I'm curious as to party loyalty numbers. Please complete the following sentence:

I realize that there are more variables than I've accounted for in the poll, but take your best guess.

Okay, who's the turncoat? I'm guessing a Ron Paul supporter.

I can't see a Ron Paul supporter switching to Democrat. Then again, what do I know? Both parties should disgust a Ron Paul supporter, you could hold your nose and go either way.

What an interesting process this has been on the Republican side. If Huckabee had dropped out earlier, then Romney would have got all the arch-conservative votes and probably won. If Giuliani *hadn't* dropped out, then McCain probably wouldn't pick up anything in the NE to speak of. The nature of the contenders and the timing of the dropouts had quite a lot to do with the results, IMHO.

Meanwhile, the Democrat thing is interesting for another reason. I live in MN, which will go Democrat as a foregone conclusion. Historically that's been because of the huge farming and iron mining communities. Now it's because of the progressive ultra-left greens. A friend of mine is active in the MN DFL leadership and refers to the historical base as the "fucking union idiots". And you see this in the primaries: Clinton is winning the historical base of working class and Obama is winning with the progressive urban Green/leftists. That huge rift in the Democratic party is a MAJOR problem for the Democrats. The new Democrat leadership is alienating the historical, working-class base and the base is switching to Republican in greater and greater numbers. The party is in grave danger of becoming the party of a relatively small group of intellectual elitists who've forgotten what brought them to prominence.

The attitude of the Democrat leadership shows this. They are bewildered at how "stupid" the working-class people are to support a group (Republicans) who have historically shown they don't have working-class people's economic best interest in mind. It's not stupidity, though. It's values: the typical working-class American has social values much more consistent with the Republican platform than the Democrat platform. There's a somewhat interesting book about this called "What's the matter with Kansas". Much more interesting, however, is to look at the problem from the point of view of value development, that is to say, the hierarchy of value development, similar to Maslow's "needs hierarchy". A good example of that is Spiral Dynamics. Bottom line is: people with progressive "green" values don't mix well with people with "conventional" values (blue values in Spiral Dynamics) -- and the Democrats are engaged in an internal battle between the two. If the greens would stop seeing the working-class as "stupid", then they could unite the party, but that's not going to happen.

My prediction is this rift will destroy the Democrat party, Republicans (who actually have a platform, even though it's mostly repugnant) will continue to rise and become the dominant party. A third option, libertarian (lower-case L) in values may rise to fill the gap. Who knows? Maybe more and more of the nation will evolve to green values and urban progressiveness and the Democratic party can stay viable. I don't see it, though. The working class vote is critical to a Democrat getting elected, and the only candidate who really spoke to the working man (Edwards) was never even a serious contender. It's sad, because there is a long, noble tradition of fighting for the little guy in the Democratic party.

I know, I know. Obama pays lip service to the union workers. But look at who's voting for him. He mostly doesn't get their vote.

Anyhow, long tirade. I'll probably stay home unless I can find a local election that matters to me. My only chance to influence things as a MN resident was in the primary.

I think a lot of people are looking at Ron Paul as being against the Iraq war and then paying about two seconds of attention to the rest of his platform. The whole "less government" thing sounds nice until you look at what he actually believes. When he doesn't win the nomination, those people are going to vote Democratic, since it's the only remaining anti-War vote.

The Democratic Party has long been a fairly loose coalition. It's part of the reason that the party has such a hard time; people seem less likely to meet some notion of what the party believes than on the Republican side. That's not to say that there aren't differing beliefs on the Republican side, but they seem to put aside their differences to form a united front more easily.

