The Obama Network?

Talking to a friend the other day, she claimed that MSNBC was the "Obama network." I asked her, "Why do you think that?" She said, "Because every time Obama has even the smallest victory, they have a huge write-up about it." I thought about this. "Are you suggesting Obama owns a piece of MSNBC?"

In the age of Fox News, Americans have become jaded into believing that all networks have a certain bias because they're owned by billionaires who insist that news have a certain bias. Conservatives often feel threatened when their point of view isn't the norm. Therefore, arch-Conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch, feeling threatened by what he perceives as left-leaning Ted Turner's CNN, creates Fox News to produce news that's not more objective, but more right-leaning. It's disappointing how Murdoch chooses to engage in network combat, going on the offensive against all perceived enemies of the right, instead of attempting to win over viewers with a more objective news.

But what's more disappointing is how the ratings for Fox News soared. Murdoch is, of course, all about making money, and he knew that the majority of people are not guided by their better angels. Many Americans are drawn to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Anne Coulter not because they present objective truth, but because people are drawn to sensationalistic hate. So don't blame Murdoch, blame American consumers.

Many Democrats believe that, to be a good Democrat means to be anti-corporation. But corporations don't acquire power in a vacuum. Corporations gain power through consumers. The right often make the joke about the environmentalists who attend a rally to protest drilling for oil in Alaska...but how did they get to the rally? By filling the tank of their Volkswagen van. Anti-corporation Democrats should recognize the truth in that joke.

Anti-corporation Democrats also need to recognize the truth that not all corporations are inherently bad. If a multinational corporation produces renewable energy, and it's proven that the corporation's portfolio consists totally of non-polluting clean energy, should we treat this corporation with the same animosity as the corporation that deals exclusively in burning fossil fuels?

It's better to be precise about what you rage against.

So as for MSNBC being the Obama network? It's not because Obama owns a piece of MSNBC. It's not because MSNBC loves Obama more than Hillary. It's more likely because there are more Obama fans in the American viewership than Hillary fans. Though many Americans are drawn towards hate, many more are drawn towards hope. Recognize that truth.

ANOTHER NOTE
The Hillary camp has been loudly complaining about the Obama camp "spending so much money" in their campaign. Well, in order to spend that much, Obama first had to make that much in donations. So basically, the Hillary camp is trying to put a negative spin on Obama's impressive fundraising ability. And it's been proven again and again that most of Obama's money comes from under $200 donations from Average Joe Americans.

Driving a Wedge between Voters and Candidate, While Ignoring the Issue

It's no secret the Hillary Clinton campaign has been showing signs of desperation. It has become clear that members of the Clinton campaign follow Obama everywhere he goes, with the mission of trying to nab him in a public speaking gaffe.

This week, the Clinton camp tried to make a huge story out of this Barack Obama statement: "It's not surprising, then, [the working class] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Hillary immediately held a press conferences chastising Barack, calling him an "elitist" and saying "People don't need a president who looks down on them...They need a president who stands up for them." She simply took Barack's words and twisted them against him. She gripes about "cling" being a demeaning word, and that the working-class are "optimistic" not "frustrated."

So this is what has become of our democratic process: when a politician speaks frankly and candidly, saying what many of us deep down recognize as bearing some truth, other politicians chastise him for the candidness. Heaven forbid, we hear some frankness from a politician, instead of watered down, sugar-coated, poll-approved, game-show-host platitudes.

And as much as the Hillary would like Barack's statement to be comparable to her "sniper-fire" gaffe, it's apples and oranges. Hillary was manipulating voters, trying to beef-up her national security credentials, and she repeated the Bosnian "sniper-fire" story several times.

With Obama's statement, he was simply trying to articulate the suffocation of powerlessness that the working class endure; and the directions the working class commonly go, attempting to puncture that suffocation.

It's all just a dispiriting attempt of driving a wedge between a candidate and potential voters (working-class), when there really needs to be a candid analysis of these marginalized people (working class), and the self-defeating attitudes that increase their marginalization.


So who is the demeaning elitist here?

The candidate attempting an honest discourse on the powerlessness of the working class?

Or the candidate who chastises the other candidate for attempting honest discourse on working class powerlessness, in a paternalistic gesture to steal working class votes.

Tipping Points of the Presidential Campaign: Money and Words

Every day, voters are getting bombarded with news of the presidential candidates McCain, Clinton, and Obama. I’m wondering if this is causing campaign fatigue for voters. As you recall, this presidential campaign started back in 2006.

