I didn’t think it was possible, but the political events of the last week have made the most exciting presidential race in a generation even more interesting.  First, the Democrats gathered in Denver for the four-day pep rally otherwise known as the Democratic National Convention.  A gloom hung over the convention, as the rift between the Obamas and Clintons was overblown by a media that could not find much that was substantive to say about the pageant.  It is a sad indictment of the corporate-controlled field of journalism today that over 500 reporters would fixate on a fictional pschyo-drama between the warring factions of the family.  Fortunately, both Hillary and Bill Clinton came out like good party soldiers with stirring and graceful speeches in support of Obama to at least neutralize the psycho-babble.  On the final night, Obama held court with yet another eloquent speech that he used to knock the convention out of the park at Invesco Field. 

But McCain had his own pair of nuts to flex, which he did forthwith.  He announced by next morning that his running mate would be a voluptuous young lightweight named Sarah Palin, a move which shocked all observers.  Her presence on the ticket can be sure to cause (below the) Beltway loin-stirring amongst many Republicans with her red-blooded cultural conservatism, and she may even poach a few disgruntled Hillary women.  However it is puzzling why McCain would pick this 44-year old beauty queen, Governor of Alaska and until just recently Mayor of a tiny Alaskan town nobody has heard of or even been to, over numerous other qualified candidates.  On his 72nd birthday, no less, a cruel reminder to the nation that this chick could be only inches away from the presidency- and handling the nuclear football.  Let’s be clear: Sarah Palin is not qualified to be the president.   Although Obama may also be a lightweight in Washington, what he brings would make Palin seem like a featherweight.

So while Obama doubled down on experience by choosing a grizzled white male Washington elder in Biden for his youthful ticket, McCain did the exact opposite by going for the virile and sultry Mrs. Palin, 28 years his junior.  She looks a lot more like Britney or Paris than Obama does.  Meanwhile, Barack is no longer the only guy with a funny name on the scene; no joke, the offspring of Sarah Palin are named Willow, Track, Trig, Piper, and Bristol.   Here is a quick analysis of how her being tapped for VP will affect the race. 

She’s a blank slate. In a sign of the division of our times, both left and right are projecting their own prejudices on Mrs. Palin, drawing on her nearly blank slate to suit their own preconceived points of view.  The bizarre result is that both sides are showing great happiness that she was chosen.  The right wing believes she will ensure victory by energizing the base with her pro-life stance, and her eagerness to drill for oil in places like ANWR in Alaska.  The left is eager to jump on her thin record of working on issues of national import and thinks this will sway voters toward Obama.

McCain’s experience card is neutralized. No longer can the McCain camp call Obama a vapid celebrity, or too inexperienced to be in charge of the U.S. executive branch.  Sarah is only a few years out of running a town of less than 10,000 people.  She is three years younger than Obama.  And Obama picked Biden, who most of the country would be comfortable with as president. 

Will she bring women’s votes?  The question of the day is how many women will be encouraged to vote for McCain now that his sidekick is female.  This will partly hinge on whether they discover her red-meat views against abortion.  And whether or not Hillary can convince her admirers to vote for Obama. 

Will average Americans connect with her? Part of Obama’s problem has always been his exotic background.  Half-black, raised partly in Indonesia and Hawaii, a mysterious Kenyan father with a Muslim name, etc.  Now here comes Sarah Palin, an outdoorsy ice fishing queen from Alaska, with an accent straight out of the movie Fargo, sons named Track and Trig, and who looks way better than a mother of five ought to be able to.

Her promise of change. The Republicans are trying to contrast Obama’s call for change with one of their own.  Palin represents a massive generational shift in the party- in theory if they won, she could be the party’s leader and even presidential nominee in the next 4-8 years.   She also bucked the corrupt old-boy Republican network in Alaska, and is therefore seen as an internal party crusader.  Meanwhile, McCain attempts to look like a maverick again after complaints of bending his positions to the right.  And a stud. 

McCain’s age.  Critically, McCain is 72, was tortured for some years, and has survived multiple bouts of skin cancer.  Voters will need to question not only if they are comfortable with a Vice President Palin, but a President Palin.

How the Obamans respond. Early on, Obama surrogates have criticized her lack of experience.  But that’s the knock on him, too.  How they separate the two will be critical to the race.

Biden vs. Palin. Will Biden run circles around the younger Palin?  I cannot fathom otherwise unless another brain aneurysm emerges in Biden’s head mid-debate, but if the debate and extended back and forth between them isn’t a knockout, that doesn’t bode well for Team Obama.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."  - Senator Joe Biden (D-Hatchetville)

Politics begets strange bedfellows.  Obama’s candidate for VP was announced last night: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.  There were many who thought Obama would end up choosing an old salt of Washington to be his running mate, and this seemed feasible to me.  But, as with all of the other candidates on the short list du jour, which included Tim Kaine, Evan Bayh, Kathleen Sebelius, and some guy named (Chet) Edwards, I could not muster any excitement over the prospect of Joe Biden as the running-mate.  It is a damning statement about the Democratic party today, that few within its ranks outside Barack Obama can generate true national excitement. 

But that’s the point.  Obama has generated so much excitement that the new Republican swift-boat narrative has emerged: he’s too exciting, too much of a celebrity.  McCain and Co. have successfully used this strength as an entry point for their attack, turning it into the Achilles Heal.  The  Obama campaign is certainly not lacking for excitement.  I would say the biggest weakness of Obama, and the Democratic party, has been an inability to play offense well.  It’s one thing to attack, but attacking effectively is a completely different matter.  Your swings have to hit. 

Why is Biden where he is?  Not to shore up the ticket’s Washington experience, foreign policy credentials, or to reassure older white people from Biden’s generation. He’s on board specifically to play hardball.  When Biden attacked Obama, Obama wiped the blood off his nose, and liked the taste.  Joe Biden brings something to the table that many of the other prominent Democrats could not: a particularly feisty brand of attack-dog politics, one that even ventures into the realms of (*gasp*) political incorrectness, colloquialisms, f-bombs, and public lashings of other government officials both in America and abroad.  If he stays true to his track record, Biden could be very useful to the Obama campaign.  He could be the hatchet-man deputy that would allow Obama to stay above the fray and free to practice the "new kind of politics" he talks about, while his boy with 30 years of Washington experience does the dirty work down in the trenches.  Make no mistake, Biden would enjoy this role immensely too.

The implications for the campaign are clear.  Biden will go after both McCain and McCain’s own running mate like a lusty pit-bull, while Obama can stay magnanimous and praise McCain’s service to America.  Biden will be difficult to defeat in a debate.  Plus, Biden will surely out-maneuver McCain’s running-mate on foreign policy, be it the Russia-Georgia war, Iran, or Iraq, as the Republican field is filled with foreign-policy dunces and chicken-hawks who have have brought us into the national-security wasteland we are in today. 

