I suppose if you think that you might lose, you can try to take control of the whole thing and subtly affect the vote.  The Burnt Orange Report is reporting that the Dallas Morning News has uncovered campaign training materials which tell its supporters to basically take control of the vote if they feel outnumbered. 

It smacks of Clinton's "do anything to win" attitude and an omen to the direction her campaign will head if Obama doesn't win both Ohio and Texas outright.

From the Burnt Orange Report

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Clinton campaign training materials regarding Tuesday night's caucuses ominously advise supporters to take control of caucus sign-in sheets and vote tallies especially "if our supporters are outnumbered."

thought this was kinda humorous...

some excerpts from Obama's book Dreams From My Father:

Nader and Obama, together again

 Sasha Issenberg , Boston Globe

AUSTIN, Tex. -- If Ralph Nader intends to spoil Barack Obama’s year with a third-party candidacy, it won't be the first time.

"I needed a job closer to the streets" shortly after graduating from college, Obama wrote in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father." "I spent three months working for a Ralph Nader offshoot up in Harlem, trying to convince the minority students at City College about the importance of recycling."

"In six months," Obama went on, "I was broke, unemployed, eating soup from a can."

I don't like the concatenation "Obamania." First, it's not clear whether to pronounce it "Oba Mania" or "Obama Nia." Neither way makes a lot of sense.

Secondly, I don't appreciate the implication that Obama supporters are somehow deluded, insane or otherwise not fully possessed of our faculties.

I'm also pretty sure I won't like the inevitable "Obanomics" or "Obamanomics" or "Obamaconomics" that will come to signify his economic platform.

I do, however, have a useful suggestion for talking about John McCain. The "Mc" in McMansion taints a house by negative association with McDonald's. It means a wastefully super-sized, mass produced, inferior quality, ridiculous house. So I propose to similarly prefix anything to do with John McCain, yielding McOnomics, Foreign McPolicy, McMilitary Strategy, Campaign McFinance, and Borrow and McSpend, for starters.

We're getting down to the wire with respect for the upcoming March 4th primary and a lot has been said about the two remaining (sorry, Gravel) Democratic candidates, both praise and criticism.  However, there's something that I think has been largely left out of this discussion and it happens to be one of my key issues.  It also happens to be my favorite thing about Barack Obama, the candidate, and one of the main reasons that I've decided to support him.

The issue is money.  Washington politics have become entrenched in the game of influence peddling.  Given that you're reading this on TPM, I'm going to assume that you know this to be the case.  I happen to be of the opinion that this is the single most important issue in domestic politics.  Our democracy is currently being tested by precisely the same kind of problems that Thomas Jefferson lamented would be our unraveling.  As time goes on we move further and further away from a republic that is of the people, by the people and for the people and further toward what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a collusion between business interests and government at the highest levels.  Our power to affect change in our government grows weaker by the day.  Without changing the status quo, we have little chance of ever making progress on so many of the issues that have begun to mount, both foreign and domestic.

Though we've heard unusually little about it this cycle, we can typically expect to hear a lot from candidates about how they want our support so they can go to Washington to make changes, to clean up the system.  Then the election ends and those we've sent to rescue us from our plight go right back to business as usual.  To be sure, one of the criticisms that has been thrown against Barack Obama is that he is merely selling us change as a message, but will not deliver.  History proves those who forward such a criticism prudent, but this is only because they have not been paying attention to the particular case of the man who now stands before them.

Barack Obama was elected to represent the citizens of Illinois in the United States Senate in 2004, but he did not go to Washington and forget about his pledge to take on reforming the system.  In the 109th Congress he worked with Senator Tom Coburn on the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" which publishes, at USAspending.gov, the details of all bodies receiving federal funding.  In the 110th Congress he worked with Senator Russ Feingold on the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act" to require disclosure of bundled gifts from lobbyists as well as placing additional restrictions on the type of contributions that lobbyists can give.  I consider this significant for a number of reasons.  Firstly, it demonstrates that he is, in fact, serious about making reforms to the system.  Secondly, it is an example of working with a Republican to get such reforms passed.  And thirdly, it stands as an example on his record of talking the talk and walking the walk.

This brings me another dimension of this candidate that I consider to be most important: he is running a campaign that is smashing records and rewriting the book on campaign finance.  Barack Obama has refused to accept PAC money in his campaign.  He is winning the finance battle handsomely on his own terms, terms that I consider to be noble and an example of true leadership.

It's difficult to over-emphasize how important this is.  We have little measure as citizens at this point to break the cycle of influence peddling.  What we have in front of us is a candidate who has surveyed the landscape, judged it corrupt and dared to spit in the face of the conventional wisdom that whispers cowardly in his ear that this is "just the way it is."  He has taken it upon himself to do what he thinks is right regardless of what the rules say and, should he become our next President, no one will ever be able to say again that it cannot be done without the involvement of special interests.  It will give him a credibility in Washington that will allow him to truly lead the charge to finally curtail the power usurped from the citizens of this nation by business interests.

Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she will never have this credibility.  To her, Washington can simply say, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."  Beside that, I see no indication from her that she even desires such reforms.  She has stated, quite unapologetically, that she sees no problem with lobbyist contributions and that, to her, they merely represent the political interests of the average American.  Anyone who thinks that she is serious about her initiatives, like health care reform, should take a careful look at her campaign contributions.  If you do, you will see that she is currently the recipient of more donations from the health-care sector than any other member of Congress, a fact that has been curiously glossed over this campaign season.

Thankfully, I don't have to take Barack Obama at his word on this issue.  The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is tasty.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will focus on my least favorite thing about Barack Obama.

Stop-Loss Congress is a nationwide coalition of over fifty organizations, who believe that Congress was given their jobs by us, and so are accountable to us. They will issue stop-loss orders to Congress on March 10 and 11, ordering Congress not to leave their posts until all the troops are home from Iraq and Afghanistan. On March 12, they will be in the streets, engaging in non-violent direct action, to ensure that they don't leave for their scheduled spring break.

You can help this action by visiting the website, stop-losscongress.org. While there, sign the Stop Loss Order, which expresses the will of the people and is the heart of this action. Also, plan to come to Washington and help make history.

We're through asking.

If Larry Johnson does not remember the toxic environment of the years 2003 and 2004, a period during which any dissent led to accusations of comforting the enemy, it could only be because it left no scar in his memory.  Larry Johnson does not seem to remember the courage it took for anyone to speak up at the time.

