The case against Sarah Palin

by: JC

Tue Sep 02, 2008 at 11:20:59 AM MST

Clinton Wins Pennsylvania; Campaigns Will Keep Rolling

by: Matt Singer

Tue Apr 22, 2008 at 18:31:45 PM MST

Well, I had been holding out the slim possibility that Clinton would only narrowly win PA or that Obama would win it outright -- either possibility may have meant a Clinton withdrawal from the campaign.

Instead, Clinton wins and likely by a healthy margin. Any chance that this race was gonna slow down is now gone. Instead, the field staff in PA are likely to be pulled out and reassigned to other efforts -- meaning we're about to see an influx of even more people working these campaigns.

And then there were 7 8 (states left).

Here's the remaining calendar:

Hot off the wires: NC Debate CANCELLED

by: JC

Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 14:17:29 PM MST

We regret to inform you that the proposed Democratic Presidential Debate scheduled for April 27 has been cancelled due to time constraints and logistical issues associated with such a large, national event.

You have shown tremendous passion and interest in being a part of history as Democrats are poised this year to elect the first female or African-American President. However, there were also growing concerns about what another debate would do to party unity. (emphasis added)

We hope your interest in the North Carolina Democratic Party will not end with the cancellation of the debate.

At last, some democrats with some sense!

What would be even better, would be for the somebody like the Montana Conservation Voters to offer to sponsor a presidential debate here in Montana before the primary here. They could promise no gotcha questions, and just ask questions relevant to the west, like:

1) coal development & energy policy
2) the wilderness debate and roadless designations, restorations issues
3) fire fighting policy
4) endangered species and wildlife issues (wolf, grizzly, bison)
5) National park management
6) tribal issues
7) farm & ranching policy
8) hardrock mining

While maybe not a made-for-primetime national ABCNews gotcha debate special, it would be great for the west. What do we really know about Obama and Clinton's stances on these and other issues?

The Vetting of Hillary Clinton

by: JC

Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 11:36:28 AM MST

The Clinton campaign would have us believe the nomination primary is all about taking a look at Barack Obama, and then deciding that ultimately he would not be electable in the fall. And of course, once we were done flirting with the young upstart, the Democrats should turn to Hillary because she is the heir apparent to the Democratic party's throne.

Flip this scenario for a moment--because in the hurry to vet Obama, and all of the attention that the Clinton campaign places on his inexperience or newness to the national political scene, they would have us forget that Hillary herself needs vetting. What better way to deflect the spotlight from one's own past and ambitions than to declare that another's youth and relative innocence on the national scene deserves the broader inspection.

And thank goodness she had a quality candidate in the form of Barack Obama who had the guts and perseverance to run against the "inevitable" candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and to give the campaign time and interest to vet her qualities as a president. If Clinton would have easily glided through the primary campaign without a formidable opponent, there is much that we would never had learned about her until it was too late, and the republicans and media had loaded their gattling guns with raw fodder. She and the American people should be glad that we finally get to see who Hillary under fire really is. If this vetting were to have happened during the general campaign with the Republican attack machine, Democrats worst fears of losing to McCain could have been realized.

If Barack Obama had not pressed her in the primary as hard as he has, Hillary would not have had to spoken to issues like her exaggerations about her foreign policy experience, or her true beliefs on NAFTA. We wouldn't have seen how shallow her judgement was in voting for the Iraq war, and how spineless she was in standing up to Bush' smoke and mirrors. We never would have seen how Bill Clinton could lower himself from the being the elder statesman of the party to engage in dirty political fisticuffs again--the likes of which the country hasn't seen in the modern political era.

Many people were worried about what Bill's place as First Gentleman in the White House would be, and he has revealed himself once again to be no gentleman. Bill Clinton will do much to destroy his presidential legacy, as historians reflect on his acts, veiled words and threats issued in the heat of the campaign, many of which were in stark contrast to the themes he carried through his first two terms.

One is left wondering about how the teamwork in the White House--that Hillary would have us believe led her to gain all that experience--would change once their roles were reversed. One just has to see and hear Bill on the campaign trail to understand that he isn't running to be the First Gentleman. Michelle Obama he is not, and Barack recently remarked at how it is difficult to tell who he is running against, sometimes.

He is running to be a full fledged partner in a co-presidency--the twofer that once was looked positively upon, as the prospect of a woman presidency became a possibility. Until the young upstart Barack Obama came along, that is, with a viable alternative candidacy. Bill Clinton is the quintessential four-termer looking to bend the rules in his quest for power, albeit one who no longer could can be impeached for malfeasance in office--the ultimate smokescreen behind which he could maintain his Cheney-esque drive for power.