Biden is ambitious, as we know he wanted to be president for at least the last 20 years.  There is no doubt in my mind that he will run his own little fiefdom during the campaign, and Obama will let him loose to do so as long as he doesn’t cross him. 

In the Obama administration, Biden will still be a useful sidekick.  He could play a large role in getting legislation rammed through as he calls on his old buddies from Congress.  He could continue to stay on the offensive, doing the negative PR that is necessary while allowing Obama to continue staying on a positive message.  A classic example: when it comes time to nominate a new Supreme Court Justice, Obama could sing the high praises of the Judge, while Biden could circulate around Washington, threatening to cut funding for this project or that, or questioning the credentials of another judge who was short-listed and could emerge with insurgent support.

Now that I’ve thought about it, Biden may not be such a bad choice.  Think about it, Markos.

There is a fierce debate under way in Washington and around the world about what America should be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two centerpieces of the West’s War on Terror.  The two sides of the debate are represented by the campaign trail rhetoric of the presidential candidates.  The battle line has been drawn by John McCain and Barack Obama, one of whom will be the new Commander in Chief beginning in January 2009.

Obama, on an overseas jaunt to both war zones, has made clear that he would
give the armed forces a new mission: to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months,
and to add two or three brigades to Afghanistan.  McCain himself has
advocated adding more troops in Afghanistan in response, while holding troop
levels in Iraq steady for the time being, without a specific withdrawal
timetable- essentially Bush’s stance.  One view or the other will soon
come to pass as the the two ideologies come to a head.

In evaluating each candidate’s position in the debate, it is worth exploring
how we arrived where we are today.  I have attempted to frame each war as
briefly as possible.  The narrative of each invasion and subsequent
occupation highlights the stark contrast of the missions.

Afghanistan: We invaded Afghanistan with our NATO allies and toppled the ruling Taliban regime because of overwhelming evidence that they harbored our enemy Al-Qaeda forces, which committed multiple terrorist attacks against us, especially the shocking and well-organized crimes of 9/11/01 on American soil.

Iraq: We invaded Iraq with little assistance from few
allies to topple the ruling Saddam Hussein regime
because he might have had an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program,
because of evidence that Iraqi officials may have met with someone from Al-Qaeda
at some point, to liberate the oppressed population, and to spread democracy in
the Middle East.  The administration’s mandate
after 9/11 was extended to taking down another authoritarian regime in the
Persian Gulf, and finishing the job that the president’s
father never completed when he was in power.  Cheney and Company felt they
were being patriotic by securing the oil fields of
Iraq for our future energy needs, because “they hate us for our
freedom,” because Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to test the
effectiveness of a new leaner, meaner military fighting machine, because many
Americans saw it as a Crusade against Islamic terrorism, because U.S.
government officials believed that Iraq could project power beyond its borders
despite the fact that NATO was patrolling two-thirds
of its airspace, and finally, we are now staying there to act as policemen
until Iraq stabilizes itself in terms of security and politics, so we can leave
with a “victory.”

Each narrative is now fact.  They are entirely based on the statements
of the Bush administration which led us to war.  It’s worth analyzing the
reasons we went to war on their merits, with the benefit of hindsight in the
year 2008.

Invading Afghanistan was clearly an act of self-defense, a necessary measure
to protect the American homeland.  Pursuing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, by
killing and capturing their leaders and foot-soldiers, was justifiable to
prevent future attacks and also send a message to the world that America would not accept an act of war against it.  Most of the world agreed with us on
this one.

On the other hand, each of the arguments for invading Iraq has turned out to
be tenuous at best, and they have morphed to adjust to the Bush
administration’s new public relations rollouts.  As a whole, the narrative
is utterly confusing.  Let’s put each individual argument to the test:

