From Powerline:

But, regardless of what happens in November, the sustained pouting of Clinton’s supporters deserves comment. Contrast their attitude towards Obama with the attitude of conservatives towards McCain. Unlike Clinton’s core supporters, many conservatives actually have important substantive disagreements with their party’s nominee (campaign finance reform, the Gang of 14, interrogation of terrorists, etc). And many conservatives reiterated these disagreements after McCain became the presumptive nominee. Within a few weeks, though, the venting subsided. Most conservatives decided to support McCain. Those who couldn’t moved on (in some cases to Robert Barr); they did not continue to whine or otherwise seek attention.

To be sure, Clinton came very close to being nominated, and her supporters believe that she lost out due to quirks in the rules. This was not the case on the Republican side, although McCain did benefit from open primaries and (above all) the absence of a rival the right, collectively, could love. But Clinton lost fair and square, and it’s been almost three months since she was forced to admit defeat. Yet the pouting persists.

The partisan in me is delighted. As a political/cultural phenomenon, though, it’s somewhat disconcerting to witness such childish behavior on this large a scale.

This echoed my sentiments so exactly–how is it that Conservatives, so many of whom are so anti-McCain, have managed to back him solidly, while these Clinon Liberals have dug their heels in against Obama?  I can’t figure this one out…

The Hill reports on Billy-boy’s latest gaffe:

DENVER — Bill Clinton appeared to undermine Sen. Barack Obama again Tuesday.

The former president, speaking in Denver, posed a hypothetical question in which he seemed to suggest that that the Democratic Party was making a mistake in choosing Obama as its presidential nominee.

He said: “Suppose you’re a voter, and you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?”

Then, perhaps mindful of how his off-the-cuff remarks might be taken, Clinton added after a pause: “This has nothing to do with what’s going on now.”

The floodgates of the media and blogosphere are about to erupt with a torrent of articles examining exactly why Sen. Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic Party’s nomination to Sen. Barack Obama when a year ago her coronation appeared to be the more likely outcome. All sorts of angles will be covered and there can be little doubt that a variety of things contributed to her narrow defeat. (more…)

There is an absurd notion floating (or perhaps burning wild-fire-like) throughout the anti-war camp that Iraq is some invention of the Bush Administration.  Now, while I have professed many times to having been a critic of our entrance into Iraq due to what I perceived as poor (and avoidable) timing, I take offense at the notion that somehow this is Bush’s war, pawned off on the American public and the US Congress alike in some epic hoodwinking–as though there was no lead-up whatsoever during the Clinton years.

This ignores history, of course, and parces quite selectively the situation in Iraq in ways that are utterly untrue. (more…)

Tuesday’s election results highlighted challenges for both Democrats and Republicans.

Republicans received a hard shot in Mississippi. Greg Davis (for whom I campaigned and who was a well-qualified candidate) narrowly lost a special congressional election in a district President George W. Bush carried four years ago with 62% of the vote. Democrats pulled off the win by smartly nominating a conservative, Travis Childers, from a rural swing part of the district who disavowed Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hit Mr. Davis from the right.

This blow to the GOP came after two other special congressional election losses in recent months. Republicans lost former House Speaker Denny Hastert’s Illinois seat and Rep. Richard Baker’s Louisiana seat.

Both of those losses can be attributed to bad candidates. But that only shows the GOP can’t take “safe” seats for granted when Democrats run conservatives who distance themselves from their national party leaders. The string of defeats should cure Republicans of the habit of simply shouting “liberal! liberal! liberal!” in hopes of winning an election. They need to press a reform agenda full of sharp contrasts with the Democrats.

Why is it tough sledding for Republicans? Public revulsion at GOP scandals was a large factor in the party’s 2006 congressional defeat. Some brand damage remains, as does the downward pull of the president’s approval ratings. But the principal elements are the Iraq war and a struggling economy.

Gallup’s 2007 report found that fewer voters identify themselves as Republicans now than at any point in the past 20 years – despite the fact that less than a fifth of Americans agree with Mr. Obama’s call to rapidly withdraw from Iraq. And while many Americans are concerned about the economy, most are satisfied with their own finances.