The Dixie Chicks were not running for office when they dared criticize George Bush and his war in an environment that responded with the crudest and nastiest of vitriol, death threats, intimidation, and destruction of career, boycotts and forced silencing by Clear Channel communications. 

It was a period when mainstream newscasters spouted out administration falsehoods and propaganda as news, and our attorney general warned us not to dissent, lest we lend comfort to the enemy.

It was one of the darkest periods in American history, and there were many who cowered and few who spoke their minds.  It did not matter whether or not one was running for office, the consequences for dissent at the time were merciless.

It is easy to espouse a viewpoint when the whims of the majority have swung in its direction.  It takes courage to go against the current, and and it requires judgment to know that one is right when everyone else around you, from the Times to the Post, from Dick Cheney to Dick Gephard, in a more patriotic than thou arrogance, goose-stepped along with the shameful leadership of George Bush.

A great segment of this population remains scarred by these times.  Although Joe Klein and Bill Kristol still maintain prominent positions in our national discourse in spite of their absolute wrongness, many now expect that the presidency of the United States should be entrusted to someone who spoke his or her mind in the face of fascistic adversity.  I know it took courage for Barack Obama to take the stand he took at the time, because it required courage for anyone to stand up to lies then.  It did take courage whenever I, for one, spoke my mind, and was insulted myself, ridiculed, and accused of being a traitor.  Our wounds have scarred, but the scars will always remind us of the injury. Therefore we rightly judge by their mettle those who seek our trust and our vote by the character they displayed when it mattered.

Should this lapse in judgment and courage be Hillary's downfall, she will not be the first with the same political predicament and most certainly not the last.  My vote for Obama is a vote for me.  We are the ones.  It is our turn now.

I've noticed something of a difference between Hillary Clinton's campaign slogans and Barack Obama's.  It frames the attitude that we might see if either one is President.

"I'm in it to win it." 
"Ready from day one." 
"35 years of experience." 
These are really Clinton-centric themes.  To her, everything is about her.  Of course, this is an extension that she believes she is the best vessel for change, but nonetheless, she thinks the campagin is about her.  She will do good no doubt as a President, but she believes that only she can deliver it.

"Change we can believe in."
"We are the ones we've been waiting for."
"Yes, we can."
These are not Obama-centric.  To him, its about the people.  Its about his constituents.  Its about America.  I know, its corny as hell, but it works and its speaks to how his Presidency would not be about him necessarily - it will be inclusive of the people.  He believes that he is the agent of change elected by the people, working beside the people. 

I know its been touched upon many times, but every time I hear these two campaigns side by side, I'm struck at how different they are and how we can easily imagine how each would be as President.

I say we vote for George Clooney as our next President.

As you might know Hillary Clinton likes to claim her eight years as First Lady, during Bill Clinton Presidency, as part of her foreign policy experience.   Senator Hillary Clinton is saying that voters should decide who they would want, “To Hire” as their next President of United States.  She also says she’s, “the one with the ‘experience’ to be President, on Day One”. 

Perhaps we should first point out that Hillary Clinton never received a security clearance during those  eight years and was never in the ‘war room with the President of the United States’ when major decisions were being made.  We should also point out that during Bill Clinton’s Governorship in Arkansas; she again wasn’t involved with the security decisions of the governorship and she was not in the legislature.

Hillary’s had 6 years as being Senator of New York.  As First Lady she helped establish the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Adoption and Safe Families Act.  She failed to get her health care plan approved.

Senator Barack Obama had 7 years first as a Illinois State Senator and he’s had 3 years as a U.S. Senator.  As U.S. Senator, he co-sponsored bipartisan legislation for controlling conventional weapons and for promoting greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  In the current 100th Congress, he has sponsored legislation on lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel.

The difference between Hillary and Barack is she’s running on what she calls ‘experience’ and he’s running against those that have been in Washington too long, like Senator John McCain, and to finally change the mindset that got us into Iraq to begin with – even though he actually has more legislative experience than does Hillary.

As most of you know, Hillary Clinton supported George W. Bush’s Iraq war resolution and his resolution on Iran, whereas Barack Obama said from the beginning that he felt it was a mistake to go into Iraq, it would be too costly both in human treasure and in money.  He did so during a time when it was still unpopular to disagree with George W. Bush’s war policies.

Let’s ask the troops who they support for their next commander-n-chief.  Oh wait, we know already.  They are reported as giving Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul the most campaign donations.  It’s the lobbyists, lawyers and security exchange people that have donated to Hillary more than any other candidate.

If you think about all this, you have to wonder, if Hillary is right that traveling the world qualifies as experience, why we don’t we just hire Sean Penn, Angelina Joelle or George Clooney as our next president.  They’ve all traveled around the world even, in the face of danger, and at different times met with foreign leaders and dignitaries.  They’ve made speeches and stood up for the poor and abused too.  They’ve all done so for personal reasons, not political or monetary goals.

Hillary is claiming traveling and making speeches qualifies her to be “Ready on Day One” as our next President.  Oh really?

If that's the case, then again, I vote for George Clooney.

Today I asked the residents of my home here in Kentucky the following:

Who would you prefer as the Democratic Nominee? Check one.

Obama
Clinton

100% of Male respondents chose Obama. If the election were held today, the popular vote result would be Obama-1 and Clinton-0.  However, one of my most startling findings was that Yurika, my cat, marked neither candidate. It's clear, at least in Kentucky, both candidates are going to have to do more to court the Cat Vote.

www.readbrianleung.com 

Great campaign spot by Nicholson.  Positive, on message.

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It is the central tenet of corporate theology: the maxim that corporations exist for one purpose only...to maximize profits for their shareholders.

We are forever feeling the impact of this “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” kind of thinking; and we are forever wishing that we could do something about it.

Well, what if we could?

Today’s conversation suggests we can...and that we can use the power of the market to “incentivize” (cool corporate buzzword, eh?) the sort of behaviors we seek from corporations—and that we could end up with a stronger economy in the process.

Before we get too far, a disclaimer. This is an admittedly unfinished concept that may contain all sorts of unanticipated consequences, and I encourage all of you to think through this and point me to my errors of thought. That said, here we go:

Under the current theology, the only members of society that corporations have any incentive to consider are the corporate management class itself, shareholders, who have the power to impose discipline on members of the corporate management class, and governmental players, who have the power to give and to take away...and who are often themselves, at various points in their careers, members of the corporate management class—maybe even from your own corporation.

