I can't think of a worse scheme to rip off the Democratic voters of this country.  I really think the Dem insiders do not care about the people of this country and certainly not the people of their party.  That's why Nancy Pelosi keeps talking about the "new, exciting young voters Barack Obama is bringing in."  They want a new party so they can amass greater power.  If they have a strong president, they'll have a diminished role.  

As Josh Marshall at TPM points out (McCain's Achilles Heel), this is bad news for McCain.  Wasn't it just a week or so ago that he along with Senators Graham and Lieberman) were telling us how the surge was succeeding?  If McCain's wishes were horses then the GOP would ride.  

"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. authorities have announced an indictment charging Puerto Rico's governor with 18 counts in a long-running campaign finance probe.

Acting U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez said Thursday the indictment also charges 12 other people associated with Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila's party.

Rodriguez told reporters that the 13 are accused of running a conspiracy to illegally raise money to pay off Acevedo's campaign debts in 2000."

link

By that, I mean when you read the posts and comments, do you feel the urge to yell "Have you all lost your collective minds?".

There are real issues, substantive criticisms and so forth but when I read "Bill Clinton is a Republican.", it just suddenly seems all so ridiculous and pointless.  Why does anyone need Reason #4,871 to not like Hillary?  These are people who don't need any more reasons.  What are they doing, counting coup or something?

Are they afraid they might accidentally like him/her if they don't constantly attack him/her?

I think those organizations have done some great things and I think that there are times when a primary endorsement is warranted (Lamont over Lieberman pops to mind).  In this case, with the party so divided I just don't see it as helpful.  

1. They want to drive up Clinton's negatives as high as they can, to keep her from improving her standing in head-to-head matchups with McCain, because they know the Clinton campaign would use such polls as an important electability talking point with superdelegates.

2. They want to get the media focus off of Rev. Wright.

3. They want to demonstrate their toughness (to themselves, to the Republicans, and to those watchful superdelegates).

4. They want Clinton to feel there is a cost for staying in the race.

5. They want to remind superdelegates that Clinton would carry substantial baggage into the general election as the nominee.

6. They want to improve Obama's standing with white voters by artfully playing the Lewinsky card (as when they talked about the circumstances that led to Bill Clinton being photographed in the White House with Rev. Wright).

7. They are angry at the Clinton campaign.

8. They think -- contrary to the media conventional wisdom -- that Clinton can still beat them.

9. Because they can, they are the media darlings: the media continues to highlight the Clinton campaign's negative tactics in a disapproving way, but only rarely points out the intensified negative tone and rhetoric Obama's campaign has been using - even though it conflicts with the candidate's professed desire for a new kind of politics.

............

He's got too much cred. We're instituting a one week freeze on new accounts tomorrow
that ought to give us time to clear it out to just leave the thinking.
by Jerome Armstrong on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 10:51:28 PM EST

I'm a refugee from Brand X and would like to support this site through a subscription
or a donation, but I don't see a link for that.
I'm awfully glad to be here.
by Radiowalla on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 11:01:18 PM EST

It gets enough on the ad rev side to pay these guys out, but thanks.
by Jerome Armstrong on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 11:08:56 PM EST

http://www.mydd.com/comments/2008/3/26/212852/240/113#113

............

got to wonder why no traffic bump for sites like Openleft.com as they
have similar web software.

In the general election, every state but Maine and Nebraska run their electoral vote the same.  But in the nomination process, the states are given the ground rules by the DNC, and then they decide whether to hold a caucus or a primary.  Either method is a time-honored way of selecting delegates to the national convention.  This isn't something radical and new.

However, if state parties believed that their voices would only be proportionally represented based on a popular vote number, which state would select caucuses as its method of voting?  You can't be intellectually honest and argue that any state party would rationally choose the caucus method if it knew its input on the national level would be fractionally diluted.

Moreover, there is no uniform national rule for counting popular vote - closed vs. open primaries change the calculus.  If Clinton argues that indies and Republicans voting in some states but not others pollutes the purity of the popular vote total, it simultaneously undermines her national electability argument, since indies and Republicans will vote in the general.  But this inconsistency, along with the caucus argument, further shows how illegitimate the popular vote argument is.

That's essentially what the popular vote argument seeks to do - to punish states after the game has been played under rules everyone knew going in.  It's an argument that requires a lack of integrity to make.

The blogosphere is learning the lesson late in the game, but the fact remains as I have stated over and over before, you cannot control the machine, you have to become the machine. You have to take over the precinct, county/district, state apparatus, all while somehow not becoming so cynical that you wind up being a professional politician.

I have not participated in the blogosphere, or fora for all these years to advance any political candidate, but to advance a more progressive agenda. Contrary to assertion of many, those who cannot or will not support the Democratic nominee are not infantile or misogynists, or any other pejorative we wish to apply to them. They have rocks in their heads.

I think that we progressives, or bleeding knuckle liberals, as I've called myself for years, need to keep in mind the big picture, and that is the movement is not culminating in this election, nor the next, or the one after that. I fully expect to criticise whomever is elected, be they Clinton or Obama, and I fully expect a divide progressive movement will have even less influence on their policies than we could expect if we were to keep our eyes on the prize.

The most powerful institutions in our world today are not governments they are corporations.  Relying on the Fourteenth Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1868 to protect the rights of freed slaves, the Court ruled that a private corporation is a natural person under the U.S. Constitution, and consequently has the same rights and protection extended to persons by the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech.  Unless and until the Supreme Court revisits this radical decision we cannot take the corporate money out of our politics.  Any law that attempts to limit the money corporations can spend to influence our laws and policies will be struck down using this precedent.  Corporations are not people.  The word "corporation" does not appear anywhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have mastered the art of using corporate money as their political tools.  That is the how NAFTA and Welfare Reform came to be.  This money has corrupted them, as well as most of our representatives of both parties.  We all need to examine our religions; how we believe what we believe.  Realizing not one politician has explained the above is the primary example of how powerful this corrupt system is.  It is no mystery how we came to this.  One bad Supreme Court decision, referenced over and over put us where we are.