Dan on Politics

Since I have never believed in multi-culturalism, I can't help but enjoy the sight of Democrats fighting over who has been most victimized by white males - blacks or women. My 31-year-old daughter, Molly (graduate student researching autism), has changed her mind on which she is going to vote for now that the issue has been framed that way and feels like she has to vote for the woman. My 29-year-old daughter Kelly (lawyer in New York City) is for Obama and all my ex-wife's family women all feel Kelly takes woman's rights for granted and doesn't appreciate how much women in our generation have struggled.

Billy is having coffee at Kelly's law firm this morning, where he expects to raise big bucks from the senior partners. Kelly saws the junior associates have all given money to Obama but they have been ordered to have coffee with Billy and not ask him any embarrassing questions and to keep their mouths shut about the fact they like Obama.

I don't watch Fox News and I assumed you did and I was wondering if you can detect any favoritism in their political coverage now that it looks like Giuliani is going down the tubes. Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News and The Wall Street Journal and there area lot of rumors floating around about whom he is backing.

It has been said that every movement eventually eats its own, and it is not only the Democrats and their identity politics that are having problems. The Republicans are arguing over who is the heir to Ronald Reagan and have set up tests that even Reagan couldn't pass. McCain is arguing he is the national security candidate and Romney is arguing he is the economic conservative.

Huckabee doesn't have any money and has been unable to attract any voters other than Evangelicals but Evangelicals provide a lot of votes for the Republicans, and I think Huckabee wants to be McCain's VP, although I don't consider that likely.

They are all ignoring another small but important part of the Republican coalition and that is Western Libertarians. Ron Paul finished second in Nevada and has raised tons of money and a lot of "safe" Republicans Congressional seats in the West went Democrat in 2006 because Libertarians voted Democrat. It is interesting.

At the Republican debate last Sat but Romney had the best line when he said he couldn't imagine the American people wanted Billy in the White House with nothing to do.

I thought Obama gave a great speech after the S.C. Primary but the contest moves to states with large Hispanic populations. I won't say prisons are a microcosm of America but there is a race war going on in our prisons between blacks and Latinos and it is hard to imagine Latinos voting for Obama. If Hillary ends up President she will owe a lot to the Hispanic voters.

First, the Democrats. In spite of getting more votes than Obama the primary was not good news for Hillary. Florida is an early voting state and people could vote as early as Dec15 which was before Iowa, N.H. and South Carolina. Hundreds of thousands of votes were cast early. Of the Democrats who voted yesterday a majority went for Obama. Another astonishing fact is that 50 per cent of Democrat voters said the Kennedy endorsement was important. Most people will say "Nobody tells me how to vote and I make up my own mind". This shows the "Camelot Mystique" holds a lot of value for Democrats. McCain has been talking about global warming among other reasons because he wants Arnold to endorse him. Arnold is almost a Kennedy and may sit the California Primary out or even endorse Obama.

I have a couple of friends who are political junkies, Democrats and Obama fans but more than anything they want a winner in November. They know the Republicans will fight dirty and they want the Clintons to throw everything they have against Obama to see how he handles it. They think Obama can't go negative or fight dirty because he has presented himself as a new type of politician and if he fights dirty he will lose all the young people who have flocked to him. They say watch the Democrat debate Thursday night as it will be the most important of the year.

AS to the Republicans, I would say "Straight Talk Express Goes off the Track". McCain, who lost the 2000 South Carolina Primary to Bush in what has to be the dirtiest fight in memory, apparently decided that was the way to win. He just made up a story that Romney had a timetable for ending the War. The lie caught Romney off guard and McCain followed up this lie with tem million robo-phone calls.

McCain has also been lying about his campaign being broke as he matched Romney in TV ads the last week of the campaign and his story of where he got the money isn't credible. McCain supposedly has the ability to attract Reagan Democrats and the press likes him. Why not? He is a true hero, usually says what he thinks, has been a thorn in Bush's side and has shown he will put the interest of the country ahead of party. But the money he has raised is troubling. What does McCain promise-in Michigan he said the jobs were not coming back, apparently the illegals stay and we have lots of war. So far McCain has been getting the votes of people who are pro-War and anti-War but the money may be a sign he is serious about a lot of war. One should never forget that war offers the opportunity to make fortunes and I can't help but suspect there are businesses who hope to get the inside track with McCain and profit from war the way Halliburton has. I hope this is not the case.

