Not again!

I’m assuming that the title is a rhetorical question?

zed?

Zeddish?

If the sexist and racist arguments are going to come up in the General Election, what is the problem with igniting them now?

I try not to watch or read this kind of shit, but it really does piss me off. Can’t the two sides see what they are doing to us and the cause? Where is Ed? I think he needs to be hired as a peacemaker.

Excellent, Jane. This type of rhetoric is such a turnoff.

Hello Jane…

I’d rather the GOP lizard brains like tweety did the dirty stuff.

Because we’re Democrats and we don’t go there? Because it’s evil and immoral?

Because women and African Americans are two of the biggest constituencies within the Demoratic party and alienating either of them is really, really stupid?

Just off the top of my head.

Hi, Biodun.

So much for their visions for the future.

But in the general, one side will be the good side and the other will be the bad side. This is happening to us on the good side.

Okay, that makes sense. Like, why try to allow anyone the ability to frame the democratic party as either harboring ’sexist’ or ‘racist’ elements in it?

I get it completely. Thankyou Dosido.

Jane, I have to tell you that I LOVE ED. We need to make sure he is everywhere. Please keep those txt messages coming.

P.S. Tell Ed I think he is cute, too. {{{ED}}}

Because we’re Democrats and we don’t go there? Because it’s evil and immoral?

Because women and African Americans are two of the biggest constituencies within the Demoratic party and alienating either of them is really, really stupid?

Just off the top of my head.

That is why Donnie McClurkin really turned me off on Obama…If that move was David Axelrod and not Obama, Barak had plenty of opportunity to correct it and he didn’t. And let’s not forget an early zinger…Clinton-Punjab-D.

OK, on the subject of race and gender, and the perilous antagonism between these two categories in this election, I have to do this:

I posted this on the (simulcast) Tula thread:

Why this feminist activist is not supporting Hillary:

The sad fact is that Clinton has felt compelled to run as a stereotypical male. In her own mind it is only a certain kind of man who is qualified to be president and she will be that man: tough on everything from war, flag burning, kids’ access to video games, illegal immigrants and Palestinians. She has missed the opportunity to talk about what it really means for women to be equal in this country. She has shown no interest in using her extensive international experience to push for more women in party leadership, state legislatures and even the Senate. A woman candidate who considered her gender a strength (as opposed to something she needed to overcome) would announce a series of measures specifically designed to ensure that women’s needs and rights were at the forefront of her agenda.

For example, she might begin by following the European example and create a Cabinet post on women. In addition to outlining her foreign policy in Foreign Affairs, she might write about women from a thoroughly modern perspective. As important as they are there is nothing new about talking about issues such as violence against women or research on women’s health issues or funding family planning at home and abroad. We need a candidate who advocates for the economic benefits that women all over Europe — and increasingly women in developing countries — have: better support for the retirement of women who do not work outside the home, paid family and medical leave, expansion of Social Security benefits to spouses (mostly women). And we need a feminist candidate for president who is not afraid of issues such as gay marriage, adoption and America’s changing attitudes toward women’s sexuality and all sexuality.

When John Edwards stepped up to the podium to concede victory to Barack Obama, he said, “The one thing that is clear here in Iowa is that the status quo lost and change won.” I do not want a feminism that is part of the status quo, and so I do not want the first woman president to be a Clintonian. Every time Hillary Clinton puts on the mantle of the Bill Clinton presidency and reminds us of how important it is to be practical and work with the other side to get things done, I think of every cowardly practical choice that Bill Clinton (or should I say the Clintons together) made. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” sellout of gays in the military; the abandonment of Lani Guinier; a failed healthcare reform package that would have sacrificed women’s reproductive health to the Catholic Church’s demands as moral arbiter; a welfare reform bill that actually hurt poor women and their families; and presidential approval of a permanent ban on Medicaid funds for poor women seeking abortions.

Think Lani Ganier. Think Marian Edelman. Think Zoe Baird. Think Kimba Wood. Powerfull professional women who have been thrown under the bus.

(Disclosure: I know Michael Eric Dyson personally. I published his first book when I was senior editor at the University of Minnesota Press.)

