Heh.

ArchPundit January 4, 2008 1 Comment

Obama 

Inside an old airplane hangar at what used to be Pease Airforce Base in Portsmouth, Barack Obama made his first New Hampshire appearance since his Iowa victory.

He recited his standard stump speech, but there was a confident, almost giddy, spirit in his voice and among the crowd of a few hundred supporters.

Obama did work a new joke into his speech. Referring to his new status as the Democratic front-runner, he said: “This feels good. It’s just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher.”

Wow.

ArchPundit January 4, 2008 7 Comments

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/yqoFwZUp5vc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I know you didn't do this for me.  You did this--you did this because
you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas - that in the
face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

I know this--I know this because while I may be standing here tonight,
I'll never forget that my journey began on the streets of Chicago
doing what so many of you have done for this campaign and all the
campaigns here in Iowa - organizing, and working, and fighting to make
people's lives just a little bit better.

I know how hard it is.  It comes with little sleep, little pay, and a
lot of sacrifice.  There are days of disappointment, but sometimes,
just sometimes, there are nights like this - a night--a night that,
years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in; when more
families can afford to see a doctor; when our children--when Malia and
Sasha and your children--inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and
safer; when the world sees America differently, and America sees
itself as a nation less divided and more united; you'll be able look
back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always
said was inevitable.

This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us
for too long - when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a
common cause; when we finally gave Americans who'd never participated
in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.

This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear,
and doubt, and cynicism; the politics where we tear each other down
instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the
moment - this was the place - where America remembered what it means
to hope.

For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about
hope.

But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism.  It's not ignoring
the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our
path.  It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight.
Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the
contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to
reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.

Best News for Iowa

ArchPundit January 3, 2008 2 Comments

Jennifer Hunter will be leaving and taking the bad prose with her.

Thalacker graciously allowed me to stay at her home and attend the caucus here in Waverly so I could get a sense of real Iowa politics.

Real Iowa politics are thorny, to say the least — not only the caucuses themselves — but the events leading up to them.

Iowa has been on edge for weeks and candidates, both Republican and Democrat, have been hopscotching across the state like Duracell bunnies trying to importune as many voters as they can.

One reading this in Chicago might think of hardball politics in Illinois as being similar to Iowa’s politics.  Now that’s funny. Iowans are nice and while their are deeply committed activists, the reality is that most people participating in the caucuses generally like their neighbors and are polite during the caucuses.

It is quite clear that one particular reporter is just out of crap to write.

Mock Caucus and Watching Party–Saint Louis

ArchPundit January 3, 2008 7 Comments

Young Democrats of Greater Saint Louis to host Democratic Presidential Caucus

Watch the Iowa results, stay for the Caucus. Thursday January 3^rd 8pm at the Royale Food and Spirits at 3132 South Kingshighway.

Governor Bob Holden, Congressman Lacy Clay and Alderman Steve Gregali among others to talk to advocate for their candidates at first ever caucus, Thursday January 3rd.

St. Louis, Mo.-Gearing up for the primary election season The Young Democrats of Greater St. Louis will welcome Democratic activists to The Royale Food and Spirits for an old fashioned caucus to pick a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party.

Among the honored guests on hand to persuade undecided voters to support their candidates’ are former Governor Bob Holden for Hillary Clinton, Congressman Lacy Clay for Barack Obama, and Alderman Steve Gregali for John Edwardsamong others. The Caucus will be hosted by 9th Ward Democratic Committeeman Ron Auer and will be monitored by Kyle Dubbert, Republican Supervisor of the Saint Louis City Election Board.

The January 3rd event will begin at 8pm at the Royale Food and Spirits at 3132 South Kingshighway. The results of the caucus should be available around 9:30pm January 3rd while the rest of the night will be dedicated to watching the Iowa returns.

The participants will determine a single winner for Democratic ticket through the mock-caucus. All who intend on voting for the Democratic ticket are welcome to participate. Not only will the event will serve to provide a lesson in how the Caucus system works, it will also gauge St. Louis City voters on their choice for the upcoming February 5th Primary.

For more information please contact Steven Fitzpatrick Smith, The Royale Food & Spirits 314-772-3600 theroyale@gmail.com, or Martin Casas with the Young Democrats of Greater St. Louis at 314-809-5083 martcasas@gmail.com.

