count the fact that Hillary would truly be wasted in a veep spot unless to bring her closer to the Oval Office as commander in chief next time around.

I won’t bother with the ridiculous banter we keep hearing about the “dangers of having a horny Clenus back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with more time of his hands.” Until this campaign, Bill was doing some good work. I hope he reclaims his true senior world leader status once the campaign ends because we need him there as much as Hillary perhaps does not (he’s not always aided her campaign, I think).

But how do you feel about an Obama-Clinton ticket? If you’re a Clinton supporter, will you toss your support behind Obama? If you somehow aren’t sure, would having Hillary as veep help you support Obama? Or, if you’re a Barack supporter, how do you feel about who should be his veep running mate?

Before I say this, let me remind regular readers and tell new ones that, as of now, I’m still having a hard time deciding between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nominee in November, despite the fact that my home state of Vermont’s primary is more than two months over. Both candidates to me would be so far and above the new-and-nutty John McCain that I believe intelligent voters would easily choose either of these over McCain.

Having said this, however, it bothers me how much of the media - mainstream, blogosphere, etc. - seems to be hell bent on demonizing Hillary who, though I sure don’t agree with her views on Iran and some other issues, seems to have been branded a harridan first because she’s a woman and second, perhaps, because she’s a Clinton. Interestingly enough, some of the same people, however, who cheered Bill and then Hillary’s entry into the Senate, now seem rather bent on getting her out of this race.

An example of this came recently, when many blue-leaning voices were quick to sympathize with Obama over the mess about Rev. Wright’s comments while they are quick to hammer Hillary in situations where she, too, may have some supporters who do not necessarily have her best interests at heart.

Sure, it’s appropriate to wonder why so many Hillary people like former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, PA Governor Ed Rendell, and others - including sometimes Mrs. Clinton herself - seem to be rushing to embrace Fox News, complimenting them on “their balance” (and considering what the mainstream media aside from Faux has been doing, it’s harder sometimes to see a clear difference between a Fox and a CNN or MSNBC). But whether it’s Keith Olbermann’s Countdown on MSNBC (a show I truly love) or others, there does seem to be growing anti-Hillary sentiment that cannot be easily dismissed.

Like all of you, I want the best person for the job. But unlike too much of the media it seems, I want these decisions made by the voters, and not corporate communications companies. Fairness doesn’t count among ranking (and oh so rank) Republicans these days but - damn it - I think most of us are not Republicans because we see them as unfair to the people. So I’m kind of puzzled about why bluies are willing to bash Hillary on a standard to which they do not always hold others.

A lot of people are hoping that Indiana will put an end to this contentious contest between the Democratic Presidential nominees, so this may be the last time for this thread. There is a feeling that if Barack Obama can run the table and win both Indiana and North Carolina, the race should be over. The two states together have 187 delegates at stake. Depending on whose count you accept and how many delegates he captures that could put Obama within about 150-250 delegates of sewing up the nomination. That lead would be too much for Clinton to overcome in the remaining contests unless she wants to drag this out until Obama actually wins enough delegates in the remaining primaries to have a majority.

According to CNN’c much-discusses and valuable “delegate meter,” if Obama were to win both contests, even by a narrow margin Clinton could not catch him in total delegates even if she piles up an improbable 70% of the vote in the contests remaining after Tuesday. Her only hope would be to snag more superdelegates. So, in short, Indiana may be the key to how much longer this contest goes on.

(more…)

Has the playing field become so tilted that big money calls the shots while the average American is left out? March campaign data offer a mixed answer. (more…)

Finally!

Someone with a brain FINALLY has endorsed the end of a policy that, to this day, sickens me to my core: the ridiculous rule enacted as one of the first actions of the Clinton White House (and I’m sure it was, as enacted, NOT their idea because I can fault the Clintons for many things, but homophobia never seemed like one of them) to force homosexuals in the military deeper into the closet.

Barack Obama has now come out against it. Exactly how the problem - one that has seriously hurt troop as well as intelligence/translator levels since Bush began his war of wars - would get fixed to give gays equity is yet to be seen. But damn, it’s time to end this sucker.