My take: race- and gender-bait at your own peril. As the French say: “Attention,” which means, Be careful, and Watch out!

Divide and conquor. How many times will people fall for this over and over? And while candidates wallow in the mud, the War College is crystallizing their plans.

Well it seems Hillary has Bill to campaign for her. Now Obama has Kerry. God, Please, Please, Please, pretty please, let Al Gore endorse and campaign for John Edwards. Please. A guy can have hope can’t he.

That would be off the charts sweet.

Biodun @18, one could make a similar argument about Obama.

The discourse and debates in this primary (and general) prez run should of course engage the issues of gender and race, inter alia, but absolutely should not be defined by them.

one could make a similar argument about Obama.

Yes indeed. And I said that last week or so at FDL. I said something like, and I paraphrase here:

Obama has said that race is part of his identity, but that he’s not defined by it. That’s all fine. But that doesn’t justify his elison of racial issues in his campaign.

Look: I’m a refugee from academia and have been involved in the 1980s and 1990s culture wars. I know how incendiary (and dangerous) these issues can be. You have to take a deep breath and tread very very carefully. We need to form tactical and strategic alliances across these categories of difference (like race, gender, class, and sexual orientation) to get things done.

Wanker Jonah Goldberg on Morning Joe. What a wanker.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/....._0110.html

Is it wrong to at least hope that maybe this will turn Democratic voters towards Edwards?

How Stupid Can They Be…

They are about that stupid. I’m not going to vote for Clinton or Obama in the primary, partly because of this kind of juvenile (as in kindergarten) behavior.

I hope whoever gets the nomination has the sense to see this kind of thing hurts the image of the Democratic Party and plays right into the GOoPer election strategy.

Obama has made a mistake that might bite him this election is polarized people are paying attention who is his Penn coming up with this bad advice?

I hope so. I like him.

Wanker Jonah Goldberg on Morning Joe. What a wanker.

What a fucking asshole. When asked by Joe Scarboro why Republican Party electoral prospects are so utterly completely fucked, he responded, I shit you not, “Conservatives are victims of their own success”. I actually thought that Scarboro’s sidekick was going to fall out of her chair when he said this.

Now Andrew Cuomo, scumbag machine politician par excellence, refers to Obama’s “shuck and jive” performance at a press conference.

No, no, no, no Jane. No.

He meant it as in, “bob and weave.” Anyone reading anything else into that is mistaken.

/snark

Just sent off to selise my 300th item for the scandals list. For those of you who can’t wait, and even for those of you who can, here it is:

300. On January 10, 2008, the Justice Department released an Inspector General’s report showing that the FBI was incredibly sloppy in paying its bills on wiretaps. In a sampling of 990 payments from 5 field offices, over half were not paid on time. The study went on to note, “We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence including an instance where delivery of intercept information required by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order was halted due to untimely payment.” One field office was behind $66,000 in its payments to a single carrier. The reason for this is that the FBI has no clear accounting system to process, track, and make payments. This allowed one FBI employee to steal $25,000 in such funds. She pled guilty in June 2006. This case raises two issues. The first is how much to trust an organization often engaged in secret and intrusive investigations that can’t even pay its phone bills. The second is just how “patriotic” are the telecoms for whom immunity is being sought with regard to the NSA warrantless wiretapping program when they are willing to cut off a wiretap for nonpayment of service.

Here also are the links:

http://ap.google.com/article/A.....gD8U35BRG3 The AP story
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/repor...../index.htm The DOJ OIG report summary

The brass ring at the carnival is ours for the taking…

Too bad we are our own worst enemy…

It’s time to grow up and stop this nonsense because it will only damage the credibility of both candidates.

In California it is true all sides need to dial it back a bit.
Until the first voting everyone was getting along pretty well but since the primaries have started people have gotten quite testy.

Hugh that’s awesome.

How was your radio interview about your List?

Democrats! Quick, form a circle!

Ready! Aim! Fire!

Hugh, I will update my post to reflect that.Also to reinforce my point that enough is enough.

