Time for Some Campaignin'!

Absolutely priceless American general election satire. Enjoy!

Clinton and his Record

It's interesting viewing, and shows the similar positions he and Hillary take not just to politics, but to their approach to politics. Clinton defends DOMA as bad but necessary legislation to manage a long game. I wish he didn't make sense but he does, in the same way that Hillary is trying to burst the 'yes we can' Obama bubble. There are realities which lofty rhetoric or noble intentions now cannot tackle or resolve, and there are bad people with large constituencies who will act now if given the ammunition. I don't like DOMA and wish Obama was right in his approach, but Clinton here displays more understanding about the political process than anyone likely to win in November...

And I...Begin to Wonder

We know Obama now has momentum. He has won more states and delegates for the first time since the contest started in earnest in Iowa. The media still love him, and his character has at least been tested by Bill Clinton if noone else (they both seem haughty and to have temper problems - how apt). With her campaign sloughing off key managerial staff and with Clinton herself having to lend the campaign money in order to go on when Obama's making $1 million a day, it looks bad for Hillary. Or does it?

She's still more than able to win Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, is fighting to get her delegates from Michigan and Florida seated at the Democratic National Convention in the summer (which admittedly isn't doing her any favours), and is currently favoured by a majority of super delegates. This could yet be key for this contest, given that Obama or Clinton would have to win the remaining high-delegate states by margins of over 60% in order to have a fighting chance of crossing their 2025 threshold, leaving the super delegates the final arbiters of who will fight John McCain in November. Key party grandees like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry won't be supporting her, but she successfully humiliated them both in Massachusetts and has someone named Bill on her side. And whilst Obama has successfully made inroads into Hillary's base, remember the older vote which she sill commands is more reliable than the youth vote.

There's still all to play for, but she really needs to trounce him in the next three states in order not to walk away with her campaign terminally crippled.

An Intelligent President

A very interesting watch and he makes some excellent points, particularly in saying that America's economic dependence on oil completely misses the point as it's a post-industrial economy. If Hillary wins the election, I wonder how many of these ideas might be attempted?

Democrats in South Carolina

Well I called it right and was also right in saying that the campaign tone would collapse. The Guardian is right in saying that it's important that the Democratic candidates be tested - whether Hillary can appeal to anyone other than her base and whether Obama actually has any big ideas to match up to the rhetoric. But it's also true that if they spend all their energies demolishing each other, it's entirely true that someone like McCain could creep through the middle.

I'm going to call South Carolina for Obama, which I hope is the case because these two can keep proving themselves rather than resorting to desperate measures merely to win. If Hillary wins though, this gets even nastier, the attacks on Bill Clinton will start to become even more frantic, and the nomination gets essentially sewn up. Just too soon maybe to have a just winner.

Maya Angelou for Hillary

State Package for Hillary Clinton

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits' end, but she has always risen, always risen, don't forget she has always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.

There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you're born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies. Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country. Hillary Clinton intends to help our country to be what it can become.

She declares she wants to see more smiles in the family, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace. She is the prayer of every woman and man who longs for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.

She means to rise.

Don't give up on Hillary. In fact, if you help her to rise, you will rise with her and help her make this country the wonderful, wonderful place where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety and without crippling fear.

Rise, Hillary.

Rise.

- Maya Angelou, as found in the Guardian.

The Tears of Hillary

It remains an interesting question: did Hillary's emotional moment swing everything her way in New Hampshire? Germaine Greer thinks that even if it did, that's not a good thing.

I'm not sure. It sure got John Edwards all fired up and sexist, which itself has been revealing in a contest which is refreshingly opening up all sorts of deep rooted questions about race and gender in the US. Thatcher became Prime Minister nigh effortlessly nearly three decades ago, yet Hillary still gets heckled by people demanding she iron their shirts? As Bill Clinton said - give me a break! Does that mean though that she used a soft option to get what she wanted, or was it a rare demonstration of humanity in someone often accused of having none, who's trying to supplant a president who couldn't even spell the word? There don't seem to be any definitive answers to any of these questions in this contest, which itself I find interesting.

A lecturer of mine once described us as being in a post-modern age of claim and counter claim - there were no more unifying truths. I would be inclined to agree. That can yet come back to bite her or Obama on the ass.

Hillary's Last Stand?

The truth is Hillary could defeat Giuliani at his scare-mongriest, Huckabee at his most religious, could swat Romney like an insect and outsmart McCain.

Obama?

Are we again to have a Presidential debate where the smartest person in the room loses through lack of experience? Or does Obama really have something new, something special? You see I like the idea of a female Commander-in-Chief, of Bill Clinton back in the thick of it. She could hit the ground running, which hasn't been imperative before. It is now. For all Obama's lefty rhetoric, his threat to bomb Pakistan sounds pretty neo-Conservative to me. She voted for Iraq - they all did. It's time to move on - she and Obama both agree on that.

Neither of them has governed but she has been at the forefront of national politics for a generation & her intellect is second to none. Her judgment's also a quantum improvement on Bill's. So why vote Obama?