There are no real incentives in the system that encourage corporations to bring workers into the management process, nor is there an incentive for corporations to consider the communities that are affected by corporate mobility—at least, not once the local tax incentive has been collected. There is no incentive for corporations to become environmental advocates, nor champions of “social health”.

To create such incentives, this proposal would create a second class of corporation: a “social conscience” corporation, which would maintain its beneficial tax treatment and enhanced legal status based on the attainment of certain social goals.

Corporations could voluntarily choose to assume this new form of “legal personhood”, or they could remain a “legal person” in much the same way as they are today. With this proposal, however, there is one big change in the “traditional” corporation: it would not retain all of the rights and freedoms that today accrue to “legal personhood” in today’s corporate structure...making them a “limited legal person”, if you will.

To illustrate the idea more completely, imagine first how a “social conscience” corporation might work: corporate charters would have to reflect the concept that this form of corporation has a fiduciary duty to not just the shareholders, but also the corporation’s workers, and the surrounding community as well as the world environment.

The board of directors of such a corporation might have some of its seats reserved for worker representatives, and some of its seats reserved for community representatives.

A means of measurement of attained goals would be required, and one possibility would be that corporations of this type trade “conscience credits” (donate x % of corporate profit to community services and earn so many credits) in much the same way “carbon credits” are being traded today. A “conscience market” could be created that matches those who seek corporate “conscience” assistance with available corporations, and also to facilitate inter-corporate trading.

Maintaining a “no-layoff, no outsourcing” policy could earn a corporation lots of credits...as could voluntary efforts to remediate environmental damage caused by others. Investing in employee education could create credits, and you can probably imagine other incentives that we might want to develop.

Did a community offer your corporation tax incentives, and now you’re considering moving? That would be a “conscience cost”, and such a corporation would lose “conscience credits”.

A corporation of this type, in the event it possessed no credits, could be forced into “conscience bankruptcy”, where it would either have to create a “workout” plan or face liquidation, in much the same manner that corporations work through “capital bankruptcy” today.

Corporations who choose this structure would maintain all of the other legal protections afforded any person-actual or “legal”-in the American legal system.

There would be a tax incentive, as well. Profits from such a corporation would be taxed in the same manner as capital gains are treated today.

Now it’s time to flip the coin:

The officers and directors of “traditional” corporations would continue to maintain a fiduciary duty only to shareholders; and they would be free to make corporate decisions with no regard for the impact of their actions beyond that single duty, if they should choose to do so.

Here’s the cost:

--Corporate profits from this type of corporation would be taxed as ordinary income for the shareholders...and these corporations would also be taxed on “retained capital” assets (cash and cash equivalents) as well as declared “profits”.
--“Traditional” corporations would no longer have the legal status they have today. For example, they would no longer be protected under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments...meaning law enforcement could conduct snap searches of corporate property...corporations would not have the free speech rights they today claim (meaning deliberate untruth itself could be criminalized)...and corporations would not be able to refuse demands by regulators to testify as to the nature of their activities (of course, the “real persons” who might have committed any illegal acts would still maintain their personal protections—but the corporation, as a “limited legal person”, could be compelled to testify against them).

This proposal envisions no change in the form or function of municipal corporations.

So that’s the idea: “traditional” corporations would be free to continue to act as they always have-with new legal restrictions and a changed tax structure.

“Social conscience” corporations would exist as well, receiving tax benefits and the full protection of the Constitution as a way to “incentivize” socially desirable behaviors.

Whaddaya think?
An idea whose time has come, or more liberal hoity-toity?
I’ve reported, you decide.

<blockquote>AUTHOR'S NOTE: this conversation began as a pair of back and forth comments between myself and Anglico over at the <a href="http://bluenc.com/">BlueNC</a> site, which i encourage you to visit "<a href="http://www.bandersnatch.com/inner21.htm">early and often</a>".</blockquote>

The media is actually giving Hillary positive press for her tantrums and her claims that the media is pro-Obama.They’re spinning it as a rallying cry for feminists. Taking lead from Tina Fey’s sketch on SNL, her tantrum is somehow being spun into an ownership of the word, “bi*ch.” You have people on tv talking about the double standards that women face in politics (i.e., men are assertive and women are bi*ches).

Now, I won’t deny that women face double standards. And I know that there is some truth in that analysis. But this is not Jane Doe, this is Hillary Clinton.

Guess what, that “double standard” theory doesn’t fly when her opponent has gone out of his way to be as respectful as he possibly can towards her (despite her repeated attacks). I could see if she was running against some sexist prick. But she’s not. Yet she wants to take her anger at the media and re-direct it towards Obama and his success?

Why doesn’t the media focus it’s attention on how disrespectful she has been towards him? She won’t acknowledge his victories; she mocks his message; she scolds his supporters; she calls him an empty suit; she calls his words, “cheap,” and his hope, “false.” The list goes on and on.

I don’t care if she’s a woman, man or whatever . . . when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

“Shame on you Barack Obama”?!?!?! Who is she to talk to him like he’s some 4 year old? This ain’t pre-school and her condescending attitude is getting real tired, real fast.

Senator Obama is a grown man. He’s just as accomplished as she is, (check their senate records) yet she wants to go around the country and call him some naive rookie? She dismisses his supporters and ignores the impact that he has had.

It’s never good enough. He can win 11 straight states by an average of 33%, but it’s still NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can expand the Democratic party by bringing in Independents, cross-over Republicans and first-time voters, but it’s NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can draw crowds of 20,000 but it’s NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can win more states (24 to 11), have a commanding lead in Pledged delegates, have a strong lead in the popular vote . . . but it’s still NEVER GOOD ENOUGH!

She needs to stop making excuses. She needs to recognize that he's just doing a better job at reaching the voters than she is. Plain and simple.

Her stunts are going to backfire on her. It has nothing to do with being a man or woman. Democratic primary voters don’t like negative politics . . . it’s as simple as that.

This goes to show that there are differences in how the media treats race and gender. I’m not saying that they’re better or worse, just different. I’m just gonna say it. This country has an instinct to protect white women. It can be a burden at times (i.e., Cult of True Womanhood) but it's still there. Hillary gets her feelings hurt and voters rush to her aide. She throws a fit and we make excuses because, after all, we can’t forget those double standards, right?