- Iraq had a WMD program. We searched far and wide for an
active WMD program in Iraq and came up short.  There were no weapons
stockpiles.  There were no reactors, labs, or personnel that could
conclusively point to the existence of an active WMD program.   U.S.
intelligence agencies concluded that any program that had existed in Iraq had
been dismantled prior to the U.S. invasion.
- Iraqi officials met with Al-Qaeda leaders. The evidence
presented on this front was shaky.  There was discussion of secret
meetings in the Czech Republic or elsewhere between Iraqi military personnel
and Al Qaeda operatives.  Analysts concluded there was no operational
significance to these meetings, if they happened at all.
- An oppressed population required liberation.  There is no doubt
that Saddam was a brutal dictator who oppressed many of his people, largely due to sectarian differences between his Sunni tribe and the Shi’ites and
Kurds.  Peaceful and violent attempts by Iraqis to overthrow Saddam were
fiercely thwarted with grave consequences.  On the other hand, a large
percentage of the population showed its displeasure against the American
presence by taking up arms against the occupier.  This included both
Shi’ites and Sunni insurgents who have caused most of the 4,000+ deaths of
American soldiers well after Saddam was out of power.  The results on this
point are mixed; the lives of some have improved, while many others were caught up in fierce sectarian violence bordering on civil war between the Sunnis and Shi’ites in a power struggle that is not yet over.  An estimated 2 million
Iraqis became refugees in places such as Jordan and Syria and still live in
appalling conditions; perhaps a better fate than the hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis who died in the bloodshed which the U.S. and Iraqi forces were unable to
prevent.  Remember, we lost 3,000 on 9/11 to a foreign menace and that
stung our nation to the core.  Many Iraqis will tell you that liberation has not been worth losing their livelihoods and families.
- Invading Iraq would help spread democracy throughout the region and the
world.  The jury is still out on this one.  Iranian leadership is
feeling empowered and has turned away from democratic trends in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, leaning toward conservative Shi’ite tendencies.
Hamas was elected to power in Palestine, but the group is an incubator of Sunni
terrorists.   Hizballah has weakened the democratic institutions in Lebanon, and wreaked havoc against Israel.  Saudi Arabia and Syria are just as authoritarian as before.  Rising powers such as Russia and China are rolling back democracy despite exploiting capitalist opportunities. Iraq itself has had elections and has made strides toward building a constitution, but large parts of the Sunni faction are left out of representative government and oil wealth.  So the jury is still out even on Iraq’s prospects for democracy.
- 9/11 gave America the mandate to topple other authoritarian regimes
besides the Taliban. We know Bush felt this way because after 9/11,
he told Americans about the “Axis of Evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran,
and North Korea, opening the door for him to attack any or all three of them in
the context of a changed world.  This was dramatically different from his
isolationist rhetoric on the campaign trail in 2000.  The Bush Doctrine
would pit America against all dictators, not just the Taliban.  Never mind
that Saddam was not an Islamist, and had not invaded America or committed a
proven act of terror on American soil.  Most of our closest allies in the
Middle East and Europe who fought side by side with us against Saddam in 1991 disagreed that 9/11 was reason enough to target Iraq.  Even nations such
as Germany, France, and Saudi Arabia, who owe their very existence to Americans saving their hides in recent history, would not support the effort.
In the Saudi case it was even Saddam himself from whom they needed saving
in 1991, and the royals said no dice.
- George W. Bush needed to complete the job his father started.
There are some who will say there is no evidence here.  My response is
this:  only twice in history has America invaded Iraq, and in both cases
the president’s first name was George and last name was Bush.  If you
believe there is no psychological void being addressed between the father and
son working in the exact same office, under very different times and changed
circumstances,  try telling that to Freud.
- Securing the Iraqi oil fields was a patriotic and necessary duty for the
future of America’s security and economy.  This was easily the best
argument to go to war, and there may be a sincere moral intention behind it,
but it is simultaneously the most cynical and reviled view that Americans are
not even allowed to speak of openly.  Securing a largely untapped energy
source  before it got into the hands of China, Russia, or someone else was
deemed critical for America in the long term.  It’s yet to be seen if Iraq
can pump up to capacity and if it will turn out to be a real gift to the people
of America after all.  The security situation would have to be improved
dramatically first.
- They hate us for our freedom.  This is a tough one.  Who are “they?”  What does “freedom” even mean to a foreign people when they feel they are being controlled by a superpower occupier? Most Iraqis, according to polls, preferred an Iraqi dictator lording over them and taking their oil rather than a foreign power.
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to test a leaner, meaner
military machine. He wrote this himself in the run-up to Afghanistan
and Iraq.  The result?  A highly successful invasion, and a
frighteningly inadequate and failed occupation afterward, which was
overstretched in its mission to rule Iraq.  Over five years later, America
is still struggling to manage Iraq effectively under its fledgling
government.  The troop levels and resources in both Iraq and Afghanistan
have never been where they needed to be.  It is the reason why we are
still mired in both countries, long after the fired Rumsfeld thought we would
be.  This will be remembered as his legacy to America.
- Some American leaders saw this as a crusade against Islamic terrorism.
Bush and other Republican politicians owed the religious right, big time.
The war was one way to speak to churchgoers.  This turned out to be a
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Saddam’s regime, which was a nasty one, was not
religious.  Al Qaeda wasn’t based there.  After we invaded, the
Islamic radicals came to us.  Many American lives were lost in this
battle.  Although it appears Al Qaeda in Iraq  has been largely
neutralized, the cadres are biding their time.  They are probably
regrouping elsewhere anyway; there are many other safe havens for them, the
main ones being in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they are trying to blend in
with the locals.
- Iraq would have projected power beyond its borders if Saddam wasn’t taken
down. This was a very weak argument.  Since 1991, when the
allied forces led by Bush Sr. castrated the Iraqi regime by destroying most of
its military infrastructure, Saddam was unable to threaten anyone else outside
his borders.  With residual forces in Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Germany, the Persian Gulf waters, etc. the U.S. and its NATO allies were around
to make sure nothing untoward happened to Iraq’s neighbors.  Iran, Israel,
and other countries armed to the hilt were on alert in case Saddam were to try
anything stupid.  The no-fly zone over Iraqi airspace effectively hemmed
in Iraq’s pathetic air force.  Saddam may have been unpalatable, but he
wasn’t stupid or insane.  We have no evidence that Saddam was a threat to
anybody except his own people.
- We are there to act as policemen while Iraq gets its act together.
This is the latest argument, and the main one given by our government to
describe why we are there today.  In reality, this reason is why we are
stuck.  We created a huge mess, and are obliged to stay until it is
cleaned up.  The alternatives are leaving behind a civil war, a terrorist
breeding ground, and a perception of defeat by the American people and others
around the world.  But it’s a Catch-22; much of the work, we can’t do
ourselves and our presence could make things worse.  We cannot tell a
Middle Eastern country exactly how to run itself for cultural, religious, and
political reasons.  So we are relegated to being the police force until
the country’s own forces are able to stand up on their own, a task that is
years behind schedule.  Depending on how you define the goal of Iraqis
taking care of themselves without our presence, this could take several
decades.  An empowered Iran is nearby meddling in the country’s affairs,
closely linked to powerful Shi’ite figures including Muqtada Al-Sadr, who in
fact lives in Iran.  Al Qaeda is down and not out, and could be lying in
wait and regrouping.  Most Sunnis still feel oppressed as the tables have
been turned on them by the Shi’ites who were marginalized under Saddam; the
thousand-year rivalry between Sunnis and Shi’ites has not magically ended, much
to Bush’s chagrin.  Therein lies the elusiveness of a
“victory.”  I would argue victory, if ever achieved, wasn’t
worth it: wasn’t worth 200,000 Iraqis dead, a $1 trillion+ with a T
price tag, 4,000 American soldiers dead, many thousands more maimed, 2 million refugees, and countless other issues for a strictly optional war with no hint of self-defense, and most importantly, Al Qaeda still alive, it simply was not worth the blood and treasure.

At this point it should be clear that the variety of reasons why we are in
Iraq present a goody bag of a few successes and a large number of
failures.  The narrative itself has had to change constantly, morphing
from one bad reason to stay to another over the course of 5 years.  Iraq
has weakened our military, emboldened our new #1 enemy Iran, and many of the people who we liberated have spurned us by laying down explosive devices
instead of flowers at our feet.  We haven’t reaped the benefits of the
energy potential that exists in Iraq.  Perhaps most damagingly, America’s
perception in the world as the beacon of hope for struggling people everywhere
has been replaced by a sense of a giant wielding power for entirely cynical
reasons.  Our diplomatic corps has been marginalized in favor of hawks driven
by an inflexible ideology.

It will take a new kind of president to restore America’s position in the
world to where it rightfully should be, as the moral authority for the rest of
the world.  Luckily, we will not have to wait long, and he is already
taking the first steps by visiting our war zones to see for himself how we
should proceed.  Godspeed.

Barack Obama is running one of the most impressive primary campaigns
in American history by most quantifiable performance indicators.  He
has raised more money, from more people than in any other primary
campaign ever.  His website is superior to any other politician’s;
Barackobama.com features the most powerful social networking tools and
demographic information database available in politics.  He has
mobilized America’s youth to turn the lever for him at an unprecedented
rate.  Perhaps as importantly, Obama’s team has mastered the arcane art
of the caucus, trouncing his opponents in nearly every single state
caucus beginning with Iowa.  Most strikingly, he has accomplished all
of this as a half-black Washington newcomer, beginning his national
campaign just two years after stepping into the Senate for the first
time as a guy that most Americans knew little to nothing about.