That said, there are a huge number of factions in the Republican Party in a way that doesn't really exist in the Democratic Party. The Dems have this wide spectrum of beliefs, whereas the Republicans seem to have a handful of different sects. You've got your neo-conservatives that seem to have dominated the party for the last ten years or so. You've got the evangelicals and other social conservatives, on whose shoulders the neocons seem to have ridden. You have a few libertarians. And then you've got the occasional paleoconservative. Few of these groups have many significant commonalities. But they have banded together to gain an upper hand. But their cohesion is failing. While the Democrats have dealt with the wide array of beliefs for quite some time, this is fairly new to the Republicans, and they don't seem to be holding it together very well, especially since the actions of the neocons have roundly failed at virtually every aspect. Not a very good star for the other groups to hitch their wagons to any more.

Am I too cynical for thinking what difference does it make. They all have the big claims when campaigning but after getting elected nothing changes anyway.

This stuff just sounds like sports fans talking after "the big game"

Have you been paying attention for the last eight years? Our civil liberties have been decimated. You can now be put in jail without habeas corpus recourse. Communications are being tapped without warrants. We invade countries who have done nothing against us. (While ignoring the ones that have.) We torture enemies, all but openly. We do openly scoff at the Geneva Conventions. We resign from international environmental treaties. We have moved from being widely respected to widely disrepected internationally.

That, to me, shows that change can occur. I'd prefer it happen in the other direction.

One of the things that I really miss about my brief, dreamlike belief in Heaven is that you got to walk up to God's chaise lounge by the most excellent swimming pool and ask questions like;

"Hey, God, if (Clinton/McCain) had been elected instead of (Clinton/McCain), how much more quickly would they have shut down Guantanamo?"

Problem is, while God was able to tell me if Oswald was in fact the lone gunman, He wasn't able to answer this one.

"Too hypothetical!" God said.

That has been happening for a very long time. We always seem to have a good chunk of people pissed off at us, not matter how much we have supported that country.

I rack that up to the "Bill Gates effect." Since we are the biggest we are hated.

Image of the United States

Among Western countries, people's favorable impressions of the US have dropped dramatically since 1999/2000, averaging around 63% then, and dropping to 50% now. That's a dramatic drop in eight years. Among countries in the poll traditionally considered our allies in the last 40 years (Canada, Britain, Germany), it went from 77.3% to 51.7%.

Hmmm - not sure that 'biggest' is the reason. I have a feeling many countries object to the arbitrary way the US steps in (read 'invades') some countries but not others, and the strange coincidence between oil dollars and the overlooking of human rights atrocities (eg Saudi Arabia)

And then there are funamentalist non-christians who just object to the fact that the US seems to be run by fundamentalist christians.

(in that paper I was amused by the views of Canada - the only western nation which didn't see the US as honest!)

Yeah, well.. we deal with that lot much more than any other country does, and certain traits just seem to surface time and again.

I'd like to see something that went back further than 1999. I swear I heard something that our international image has been declining (maybe not rapidly, but still declining) since the late 60s.

I won't deny that that might be the case. There have been a lot of PR disasters in that time: Vietnam, Watergate, Iran Hostage Crisis, Star Wars, First Gulf War, etc.

But a 25% drop in 6 years is bound to be unprecedented.

The first three were great, but George Lucas really screwed the pooch with the prequels. Damned Americans.

EDIT: Important political news just in.... Apparently the Writers' Guild of America strike is about to end. According to Michael Eisner a deal was struck last Friday with relevant information being distributed to members this Saturday.

Now I can stop watching the Republican and Democratic Dramedies and get back to some real brain-building TV.

Ah, I see in the results that I am joined by one other "Obama or nuthing!" voter. Or maybe not. Maybe it is "Hillary or nothing" -- somebody who really doesn't like Barack.

With Romney gone, I think the IF(Clinton || Obama > McCain) question becomes more interesting.

Bruno questioned in another thread whether either Dem was electable and I'm not sure I have an opinion.

Whatever blowhard Limbaugh's latest tirade about preferring to vote for Clinton rather than stoop to vote for McCain, I think that Hillary is definitely the Democrat who will do the most to polarize the contest, rile up Republican voters, and pull in defensive votes from the conservative right. She is also the candidate who will not draw some significant number of votes from the (green and otherwise) left. Like my possible vote.