Yet, at the same time, we have an instinct to fear black men.

Tell me, what would happen if Obama went on a tirade against Hillary, like she’s done ? What would happen if he (gasp) raised his voice to this white woman? What would happen if he spent all of his time talking about the “white man,” the way Hillary talks about the “boys club?”

Rick Lazio, a white man, found out when he “invaded her personal space.” If he took the fall, you can imagine what would happen to Obama the second he steps out of line.

Hillary faces a lot of obstacles through sexism, no doubt. But there are moments where she benefits as well. There are moments where she has the luxury to portray herself as the victim to garner sympathy from voters and the media. There are moments where she can, as Melissa Harris-Lacewell (a black woman, professor) notes, slip in and out of her “Scarlett O’Hara” routine. It’s a prime example of how mainstream media discusses gender bias without recognizing the white privilege that often comes with it.

You want to talk about double standards? Obama has run his campaign under the interrogation of white approval ever since he made that speech at the DNC in 2004. He knows he can’t do or say certain things because he can’t afford to make white people uncomfortable, especially when running against a white woman.

Once again, I know that we have to fight sexism as vigorously as we fight racism. And we should be doing a better job at it.

But I also know that there are many “oppressed” white women who would never trade places with a black person. All I'm saying is that it's more complicated than the media would like to suggest.

So to the media: Fine, point out the double standards. But don’t make excuses for Hillary’s poor and divisive behavior. And don’t pretend like Obama doesn’t walk a tight rope everyday as well.

Obama caught hell just for saying, “you’re likeable, enough” because people didn’t like the tone of his voice. He caught hell for the “snub” because he happened to be talking to someone else when she came by. I swear, I almost fell out of my chair late last week when I heard a pundit criticize Obama for WRITING ON HIS NOTEPAD while Hillary spoke at the debate. I guess he was being disrespectful because he wasn’t looking at her when she talked. Give me a break!

I can’t make this any clearer. Obama has to RUN AWAY from issues of race for fear of being labled the “black candidate.” It’s the only way he can win. Yet, Hillary gets to embrace “girl power” in ways Obama could NEVER embrace “black power.” Now you’ve got Tina Fey saying “Bi*ch is the new black.”

Some see Hillary as a victim. But some of us also know what discrimination is. And for a lot of us, we see Hillary as a grown woman who knows exactly what she’s doing. She conveniently plays off of gender oppression every chance she gets.

Some of us don’t see her as a victim, and never have. What we see is a privileged person who thought the white house was her entitlement.

But the media keeps falling for her BS. The narrative remains the same . . . everything goes back to “POOR HILLARY”

The Clinton campaign reports that they will not be returning $170,000 in campaign contributions from International Profit Associates, a management consulting firm which  the Equal Opportunity Commission charges subjected its 103 female employees to a brazen pattern of sexual harassment, sexual assault and degrading anti-female language and obscene suggestions. 
"This is by far, hands down, the worst case I've ever experienced," said Diane Smason, one of the EEOC lawyers handling the lawsuit. "Every woman there experienced sex harassment, they were part of a hostile work environment of sex harassment. And this occurred from the top down."

According to the report by NBC News, the Clinton campaign Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, dismissed the notion that keeping IPA money reflected a lack of concern about sexual harassment. "Sen. Clinton is proud of her long record of championing women's causes," he said. "When the EEOC rules on the allegations involving Burgess, we will consider that outcome in assessing if there is any reason to return his contribution." 
http://tinyurl.com/36zng5

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/29/718285.aspx

There have been some rumblings about this earlier but the policy of designating certain zip codes as "declining markets" is certainly in play. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation's two largest mortgage
underwriters have declared certain zip codes as "declining markets" and
now force home buyers to pay an additional 5% on homes as compared to
their normal underwriting guidelines. In one case I'm aware of, this
doubled the down payment required of a couple with perfect credit. If
they were to buy a house for 300,000 (fairly average for the Chicago
region) that would mean borrowers would have to find an additional
$15,000 down before they could purchase a home. It takes most
middle-class families at least a year to save another $15,000.
Obviously, the burden is even greater for low-income families.

In
both Freddie and Fannies cases, geography, not the buyers' ability to
pay or any other rational lending criteria are used to determine the
policy. The primary factors involved in determining "declining markets"
are changes in home values and foreclosure rates. Freddie's model does
offer some waivers for borrowers with a credit score of 740 or higher.
They consider their models proprietary so we don't know exactly how
they work but we know that those two factors are the far and away the
most important.

Personally, I think this smacks of redlining.
The policy will certainly have a disproportionately negative impact on
minority and low-income communities where the foreclosure crisis is
most prevalent. However, at the moment we can't prove it because Fannie
and Freddie won't provide a listing of all the zip codes affected by
the policy.

Moreover, the move is counterproductive because it
is going to force more foreclosures as people find it harder to buy
homes for sale, including those being sold by defaulting home owners
and banks looking to unload repossessed homes.

What's most
tragic is that the lending industry has been sued previously for
similar practices. We in the fair housing community thought that we had
effectively addressed this issue in the 1980s when we sued lenders for
redlining practices then. Now, government sponsored entities are
engaging in the same unfair practices by making credit harder to access
in poor and minority communities.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
1. Call your Congressperson and your Senators and tell them --
"I'm
calling because I want Fannie and Freddie to cease redlining
neighborhoods. I want Congress to hold hearings and demand that Freddie
and Fannie end these policies"

2. Spread the word and tell your friends and family to call too.

3.
If you're involved in a Presidential campaign, try to work this issue
up the chain and ask your candidate to speak out against redlining by
Freddie and Fannie.

Latest from ARG...

Texas:
Obama: 52% (+1)
Clinton: 44% (+2)

Ohio:
Clinton: 50% (+1)
Obama: 45% (+6)

http://americanresearchgroup.com/

My analysis:

This and other polls suggest that, with only 3% "undecided" and 2% "other" in the Texas poll, almost everyone in the state who will decide before Tuesday has decided, and the changes in voter preference have leveled off.

Ohio is also 3% "undecided" and 2% "other", but Obama made gains last week while Clinton held steady. Unless Obama is able to start taking Clinton's support, as happened in Texas, his movement will also level off too.

