tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/hobobituary//2907 2009-03-05T02:47:24Z Movable Type Pro 4.21-en tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/hobobituary//2907.259972 2009-03-05T02:20:38Z 2009-03-05T02:47:24Z

We all know Minnesota is a purple state--always blue, but always close--and we certainly appreciate the effort, but seriously, Minnesota...enough. I realize this is the most exciting thing that's happened to you since Prince, but the rest of us are...

hobobituary And while you're at it, get a decent art museum.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.223304 2008-10-10T06:39:53Z 2008-10-10T06:39:53Z

hobobituary
   John McCain is a Toadie. He preaches and defends what others believe in hopes that they will accept him as one of their own.
 
  You know who these people are? They're the people on the playground who neither ran shit nor took it. They are the ones who positioned themselves to pound on the small kid in hopes or earning the big kids' admiration.

   Only it don't work like that. They only like you in so much as you're useful. And Mr. McCain, as soon as you are no longer the nominee THEY won't give a fuck about you.

   Good luck.
]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.222946 2008-10-08T23:00:04Z 2008-10-08T23:00:04Z

hobobituary
  In a contest as highly orchestrated and market-tested as a presidential campaign the only real insight comes from seeing through cracks in the facade, the short bursts of honesty before spokespeople clarify "what the Senator really meant."

   Slowly the things that started as one-off gaffes coalesce into characteristics, characteristics add up to character and eventually, given enough time the character actually replaces the candidate (or at least their own version of themselves).

  Last year, while the race was still between Rudy and Hillary, I liked this kid Barack Obama, but on pure policy preferred Dennis Kucinich. But after watching and listening and working for a year I am more confident than ever that we picked the right guy.

  At the same time the mirror image of this was occurring on the other side, how many among us last year would have would have, without a great deal of protest, resigned ourselves to a McCain presidency? I know that personally it wasn't until he reversed himself on torture and immigration that I realized he was not the candidate I found myself respecting in 2000.

  This grueling process has shown us how each man leads. How they make decisions. How they deal with adversity, if not out and out crisis. But mostly it shows, however unintentionally, the character that becomes the candidate and, God willing, the candidate that becomes the president.
]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.221542 2008-10-02T23:01:53Z 2008-10-02T23:01:53Z

hobobituary
  It's pretty clear at this point that racism is, at its root, an emotional response that no number of facts can dissuade.  Music and sport are, more than any other fields, governed almost exclusively by emotion. How many times have you unconsciously cried during a song or jumped out of your set and screamed at a long fly ball.

  Obviously, I don't romanticize them as these great bastions of progressive utopia, but if they could get people to cry or cheer or maybe just forget for a second that that guy doesn't look like you then that's a pretty good start.

  Good on Ralph Stanley, he's a good man and the world is a little bit richer for his presence in it.

ps do yourself a favor and check out William Elliot Whitmore to hear Mr. Stanley's continued influence on us kids.
]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.220372 2008-09-28T03:11:16Z 2008-09-28T03:11:16Z

My wife recently drew my attention to an old article (www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/011800hth-behavior-incompetents.html) that I think casts the Obama and McCain campaigns in an interesting light. The crux is that incompetent people not only have an inflated sense of their own...

hobobituary My wife recently drew my attention to an old article (www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/011800hth-behavior-incompetents.html) that I think casts the Obama and McCain campaigns in an interesting light. The crux is that incompetent people not only have an inflated sense of their own ability, but similarly have difficulty assessing competence in others. The implications of this seem pretty clear. McCain projects incompetence on Obama while, inexplicably, claiming the opposite in Palin. Obama, on the other hand, seems to go out of his way to assume the best about his opponents, all the while accepting his own fallibility. I think this can be further extended to the way each candidate views the voters. McCain's clear contempt for us is matched only by Obama's confidence in our capacity for reason. Obama assumes the best of us; McCain is counting on the worst. This is the filter through which I've been viewing the past few weeks, but I'm fairly certain that someone more competent than me could examine the last 18 months and come up with even more illustrative examples of this phenomenon.