So I imagine that Hillary has perhaps a worse chance against McCain, but....

Obama I think is being deliberately guarded about any "extreme" agenda he may have in mind, or, mor likely, he doesn't have one. But he doesn't have the Clinton burden of years of Clinton hate from the right. And a smaller/harder record to aim attack ads at. So I don't see the right mobilizing as vigorously to oppose him. But, as pointed out, there does seem to be the disconnect between centrist/working voters and green/young/progressive voters. In an Obama/McCain matchup, I think that a lot of centrist Democratic voters who might have voted for Hillary would tend to shift to McCain on security and national defense grounds.

So, whether for reasons of polarizing and mobilizing the right or by losing some of the center, either Dem could lose. Oh, well, I know who I'm *not* voting for, so for me it's kind of moot.

Extremely funny to hear on NPR this eve about Hillary's recasting of Obama as the "establishment candidate". Farking amazing. What balls that woman has. Orwell could do no better.

I'm still trying to figure out why anybody would vote for McCain. Nobody around here knows how he keeps getting elected to the senate year after year, or can name one thing he has done that has been a positive for Arizona.

I guess one of my friends summed it up best when he goes "You actually think the American public follows the politics? They see a name they recognize and figuring that person hasn't been convicted of serial murder vote for them again".

OJ for Pres!

?

I doubt that would work. People were glued to the TV for months/years/however long that trial lasted. The entire daytime TV viewing population wouldn't fall for that - only because it was beaten to death on any channel they could find.

I'm with you in not wanting to vote for McCain myself, but I know exactly why people *are* voting for him. It's all about his carefully-crafted image as a "maverick." Because he has the audacity to occasionally speak against, and, on much rarer occasions, vote against his party's decided platform, and because he painted his bus with the words "Straight Talk Express", he's seen labeled "straight talker" by the media. Because the media will never admit being wrong unless absolutely forced to do so, ignorant rubes buy into the hype, and decide to support him without knowing much about his platform.

I'm not saying this is the profile of *every* McCain voter, but it's certainly a big part of his constituency. Bill Maher's show did a great "man on the street interview" segment a few weeks ago where many McCain voters were interviewed and nary a single one had any grasp of what McCain's policies were (either his stated platform or the one he actually votes for, which are often not the same.)

The media loves McCain, because they love things that are "bipartisan." In fact, McCain rarely deviates from his party on any substantive issue, and when he does, he always tries to split the baby enough that he can be seen as possibly favoring the party line as well. He's more of a serial flip-flopper than John Kerry ever was, and when he's caught in a lie by the media (which is rare because they love him so much) he simply lies his way out of it, and they buy it hook, line, and sinker.

McCain makes GWB look like an honest man. Many will find this difficult to believe, but if you want the links to prove it, I have dozens of them flagged in my RSS reader. Here's a pretty good video collection of McCain's greatest moments in wankery and bamboozlement just to get you started.

Well, I said I wasn't going to, but I went to our Democratic state caucuses last Saturday if for no other reason than curiosity. This state has a pretty broken system, with a primary election coming up that we pay for but which doesn't count.

At my in-city caucus site, a decent-sized elementary school, the hall was pretty full and it was a challenge to get precincts somewhat separated and to hear speakers in each one.

There were a few folks there older than me (55), but not many. Great to see so many young idealists, but not representative of what you would get for turnout in a typical primary. In Boston, I remember campaigns running vans to elderly housing facilities. No elder vans last Saturday.

As results would confirm, the button count looked like Obama over Hillary 2 to 1.

And it looks like Barack is on a roll.

Not sure that matters.

Prediction: Barack will continue to pick up more delegates than Hillary. But then superdelegates will go to convention and deliver the nomination to Hillary. Democracy in action.

Have a nice day.

MoveOn has up a petition asking the superdelegates to vote with the constituency. FWIW.

Wow, that is weird. Is the fake primary some relic of the past or something?