Former Democratic rival for the presidential primary for 2008, Bill Richardson, who happens to be the country’s sole Hispanic governor currently, has just come out endorsing Barack Obama. As a superdelegate himself as governor, Richardson’s endorsement is seen as a real blow to Hillary Clinton, in whose administration Richardson served numerous roles, including as Energy Secretary.

One consideration is that Richardson’s endorsement may lead the way for other high profile Hispanics to jump in behind the Illinois senator, which is one area in which Obama is seen as a weaker competitor (Hispanics remember Bill Clinton more fondly as a whole, they say). However, I’m not sure how many in the Hispanic community (like there’s just one, yeah-right-sure) see Richardson as Hispanic; I’ve heard just the opposite cited by many, in fact.

Second, one of my complaints about Hillary (and I’m still torn between her and Obama as my candidate of choice with John Edwards no longer in the race) is that so many of the old Clinton guard is there, like Madelaine Albright, former Secretary of State. I don’t need to replay January 1993-January 2001; I need to go forward. We’re not the same country we were in 1993 so we don’t need the same team.

Third, I don’t think Richardson’s endorsement by itself necessarily means a tremendous lot. He’s not a major player on many fronts and many don’t remember him at all. Just as his candidacy wasn’t much, his post-candidacy endorsement probably isn’t wildly bank-able.

Fourth, I’m so tired of hearing Hillary doesn’t stand a chance, that many want Obama as the Dem contender because he might lose more easily to McCain. First, this underestimates Hillary; second, it underestimates Obama; and finally, it underestimates us as voters.

In fact, the only thing I’m more weary of than “Hillary doesn’t stand a chance” and “If Obama wins the Dem nomination, then McCain will win in November” is the nastiness going on between the two Dem camps and their contenders. I expect this awful behavior from Repugs; I want something better from the rest of us.

What part of obscene does Bill O’Reilly not understand? I mean, he was pointed in letting us know that he was aiming that reference deliberately at a black woman.

Sure, shock all of us with his sudden confession of “sympathy” for the Clintons but use it as a weapon he then wields at Barack Obama’s wife. Apparently Bill O understands that Bill C just feels protective of wife, Hillary, so he’s VERY OFFENDED that Michelle Obama might feel protective of her husband.

Several recent events show that the conservative movement in America is intent upon killing itself, and does not show any signs of stopping the process in the near future.

The apparent nomination of John McCain is the most obvious manifestation of the death of the right that you and I have grown to loathe. The right lost all hope of stopping the McCain nomination when Mitt Romney stepped aside, looking to take up the conservative cause in 2012. McCain winning the nomination means the wingnuts have lost any vestige of power they once wielded in their own party, but Romneys emergence as the leader of the conservative movement going forward signals that they are determined to keep sucking the noxious fumes through the hose they’ve strung from their own toxic exhausts into their sealed off little bubbles. (more…)

The media this week is awash with - and trying to drown you with - two HUGE myths, mostly being perpetrated by the far right and the most scurrilous of the opportunist Republicans/Obama dislikers. The first involved Bill and Hillary Clinton and the second is about John McCain.

Let me handle Myth #1 now, which basically states that it’s not just unfair but downright EVIL if Hillary is elected president in November because we’ll be forced to deal with not just the Hillary the right hates so much, but a return of Bill Clinton to the presidency (which they argue is also illegal because he got his two terms).

First, the louder the far right screams and sneers that “nobody wants to see Bill Clinton in the White House again”, the more centrist Americans scratch their heads and say aloud, “Uh… compared to what we’ve had the last seven-plus years, I’m not real sure I’d mind Bill back.”

Second, the sexism inherent in a statement like this - that Hillary couldn’t run the country unless a man tells her what to do - is so blatant as to really belong to a different time.

Third, uh… does anyone actually think Bush has actually run the country (into the shitty ground)? We’ve had two presidents since before he took office, with the one most powerful being “The” Dick Cheney. And we know from much evidence that, whenever the puppeteers behind the scenes weren’t telling Ronald Reagan what to do and say, Nancy Reagan was telling him what to do and say. And no, I’m not just talking about the astrologer she put on the federal payroll to advise her and Ronnie-poo - and this is documented fact.