“Conservatives are victims of their own success”

Oh, you know, like trust fund babies who eventually drink themselves to death out of boredom…

The way to convince Obama is to point out how much the pissing off women by the MSM hurt him in New Hampshire. Him personally repeating that mistake shows he learned nothing from New Hampshire and well…is he trying to throw this race to Hilary?
If the perception among African American voters becomes that he is trying to be Vice President and throw the race to Hilary could hurt him.
God is my sister going to be pissed.

Stick to The Issue Dems: The Bush Administration and their party’s illegal and immoral activities for the past 7 years.

All the campaigns were hoping to win the nominations without shitballing one another and without taking any firm policy positions- but they learned that ain’t a gonna work- so they will try shitballing first and resort to laying out policy firmly as a last resort.

Pssst- Hillary, Obama- there’s running room to the LEFT!

This thread was pulled between comments 23-24 and comment 25, yes? I thought maybe Jane (and the mods) thought the thread was going to explode, given the topic. I’m glad to see it’s back up. We at FDL should be able to handle these issues in a civil and respectful manner. Otherwise there’s really no hope for us, IMHO.

Most candidates still think that independants will select the next prez- and they are probably right.

If we declare the wire taps illegal the phone companies are not going to get squat after all there are laws against making money like writing a book about your crime.

Jane, while some may bang their heads against the wall, I’d say this post is a great attempt to bang some heads together, to try to knock some sense into them.

Good luck with that. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The Left wins the more we talk about issues the Center Dems win the more we talk about anything else. We can get back at Obama by listing his postions on the issues and what we like don’t like about him.
Of course to be fair we should do that for all the candidates. All FDL has to do is list the issues and we commentors can then list our opinions.
Ignore the distraction fight the real battle.

can someone please tell me- what is cuomo’s official position, within the clinton campaign?

I’m with you on this, IJ. Gore can tip the balance, but timing is everything, I suppose. Edwards is our best hope. And yeah, I said it. The four-letter word that is suddenly in disrepute. Hope, hope, hope. *snark*

I’m with you on this, Jane. We do not need to be tearing each other apart on this. Attack the Republican platform of greed and bad government, so many targets there it should be easier than shooting fish in a barrel. No need at all to be shooting each other.

“Several months ago, when Clinton’s road to the nomination looked considerably easier than it did in December, strategists at the Republican National Committee began to worry. Remembering how Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee pioneered the use of soft-money advertising to get — and keep — the jump on GOP nominee Bob Dole in 1996, the RNC began planning ways to prevent the Democrats from getting into position to maul their party’s eventual 2008 standard-bearer.

The Democratic nominee might find it difficult or impossible to gain that kind of upper hand this year, but Republicans will surely suffer if their side remains badly divided long after Democrats unite. Since its 2006 midterm election losses, the GOP has struggled to raise money, persuade incumbents to seek re-election, and build enthusiasm among voters.

The Republican Party will face an immense challenge if Democrats are able to negatively define the presumptive GOP nominee before he can recover from the final contested primaries. The party has enough hurdles this year without having to play that kind of catch-up.”

(Charlie Cook)

Perhaps we should reconsider our strategy and fly under the flag of “independent” so our point of view would be more seriously considered..

LOL…

egregious, Busted,

Thanks. Selise thought the interview went well. It was mostly about how the list came into being. I go to mention fdl and selise.

Ed called me today. I guess Jim Amman has announced his run for governor, so as a member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party I think that will keep him busy for a while.

Since Clinton seems so reluctant to set a fixed timetable for getting us out, and keeps talking about a “responsible” withdrawal, I’m not so sure SHE won’t continue it, if she wins the nomination and gets elected.

And as I remember, while Obama wasn’t in the senate to vote against it, or for it, he was publicly critical of the decision to invade.

And Clinton’s had plenty of chances to apologize for her long support the mayhem-opera, and has yet to do it.

The two candidates are not equivalent in their positions on the war; not even close.

No, I just stepped on Tula’s post, my scheduling mistake.

Neither Hillary or Obama can win a general election. Support Edwards.

this is truly alarming:

We know people have issues with polling in general and with Frank Luntz in particular, but sometimes survey results are just too important to ignore.

