I'm a big O guy, but I kind of agree. Hillary was at her best, and Obama was at his worst tonight.

Fortunately for our side, the moderation was so surpassingly execrable that it pretty much swamped the differences between the candidates.

Posted at April 16, 2008 11:38 PM in response to Debate: Obama dodged his questions with litanies; Clinton seemed cool, fair, and stalwart

One of the most irritating things about Barack Obama (whom I nonetheless strongly support for President) is that he has completely bought into the right-wing notion that there is a Social Security "crisis".

The SS Trust Funds - all those "worthless IOU's - are in the black for decades to come. The 1983 SS plan took the baby boomer retirement surge into account, and workers have been paying vastly more into the Funds (in payroll taxes) than has been paid out.

The nut of the so-called "crisis" is that all those monies have been borrowed to subsidize lower INCOME taxes (this practice was begun under Johnson, and has continued unabated ever since). The loans will be coming due soon, and nobody wants to pay them back.

I have to give Obama credit for at least pushing a less regressive way to dodge this bill than most of the other "crisis" people have put forward, but it's still high shuckery. His proposal represents a profound shift in the philosophical underpinning of SS - that it is insurance, not welfare.

It is bad policy, but unfortunately, it will be the easiest medicine to swallow in our political environment.

It's really a sham and a shame. I hope we can change his mind at policy-cutting time.

Posted at April 16, 2008 11:20 PM in response to Income over $100K: 1/16th of the Population

You're not really surprised by this, are you?

There's an anecdote about FDR that I think I actually picked up from Digby, but which can also be found at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute:

In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it. He understood that a President does not rule by fiat and unilateral commands to a nation. He must build the political support that makes his decisions acceptable to our countrymen. He read the public opinion polls not to define who he was but to determine where the country was – and then to strategize how he could move the country to the objectives he thought had to be carried out.

Given a choice between this model, and that of the current administration, which has taken great pride in ignoring public opinion, I would pick the one with an ear to gaiatsu every time.

Posted at April 16, 2008 6:32 PM in response to American Presidential Gaiatsu: "You are Pushing Us in the Direction We Need to Go"

To me, we're Mexicans. To you, Persians.

Maybe you're right to avoid the possible ethnic pitfall with the AG, but Persians???

Posted at April 19, 2007 9:39 PM in response to Reader poll: the end?

I'll see your Ann Richards and raise you Molly Ivins.

Posted at April 19, 2007 9:31 PM in response to Reader poll: the end?

The President's "loyalty" to the AG is calculated to keep the clown in the public eye for as long as possible. By comparison, W looks practically unvegetative, and Fredo keeps the klieg lights nicely occupied.

The Alamo was preordained failure - clearly a fool's errand - but it's credited in Texas history for tipping the balance to Houston at San Jacinto, securing Texas Independence for the Anglos.

These people are from Texas. They think this way. And the American People are all just Mexicans to them.

Posted at April 19, 2007 7:13 PM in response to Reader poll: the end?

I'm not Hispanic, but I have spent many years in an area that's majority latino (The preferred term was 'chicano' when I was in high school). Most of the families I knew there were fairly conservative, fiercely patriotic (military careers were common, and some form of service was almost the norm for men), heart rendingly family-centric, and devoutly Catholic.

Fortunately for us, they tended to be fairly apolitical, and they leaned toward a pragmatic analysis of things like low-income assistance, the GI Bill, Civil Rights, Social Security, etc. Thus they were Democrats. In my opinion, it is a huge miscalculation on the part of the Democratic Party to see 'the hispanic vote' through a lens of ethnicity.

Latinos are the last major constituency in modern America that is not signed to  a red or blue team. The R's are making headway by working the items in my first paragraph. The D's need to come up with some bona fides in regard to the second.

Posted at June 5, 2005 8:06 PM in response to Dems and the Middle: Between a Rock and a Hard Place