At this point, barring major news, dramatic changes are unlikely, so we can expect to see Obama going into TX with a slight lead and Clinton going into OH with a similar lead. And that means, unless the polls are wrong, Clinton is in trouble, as Texas has 193 delegates to Ohio's 141. Clinton needs dramatic gains to match Obama's pledged delegates, but the polls suggest that she will actually fall further behind on Tuesday.

Dear Josh,

Good question.

So for all you Canadians who've been entertained over the years by our scandalous politics, please give us the low-down. What's the score?

Basically, there isn't one yet. Your post covers most of what is important to the issue and your analysis of "an admission wrapped in a denial" is pretty much what we see at the moment.

I agree. We owe you for years of scandal which has amused, entertained, terrified and shocked. Truly, it's been a spectator sport for us, although the occasional puck comes off the ice and hits one of us in the mouth. Those of us without a beer mug to our lips to break the impact end up loosing a tooth or two.

I'll start by saying that it has been an interesting week here. Sandra Buckler, our prime minister's communications director... ok, spin doctor, is probably overwhelmed at this point. I'll get back to that in a moment, but suffice to say that in the normal course of a week she's only ever had to deal with one bubbling issue at a time. This week three little nasties are swirling around the drain and she seems to have misplaced her plunger. JJ has put together an excellent summary which should frame that point.

For a close look at the Cadman scandal, Kady O'Malley has a good take on it. Start here and then go here, here and here. To wrap where we are at the time of writing is in Kady's post here.

As you can see, there is evidence piling up, including audio tapes of interviews with Stephen Harper, when he was leader of the opposition in Parliament, which implicate Harper in a bribery scheme to buy Chuck Cadman's vote when he sat as an independent member of parliament and was the one deciding vote that could cause the Liberal government of the day to either survive or fail. The rush to get his vote was predicated on one very ugly fact: Chuck Cadman was terminally ill and had only weeks to live.

The Conservative Party talking point, issued by Sandra Buckler, is to question the tape. You might refer to that as pure desperation. Nobody believes that line of thought, including the Conservatives themselves. This is where you see how Buckler has become overwhelmed and caught on the toilet with her knickers around her knees. She has ducked all direct questions regarding the incident and has tried to impeach the messenger. When asked about the "life insurance policy" and Harper's involvement and knowledge she produces... nothing. Yes, there are strawmen flying apart all over the place and Sandra is grasping at the bits of them that fly by.

There is some depth, Josh, which you would not know about. The fact that Chuck Cadman was near death weighed heavily on him and it was a part of his motivation for keeping the Liberal government alive. If he voted to bring the government down, Parliament would be prorogued and an election writ drawn up. That means that his status as an MP ends and, given the nature of his health, there was very little likelihood that he would have survived long enough to resume a seat in parliament. As long as he was a sitting MP, he remained entitled to a death benefit equal to approximately two years salary. That would be measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars; not the $1 million allegedly offered. Cadman made it clear in a couple of interviews that his personal financial situation was his primary motivation for not bringing down the Liberal government. I hate to speculate on the mindset of a man now dead, (and, I might add, a scrupulously honest man), but it seems that he felt the world, and the Conservatives, could wait for him to die. It wasn't going to be a long wait.

But in order for a minority government to fall, Parliament must vote "no confidence" in the government. That means either a direct motion from the floor or a bill which carries the weight of confidence with it.

That was what Harper had before him and there was no guarantee that another one would come along any time soon. So, it's worth reading The Gazetteer's input on this. Powerlust.

There is a twist. In fact, it's a big twist.

Dona Cadman, Chuck's widow, is the candidate for the Conservative Party in Surrey North. But Dona Cadman has been clear that everything being said about the attempt to bribe Chuck Cadman is true. That puts her at odds with the denials now coming from the Prime Minister's Office. Given the fact that she is actually a Conservative Party member and candidate, but is willing to verify the allegations of bribery is the power behind the scandal.

So the Conservatives have a problem. If they deny the allegations completely they're calling one of their own a liar. To most Canadians, Dona Cadman is the beacon of truth in this issue.

I know what you're thinking. Why don't the Conservatives write off Dona Cadman, and her family, and just ratchet up the denials? That is, after all, what Karl Rove would do.

Simply put, there's too much evidence to support Dona Cadman's story to make her out as anything but truthful. That's why Buckler started to question the taped interview. She can't call the Cadman family liars if there is corroboration in the form of tapes and... heh, the interviews by two prominent journalists with Chuck Cadman prior to his death.

Nevertheless, some of Harper's supporters have started to demand that the Cadmans be "placed under a microscope". That is quickly dispatched as being completely unnecessary. Dona Cadman did not make the initial allegation. That was done in a book by Tom Zytaruk. Dona simply agreed that what Zytaruk wrote was correct.

I could add that this scandal may appear mild by American standards set by the current Republican party. That's actually another point.

The Conservative Party of Canada is a rather different beast than Canadians have had in the past. They have patterned themselves after the US GOP and, something new, they started importing Republican political strategists to advise them.

Harper even had brought in Republican advisers, such as political consultant Frank Luntz, to give pointers on how the Conservative Party could become as dominant in Canada as the GOP was in the United States.

Yes. I know. A chill just went down your spine at the sight of that name. He's just one of them. The parade of Republicans through Conservative strategy sessions has been fairly constant.

Thus, where Canadians have always focused on substance in politics, these guys brought in the politics of fear and sleaze. That's not to say that the other side didn't engage in the same thing. It was the level of it which struck many of us. To be honest Josh, it was the kind of discourse of which we were aware but from which we thought we were immune. It was the kind of stuff we thought only happened in that place inside the "Beltway".

Harper rose to power in government on something of a backlash. No matter what anyone says, his plurality and minority government came as a result of a Liberal financial scandal that occurred in the government of Jean Chretien. His party was elected on a punishment vote. Notwithstanding, he only received 36% of the popular vote. Most of those who voted (and the turn out was abysmally low) cast their ballots for something else.

What Harper offered was clean, transparent and accountable government. He was good at displaying disgust at the antics of the Liberals who had clearly engaged in corrupt schemes of their own. What makes this whole bribery scandal so disturbing, even to some of his supporters, is that at the same time he was tearing apart the Liberals for their behaviour, he appears to have sanctioned the same kind of behaviour by operators in his own party. In short, he was and is a hypocrite.

To sum up, Josh, the RCMP are now investigating complaints and the Parliamentary Ethics Committee has been requested by all three opposition parties to probe the Cadman bribery scandal.

