So the tide appears to be turning and whilst we applaud this particular turn of events and rejoice that the US justice department is taking an interest in corrupt lobbysists and their pet politicians, is it simply a case of the GOP fearing a debacle in the mid terms or is it something less cynical ?



For me it clears the way for Republicans to stand a better than snowball in hells chance of getting re-elected.

Never EVER underestimate the ability of the Democrats to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. How else did we re-elect a morally and mentally challenged chimpanzee to the highest office in the land despite his obvous incompetence?

Perhaps, but who will they replace him with? So many of the Republicans are tainted by Abramoff money.

Delay's replacement as House GOP leader is said to be either someone named Blunt, from Missouri, and Ohio's own John Boehner, representing the western part of the state.

Blunt has some connections to the "K Street Project"...the lobbyist/GOP nexus, so perhaps Boehner would better choice for PR purposes.

Delay is still running for reelection.for his Congressional seat. I'd say he'd be defeated, but you never know.

@@@@

It's still too soon to say how this Abramoff scanadal will impact the upcoming Congressional elections...in some cases where there is a definite connection and potential criminal things going on there will be an affect. If its just money being donated perhaps not....whats been happening is that Congressmen who recieved money from Abramoff have been returning it or giving it to charity as a way of distancing.

I read an article recently that said his support in his Texas district has declined percipitously. I know my uncle lives in that district, and he's a fire-breathing republican, but he's disgusted by Delay and says he won't vote for him.

So that's something.

I wouldn't be so sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0502449_pf.html

From the article...

But Boehner's record has some blemishes that could be used against him by his opponents. In 1995, Boehner raised eyebrows by distributing campaign checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor. Since 2000, his political action committee, the Freedom Project, has raised $31,500 from four of Abramoff's tribal clients.

My comment...

He has the mark of the Devil (Abramoff) as well.

I'm not so sure Boehner is tainted all that much yet as this was a somewhat indirect contribution. Another Ohio rep, Ney, certainly is implicated, though! He might fall.

But is sure is turning out that The Exterminator, Tom Delay, is up to his eyeball in this. There are now connections sufacing between Abramoff and Karl Rove....tangled web of influence and corruption.

What a dumbass.

God amighty. You'd just like to kick 'em down the block and every time your foot hit their ass you'd say 'Don't. Sell. My. Government. You. Dick.'

I started a thread on this specific subject over here: http://www.billybragg.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=2670

Love to have your thoughts!!

(from the TPM blog)

Tom DeLay Denies All Charges (As Told by Dr. Suess)

"Would you help us buy some ships
Perfect for quick gambling trips?
Talk to people in the know
For a little quid pro quo?
Oh come now, don't be a snob.
Let us give your wife a job."

I will not help you buy some ships.
I do not wish for gambling trips.
My wife does not need a job
Even if she is a snob.
We do not like bribes, can't you see?
Why won't you just let me be?

"You do not like bribes, so you say.
Try them, try them, and you may.
Try them and you may, I say."

Jack. If you will let me be
I will try them, then you'll see.

Say.... I do like playing golf!
I like it, I do, Abramoff!
I do like Scotland by the sea.
It's such a thrilling place to be!
And I will take this bribe.
And I will help the tribe.
And I will take donations
From big corporations.
And I will help you buy some ships.
And I will take quick gambling trips.
Say, I'll give anyone the shaft
As long as it involves some graft!

I do so like playing golf!
Thank you! Thank you,
Abramoff!

The great Molly Ivins speaks for me.

Molly Ivins: I won't support Hillary
By Molly Ivins
/Published 2:15 am PST Friday, January 20, 2006

/AUSTIN, Texas -- I'd like to make it clear to the
people who run the Democratic Party that I will not
support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and
equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not
offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election.
Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear
stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to
disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri
Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on
flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a
lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I
have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and
heroes, and when a country is desperate for
leadership. There are times when regular politics will
not do, and this is one of those times. There are
times a country is so tired of bull that only the
truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the
courage to speak up and say what needs to be said,
then you go out and find some obscure junior senator
from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene
McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look,
the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy
-- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just
this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to
quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake?
The majority of the American people (55 percent) think
the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get
out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people
want single-payer health care and are willing to pay
more taxes to get it.