I know what the definition of "is" is, and I have no need to watch a snarly politician from Arkansas waggle his finger at good people like Bill Richardson, admonishing them to play by the Clinton rule book, or pay the consequences of failed loyalty. I can see the 3am fight, as the phone rings, and both rush to answer it, ripping the cord out of the wall in the process.

So with Hillary's last-gasp determination to get the country to see, from the Clinton's view, that Obama cannot win, we get to see her and her husband for who they truly are. We get to see the nasty campaigning, cringing at the motherly "Shame on you Barack Obama" that we all hate to hear, our own mothers' chastisement for discovering sex for the first time ringing loudly in our ears. We have wondered how the shrill tactics would play over in a heated battle, and now we know. We need not hear shrill repetition replace thoughtful discourse in a diatribe over, say, Putin's influence in Iran. Shame on you Vladimir!

We get to hear how she puts words in her opponent's mouth and then demands that the public ask him to justify them. Strawman politics at its worst. We get rejoinders back to the politics of fear with the 3am ads. We get to see the negative side of Clinton in a campaign that she wishes had never been. We have become painfully aware of the lack of principled discourse her campaign has put forth; the inclusion of a political hack of the worst sort in the reliance of Mark Penn's slime machine. We get dream sequence retellings of events that never transpired; sniper fire nightmares.

As people have pointed to Obama's having come of age in this primary campaign at the hands of Hillary Clinton, we also need to note that her old-school politics are being retired by the parry of a deft youngster. One can only hope that her concession speech is followed by the lilting refrains from Mrs. Robinson: "We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files. We'd like to help you learn to help yourself." Hey, hey, hey.

I, for one, am glad that Clinton has stayed in the race long enough for the American people to finally get to see her for who she is. Much of what people have feared most about Clinton, though were willing to gloss over--the shrewd, cunning and calculating approach to politics she has--has blurbled to the top, leaving a cauldron of messy politics, desperately in need of tossing out.

Thank you Hillary and Bill Clinton, for letting us see you for who you truly are.

Coo-coo ca-choo

Electability: Inspiration vs. the Big Machine, and what it could do to Rehberg

by: JC

Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 15:34:11 PM MST

He asserts the following:

Examples abound where the winner of a primary is not the stronger candidate to win a general election. Why? Because the voters who affect the outcomes of general elections are largely different people from those who affect the outcomes of primaries.

He then follows up with a description of who the deciding voters can be:

In general elections, only two groups of people affect the outcome. First are persuadable voters, who always vote in generals, but are switch-hitters. They vote for Republicans in one election and Democrats in the next. And they rarely vote in primaries.

The other group is mobilizable voters. Democratic mobilizables would vote Democratic, but have to be motivated to go to the polls. Sometimes these mobilizable voters can be motivated to vote in a particularly exciting primary. But most don't vote in primaries -- and only rarely in general elections.

He goes on to say that an inspirational candidate (like Obama) can motivate both these voter groups to turn out and vote for him. While other candidates can attract one or the other--persuadables focus on the candidate's qualities, mobilizable voters on the other hand are disengaged, and need to be feel empowered to turn out and vote--Obama is a rare politician that can do both.

Barack Obama's ability to inspire is the quality that makes him such an electable general election candidate. Most candidates are really successful either at convincing persuadables, or motivating mobilizables. Barack Obama can do both

Details on Bill Clinton's planned trip

by: Matt Singer

Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 20:05:15 PM MST

Tuesday, April 1

9:45 a.m. MDT
President Clinton Attends a "Solutions for America" Event
Montana State University - Northern
Armory Gymnasium
300 13th Street South
Havre, MT
OPEN PRESS

1:00 p.m. MDT
President Clinton Attends a "Solutions for America" Event
Montana Expo Park
Exhibition Hall
400 3rd St. NW
Great Falls, MT
OPEN PRESS

3:30 p.m. MDT
President Clinton Attends a "Solutions for America" Event
Helena High School
Gymnasium
1300 Billings Avenue
Helena, MT
OPEN PRESS

5:45 p.m. MDT
President Clinton Attends a Solutions for America" Event
Butte High School
401 S. Wyoming Street
Butte, MT
OPEN PRESS

Clinton Stiffing Event Producers, in deep debt doodoo

by: JC

Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 10:57:17 AM MST

And Tony Galarza, director of the Missoula, Mont., branch of a national event production company, remained committed to staging an April 6 Clinton fundraising brunch at a local hotel even after a colleague in his company e-mailed a list of Clinton's campaign debts.

Galarza said he's confident Clinton will pay his company but admitted he was surprised to see so many event production companies among the campaign's creditors.

Well, this quote today from Politico, "Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills," caught my eye today. While many campaigns run up debts, I don't think walking the plank like Clinton is doing is exactly what the Democratic Party had in mind as a build up to Denver.