Harper's Conservatives have yet to answer direct questions regarding financial offers made to Chuck Cadman. They have not explained how a terminally ill man could be covered with a $1 million "life insurance policy". Most of us believe that is an analogous term the Conservatives used. No licensed underwriter would issue such a policy. It's like calling your Rottweiler "Homeowner's Insurance".

And that's where we are, Josh. Glad we could offer a diversion from things in your neck of woods, but remember, if Jon Stewart was commenting on this he would give us all a look and then say, "You call that a scandal?!!"

My e-mail system seems to be experiencing White House type difficulties in reaching TPM. So, if you can't mail it - post it.

Talking Points Memo links to a NY Times piece on the Siegelman Alabama blackout.

The times piece fails to mention the fact that Robert Bass also controls Aerion Corp. 

Aerion has been awarded contracts by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

To my suspicious mind, this would be a great way to finance the family's gambling empire, or, launder a nice piece of government money.

Next time I'll try putting a damn stamp on the e-mail.

    I have a few questions regarding Hillary's funding of her campaign. I have noticed that the news media is shying away for the truly hard questions when it comes to political campaigns. She recently loaned her campaign $5 million of her own funds. I would like her to disclose the terms of the loan to show transparency of her campaign. Is she using this loan as a way to make more money at the expense of others? I would like the Hillary's campaign to answer these questions: What are the terms of the personal loan to her campaign? What are her views on political figures using their office for personal gain? Has she used her office for personal gain? If, not how can she explain their family's net worth considering their salaries in public life? Members of the Military are prohibited from using their position of authority of personal gain. Why is it permissible for politicians to use their office (which is a trust of the people) for personal gain. Where have they earned all their money? There are many other questions that need to be answered, but let's start with these for now. Hopefully, they will not fall on deaf ears.
Let's all start asking the hard questions of all our representatives and bring our government back to the people.

Israel's deputy defence minister yesterday warned his country was close to launching a huge military operation in Gaza and said Palestinians would bring on themselves a "bigger shoah," using the Hebrew word usually reserved for the Holocaust. News Item - Guardian

"Relativizing" the Holocaust, comparing it to any other event, diminishing its uniqueness, is considered by Jews and by many others as a grave insult to Hitler's Jewish victims and a proof of antisemitism. In what light are we supposed to read the Israeli defense minister statement threatening the Palestinians of Gaza with a Holocaust? Does he mean that since he already has the Palestinians in a concentration camp, that he is now preparing to exterminate them? Is he relativizing the Holocaust?

However that may be, his language is perfectly outrageous.

If I say that, am I "relativizing the holocaust"?

Meanwhile the candidates to the US presidency are lining up to swear eternal loyalty to Israel.

I think that there will be no meaningful debate on Israel, or much of anything else, till after the presidential elections. The elections drain all the vitality from the news cycle. Strangely enough, they put all serious political discussion into the deep freeze. The candidates and their handlers craft positions and try to avoid being shot down. The world burns, but the US elections come first.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

Are you as stunned as I am that my punditry has yet to reshape this year's political landscape?  I haven't been quoted once by Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain. I also don't believe any of their supporters have referred to my writings either.

I mean, I work hard to make my punditry as awful and off-the-mark as the next person, yet they get quoted and don't. I'm beginning to believe there's a vast all-wing conspiracy against me.

www.readbrianleung.com

Jay Rockefeller, the distinguised Senator from West Virginia, endorsed Obama within the past few days.  John Kerry has also endorsed Obama along with Ted Kennedy and a handful of other senators.

The endorsement of Obama by Rockefeller has more traction in the press than any other endorsement by a Senator so far, with headlines on MSNBC, TPM and many other mainstream media outlets.

The endorsement seems curious and symbolizes the vulnerability of the Rockefeller legacy and control of industry in the United States.

Been to see a MD lately?  It's likely that you see your doctor as kind of a bozo or a clown, who really doesn't listen to what you say or have any answers to your illness.  He'll slap his prescription pad and prescribe something, and let you know that it'll work.  He'll say "don't worry about it."  Maybe he'll recommend a surgery or other test, but you'll get an odd, creepy feeling.  But hell, he's a doctor right so he knows best?

Nope.  Right now, the Rockefellers control the pharmaceutical industry, and medical doctors are their mercenaries.  The so called "malpractice crisis" is a work of fiction created by the pharmaceutical companies.  The current drugs out there are proven to do very little, if anything at all. 

When Obama mentioned in the Ohio debate that we need medicines that make better more than sick, this is what he was talking about.  When Hilary said that people need to be in this system, she meant the health care system which wants to control you with drugs rather than improving your health.  Hilary mentioned that everyone needs health care, "whether they need it or not."

That's the point.  The medical field today exists not for your health but for profit and control, and the Rockefellers are at the helm.

What this endorsement symbolizes is that the Rockefellers are vulnerable to Obama's boundaries towards the drug companies.  On his website he states that the drug and insurance companies will have a seat at the table in his administration, but they won't buy every seat.

The Rockefellers are smart and cunning, just like their grandfather who travelled around selling phoney medicines almost a century ago.  The Rockefellers admit to this, but times have not changed much.

So in order to give the impression that they are on Obama's side, Jay Rockefeller endorses him in name.  But you can be sure that his interests are in conflict with Obama, and in order to mask this he has publicly endorsed Obama.  In fact if anything the endorsement will likely harm Obama, associating him with the widely disliked Rockefellers and their ruthless business practices.

Don't buy it.  The Rockefellers are one if not the wealthies and most influential family in the world.  However a new class of young Americans seeks to inject their last name into the public lexicon and no longer let them operate in secrecy.

This Bush presidency will probably be
compared to the presidency of Andrew Jackson if only for the power that
has been infused into it. The eight years of power that Bush held will
more than likely be looked at as the strongest presidency that never
accomplished anything except a misguided war in a nation we should
never become involved in. The backlash will be tremendous, the American
people are already tired of this imperial presidency. Just as the
presidency was weakened after Jackson, the presidency will be weakened
after Bush, mainly because most Americans are extremely wary of this
“unitary presidency”. With Cheney and Addington (Cheney's Chief of
Staff and the chief proponent of the "unitary presidency") gone, there
will be few proponents of a strong presidency working in the halls of
power anywhere near Washington.