Finally, about the War. There is a real disconnect between the War the politicians are talking about and the War the generals are talking about. The Pentagon commissioned a study by McCaffee (former drug tsar) which reported to win against the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan we needed to double the size of the army which probably means a draft. The Republicans are acting like victory is just around the corner and the Democrats are acting like we can with draw painlessly without a civil war breaking out. I think our political class doesn't understand the politics of Iraq any better than they understood the politics of Vietnam. The Sunnis and Shiites are not going to reconcile and form a coalition like Republicans and Democrats here can do. The Sunnis didn't just repress the Shiites but tortured and murdered the families of Shiite leaders.

I think Huckabee wants to be McCains VP but that job clearly goes to Florida Governor Christ who endorsed McCain just in time to make headlines in every paper in Florida the Sunday before the Primary.

I think Giuliani is a cop and not a politician and was never going anywhere.

I think Hillary won because of the economy and racism. The sad fact that one in five Ohio voters were influenced by race makes me wonder if those people are right who say the country is not ready for a black President.

From Dan's son-in-law:

Thoughts on Hillary's Win and the state of things

"I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, except vaulting ambition which overleaps itself and falls upon the other…" -Macbeth

I think the bottom line is that both H and O possess very, very similar stances on the issues. Both are extremely bright, thoughtful and skilled politicians. I can see both as a huge improvement over W in important and fundamental ways (torture, Iraq, environment, education, health care, infrastructure). It is more a matter of base-appeal. He inspires the young and the people who want to see a change in overall tone and tack. She inspires the people who want stability and an improved status-quo.

My concern is that she is going to continue her fear vs. hope campaign (worked damn well last night, that 3 A.M. phone-call ad, reminded me of Cheney's wolves) and beat him into submission and go on to win (maybe) a divided 51% victory over Grumpy McCain.

She will have no mandate and half the country will walk away from the table as soon as she wins and spend their time hating on her and the Clinton Soap Opera will begin a revival run for 4/8 years and Bill will screw some chickie or there will be some trumped-up scandal and we become soaked in the blood of scandal and shallow name calling and back-stabbing in the Ego-Coliseum; meanwhile the world burns outside.

We are torturing innocent people right now. Can't we just have a flawed, work-in-progress country and government that at least TRIES to do the right thing? Can't our suffering and the suffering we cause others be due to accident or miscalculation and not hegemonic egotism or brutal, stupid cruelty?

I love the O not because he is SO much better than her or even McCain. He is attractive BECAUSE of his inexperience. The system hasn't hollowed him out (yet). Both Hillary and Grumpy-John, good, smart and dedicated as they are, have been so very corrupted by the system and have become so joined with the system (with its backroom deals and lobbyists and billions at stake for the very rich and the MIC (recall Why We Fight) that they have become emasculated and unable to see past their personal battles and alliances.

Obama, because of his biography and his neophyte-status, because he speaks to us as a leader of a movement –be it ill-defined or overly-emotional/idealistic-seems to represent a (last?) opportunity to bring everyone together to deal with the country's serious problems, foreign and domestic.

We can't chest-thump our way to financial, environmental or political stability. It will take the people acting as citizens, joining together for shared sacrifice and commitment.

Hillary just doesn't inspire that. She inspires fear in order to win because she wants it so badly. But whose interest does that truly serve. In her heart of hearts does she really think she, and she alone, can lead this country? Does she really think Obama is going to curl under the desk at the first sign of trouble? She doesn't have any vision beyond the crown on her head…he seems to stand for something other than, "you owe it to me and if you don't give it to me, we're all gonna die!"

Isn't it too late in the game for this kind of selfishness?

Isn't O the last, best hope?

You read everything I do….You see the trends. We need more than a "me first" president.