Obama has also been the beneficiary of a poorly run Clinton campaign
and weak, cash-strapped efforts from other Democrats like Edwards,
Richardson, Kucinich, and others.  Obama’s prospects would not have
been so rosy if the Clintons hadn’t underestimated him and expected to
sail by on the basis of their brand recognition.

On the other hand, Obama has made extremely costly political errors,
which are now the focus of the Democratic primary.  Although they have
done him great harm, none of his stumbles so far will turn out to be a
deal-breaker en route to the White House.  The next one just could be.

The following is an analysis of each mistake.  The issues will be
discussed strictly in the context of the presidential race, without
editorializing on or defending his values, integrity, moral judgments,
or past associations as so many other people are now doing.  This is
all about tactics, which have in any case overtaken substance on policy
that may have existed once upon a time in this cursed primary.

Tony Rezko. The trend of being forced to go off-message and on the
defensive probably started most pointedly with Antonin Rezko.  Rezko is
by most accounts an influence-peddling wheeler-dealer exactly in the
mold of so many thousands of other business magnates who form the
backbone of American politics on the local, state, and federal levels.
He raised mountains of cash for various Republicans and Democrats.  He
probably called in lots of favors on these investments of time and
money that would have helped his business or personal interests.  But
Rezko was dumb enough to (a) do something that may have been illegal
and (b) get caught doing it, a la Spitzer.  Without getting into the
details of Rezko’s ongoing trial, it became clear early in the campaign
that Obama had an unsavory character on his hands, one who both
fundraised for him and helped him buy a house in Chicago at a good
price.

There’s no hard evidence that Obama did anything improper in
relation to Rezko.  But the facts are there for all to see: Obama has
had an ongoing association with this shady guy.  In response, Obama
called his real estate deal involving Rezko “boneheaded” and returned
substantial amounts of campaign money that Rezko helped raise.  The
response was slow and retro-active, however.  The public had already
been alerted to the damaging Rezko connection.

What should Obama have done?  More homework on his associates to
start with.  He should have known in advance that Rezko was going to
blow up, and severed ties with him pre-emptively, along with returning
the contribution money and selling the house (at exact cost of
purchase) before the media got wind of Rezko’s troubles.  It could all
have been done quietly, early on, and even cordially so as to wash his
hands of the connection.  Presidential candidates are under a
microscope, and their associates are too.  Even more inexcusable than
the ignorance plea, is the possibility that Obama did already know of
Rezko’s potential for downfall.  If this is true, then the campaign
should have taken the above actions even sooner, and prepared a
response typed and ready to deliver to avoid seeming purely reactive. 
    
Jeremiah Wright.  Rezko, even if found guilty, will be a walk in the
park compared to the problem of Reverend Wright of Trinity United
Church of Christ.  Americans are familiar and even comfortable with
sleazy white middle-aged suits who pull strings and call shots.  Many
in our society suspect that these guys run the show anyway, and aspire
to be like them.  Every national politician has at least a few backers
like Rezko who helped get them in power; Hillary Clinton and John
McCain have Tony Rezkos by the bucketful in their pasts and presents.
So the Rezko problem will blow over, for the right or wrong reasons.
Note how McCain and Clinton have not beaten the Rezko horse to death:
the equivalent of political death by hypocrisy.

Along comes Jeremiah Wright, a new type of character that most
Americans do not really get.  People asked how such an angry and
unenlightened black man could possibly be Obama’s pastor for over 20
years.  And he married Obama off, AND baptized both of his children?
That is undeniably a real, long-term, spiritual bond.

Wright is an articulate and controversial black preacher who upsets
people almost as badly as Catholic priests who sodomize altar boys.
The cadence of his voice and the content of his speeches offends the
sensibilities of most of us who don’t subscribe to black liberation
theology.  And that is largely why Wright is in business: to perform
the art of black anger from his pulpit.  He is good at it, and loves a
stage.  Those of us who have been around a little bit know a number of
people like Wright, especially in cities.  I don’t agree with what he
says, but I certainly understand what he is saying and where he is
coming from because I’ve heard it all one hundred times before. 

This time, Obama responded with a brilliant master stroke: he gave
the best speech on race in America since “I have a Dream” was delivered
by Martin Luther King, Jr. decades ago.  “A More Perfect Union” was
politically wise.  Obama went on the offensive, on his terms, and
navigated through extremely sensitive racial issues such as a
description of what goes on in black churches, the cult of black
victimhood, and reasons why whites could be legitimately resentful.  He
described the good works and leadership and military service of Wright
and the congregation.  At the same time he made it crystal-clear that
he did not believe in some of Wright’s contentions without naming them:
for example, that the U.S. government created AIDS specifically to
screw black people, a major charge not backed by any evidence.

The speech had topics that other politicians were afraid to touch;
if McCain or Clinton dared to rebut any of the content of “A More
Perfect Union,” they risked being branded as racially insensitive.
Obama’s speech was a hand grenade that could detonate an opponent on
contact.  Afterwards the polls indicated that Wright’s emergence as an
issue would be a pesky nuisance, not a deal-breaker.  In other words,
only the voters who weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway really
cared.  To boot, Obama used the opportunity to advertise his
Christianity, to counter the buzz that he might be a Muslim.  BRILLIANT
MASTER STROKE.

What Obama and his backers did not count on was Reverend Wright
re-emerging to stab him in the back after Obama had told the American
people, under excruciating political duress, that he could not disown
Wright, that the words of hatred didn’t tell the complete story of who
Wright was.  Last week Wright used the opportunity afforded by the
media attention to turn his ridiculous Chicago pulpit into a national
road show, strutting and preening and performing with three straight
days of major speeches chock-full of controversial statements and an
indictment of Obama for throwing him under the bus for the sake of
politics.

This shocking show of disloyalty caused Obama to resort to the only
available option: disavow Wright publicly, denounce all that he stood
for, admit the association with this pastor was an utter mistake, and
commit the foul but necessary pandering to the right wing by appearing
for an interview on the Republican Party’s mouthpiece, Fox News, to
receive an unbalanced fleecing.

This particular problem should have been easy to deal with.  Either
Obama should have had the political skill or leverage to keep Wright’s
mouth shut after “A More Perfect Union,” perhaps with offers of
longer-lasting limelight in exchange for an ounce of loyalty.  The
second-best alternative was to have thrown the self-serving Wright out
of the house during “A More Perfect Union” itself.  Unfortunately Obama
was unable to achieve either.  Just as with Rezko, Obama also failed to
see the Wright problem emerging as a critical problem in the campaign,
one that he could have been better prepared to deal with.  He
miscalculated how caught up the American public could get over such
nonsense.

