All day, I will be coordinating a portion of the more than 800 volunteers that the Committee of Seventy have collected to oversee this city’s polling places.
Got any questions about where you’re supposed to vote, Democratic registrees? Check out Seventy’s helpful Citizen Access Center.
I’ll be sure to give you any updates about the crazy things that will surely happen in Philadelphia. Check back.
I’ll say it.
I read a really on-point, interesting column in, seriously, the New York Times. ..I have joined semi-literate whites everywhere.
David Brooks took on Sen. Barack Obama, how the man had been raised on high as the messiah of U.S. politics and is now struggling with those unfair expectations.
See, fairly Republicans are more known for quick primaries and getting behind a unified candidate, as has played out with Sen. John McCain. Now, McCain is sitting back, raising money and preparing for a general election, though some think it leaves the candidate less competitive.
On the other hand, big tent Democrat politics are more open to larger, longer and more competitive primaries. The thought is it sharpens the candidate, but, as Brooks wrote, this may be an exception.
If Obama could have won the Democratic Party nomination decisively and cleanly, he could have continued his role as this generation’s great unifier. He could have played the change and hope (that his Stalinistic graphics representations depict) to any Republican candidate’s role of the unchanged. The place he first took hold of after his often deified speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in July.
But, he hasn’t won decisively and won’t end cleanly.
The result is that he has had to act increasingly like any other presidential candidate in his fight with Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Obama is seeming more and more human and more able to be beaten by McCain. David Brooks wrote as follows:
He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.
Brooks noted a handful of mistakes by the Obama campaign, including issue-based promises that will restrict his calls of the future. Going on, Brooks wrote:
It was inevitable that the period of “Yes We Can!” deification would come to an end. It was not inevitable that Obama would now look so vulnerable. He’ll win the nomination, but in a matchup against John McCain, he is behind in Florida, Missouri and Ohio, and merely tied in must-win states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.
Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary is seeming more and more important. Clinton is still hanging on to a lead in most polls, and, though many say even a near-victory by Obama is a win, it is difficult to think Clinton would quit after winning the Keystone State, by even the slimmest of margins. If he does pull close enough to call it a win and move nearer to becoming the candidate, it seems much of the damage as been done. Obama can be lobbed as elitist, a John Kerry strike. McCain, a war veteran, can return to his populist roots by distancing himself from George Bush, knowing his conservative base is less likely to abandon him than liberals have done to the Democrats. Meanwhile, he could paint Obama as a bad bowling, stuffy-shirted San Francisco academic.
The old Republican trick of waiting on the Democrats to fail is looking eerily prescient.
As if you didn’t already know how either Democratic candidate – Hillary or Barack – will campaign against John McCain. McCain is the Republican candidate. If he wants any chance of winning this thing, he has to start now – before the Democratic candidate is chosen – in contrasting his record from President Bush’s.
He’ll more likely play the most successful GOP card in recent years, letting the Democrats implode.
Because of the power of the United States, everyone is interested in our electoral process. Fortunately, someone finally created an easy-to-follow description of the process for viewers around the world.
Chelsea Clinton stumped for her mother at Temple University yesterday, see video coverage by The Temple News and check the jocularity of young Republicans.
Okay, we get it. Media has gotten so big that half the presidential coverage is covering the coverage of the presidential coverage. …Whoa. I think the universe turned in on itself somewhere.
The point is, whether it was Hillary thinking it very “curious” that she always got the first question during debates – a sign of unfair treatment – to Tina Fey throwing her comedic celebrity status behind Hillary on the heels of that treatment, and all the attention on Barack being lampooned on SNL, it seems we increasingly find new ways to listen to anything remotely substantative.
Granted I am doing the same damn thing, so I’ll make note of the news coming from the Washington Post very early this morning that Hillary’s top political strategist Mark J. Penn is leaving the campaign, the second big shake-up after recent polls came out that Ms. Clinton is failing to adequately tread water against a strengthening Barack Obama.
Penn had been a polarizing figure within the Clinton campaign for months because of his personality as well as his strategic vision, but his departure came as a result of another continuing controversy — the conflicts of interest that resulted from his representing major clients as president of Burson-Marsteller, the giant public relations firm, while working for Clinton.
The debate is out there, seriously. Is Chelsea Clinton hot?
Check out this video by The Temple News on a recent appearance Hillary’s daughter made in Philadelphia, and try to say differently, of course she is.
Check out more on the debate, after the jump.
Ridiculous video alert:
And you didn’t think the U.S. presidential election was already on the global consciousness. I caught “La Pequeña Hillary Clinton” on Youtube and thought this Chilean satire says a lot. For one, that finally Latin American is on board with ridiculous, mostly meaningless ridicule of public figures. For another, my Spanish isn’t very strong. Any thoughts?
This can’t possibly be a group of his supporters can it? His campaign couldn’t have contracted this video to be made, could they? This has to be satirical, doesn’t? …Please, someone help me understand this.
Special guest blogger Lily Gold sends reports from the Democratic National Convention.
Special guest blogger Dan Shipper sends reports from the Democratic National Convention.
We are in the process of picking a guest blogger to send reports in from the Republican National Convention.
