Sorry to take up more bandwidth, but here's the real deal about Starting All Over Again.  Andrew, need links in replies -)

Well, we are starting over, so to speak.  Change can be good; we learn and grow, even if we become frustrated.  Two tunes for change.  BTW, Andrew, I really need the spell checker back (too much stress to actually read what I've written) and the preview button (see previous paraenthetical).
Starting All Over Again
Changes

Just a pet peeve of mine.
When a leader takes credit for something using the first person, where the third person is more accurate.
I think it says alot about a person. and limits how effectively they can work with people that don't agree with them on every detail.
That said, I think it is quite clear which candidate is a 'we' sayer, and which is a 'me' sayer.

The Republican candidates have accused the Democrats of raising the white flag of surrender in Iraq.  We've heard it all before.  According to McCain and company, all honorable men, there is no way short of victory to end the occupation of Iraq with honor. 

The United States military has covered itself with honor.  It has conquered Iraq, made sure there were no weapons of mass destruction, put in a puppet government of sorts, hung Saddam Hussein, lost over 4,000 dead, and suffered tens of thousands of horrible wounds in the service of a failed adventure in the Middle East.  It is time to move on.  

And, in moving on, time to ask ourselves:  Which candidate can reach out to the millions of Americans who want so desperately to believe that our American soldiers and Marines have not suffered and died in Iraq in vain?

Just experimenting

I have been dragged here, all kicking and screaming.
I see names I know but not much that is seeming
familiar.

I have been directed here, all confused and teeming
with curiosity, and a hint of careful cautious leanings
to comply.

I have been coaxed here, all emptied. By weaning
myself away from the brown home, I'll then careen
into belonging.

Copyright by Carol Gee
Ground Hog Day, 2008

It’s been a tough choice to make because I think both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would make potentially great presidents. I’m excited at the prospect of endorsing an historically significant candidate, the first woman or the first African-American to be the nominee of a major party. I think both have run excellent campaigns with very different styles, Clinton showing her toughness and determination to win and Obama emphasizing his cerebral, cool, non-confrontational style.

Both policy differences and character differences between the two candidates have been a factor in my decision, but neither pushed me decidedly towards one candidate or the other.

First, policy positions. I’m solidly behind their policy positions and agenda for America, though Hillary Clinton has a definite edge. On the issue I care most about, bringing universal health care to America, Clinton’s policy proposal is more comprehensive, more progressive, and more transformative than Obama’s. Moreover, she is the most likely to have the expertise and credibility to actually get the legislation passed. Obama’s proposal is weaker and he has never quite convinced me that he’s going to make healthcare reform his top priority.

Second, character. Clinton’s greatest weakness as a candidate is that she has absorbed much of the broken Washington political culture into her bloodstream. Consequently, she is too often dishonest, calculating, and wavering in her positions. Her affinity for changing positions with the changing polls is noted. And on the important national security issues America faces, Clinton faces the challenge that she is seemingly deathly afraid of being painted as “soft on terror” because she’s a woman. I worry that Clinton may be too eager to embrace war over diplomacy in order to shore up her credibility with voters worried that she isn’t tough enough.

In contrast, Obama is a refreshing political personality who seems authentic, inspirational, optimistic, and pragmatic. Obama seems more honest than most politicians, and more willing to say uncomfortable truths in front of unfriendly audiences. He panders a little less, and speaks candidly about his own weaknesses. Unfortunately, too many Obama supporters have gotten carried away with their enthusiasm and have built up a puffed up image of the man as a sort of messiah figure. I try not to hold it against Obama that many of his vocal supporters on the Internet are some of the most irritating pontificators I’ve ever encountered. Obama can’t help it, though I do wonder what it is about the guy that seems to attract so many naïve, sheepish, small-minded followers.

If casting a vote for president were merely a matter of weighing a person’s character strengths with their vision for the country (e.g., policy positions), then I would have to say my decision would come down to an even tie. I find Clinton’s character’s not so weak – and Obama’s policy positions not so misguided – that my choice is clear. However, there is one thing that breaks the tie: electability.