As Republican ranks declined, the number of independents and Democrats grew. Has the bottom been reached? It’s too early to know. But Americans are acknowledging progress in Iraq, economists are suggesting the economy will be in better shape this fall, and a recent ABC/Washington Post poll found GOP identification rising.

What is clear is that John McCain and Republicans will prevail only if they convince voters that there are profound consequences at stake in Iraq, and that more and better jobs will follow from the GOP’s approach of lowering taxes, opening trade, and ending earmarks and other pro-growth policies.

Republicans also face challenges with the young (whose opposition to the war and attraction to Mr. Obama have made them Democrats) and Hispanics (the fastest-growing part of the electorate). A recent survey offers some encouraging news. Mr. McCain is polling as high as 41% with Hispanics – close to President Bush’s 44% in 2004.

Democrats shouldn’t be complacent after Tuesday. Their problems start with Mr. Obama’s 41-point loss to Hillary Clinton in West Virginia. Mr. Obama lost the primary because the rejection of him by blue-collar voters is hardening. The last Democrat to win the presidency without carrying the Mountain State was Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

Barely half of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia say they’re ready to support Mr. Obama against Mr. McCain today. Without solid support from these voters, Mr. Obama will be in trouble in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Wisconsin and other battlegrounds.

So far, Mr. Obama owes his success to elites captivated by his personality. But in the general election, most folks will care more about a candidate’s philosophy and stand on the issues. And what’s considered mainstream values in a general election is different than in a primary.

Mr. Obama knows this, which is why he peppered his North Carolina primary night speech with culturally conservative language. And it is also why he is reaching out to Jewish voters.

Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain 61%-32% among Jews. John Kerry won the Jewish vote 74%-25% in 2004. A weak performance for Mr. Obama could make it harder to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Florida. It could even put New Jersey in play.

Then there are the record low congressional approval ratings. No Congress has fallen as far and as fast as the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid-led House and Senate. Unlike President Bush, congressional Democrats will be on the ballot this fall, and can do little to improve their lackluster record before then. It must also be disconcerting for Ms. Pelosi that the Democrats’ winning formula has meant conceding ground on guns, prayer, partial-birth abortion and other issues that matter to social conservatives.

Both parties face major challenges and have little time to alter the dynamics of the election to their advantage. Recognizing underlying problems and correcting them within a matter of a couple of months is one of the supreme challenges in politics. Whichever party does that fast and well will benefit come November.

This article first appeared on the Wall Street Journal Opinion Page.  Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

~by Lisaed

I find myself wondering lately what it must be like to be one of those all powerful “persuadable” voters. I’m charming. I’m conservative. I’m not persuadable. While I may not be an ardent supporter of John McCain I am an ardent supporter of all those wanting to keep Barack Obama out of the White House. In other words, I’m not as passionate about putting a republican in the White House this time round as I am about keeping the likely democratic nominee out.

It’s no surprise that I say to you I was never one of those republicans who were o.k. with the prospect of a President Obama. I was never going to be one of those Obamicans Barack likes to think will flock to him come November. In short, I never liked Barack Obama. I didn’t like him before we heard the “God Damn America” rantings from the Reverend Wright. I didn’t like him before his elitist comments about small town Americans. But what about those persuadable voters? Are they like me at all? Do they find they like Barack Obama less and less the more they learn about this this relatively unknown candidate for President? I hope so because one thing on which we can all agree is it’s those persuadable voters - those who have not yet made up their minds - some of them democrats, some of them republicans, most of them independents who will determine the next leader of the free world.

