I was watching Chuck Todd on MSNBC this morning, and of course, the first question that Brian Williams threw at him was about those bitter Clinton supporters. Chuck laughed it off. "This story is like catnip to us," he said. "And it will fade."
And hopefully it will. But I'm starting to wonder if this might be good for us after all, for the following reasons:
From a media narrative perspective, it's better for candidates to have an "uphill battle" ahead. It's far better than the "got-it-made" memes that were thrown on Dean and Hillary. McCain is undoubtedly the one who has more of an uphill battle, and yet nobody is really talking about him in those terms, and we should be thankful. Instead, they're talking about Obama and what he has to accomplish. That's what we want them to talk about. Make him be the hero on his quest, not McCain.
It happened this afternoon on CNN, seated behind a desk with three other voices swirling around a hotly lit newsroom, John Frank collapsed onto the floor, clawing at his chest struggling to breathe. The other pundits immediately gathered around him.
"He's suffocating," said one.
"No, I disagree," said another. "You can tell by his pale, hopeless expression, he's simply lost the will to live. Some viewers old enough may remember this sort of thing happening a lot during the Carter administration."
"The truth is, we just don't know," confessed another.
You heard it here first, people. Americans are finally ready to choose a progressive president, and the evidence couldn't be clearer. From The Times:
Gov. Michael S. Dukakis held a 15-point lead over Vice President Bush in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday, largely on the strength of overwhelming support for Mr. Dukakis among women.
If there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that women will play a decisive role in this election, and it looks like Feraro's appearance on the ticket in '84 helped shore up the Democrat's support among women. The Times has more:
This is one of those DailyKos moments that makes me shake my head. I'm referring to this quote by Donald Rumsfeld, and the subsequent outrage:
This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...
That's the title of Hillary's latest email. Naturally, I couldn't wait to hear the "why."
And here's the email:
Let's keep winning together. We have got to make every one of these next 28 days count -- starting with today.
Today, in every way that I know how, I am expressing my personal determination to keep forging forward in this campaign.
After our come-from-behind victory in Indiana, there are just 28 days of voting left. But we've never campaigned with the stakes as high or the time as short as they will be over the next four weeks.
And with you by my side, I'm going to keep fighting for what I believe in until every voter has had his or her say.
Yesterday was an big day for Hillary supporters, and they may have been so swept up in the excitement of the primary that they missed all the baseball action. So I thought I might just run down some of the scores for their benefit.
We'll start with the Cardinals/Brewers game which went 12 innings. St. Louis won that game pretty clearly, with 16 hits versus Milwaukee's 15. Also the Cards gave up 8 walks and the Brewers only 6.
The Yankees played a good game in Chicago, but the White Sox came out on top with 13 hits to New York's 11. Despite Bobby Abreu's grand slam, the Yankees could only score in the first couple of innings, and also the 7th and 8th innings, whereas the White Sox scored in the 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 9th innings, demonstrating their ability to score throughout the game.
You've probably seen Hillary's latest ad that declares, "It's the toughest job in the world..." and goes on to say, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Well, I have news for you, Hillary. President of the United States is not the toughest job in the world. This is:
I know many people believe that there is no feasible way for Hillary to win the nomination, and that she should drop out. But there is a reason why Hillary Clinton should remain in this race -- it's the same reason why John Edwards stayed in the race after his viability faltered, and it's the same reason why Huckabee did over on the Republican side.
She's drawing attention to important issues.
Issues such as Obama's ties to Reverend Wright. This is an issue that is deeply important to hard working Americans across the country. As they're sitting around the kitchen table, trying to figure out how to pay their bills, they're asking, "What does Obama's former pastor believe?" If Hillary Clinton were not raising awareness of this issue, it might not be getting any attention at all.
Issues such as Hillary Clinton's experience in Washington. As families struggle to keep the banks from foreclosing on their homes, they want to know about Hillary Clinton's role in the Irish peace process, and Bosnia. And Hillary Clinton is answering the call. She's out there every day addressing this important topic.