Bitter. The “Bitter” pill was completely Obama’s own doing, and
ironically exposed by one of his strong backers on the blogosphere
after attending a campaign event in San Francisco, one at which people
were openly recording video and sound.  Yet another strange chapter in
this absurdly long election cycle. 

The mistake was simple: telling a group of supporters a message
straight out of the political best-seller, What’s Wrong with Kansas.
People who are bitter about the government and the economy cling to
guns or church or other things that make them feel good.  Obama thought
it would be safe to say this in front of this group.  He should not
have said it.

As we know, word got out quickly.  The response was clumsy and
forced: trying to put the words in context to make it seem like anyone
who misunderstood only did so because of the semantics.  Dancing around
the issue with confusing explanations and an unconvincing tone helped
Obama lose Pennsylvania.  A victory there would have been a knockout
punch against Clinton.

Ultimately, voters don’t like being told that they feel bitter.  No
matter whether or not the statement is true.  Here was the best
response which would have made the problem go away sooner: “I’m sorry,
I shouldn’t have said that. Slip of the tongue.  Next question.” Each
of the candidates have had these slip of the tongue moments; Bush had
400 of them in the 2000 and 2004 elections and got by.  McCain confused
the Sunnis and Shias of Iraq to great ridicule.  People will forget
most things, unless the drama continues with more dialogue when the
best plan was to bury it and move on.

Surrogate Blunders.  Samantha Power, Austan Goolsbee, and Michelle
Obama have also said things they should not have.  Foreign policy
adviser Power called Clinton a monster, economic adviser Goolsbee
allegedly told a Canadian official that Obama’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric was
just politics, and Mrs. Obama claimed she was proud to be American for
the first time this year.  These quotes are costly because they are
off-message, and exactly the type of statements that the media pounces
on for dramatic effect and inevitable righteous anger from opponents.
The distractions end up shaping the campaign’s story line, as over time
the quotes appear to be an agenda rather than just isolated and dumb
mistakes, which is what they are.

All the candidates have suffered as a result of their surrogates.
Bill Clinton has done political damage to his spouse by multiples of
what Michele Obama has done to hers.  However, Obama’s narrative of “a
different kind of politics” leaves him exposed to more scrutiny.  This
is a line of attack that will not stop as long as he promises to
practice the politics lifting the country up.  Obama has got to make
sure his surrogates are on message and positive.  And if they blunder
again, he must reject the errant statements forcefully and
immediately.  A candidate cannot control everything that everyone on
the campaign says to the media, but he can come close.

There have been other mistakes, but these have been the most
critical ones.  Some were preventable, and some were not.  Obama should
certainly have predicted in advance that Rezko and Wright would emerge
as part of the vetting process.  In any case it is fortunate that these
came out sooner rather than later.  People will lose interest in these
issues in the months to come.  Undoubtedly, new mistakes and problems
will emerge.  But we can be certain of one thing: Obama has been
raising his game as time has gone on.  Although the mistakes already
have done serious damage, they should be treated as learning
experiences.  There is a long way to go, and the best virtue to draw
upon at this time is patience.

It’s time to grow up, Democrats.

Politics is made up of the most foul types of animal waste known to this earth.  When the race is for the U.S. presidency, the stink is that much worse, and it comes and goes like a violent, rotten breeze traveling to and fro from Washington, D.C. to defile every other part of the country in its wake.  Festering in the blood, guts, feces, and other inedible parts swirling at the drain of the presidential election slaughterhouse are those most vested in the process: the candidates, their campaign staff, the press corps, and the few citizens out there who give a damn.  Regardless of who ultimately wins, the shit inevitably stains everyone, on both the right and  the left.

So let’s not pretend that running for president is a game of canasta.   It’s a largely mindless decathlon of events spanning over 22 months in this particularly silly 2007-08 season, where the only pleasantries are fake, the issues and platforms come a distant second to the soul-crushing horse-race aspects of the campaign, and half-lies are the closest we will ever get to the truth.  As far as the never ending horror story of this un-Democratic party primary season goes, the only thing worse than the nominee being decided by a pile of 800 party hacks, instead of the uninformed masses of primary voters they may or may not have been elected to represent, is the prospect of having the decision come down to a protracted legal battle at the convention in August.

Here is how absurd the situation is: because neither Obama nor Clinton can technically gain the number of delegates needed to win their pathetic party’s nomination, the mob of 800 "superdelegate" Democrats will step in and decide the outcome because they can vote however they choose.  The party came up with this outrageous concept in the 1980’s specifically to go against the will of the people in case one of the establishment’s own darlings was beaten in the state primaries and caucuses by a beltway outsider.  Of course, overturning the will of the voters is Clinton’s only hope to survive the race, and she is clinging onto it for dear life as she has fallen impossibly far behind in delegates.  Her reasoning is that superdelegates should all enter a brain-dead state of hypnosis and repeat the following: "Although Obama has won more states and more delegates, only I can beat the Republicans come fall.  Although Obama has won more…"  Unfathomably, over 250 superdelegates have chosen to stay nestled in the Clinton pantsuit.  If they’re not hypnotized, they’re morons.

The vital role of superhacks isn’t the only morally questionable aspect of the long road to the nomination.  The Clinton team is trying to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates through some brand of legal wrangling despite the fact that those states’ primaries were nullified by the party for moving their contests too early in the year without the DNC blessing.  Both campaigns agreed to the fateful arrangement.  Neither candidate campaigned in those states.  Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.  Of course, Clinton won the ghost ballot in both states, and her people are now questioning how DARE anyone challenge those results and disenfranchise millions of wonderful voters? 

Finally: forget the issues, because they don’t matter.  The economy, the war in Iraq, nuclear weapons, health care, terrorism, and global warming: t-h-e-y-d-o-n-o-t-m-a-t-t-e-r.  The focus has been entirely on the blather since Obama and Clinton became the frontrunners thanks to our penchant for the wholesale consumption of useless information, and the fact that they agree on everything.  Several thousand, easy.  That’s the number of articles that have been wasted in the last 3 months on the following topics.  I’ve read many of them.

Hillary Clinton:
a)  She’s a woman, and all the related wonders.
b)  She’s been "vetted."
c)  She can fight.
d)  She used to be first lady.  She’s been through some crises.
e)  When it’s hard to get up in the morning, she cries.
f)  Her husband’s sexual escapades are none of your business.
g)  Her husband likes media attention and caused her to lose votes.
h)  She’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief on Day One?
i)  Blue-collar white people vote for her.
j)  Hispanics like her.
k)  Clintonite Geraldine Ferraro said Barack only has a shot because he’s black.
l)  She lied about running from sniper fire in Bosnia to make herself seem tough and experienced too.
m) She ran out of money because she didn’t know how to fundraise on the Internet at first.
n)  She thought she was inevitable until Obama jolted her in January and February.
o)  She set up a firewall in Texas and Ohio.
p)  She set up another firewall in Pennsylvania, where most of the Democratic establishment supports her and voters are white and blue-collar.
q)  The media has been unfair to her.
r)  If the White House phone rings at 3 a.m. and "something is going on in the world," pee your pants if Hillary doesn’t pick up.
s)  Delegate math sucks.

