It’s driving me nuts.  I watch stuff on C-Span, and I’m thrilled and then the next day I hear pundits stating “failure” from their little convention posts. 

A friend of mine, however, found my new favorite pundits.  TV-One has incredibly good commentary.  Not hyper, not jumping on every little talking point, but real interesting thought.

I can only hope that that poor deluded woman comes to her senses. She says experience counts for her and that Obama’s resume is too thin. But she also says that Obama needs to convince her. Barring a sudden magical toughening up of Obama’s resume, I guess that’s one Democrat staying at home in November. How sad.

I will not lay fault at the Clintons’ feet if it’s really going to take a majority right-wing supreme court (and/or all-out class warfare) to wake Americans up from their torpor.

On the other hand, there is usually a kernel of truth to every zombie lie. Repeated unequivocal endorsements by Hill and Bill attesting to Obama’s “authenticity,” “readiness,” and “extraordinary promise” (or whatever) won’t seem like too much to have asked for, even if they don’t believe it. After all, the things I’ve heard each of them say with a straight face are eye-popping.

“Experience”? Cheney and Rumsfeld had all the experience in the world, and look how they f*&^#ed things up.

The thing that I don’t get about the experience argument is that if experience was your paramount consideration, Biden and Richardson were your candidates, not Clinton.

Thank you, Jesse, that is absolutely true. I think “experience” actually means “I’ve seen her on TV the most.”

Jesse hit the mark on that, and I say this as someone whose first choice was Richardson. Hillary Clinton didn’t really have much more experience in *elected* office than Barack Obama.

all the coverage has turned this into a potential indictment of Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s speeches.

Well, look, if your audience was made up of aging middle-American consumers of suppositories and robot insurance, you wouldn’t want to report anything positive about the Democratic convention lest you confirm their worst fears of liberal media bias.

The only network without that concern is Faux—they wouldn’t report positively on Obama’s speech even if the spirits of the Blonde Jeebus and St Ronnie both materialised on-stage at Invesco to convey their blessings.

As for Hillary’s speech, a good speech. Not “you filthy misogynists paid off my personal campaign debt” good, but still pretty good. It did the job.

Now she can go back to arranging the guest list for the 2012 exploratory committee.

The thing that I don’t get about the experience argument is that if experience was your paramount consideration, Biden and Richardson were your candidates, not Clinton.

Hm. Doesn’t natural ability have a place here?

There’s a joke going around Seattle about the local baseball team and their grizzled vets who’ve “gone through the wars.” They’d rather have a 10 year vet who hits .200, than a rookie who’s hit .380 in the minors, a Miguel Cairo (who?) than an A-Rod in his first full year.

Jesse hit the mark on that, and I say this as someone whose first choice was Richardson. Hillary Clinton didn’t really have much more experience in *elected* office than Barack Obama.

She actually had (has) less experience in elected office than Barack Obama. Don’t forget that he was a state senator for all those years. (Yes, that counts, especially when your state contains a single city with a larger economy all to itself than most western states taken together.)

And I never thought her experience riding Bill’s coattails counted for much. I thought Harry Shearer put it best when he compared Hillary’s White House “experience” to one of Sting’s groupies being awarded the Grammy.

Combined with all the self-aggrandizing whoppers we heard from her and her campaign during the primary, it’s hard to see Hillary’s “experience” as anything but a fabricated resume.

After all, the things I’ve heard each of them say with a straight face are eye-popping.

You know, I have to say something.  I’ve been in the Obama camp since the day he threw his hat in the ring, and I was so appalled at some of the things the Clintons said and did during the primary season that I was VERY on the fence about being able to vote for Clinton in good conscience if she were the nominee. 

But when she walked out on that stage last night, even before she really started talking, I realized that, yes, of course, I would certainly have voted for her.  And I would be honored to have her has president*.  Almost every issue I had with her campaign was forgiven in that speech.  I don’t know if what she said appealed to people in her camp and helped set them on the path to voting Dem this year, but I know that as an Obama supporter what she said appealed to me. 

* Thought, FWIW, the way her campaign used racist attacks and played on people’s racism still rankles.  I’m just not sure how pragmatic it is to use that bitterness as a factor in my vote for POTUS.

Why can’t anyone be bothered to do the journalism the web has done showing that these people are not who they claim to be?  That there are not huge numbers of feminist women who feel so scorned by Obama that they will vote away their rights just to prove the point?

I’ve heard exactly one journalist/talking head say as much—Connie Shultz, a couple nights ago on Charlie Rose.  And she and her husband, Senator Sherrod Brown, who knows both Clinton and Obama rather well, reiterated both that and the fact that there didn’t seem to be a significant amount of personal bitterness between the candidates themselves, last night on the same show. 

But of course that’s Charlie Rose, not CNN or the NYT.

That’s a good point about being in the State Senate, Chet.

I mean, the Republicans are talking about Palin for VP. Her entire state probably has about as many people as Obama did in his State Senate district.

Because, because, because anything that makes the Clintons look bad and hurts Obama is good for the MSM.  What other possible explanation is there?  Does anyone here really believe or have any evidence that there are three million registered PUMAs?  Hell no.  Because there aren’t.  Anymore than those two freakish rethug flakcs spearheading this “movement” had any chance of voting for a dem, any dem, in this election.

