Psychotic Hillary Supporter at the DNC RBC Meeting Today

Money quote: “Inadequate black male.”

Bill Clinton’s Conspiracy Theories

On this week’s Wilshire and Washington, Ted Johnson asked me what I thought of Bill Clinton’s assertion that a powerful group he identified only as “them” was trying to keep his wife from securing the nomination.

I told him that I thought Clinton sounds “like a crazy man,” a statement that is only supported by this recording, which seems to imply that he currently buys this theory:

After Hillary recovered from a string of losses to rival Barack Obama with March 4 wins in Texas and Ohio, powerful forces conspired to pressure the superdelegates who will decide the nomination to back Obama by discouraging her supporters from voting and trying to hide evidence proving she would fare better than Obama against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

Clinton’s Diehard Supporters Occupy a Completely Alternate Universe

These people are utterly insane. A few highlights from the protest:

Clusters of people in Hillary shirts ask to take their photo with [Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999.] One woman covered in Clinton buttons introduces him to Greta Van Susteren, and he estimates he has handed out 500 fliers [emblazoned with the words] “Obama’s DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS: Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex.”

And lest you think for a second that this behavior represents only the non-sanctioned lunatic fringe:

We tend to assume the Hillary camp’s hot rhetoric–that Obama’s less ready than McCain to be commander-in-chief, that the DNC in Florida is like Mugabe in Zimbabwe–is studied, purposeful, that they can’t really believe it. That may be true at the Lanny Davis level, but by the time it trickles down to Hillary’s most grassroots supporters, it becomes deadly serious.

Of the eight Hillary supporters I quiz at the protest (six of them women), only one says she’d even consider voting for Obama in the fall. “It’s sad. I’m a lifelong Democrat and the party’s been taken over by these Obama people who say they want ‘change,’” gripes Linda of Horseheads, New York, outside the Marriott as a honking car decorated with a painting of Hillary, a glued-on bust of Cleopatra, and a tampon drives by. Linda, she says, has already gone to the state Board of Elections to learn how to write Hillary’s name in in November. “So much has been stolen from her.”

Justine, a self-described “diehard Democrat” from Greensboro, North Carolina, objects to the write-in idea. “It’s gonna help Barack if you don’t vote against him,” she says. She and her friends got Sinclair to autograph their copies of the “Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex” flier. One of those friends, Jeannie, is living proof that, at least for some people, the long primary has done its damage. “When [Obama] first came out, we just thought he was too young,” she explains. “But now I don’t think he’s qualified at all.”…

The rhetoric from the top has imparted its poison below, and the bitterest criticisms of Obama gain traction as they circulate through the virulently-pro-Hillary echo chamber. “Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?” Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. “That’s a good point,” he replies.

The simple fact is that the Clintons would rather utterly destroy the Democratic Party than hand its reigns over to the most promising young leader to come along in a generation. How sad. How sociopathic.

Seating Michigan and Florida’s Delegates: The Debate Continues

The ongoing insanity of the Rules and Bylaws Committee is making my car accident-induced, backache-induced headache even worse. In the interest of sanity, I’m turning off the news and stepping back for a minute.

If you’re really interested in a blow-by-blow of the proceedings, our wonderful reader Patrick is liveblogging them here and Andrew Sullivan pointed to this excellent summary if the details become too infuriating for you.

2.99 Gas Guarantee

Lets Refuel America! That’s the new slogan being rolled about being Jeep and Dodge as part of their $2.99 Gas Guarantee. Basically, if you buy their crappy, overpriced, gas guzzlers, they will subsidize your gas for the next three years.

This is disgusting on so many levels. First of all, if you can’t afford to buy gas, you shouldn’t be buying a new car. Secondly, I can’t think of anything worse than subsidizing gas prices. They are going to continue to go up pretty much forever. The longer we wait to get off of gasoline, the harder and more expensive its going to be to do it. Just for this campaign, I pledge never to buy a Jeep or Dodge ever again.

Wilshire and Washington: Hillary’s RFK Remarks, The Superdelegates, McClellan’s Book, and More

Listen to Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry and I weigh in on the political and media issues of the week.

Back episodes — mostly practices — can be found here. Tune in with us at that site for future recordings Wednesday mornings at 10:30 Eastern / 7:30 Pacific.