St Louis Caucus Night Watch Party

ArchPundit January 3, 2008 1 Comment

Obama Campaign to Hold Iowa Caucus Night Watch Parties in Missouri

St. Louis, MO – On Thursday, January 3^rd, friends and supporters of the Obama campaign will gather for Iowa Caucus Night watch parties in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Event details :

Who:             Friends and Supporters of the Obama campaign

What:             Iowa Caucus Night Watch Parties

When:           Thursday, January 3, 2008

                        7:00 pm CST

ST. LOUIS

Where:           Obama for America St. Louis Headquarters

1204 Washington Ave. Suite 300

                        St. Louis, MO 63103

Iowa Prediction

ArchPundit January 2, 2008 15 Comments

Republicans:

Huckabee 30%
Romney 20%
McCain 15%
Thompson 15%
Paul 10%
10% uncommitted

Iowa Conservative ministers carry the day and instead of racial slippage, we have Mormon slippage. I actually anticipate a higher number of uncommitteds simply because no one seems to like their second choices, but I cannot figure out where it comes from so I leave it at 10%.
Democrats

Obama 36%
Clinton 30%
Edwards 27%
Uncommitted 7%

While everyone seems obsessed with Yepsen’s inane ranting about college students from out of state, the reality is that there was a rally for Obama in Iowa City with 10,000 people on December 28th when there aren’t really any students around other than those from the local area. I’ve seen that kind of energy once before and that was in 2004. No, not in Iowa, but in the Illinois US Senate Democratic Primary. There’s not as much of an upside in Iowa as what happened on election day in 2004, but there’s enough to give Obama a clear win. The other two I believe are topped out at about their sensitive estimator on Pollster simply because neither is new to Iowa voters.

Because When I Think of Fun…

ArchPundit January 2, 2008 No Comments

Hillary Clinton certainly comes to mind:

A punchy Clinton, who has been logging 15- to 18-hour days criss-crossing the state, was in a freewheeling mood, referring to herself as a “diva,” urging her New Year’s Day audience to “party hearty” and enigmatically remarking that the worst deficit in Washington was “the fun deficit.”

When Did Gore and Kerry Get Sainted?

ArchPundit January 1, 2008 2 Comments

Markos and others attack Obama for daring to criticize Gore and Kerry.

I’m not picking on Markos individually, but this general idea that somehow those two twits are above criticism from our candidates is silly as hell.

They came in and trashed the party with condescension and crappy campaigns built on lame appeals fought over the margins and not the heart of the country’s values.   If you like John Edwards or Barack Obama, they are doing exactly the opposite by arguing about values and justice, not over the most recent version of school uniforms.

The person who is the natural follower of Gore and Kerry is Hillary Clinton–one of the best practitioners of the politics of condescension and someone who will argue over 10 voters in an Ohio precinct instead of millions of Americans across the country.

The question is are Democrats going to compete broadly and over values or are we going to have another candidate arguing over lockboxes and arcane votes? A Democrat will likely win the White House, but if we want to perpetuate the kind of crappy campaigns run in 2000 and 2004, pick someone who is going to argue over arcane policy points instead of arguing about the values that Americans hold dear.

The blogosphere faces significant challenges in being the best critique of the press and groupthink  in the press, but also is developing serious blindspots about the groupthink in the liberal blogosphere.

More specifically though the notion is that Obama is blaming Gore and Kerry for polarization.  That’s not what he said though, but running the kind of crappy incremental, policy wonkish and condescending campaigns aimed at winning that small sliver of swing voters perpetuates the polarization we see today.

Polarization has been heightened by a right wing noise machine over the last 25 years, but polarization is a natural effect of a closely divided nation. We would be polarized with or without the right wing noise machine. However, the way to overcome that polarization is not to build up the same infrastructure, it’s too create a large governing coalition so the elections aren’t that close.

It strikes me that both Obama and Edwards are proposing doing exactly that though using different language.  Even then, the language is more similar than anyone seems to notice with both offering critiques of the current system as a system cut from social Darwinism..
H. Clinton, Dukakis, Kerry, and Gore all held the debate on Republican terms.  Changing the terms to be on Democratic terms isn’t going to the right, it’s the kind of innovation the Party should have adopted years ago instead of going with the DLC in the early 1990s.

The progressive blogs have tended towards Edwards because of his rhetoric of fighting and I don’t find it unreasonable. I think there is a group think based on the notion that contrasting partisan fights are better overall and so it’s the only way to win.  I have never understood the argument as being an exclusive way to win though–in fact, it is one of two ways to change the debate on to Democratic terms. One can, effectively, argue that fighting for progressive values redefines the debate.  But at the same time, so does an argument that focuses upon different rhetoric, but gets you to the same end point.

The larger point is that both approaches are huge improvements over the traditional Democratic campaigns since 1980 other than 1992 and 1996. The people running those campaigns were part of the problem and it’s time to get rid of them and instead of reacting to Republicans, providing the argument to which they have to respond.