And that sad, deluded woman CNN put on the air for an interminable amount of time.  She made no sense.  She was just emotional shitting in front of the entire nation.  She didn’t listen to “her” candidate speak.  She just wanted to be pandered to by someone.  Her “reasons” were nonsensical.  But it’s news because it makes Hillary look less than genuine and it makes Obama look weak. Score one more for the MSM.

And you can fucking count on the fact that nothing like this will occur in Minnesota.

Full disclosure: After Edwards dropped out, I was on the fence about who I thought should get the nomination. I wasn’t sold on either Clinton or Obama. Then Obama became the presumptive nominee.

After the FISA cave-in, I seriously considered going green and voting for McKinney. (and Biden? Really? Color me underwhelmed.) Now that Minnesota has become a swing state, however, I am thinking that is not the way to go. I see Obama signs EVERYWHERE I go, but I live in the city. I’m pretty sure that if I were to go to the ‘burbs, there would be nothing but McCain signs as far as the eye can see. (Oh, look, it’s the GOP Convention! Whee! Not.)

Therefore, I am doing the strategic thing and voting for Obama in the fall.

Gracchus:

[snip]

As for Hillary’s speech, a good speech. Not “you filthy misogynists paid off my personal campaign debt” good, but still pretty good. It did the job.

Now she can go back to arranging the guest list for the 2012 exploratory committee.

Hillary’s speech did everything it was supposed to do. She handled herself with intelligence and aplomb. If you want to turn the rest of Hillary’s supporters into Barack’s supporters, that sort of sexist condescension will have to go.

Phoebe Fay:
I am so done with the hurt feelings of Clinton supporters. There’s too much at stake her for this kind of ambivalence.

Not all people who are undecided about Obama are former Clinton supporters. Furthermore, many of them withhold their support for reasons other than hurt feelings.

From what I have heard and read from them, many of them are progressives. They are ambivalent about Obama because they believe that, as a centrist, Obama does not reflect their values. Those undecideds have a right to those values. Their votes are their own. If Obama wants them, he has to win them just like any other candidate.

[snip]
And I will hold people like that woman responsible for those deaths if they don’t get off their asses and get behind Obama.

I agree that a McCain administration would be a terrible disaster. I also agree that our nation can’t take much more of this gross mismanagement.

At the same time, if we want to win people to our side, we have to more than demand that they fall in line. From what I’ve read, all that does is piss them off. We need to do more than say, “Vote for us, because, unlike the other side, we’re not completely evil.” That has been the rallying cry of the Democratic party for as long as I can remember. It’s milquetoast at best. At worst, it doesn’t work at all. You say “the stakes are too high,” and I agree. They’re too high to waste our time on strategies that don’t work.

Fortunately, we can do more than that. There are many parts of Obama’s platform that appeal to progressives. Also, Obama is a hell of a lot less likely to stack his administration with incompetent cronies and religious fanatics. He’ll get us out of Iraq, help pay down our debt, invest in infrastructure (which shores up the economy), etc.

Considering what we’ve been through for the last eight years, this election is Obama’s to lose.

When I wrote “After all, the things I’ve heard each of them say with a straight face are eye-popping,” I wasn’t even talking about the primary “tactics,” lets call them (because I’ve moved onto acceptance with regard to “Of course he’s a Christian ... as far as I know” and the rest. Damn, she really said that! Fuck, now I have to start over on my stages, don’t I?) Anyway, I was thinking more along the lines of, “I trust the President will use this Authorization for the Use of Military Force wisely as a bargaining chip because I’ve never heard of the neocons or their blueprint to invade Iraq in order to remake the Middle East.”

From what I have heard and read from them, many of them are progressives. They are ambivalent about Obama because they believe that, as a centrist, Obama does not reflect their values.

What’s bizarre to me is how many avowed former Clinton supporters won’t vote for Obama because he’s not progressive enough but are upset that Hillary—who is equally, if not more, centrist than Obama—isn’t the nominee.  Clinton is on the board of the DLC, so that means she’s more progressive than Obama?  Huh?

If the argument is that you won’t vote for a centrist candidate, what were you doing supporting Clinton in the first place?

Hillary went beyond the call of duty last night. I will be honest and admit that I am not a fan of her but I was moved.  People that refuse to get on board are only endorsing McCain. What they do not realize is that failue to act is an action.  As for Obama working hard to win their vote…with women like these, it is am impossibility.

I thought Hillary did a good job, she looked, dare I say Presidential.  I’m not sure if it did what Dems wanted it to but then again I’m not a Dem so I won’t attempt to guess at what it was they wanted.  From my point of view I think she could have done a little more, mainly she did nothing to hurt Obama which in the end is all that matters.

Hillary’s speech did everything it was supposed to do. She handled herself with intelligence and aplomb. If you want to turn the rest of Hillary’s supporters into Barack’s supporters, that sort of sexist condescension will have to go.

It’s not my job to turn Hillary’s supporters into Obama supporters—that’s her job. And as I said, for the most part she did that job and did it well.

As for the remaining fringe of so-called PUMAS, I’m certainly glad to point out some of Hillary’s ulterior motives, and to joke about some of her supporters’ tendency to label every bloody gender-neutral criticism of her as “evidence” of sexism.

Or are you arguing that only female candidates want to pay off their wastefully-incurred campaign debts or have a monstrous sense of entitlement?