Presidential candidates switch seats this week.

The Democratic Party’s campaign has come to an ending and a beginning during the past few days. This momentous week that is now coming to a close. Saturday will mark the official end of Senator Hillary Clinton’s historic bid for the U.S. presidency. The presidential election will be contested from now until November by Senators Obama and McCain.

What do we know? We know an awful lot. A search on “obama” in my Bloglines aggregator returned 3,155,000 posts. Memeorandum.com leads with the best and most prominent current info about the changes with the Democratic campaign. The news that Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had a meeting somewhere in Washington, D.C. Thursday night was the most intriguing. The New York Times reported much of what is known about the event, headlining “Clinton meets with Obama, and the rest is secret.” To quote the story’s conclusion:

Finally, as Mr. Obama was headed back to Chicago on a private plane and Mrs. Clinton had returned to her home, another rarity took place. A joint statement was issued by representatives of the two senators, but sent out by Mr. Obama’s staff. Those words, perhaps, were the first cooperative undertaking since the presidential race began six seasons ago.

“Senator Clinton and Senator Obama met tonight and had a productive discussion about the important work that needs to be done to succeed in November,” the statement said.Mrs. Clinton’s farewell from the race comes Saturday. When she offers her endorsement, Mr. Obama said he intends to be in Chicago with his family. Unless, of course, he isn’t.

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Hill Embraces Klanservatism

After yesterday’s shellacking, Hill has decided to abandon all of the heretofore subtle panders to Klanservatives, and openly put on the white sheet.

In what appear to be the New York senator’s most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that “White Americans” are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama’s candidacy.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Clinton cited an Associated Press poll “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

There sure is, Hill. From about the time your husband talked about how Obama is “like Jesse Jackson” on, you’ve been sending the message that you are the white choice for President. Couple that with your “elitist” slurs and your crass pandering on the gas tax issue, and even the Chimpletons were bound to take notice. But that’s what you intended, isn’t it?

I don’t have the greatest of educations, but I can tell when I’m being played for a fool. Racist pandering is what keeps guys like Chimpy viable in elections. The fact that you’re now doing it tells us much more about you than you could ever tell us in your own words.
—- off, Hill.

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The Empire strikes Barack

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the girl who cried misogyny

yeah. it’s usually better that i don’t write when i am exhausted because my normally short irritation fuse gets even shorter. i don’t even know how to start because i just have so very much actual anger at americans for being so incredibly stupid- and then at my own gender for being even stupider. i can hardly stand it. i have never given it a second thought- in my entire life- that i am a white woman. it doesn’t occur to me to care- because i have never had to. that doesn’t mean that i can’t be an ally with and empathize with- women of color or simply any other person who doesn’t look like me. i have always backed the under dog and i have always stood up for what i felt was right- i get that from both parents- although i don’t really have a relationship with my father-

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huh- i never would have guessed…

that jenna bush was going to vote for hillary clinton

pennsylvania- it just makes sense

for any of you undecideds in pennsylvania- here’s a good assessment of how to pick:

“THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.

A candidate’s campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.

It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future - and that they have the power to change things.

It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It’s the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It’s the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.”

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My Newest Hero: Robert Reich

In his blog yesterday the former secretary of labor called out the mainstream media and the political establishment (read McCain and Billary spinmeisters) for criticizing Barak Obama’s recent remarks about the bitterness in the heartland.

I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 61 years ago. My father sold $1.98 cotton blouses to blue-collar women and women whose husbands worked in factories. Years later, I was secretary of labor of the United States, and I tried the best I could – which wasn’t nearly good enough – to help reverse one of the most troublesome trends America has faced: The stagnation of middle-class wages and the expansion of povety. Male hourly wages began to drop in the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. The average man in his 30s is earning less than his father did thirty years ago. Yet America is far richer. Where did the money go? To the top.

Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then — by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes – to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame “liberal elites,” to blame anyone and anything.

Rather than counter all this, the American media have wallowed in it. Some, like Fox News and talk radio, have given the haters and blamers their very own megaphones. The rest have merely “reported on” it. Instead of focusing on how to get Americans good jobs again; instead of admitting too many of our schools are failing and our kids are falling behind their contemporaries in Europe, Japan, and even China; instead of showing why we need a more progressive tax system to finance better schools and access to health care, and green technologies that might create new manufacturing jobs, our national discussion has been mired in the old politics…

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment – all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I sure don’t trust that McCain or Billary have the best interests of working Americans on their agenda.

It’s nice to see another former member of the Clinton administration demonstrate the character and backbone to stand up and be heard. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop… Billary lashing out at Professor Reich like they attacked Governor Richardson, another honorable man.

Cross posted from BFD Blog!

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are you nuts?

 he hits the nail squarely on the head

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remember rev. wright?

thought folks might like to know a couple of the folks that mrs. clinton breakfasted with at her regular capital hill prayer breakfasts:

rick santorum- so devout that he and his wife brought their dead son home to show the other six kids before burial.

