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Wing and I were talking the other day about the way the Democrats have completely forgotten everything they ever learned when Clinton was elected, particularly the need to get out with substantially more talons showing than they have recently. (We were wishing and wishing and WISHING that they would call out some of the totally ridiculous lies that were told at the Republican convention, for instance, and they've obviously elected not to.)
I commented that the only person to run a successful Democratic presidential campaign in recent memory was James Carville, and you know why? Because he was an unapologetic asshole who had no sentimental attachment to the idea of taking the high road, which is what gets the Democrats killed every damn time. If they had anybody who was willing to get out there and absolutely flat-out lie with the total lack of remorse shown by, say, Cheney or Zell Miller, they would stand a far greater chance of winning. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's a fact.
So who did they get now? A guy from the Dukakis campaign. Brilliant.
Because we know how well that worked out.
I hope you're enjoying Karl Rove, because I increasingly believe he's going to reign until January, 2009.
I thought Zell Miller WAS a Democrat!?
(Sorry. I could not resist that.)
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at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]I'm so frustrated by the Democrats right now that I can't even compose my thoughts. They just seem so inert. High road, low road - at this point I would just like to see Kerry take A road. To me the case against Bush is so crystal clear I just don't understand why Kerry can't seem to make it - he shouldn't even need to lie - Bush has provided plenty of "truth" for Kerry to work with.
Seriously - I'm Canadian(!) and I'm losing sleep over this election.
Also - no kidding - like 10 minutes ago I read an old interview with Paul Begala in which he said it was Zell Miller who recommended he and Carville to Bill Clinton. hmm...
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]I'm Canadian too, and find myself constantly baffled by the polls showing Bush either in a dead heat or taking the lead.
"How can this be?" I wonder.
The military and intelligence establishments are critical of him, the gay-bashing social conservatives are dissatisfied, and the fiscal conservatives are tearing their hair out over the deficit.
I don't blame the Dems. I think they are doing what they can. It's the media who are failing to report these rebuttals.
They want to give the impression of a close race so that they can control the outcome, just like they did in 2000.
It's all part of Rupert Murdoch's grand design.
Come to think of it, I've never met a dude named Rupert I could trust...
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]They need to hire the guy who ran the last two SC democratic governor campaigns. Sure he lost the last one, but the fact that it was even close between an incumbent who screwed up badly and a challenger whom everybody loved is a testament to this guy's talent.
He is the Democratic Karl Rove, and his name is Kevin Geddings. There is nothing he will not do to get his man elected, including running ads that not only insult the other candidate but the people who vote for him, and the children of the people who vote for him. He will hijack web sites, create mountains out of molehills, you name it. Last I heard he was running a PR firm.
I don't like the guy, but the Kerry campaign could certainly use some help in the nasty department.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]ok, so the proKerry camp needs some color from the other side here... I think if you check Algore's last few rants you'll find plenty of venom... add a sprinkle of the Rev. Al Sharpton in it, and man.....that's one spicy-ah-meatball!!
Bush has left himself open.. clearly.
the media's darling (with Due respect to our Canadian friends) is still Kerry... since none of the papers really seem to state that the majority of soft money advertising is on his side... only the more conservative writings at Foxnews, Drudgereport, and Newsmax.
p.s. anyone get a glimpse of AlFranken going postal in a radio interview ?
as for taking the high road... Dems need to take a stand, and realy on its merits rather than bobbing and weaving around the issues... there are points to be made and votes to win, although I personally think 90% of the people out there know which way they are going to vote.
Zell Miller (and this is coming from a Repub. voter here) was a pawn... of course he was!! he got to deliver all the fire and brimstone evilness to counter the evilness tossed at bush during the Boston convention. And since it came from a Democrat mouth.... Kerry can't cry "Partisan Rhetoric!!"
so then Bush got to play the "good cop" routine
James Carville is a bully, and he's only as good as long as he can out-scream a rival... I've seen him toss out a CLEARLY rediculous statement, then defend it with un-ending jibber-jabber.... but that's his effective tool (I respectfully dis-like his skillz)
I would LOVE to see Carville and Cheney or Miller go head to head in a debate.... someone's head would explode, and then we'd know who won
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Bush's campaign warchest is the largest in history. Kerry's needs all the help he can get, whether it be soft money, hard money or slightly runny money.