I’d like to be inside the mind of a persuadable voter. Do they ever cringe like I do when they watch Barack Obama? Going back about eight long weeks ago as I watched what was still the “walk on water” pre-Reverend Wright version of Barack Obama speaking to emotionally charged enormous crowds complete with crying and fainting women he didn’t inspire within me hope. No it was something much different that I felt. I felt angry. I was angry that democratic primary voters were so enamored with this guy whose gift for oratory blinded them to the fact they were all too willing to place a just barely U.S. Senator basically a back bencher from the Illinois State Senate in the White House. The more cool the more calm the more collected Barack Obama was in front of these crowds of thousands the more uncomfortable I became watching this man preach from his pulpit to the masses. The Obama Campaign must have sensed my discomfort cause by Texas they were going for smaller venues where they could limit crowd sizes to just a couple thousand.

Did persuadable voters laugh (not with him but at him) like I did when I heard that score? A 37.….a 37? Real men can bowl and if they can’t they fake it. Even I can shoot better than a 37 and I count as one of my most embarrassing moments an incident in a bowling alley circa 1988. Did persuadable voters think Obama looked silly dancing alongside Ellen Degeneres on her show? So much for stereotypes. The point of all this is Obama is far less comfortable when forced to step down from his pulpit and walk amongst the little people. His body language alone confirms this as it did on his recent appearance on “The View” where he sat fidgeting on the couch like a school child anxious for recess. If Obama can’t sit still next to Joy Behar what will he do when sitting alongside Ahmadinejad in one of those without conditions meetings he wants to have with leaders of rogue nations?

Were persuadable voters shocked and appalled last Friday as I was when I heard those shameful comments Barack Obama made about small town Americans?

“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Were persuadable voters disappointed with the great orator who instead of apologizing tried to explain away his ill conceived remarks by blaming the government for the bitterness he believes small town Americans feel…..the bitterness Obama believes is the impetus behind their faith in God and their support for second amendment rights as well as their disdain for things like illegal immigration. Did those persuadable voters buy his promise that a vote for him would help alleviate that bitterness because this new messiah could solve all their problems with big government?

“”And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.”

I know I’m a proud republican who believes strongly in the politics of personal responsibility, but were persuadable voters swallowing Obama’s kool-aid that it is from the hand of the government and the government alone that Americans can live the American dream? My goodness his remarks smacked of socialism.

Lastly I wonder do persuadable voters believe that Barack Obama shares their values? I’m not so sure because since the Reverend Wright scandal I’ve seen Obama views the world too often through the lens of color - he sees the grievances of black people and the bitterness of lower class white people. And so I’m left to wonder if his untraditional life story allows him to see and even understand the shared values of all Americans. After I heard his Philadelphia speech on race I looked at my husband and said I think I know now what it must have felt like to live in 1964 America. That speech did not inspire within me hope but once again anger because I believed in that speech Obama focused too much on where this country still has work to do and not enough on the very real progress that has indeed been made in race relations in America.

Obama likes to tell us about the audacity of hope and yet so often when I listen to him I see him pointing to our shortcomings, to our anger, to our bitterness, to our despair. Obama presents himself as the change candidate who inspires hope among the masses but more and more lately I’m feeling that Obama’s politics of hope are nothing but a farce because what Obama is truly preaching is nothing short of the politics of a liberal elitist with socialist tendencies. Did he think we wouldn’t catch on because he is black? We’re an equal opportunity country and I guess the lesson learned is that black people in America can aspire to be snobby liberals too and I wonder now if armed with this new knowledge about Barack Obama if persuadable voters are really so persuadable after all.

The Borowitz Report has revealed a startling new tactic the Obama campaign is taking, reinvigorating itself by shifting the “bitterness” from the voters to the candidate:

“You want to talk bitter?” Obama said to his audience. “How about losing the Pennsylvania primary after you were supposed to have this nomination locked up – that’ll make you bitter, for damn sure.”

Sen. Obama said that after Rev. Wright controversy, the ABC News debate, the flag lapel criticism, and the “red phone” ads, “You can bet your ass I know a thing or two about who’s bitter.”

Ankle Biting Pundits reveal the tab Sen. Larry Craig has been left with over the bathroom fiasco.  The lawyer’s bill is probably even more of a fiasco.

