The threat to America at our weakened far northwestern flank

by: MurlandGuy

Sun Sep 07, 2008 at 08:17 PM EDT

With things apparently heating up between the U.S. and Russia, we need to be on our guard everywhere, including in the Arctic region, where we are separated from Russia only by the Bering Strait.  Our own state of Alaska sits astride that strait, due east of the Big Red Bear.  Do we have the kind of leadership in Alaska we need to face down the supposedly reformed Commies, if the situation goes critical?  If that red phone rings at 3am, do we have the right people in place to answer the call?

Sadly, the answer to that is, 'apparently not'. Governor Sarah Palin is hiding from the U.S. media. If she is too cowardly to face our lapdog corporate national media, how can we expect her to face Putin and his forces of world domination?  For the safety of the nation, not only should she not be a heartbeat from the Presidency, she should be impeached by the legislature of Alaska for failure to show adequate courage in the face of the threat to Alaska, and our nation.

Please, Senator McCain, do the right thing, and find someone brave enough to take that position of being "one heartbeat from the Presidency", who won't whine about her treatment by our docile media puppies (what, is Gov. Palin afraid of being licked to death?).

You have proudly noted your past record of working with Democrats, and rightly so.  Replacing Sarah Palin with the braver and tougher Hillary Clinton would demonstrate both bipartisanship and resolve, and serve as yet another supreme act of patriotism in your long career as a public servant.  The applause Senator Clinton received during mention of her name at the Republican National Convention tell me that this would be a winner, and would bring us together as a nation.

Senator McCain, I ask this as a concerned American citizen.  Be the patriot you have always been.  Remember, Country First!

 
UPDATE: Hah, Gov. Palin has decided to let a media puppy dog lick her face after all!  Charlie Gibson of ABC News gets to do the honors.  Personally, I still think exchanging her for Senator Clinton would send a better message of bipartisanship and Country First!-ism.

Wolverines!

UPDATE #2: More on the upcoming interview of Governor Sarah Palin by ABC's Charlie Gibson - this from Josh Marshall:

...it's pretty clear this farce is going to be close to unwatchable. Set aside that this comes just on the heels of McCain campaign manager Rick Davis saying Palin would not sit for any interviews "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference." The tell comes high up in the AP story by David Bauder. The second graf reads ...

Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days, most likely Thursday and Friday, said McCain adviser Mark Salter.

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

Highlights from Day 2 of the Democratic Convention

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 09:57 AM EDT

And here's Hillary Clinton, making an impassioned call for party unity:

Response To Professor Vatz

by: Columnist

Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 05:35 AM EDT

Richard Vatz has posted two comments on Red Maryland that warrant a response.  I will repond to him here rather than on the Red Maryland site because I respect the rights of the RedMaryland website users to have their own forum for expressing their views without being disturbed by those who disagree with them.  Fortunately, people with opinions similar to my own can express their views here.   

 Professor Vatz states that Joe Biden's past is an indication of his character deficiencies.  I could easily counter that by describing John McCain's past in detail, including why he left his first wife.  I could logically conclude that he is a political opportunist rather than the upstanding person of character that the media has presented him as.  I will not do that.  Senators McCain and Biden have both admitted they have made mistakes in their past and have apologized for them. Besides, my opposition to John McCain is because he supports policies that are wrong for the United States.  I would rather that be the main point because that is what this whole election is about. 

Professor Vatz then states that Senator Obama committed a grave mistake by not selecting Senator Clinton as his running mate.  He is entitled to his opinion, but he has a lot of holes in his assertions.  First and foremost, how does he know that Senators Obama and Clinton did not discuss this and that Senator Clinton stated that she did not want to be his VP choice?  Senator Clinton has an excellent chance of being Senate Majority Leader.  Many people feel Senator Clinton can serve the country much better in that post.   The two Senators may have discussed this and agreed that Senator Clinton would neither seek nor be offerred the VP slot.  Secondly, Senator Clinton stated that if her supporters supported her because of the needs of GIs, single mothers and other persons who have no voice, then they need to vote for Senator Obama so that those individuals can be helped by a Democratic President working with a Democratic Congress.  Third, if Senator Obama is President for 8 years, Senator Clinton will only be 68 years old.  She can succeed him,  serve her two terms and leave office at the young age of 76.

Professor Vatz then states that John McCain should select Mitt Rommney as his running mate.  I hope McCain follows his advice.  Rommney has flip-flopped on issues perhaps more than McCain.  He is more elitist than McCain.  He feels his sons served America better by working for his campaign than by going to Iraq.  This somewhat reminds me of the Andy Harris-Chris Meekins position-Iraq is a great war as long as other people fight it.  So, Professor, let McCain select the Mittster.  He has already been vetted by conservative talk radio.  Senator McCain could make a bold choice and select Kay Bailey Hutchinson, but I don't think he will.  I don't want him to.  I want him to listen to Professor Vatz.

Election 2008 Jib Jab Cartoon

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 03:21 PM EDT

FISA Failure, Dems Capitulate

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Jul 09, 2008 at 06:54 PM EDT

Bush' version of the FISA bill, with telecom immunity, passed the senate 69-28. And again, Ben Cardin was on the right side of the issue and Barbara Mikulski was on the wrong side. I was an Mfume supporter during the last primary, but I've been very impressed with Cardin since he took office. I just wish Mikulski weren't playing the moderate so much now. Whenever she does retire, getting a bona fide progressive elected to that seat needs to be priority number one.

