Do you have trouble maintaining an election?

[cryptique]

The way Obama has very quickly closed seemingly insurmountable deficits in Texas and Ohio does, indeed, show buyer's remorse... remorse that we too quickly anointed Clinton as inevitable. There's just no way to positively spin Clinton's meltdown.

Agreed.

[MrRain422]

The real reason that Hillary is losing is because women are not as smart as men (not my actual opinion).

[Gobias Industries]

The real reason that Hillary is losing is because women are not as smart as men (not my actual opinion).

 

I almost thought it was an anti-Obama article...and then I took pity because she is basically demeaning her whole gender.

[MrRain422]

Yeah, I couldn't believe that that is actually in the Washington Post.

[quarter23cd]

Wow, that read like something out of The Onion.

[Reni]

that woman writes frequently for the Independent Women's Forum - which is a Phyllis Schlafly type organization......ya know, women who have actually voiced fears about an Equal Rights Amendment leading to unisex bathrooms.

[Mr. Kinsley]

She seemed to be making an OK, if rather extreme, case until she got to the part where she said she admired Margaret Thatcher. NOW it all makes sense!

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

A lot of movement towards Hillary in the OH and TX polls in the last day or so.

[Mr. Kinsley]

A lot of movement towards Hillary in the OH and TX polls in the last day or so.

It's all those people who tuned in to see Wilco on SNL and got to see the surprise HRC visit. It's all Jeff's fault!

[zkits]

It's all those people who tuned in to see Wilco on SNL and got to see the surprise HRC visit. It's all Jeff's fault!

 

Apparently Jeff's Obama button wasn't enough to counteract the Hilary cameo...

[tugmoose]

Let's not forget the HUGE victory predicted for Obama in New Hampshire. Polls mean dick.

 

In about 10 hours, if it's not too icy out there, I'll be supporting our library issue, voting for some guy named Joe who's running against Kucinich, and voting for Barack Hussein Obama Jr. (that's his name, deal with it.)

[mountain bed]

A lot of movement towards Hillary in the OH and TX polls in the last day or so.

It's entirely possible that as this thing gets near the finish people will opt toward the known rather than a relatively unknown. Today is going to be real interesting.

[Beltmann]

A lot of movement towards Hillary in the OH and TX polls in the last day or so.

The same thing happened here in Wisconsin, but Obama somehow won by 17 points. I'm not predicting a similar blowout today, though.

[cryptique]

I enjoyed this column from Salon.com today...

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Flag pins are for losers -- literally

 

Conservatives are still hitting Barack Obama for having an empty lapel, but guess what happened to all the presidential candidates who did wear flag pins?

 

_{By Jerome Doolittle}

 

Mar. 04, 2008 | Is a man fit to be commander in chief if he won't even fly the flag from his buttonhole?

 

Does that man, Barack Obama, think he's "too good -- too patriotic! -- to wear a flag pin on his chest?" Because that's what William Kristol believes.

 

Grow up, the Chicago Sun-Times advises: "Oh for Pete's sake, Senator Obama, pin the darn American flag to your chest." Otherwise, the poor dope will "catch a world of hurt for ... polarizing comments [that] make him sound like a hardened leftist."

 

Has Obama's failure to wear a flag pin really done "more damage to his White House hopes than a bomb bursting in air?" The New York Daily News thinks so.

 

Or is it just possible that Barack Obama knows more about getting to be president than all of these pundits laid end to end, as they probably should be? Is it possible that an empty buttonhole might actually help a candidate of either party, now that the nation's No. 1 flag-wearer is circling the bowl with the lowest presidential approval ratings ever recorded?

 

Let's go beyond the Beltway and take a look. Out there on the campaign trail, who's actually been wearing lapel flags in this race and who hasn't -- and how's that been working out for you guys anyway?

 

On April 26 of last year in Orangeburg, S.C., the Democrats held the first debate in the campaign that never ends. First thing that morning the candidates were all in a hurry to throw on their clothes, grabbing any old thing that came to hand. Yeah, right.

 

It was the most important day of their political lives to date, and they agonized over each tiny sartorial decision. Windsor knot or four-in-hand? Blue or red?

 

Here's where everybody came out on lapel flags. The photo coverage of the debate shows that only Joe Biden decided to wear one. The other seven -- Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Chris Dodd -- went without.

 

Of course you'd expect that from a bunch of surrender monkeys, wouldn't you? So let's turn to the Republicans, tough-talking patriots to a man. Their first debate came a week later in Simi Valley, Calif. And sure enough, Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo and Rudy Giuliani, nonveterans all, were careful to pin on their flags.

 

Wait a minute, though. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Duncan Hunter and Mike Huckabee all left their little flags back home on the bureau. And so did John McCain. Hmm.

 

By May 15, at the Columbia, S.C., Republican debate, Tancredo had stopped wearing his flag. By June, Democratic candidate Joe Biden had deflagged as well.

 

The only candidate of either party who chose to add a flag in the course of the campaign was Bill Richardson, who flagged up toward the end of the summer. With Biden's flag gone by then, Richardson had become the only Democratic candidate to wear a flag in the debates.

 

On the Republican side, Tommy Thompson continued to wear his flag till the bitter end, which came in August when he placed sixth in the Iowa straw polls. The empty Thompson slot was filled the following month by Fred. The lobbyist/actor picked up Tommy's banner, so to speak, and was still wearing it in January when he, too, dropped out.