Sadly, I think fear (and the powers that be) are going to win the day…

-M

From the leaks in the NYT coming out of the Pentagon it is obvious a lot of generals are for Hillary. I don't find this fact surprising (the Army is worried that junior officers who make up the nuts and bolts of the organization are not re-enlisting) but I find the timing curious. A lot of people I know think Hillary is still in the race only because she sees McCain as a one term President and is positioning herself to be the nominee in 2012. THe Clinton will to power while awesome is scary. She is apparently willing to bring down the Democrat Party.

My take on Obama and Reverend Wright is that as a young man Obama's ambition was to be a Congressman from the South Side of Chicago and he thought joining Wright's Church would help him. Obama did run for Congress in 2002 and got beaten. When Obama found himself in a national campaign he realized Wright would be a liability and tried to distance himself from Wright. Wright's response has been to use his 15 minutes of fame to try and destroy Obama.

I think Wright tarred Obama with black rage which scares suburbanites which is why Obama got beaten in Philadelphia suburbs where he was expected to do well. Doug Orman, a long time political observer from Indiana, says Wright has killed Obama in rural Indiana, with comments that are regarded there as almost treasonous.

The Governor of North Carolina has now endorsed Hillary, in polls she is the favorite among Democrats to be the nominee, and she now leads McCain. If Hillary ends up President she will owe a lot to Wright. Obama's response to Wright has been tepid, and he needs to come out swinging against Wright in a way he has been unwilling to do against Hillary.

Chris Rock has long told us that the biggest racists in America were old black men and one can only wonder.

As for Obama's "bitterness" remarks, I thought what he meant was that since the government hasn't done anything for these people, they voted their values. Kim Richardson, a long time observer of Democrat politics, points to an interview Obama did with Charlie Rose in which he says it is understandable people who had lost their jobs would find comfort in things they had grown up with. As a person who grew up in rural America where religion and guns are just part of life, I would agree with Obama that his words were "inartful."

A Great Day and McCain in Victory

This is a great day for America and today I am very proud to be an American. As we have all been told, Obama's story is only possible here. I suspect Europeans who think of us as immature, gun-toting racists are reading their newspapers this morning and taking a new look at our country. I suspect I was one of the few people who watched McCain last night and I thought I would report. What should have been a brilliant move for McCain, speaking last night and appealing to the Hillary Democrats while they are bitter, in my opinion was a disaster. McCain chose New Orleans as the site of his speech as a place in which to emphasize his difference from Bush, which suggests that Obama is drawing blood by comparing the two. McCain did manage to list just about everything the government does as needing changing, but the problem was he kept grinning at inappropriate places which had the effect of making him appear psychotic. The old McCain, who has a pleasant persona and a sincere delivery, returned when he talked about Iraq, which may be the only issue he cares about or the only one he was telling the truth about. Many observers have said he is a bad liar. McCain did mange to get the facts right about Iraq, which he has had some problem doing in the past, and he seems to think claiming he was right about "The Surge" is a big selling point for him. The Surge has only been a success if one once again moves the goal posts. Bush told us the Surge would give Iraqi politicians some breathing room in which to bring about political reconciliation. The Joint Chiefs were opposed to the Surge and Bush promised them he would push hard for a political solution over there. The Iraqi politicians are no closer to a deal than they ever have been. The new reason for claiming the Surge a success is that has decreased violence. That is probably more do the fact Iraqis follow American politics and have concluded we are on our way out. None of our politicians wants to talk about the falling dollar or talk seriously about rising oil prices. Goldman Saks is predicting $145/ barrel oil by the end of the year and $200 a barrel oil next year. We used the lat oil crisis to get oil out of power production and we need to use this one to get oil out of transportation. This will take time and the next Congress should be willing to devote at least a trillion dollars toward an energy policy. $200 a barrel oil will do serious harm to our economy, because it is both inflationary, in that it causes prices to rise, and deflationary, in that consumers have less money to spend. The Fed knows how to deal with both deflation and inflation but not both at the same time. We are in for a rough ride.

P.S. Don't be fooled by the large crowds Obama attracts. The last two politicians who attracted large crowds were McGovern and Goldwater.