And Zell Miller was no pawn. He knew exactly what he was doing up in NYC.
His current book is a toxic faux-folksy jeremiad that excoriates the Democratic Party, and reveals the author to be nothing but a bitter old pro-segregationist Dixiecrat.
I don't see how that remotely compares to Barak Obama's keynote address (or any other speech) during the convention in Boston.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Now, y'all have to be nicer to Paul than you would the rest of the Republicans, because we go back to . . . what, first grade? Heh. I have seen him at about . . . what, eight years old? . . . being carried around while wearing a turban and biting a giant papier mache turkey leg. (Okay, it was in a play.)
Also, he was in (I think) the band that was playing on The Strangest Night Of My Entire High School Existence, also known as the Human Concerns Committee Dance At Which One Guy's Family Tried To Sneak In While His Brother Was Doing Yoga On The Back Steps Of The Girls' Gym.
But I digress.
Aside from the media love of Kerry (no), I agree with much of what he said. Well, aside from Zell Miller being a pawn, which . . . no. "Take a stand" is kind of what I mean by getting the claws out. They're being too mushy about everything, and Paul points out, there are points to be made, and they ain't making them.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]P.S. The turkey leg thing may have been the most un-PC display to ever take place at a Quaker school.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Heh. I'm a little baffled...was that a Thanksgiving pageant or a production of Gunga Din?
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]ooooow... I got outed as a closet drama-king with a thing for large poultry. What Linda DIDN'T mention is that she had a starring role in reading the lines onto the tape that was played while us kiddies acted out the parts... it was the highlight of the 1st-4th grade part of school.
It was VERY un-PC (that was back when there was no PC and Carter was getting his a$$ handed to him over Iran), and I technically had a harem of women bringing me into the stage area...
Not bad for me either since I had a pimp hat that was 2.5 feet tall on my 3 foot body...
As for Zell being a pawn, I should have used the term "Insulated Republican Mouth Piece", and I concede greatness to Spazmo for using words I didn't know on the GRE exam, nor do I know them now... but I'm impressed with jeremiad
(We engineers don't like to write in complete sentences anyway, but I know excoriate)
Zell took pot-shots as a lame duck Senator that is pissed at his party. Don't talk Dixiecrat as long as the Good Ol' Boy Democrat Sen. Byrd from West Virginny is still running the show on the Sen. Intelligence Committee (oops, he USED to, but since then, our boy Shelby has screwed that up with leaking too much info to the press)
As for Soft money... Soros and moveon PAC has billions ready to pour in, making Bush's war chest (which is big... insert your own "big chest/nice rack" joke here) not so impressive. Add to that the historical fiction that is Michael Moore's movie... lots of cash for the Dems there.
I won't go into the Bruce Springsteen concert to be... but I digress.
Obama's speech was fine, that's how it SHOULD be. McCain's speech was ok, Guiliani was getting a little intense, and the Arnold was not the brightest bulb, but he had an inspiring speech (if you can't get by his girlie-man comment, I feel bad for you...)
I got over Kerry's speech and toy-soldier salute... and I knew Gore's rant-from-hell was coming, and I'll even concede the French Lady's speech (I got lost alot there...) and her thanking the crowd with "Merci..Merci"... but don't say that Boston was not as acrimonious (sp?) as New York. Both were pretty hateful.
p.s. I don't like the French, so don't ask me to be nice to them... love the fries and kissing and Le Tour... but no mas!
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Actually, someone else had the same idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/politics/campaign/06kerry.html
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Honestly, I'm just confused by the whole damn thing. Everyone is talking ad naseum about how "the youth" have to vote, and how young women in particularly need to vote as this crazy monolith, and I can't cross UMN's bridge between the banks without tripping over someone trying to get me to register, and all for what? I will vote, and I will hold my nose and vote for Kerry, but this election finds me even more frustrated than the last one in that the entire business just seems ridiculous. The Dems a) appear entirely ineffective, and b) represent my concerns marginally better than the Republicans.
Sorry for the rant, I just had to get that off my chest, and if I try it in my department, I'm either fed the "VOTE NADER!!!!" spiel hardcore, or I practically have the to fight off people wanting to personally mail my absentee ballot to Palm Beach County for me...