The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor
raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American
people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts,
or at least those that go only to the rich. The
majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not
by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon
spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do
"whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The
majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are
gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits
tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID
OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously
explaining
elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the
Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't
you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry
Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil
war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those
who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and
pacifist left base of the party and those who are
attempting to prepare the party for successful
elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy
Pelosi,
emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle
East ... into calling for premature retreat from
Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer,
Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe
Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of
leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led
us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us
daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big,
bad Republican machine you have no idea what people
are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is
going to lose in his district. If Democrats in
Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue
of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing
for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this --
that is the only reform that will work, and you know
it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this.

Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all
these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral
reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put
up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff
politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the
patriotic bully card just as long as you let them.
I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic
bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking
dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German
dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German
shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism
for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling
dog and explain what loving your country really means.
That, or you could
just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did.
Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the
war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in
the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way
to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based
party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

I like Molly Ivins.

Can't she run for President?

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0125-20.htm

Hey Stupid, Cowardly, and Venal Democrats: Run This Ad in 2006

Boy, you gotta hand it to the Democratic Party. They sure get high marks for consistency.

The guys in the White House must be getting bored by now. They keep handing out killer cudgels to the Democrats, waiting to see if they’ll actually pick one up.

Never happens. As the old saying goes, if you can’t run against fiscal hemorrhage, Terri Schiavo, an unpopular war with no end in sight, torture, Hurricane Katrina, the prescription drug program debacle, Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and the federal government spying on Americans, maybe you should think about a different career than politics.

Maybe Democrats could be sherpas, for example, instead of members of Congress. Or waterboys, on the sidelines of high school football games. I hear there’s a shortage of those nowadays, though of course the perks aren’t quite as good. No more photo-ops standing behind the president as he signs cataclysmic legislation into law or launches invasions of hapless foreign countries.

Living through that abysmal list of Republican calamities over the last five years, I used to think that the Democrats were just (just!) stupid and cowardly. But after three cycles in which they have also stood by and watched Republicans actually steal elections from them, including the presidency, I now realize the problem is even deeper than that.

All I can conclude at this point is that the Bidens, Liebermans and Clintons of this world are so venal, in addition to stupid and cowardly, that they’ve traded in all pretense of principle in exchange for their seemingly safe seats and their bitty little slice of the prima donna pie. Nice offices, lots of recognition in the community, guest appearances with Tim Russert. Wowee. As if – even if that deal with the devil weren’t disgusting enough in its own right – as if the predators of the regressive right would be satisfied to let them remain in those positions for the long-haul, anyhow. Have these sell-outs never heard of a certain city in southern Germany? Do they really not know what comes next, as the unitary executive amasses power, preparing for Cheneydom?...

bump

bump!

bump.

arggghhh. bump.

Why are you bumping this thread?

All I can conclude at this point is that the Bidens, Liebermans and Clintons of this world are so venal, in addition to stupid and cowardly, that they’ve traded in all pretense of principle in exchange for their seemingly safe seats and their bitty little slice of the prima donna pie. Nice offices, lots of recognition in the community, guest appearances with Tim Russert. Wowee. As if – even if that deal with the devil weren’t disgusting enough in its own right – as if the predators of the regressive right would be satisfied to let them remain in those positions for the long-haul, anyhow.

Seems so. The Loyal (token) Opposition. The Necessary Opponent (to make it look good, like a real competition). Sort of like Pro Wrestling.

The people at the top of the Democratic Party are really not so different than their GOP counterparts...they are equally wealthy and powerfull and members of the elite. I dont see much difference.

as if the predators of the regressive right would be satisfied to let them remain in those positions for the long-haul, anyhow.

Oh I think for the more cynical and knowing rightys it would be OK, to have an oppostion for show.... for the more true-believer rightys, like the Religous Right, probably not.

What the heck was all that bumping about? Stop pushing, darn you!



Plenty of room at the front.



I love Molly Ivins (and does anybody know how her battle against breast cancer is going? She's still writing so I presume she's hanging in there) and have for years. But I have one question for her (and Barbara):

How many presidential elections did Gene McCarthy win?

Sometimes the public doesn't want to be told the emperor isn't wearing clothes. It makes them feel bad. It makes them feel stupid. It makes them not vote for you.

