More Obamamanianalysis

On May 14, 2008, at 8:29 PM, Evansen, Russell G wrote:

What is most galling to me is watching how the MSM has so thoroughly interjected itself into this whole political process, to the point where supposed “journalists” now take it for granted that they are charged with letting everyone know who will be the nominee and the next president – no matter what those annoying voters choose to do or believe. The talking heads of the Sunday chat shows and the insipid morning programs (“After the break we’ll discuss Hillary’s impact on the pantsuit industry – but first, what’s the latest on Miley Cyrus? We sent an investigative team to find out!”) have decided that we all need Obama the Healer to save us from ourselves, and they will brook no argument. This thing is OVER, they declare – so stop your stupid voting!!! Don’t you know that a bunch of elitist party hacks are going to decide this for you? Can’t you see that they are far wiser than you?

You’d think the fact that the Democrats’ hopelessly broken nominating system has yet again found a way to select the party’s most far left liberal candidate to be their November standard-bearer might give someone pause (Hello, Howard Dean? Do you recall George McGovern, or Walter Mondale, or Michael Dukakis, or John Kerry?). But let nothing stand in the way of the fairy tale that is “post-racial, post-partisan” Obama – certainly not those vulgar Clintons. The Dems are done with them, and now it’s time for them to begin the more acceptable former-first couple career of meddling in foreign affairs and writing fatuous books about how conservatives are bringing about the apocalypse.

Russ

From: Jon Burack [mailto:JBKburack@charter.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 8:50 AM

David,

I was pleased to see the utter repudiation of Obama in W. Va., but I fear it will not deter the Obama juggernaut. I mean Obama's already explained it all -- those yokels are bitter and the victims of false consciousness. I do not know the answer about what happens after a first ballot, but it looks to me like the Democrats are determined not to let there be more than one. I also am not yet seeing that this fight is, as David says, "sharpening the focus on real issues" for Democrats. It might do that if the two candidates were the least bit clear about what the issues are and what they believe.

As for "corporate conglomerates or the mass media," a lot could be said. I just don't see what the "self-interest" is of either the conglomerates or the media intelligentsia in the choice between Obama and Hillary, or even McCain for that matter. No matter who wins, the mainstream media will continue to decline in the face of the pressures mounting on it, newspapers will continue to cut staff, the old ships will go down as newer ones arise. The same hacks, meanwhile, will get the same Pulitzers for writing about the same irrelevancies. They same numskulls will continue to pat each other's backs for the fine moral fellows they all will tell themselves they are. In fact, you could make the case that McCain will make it easiest on them (and sell more hype to profit their corporate owners) by keeping alive the insane Bush Derangement Syndrome (already transmogrifying into the McCain Derangement Syndrome) that has given them the frame for everything they say and do, forestalling the need for thought and making life easy for them.

Meanwhile, the U.S. waits, prepared as no one else is to rescue the people of Burma, reviled to its core by Burma's military and the humantiarians of the UN and the liberal "international community" all over the place, as is this president, who has done more to combat AIDS than any other single man on Earth, as the people of Iraq also wait to learn if they really will be delivered back into the tender mercies of fanatic killers, Israel waits to learn if total annhilation will move from rhetoric to action, and the rest of us wait to find out which of these three future presidents will raise taxes the highest on us to "give" us free health care and make the climate change stop, God help us. At least I hold out hope McCain's warrior ethos and opposition to spending will keep him from really doing much about that last one, despite his apparent readiness to go with the flow on they hype.

Jon

From: David Burack
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 5:57 AM

At this point in time, immediately post-West Virginia, I have to admit that I am enjoying it. Even the possibility of watching Obama learn on the job how to become king.

But I am willing to bet a small amount on Hillary, and I just sent her yet another 50 bucks. She is appropriately scrappy, and I sense, if not a turning of the tide, at least a stopping of it from running Obama's way. She will go to the mat to bring at least some part of Florida and Michigan to bear. I think it will be tough for the DNC to deny MI and FL, regardless of the "rules," which the DNC of course has the power to change if it suits their purpose. And how can it suit their purpose to publicly disenfranchise some of the same electorate that they so justifiably claimed was disenfranchised by the Supreme Court in the last election?

With Hillary's win in W. Va., reality has begun to sink in on the party and the party-ers. The super delegates have to ponder whether they want to do another McGovern-- and I think that they're going to stop bleeding off to Obama at least until June. But they might be the idiots they appear to be, and throw this thing to Obama on the flimsy basis that the fight hurts the party. It doesn't hurt the party; it is sharpening the focus on real issues.

Question: Is it true that if there is no majority on the first ballot, then the delegates are free to vote their consciences? Or is that no longer the rule, if it ever was? If so, isn't there the faint possibility of having the first true convention, floor fights and all, since the 1940's or 50's?

The delegates choose the nominees, not Newsweek, not CNN's "Best Political Team," not even the odious New Yorker's Hendrik Herzberg, or New York Times political reporters whose almost openly biased coverage is all slanted to get them a ratings-enhancing black vs. white confrontation and to elect Barack Obama President. I'm not sure who needs to be reined in more, the corporate conglomerates or the mass media. Wait a minute; is there a difference?

But where the heck are the women? Are they really going to chance passing up the only possible female candidate for President in their lifetimes?

Dave B.


On May 9, 2008, at 8:44 PM, eliot markell wrote:

Thank you all for your feedback, especially Jon's in depth analysis.

Of course this whole mess could have been avoided by a Clinton nomination but so it goes. I now have until November to be persuaded to either sit this one out or cross over to the dark side and for the first time vote for the party of Lincoln.

Will my disenfranchisement from the Democratic Party, and distaste for Obama be enough motivation for me to put aside my discomfort with the Republican domestic agenda to lodge vote against a left wing platform that leaves me out in the cold? I guess I'm saying that if I decide to vote it would be to help establish an anti-Obama coalition within the Independent Party.

Would enough Independent voting against the Obama send the Democrats a message? Probably not, but if it looks like theres some kind of momentum to go against Obama within the Independents come November I would probably side with that movement.

Eliot