To wit:

In a poll that will appear in Playboy Friday, Luntz says that more Republicans than Democrats have sex at least once a week. Fifty-five percent of Republicans but only 43 percent of Democrats report hooking up at least weekly. On the other hand, 67 percent of Democrats but only 51 percent of Republican say they’ve watched porn with their partners.

Sometimes there’s a backstage glitch, and one post goes up early — stepping on the toes of the one that’s already up. When that happens, it gets yanked back until it is supposed to be put up. People who are already in the new thread can keep posting comments to it, but no one new can get in and it doesn’t show up on the front page. When the post is put back up again, all the old comments are there, and everyone can join in the fun.

Given that Tula’s post went up at 10:30, I’m guessing that when this post first went up around 10:45, that was a glitch and it got yanked back. Not because this topic was too heated, but to give Tula’s post the attention it deserves.

We need our side to put up ads in African American and Spanish MSM. The white vote is ours they are informed we need a bigger turnout of minorities. The GOP fears the sleeping giant.
Lets give them fear.
Oh and for the record I’m Mexican.

BTW, as far as I’m concerned, Michael Eric Dyson and Pat Buchanan can duke it out every night, as they seem to like doing from time to time, on Hardball (or on whichever show is trying to get ratings up by having them on air).

Consultants really have the candidates over a barrel telling them to run against their competition. Once the nomination is decided then the nominee will go after the other party. But until the candidates wean themselves from the political consultants (yeah, right) they’ll keep attacking each other.

Agreed, wholeheartedly. Racism and sexism are not what we are about, as a party. When people start fueling racism and sexism, I get a physical reaction, a knot in my stomach. We really, really have to knock it down every time it rears its ugly head.

Mexican-Americans and Mexicans seem a hell of a lot more informed than the average white American, to judge by their marches and protests.

I visit my small home town in rural Wisconsin fairly often. What do i hear in the boonies? Lots of folks expressing a preference for one or another of the Dem candidates with the disclaimer, “but any one of them is preferable to another Republican!”

Also in small town america i hear frequent wish from a number of folks that the whole slate of Dem contenders form a new government, then the discussion turns to an animated discussion of which candidate for which position, Sec of State, Attny General, VP, etc. Instead of Fantasy Football league, Fantasy Government is the new parlor game.

I normally enjoy Dyson’s commentary but don’t know too many campaigns that have been run successfully where the candidate said they weren’t the best person for the job.

Just my two cents.

Luntz says that more Republicans than Democrats have sex at least once a week.

Does the fine print explain that Democrats are 95% more likely to have sex with another person, as opposed to flying solo?

Oh for the record I’m African-American…*g*

Which Beltway blowhard wrote:

The endorsement Obama really needs is John Edwards, whose continued presence in the race is preventing a true referendum between the likely nominees

?

There will be a test in the morning.

Did they Poll Mexicans given our birth rate these numbers seem well…Loony.
The only way to make these numbers right is to claim the GOP numbers on their use of abortion are false.
The GOP is not using birth Control or teaching it in their states the SnarkCassandra has some posts about Texas not teaching birth control in that state.

The Democratic Party is notorious for it’s ability to snap defeat from the jaws of victory.

To be part of a minority population is to generally be an activist by birthright…

(by the way I’m Filipino/French Canadian)…

And not in the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport?

Dyson yesterday was a real turnoff–busy spewing vitriole, not looking at the camera, totally into himself. Not a pretty sight.

Richardson stepping up to the microphone soon says CNN talking head.

OT, but I have been thinking about the coming 5-4 decision on the non-existant voter fraud cases. If Indiana’s Id law addresses ease of access to these cards,and voter interest is high, why not do a 1965 sign up campaign organized by the netroots? Beat them at their own game despite the onerous rules?

wish I’d thought of that one - heh.

Andrea Mitchell?? She wrote off Edwards this morning on MSNBC.

JayT: What? You got something against a cute little gooper sweatsock?

:o)

But do you agree with what I’m saying and what does *g* mean?

Stop It! Partisanship is good. It’s what competitors do, especially in an election where Main Street voters are desperately hungry fot it. But they want the right kind of partisanship fight. They are exhausted by the lies and timidity of Kneepads Lieberman and his, “How do you like it, sir?” bipartisanship. They are tired of the Harried Reid cave-ins to White House whimpering. They want to see someone standing up for them.