I dislike the concept and execution of caucuses in this country. Primaries are a much fairer mechanism, and I'm glad I live in a state that uses primaries instead.

Barack is definitely on fire, and I think he wins the nomination, superdelegates be damned. After the stolen election in 2000, I do not think the Democratic party is going to nominate someone who got less popular support. It's not out of the question, but I think it's highly unlikely.

I think the superdelegtes will come around and support the leader in pledged delegates. The whole purpose of superdelegates is to avoid a situation where a very weak candidate somehow racks up the most delegates and then gets caught with a hooker right before the convention. I don't think they'll change the result just to deliver the nomination to a candidate that's bleeding popular support in almost every demographic.

But, then again, I didn't think the current gang of idiots would lie to get us into a war in the Middle East. So what do I know.

Current predictions of the superdelegate vote (according to wikipedia) suggest that Hillary won't have enough support from the superdelegates to overcome her deficit in regular delegates.

Good analogy - it's all about how you get there...

Cynic that I am slowing becoming, I have to wonder if they would have that petition up there if Obama was trailing.

But, OK, OK, I signed it anyway

I had some back-and-forth e/snail mail last year with Congressman Jay Inslee here in WA. He's not my rep, but I wanted to congratulate him on his efforts on behalf of Internet radio stations. How could I tolerate working on weekends if I couldn't crank 'em up? (OK, OK, I could bring the Empeg, but working on Sundays calls for soemthing *new*!)

I was surprised to see a few weeks back that he is Clinton's state campaign chair. I sent him an email last week asking if maybe he might change his mind. Pretty please. I don't hold out much hope there as I imagine it would be pretty tough to reverse course on a commitment like that. But then I saw that another WA superdelegate Senator Patty Murray -- one of the minority who voted "No" on October 11, 2002 -- had endorsed Clinton. So I guess I need to send her a "pretty please" letter, too. I don't get it. Couldn't she have just stayed uncommitted? Maybe it is the defense thing. Patty is pretty active in things like port security - checking all of those OCL and COSCO containers for plutonium.

OK, I want my prediction to be completely wrong. Mood swings.

Only the recent past....


Then you may appreciate the reason we got stuck in this mess -- a hope that Pat Robertson might not overwhelm the caucus system twice:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/273555.html

The result in 2008, though, is still very broken. My ideal would be a single national primary day with open primaries (and more than 2 parties) and only one shot. None of this "Hey, now that our guy has lost in February let's run over there in March and piss on the other guy's picnic!" stuff.



He is on fire and I have another half-baked theory. No, it's not about the weather....

Now that we're really in to the primary season, there are lots of rallies and lots of footage (and sound clips) of the candidates raisng their voices to large crowrds. Now I really want to be careful to adjust for sexst/chauvinist bias, but my feeling is this:

Obama's voice continues to be smooth, mellow, confident and encouraging in a positive way. Like he's really happy about moving into the White House and he thinks that will be a good thing.

Clinton's voice is strained, like she is running to catch up with a train that is picking up speed. I don't want to read too much into it, but I feel like I hear slight shades of anger and annoyance. A certain degree of beating the drum to make the galley slaves row harder.

Again, this is after trying to adjust for pitch. Everybody's different.

Be that as it may, an Oprah or FDR probably have more of a shot at the nomination that a Pee Wee Herman or a Phyllis Diller.

So call it the Sonic Theory. FDR had the magic.



I hope you are right on the superdelegates.

Time to send another email

Tony,

On the subject of "maverick" McCain, I offer this recent LA Times editorial:

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/02/mccains-red-shi.html

Torture Shmorture.

Yeah, the "straight shooter" sure does seem to misfire a lot, but it doesn't matter. Op-eds like the one you linked to notwithstanding, there is almost no end to which media outlets around the country won't go to serve as McCain's fluffers.