This will bode well for America, no matter what the plans of those
that will succeed Bush. The Congress will be hyper-sensitive to
presidential rule operating outside of constitutional mandates. This is
what happened after Jackson left office, and with the present views of
most in Congress, the situation will more than likely repeat itself as
it did after Jackson. The incoming president must realize that this is
not directed at the new administration, but that too much power has
been consolidated by Bush and Cheney, and that it is not in America’s
best interests. The Congress should, starting today, seek to limit this
president's powers immediately and not wait until a new president takes
office.

A special prosecutor should be named to look into the blatant
end-run around the FISA Court. If a crime was committed against the
people, then charges should be presented. The executive branch has been
stonewalling (another reference to Jackson?) the Congress. The time for
answers is long overdue. Information about extraordinary rendition has
surfaced recently and that too should be looked into. The Military
Commissions Act of 2006 has proved to be a nothing more than a legal
way to round up anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time (and that happened to have the misfortune of having a Muslim
name). We are in the process of bringing people to trial on the
testimony they gave while being tortured. The subpoenas that were sent
to Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers continue to be ignored (unless the
first order of business of Congress after their two-week vacation, is
to force them to comply by holding them in contempt).

The American people can not do these things without cooperation from
Congress. If a Democrat is elected to the presidency, the Republicans
in Congress will wish that they would have cooperated when they try to
launch any future investigations. It is time that Congress put party
loyalties behind them and attempts to do the will of the people. This
is what the majority of Americans expect of them. The days of voting
down party lines are numbered. If the Republicans have hopes of
achieving anything in the next four years, they will cooperate with the
Democrats. We cannot have a stalemated Congress that refuses perform do
its oversight functions, not unless we want a presidency that behaves
like a monarchy.

That’s the way I see it.

The Question: "What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?"

The Answer: Silence. Followed by some rambling then finally, by a claim that she's been endorsed by foreign policy experts. Except endorsements don't equate to experience. If they did, then certainly they would have to concede that Obama is as qualified as Hillary Clinton in this respect.

I think this undermines her campaign's claim that she knows what it means when the phone rings at 3am. It seems that despite her recent ads to the contrary, she really doesn't know. Of course, her claims, while they may have a certain level of truthiness to them, don't really stand up to scrutiny.

I'm just glad someone asked the question. Too often, Hillary's "experience" claim is taken for granted as true, when in reality, we have no clue what kind of experience she has outside the Senate because she still refuses to release her White House papers. Her experience claim has been backed up by nothing but her own words and public perception.

Hillary wants it to be about experience. And that's puzzles me because she doesn't really have any. But she obviously doesn't want it to be about judgment either, because she has awful judgment (see iraq, iran, etc. etc).

In a race that has been about experience vs judgment, is it any wonder Hillary hasn't been doing well? She doesn't really have either.

Outside the cloakroom, McCain looked over and saw Brownback reaching for his cloak.  The Senator from Kansas appeared to be deep in thought.  McCain kept walking.  He had a few quandaries of his own.  Truth to tell, he didn't much care for Hagee or the clown who kept repeating Obama's middle name when all the young people could be seen in the background, holding up a damn "McCain" sign.  Who the hell came up with that? Screw it, he decided.  The solidarity theme got plain old ridiculous at times.  In fact, the whole campaign, from start to finish, was a major pain in the behind.  Yet he had no choice but to soldier on with the Iraq theme, telling people, "no surrender," and hoping that the scare tactics worked.  If he changed course at some point and said that he wanted to get out, that the enterprise was a drain on the public treasury, then Democrats would hurl the flip-flop label and frankly, so would everyone else.  No choice there: no surrender.  Right? The thing with Hagee, though, wasn't good.  Catholics were an argumentative bunch and they wouldn't care for it at all...not that they were easy to pin down.  He tried to run through it, thinking of the Catholic mindset.  You had the minority sort of literal-thinking types like Brownback, who didn't object to fundamentalists so much, but even Sam had seemed mildly irritated.  And the rest of the Catholic types would undoubtedly be turned off.  You had the scholarly liberal types who'd be voting Democratic, anyway.  They'd do it on judges alone, even if they didn't like the candidate.  The scholarly conservative types? Well, they wouldn't like Hagee.  The armageddon business was too much.  Somewhere along the line, most Catholics had been exposed to the metaphorical way of looking at things, and they landed in the middle of the spectrum.  Plus, Hagee was a dork.  That guy the other day, up on stage, was even a bigger dork.  McCain was trying to round up dorks.  He needed endorsements from dorks.  That was what everybody said.  Then he realized something: in the conversation with Brownback, he'd somehow left the room without his cloak.  He wanted a new cloak.  The one he wore now didn't fit. 

When will this madness finally end?  With each passing hour, Barack Obama's support grows in Ohio and Texas as HRC's lead shinks.  The Powerful Clinton Machine that appeared so formidable last Fall has fallen apart. Their latest ads are a joke.

Why anyone would cling to the notion that a deceitful loser like Hillary is still a viable candidate amazes me.  Also, why are some folks pissing good money away on a losing cause?  What about the "firewalls" of Texas and Ohio?  It seems they are crumbling as I write. When will the  lady in the XXL pantsuit start singing?

Thank goodness, all of this lunacy will be over by  Mar. 5 Wednesday AM. 

There are scurrilous and totally unfounded attacks circulating in the Internet accusing Barack Obama of being a crypto-Muslim and an enemy of Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I think that is stupid for anyone to say or to suggest that Barack Obama is not a friend of Israel, a Christian, or that he in any way supports the Palestinians. Everything he says or has said, does or has done, his every vote in the Senate, bears this out. I repeat, that this line of attack is both ignorant and stupid.

What I do find strange is that at the same time some of Obama's most enthusiastic supporters think that, in spite of his support for Israel and his conspicuous Christianity, that simply because of his color or because he is famously named "Barack Hussein" that this is going to simultaneously have some enormous "healing" or soothing effect on America's relations with the Islamic world.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I have had it explained to me, if your father and grandfather were Muslims and if you have a Muslim name, but profess another religion publicly and support the enemies of Islam (Israel) that makes you an apostate. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article on the subject of apostasy.

The four major Sunni and the one major Shia Madh'hab (schools of Islamic jurisprudence) agree that a sane adult male apostate must be executed

If you look up the subject in Google you will find some 1,160,000 entries referring to the subject. Laws to this effect are on the books of several Muslim countries at this very moment.