Particularly when the kind of debts she's avoiding paying include promoters or vendors like Galarza. And while Clinton swoops into Missoula to rake up the cash, she'll likely leave with not just her supporters holding out bills, but Galarza and other local Missoula small businesses holding the bill.

Politico reports that Clinton had $16 million available for the primary at the end of February, but after subtracting the 5 million dollar loan she gave her campaign, and the $8.7 million in unpaid debts, she only had less than 2 million dollars to go forward in March with her campaign.

Which explains why she's stiffing outfits like Galarza to promote another event in another state another day to raise more money--and stiff more small businesses--to pay upfront for big media buys trying to catch up to Obama. Obama, who by the way only listed $625,000 in debts, and 31 million in the bank.

Sounds like Clinton is running a pyramid or Ponzi scheme on her big backers (investors), like Mark Penn, whom she owes 2.5 million bucks. Go take a look at a picture of the guy, and you'd want to keep running with even a shade of hope of winning, because that guy is scary, and you don't want to be left with little political collateral when he comes looking to get paid back. Or payback?  Kickback? Kind of gives a new meaning to "Run Hillary, Run."

But when you run a win-at-all-cost campaign that's built on the ends-justify-the-means philosophy of Clintonian politics, what does this mean for the country at large if she ever does ascend to the presidency? If this is any indication of how she'll manage the economy, then we're in for some big deficit spending and will be treading in dangerous waters. Actually, it seems like she's taken a page out of the Republican's playbook on "spend now, pay later," or How to make future generations pay for today's largesse: ten easy steps.

No wonder she can't back out of the race right now.

Speaking of steps, she's like the Vegas gambler that has lost millions of dollars of mob money at the craps table, and can't see any other way out of her hole than to keep tossing the dice, or pay the piper. She's a gambling addict, except the gamble is politics and power, and she can't ever get enough of it along with her codependent and likewise addicted hubby.

At some point we've just got to quit enabling them. But then again, with all the media buys, and TV and radio frothing over all the ratings, it's no wonder the race stretches on--egged on by a media and audience that has been fine-tuned by the likes of Britney, Paris and Lindsey; American Idol, Survivor and Lost.

We stare at the TV (and the ad execs know it) like we did when Katrina was baring down on New Orleans, endlessly flipping channels to see the newest image of some poor soul wandering aimlessly through the chest-deep lower 9th Ward waters, wondering whatever happened to his family and home. Waiting for something to change; for the rescue to begin, and the end come into sight. But it never does. A new brand of reality TV has hit the market, and the majors are eating up the ratings. Welcome to Campaign 2008: The Race that Never Ends

You almost gotta feel sorry for folks like Galarza and Missoula's Hilton Garden Inn. But then again, even they should be able to read the writing on the wall. Except that it was written with the disappearing ink that so many campaign pledges are written with, and now, apparently, the checks to pay the bills.

Montana Dems Have Some Ticketing Problems

by: Matt Singer

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 10:37:53 AM MST

I understand the frustration. It's inevitable. Tens of thousands of people want those tickets and they're in short supply. Technology isn't usually built to handle that kind of deluge happening instantly and only for a very short time.

Long story short: there was no way for this process to happen smoothly and seamlessly and with all interested parties getting their tickets. There may have been a way to do it -- have folks sign up for a lottery over a 48 hour period or something -- that could have reduced the tech issues. It still wouldn't have gotten tickets for everyone who wanted them and it would have been a different kind of logistical nightmare for the Democratic Party.

Fascinating thought, though: roughly as many people will see Obama and Clinton at the M-M dinner as had an opportunity to cast ballots in the entire Republican contest in Montana.

Here's another guess: M-M will not be either candidate's only appearance in this state, especially if it appears likely that the race continues on after PA, NC, and IN.

I know by the time June rolls around, I will be thoroughly sick of this campaign. My guess is I won't be alone.

We Are Pushing The Agenda -Nevada Healthcare Forum

by: Feral Cat

Wed Mar 28, 2007 at 07:09:53 AM MST

What a difference a year makes. Just 12 short months ago, health care was nowhere on the political agenda, and pundits were confidently stating that, after the failure of the Clinton health plan a dozen years prior, Americans continued to be wary of serious action. Affordable, quality health care for all Americans was a pipe dream.

Last Saturday instead of heading out to the golf course or brunch, John Podesta of Center for American Progress got seven Democratic candidates for President to show up in Las Vegas for a Health Forum.  Why?  Contrary to the so-called "moderates" who said that caution carried the day in November of 2006, Hacker is excited that

The 2006 midterm featured a highly successful drive by winning Democrats to highlight the insecurities created by the new economy, especially on health care.