‘The fabric of democracy lies in religion, said U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in his presentation at St. Paul’s Seminary in Crafton this week. The “great gift of America” is that “we are free to espouse that faith in the public square,” he was quoted as saying in a report published in the Tribune-Review. The pro-life senator spoke as part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s lecture series, “Faithful Citizenship.”

“If we divorce public life from faith, freedom itself will fail,” he was quoted as saying.

He told the crowd that he views his political life through the lens of his Catholic faith and he spoke of the general public’s inaccurate presumption that politicians who don’t bring faith into the public forum are neutral, reported the newspaper.’

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i really don’t know what to say

i have been saying ‘weeping jesus on the cross’ quite a bit- and today was more of an ‘oh my f**king god’ kind of day and there has been a great deal of shaking of my head too. why? you may ask. what’s wrong betmo? that’s where i say- where do i begin? i don’t know if my fingers can type fast enough. i have absolutely almost lost my goddamned mind. deep breath.

i am a woman. i have the boobs and vagina to prove it. trust me. i cannot wrap my mind around how incredibly horribly my gender has represented itself lately. i mean from nancy pelosi to start then on to the spineless, let me join the boys’ club chicks in the congress- to talking heads. omfg!!!! i read a variety of blogs and i believe i have posted before- i read ladies of color and all manners of so-called feminist blogs. i also read plenty of lgbt blogs and blogs by chicks like me- who just want to write. so- i hope i have sufficient information to base my observations. i realize i am rambling- but if i have to read one more time how it’s silda spitzer’s fault- and any woman’s fault- that her husband decided cheat on her- i will punch something. if i have to hear that it’s because she isn’t servicing his needs- i will punch something. if i have to hear one more time- how it’s ok for clinton and ferraro and the entire campaign to be racist and then excuse themselves because they are white women (but not ok for anyone to criticize them because now- that’s misogynist) i think i will punch something.

ladies- why not get the collective heads out of the asses for awhile and get real? ya’ll can’t have it all ways. the clintonistas all claim to be feminists- and yet behave like little victims whenever anyone calls them on anything. the fact is that the feminist movement in this country is alarmingly white. i have heard from more than one source that these little suburban soccer moms who go to the NOW meetings are all willing to include unless you rock their status quo. well, we have seen evidence of that haven’t we? keith olberman misogynst for calling out clinton to repudiate ferraro’s racist statements that she had been all around the news defending? acting like clinton didn’t know and it wasn’t a political ploy. grow up girls- it’s time. get real.

then we have the guilty career women like kern and schlessinger who blame women for being mistreated by men. wtf? my husband and i have a partnership. i imagine most folks do- unless they are rethugs or fundies- or both. i don’t tell my husband what to do and i am fully autonomous. if i don’t want to give it up- guess what? i don’t. hubby doesn’t like it- there’s some vaseline in the bathroom. have at it. get real. these men are adults. it isn’t my ‘duty’ to service my husband- i happen to like him. it isn’t his duty to come home to me every night- he likes me.

the tv personalities aren’t even what makes my blood boil- it’s the minions who are supporting hillary hook, line and sinker and refuse- ala right wing style- to hear anything negative about the clinton campaign. i am not an obama enthusiast. although i don’t know why i continue to make the distinction- it doesn’t matter in the slightest. it will be a cold day in hell before i vote for hillary clinton because of the way she has run her campaign. smart politics- no doubt. but that isn’t what i am looking for in the next president. obama has flaws but he hasn’t played the gender card. he has skewed his mailings and stretched the truth in his ads and debates- but he hasn’t called clinton’s religion into question. get real ladies. you can’t keep playing the misogyny card either. it exists and it is real but you are over playing your hand. keep it going and you may get a ‘snow job special‘.

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i have already cast my primary vote

but for the few states who are left- or perhaps any superdelegates out there reading (fyi the 80 or so who have decided to wait until the convention)- this may help to sway your vote. thanks to bob cesca and his wonderful blog.

October 2, 2002
Illinois State Senator Barack Obama

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

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Final thoughts on the Iowa caucus..

Biden and Dodd dropped out immediately after the final vote was cast and counted. The bible vote came out en mass for Huck and Hillary was gracious when she congratulated Obama and Edwards for coming in first and second respectively.

Dodd is the head of the banking committee and a good fighter against the Telco’s quest to get retroactive immunity. Biden also chairs an important committee, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and his views on the war make him valuable to ending the war and how Congress deals with the Shrub’s horrible foreign policy decisions.

I only hope that Hillary gets used to coming in third..which would make this a great horserace for Obama and Edwards.  One important figure coming out of Iowa..the youth vote..it was huge and 57% of them voted for Obama. The youth vote is categorized as anyone under…30..god, do I feel old right now. Also, the number of Iowan’s participating was three times the amount of the 04 election..which is a plus as well.

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