What I would suggest is that, in order to win you need a candidate who shows you alternatives to the nudity of the emperor -- nice outfits you could all wear -- and guides you away from the emperor to someplace better.

Just telling the voters they're stupid and that the war the vast majority of them supoprted was a waste of time and money and life, while extremely satisfying, will probably get Bill Frist elected double-quick time, as he tells the very same voting public how patriotic they are, and how valuable the war was in the 'fight against terrorism' and how they have to look over their shoulders because THEY'RE RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!

I think the correct approach is Barak Obama's -- saying that the war was run catastrophically and ineptly, and how can we trust a party who handled it so badly that thousands of lives were lost? And avoid the issue of whether or not actually GOING to war in Iraq was right. While I am a big fan of Hillary's, at the moment I worship at the altar of Obama. I want him to run and be America's first black president.

What a wonderful world it would be.

Exactly! There is very little diferrence between these two big-business backed parties. They both represent the interests of the rich.

The US working class needs its own party.

Unfortuantely, most working class Americans vote Republican.

I thought most working class americans didn`t vote. I`d be very surprised if you could prove that a majority of the working class electorate voted Republican, or have you made a mistake?

Oh, it's just an empirical observation made by studying the bumpers of battered pickup trucks around the nation.

Have you got any statistics to prove otherwise? Or have you made a mistake.

the Center of the Democratic party hasn't won an election - I'm sorry they won but they didn't fight to keep it - in three election cycles. As long as they keep nominating people like Al Gore, John Kerry or *shudder, freak out a little * the dreadful Hillary Clinton, they will lose. Lose the midterms, lose the big house. They're losers and must be supressed and beaten till they are smears on the American landscape.

Barack Obama is the biggest disappointment. He hasn't voted no yet. What is he waiting for?

His party also handled it so badly thousands of lives were lost. Those spineless bastards waited till public opinion was overwhelming, and they're still too timid.

Working class people either don't vote (correct Paul) or they vote for the real Republicans, not the fake Republicans (Lieberman, Clinton). We can't afford to lose any more elections. Kill the DLC.


edited to say I was bumping to draw away from the little N*zi invasion we had yesterday.

Ok. Here's a question: When was the last time the far left won a presidential election in America?

Personally, I get nothin' when I ask myself that question. A big fat goose egg. Ain't happenin.

So I'm not sure replacing the people who have actually WON a few elections, and held the congress and Supreme Court for decades, with those who have never won a damn thing is such a great idea, given the polling figures and the utter contempt in which most Americans hold the far left.

But, you know, heck. Give it a go. The worst that can happen has already happened.



He wasn't a politician when the US entered the war, and grandfathering him in seems, you'll forgive me for saying so, a little mean.



Did you forget to add (correct Mata) there? Because you were kind of agreeing with me. Which is always nice

They're going to lose again, Mata. They are going to lose because of their lack of vision and spine. They are going down in flames, and they're taking all of us with them. No matter how hard we all work, no matter how bad and venal and murderous the Republicans are, the DLC is incapable of winning an election in the United States of America. The floating of Hillary Clinton for president - THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA - is proof of that.

I only wish I had the crack they're smoking. It must be awesome, and I wouldn't have this anxiety and dread.

"Oh, it's just an empirical observation made by studying the bumpers of battered pickup trucks around the nation."

Is that a reliable source for your political views? or is it really just a pathetic attempt to cover up the nonsense of your statement " most working-class people vote Republican"?

Too many working class Americans do vote Republicans, Paul. But most working class americans don't vote at all. The system is designed to discourage voting.

Hey, Paul, if you haven't got any evidence to back up your own argument, where do you get off insulting other people?

You seem to be jumping the pissed off gun here, if you don't mind my saying so. Having a bad day?




She polls very well you know.

And, yeah, they may well lose. Perhaps they haven't spent enough time in the political wilderness to get it. But as long as people keep reelecting the Joseph Liebermans of the party, the Howard Deans aren't going to get very far.

You win by giving the people what they want. And I think they would elect the first democrat who voted center and spoke straight. The first half is as common as dirt, the latter half is as rare as gold dust.

“White middle income voters (who constitute three-quarters of the middle class and one-third of the entire electorate), delivered landslide margins to Republicans. The economic tipping point—the income level at which whites were more likely to vote Republican than Democrat—was $23,700, not far above the poverty level....