Fourth, and the most important: can anyone truly believe that Hillary would NOT take full charge of the U.S.? I don’t see Hillary for one moment sitting back and letting Bill run things. Hell, I suspect he’d be lucky if she ever allows him near the Oval Office. Hillary is strong, smart, competitive, and hardly afraid to both say and do what she wants

Stay tuned for Debunking Myths: Part Two

Bill Clinton responded to a question about why Senator Obama is having to run against two Clintons by invoking Jesse Jackson’s primary victory’s in South Carolina.

Clinton swears that was not an attempt to inject racial politics into the debate… and even though I am an Obama supporter, I may agree with Bill on this one.  Because considering one previous South Carolina primary winner in particular is cause for believing that Obama is on the march to the White House: Governor Clinton carried the state in the 1992 primary. But sadly, considering that Bill has been widely labeled as the 1st black President, maybe invoking past S.C. primary winners actually does raise racial questions.

Shucks! There goes my illogical attempt to justify President Clinton’s oddly out of context ‘Jackson won S.C. too’ answer. (more…)

So there was this primary in South Carolina on Saturday. And after Obama spanked everyone, Bill made a belittling comment about Jesse Jackson winning South Carolina and that Barack was running a good campaign. Après Bill, le déluge (with all the pileup crap that came even before) from TPMtv:

“Gangbang!”

Sometimes I think that all these pundits sit around thinking that American people sit around thinking about the pros and cons of the candidates as much as they do. Hell, even I don’t. They hover over their shiny round tables, nursing their fifth cop of coffee spewing any and all sputum that will come to their flapping lips and hoping they don’t let anything Imus-esque slip from their golden tongues. Using an endearing dedication to political theory as a science, they battle back and forth looking for the cause/effect relationship of why a poll would not be spot on when we get the actual results?

But they always forget one important aspect of democracy: one person’s well-educated decision counts the same as another person’s eenie-meenie-miney-moe, and with the offensive volume of pundits and reports and talk radio paired with candidates who are very, very similar, I think we’re looking at high turnouts with many more voting methods of the latter variety than any of us would like to admit. Unfortunately, the outcome is not always the most deserving candidate, but often the candidate we deserve.

Like a lot of bloggers, especially perhaps those like me critical of the way our military is being abused, I find I get a fair amount of traffic from not just the Pentagon and the military as a whole, but also the State and Justice Departments and several other agencies staffed by people our tax dollars go to pay.

But on Thursday, I was both bemused and annoyed to find that someone from the Pentagon came into Cut to the Chase after doing a search on Bill Clinton’s penis and then eagerly left again several minutes later looking for a link to photographs of naked Army National Guard female soldiers via Editor and Publisher magazine.

From my stats:

Domain Name osd.mil ? (Military)
IP Address 134.152.17.# (The Pentagon)
ISP The Pentagon
Location Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Herndon
Lat/Long : 38.9553, -77.3881 (Map)

…
Referring URL http://www.google.co…=Clenus Bill Clinton
Search Engine google.com
Search Words clenus bill clinton
Visit Entry Page http://www.inblogs.n…h/label/Bill Clinton
Visit Exit Page http://cut-to-the-ch…6_09_24_archive.html
Out Click photographs of naked Army National Guard female soldiers
http://www.editorand…ontent_id=1003188197

Click on more *only* if you are interested in a rather pointless and rambling post on my take on the general state of politics in America today… (which I bashed out in a hurry and didn’t do a very good spell check on). (more…)

While I’ve posted long and often that I hate to see candidates have to drop out early “just because” the big players with the corporate money and bigger connections, not to mention the ridiculously early primary season this year, can outrun their wallets, I must admit I never felt very strongly about former Clintonite Richardson’s campaign.

For me, the memory of what they did to the Chinese-born scientist, Wen Ho Lee, making him into some surreal scapegoat when Richardson was Secretary of Energy as we were getting both the Republicans’ blowing hot over “Chinese spies” and “Asian illegal contributions to Clinton campaigns” at the same time we realized that our nuclear and energy labs have about as much security as a 75 year old drunken barfly’s wallet. Trying to dismiss all the negatives on the back of one man who served the department a long time and, from most reports, quite well, seemed criminal to me. And Richardson could have stopped it.