At this time, it seems very likely that the Republican party will nominate John McCain. Although Mitt Romney is not yet out of the picture entirely, I think it is prudent for Democratic voters still contemplating their choice to consider carefully which of our candidates is more likely to beat McCain in November. Consider two recent polls. A Rasmussen Jan. 26 polls show Clinton at 47% and McCain at 45% in a match; and it shows Obama at 46% and McCain at 41%. A NBC/WSJ Jan. 24 poll shows Obama and McCain tying at 42% and McCain beating Clinton 46% to 44%. Much could be said about how seriously such polls can be taken this early in a presidential contest. I choose to give them a fair amount of credibility, especially regarding McCain and Clinton, since these are two politicians who have a significant amount of name recognition. (True, I’m sure Obama’s negative scores will poll much higher as the fall election nears; however, McCain is also untested enough as a national figure that his negatives could easily be driven up as well.)

Obama is the better contrast to McCain: youth versus age, inspiration versus fear, hope versus bleak straight-talk, the future versus the past, etc. McCain on the campaign trail often sounds tired, hopeless, and resigned (”There will be more wars.”) McCain’s greatest weakness is his commitment to keeping the US in Iraq for up to the next 100 years. Democrats will be eager to paint him as a cranky, anger-prone, vindictive warmonger who can’t be trusted in the White House. Obama is the better candidate to sell that message, since his own longstanding opposition to the war in Iraq allows him to take the moral high ground.

Also, the McCain campaign will be eager to cast McCain as a bipartisan statesman who can work with a Democratically-controlled Congress to keep them in check. If he runs against Clinton, he will no doubt attempt to portray her as a partisan, polarizing, and divisive figure who will contribute to deadlock in Washington. That might very well be a successful sales pitch. However, McCain will be hard pressed to portray Obama as a divisive figure. Instead, McCain’s attack will center on Obama’s inexperience. My guess is that by November a plurality (if not a majority) of Americans will be won over to Obama’s side enough so that they are willing to gamble with a politician who is relatively green. (True, McCain will also attack Obama on ideological grounds. But my hunch is that it’s McCain who is more susceptible to ideology-based smears than Obama, who is truly striving for a post-ideological campaign.)

One strength of McCain’s is his “media darling” status. The media fawns over him incessantly, which makes it really tough going up against him because you’re fighting the media the whole way. Obama also gets lots of (undeservedly) positive media coverage, so picking Obama would cancel out that unfair advantage. It seems very unfair to Clinton that she consistently receives far more negative press coverage than the other candidates, but sadly her inability to curry favor with the media means she brings a huge liability to the fall campaign.

And so the choice of Obama over Clinton ultimately comes down to a practical choice of casting a strategic vote for the candidate who I feel would be the most likely to win a general election in a very competitive race. Obama is not a saint, nor a savior, nor the second coming of JFK and MLK all rolled into one. I find myself extremely irritated at the holier-than-thou histrionics displayed by his most fawning supporters. I’m really worried that many Obama fanatics seem to cry “race-baiting” at the slighest, most dubious provocation (no, I don’t think Clinton’s run a campaign based on race) – a tendency that could be disasterous for Democrats and bad for American politics in general. I’m not convinced that Obama will really bring all that many independents or Republicans into some sort of “Reagan-like revolution”; in fact, I think that’s all hype. I don’t find myself particularly excited by Obama’s principle theme, which he seems to have stolen right out of George W. Bush’s playbook (“I’m a uniter, not a divider”), and I still have plenty of worries about his slender experience, policy weaknesses, campaigning abilities, and electability (especially his susceptibility to religious and racial smears based on foreign-sounding, Muslim middle and last names). But nevertheless, he’s my call. If he’s the nominee, I’m sure I will be far more excited about voting for him in the fall than I am now (still feeling remorse that Clinton is not a more electable candidate than she has proven herself to be). And so I plan to caucus for Obama in the Washington State caucus on February 9, 2008 and vote for him in our primary as well.

