Sometimes, as a distraction from politics, I watch Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model" because most of my friends and female coworkers watch all of these types of shows (the dance one, the Simon one, the bachelor one, the rock star one, etc.) and I like to have something to talk about during every smoke break besides politics. 

Tyra's show has been through 10 "cycles" now (seasons, only shorter) and it's gotten so tired and uninspiring that I can't stand to watch it anymore. 

Tyra used to have some really interesting challenges and photo shoots for her top model contestants, and all of them involved known designers and really awesome concepts and sets. 

This cycle, Tyra has the contestants pose in a New York City meat-packing plant.  Wearing slabs of meat.  Granted, the slabs of meat have been carefully constructed to resemble bikini pieces and/or halter tops, and for sanitary reasons they apparently have a flesh-colored inner lining, but still.  It was one of the weirdest and weakest of Tyra's photo challenges yet, out of ten cycles (seasons) put together.  Tyra's explanation?  Sometimes, as a model, you get treated as nothing more than a slab of meat.

Fine, but...that doesn't mean you have to wear it.

Just imagine their kids!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/17/joe-scarborough-walks-off_n_97330.html

...I guess this means we'll have no more debates?

Can I get an Amen?

HRC has only had to withstand the media attacks this long because she's been around longer.  And because she's been around longer, we have a lot of stuff to pick on. 

So I guess what Hillary's camp can say is that Obama hasn't been around as long, and therefore there hasn't been enough time to pick his bones dry yet.

But, it's funny.  He gets his bones picked dry this year over all the stuff we've found out about him this year, and he's still ahead in the polls and the votes.

Hillary gets her bones picked dry this year over stuff she's saying this year, and she's dropping in the polls.

 

It takes more than a socialistic approach to make people want to help one another.    It takes understanding. 
It takes more than a charitable contribution to feed the poor.  It takes understanding.
It takes more than a stance or a statement to explain the disparities in this world.  It takes understanding.
It takes more than one person to stand up to the US government as we know it today.  It takes understanding.

It takes a person who understands us, and who we understand, to make a difference.

When one of the moderators asks you a question, Hillary, please look them in the eye when you give your answer.

Don't look up.  Don't look sideways and up, back and forth, while looking up into the lights.  Just look them in the eye.

It will take practice.  

Therefore, I recommend you watch re-runs of tonight's debate, and pay special attention to Obama's eyes.  Obama looks the moderator in the eye every time he answers a question.  Obama does it naturally. 

My advice to you, Hillary, is to copy that, and make it look natural.

Again, though...it will take practice.

I’m 43, and I was a Republican up until 2003-2004. 

My first vote was for Reagan, and the only time I had wavered in voting Republican in a general election was when it was George Herbert Walker Bush against Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.  Being a Republican, you’d think I would’ve voted for Bush.  But by then, I felt he was totally out of touch with what normal Americans were going through, financially, and something about him made me feel bitter.  No, it was that I felt he was an elitist.  No, it was the broccoli.  No…actually I just felt he was out of touch.

Bill Clinton, being a Democrat, was already the enemy in my eyes, and for me he was so easy to dislike and distrust that I didn’t even give him my time of day.  His wife?  Just as suspect.  But without the accent.

I loved Perot but could not envision the country voting for him, so I stayed home that year.

In the 2000 primaries, while I was still out in California, I supported John McCain.  I loved his “war hero” story, his maverick-ness, his Independent streak.  The fact that he was from out west and had a reputation for being anti-Washington intrigued me.  The fact that he was up against GW Bush (who looked to be even more out of touch than his father, and incoherent, to boot) made McCain even more attractive.

GWB was so cocky he made Bill Clinton look humble in my eyes.  Compared to John McCain, he looked like a buffoon.  Mixed with a baboon.

But McCain lost the primaries, and GWB won.  In that time between the primary and the general election, I didn’t even -- ever -- consider Al Gore.  One, he was associated with the Clintons in my eyes.  Two, he had a habit of rolling his eyes.  And sighing.  At every debate. 

So I held my nose and voted for Bush in the November election.  About ten days  later, I was (for personal and compelling reasons) hightailing it from California back to New York, my home state.

When I got home just in time for Thanksgiving, the election results were still unknown, and there began the strangest few months in my history.  I began not to care who in the hell won, already, just stop talking about all the freaking meandering paths and ways and means that each of the two candidates could take, and each of the states in question could go, and what the talking heads think the average American mind is thinking at any given point during any given day about who should win and why.  (Irony intended, by the way).

When Bush finally got sworn in, I felt no sense of victory, but I do remember feeling hopeful.  Being in NY that following September, I was one of those who felt Bush did a great job of making us feel better after he showed up here and shouted into that megaphone.  What can I say, it was a weak moment.  Since then, he’s done nothing but disappoint me, shock and awe me.

The more I learned about Iraq, Blackwater, torture, Gonzalez, etc., the more left I started to lean.  By December of 2006 I was shopping for a Democrat.  Any Democrat.  When Tom Vilsak was the first to announce, I pounced.  I knew Hillary would be wanting to run, and I even kept her in the back of my mind, until a coworker of mine mentioned the name Barack Obama.  I looked him up online, liked what I saw, ordered his books from Amazon.com and by February of 2007 I was a member of the NYC Chapter of New Yorkers for Obama and had signed up with the official Barack Obama campaign website.

And now here we are, seven years of Bush/Cheney later, and all anybody cares to talk about is how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama might do against each other in PA, in NC, in IN, in Puerto Rico, in June, in August…

This is the time that the Democratic nominee should be going after the Republican nominee in the news every day. 

Being a former McCain supporter, I know of his strengths -- and his weaknesses.   In some cases, he and Obama agree already on certain issues (transparency in government, campaign finance reform).  I can see them keeping it respectful and even agreeing with each other on stage in a debate, on general abstract ideas -- but it’s the approach that is going to matter.  And I can see where Obama can offer a more innovative idea here, a more responsible and realistic solution there.

And I can see him beating McCain and winning the election.