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There are just a few details, along the way, with which we have some slight disagreement. Believe me, I have had a little bit of experience with campaign 'grunt work'. It makes it so much more painful when all that effort goes to waste, and some completely useless bonehead gets elected, or wins the nomination. It's adding actual injury to insult, to a mere affront to vanity. It shouldn't be a directly comparable phenomenon, but some of that disappointment and frustration is a lot like what goes on in the Wide, Wide World of Sports. From TomDispatch.com, a month and a half ago: "Drawing from the best resources on national and local platforms, Fox will bring together America's two greatest passions -- politics and football." zeitgeist of the moment, creating a 24/7 spectacle of super-entertainment by merging the number-one top-draw extravaganza, Super Bowl Sunday, with the mid-week surprise of a writer-starved TV season, Super Tuesday...
<snip>
...I'm just as addicted as any other red-blooded American. After all, this election is the media equivalent of a barreling train. And not Amtrak either. Think the Japanese bullet train or the French TGV.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174890/the_spectacle_of_campaign_2008That whole, My-Candidate-Rules-But-Your-Candidate-is-Lame stuff, here on D.U. and on other blogs, has a parking lot edge to it. Like we're in danger of running into when we step out of the voting booth, to walk or drive back home. You yourself just said you felt like you might work for Senate Democrats, in the fall, but didn't want to be running into too many of the Obama supporters you've met here, on dKos, or other blogs, to volunteer for the presidential campaign.
That really should be above and beyond the routine call of duty, to have to feel that way. Supporters of any candidate can set themselves up for precisely that level of partisanship, when the competitive aspect of the sports "race" starts to affect their lives. Total time spent on the campaign keeps adding up, so the intensity and level of personal involvement -- and sometimes the capacity for clear thought -- can get a little distorted.
Instead, easily quantifiable data totals take on enormous importance. It's easier, after awhile, just to keep a sense of the momentum and energy in the campaign, without trying to drill too deeply into the details and minutiae of policy questions. How fast is my candidate's train going, compared to the one on that parallel (?) set of tracks?
Don't think about it too much, just add up The Numbers. Try to keep score, even when you're eating or driving. Don't lose track of the math:
- polling percentages,
- primary victories,
- projected electoral college totals,
- delegate counts,
- superdelegate prospects, and other numbers, like...
- Magic Deadline Dates.
But the way it's been going this year, no mere data projection or total has settled anything, yet. And probably won't, for the foreseeable, immediate future.
It's an extremely superficial way to look at the candidates. I still have no idea what that whole 'passport office' thing was about, for instance. (All three of the remaining candidates' files were "breached?" Go figure. Has anybody been diagnosed with an actual case of anthrax, yet?)
Some of the other posters here have suggested that media coverage of the election has been specifically intended to foster as much intra-mural ill will as possible. That makes Rove and the ditto heads cheer, and in the meantime, with little or no attention focused on anything he does, McCain's poll numbers have nowhere to go but up. So long as all the interest in the race is concentrated on which Democrat has hurt the other, the most, most recently.
What I'm trying to say here is that that formula's not the best way to go about solving the country's problems. The election hoopla itself (with all the overheated projections and openly biased analysis, from assorted pundits, for each and every Red Phone commercial, or out-of-context Campaign Surrogate's off-the-cuff-remark) draws off too much attention from too many real problems.
It's like people think we have a "grace period," because this is an election year. Somebody must have crossed their fingers and yelled, "toots", so nobody has to worry about the direction the country's going in, at the moment. Just follow the delegate numbers...
That's what the Busheviks want us to stay focused on. Anything that keeps attention away from their own careless, criminal, completely self-serving performance in office. With their virtual ownership of most of the media, that "sporting" distraction among the Democrats has made it even more difficult for average voters to think about choosing the candidate with the most likely-to-be-effective policies and position statements. (To my way of thinking, the ideas that specifically identify and directly address the failings of the previous administration.) Instead, we mostly seem to be grasping for the more ephemeral qualities. Like finding the candidate who's more personally believable, or who may have demonstrated some small capacity for leadership. (Be it dodging flak in Bosnia, or trying on local garb, in Kenya.)
To tell the truth, neither one of our remaining candidates has really had all that much experience with being anything like a DECIDER.