Clinton Demonstrators Need A Review of the Facts

To those Clinton supporters planning to protest outside the DNC Rules and Regulations Committee Meeting this weekend, where the committee will determine the seating of the delegates from Michigan and Florida, please read the following before some random passerby embarrasses you by enlightening you of the actual facts surrounding the issue:

Last August, when the DNC Rules Committee voted to strip Florida (and Michigan, if it persisted in clinging to its date) of its delegates, the Clinton delegates on the committee backed those sanctions. All 12 Clinton supporters on the committee supported the penalties. (The only member of the committee to vote against them was an Obama supporter from Florida.) Harold Ickes, a committee member, leading Clinton strategist and acknowledged master of the political game, said, “This committee feels very strongly that the rules ought to be enforced.” Patty Solis Doyle, then Clinton’s campaign manager, further affirmed the decision. “We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process,” she said, referring to the four states that the committee authorized to hold the first contests. “And we believe the DNC’s rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC-approved nominating calendar.”

The Christian Right on the 2008 Presidential Election

A few tidbits that drifted through my reader today:

• Christianists are having a hard time accepting John McCain as the Republican party’s presumptive nominee, especially with the rumors that he might select Florida’s moderate, unmarried governor Charlie Crist as his running mate.
• Experts think that Ellen DeGeneres may have a unique impact on the California marriage debate. “Because of her likeability, a lot of viewers feel like they know her,” says Jim Key, chief public affairs officer for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. “She is like a friend. People who know her want her to have the same rights as everyone else.” Ellen sure made a difference for me ten years ago when she came out on the cover of Time. I carried the cover of that magazine around in the clear plastic sleeve of my binder for the rest of the year. It’s how I came out at school.
• Meanwhile, prominent evangelical leaders like Mike Huckabee are raising points that might put some Christians in bed with the Democrats rather than the Republicans. Social liberalism anyone?

Does anyone else think that this spells limited evangelical support for McCain in the fall? Might Democrats take the upper hand with this group given their dissatisfaction with McCain, more mainstream acceptance of gays and lesbians and Obama’s wonderful ability to speak to people of faith?

Greatest Musician Ever

Franz Liszt.

According to the AP Music Theory Teacher at my school, this guy is the greatest musician of all time.

Coburn Wants To Regain Republican Sanity

The Republicans are going to get shellacked this November. Probably the worst election for their party since the times of FDR. If the Democratic turnout in the primaries weren’t indication enough, the GOP has lost three Congressional seats in the past few months, seats which have been in solid Republican strongholds.

Senator Tom Coburn has the solution. A return to limited government, and a move away from lobbyists and big government. And show, rather than tell people they are serious, with Republican-sponsored legislation cutting spending between now and November. Because after all, if the Republicans aren’t the party of fiscal responsiblity, what good are they?

From Senator Coburn:

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and “compassionate conservatism.” If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof “governing” majority, the goal of “compassionate conservatism” was to spend our way to a governing majority.

The fruit of these efforts is not the hoped-for Republican governing majority, but the real prospect of a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in 2009. While the K Street Project decimated our brand as the party of reform and limited government, compassionate conservatism convinced the American people to elect the party that was truly skilled at activist government: the Democrats.

Compassionate conservatism’s starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the “other” is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.

Compassionate conservatism’s next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.

Regaining our brand as the party of fiscal discipline will require us to rejoin Americans in the real world of budget choices and priorities, and to leave behind the fantasyland of borrowing without limits. Instead of adopting earmarks, each Republican can adopt examples of government waste, largess and fraud, and restart the permanent campaign against big government.

Republicans can tear up the “emergency spending” credit card and refuse to accept any new spending whatsoever, including for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, until Congress does its job of eliminating wasteful spending. The federal budget contains a vast unexplored area of offsets. My office alone has identified $300 billion in annual waste. Borrowing from the next generation when we haven’t done our job of oversight is unconscionable.

Regaining our brand is not about “messaging.” It’s about action. It’s about courage. It’s about priorities. Most of all, it’s about being willing to give up our political careers so our grandkids don’t have to grow up in a debtor’s prison, or a world in which other nations can tell a weakened and bankrupt America where we can and can’t defend liberty, pursue terrorists, or show compassion.

John McCain, for all his faults, is the one Republican candidate who can lead us through our wilderness. Mr. McCain is not running on a messianic platform or as a great healer of dysfunctional Republicans who refuse to help themselves. His humility is one of his great strengths. In his heart, he’s a soldier who sees one more hill to charge, one more mission to complete.