If Hillary Clinton is the nominee instead, I will be far from upset. She’s another candidate with the potential to be a truly great president. And while she would face an uphill battle in a campaign against McCain, I’d still put my money on Clinton to win in a squeaker. My hope is that Clinton will select Obama as her vice-presidential running mate, and that he’ll accept. A Clinton-Obama ticket in ’08, however improbable as it may seem at this time, would be unbeatable.

Yes We Can

This is a kind of unbelievable spur-of-the-moment mashup of a song that could be huge. In all kinds of ways. I can totally see this being viral all over the place.

You may remember Obama, when asked in one of the debates to identify a shortcoming, remarking that he must rely on his staff to keep track of his paperwork, as he loses it. Clinton responded repeatedly over the next few days that the president must be a good manager. Likewise many pundits cite Clinton's greater experience; and, thus, greater ability to manage the federal government.

So what kind of manager is Clinton?

Brad DeLong, a Berkley economics professor who worked in the Clinton administration and whose informative blog I follow and opinion I value, remarked in 2003 (thanks Brent Goldfarb):

"My two cents' worth--and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994--is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.

"So when senior members of the economic team said that key senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have this-and-that objection, she told them they were disloyal. When junior members of the economic team told her that the Congressional Budget Office would say such-and-such, she told them (wrongly) that her conversations with CBO head Robert Reischauer had already fixed that. When long-time senior hill staffers told her that she was making a dreadful mistake by fighting with rather than reaching out to John Breaux and Jim Cooper, she told them that they did not understand the wave of popular political support the bill would generate. And when substantive objections were raised to the plan by analysts calculating the moral hazard and adverse selection pressures it would put on the nation's health-care system...

"Hillary Rodham Clinton has already flopped as a senior administrative official in the executive branch--the equivalent of an Undersecretary. Perhaps she will make a good senator. But there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president."

Additionally, I think it fair to look at her management of her campaign to assess how effective a manager of the federal government she may be, and it doesn't seem to have been well managed.

Remember Shaheen's Obama as cocaine user remarks in N. H., for which he was then thrown off the bus? Remember Bob Kerrey's repeated emphasis of Obama's middle name, for which he later apologized in a letter glowing praising Obama's qualifications to be president? Remember Clinton's porcine "strategist", Mark Penn, repeatedly raising Obama's admitted youthful cocaine use in a CNN interview, for which is was subsequently muzzled? Remember Bil Clinton's racially tinged campaigning in S.C. and his Jesse Jackson remark after his wife's huge loss, for which he was also subsequently muzzled?

Then there is this in the last couple of days from Clinton health care adviser, Len Nichols, complaining about a picture contained in an accurate Obama campaign mailer, remarks for which he later apologized.

"I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," Nichols, a supporter of the so-called universal mandate said. "It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."

DeLong's remarks are damning enough for me, though I am admittedly not a Clinton fan; but her apparent inability to keep the hounds of her campaign from committing repeated, and egregious, gaffes, from which they later backpedal, certainly has sealed the deal for me.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, has avoided such gaffes and its officials have been very restrained in their responses to the Clinton campaign gaffes.

An effective manager, I know from my days of modest local government management, relies upon her or his staff to manage the paper and to push forth the the mission. A manager must hire competent folks, ensure that the mission is entirely clear to all, and to ensure that all are pushing in the same direction in pursuance of that mission.

The Clinton campaigners have quite clearly frequently not been pushing in the same direction.

I will be casting my vote for Obama in the "Democrats Abroad" election on February 5.

First of all, I am an Obama supporter.  I think two points have been overlooked from the CA dem debate. 

First, on economic policy, Hillary's ideas would be a disaster.  Freeze interest rate?  That would have a profound impact in all markets, and the impact would not be good.  Though she may be accomplished in other areas, in economics her ideas are short-sighted and sound-bite driven. 

Second, the line that got the most applause at the debate "cleaning up after the Bushes".  I think that line is a loser in terms of cleaning up....brings up too many memories of cleaning up after Bill in the oval office.

The issues raised by Edwards are the key to reviving our country.

Both are abundantly qualified. Who is the more electable?