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.as...RJ8OVF&b=784285

And then there are all those pickup trucks....

Liberal is a dirty word on the oilfields in the state where I grew up. You would rarely here the word 'liberal' without shortly hearing the word 'pussy'. Used as a perjorative, of course.

If only working-class and poor people would register and vote, liberal Democrats would win every election-that's what we thought, until November 2, 2004. Democrats work on voter registration, Republicans work on vote suppression. So tens of millions were spent on Democratic voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts over the summer and fall. But on November 2 we discovered how wrong we were. Turnout in poor and working-class precincts was unprecedented, but many of those voters cast their ballots for George W. Bush-especially white people from non-union households, especially outside of cities. How did the Republicans do it? How did they get poor people to vote for tax cuts for the rich?

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/ar...sp05/wiener.htm

But while the union vote remains a key part of the Democratic base, the economic class from which most union members are drawn has become a growth area for Republicans. Indeed, a review of relevant data suggest that the age-old political axiom – Democrats are the party of the working class; Republicans are the party of the well-to-do – could stand a little updating.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of national public opinion surveys conducted since 1992 – some 129 surveys with more than 200,000 respondents – has found that at the broadest level, the axiom still holds. It remains true now, as it was in 1992, that the more income a person has, the more likely he or she is to be a Republican, and the less income a person has, the more likely he or she is to be a Democrat.

But the analysis also yielded a couple of significant qualifiers. First, when it comes to explaining partisan affiliation, income is a relatively weak demographic indicator. It is only about half as important as church attendance, and just a third as important as race.

Second, even though there hasn't been much change since 1992 in party identification at the top and bottom of the income curve, there has been some significant pro-Republican movement in the middle. Indeed, among whites, Republicans now enjoy a clear edge over Democrats not just in the upper income brackets, but also in the middle bracket and have made gains even in the lower-middle income bracket. These income groups contain the people who are either union members or likely targets of membership drives. They also typically contain many swing voters who decide close elections.

http://people-press.org/commentary/display...?AnalysisID=114

You want more?

she polls like shit. What are you reading? She can't take a stand, is for the war (not enough to send her daughter of course, another chicken hawk), votes with the Republicans.

Fucking democrats. Fucking center. We have 30,000 people freshly out of work this week and you have NAFTA and GATT - both pet projects of the Clintons - to thank for this. The right has nothing on the center.

You come home and live here with this mess, Mata. The right and the center have fucked this poor country into a corner that we can't get out of.

Near the end of his now oft-quoted book What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004), which is all about the white US lower middle/working class's "self-destructive" alignment with the Republicans, Thomas Frank has a few things to say about how the liberal establishment (what the "mainstream" media likes to call a "left") Lost the Heart of America. I quote at some length:

"Who is to blame for this landscape of distortion, of paranoia, and of good people led astray. I have spent much of this book enumerating the ways in which Kansas voters choose self-destructive policies, but it is just as clear to me that liberalism deserves a large part of the blame for the backlash phenomenon. Liberalism may not be the monstrous, all-powerful conspiracy that conservatives make it out to be, but its failing are clear nonetheless. Somewhere in the last four decades liberalism ceased to be relevant to huge portions of its traditional [working-class] constituency, and we can say that liberalism LOST places like Shawnee and Witchita with as much as accuracy as we can point out that conservatism WON them over."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6592

Working people correctly identify the Democratic party as the party who dealt their jobs to the third world. Are you surprised that Bubba and Lurleen were able to figure out just who did it?

Listen to Al Franken on Air America snicker about whether Detroit makes cars any more. The new candidate for Senate in Minnesota. Fucking Democrats.

Liberalism Mata. Listen to what Thomas Frank says (I have this book too). Liberalism. The way it's practiced in America.

Well, according to Meet the Press and This Week with George this week, that's actually far from the truth. She polls very, very well, actually.



Oh, I don't know. The last five years -- no different from the previous five, would you say? I think the right has a bit on the center. Like war, skyrocketing oil prices, weakening labor power and international contempt.



Oh, don't start that again. It's so tired. I thought we were beyond that 'You don't live here, you can't have an opinion' bullshit.

I get a vote, baby. And you'll never stop me voting. (Although the fact that the New Orleans Registrar of Voters washed away just might....)