Clinton and Obama and Edwards have been given a gift. Their real opponents in this election are Cheney and Bush. The GOP’ers, Ron Paul excepted, are simply falling over themselves trying to be like them, with more Gitmos, more Homeland In-Security, more tax cuts and more foreign wars and blank checks to pay for them.

Whichever of the Dems demonstrates that they are the most unlike Cheney and the Shrubster, whichever of them appears competent and dedicated to the issues of Main Street America, will win in a landslide. Of course, they have to be street smart in order to fend off the sociopaths of the GOP slime machine, to fend off the wolf-pack of the MSM. They have to know how to motivate and inspire, to get volunteers and voters off their butts and into their checkbooks and the voting booths.

But they can’t win by slamming each other. No doubt, there are Kennedy-family like feuds and grudges among the top contenders. Only the idiots among them would admit to them, much less fight them openly. Voters want to see them fight the Cheney machine, not each other. Cut.It.Out.

I’m quite happily mixed. Somekindacaucasian/hispanic/black. XD Also female so it kinda adds a very distinct thing when i look at the political world in general. So the general want to slap both the Candies across the head for being twits about those issues is there.

(I’m also adopted so the lineage thing is kinda foggy for me aside from the genotypes that i know i’ve got.)

Precisely…

Nice discussion but have to go from the lake…

Take care….

two OfT’s:

there’s a Repub debate tonight? Ooh, live-blogging ahead.

and - Mrs. Greenspan’s back on the teevee doing her tiny-little-self best to torpedo Hillary on MSNBC.

Just voted for Edwards (and against every ballot initiative as usual). Yer on yer way now John!

I support Edwards. And I think there is plenty of material to use to against BO or HRC but unfortunately as HRC said herself, their records are pretty similar!

Talk about the issues and achievements or lack thereof, not if they are black, female or mormon.

*g* = grin

*G* = face-splitting Grin

JayT: What? You got something against a cute little gooper sweatsock?

I’m gonna go with “Don’t ask - Don’t think”.

*g* = grin

*G* = face-splitting Grin

what’s the emoticon for “sh*t-eating grin”?

OT..but kinda funny..

Maureen Dowd weighed in with a column yesterday that made a big splash, pissed off lots of people, and became part of the political conversation about Hillary’s New Hampshire victory. The column — called “Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back To White House”? — was datelined “Derry, N.H.”

The column struck some people as taking a holier-than-thou tone to Dowd nemesis Hillary. But you don’t know the half of it. The column, apparently, was filed from half a world away — from Jerusalem.

link

Is she traveling with the commander?

Andrea Mitchell?? She wrote off Edwards this morning on MSNBC.

Even the liberal Joe Klein …

Good response people just how many nonwhites do we have here? The perception that the Blogs are all White and male seems to be in error. Maybe its time for another survey?
I wonder how will we count the Lurkers? Showing the MSM that they can not dismiss us as having only a white male base would be cool.
Although if we did have only a white male base what would that say about the GOP who depends on White male support for this election.
Hah! either way we win!

I guess we’re all coming out of the closet in this thread…*G*

what’s the emoticon for “sh*t-eating grin”?

*~~g~~* ?? *g~~~~g* ??

Gov. Richardson announcing the end of his campaign right now on CNN.

As one might imagine, Pam Spaulding has a few choice words for Mr. Cuomo — and she, too, notes the misogyny aimed at Clinton as well. Says Pam, toward the end:

This campaign is going to be extremely messy and divisive; the question is whether people are going to actually engage these problems head on, or keep playing whack-a-mole when uncomfortable, offensive events like these pop up. Pols, pundits and people in general are doing everything they can to make this election “post-racial” and too much is emerging that not much has changed.