But yeah, Kerry? Frustrating.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Yeah... they don't have the GET OUT AND VOTE push around here much...
youth, women, hispanics, activist burn-outs, illegal aliens, convicts, dead people, Palm Beach County FL... get 'em all out to vote!
thanks MTV, we get it, really we do...
It does gets old.... let the 18% of us who can think make the decision, the rest of you eat pot-pies and syndicated Dawson's Creek
(wow , I'm also a closet cynic!!)
I say Vote Nader.... or write in for Fred Thompson.
Either way, my electoral votes are about a lock for Bush as they get. Dems get nothing and like it in Alabama... except for Rep. Bud Cramer...
he rulez
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Paul, if you have any more stories about Linda as a schoolkid I would pay good money to hear them!
Ok, it's Canadian money, so be warned, but still...
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]In the spirit of the World cup of hockey (aka Canada Cup), I'll have to show solidarity by NOT telling "old-school" stories about Linda and me.
Go USA!! (at least they beat the Russians)
actually I'm sure she has better ones to tell about me than I do about her... and can describe them much better too.
With all of this election talk, I'm waiting for Linda to detail how she and I went head-to-head in an 8th grade election.... She creamed me in the debate portion
Some of our best times were when we were in Calculus class... nothing is easy in school when your mom is the math teacher. (Linda's mom, not mine)
Somehow they sent our whole math class out on a camping and survival safari in the woods for 3 days while in 7th or 8th grade.... nothing beats a bunch of smart kids doing Outward Bound and orienteering and eating with a spoon you carved from some stank-ass piece of wood, led by a mad Welshman with coke-bottle glasses.
We should have all gotten disentary
All props to Linda's mom though... She was better than my college math professor, and her course was harder too, from the exact same book!
And her dad was very nice to me, since I sat outside of his office waiting for Quaker discipline alot in middle school.
my confession is that my highest math grade was a C in college...
not bad for an engineer eh ?
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Oh, my God, that's true. I ran for something once. In retrospect, I can't believe that.
And yes, we were both in my Mom's math class for two years. Which, while it was occasionally embarrassing, really doesn't hold a candle to the fact that my father taught sex ed. (Oh, yes. Really. THAT, I am still traumatized by.) But yes, my parents are both nice. And were nice then.
Wow, that eighth grade camping thing had almost escaped my memory, but that's right, too. And there was orienteering, that's true, although I totally don't remember doing that. I know I did.
We also did an ecology-of-the-beach trip in seventh grade where we poked around in the wet sand and whatnot. That one, I only remember because one of my friends and I had a formative experience watching the science teacher cross the little quad area wrapped in a towel. That is literally the only thing I remember about that trip.
There really are some pretty highly dorky stories about me, which I keep meaning to get around to telling one of these days. You really can't appreciate my history in dorkitude until you know (1) The Carnation Story; (2) The Orange Peel Story; and (3) The Dumping My Dinner In My Lap Story. (That last one, I told in the first F&D journal entry ever, I think.)
But I digress. From politics.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Jenny, I've learned during the past two elections that the primaries are probably your best and only chance to vote for someone you really believe in. But turnout for the primaries is pretty dismal, and typically the major parties are able to push through the candidate they think ought to get the nomination, for whatever reason.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]Primaries... now THAT's politics with the volume set to "deep-fry"
what ever happened to Dean... and why did Clarke melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. did the Clintons REALLY pour water on him ?
I agree that the primaries are where you can get the most bang for your vote. I think we can all handle the intra-party mud-slinging better than the actual election race lying.... I'm still not sure why. Is it because the stakes are higher ?
I know that an Orange Peel story exists, but I forgot how it goes.... and I had been trying to block out that class Linda's dad taught.... nothing will beat having read aloud in class from the sex ed book and trying NOT to laugh (it was futile).
I'm laughing right now just THINKING about it
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
[ link ]I guess there was a lot of rancorous politics going on with the local school board, because our sex-ed class was very conservative.
The only remotely sexual thing we were shown was a short cartoon featuring canoodling bunny rabbits.
Rabbits. Probably not the best choice of animal if you're trying to discourage teen pregnancy.
at 05:51 PM on 09.06.04
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