So whose campaigns are being weighed on the merits of their "experience?"
None of the Republicans. Not McCain, not Bush. Not the Prince Regent, Cheney.
Sure, there's name-calling. On The Daily Show. When it's "Fake News" comic relief, even the King can laugh at the Jester. Jon Stewart even brought out the Darth Vader doll. Just remember that it doesn't mean anything
Because it's not the Bush "experience factor" that's ever in danger of being evaluated or judged, it's always the Democrats. <1>
No matter how many times Jon Stewart replays that tape of Dubya, from February 18, 2003, a month before the invasion telling Americans that, 'that Saddam, he's up to no good.' Dubya delivered his lines with all the passion, attention, and commitment of a bored frat kid, reading the next day's homework assignment off the blackboard, for a class he didn't much care about.
Just so you and I can look forward to paying four dollars a gallon for gas, this coming summer "busy driving season". Although if enough people lose their jobs, in the meantime, and the whole economy goes into the global dumpster, it's anybody's guess, really, what the cost will be.
So, anyway, I digress. You already said you dislike Bush as much as I do.
I thought about making this an OP, taking another shot at The Greatest list, but screw that. There's been too much back and forth, already. I'm really just trying to take a little extra time to write to you, usrbs, because this General Discussion > Primary partisanship got out of hand a long time ago, already. I'm personally sorry that you feel bitter about the way your candidate's been treated, on this board. (I also don't have a whole lot of other things to keep me busy, today, so what the heck...)
What you and I *should* be doing, instead of knocking one another's favorite Democrats, is asking questions about those candidates that are framed in the context of actual issues that matter. Topics that the Republicans are getting a pass on, in the media, because of all the "excitement" over this nomination ballgame.
I'd personally like to know what both Hillary and Barack have had to say about *any* of the following. They're all issues that should be raised, during the General Election:
- FISA immunity for telecoms -- the provision that House Democrats threw back in Bush's face!
- Where, exactly, did the money go, in Iraq, for what demonstrably achieved goals?
- What's the (frightening) likelihood that the neo-cons are ginning up some new threat to peace and stability (Iran?), the better to divide and rule all of us for four more years?
- What's up with Blackwater, specifically, and who came up with that whole concept of "privatizing" the U.S. Army, paying mercenaries ten times what ordinary soldiers earn, in the same combat theater. <2>
- If Sibel Edmonds were free to testify, would there be any overlap, or confirmation of Democrats' worst fears regarding Domestic Spying, PlameGate (real, not imaginaryWMD proliferation, War Profiteering/The Culture of Corruption. ("K Street" meets the Turkish "Deep State.")
Like the bumper sticker says, 'if you're not outraged, you must not be paying any attention.'
(As if the media even *wanted* people to think about actual ideas, or any problems they themselves haven't chosen to focus on.)
But bigger than all of those other issues, the biggest one has to be
I happened to find this on Counterpunch, from Paul Craig Roberts, but it's nothing that can't be found, re-stated any number of different ways, on any number of different blogs:
March 12. Crude oil for April delivery hit $110 per barrel. The US dollar fell to a new low against the Euro. It now takes $1.55 to purchase one Euro. These new highs against the dollar are the ongoing story of the collapse of the US dollar as world reserve currency and corresponding collapse of American power. Each new decision from the insane Bush regime pushes the dollar a little further along to oblivion. The same Fed announcement that boosted the stock market on March 11 sent the dollar reeling and the price of oil up. The Fed’s announcement that it and other central banks are going to deal with the derivative crisis by monetizing $200 billion of the troubled instruments signaled more dollar inflation. Of course, something needed to be done to forestall an implosion of the financial system, but a less costly alternative was at hand. The mark-to-market rule could have been suspended in order to halt the forced sale and write down of assets and to provide time in which to sort out derivative values, which are higher than the fire sale prices. More pressure on the dollar resulted from the decision to award the European company, Airbus, a $40 billion contract that could reach $100 billion to build US Air Force tankers. In simple terms, that means another $40 to $100 billion added to the US trade deficit, and a loss of $40 to $100 billion in US Gross Domestic Product and associated jobs. Of course, the Bush regime had to award the contract to Europe as a payoff for Europe’s support of the Bush regime’s wars of aggression in the Middle East. Europe is not going to provide Bush with diplomatic cover for his wars and NATO troops for his war in Afghanistan without a payoff. Here is the picture: The US economy, which has been kept alive by enormous debt expansion that has over-reached its limit, is falling into recession. The traditional way out by expanding the supply of money and credit is blocked by the impaired banking system, the levels of consumer debt, the collapsing value of the US dollar, and rising inflation... http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03132008.html
Not a very reassuring analysis, is it? It's like the economy is Wiley Coyote, after the Road Runner's already zipped past, but just before the rapidly falling, "whistling noise" starts.