The worst part is, he's basically a made man now. The media's been fluffing him far too long to give up on him now, so as far as they're concerned, he is, was, and will be "honest", "principled", and "moderate". Nothing short of being caught with a live boy or a dead girl can change that now.

The Democratic nominee is going to have to beat McCain AND the obsequious press to be our next President.

Oh, I forgot to mention this yesterday. McCain, on his signature issue of campaign finance reform, is just as manipulative and unprincipled as he is on torture:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tappe...politics#104506



But, he's promised there will be no new taxes, so it's all good, I suppose...

We're gonna be okay, folks. Ralph Nader has come to save the day.

I watched Nader on Meet the Press. I could not find anything he said that I could disagree with.

Sure, but there are probably a million other people out there who would agree with you and Ralph on those same issues. Do you want them all running for President, too?

I detest the two party system, and would love to see better choices than what we have now. But, is throwing votes at Ralph Nader every time he decides to bite the apple and stoke his ego with a doomed presidential run really the right way to do it? Real change has to come from the bottom up, and I don't think Nader brings about any positive change with these presidential runs. He's definitely been an agent of change in other arenas, but when he runs for President, all he does is change the vote totals. He doesn't push candidates in any particular direction, he doesn't build a permanent coalition of people interested in improving the system, and he certainly doesn't have a shot of winning the election himself. Even if he did, he doesn't seem to pay too much attention to what he'd do if he got there.

Nader is the perfect candidate for a low-information voter who doesn't know anything other than that they hate the two major parties. He uses this to his advantage, erroneously suggesting both major parties bear equal responsibility for the myriad messes we're in. The Democrats do bear much responsibility, but to suggest the responsibility is equally distributed is irresponsible and factually incorrect.

On the other hand, if the Democratic nominee can't get past McCain and Nader after eight years of disastrous Bush policies, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

If they are smarter than Ralph and maybe would make a better President. Now if I remember right, you were pleased that Clinton didn't get bumped off in New Hampshire, so more of us got to vote in primaries that could be meaningful. Just think of it, if we had a 5-way race, we could keep the suspense going until November.


Maybe not, but no sign of Barry Commoner, and Eugene McCarthy is dead.


All six of Ralph's campaign staff would take issue with most of this, but I, personally, think you have some good points vis-a-vis the reality of a President nader.

But wait, I think that, in this case, I think Ralph has done the Dems a huge favor, and I do *not* think that his timing -- in the lead-up to Texas and Ohio -- is any accident.

Of the two Democratic candidates, Clinton is much more representative of special interests. Her election would be a step backward, but it also happens that she would be the weaker candidate against McCain. Now nobody knows if Obama is that much more progressive or not, but his ability to campaign in relatively general terms, leave some hope that he might break a bit from the recent lame Democratic mold.

So, I think at this point Democrats have to be concerned about what number of votes they would lose to Nader if Clinton were nominated versus Obama. Many more in the former than the latter caae IMO.

So, I'm thinking that Nader's announcement right before Texas/Ohio could do something to cement support for Obama among ambivalent Democrats.


The existing two-party system is diseased. You say you don't like the two-party system, but you seem more willing to cut the Democrats slack through a period when they did pretty much everything they could to renounce a progressive heritage of smarter, fairer, better Democrats like George McGovern and we wound up with a bunch of pathetic "Me, Too!" war hounds like Clinton. We could debate proportional responsibility, and there are still some good, long-suffering Democrats in office, but what is it going to take to make them get their act together?

Voting for Hillary would be sending exactly the wrong message, I think.

It's not like Obama is knocking my socks off with something like a heath care plan that is actually better or different, but I could vote for him. I think Ralph knows that.


Yep.

So, I'll only vote for Ralph if Hillary gets the nod or if Obama picks a running mate who voted for Iraq funding in 2002 (like some other Senator like .... Hillary?).

I'm hoping that my chances of a Ralph vote are low. Maybe getting lower every minute if Hillary continues to decompensate and her supporters keel wailing about the "latte-sipping, Prius-driving" Obama people.