Democratic voters seem to be past the tipping point of frustration. Obama supporters are tired of Hillary, and Hillary supporters are frustrated with Obama’s unstoppable lead.

And supporters of both are frustrated with the remaining undecided superdelegates, delegates, and voters. What are these voters waiting for? We don’t want voters to throw their hands up in surrender, and make hasty voting decisions, like voting for Hillary simply because “It's time for a woman President." But what will it take to finally tip these undecideds in the favor of one candidate?

Let me suggest two tipping points for the undecideds: money and words.

First, money speaks volumes. More important, we should study which candidate is accumulating the most from small contributions. “Small contributions” means, not special interest money, but the kind of money Average American Joe can drop into a campaign and still afford the week’s groceries.

According to TIME magazine, the candidate receiving the most $200 and under donations is Barack Obama.

Here is the small contributions collected January 2007 through February 2008:

Barack Obama 41%

Hillary Clinton 26%

John McCain 13%


In March 08, the Obama campaign received 40 million, more than twice as much as the Clinton campaign, who raised a little less than 20 million. It is reported that both McCain and Clinton accept money from lobbyists and special interests. Yet we often hear that the Clinton campaign is living “hand to mouth.” Also, it was reported that Clinton had to use her own personal funds when trying to woo Michigan and Florida into a re-do.

By measuring with money, we are clearly seeing a people’s choice between Obama and Clinton.

Do we still have undecideds out there? Ok, let’s consider the eloquence, frankness, and wit of the candidates. Personally, ever since the end of Reagan’s term, I believe America has been in desperate need of a president with eloquence and wit.

With Clinton’s recent speeches, it’s become undeniable that Hillary is clearly a candidate that will do and say what ever she feels is necessary to win. Hillary exaggerated being under "sniper fire" in Bosnia in a bid to beef up her under-whelming foreign policy experience.

But more importantly, we need to study Clinton’s pseudo-apology for this exaggeration: "If I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." This phrase sounds like something George W. Bush would say at his most eloquent, and Bill Clinton would in his least eloquent, trying to sidestep from being caught in a lie.

Also, Hillary has spent much of her campaign attacking Obama by using a Fox News approach: unfairly taking his words out of context.

And it’s been proven that Obama’s speeches can bring people together. In an MSNBC poll at the end of March 08: when asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton.

What do YOU think is needed to convince the undecideds to finally choose our Democratic candidate?

Clinton Tries to Keep Plan for Two Revotes Alive

I have to admit, I found Barack Obama's speech on Monday night in Philadelphia to be inspirational. Here's the video and transcript.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is looking more and more desperate. Check out this New York Times article by John Broder, entitled "Clinton Tries to Keep Plan for Two Revotes Alive"

Hillary's Superdelegate Explanation

Barack recently picked up seven more delegates.

And the Clinton campaign continues to explore ways to either change the rules of the game in the middle of the game (Having Florida and Michigan redo their primaries) or forcing delegates and superdelegates to flip-flop (Negating their vote for Barack in order to re-vote for Hillary).

In a recent article written by ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper, Hillary tries to explain the delegate math, but in my opinion only makes the math a bit fuzzier.

Click here for the article.

Why McCain Might Win

Here's a recent article from Newsweek, positing that Hillary may be held responsible for handing McCain the presidency in 2009:


"Why McCain Might Win" by Michael Hirsh

He can sit back while the Dems tear each other to shreds.

Mar 14, 2008

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama show few signs that they're aware of it, but the general election campaign has already begun. And appropriately for the eve of St. Patrick's Day, the pair have begun to destroy each other like the two crazy Irish cats of Kilkenny. The upshot is that both of them are already losing the general to John McCain. By the time the Democratic convention rolls around in August and the nomination is finally awarded, the battle may already be over.

Obama's advisers point out, rightfully, that the Clinton campaign started this downward drift toward mutually assured destruction, Democratic-style, with its now infamous "red phone" ad before the critical Ohio and Texas primaries. Subtly but with devastating impact, the TV commercial raised questions about Obama's preparedness to be commander in chief. The Obama campaign responded by effectively branding Hillary Clinton a liar about her own record. "As far as the record shows, Sen. Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue—not at 3 a.m. or at any other time of day," top Obama adviser Greg Craig—a former close friend of Hillary's—wrote this week in a widely circulated memo.

Winning elections is about setting the agenda and, while creating a positive image of oneself, negatively defining one's opponent in the minds of the voters. This is happening for McCain—having Obama defined as unready and Hillary as lacking in integrity—without his having to lift a finger. If the current campaign keeps up—and there's every sign it will—it's likely that by summer irrepressible doubts about both Dems will have been lodged in the minds of the electorate.