 

Rudy Giuliani, who probably wears a flag to bed, dropped out a week later after racking up a pathetic 15 percent of the vote in the Florida Republican primary.

 

Do we see a subtle pattern emerging here? Every presidential candidate of both parties who ever wore a lapel flag during the debates, even as briefly as Biden, bought himself a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

 

And every major party candidate who remains viable today -- John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- has seldom if ever been spotted with a flag in his or her lapel.

 

Don't think the press hasn't been noticing, either. To this day there has been a steady drumbeat of silence in the media over the flaglessness of Huckabee's, Clinton's and McCain's lapels.

 

Nor would Obama's disrespect have made news if only he had thought to point the finger at everyone else still in the race when a TV reporter posed his trivia question back in October. But instead he gave an honest if incomplete answer.

 

Obama said he had worn a pin after 9/11 but stopped once he began to notice, and here I paraphrase wildly but no doubt accurately, that most of the people still wearing lapel flags were assholes.

 

On the evidence of the campaign so far, Obama wasn't the only one who noticed.

 

Clinton, Huckabee and McCain, we may say with confidence, would wear anything or even nothing at all if they thought it would help them win the nomination. Then why, when it came to miniature flags, did the three join Obama in opting for nothing?

 

Dosed with Pentothal, each would most likely come up with a variant of the answer Obama had hinted at: that lapel flags no longer signify simple patriotism, but something that you don't want sticking to your fingers these days.

 

For these past six years and more, men with those bright little flags apparently riveted to their lapels have fed the voters a daily diet of fear, secrecy, lies and a cruel war with neither point nor end.

 

No sensible politician would want to march under this tiny, metallic banner. Just look at all the fallen stars who did.

[quarter23cd]

I'm going to base my thinking today on the totally-unscientific "nobody I know" premise: nobody I know is actually excited about voting for Hillary. I think Obama will pull off Ohio. For the record, he got both mine and my wife's votes. So there's two votes that weren't counted in any poll. I have no idea how this will play out, but it will be interesting to watch the results roll in.

[OOO]

Rush Limbaugh is urging all his listeners to cross party lines and vote for Hillary so that the Democratic race goes on for longer

 

"We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically."

 

Apparently a liberal pundit asked Democrats to do something similar in Michigan/Florida since their votes weren't counting anyways.

[quarter23cd]

Rush Limbaugh is urging all his listeners to cross party lines and vote for Hillary so that the Democratic race goes on for longer

"We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically."

Apparently a liberal pundit asked Democrats to do something similar in Michigan/Florida since their votes weren't counting anyways.

Yeah, I read this article, too. I think it was DailyKos that was trying to get people to vote for Romney in certain primaries. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this sort of thing. I guess they're just playing the game--trying to influence the results of your ultimate opponent. Rigging your opponent's outcome to your benefit. Makes sense in a no-holds-barred political war, but is kind of shady. Seems a far cry from what these elections are supposed to be about.

[gogo]

It was discussed in an earlier thread about primaries (or maybe earlier in this thread, I can't keep track!) about whether or not political parties should allow voters not registered with that party to vote in their primary. I think this would be a pretty good argument for not letting them do so.

[Mr. Kinsley]

My parents always used to register with whichever party wasn't in the White House. That way they could vote in a primary that had some sort of meaning. Of course, that wouldn't really work this year, but my point is, if your state doesn't allow you to vote in the other party's primary - switch parties. There really isn't a way to keep people from doing it.

[Reni]

Yeah, I read this article, too. I think it was DailyKos that was trying to get people to vote for Romney in certain primaries. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this sort of thing. I guess they're just playing the game--trying to influence the results of your ultimate opponent. Rigging your opponent's outcome to your benefit. Makes sense in a no-holds-barred political war, but is kind of shady. Seems a far cry from what these elections are supposed to be about.

 

ironic that he is telling the dittoheads to vote for the woman he built his career around, by bashing her mercilessly.

[quarter23cd]

It was discussed in an earlier thread about primaries (or maybe earlier in this thread, I can't keep track!) about whether or not political parties should allow voters not registered with that party to vote in their primary. I think this would be a pretty good argument for not letting them do so.

Yeah, the opposite argument, I guess, is making it easier for "crossover voters" to vote for a candidate that impresses them, although they may not be registered with that party. I just voted in Ohio today. I am not registered with a party, and it was simple enough to walk in and request the ballot of my choice. It was nice and easy--I know people in other states who has difficulties changing their party-affiliation in time for their primaries. The downside to this easiness, I guess, is that it does kind of lend itself to people voting with other motives in mind. The GOP nomination is all but sewn up and so voting for it is almost irrelevant--why not use your vote to pick the opposition? It definitely does raise some questions about the process. I dunno.

[MrRain422]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/2...2/807/36/458633

 

Great article comparing Clinton and Obama's recent Senate records.

[John Smith]

ironic that he is telling the dittoheads to vote for the woman he built his career around, by bashing her mercilessly.

 

He wants her to be the dem nominee. She is the easiest of the two to beat, not that beating either will be easy. But if Hill wins the nomination then the "base" can be motivated to turn out and go get her. Beyond that the longer the dem race is in doubt, the more money they have to spend now and less that will be availabble for the general election.

 

Besides that all Rush listeners that I know always profess their independence of thought. It woudl be interesting to see if they do as he commands or if they really do have some independence.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

Rumored early exits have the races deadlocked in Ohio and Texas. Big surprise.

[Edie]

Barack wins VT. Too close to call the other states. I'm on the edge of my SEAT man!