Bill Clinton: The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Wants You to Vote for Obama

Bill Clinton just can’t keep his mouth shut. It seems that every time he speaks on his wife’s “behalf,” he reveals both of their arrogance and classlessness. This time, he speaks of a conspiracy to cover up the fact that she still has a chance to win the primary:

She will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.

Someone should tell President and Senator Clinton that a vast right-wing conspiracy is not responsible every time things don’t go their way. When you have a lifelong pattern of sexually harassing women in your employ and then get caught lying about it under oath, it’s not a vast right-wing conspiracy, it’s perjury. And when you assume your selection as the Democratic nominee is inevitable and have no post-Super Tuesday strategy, that’s not a vast right-wing conspiracy, that’s irresponsibility.

These comments reveal the Clintons as the poor sports they are. They are also incredibly disrespectful to their party’s presumptive nominee. Insinuations by the putative head of the Democratic party that its own candidate cannot win in November are going to give Senator McCain lots of ammunition to use once this nominating process wraps up.

Hillary’s the VICTIM

Bill Clinton REALLY wants back into the White House. His level of denial and ridiculous spinning of the facts are really destroying his legacy.

And yes, his point about Michigan and Florida is correct. The problem of what to do about those two states is part of the reason why there are calls for Hillary to drop out. However, I don’t see how this HELPS Senator Clinton’s case for sticking in the race with no chance of winning. Although if their goal may be to lose all their credibility and money, then by all means they should take this fight to the convention. After all, Hillary is only averaging about 10 million dollars of debt per month. At that rate, she should be 60 million dollars in the whole by August. The Clinton’s are worth about 100 million dollars, so why not blow half their fortune.

Just When You Think She Can’t Go Any Lower

Senator Clinton’s grasping at straws for some justification to remain in the Presidential race continues to reveal her shocking lack of character. When responding to questions about why she continues to remain in the race and if she is hurting the party by doing so, she gave this response:

“Historically, that makes no sense,” she said, “so I find it a bit of a mystery.”

Question: “You don’t buy the party unity argument?”

Mrs. Clinton: “I don’t because, again, I’ve been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don’t understand it and there’s lot of speculation about why it is.”

While it’s true that she was citing a fact, bringing up the assassination of an inspirational leader, whom her opponent has been compared to, close to the 40th anniversary of that event in a statement referencing a reason to stay in the race is disturbing. Disturbing because one unspoken implication for her sticking around that is invoked by this statement is that she should stick around in case Barack Obama is assassinated.

Keith Olberman explains more in detail just how offensive the undertones of this remark are, as well as why, at this point, Hillary Clinton has lost the benefit of the doubt for remarks such as these, and why they demonstrate that she lacks the character to be a decent President.

However, at this point in the race, I’m even more appalled by her lack of fiscal responsibility. The latest numbers I’ve seen put Senator Clinton’s campaign at a $30 million dollar debt. She has left hundreds, if not thousands of bills unpaid to local vendors, the “hard-working white” people that she claims to champion. How exactly can you claim to be a champion of the middle class when you leave them holding the check?

The Dangers of Running on Your Spouse’s Coattails

It’s recently come to light that the Clinton who is fighting most doggedly to stay in the race is not Hillary, but Bill. He’s so obsessed with getting back to the halls of power that he’ll pull any dirty trick to have his way, dragging his wife along with him.

Senator Clinton is a truly brilliant woman. On top of this, she’s disciplined, hardworking, and driven. She would undoubtedly have made a strong, if unscrupulous president. And despite her high negatives, she would have been a formidable opponent to Senator McCain. If only she had run on her own merits, instead of claiming her husband’s experience as her own, she would be the presumptive nominee right now.

Unfortunately for her, she wound up running against Barack Obama for the nomination. He’s far more charismatic, compelling and exciting than she is. But I can’t help thinking that even against Obama, her chances would have been much better if she weren’t still attached to Bill.

Imagine a very different world: It’s 1998 and the tawdry details of President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky are making their way into the public eye. His appalled wife begins divorce proceedings and leaves the White House for a nice home in New York. There, she lays low for about a year before announcing her bid for the United States Senate, a bid she wins by a landslide in 2000.

In the Senate, she gains her own political experience and enjoys being a wonk. Maybe she meets someone nice and falls in love, or maybe she doesn’t. Whatever the case, she’s happy, comfortable in her own skin, and free of her disgraced ex-husband, whose biggest splash in the headlines involves trafficking high-class prostitutes across state lines.