John McCain's unwillingness to provide a straight answer to Janet Hooks question at Wednesday's debate was revealing. When asked if he would vote for the bill that he had previously championed, McCain equivocated, refusing to provide a clear yes or no answer. His dilemma is obvious. If he says yes, he's for AMNESTY. If he says no, he's a Romney-like flip flopper. But to avoid either of those traps, he must act like a slippery politician who refuses to engage in "straight talk."

While this exchange provided a good measure of schadenfreude, the broader implications are that McCain's nomination might greatly reduce the GOP's ability to use immigration as a wedge issue in the presidential campaign. When McCain has been all but counted out, many assumed that immigration would be the one national issue that might play to the GOP's advantage. Now it appears that even that may be gone.

I am no fan of Clinton, but I was taken a back by this http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/would-hillary-make-good-president.html

Is that old news?

It is ironic that the subject of trust in a leader's judgment, especially on the decision to wage war on Iraq, was in fact breached by Bill Clinton himself. Prior to invasion, his Gardian editorial, Trust Tony's Judgment the US ex-president turned advisor to the British PM clearly left to posterity a clear record about his own judgment was on war with Iraq. According to his own words, he states that "Saddam has destroyed some missiles but beyond that he has done only what he thinks is necessary to keep the UN divided on the use of force. The really important issues relating to chemical and biological weapons remain unresolved." "Post-war" weapons searches confirm that he misjudged the situation quite wrongly.

He also writes of the hawks, "Some of them want regime change for reasons other than disarmament, and, therefore, they have discredited the inspection process from the beginning; they did not want it to succeed." One could only wonder why, granted his recognition of the deceit in their intentions, would his wife in the Senate trust them with an authorization for the use of force. Could it be because Mrs Clinton feared opposing what Mr Clinton describes as what would be successful and swift military action when he writes, "Because military action probably will require only a few days, they believe the world community will quickly unite on rebuilding Iraq as soon as Saddam is deposed." This time, his judgment on the situation would be echoed by the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner that was so eagerly hoisted on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, had Mr Clinton's judgment, inspite of his unmatched foreign policy experience, been better than that of George Bush and the hawks, Tony Blair would have been better advised, and so would the American people.

In all fairness, his column seems to corroborate that his wish was not an invasion as much as to put pressure on Saddam to keep the inspections under Hans Blix going. However, good intentions were indeed blinded by mis-judgment of the weapons situation in Iraq, of the behavior of the administration, and of the way the war and post-war would unfold. Ironically, at the time, it was Blair's judgment, shaped by his counsel, that he asked the public to trust. The costly consequences of such mis-judgment in countless lives, destruction of our military, loss of prestige of our nation, and trillions of dollars in cost must all be weighed against the experience the Clintons are currently boasting in the campaign.

Just out now:

Barack Obama leads Hillary Rodham Clinton, 48 percent to 44 percent, in a poll of Connecticut Democratic voters released today by WTNH, Channel 8, and the website, Connpolitics.tv.

...

The poll is first of Connecticut voters since John Edwards left the race, leaving a two-way contest between Clinton and Obama. It also is the first showing Obama edging ahead of Clinton. A Rasmussen poll earlier this week had them in a dead heat.

MOE is 3.8%. Poll taken before last night's debate.

It suggests that Obama is either pulling in those undecideds or the Edwards supporters.

... just to calm down his more extreme supporters.

Within minutes of Edwards's announcement that he was ending his candidacy -- a model of dignity, class and grace -- I got the first e-mail from my crazy lefty neighbor up the road. Which read in its entirety:

"The corporations have won."

Is this any kind of fitting end-note to a campaign that succeeded, as Paul Krugman points out in his column today, has completely transformed the Democratic race, and hence the election as a whole?

No matter how you feel about Edwards, this isn't the end of the world. Nor is the end of a very important fight. We still have to win the White House. We have to salvage the Supreme Court, the environment, the rule of law, the separation of church and state, and our nation's standing in the world. We've got our little internal squabbles, but we ought to be standing together between now and November, not accusing honorable fellow Democrats of being corporate shills ... and worse.

Reading blog posts and user comments at places like Democratic Underground, you get the impression that Edwards supporters are total lunatics. I know this isn't the case -- I was an Edwards supporter from 2004 until some while ago when I got seduced by the excitement surrounding Barack Obama. But let's not go there.