GOP Senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig has to pay a huge chunk of his $407,000 legal bill resulting from his guilty plea to “Disorderly Conduct” (i.e. trying to get busy with another guy in an airport toilet) out of his own pocket, and not use campaign funds like he tried to do previously.

And this funny image comes direct from Laugh@Liberals:

So lighten up.  Things aren’t always dark and somber and serious.  Just most of the time….

~by Michael A Minton

I have been watching this situation between Israel and the Palestinians for a long time. I was a freelance reporter for Talon News when Condoleeza Rice was named Secretary of State. And I remember her making promises that she would spend however much time was necessary to hammer-out a peace agreement between the two sides.

Then came a spate of Palestinian rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and kidnappings, not just of Israelis, but of Western reporters, workers, and so on. There was, of course, retaliation for these acts on the part of Israel, who has every right to defend and protect herself. What started out as a hopeful process has sadly turned back to “the way we were” for the Israelis and Palestinians.

I actually was hopeful when Yasser Arafat died that a more moderate leader would be able to step to the fore of Palestinian politics. And one did: Mahmoud Abbas, who was at least ready to admit that the state of Israel had a right to exist…kind of a rarity in those parts.

(more…)

 from Frankly Speaking
With the primaries all but over, the next question is who will be the running mates for Obama or Clinton, and John McCain.

The candidates will tell us that their Vice-Presidential running mate will be selected purely on the basis of who is most capable to assume the role of president. It’s the right thing to say.

But it’s a bunch of baloney. The selection, as always, will be based on strategy, mainly according to owed political favors and who can better help them get elected, qualifications be damned.

George Herbert Walker Bush certainly didn’t think Dan Quayle was the best man in the land to sit one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. He selected Quayle based on region, popularity polls and Quayle’s youth and good looks.

John F. Kennedy despised Lyndon Johnson, but it made political sense to bring on the man who came in second place at the convention, and who hailed from a southern state to, uh, balance the ticket.

Was Spiro Agnew the best Richard Nixon could do? Doubtful. Walter Mondale balanced Jimmy Carter’s deep south ticket by representing the northern mid-west. Eight years later, Mondale parlayed his presidential by selecting am eastern state woman (Rep. Geraldine Ferraro) for a running mate, hoping to garner the female vote. She had but four years experience in the House.

Of them all, Ronald Reagan seems to have selected a running mate based on experience and capacity to handle the job, That being George H.W. Bush.

It’s always been my belief that Dick Cheney was predetermined for our current president by the Republican power structure long before the nomination process was over in 2000. Cheney was selected, in my opinion, to be the strength behind the president.

In this coming election, I believe we will see a new criteria. Ethnicity, race and gender will play a bigger role than what region of the country he or she lives in. Experience and capability will likely play a secondary role to election strategy.

If Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee, she’ll want to counter McCain’s southwest appeal, by selecting an Hispanic male from the same region. It would be suicide to pick another female. My guess: Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is half Spanish and does bring a host of experience to the ticket.

If Barack Obama becomes the nominee, he’ll certainly select a left wing liberal, but he’ll be ever careful of not selecting another ethnic minority. Strategically, that would be too risky. He certainly has the black vote. A woman, especially one from the same state as his Republican opponent would make sense, especially after defeating a woman, thus I predict Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona would be on Obama’s ticket. After all, she did endorse him over Hillary.

Then, there’s Senator John McCain. It all depends on the Hillary versus Barack outcome. If he runs against Hillary, I think he’ll select a conservative woman, much like Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey. Or Senator Elizabeth Dole, from North Carolina, popular wife of war hero and Senator, Bob Dole.

If he is opposed by Barack Obama, I would expect him to search for a dynamic black to counter the minority vote, such as Colin Powell, who always said he would not run for president. However, he never said anything about not running for Vice-President. Condi Rice is another possibility, but I think the two of them were at odds concerning the Iraq war. Minorities aside, looking east to New York state where popular ex-governor, George Pataki would make a lot of sense.

Let’s just hope, whoever becomes the next Vice-President, he or she is fully able to handle the job. Considering some of the past choices, it’s cause for worry.

What say you?