Being more to the left would not have won Kerry the 2004 election. He lost because he ran a bad campaign. It was his to lose and he blew it.

And aren't we forgetting that Al Gore did actually win the 2000 election...?

I think the Democrats need to run whoever the hell has the best chance of winning, frankly. These are not normal time, and the Republican administration has done such harm, to America and the world, that almost literally any Democratic nominee would be an improvement. Except Joe Lieberman.

I also don't agree that Hillary can't winin 2008. '00 and '04 were incredibly close races. Can she hold onto the existing blue states, won by Gore and held by Kerry? Can she take Ohio, Nevada and/ or Florida in addition? If so, she'll be president.

The Republicans are scared of the Dems running Hillary.

Yes, I read it. He said it isn't relevant to working class voters in America at the moment.

That can't really be a selling point for a far-left candidate can it? Thomas Jones - Not Really Relevant to You.

I agreed that Gore and Kerry won. They refused to accept their victory and the retarded chimp is in office. Because of the advice of the DLC.

Enjoy more Republicans in office. I won't.

So, all I'm saying is, these days working class voters vote republican. They've moved to the right. They like all that patriotism hoo-haw, that 'I'm Proud to be an American' yee-haw that we disdain.

You wanna win back the working class? You don't have to move the democratic party to the left. You learn to like country music. You wear cowboy boots. You pretend you didn't go to school. I'm sorry, but it's true. That is exactly how George W did it.

They are manipulatable. You don't approach the working class with political theory. You manipulate them.

That is where Hillary might fall down on the job. Chicks like her, their husbands generally don't, and she doesn't wear cowboy boots.

The next democratic president will be the one who talks straight to the people, and gives at least the perception of not being so political that the working class cannot relate to them. They should speak spanish. They should have some working history outside of Washington. Hillary hasn't got that. So that's where she fails the political litmus test for me.

She polls well, and I think she'd do well if the Republicans put up a cold fish like Frist against her. Jeb Bush would kill her.

Barack Obama would be an interesting case because white working class people don't like black people (another reason they like the GOP). But he talks straight and the times they are achangin.

But moving the party to the left won't mean a damn thing unless the person who does it wears cowboy boots, used to chew tobacco and grew up in a way that can be construed in some fashion however twisted as ordinary.

But my point is, if the best chance of keeping the Republicans out is to vote for Hillary, would you do it? Or do you genuinely see no difference between them?

I genuinely see no difference between them. I will not vote for Hillary Clinton for president. (Mata is about to blame me for whatever happy horseshit happens)

I will not vote for a Republican or a Republican-lite. They are the problem, not the solution.

May I ask you who, then, given the probable list of candidates, would be your preferred one at this stage? Or is there no mainstream candidate in the modern Democratic party you would feel comfortable voting for?

That's also a genuine question, btw.

I could hold my nose and vote for Barack Obama (If I could have a clear hour alone with him), John Edwards or Howard Dean.

edit. I had to get off the computer in a hurry and couldn't finish my thought, so I'm back.

There are dems and there are dems. I recognize - no matter how stupid and unrepresentative our two-party system is - that my choice is Dem or Rep. My point is the more center the candidate the less likely the fake right wing will win.

Bill Clinton won largely because James Carville was able to remind people how inept the first George Bush was. Al Gore didn't have that kind of luck and didn't bring those people in until too late. Coupled with the refusal to use Bill Clinton to stump for Gore hurt him badly, brought the margin so close that Bush was able to steal it. People in this country liked their promiscuous bad dog Clinton and it was weird the way the Gore people pretended he didn't exist. Then they showed their lack of integrity when they allowed the Supremes to name their man.

The Kerry campaign was proof of their ineptitude. Even though most people hated John Kerry, they wanted to get rid of Bush so badly, the whole left wing came out and voted. It was incredible, those days before the election, to see the concentration of people out working for an election. Then in 24 hours it was over and those ASSHOLES GAVE UP. Someday all the proof will come in and the facts about the coup will be proven, but anybody who worked this election knows what happened.

The worst part is Kerry is such a jerk, he wouldn't have stopped the war and he wouldn't have done anything about the jobs problem, we would still be borrowing from China to pay our debt. We wouldn't be looking at Roberts and Alito and we might have signed Kyoto (maybe) but he was such an odious choice. Such a stupid waste.