Seven years later, she announces her bid for the presidency. Her daughter Chelsea at her side, she tours the country gladhanding and kissing babies. She admits that she’s not the most glamorous candidate, but there’s something special about her concern for the American people that resonates. She talks about her genuine beliefs, her hopes and her experiences. She doesn’t talk much about her years as First Lady, preferring to focus on her time in the Senate. She shares a genuine message of change with the American people.

After securing the nomination by a hair’s breadth after a tight, but fairly fought and above-board primary. She graciously invites her opponent turned supporter Barack Obama to be her running mate, uniting the Democratic Party and making history as the first woman president and black vice president.

Farfetched? I don’t think so. And it has surprisingly little to do with the reasons for her divorce. If anything, President Clinton’s affair would have been a wonderful pretext for divorcing the man who has done everything he can to undermine his wife’s campaign and “retake the Clinton brand.”

My money is on a Clinton divorce by November 2009.

Clinton Compares Obama To Mugabe

Indirectly, but even still, Clinton’s rhetoric is getting ridiculous:

“…people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”

“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe,” Clinton explained. “Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.

“So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote. It is the single most important, privilege and right any of us have, because in that ballot box we are all equal. You’re equal to a billionaire. You’re equal to the president, every single one of us.”

“I think people across Florida and Michigan are thinking to themselves, ‘Well if the Democrats don’t want my vote, maybe John McCain and the Republicans do?’ We can’t let that happen,” she told the small crowd.”

So basically, Clinton is first comparing the DNC to the Zanu-PF, and Obama and Dean to Robert Mugabe. She’s then implying that if Florida and Michigan aren’t seated the way she wants, they will (or should) end up voting for McCain.

I’d also find it interesting that this was in front a “small crowd.” Obama gave a speech this week in Tampa to a crowd of 15,000.

However, it’s hard to argue that Clinton hanging around is not hurting Obama in these two key states, as she is now BRAGGING that some of her supporters are protesting Obama fundraisers because of the Florida-Michigan issue.

The most outrageous part o fher attempt to make Obama look like the bad guy for simply following the rules is that not only did both of them agree to these rules, but were also created by MEMBERS OF HER OWN STAFF, which is documented in senior staffer Terry McAuliffe’s biography!

As Mark Nickolas note in his blog “Political Base,” Sen. Carl Levin told McAuliffe that he was going to take Michigan “outside the primary window.” McAuliffe told Levin that “”I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules.” The story continues on page 325.

“If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses,” I said. “We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost.”
He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

“You won’t deny us seats at the convention,” he said.

“Carl, take it to the bank,” I said. “They will not get a credential. The closest they’ll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it.”

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

Why Clinton Should Drop Out Now

The exit polls in Kentucky tell the whole story: 8 eight in ten voters would be dissatisfied in Clinton won the nomination, and only 33 percent of her supporters said they would vote for Obama. The Obama-Clinton race is becoming increasingly polarized, and Clinton is doing everything she can to turn voters off to Barack Obama. Despite the fact that tonight’s totals will bring Obama up to a majority of pledged delegates, and within less than 50 total delegates of the magic number of 2,025.

Obama is going to be the nominee, and Clinton’s massively indebted campaign seems to be accomplishing only two things: drawing campaign money away from other Democrats who will be running in the fall, and creating a rift within the party between Obamanians and Clintonites. It’s over. You’re not going to be President. Settle for being a United States Senator from the second largest state in the country. I can think of worse jobs to have.

It Takes Character to Say “I Don’t Know”

Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama is taking some fire from Republicans for giving this answer to an audience member’s question about cleaning up Washington’s Hanford nuclear site:

“Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there,” Obama said Sunday at a campaign stop in Pendleton, Ore. “Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.”

A Republican National Committee spokesman commented, “how can Obama deliver change if he doesn’t even understand what needs to be changed?”

First of all, the answer was a change in and of itself. Imagine a politician with the character and the courage not to bullshit when faced with a question he doesn’t know the answer to yet.

Nobody, not even Senator McCain with his eons of experience and service to this country, knows everything. And for an overachiever like Obama, saying “I don’t know” is not an easy thing. It takes character to admit you don’t have all the answers, especially when you’re running for office.

I should know. These days at my new job — which is awesome, BTW — I’m saying “I don’t know” an awful lot. I have no experience in mobile or with product development. And for someone who is used to being at the front of the pack, that’s a new and humbling experience. It tests my character daily, so I can empathize.

I really admire Senator Obama for having the guts to admit he doesn’t know something and for promising to find out the truth.

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