O.K., here's my question for Hillary Supporters, then. I happened to catch some of her "Economic Solutions for America" speech, this morning in Philadelphia. CNN played a few minutes of it, and I was a little let down by what I heard. I'm certainly no economist, I just try and follow along, out of curiosity, but it bugged me to hear her suggestion that 'our economic problems stem from the home mortgage crisis'.
I'm paraphrasing, but here's what the Boston Globe said:
Hillary Clinton called this morning for emergency, far-reaching steps to stem home foreclosures, saying the crisis is weakening the entire economy.
In what her campaign billed as a major policy speech, she outlined a four-point plan that includes giving more aid so homeowners in danger of losing their houses can restructure their mortgages, launching a high-powered working group that would report back in three weeks on ways to broadly restructure at-risk mortgages, easing legal liability for mortgage servicers to help unfreeze the mortgage market, and giving states and cities an additional $30 billion to fight foreclosures..
"We are experiencing a crisis of confidence in our country," she told supporters in Philadelphia..."
This policy speech includes recommendations that very closely parallel what Barack Obama said needed to be done, precisely one year and two days ago.
On Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 U.S. Senator Barack Obama sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson urging them to immediately convene a homeownership preservation summit with key stakeholders to fight foreclosures driven by growth in the subprime mortgage market.
Barack's plan includes wider representation in what Hillary referred to as the "high-powered working group," to allow public interest advocates a seat at the table, or summit. That way, the same "experts" mostly to blame for having let things run out of control, in the first place, would not be the sole arbiters of planning, and eventual amelioration.
Admittedly, usrbs, none of that's as viscerally gripping, or as immediately rewarding an activity, as typing "Hillary's a shill for the DLC," 500 times, in the GD > P forum. (Okay, maybe not 500 times, I was never that bad, but allowing for creative development and re-interpretation of the basic theme, probably a whole bunch of times.) <3>
What I'm trying to say here is that I have been digging around for actual links, reference data, and quotes, from both of our candidates, on the economy, but I've been a little bit disappointed by both of them. I'm not sure either one is looking at the larger picture.
How about some sort of cost/benefit accounting of what Bush's is really going to cost us?
Call that a challenge to both candidate's supporters. What does either one really have to say about the most serious crisis facing this country?
Maybe if we could both agree on that, it would be worth re-posting this reply as an OP, to get some wider participation and input. (Some of which might even be, in some way, productive.)
Footnotes:
<1> Case in Point: I'm still waiting for somebody to apologize to John Kerry. Maybe not personally, but with some sort of Public Correction Notice, for what happened in 2004. Kerry was raked over the coals repeatedly for his combat service, while Dubya got a pass for his "after midnight" contributions to the champagne tradition of the Texas Air National Guard. No one could be found to collect the reward money, for confirming that Dubya had spent even one day at the Guard base in Alabama.
<2> I'd really like to know if there are any curiously disproportional racial/class elements to military privatization. To what extent have better-off white guys -- not to mention the Republican Base types, who run all the companies -- created what John Edwards might have referred to as "TWO American Armies?" Is our regular army now a second class branch of service, reserved for the ordinary schmuck off the street? (Americans of all colors and creeds; Black, Brown, Latino, Native American, as well as European-American. All those kids from Nowhere, U.S.A., who all happen to come from areas somehow by-passed, by the Bush Economic Miracle.)
<3> Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's producer for 60 Minutes, who helped to expose both the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandals, and the "Jerry Killian" Texas Air National Guard documents, had this to say on the subject of
Attack Politics:
"Reality didn't matter. Right and wrong didn't matter. Winning was the only thing that mattered to any of the people masterminding the slash-and-burn campaigns that benefited George W. Bush."
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