That's no small thing. Especially in this age of terror and economic uncertainty, voters don't want doubts. They will want to pull the lever for the most trustworthy candidate. And who's making himself seem trustworthy? Why, John McCain, of course. Next week he's off to Europe and the Mideast to confer with "leaders I have strong relationships with," as he put it to reporters the other day.

We have been here before, most recently in 2004. Within days of his securing the nomination on Super Tuesday in March of that year, John Kerry became the victim of a vicious Karl Rove-orchestrated plan to paint the Democrat as a flip-flopper. The bewildered Kerry, and his even more clueless advisers, Bob Shrum and Tad Devine, failed to respond for months, while their candidate was relentlessly tarred by the GOP attack machine. "Wait until the fall," one Kerry adviser responded sagely when I asked why they weren't counterattacking more. But by the time the Democrats gathered in July for their convention, the GOP-inflicted image of Kerry had taken hold. That's why the Swift Boat attacks against Kerry's war record in August were so powerful. So many voters already saw him as a waffling wimp that, despite his clear heroism and uncontested Silver Star in Vietnam, they easily bought into the slander. In the last six weeks of the fall campaign Kerry finally changed course and came out swinging, but by then it was far too late.

A similar process is underway now, but the Republicans don't need Karl Rove this time around. Both the Clinton and Obama camps do worry about the consequences in the fall, and Obama's advisers hope, wishfully, that the Clintonites will stop the bloodletting that they began. The likelihood, however, is that the Hillary camp will only step things up. She knows that while he leads in pledged delegates, by winning most of the big Blue states she has racked up a big lead in the potential electoral votes any Democrat will need to win in November. As Marie Cocco of the Washington Post Writers Group wrote the other day, "In this sense, Pennsylvania is where Obama's back, and not Clinton's, is up against the wall."

And so let us return to our St. Paddy's Day sermon. Children who are familiar with this nursery rhyme already understand more, perhaps, than the two leading Democratic candidates for president. To wit: "There once were two cats of Kilkenny/Each thought there was one cat too many/So they fought and they fit, and they scratched and they bit/Till excepting their nails and the tips of their tails/Instead of two cats there weren't any."

© 2008

Why Clinton Should Get Out of the Race, and Get Out NOW

On the days leading up to the March 4th primaries of Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, it was made known that, regarding the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama desired to make knockout blows.

Clinton needed a K.O. just to catch up to Obama’s delegate numbers, and Obama wanted a K.O to convince Clinton to bow out of the race gracefully.

Neither candidate got what they hoped for. Clinton won Ohio and Rhode Island. Obama won Texas and Vermont.

(A quick tangent: To those who hadn’t heard, after all the results were tallied in Texas, Obama ultimately won more delegates than Clinton. The fact that this has not been widely publicized proves that the “The Press Loves Obama” myth is indeed a myth. If the Press truly loves Obama more than Clinton, they would have reveled in Clinton’s decisive losses in all the primaries after Super Tuesday. But as decisive as Obama’s wins were, the Press downplayed Clinton’s losses. An Obama-loving press would’ve focused more on how badly Clinton lost in those primaries.)

So now back to my original argument: Since neither candidate got their K.O., we are left with the “facts on the ground.” And those facts are: Obama has more delegates that Clinton. More importantly, Clinton genuinely has no hope of getting close to Obama's delegate numbers in the upcoming primaries. This is why we’ve heard so much from the Clinton camp about refocusing on states of Florida and Michigan.

Before the primary season began, Michigan and Florida wanted to change the dates of their primaries, the Democratic National Convention refused to allow this. So it was agreed by the Democratic candidates, including Obama and Clinton, that delegates in Michigan and Florida would not be counted.

But now the Clinton camp wants those delegates to count, and the Obama camp rightly points out that this is tantamount to changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.

In my opinion, Clinton should get out of the race, and get out of the race NOW. Because while Clinton tries to drag the Democrat race into “overtime,” McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination on March 4th, is fine-tuning his strategy, gathering steam and momentum, and gathering money for his presidential run

And so while Obama and Clinton are exhausting each other, and draining campaign money on each other, McCain is getting a huge head start on tooling up and tricking out his Republican machine.

No matter how weak you think McCain is now, or how strong you think Clinton or Obama will be, don’t forget that the powerful Republican machine was able to hand George W. Bush a decisive win in 2004.

So all the Clinton camp is doing is weakening the eventual Democrat candidate, while the Republican candidate gains strength.