Barack Obama:
a)  Is he Muslim?
b)  He’s black, or half-black, and all the related wonders.
b)  His middle name is Hussein and the rest of it is funny too.
c)  His pastor said some nasty things about whites and America.
d)  He doesn’t  have experience.
e)  He’s a great speaker but can he lead?
f)  Young people think he’s, like, cool.
g)  His economic adviser said that Obama’s NAFTA comments were just politics.
h)  His foreign policy adviser called Clinton a monster.
i)  He raised a ton of money on the Internet.
j)  Black people vote for him.  But do hispanics mistrust him?
k)  Rich people vote for him.
l)   His friend and fundraiser, Tony Rezko, is a criminal sleazeball.
m) Is he going to stumble?
n)  Is he really post-racial?
o)  Could he possibly win Texas or Ohio or Pennsylvania?
p)  Can he stand up to the scary Republicans?
q)  His wife says stuff.
r)  The media have been unfairly biased for him.
s)  Can he get enough superdelegates?

With this noise in the background playing endlessly on television and in print, the nominee will emerge bloodied, battered, and bruised, while McCain is taking long naps, planning wars, raising money and traveling the world to raise his profile.

GOOD.  The fact that this primary process is turning historically ugly and disgusting is an excellent sign for Democrats.  That’s because it’s obvious that Obama will win the nomination, whether it is in April through a shocking, graceful Clinton exit, or in August at a chaotic convention in Denver fraught with legal challenges, food fights, and drunken super-riots.  Let’s be honest.  The contest was really already over in February when Obama won 11 straight primary contests, followed by the win in Texas.  The rest of this nonsense has been a charade, an overtime period after one side has already won the game.  Yes, Obama may emerge with scabs and scars, perhaps even missing a tooth or two as the Clinton machine continues to hammer at him.  To that I say:  That which does not kill you, can only make you stronger.  This is what politics is all about, baby!  Jump into that sewer, do the backstroke and enjoy it!  Clinton is serving the important role of toughening Obama up for McCain.  By getting his dirty laundry out now, come the end of the so-called primary season America will already know what all of Obama’s weaknesses are.  Obama will have developed answers to dealing with them.

The question as to when the Obama primary contest ends, and the Obama national campaign begins, is just a matter of opinion.  In McCain’s mind, as well as mine, Obama is already the Democratic candidate.  Unfortunately for McCain, the A.D.D.-addled media isn’t paying any attention to him yet.  Which is just as well for his opponent, who simply needs to parry the jabs long enough to survive in the coming months.

Mark my words: Obama’s ideal scenario is playing out.  If the Dems fight a protracted battle until August, so much the better.  The shorter the national battle, the better.  August to November is the perfect window of time for Obama to crush McCain.  The Republicans will be tougher to defeat than Hillary, because their gloves will be off all the time without any pretension of pleasantry and there will be real policy differences and real fear and hatred.  Which is all good.  I don’t want President Obama to take the oath of office in January until having survived some licks from the right, including a few tear-inducing shots below the belt. 

A break from politics.  Both to maintain my sanity and yours, and also to keep my loyal readers happy.  I think this is an interesting subject and I want to hear your opinions about an inexplicable phenomenon.

One of the coolest things about Youtube, in my opinion, is that you can easily spend an entire Saturday afternoon watching a smorgasbord of music videos without having to spend a single cent, on demand, whenever you want it.  I can look up my favorite bands, live concert footage, or even wander into international territory and pick up Arabic, Hindi, or Tamil songs that I grew up listening to.  You can let the music play in the background while doing something else, such as homework or, as I’m doing now, writing something.  In an hour you can listen to 10 different songs of 10 entirely different styles.

Or you can listen to the same song over and over and over again in an endless loop.  I often do this when I fall in love with a song for the first time.  But at some point it becomes a bit unreasonable to not want to listen to anything else but the same song, right?  I am going through this right now.  For well over a month, possibly close to two months, I have been playing the same song on youtube non-stop and not really listening to any other music at home.  It’s called "Wait and Bleed: Original Cut" by a thrasher band from Iowa called Slipknot.  Here’s the link, if you care to watch the video that I have probably played 300 times in the recent past: Wait and Bleed by Slipknot.

I’ll be the first to admit the following:

1) It’s a good song, not a great song.  If you’re over 35, you probably think it’s just a lot of noise.
2) Slipknot is energetic, but not a great band.  In fact I only know three of their songs, including Wait and Bleed.
3) The gimmick- 8 dudes who wear scary masks and jumpsuits while singing or playing instruments, loses its luster in perhaps 10 minutes.
4) The lyrics make no sense besides being an intense display of anger.  The main refrain that is oft-repeated, "I felt the hate rise up in me/ Kneel down and clear the stone of leaves/ I wander out where you can’t see/ inside my shell I wait and bleed." can be seen to have some deeper meaning that truly connects with someone’s soul.  Or you could look at it from my point of view: I don’t get it, don’t really identify with it, except perhaps the bit about pent-up anger felt by adolescents and those of us on extended adolescence well into their 30’s.
5) The video is entertaining- the masked dudes beating the crap out of one another, the crowd going apeshit- but not enough to watch repeatedly without getting bored of it.  Right?

So I am trying to dig deeper into WHY.  This piece is an effort toward that end.  If you’re a psychologist and have something to say, I’m listening.

To be honest, I don’t feel enough anger in daily life to connect with the passion in the song, which I am guessing must be rooted in some sort of childhood trauma.  Certainly nobody in my life has done anything to me, nor have I self-flagellated myself enough to cause this anger.  And in fact, I don’t feel anger when listening to the song.  It calms me down.  While it’s true my favorite band, Rage Against the Machine, is known for its unrivaled passion for the music and political causes, Slipknot does not even come near that category.  Yet I haven’t listened to a Rage song in several months.

Obviously I do connect to the melody.  The singer has a range- from sing-song, high voice to unadulterated yelling and screaming.  One must admit that he’s got real talent, as is evidenced by his singing on other Slipknot songs as well as in another band, Stone Sour. 

I think the masks are cool.  They tell the audience a bit about each musician’s personality, because they are custom-made to their preferences.  Their personality is admirable, because they are out there in outlandish attire that few people, musicians or otherwise would be willing to perform in.  They don’t seem to care what people think- an individuality that I have always respected.  On the other hand, musical critics have pointed out the more cynical view: that the masks are a cheap marketing gimmick.