Mrs. Clinton’s supporters fall into three roughly equal-sized camps: those who say the next generation will live better than people do today (35 percent), those who say living standards will remain roughly the same (31 percent) and those who say living standards will decline (30 percent), according to a poll analysis done by my colleague, Marjorie Connelly...
Among people who say they have voted for Mr. Obama already or plan to do so in an upcoming contest, 50 percent predict that the next generation will live better than people do now; only 23 percent say it will live worse. This is one of the main ways that Obama supporters stand out, both from other Democrats and from the rest of the public.
I would like to just thank all the DailyKos members -- all 150,000 of them who attended our meeting last December in which we devised our plan of how to drive out Hillary supporters from this site. The level of solidarity that was displayed at that meeting was truly inspiring, and serves as an example of the power of this community.
As many of you recall, there was some debate about which candidate we should support -- Hillary or Obama, and subsequently, whose supporters we should ostracize. I believe I speak for all of us when I say that a best of seven series of "rock, paper, scissors" ended up being the right method. In the end it really didn't matter, as we all secretly know that both candidates are basically the same. But I do admire how once Obama was chosen, we promptly contrived all the necessary justifications for supporting him -- his character, his judgment, and whatever else we came up with. The diaries people have been writing sound very believable -- almost as if we genuinely feel that way.
An alternate title for this diary could be, "Why do most DailyKos members support Obama?"
It is undeniable that the vast majority of Kossacks support Obama, but if there was a meeting in which we all got together and decided this, I wasn't invited. So why is it that most of us support Obama? Is it just coincidence? Or does our support for this candidate have something to do with how we all arrived here?
Or is it that Obama's candidacy actually grew from this community?
In my mind, DailyKos was actually born on March 15, 2003, when a certain Democratic governor gave a speech at the Democratic convention in Sacramento:
In a Democratic debate held on June 3, 2007, you stood on the stage with Barack Obama, and your other Democratic peers, and you were asked a question about national security. You looked around at your colleagues and had this to say:
"The differences among us are minor. The differences between us and the Republicans are major. And I don't want anybody in America to be confused."
But of course, I'm very confused. Because now you're saying this:
"I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy."
There is one matter on which all Democrats agree. John Edwards is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain. Bill Richardson is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain. Chris Dodd is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain. Joe Biden is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain. Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain.
And Barack Obama is qualified to be president and would make a better president than John McCain.
All Democrats agree on this.
The question is, does Hillary? Here's how she responded when asked in the Texas debate:
A year ago, when McKinnon (a McCain adviser) went to work for McCain, he wrote the campaign a memo saying that if the Arizona senator were to face Democrat Barack Obama - whom McKinnon has met and regards highly - in the general election, he would step down from his job.
McKinnon is a trusted media adviser who has been traveling with McCain throughout the primaries. He seems to know where this is is headed. And it sounds like he's not interested in being on the wrong side of history.
"You can already see the shape of the general election," McKinnon said recently over a plate of barbecued brisket at a restaurant in Lockhart, discussing an ongoing exchange of attacks between the two candidates.
The Oval Office. President Hillary Rodham Clinton sits behind the large oak desk, with photos of Bill and Chelsea next to an ominous red phone. The clock on the wall reads 3AM. The phone rings, and a groggy Hillary answers.
Hillary: Hello, president Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking.
Scary voice: Hello Madame President. It's me again. Evil.
Great news everyone. The RNC has denounced (just denounced, not rejected and denounced) the ads in Tennessee, and stated that they will stop referring to Senator Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama." RNC communications director Bill Hobbs told CNN:
"We're not going to be using the middle name now because apparently it's become a distraction," he said.
Awesome. Thank you. So glad to hear. Wait, what's that? You have something you'd like to add?
"But I would note not too long ago I saw a wire story out of the Middle East that talked about how a lot of people there are hungry for Obama to win and in part because his middle name gives him a connection, and that story used his middle name, so we're not the first people to notice and use his middle name."
Oh. OK. Well, thanks again for that statement. So what's going to happen to the ads in Tennessee?