Side note: Clinton voted against immunity, while Obama voted for it. Of course, Clinton now has the luxury of not running a campaign, but it's another pro-Hillary notch in my book. I started the primary season not really believing her or trusting her, and she's slowly managed to earn my respect. She'd make a great majority leader...

Delegate Math

by: ScottGoldberg

Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 07:19 AM EDT

If you use the Delegate counts for MSNBC, Barack Obama has 1728 Dels & Hilliary Clinton has 1596 Dels.

If we give half of the remaining People's Delegates to each candidate, that puts Sen. Obama at 1932 needing 92 more Super Delegates to get to 2024 and the nomination. 

Supposing we continue to use the MSNBC numbers, exactly 500 Super Delegates are committed.  Requiring all the Super Delegates to come out and declare their allegiances might be more headache than is needed.  All someone needs to do is find 100 of the remaining 294 Super Delegates to come out for Sen. Obama. 

Using that math, if a little more than 1 in 3 Super Delegates supports Sen. Obama, it's all over.  And, I have feeling that many Super Dels that committed to Clinton before voters went to the polls are likely to switch if their state/district went for Sen. Obama.

Why Won't Cardin and Hoyer Declare?

by: Isaac Smith

Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 03:59 PM EDT

Ben Cardin and Steny Hoyer are both Democratic superdelegates that have yet to declare their preferences for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Here's Cardin in PolitickerMD:

U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Baltimore) will not endorse a Democratic candidate for president “until all the voting is completed in June,” said Sue Walitsky, the communications director for the senator.

“He wants to give everyone a chance to vote,” Walitsky told PolitickerMD.com.

The comments come one-day after Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) defeated Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in Pennsylvania, which means the contest will continue until at least May 6, when voters in North Carolina and Indiana go to the polls.

Walitsky said Cardin believes Obama and Clinton are “two strong candidates,” which is part of the reason why he hasn’t endorsed.

After the voting is complete in early June, Cardin plans to endorse a candidate “sooner rather than later,” according to Walitsky.

And here's Hoyer: 

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Mechanicsville) said voters have yet to make a “definitive judgment” as to who should be the Democratic nominee for president.

The majority leader, one of the party’s superdelegates, has yet to commit to either candidate, and said he had “no plan to declare” in the near future.

“The prize for me is winning the November election,” Hoyer said, adding, “I intend to vote in a way that best accomplishes that.”

He would not say which candidate he preferred, saying, “I’m happy with either.”

I appreciate that Hoyer and Cardin want to keep their options open, but let's get real here. Given Obama's pledged delegate lead and given that Clinton would need to win about 70% of the vote in each of the remaining contests in order to overtake Obama (you can check this out for yourself with Slate's delegate counter), there's no way Clinton can win without getting the superdelegates to override the pledged delegate vote, and that's simply not going to happen. The main (and maybe only) reason for the supers to back en masse Clinton over Obama is that they get spooked that Obama will crumble in November. Again, that seems rather unlikely, given that he's endured both the Jeremiah Wright controversy and the "bitter" comment controversy, and (at this point, anyway) still does as well as Clinton against John McCain.

So why don't Cardin and Hoyer state their preferences and help bring this primary contest to a long overdue end? (This is a question not just for them, but for all undeclared superdelegates.) I imagine it's rather complicated: Hoyer is a member of the Democratic leadership, and backing either candidate would be a rather major breach of protocol -- though that hasn't stopped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from signaling sub rosa her preference. Cardin is a colleague of both Clinton and Obama, and may be genuinely conflicted about who to support. And I suppose that coming out and opposing Clinton, who looms so large over recent Democratic Party history, may be a hard thing to do. But overturning the pledged delegate count, and with it one of the leading lights in American politics, is, if anything, more difficult.

It's Still Not Over Yet

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Mar 05, 2008 at 01:28 PM EST

Hillary Clinton deserves praise for winning Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, blunting Barack Obama's momentum, and thus keeping her campaign alive. But it's hardly a changed race: At best, Clinton made a net gain of only a few delegates. The long hard slog to the Democratic convention that everyone was predicting in late January and early February may well come to pass. In the meantime, I think Democrats everywhere who are worried about the primary season weakening the Democrats' chances against John McCain (who is now the presumptive Republican nominee) need to listen to Michelle Cottle:

Enough with all the whining. Also enough with all the smack talk about how there must be something seriously wrong with Hillary/Obama as a candidate or s/he would have been able to close the deal by now. Horsefeathers. This isn't a primary in which Democratic voters are having a hard time making up their minds because both candidates are so disappointing. That's what's happening with the other team. Democrats' problem is that they have two candidates who are firing up the electorate, as seen in the consistently high turnout at the polls and the jaw-dropping fund-raising figures. ($30 million and $50 million in just one month? John McCain would kill for that kind of trouble.)

What do you think of last night's results?

The Clinton Campaign Loves the Press

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Mar 04, 2008 at 06:21 PM EST

This is a real picture from CNN showing a filing center the Clinton campaign set up in Houston.

Nothing like posh digs to get you some good coverage. And they actually served food in there.

Big Night Tonight

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Mar 04, 2008 at 06:17 PM EST

Although, every time we say that the primary just goes on. As you're waiting for the numbers to come in, here are some good links:

Pollster.com is the best site out there for composites and analysis of polling data.

Ohio's election day is looking a lot like Maryland's did, and I've seen about thirty different predictions for how that may affect the race. 

Here's an interesting composite of all exit polling done in the race so far. 

And some highlights on DailyKos: Predictions, busting the big state argument Clinton's campaign has been using, and a potential Obama plan to push Clinton from the race this week.