So really, we cannot have it both ways*. It seems to me obvious that for the United States of America to elect a president named "Barack Hussein", who is a practicing Christian and a supporter of Israel would be seen by Muslims as the ultimate provocation and the fulfillment of the most paranoiac fantasies of the most extreme Salafists.

They would say that this is what America does to Muslims: not only does it kill and persecute Muslims, it takes the son and grandson of Muslims and turns him into the chief killer and persecutor of Muslims. A Muslim version of Damian.

The bottom line is that you can't have it both ways. It is one thing if somebody named "John" or "Hillary" bombs Pakistan or Iran and supplies the Israelis with weapons and quite another if someone with  "Hussein"  anywhere in his name does it... It's adding insult to injury.

I think that Obama's supporters should make right wing voters and people like Daniel Pipes see what a unique occasion the presidency of Barack Obama would give them to take yet another opportunity to mortally offend Islam.

*For the curious here is a link to Namoura

http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

I am yet to confirm whether this is an actual campaign ad ... or if an Obama surrogate put it together and is trying to get it to run ... either way ... in light of Hillary's red phone ad ... this could be devastating.

[watch Obama jujitsu]

Identity politics have a role to play in every election cycle, but this
particular cycle is different. While there was nothing particularly
notable in this respect on the GOP side, save a Mormon and, strangely
enough, a guy who actually sounds like a Republican instead of some
garish, bloodthirsty caricature born of a Kafkaesque nightmare, the
Democratic race has become historic in this respect. Either way, the
Democrats will nominate a candidate that will break ground and firmly
plant there a milestone in the struggle for social justice.

However,
being neither African American nor a woman, I was starting to feel a
little left out. Don't get me wrong: I'm very happy to see that things
have worked out in this way for the Democratic party. However, I just
couldn't shake the feeling of being somehow adrift.

Settling
into a malaise over the absence of a leader with which I could strongly
identify, I had to resort to the old routine of just trying to figure
out which candidate represented me politically. I followed the news and
watched the debates as primaries started to roll by and delegates
started to stack up. Parsing it all began to feel like going through
the motions, but why? Everything seemed to be in order, but something
was missing.

Then it came. Satori. Watching the nightly
infotainment recap of the days campaign events on CNN, the champion of
my cause stood before me. Confident, strong, even defiant in his way
and, most importantly, standing center stage, instrument in hand. My
instrument. The electric bass.

It was then that I knew my time
had come. For so long, like so many bass players before me, we've had
to stand in the shadows. We've stood in the shadow of the lead singer.
We've stood in the shadow of the guitar player. And even though we
usually stand in front of the drummer, somehow we end up in that
shadow, too. We've even been mocked by Bruce McCulloch, as if we needed
to be reminded of our secret shame.

No longer. Our time in the shadows is behind us.

A new day has come for identity politics. The swell is high and glassy and I'm paddling out. Prepare yourself America.

Electric bass players for Mike Huckabee! Who's with me?

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Barack acknowledges that welfare reform under Clinton was a good thing, even if it might need some improvements. I've gotten used to "running against the 90's" as a basic theme of this campaign - even more than running against the 2000's.

So now on to today's flareup. It's hard to ask a serious question without it getting sidetracked onto "this is dirty politics". The position of President is an Executive position - the doer. While the campaign debates go over policy positions, these are really the prime responsibility of Congress. The President's is to carry out these wishes, or was until the Bush Administration.

So just as policemen often get to enforce bad laws, like drug laws they might personally disapprove of, the President often has to deal with carrying out imperfect and sometimes downright stupid laws.

If I'm running a computer center, I have backup plans, contingencies for power outages, equipment failure, staff problems, security breaks and intrusions, and even natural disasters.

We know that disasters like Katrina happen, and while part of the issue is preparing our infrastructure to avoid this, the reality is that between politics and incompetence, not everything is going to be prevented. We also know that our Chief Executive failed in dealing with warnings of possible failure of those systems, and even in the aftermath took a relaxed attitude when some of the worst damage (physically as well as damage to our reputation and self-respect) took place.

If I were interviewing someone for the job, I'd want to run through responses for different crises - Katrina, the Iranian Hostage situation, Rodney King riots, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Asian economic meltdown, the Russians taking the airfield in Kosovo, the occupation of Kuwait, the Indian-Pakistani nuclear flareup, the Chinese downing and capture of our surveillance plane, the mortgage crisis, the tsunami, AIDS, the devastating war in the Congo, 9/11 and so on.

These are different kinds of crises - manmade and natural, slowly evolving and sudden, quick fix and long-term, costly and insignificant, human and institutional. People are better with different kinds of crises than others. Some problems have no "right" or "complete" solution, they require a balance of measures to lessen the effects.

An old joke has a captain asking an up and coming officer what he would do if a storm came up leeward, and the sailor says, "throw out an anchor starboard", "and if a storm came up to the north?" "Throw out an anchor aft". "And if a squall came up....?" "Throw out an anchor...." "Whoa whoa whoa, where are you getting all these anchors?" "Same place you're getting all these storms."

We've proven quite well that our military's extremely limited in what it can take on, and because of our poor financial management, our hands are more tied now than since quite a long time on what kind of monetary aid we can put towards problems. So in evaluating how candidates would do, we have to think of how careful they are with the money, whether the understand the right levels of compassion, bureaucratic levers and management, where things can be expedited as needed, what kind of situations require alliances domestic and abroad, what kind of political buildup is required for this cooperation and what kind of price tag it carries.

Getting China and Russia to support us in the "war on terruh" has had a huge cost in terms of human rights and progress towards democracy in those countries. Necessity makes for strange bedfellows, and the offspring are often quite ugly.

I've known managers who were considered extremely smart and clever by the senior execs above them, and considered extremely clueless about how things actually work be those below them. Typically these managers did very well - having unworkable ideas funded repeatedly as they continued to fail, until something problematic happened, and then as is all too typical, they failed upwards into a position of more responsibility and more incompetence.

So, after all the verbage, the question is - in situations where quick, responsible, effective action is required, who is the candidate most able to show the right demeanor, has the most knowledge about the systems, knows the right people to call, has any relevant experience, is best able to put the right teams together to begin with, etc. Obviously we can't avoid all crises, so crisis management is an important part of the job description. One candidate may excel in some areas, the other candidate may do better in others. Get out your scratch pad, jot down the pluses and minuses, and see what you come up with.

Okay, you can shoot now.