The point is, Edwards did NOT quit the race -- as the current most popular thread at DU maintains -- as a result of dark and shadowy forces threatening him and his family with Something Really Bad. He did not give his dropping-out speech "with a gun at his back." He was not "behaving oddly ... not himself ... something in his voice was just wrong..."

Look, I've got nothing against paranoiacs, or crazy people in general. Some of my best friends are crazy. A crazy woman raised me. I'm sure you really HAVE had these "strange feelings" before, and they've turned out to be true. I'm sure George Bush saw something really cool in Vladimir Putin's eyes. I'm sure that those people who post in threads titled "Barak HUSSEIN Obama = ANTICRIST" really do sense demonic energy coming off of him whenever she speaks. I'm just a little tired of hearing about it right now.

I'm tired of hearing that your guy -- who was a good guy, honest! -- was the ONLY decent and honest candidate in the race, the only one not totally controlled by ... I don't know, whatever vile entity is totally controlling Barack and Hillary, the Corporate Media Illuminati, I guess ... besides maybe Dennis Kucinich, and maybe a couple of other candidates or non-candidates who are safe to support because they (a) are totally unelectable, (b) poll at less than 1 percent, (c) were never in the race to start with, or (d) you've just got a feeling about them -- any or all of which PROVE that they are noble and non-corporate-shill-like and incorruptible and better than MY candidate, who is a total sell-out and a phony, and I'm a gullible fool for supporting him.

So please, Mr. Edwards. Do your country one more great service. Endorse ANYBODY who is still in the race. Or just give a speech encouraging your supporters to remain involved in the process and the Democratic Party. Ask them please to stop insulting the two good and smart and honorable people still in contention. And please don't look weird or strange nor robotic or mind-controlled when you make this speech ... because those psychic people at Democratic Underground can tell! And so can the Corporate Media Illuminati, and they'll know you're sending coded signals, and they'll shoot your dog!

Thanks.

It is not that I am just old enough to vote, rather I have finally found the desire to actually participate. I was jaded enough that it took Obama's Iowa win to give m thee hope that I could make a difference. After that, I have been developing the urge to act on this hope. So on Wednesday the 30th, I attended the Obama rally in Denver. It was exhilarating to see such a wide swath of the population attend. Then I start blogging and posting on other blogs.  Before the debates on the 31st, I even volunteer at Obama HQ to start calling people.  It is perhaps a text book example of how inspiration and true leadership works. To use a line that I have long been enamoured with: Yes You Can.

Too bad that Barack cannot say that because of a Clinton Presidency we ended up with another Bush. (If it had not been for the hanky panky in the Oval Office, we would have had President Gore and no war.)

I thought the Democratic congress was elected to end the Iraq war. (Of course, they did not stick to their mandate and caved in as usual.) Why is it that McCain, the ultimate hawk of the 100 year occupation of Iraq, has done so well? He also, according to national polls on TPMElection Central, is leading both Hillary and Obama. It is a mystery to me what has happened. Also, why has no one brought up McCain's "Keating Five" connection? That seems like a blemish on his supposed integrity, not to mention his flip flop on Bush's policies. Also, few media pundants seem to be pointing out how snide McCain's comments and condescending grin are when he responds to and interrupts Romney. Gore was destroyed by the press for something much less offensive. I wonder how the media will destroy Hillary tonight.
The "mob mentality" is alive and well. If someone wins a primary, he (seemingly, not she) is given momentum. Are we so fickle that we had rather go with a "winner" than our own convictions? It seems so! The candidates who stuck to their convictions are no longer in the race.

I recently moved to France and have been very interested to hear the local takes on the US elections.  The Frech media is basically ignoring the GOP race and only focusing on Hillary and Obama.  The reason for this Dem focus surprised me a bit.  It's not because the HillBama race is sexier or more star-studded (which would be a reasonable reason if you ask me).  No, it's because the French people I listen to can't even imagine a scenario where the good people of the United States would vote for a Republican again.
I try to tell them that it's not quite that cut-and-dry but they don't want to listen.