It’s hard for me to love someone who had the power to right a wrong and instead, just blasted the company line instead.

Now, that does NOT mean that Richardson doesn’t have other positive qualities. But that whole Lee mess still sticks in my throat.

I am watching the returns come in from New Hampshire and Hillary Clinton has taken a lead.

This is admittedly very early in the process, but there is no denying that if Senator Clinton wins New Hampshire after the past week it would be a real shock.   All of the talk going into today was speculation on whether or not Obama would win by double digits.   (more…)

I can see what Bill Clinton, who left office with a better approval rating than the last three years of Bush’s calculated TOGETHER, can do for Hillary; I’ve heard people I respect say that Hillary would get their vote just because Bill would be in the White House as well.

But Oprah for Barack Obama? Well, we’ll have to see if the media billionaire can do for Barack what she’s done for fat white women America over. I think Obama has some very solid creds and smart ideas. I like the heat he’s providing for Hillary. I’m just not sure that Oprah, who turned a tragedy of abuse at her school in Africa into another strategically-teared “It’s really all about ME moment because, to be fair, EVERYTHING is about me when it comes right down to it”, will bring voters of color learning toward another candidate OTHER than Obama already to Barack’s camp.

Polls coming out show that voters of color, particularly blacks (African-Americans, Jamaican-Americans, et al), do NOT see themselves as ONE block of people - though WHY we needed a poll to understand that intelligent people of any color would not see themselves as one voting block amazes me - apt to go for the same candidate, position, etc.

Only lazy strategists see women, see blacks, Hispanics, Asians, et al, as some quivering mass all likely to think, vote, act, and otherwise respond alike.

For example, I’m a less than fat WASP (with Native American heritage, too) woman who finds herself very reasonably inclined toward Obama - as well as Edwards and Kucinich and a couple others - DESPITE Oprah’s endorsement. Kidding aside, I just hope Oprah’s weight behind him will not hurt this candidate beyond my sense she won’t help him quite as much as some might believe.

Remember the surplus Bill Clinton left us with?

No?

Ah, that’s because of the 7 years of Bush who can veto health care for kids but demands tax breaks for Dick Cheney and friends.

Oh, and you likely owe at least $32K grand per person in your household for the “war that will pay for itself, guaranteed! cakewalk” called Iraq”. Sorry, no checks. Only blood and sweat and your hopes and dreams are tender we accept, please.

Common Dreams has an article by Robert Scheer titled ‘President’ Lieberman: A Cautionary Tale. Sheer’s premise explores the possibility that after winning the election of 2000 Al Gore is sworn in as President (theres a novel idea, the winner of the election takes the office) and then dies, leading to Joe Lieberman assuming the Presidency.

Scheer draws from Lieberman’s insane ramblings to arrive at the conclusion that Lieberman may be more damaging than Bush at leading America. Sheer’s point is to give pause to those who would support any Democrat based solely upon the notion that their candidate is more electable in the general election than another candidate.

If Lieberman’s own words are the only consideration we take into the discussion, Scheer’s argument wins the debate. However I believe there are many other factors which combine to make the Bush administration more disastrous than a possible Lieberman administration ever could have been, under Scheer’s scenario. (more…)

I posted about Hillary and the rush to bring us back to the days of fretting over the Clintons’ sex life more than our very own. You can read it here, but I’ll give you a snip:

Also as the holiday weekend revved came word of two Hillary Clinton books due out soon and another on the Clintons available long before the 2008 presidential election. Apparently ALL of these books have been touted as ‘Hillary exposes‘”. ["exposes" usually refer to real documentation and not just yellow tabloid crap but with some polysyllabic words]

And do you know what these scandal peddlers tell us BRAND SPANKING NEW about Bill and Hillary (which the right likes to call “Billary”) Clinton? Here goes a list of items mentioned by mostly rightwing nutcases but also dim types like Chris Matthews:

That Hillary is calculating and competent. And she’s female? Really? Gee. How did that happen? Why did no one ever tell us before!

For my rather acerbic comparison of White House Monicas: Lewinsky and Goodling, check here.