So when I name the people above, it's with the fingers of my left hand firmly pinching my nostils shut while I wipe my teary eyes with the right. (wait, what am I typing with?) With my third hand I type, with my fourth I give the finger to Rahm Emmanual and Donna Brazile and Hillary Clinton.

BTW in my dream America I get to vote for David Bonior or the Barack Obama I thought he was for president.

I gotta stop posting here, I am too busy to be using all four hands to complain about my government. I'll be back when the newsletter is done.

He may oppose..... a freakin' filibuster:

More clues that the Dems are a big part of the problem with democracy today

Jeeez Louise Zippy. I just had a massive stroke. fuck me. I'm driving to Chicago to kick his ass.

Have him, Mata. Keep him. Strike him off my list.

I thought thism might be topical.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...hillary27e.html

From the article...

Sen. Hillary Clinton's fundraising trip to Portland today is under fire from some Democratic veterans, who say she is siphoning away money that could go to local candidates.

My comment...

A fair enough worry, but rarely do locals worry about the party siphoning money becasue local officials tend to reach a different donor market than those involved in national elections. So what's their real concern?

From the article...

The group, which includes Jim Rassmann, the Florence, Ore., veteran who hit the campaign trail with John Kerry in 2004 to speak about how Kerry saved his life in Vietnam, have issued a letter denouncing the former first lady's support for the Iraq war.

My comment...

Aha!!

Headline from BuzzFlash:

Harry Reid Says the Fight is Over. He Can't Get 41 Votes for a Filibuster. If He Can't Beat a Bush Nominee So Bad the NYT Called for a Filibuster -- and a President so Corrupted and Failed, He Should Step Down as Minority Leader. He's Not a Leader; He's an Enabler. The White House and Frist are Laughing at the Dems. What Will be Harry's Excuse Next Time? He's Not Leading An Opposition Party; The Senate Dems are Just a Doormat.

Guess how I first heard talk about a Clinton candidacy?...from online rightwingers whoe where sarcastically sugessting that she would be the best possible candidate for the Dems in 2008.

Of course she would...for them, as she would be the best possible motivation for energizing the RWW base. Just show a pix of her to the rightys and its the 2 Minutes Hate, right out of 1984...

And if she should win..no biggy as she's not really that liberal anyway.

I think it was funny who the Media annointed as the Dem frontrunners....Howard Dean and John Kerry....establishment types all the way...and Dean being probably more of a fake left/liberal than Kerry....


@@@@@@

As for Obama, he is a junior member of the Establishment (degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law)...& you don't get to be Senator without selling out..it costs too much in money and sucking up to the various state-level political and economic elites. He's in "the club" now, or maybe on a sort of a probation so he had better suck up and prove he is "moderate" (by supporting a vote for Alioto for example)

@@@@

As for non-voters. No problem there. I don't plan on voting for any more presidential elections thats for sure....non voters are probably right when they think they have better or more relevant things to do than play a rigged political slot machine, so to speak...

According to Tim Russert, that's exactly what the democrats said about Reagan in 1979. Apparently he was Carter's 'ideal' opponent.

So I'd take it with a grain of salt. Political followers all say she actually scares the shit out of them. Main reason why? Money. She gets lots and lots of money. Money wins elections.

Thing about Barbara hating Hillary that puzzles me, though, I find it weird that you hate the woman who virtually sacrificed her own political career trying to bring about the very universal healthcare plan you keep saying America needs.

Anybody who says she's the same as Bush is not paying attention.

You don't want to vote, Jeff? Fine. Republicans will love you. It's good to make friends.

And as for the rumour-mongering on behind the scenes maneuvering on Alito, y'all need to get some political sense. Politics is about strategy. If Obama doesn't want to take part in a doomed filibuster, I'm sure he has his reasons. To decide, spontaneously, that you hate him because of it knowing nothing at all about the reasoning behind it, the intelligence behind it or the strategy behind it is.... well typical of the far left, really. You vote based on emotion, not on logic. You decide with your heart, not your head. It's sweet, but self-defeating. Politics isn't about love, it's about sense. Learn to love compromise, cooperating and the cool, cold logic of strategy, and you may not get everything you want out of your political system, but you won't be so wretchedly bitter and miserable. See it for what it is -- a system designed to strike a balance between people like you and people like Pat Buchanan.