In my soul-searching I have come up with an explanation I believe is more compelling.  I believe that Wait and Bleed, as much as perhaps any song, makes me feel good about rock and roll, about America, and even myself.  Here are 8 dudes from the midwest, who probably came from a place similar to the midwestern towns I lived in, who developed a clownish personality, real musical talents, and decided at a young age that their purpose in life would be to ROCK.  In my opinion most recent popular music is horrible, especially in two American genres I truly care about, hip hop and rock.  Music has been corrupted by an industry that wants to churn out ten trashy pop-tart hits a year written in record company meeting rooms by clueless executives.  A band like Slipknot comes along and gives the executives the middle finger with an organic sound that the young people can relate to.  And they are continuing to tour and make good music. 

On the other hand, do I simply listen because there is no explanation for some things?  Is it possible that one doesn’t ever know why an idea pops into your head, why you feel like ordering #13 on the Chinese takeout menu today instead of #6, why you chose to wear the red tie on any given morning, and why I picked tea instead of coffee this morning?  Did God put each of these ideas in our heads for a reason, as part of his larger master scheme? 

I’m not sure how long I’ll continue listening to Wait and Bleed.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and not feel like hearing it ever again.  And maybe I’ll never find out why I had a temporary Wait and Bleed fetish for several months of my life at age 28.

In the decades to come, historians will continue analyzing what
happened in the 2008 election, especially how a young African-American
inexperienced in national politics beyond a half-term in the Senate
with a funny Kenyan name came to dominate the White House bid in a
field of formidable political veterans such as McCain, Clinton,
Edwards, and Giuliani.  Yes I said it: there is no doubt in my mind
that Senator Barack Obama will easily win the election in November,
simply because he understands the electorate better than any of the
candidates do, and along the victory lap to Washington he will carry on
his shoulders a plethora of Democratic nominees picking up House seats
and Senate seats, and some of them even might be picked from Clinton’s
own superdelegate pocket.

Obama is dominating the American
political scene not just because of who he is, but also because of what
America has become.  I like to call our current situation "The Perfect
Storm:" a highly unlikely combination of historic factors that have
come together at exactly the same time that Obama has come of age
politically.  This perfect storm has made an Obama administration
inevitable.  Here’s why.  Historian in the year 2030, here is where you
can begin your research.

Bush incompetence.  This
can be summed up in one word: Brownie.  Nowadays I thank Bush every
day, despite all the foolish mistakes he has made, because he has done
more for Obama than any other human being.  Things have to be really
bad sometimes before they can get better.  Obama could not have risen
without 8 years of Bush first.  Let’s pretend for a moment that you
agree with all of Junior’s policy platforms from the last 7 years,
including the protection of America, invasion of Iraq, social security
reform, immigration reform, education reform, or fiscal
responsibility.  He has failed miserably  in every area due to the
gross incompetence of his administration.  Protecting America was
doomed from the start, with 9/11 proving that the Bush-Cheney inner
circle did not respect the threat from Al-Qaeda despite repeated and
passionate warnings.  The resulting War on Terror has produced one
failure after another: the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran; a
Taliban and Al-Qaeda resurgence when our knockout punch was nigh; Abu
Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the unproductive debates on torture,
extraordinary rendition, and spying on people’s phones.  Bush has
somehow, miraculously managed to create an American foreign policy that
is both morally wrong and undermines our national security.  Iraq was
invaded successfully, but grossly mismanaged from the beginning.  The
economy is in  dangerously poor condition.  Bush’s domestic agenda has
been defeated by one grand mistake after the other, whether it was New
Orleans in 2005, or No Child Left Behind leaving lots of kids, uh, you
know where. 

Clinton incompetence.  Just
a few weeks ago, this argument would not have applied.  Isn’t history
fascinating?  Despite Hillary’s inability to do anything productive
with healthcare while her husband was President for 8 years, and
despite presiding over an anemic Democratic party for 8 years, she
somehow managed to market herself as the most "competent" Democrat in
the race over the course of this campaign.  The only semi-decent thing
to happen to the Democrats nationally since 2000, taking back Congress
in 2006, had little to do with Clinton.   In fact, she was a cause of
this backlash, as she helped authorize the unpopular war which prompted
the 2006 takeover in the first place.  But all this was marketed away
by clever Clinton operatives.  She wasn’t knocked off the competence
pedestal, the arrogance pedestal, and any number of other pedestals
until she ran into a well-organized, grassroots-fueled Democratic
campaign that she underestimated from the start. 

Bill Clinton tomfoolery.
Bubba proved that "nobody is the boss of me."  This race would have
been a little bit closer if Bubba could have kept his mouth shut.  Now
his legacy is tarnished and he locked his wife out of the White House.
By inserting the race card into the campaign, a mass defection of
blacks was created in South Carolina and onward; overnight, we went
from a majority of blacks backing Hillary in the polls, to almost 90%
of them going for Obama.  That’s largely because they did not think
Obama was electable.  That is, until Bubba helped make him electable by
denigrating the historic accomplishments of Obama’s campaign, and then,
red-faced with righteous anger, called the senator’s staunch opposition
to Iraq a "fairy tale."   Which was itself a fairy tale.  The Hillary
people rushed forward with a muzzle, but it was already far too late to
keep the blacks and many of other races.  Thanks, Bubba: Barack took
your assist, and he SLAM-DUNKED it.

An uninspired Congress.  As
bad as the administration has been, unfathomably, Congress has been
even worse.  Lobbyists pour the slop into the pork barrel and members
of both the House and Senate feed like starving pigs.  The swing from
Republican control to Democratic control has not created an
improvement, and many Americans see both parties complicit in the dirty
Congressional politics of getting nothing done.   They see a
Washington  where the president bickers with Congress, Republicans
bicker with Democrats, they’re all rich and corrupt, and the only
losers are working Americans.

America is polarized, and tired of it. Bush
oversaw a dramatic polarization of the country, an uncivil war between
blue states and red states, one where reasonable citizens on both sides
of the Republican/Democrat divide honestly believed that the other side
was ruining their country.  Karl Rove engineered this drama, and it was
effective toward the goal of getting elections won by small margins.
America now yearns to move on from this 51/49 life and follow a leader
who is actually intelligent, competent, and able to get something done,
get it done right, and get it done on principles most of us can rally
behind.  This is the promise of Barack Obama; we should be clear that
he hasn’t yet proved that he can deliver this yet, but America is more
than willing to give him a chance.  Luckily, things cannot easily get
worse on the polarization front than they are now.  The level of
gridlock is at saturation point, the level of discourse is toxic, and
politics have nowhere to go but up.  Nothing positive of note is going
on at the federal level today except some aid for Africa. 