Not that we’re going to leave it with “not much has changed,” but let’s not pretend we’re past it yet.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

My fingers are crossed for him to be Sect. of State

And at the end of the nomination process, we’re all going to have to come together no matter who the winner is or we’ll be looking at a President who wants to continue George Bush’s immoral war.

au contraire we are looking at (D) candidates who will continue Bush’s war already. Clinton voted for it, and continues to fund it. Obama continues to vote to fund it, his claims to end the criminal war reek of poll driven pandering, not principle.

the fact is, if the (D)’s nominate a candidate who claims that aggressive nuclear strikes on another country that poses no threat to the USA (as the recent NIE has confirmed) is an “option that is on the table” then one cannot vote for them if peace and the value of human life mean anything.

a vote for Hillary is just that, a vote for continued slaughter in the quest for empire. Why else are the “defense” industries donating so heavily to her?

More proof the swamp is still full is the fact that only four of the top 10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006 election cycle were Republicans. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrats Kennedy, Clinton, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Dianne Feinstein of California, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut collected 60 percent of the $1.4 million the industry lavished among the top 10.

Andrea Mitchell?? She wrote off Edwards this morning on MSNBC

Yep. She said rather authoritatively to Monica Novotny: “John Edwards is not a viable candidate at this point.”

Ugh, you all have been reading Time again!

Joke Line is such a jerk. And do you notice how as much as everyone wants to write off Edwards, they keep plagiarizing his debate speech? Ticking me off Big Time.

Change was the keyword lifted from Obama, but Personal is Edwards turf. Hillary used it in her “emotional moment”. In Joke’s column, Mitt is now saying the race is personal for him.

Get your own thousand points of light, god bless it!

Thank you though I still think we need a dictionary of terms for all the new people out there to help them understand what we are saying.
Academia has closed itself for to long with a specialized vocabulary inaccessible to new comers to get respect for their respective studies.
We cannot afford to make that mistake!

TCU, don’t you know you’re on a feminazi blog, absolutely teeming with rabid lambs and Jane Hamshers of the left?

Both Obama and Hillary are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Zionist Shadow Government — which is paying for their presidential campaigns.

Net Free & Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions just spiked to a new low number, a number not seen in the last 100 years. I’ll bet neither Obama or Hillary have a clue about this monetary crisis.

But Ron Paul will know about this crisis and how to cope with it.

…looks like Richardson is making the announcement officially on msnbctv

Oh yes, I completely agree with what you’re saying. g means grin; G means big grin…

If this stuff goes on and scares the Dems enough, wouldn’t there be a push behind the scenes to get Edwards — canonical white male — to be the candidate. Of course, he is now anathema because he is anti-corporatist. So then Bloomberg runs in the middle, some wingnut runs on the right, and, just maybe, the Dem candidate does well. (Don’t want to jinx anything, there …)

Honestly here is where I stand. And I feel very very strongly. BlackAgendareport calls Obama Hillary’s political twin:

The scam of this still-new century enthralls and envelopes the nation, a narrowly-packaged farce in which political twins Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretend they are not joined at the hip on every public policy issue that has been allowed to enter the corporate media-vetted discourse: health care, Iraq, trade. Even these points of (non)contention disappear in the din of purely commercial marketing mantras with infinitely malleable meanings: “Change,” “Hope,” “Reform.”

I admit I am very frustrated as to why people see Obama as a reformer especially when it’s clear that he’s determined to be status quo, what with both him and Hillary signing onto the Peru Free Trade agreement as of late. At least Hillary has said she doesn’t think the SocSec “problem” should be framed in Republikan terms as Obama did at the Russert debate.Watching Obama throughout the years since elected as senator has been nothing but disappointment(his equivocating positions that spin out into the void) and sometimes sheer anger, (support for Lieberman and lack of support for the Lamont campaign and Dodds FISA fight.) One thing is that I do not expect too much from Hillary. She’s a good Republikan-lite. What I can’t stand is a person who campaigns as a progressive, or tries to fool folks into thinking he’s a real Dem, and not a DLC-bot. I have never felt this sheer frustration before watching Obama’s campaign and the hyped up reaction to it, except when I was phonebanking for Lamont and trying to convince people that Lieberman (1) lies about not wanting war (2) lied about his social security record etc. etc. *scream* Can we stop talking about hope promise change with these two? They’re the same, only Hillary’s more honest about it.

Agree!

Since Obama endored Lieberman and Clinton endorsed Lamont I wi