McCain will sink on the Iraq ship.  McCain
too is a response to this polarization, as his party conceded that the
only chance at victory would be the least-reviled Republican figure.
Some Dems are worried that McCain will poach enough of the nation’s
independents to eke victory because he occupies the center, the same
place where his opponent likes to roost.  On issues such as the
environment, campaign finance reform, torture, and the economy, he is
not radically different from most Democrats.  Liberals should relax.
McCain only has one card to play, which is fear.  Obama will not keep
you and your children safe!  He’ll take your gun away! He is weak on
national security!  He wants us to surrender!  There are wolves
circling around us in the woods!  But his only card is undermined on
the most important national security matter of the day, Iraq. McCain is
on the side of the failed Republican policies.  A.K.A., the wrong side
of the voters.   

Loud, Dumb Republicans.  Sean
Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Rush Limbaugh: this is a
case of "everyone wins."  Obama will win thanks in part to your
hysterics, and good days are ahead for you too.  You would love nothing
more than to attack an incumbent Democrat in the White House so your
ratings, and sense of self-importance, will go up for at least four
more years.  It’s no coincidence that they’re skewering McCain:
right-wing lightweights clearly don’t want him to win.  The same old,
tired messages of abortion, bashing gay rights,  how the media favors
President Obama, "liberals = unpatriotic = terrorists," the frightening
prospect of another liberal Supreme Court justice, and the evils of
Islam will continue to play out on the airwaves daily during the Obama
administration.  But the messages of hate won’t get across to many
beyond their little choir. 

They’ve got nothing on Obama.
I have read just about everything the right-wing lunatic fringe has
written or said about Obama, pouring over anything they’ve written
against him, and whatever Fox News has been able to come up with.  The
fact is, they have nothing on him at this point beyond supermarket
tabloid stuff.  Obama is a foreign spy.  Michelle Obama hates you.
In other words, zero.  If he gets through Clinton in one piece, we can
be confident there is nothing else to find.  If her people found
anything more than alleged plagiarism and a friendship with Tony Rezko,
they would have used it.  It was fortunate that Obama was forthcoming
long ago about his drug use as a young man; more than we can say about
Bush, Clinton, or for that matter Rush Limbaugh as an older man.

Only one candidate represents the next generation of America.
We haven’t had a  politician who youngsters think is "cool" campaigning
for president since Bill Clinton in 1992.  Many who are too young to
even vote suddenly care about politics for the first time.   This isn’t
an accident; it’s partly because their older and wiser parents are
sensing a historic movement; civics teachers are getting tingly as they
teach their students; Obama is most accessible at only 46 years old; he
will be the first post-baby boom president; and the Obama campaign has
spent an enormous amount of resources on courting the young, something
few campaigns in American history have bothered to do.   Most younger
voters don’t see Obama as black, but just as a dude they would like to
see in the White House because he, like, speaks to them.

Obama represents what we want from a leader for some of the wrong reasons.
Here is where the politically incorrect stuff comes in.  Yes, some
blacks are voting for him in droves largely just because he is black.
Women are voting (and fainting!) for him because they have a massive
crush on the tall, dark, and handsome guy.  Older whites are voting for
him due to white guilt:  they know their race has stomped on blacks for
centuries, and voting for Obama is a bit of a mea culpa.
Americans like myself with a dual identity identify with his
connections to Indonesia and Kenya.  Whether voting for these
irrational reasons is right or wrong, people have always voted along
these lines, and they always will.  We are fortunate that in this case
at least, they have accidentally voted correctly.

These
are the factors that perfect storms are made of.  It will be a long and
bumpy ride to November, but come January 2009, it will be a new day in
America.  Let’s hope for peaceful waters afterward- and above all, be
glad that you were a part of it.

Election ‘08 continues to unfold- in many different directions.  For
the first time since 1952 there is no sitting president or
vice-president in the race, nor even an endorsement from the White
House for a candidate.  The Republicans have finally finished
bludgeoning one another in search of the party’s soul, but only just
long enough to have a bloodied nominee emerge via the "surge," Senator
John McCain.  Large factions of the GOP have now regained their breath
and have initiated a gang-torturing of their presumptive nominee for
not conforming to their domestic policy desires. Of course Mr. Huckabee
has stayed in the race to no consequence, only to feed his delusions of
grandeur and perhaps add conversational fodder for his personal cell
phone calls with God.  Either that, or he’s insane; the question about
this man’s sanity has been one of the most fun aspects of this whole
race.

Which is saying an incredible amount.  This has been an unbelievably
fascinating presidential race, epic to start with if only because three
types of human being emerged to become serious candidates for the White
House for the first time in history: a black, a Mormon, and a woman.
The Mormon, Mitt Romney, turned out to be not-so-special after all: he
only sleeps with one woman, that too his wife (how boring!), and even
worse, he turned out to be a corporate, WASPish automaton who had no
core beliefs.  He wisely bowed down to McCain.  So did third-rate actor
(and fourth-rate candidate) Fred Thompson, and the 9/11-horse-beating
Rudy Giuliani.  On the Dem side, Edwards had the good sense to bow out
quickly to prepare himself for a job in the new administration.

The black, Barack Obama, and the woman, Hillary Clinton, are locked
in a more important race, because it’s likely to be for the
presidency.  November isn’t here yet, but after Iraq, Katrina, Libbey,
DeLay, Abramoff, a scorched earth, and a crumbling real estate market,
Republicans may as well get ready to kiss the White House goodbye.  In
fact the election of a centrist like McCain is sort of an early
admission of defeat, and I think most pundits on both sides of the
aisle recognize this.  This is of course barring a massive choke by the
Democrats, which we cannot rule out completely. 

So the race for the Democratic party is far closer, more
consequential, and consequently more brutal, a race that could last all
the way to the Democratic national convention in late summer.  But it
shouldn’t.  By now it should be clear to all Democrats that Barack
Obama has earned the right to be their nominee for President.
Many people are on the fence, and this is aimed squarely at you.  Here
is why the party should quit its pointless civil war and rally around
Obama.

Whatever happens, this has been a great race.  I just hope you will
get on the winning side early enough to enjoy the ride before the real
hard work begins after the inauguration.  And because we are witnessing
a truly great moment in American history, a grassroots movement far
larger than a mere campaign that will make the country and the world a
far better place than it was when we found it.  Just a few months ago I
had been in despair that this was not possible; that under George W.
Bush America had done irreparable harm to itself and the world.  Now I
have learned, not just because of Barack Obama, but because of the fact
that he makes all who he has touched want to be better people, that we
are headed in the right direction at last.  I have never felt this way
before, as cheesy as that sounds.  And Obama expresses the sentiment
better than anyone else could, as with most things he says: