Going Through the Motions

The Washington Post announced that "Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said on Sunday that he is launching another long shot independent campaign for president of the United States."

If you ask me, I think that "consumer advocate" should be replaced by "perrenial presidential candidate," because Nader has long ago lost any credibility he ever had. He's the Harold Stassen of the new millennium. It's kind of sad, actually.

Nader says that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are addressing the real problems of Anericans, and that, my friends, is total bullshit. Nader doesn't have a reason for running so he uses as a pathetically lame pretext that neither party is addressing the concerns of Americans.

The fact is that Nader's first ego-driven run for the presidency was directly responsible for the fiasco in Florida that enabled George W. Bush to weasel his way into the White House -- therefore, if you ask me, all the casualties of the War in Iraq, all the dead and all the wounded can, in a very real sense, be laid at his feet.

And he wants to run again? Who the fuck does he think he's kidding?

This is not about what Americans want. This is about what Ralph Nader wants. It's about the dictates of his ego, and nothing else.

It's sad. Very sad.

Tom Moran

Believing the Unbelievable

It's just being whispered now -- barely. Nobody's really taking it seriously -- yet. But as time goes on and we get closer to the conventions, it just might be seen as a plausible scenario.

And what is that scenario, you ask?

Eleanor Clift writes about it in the online edition of Newsweek:

Al Gore on the second ballot: A scenario that a few weeks ago seemed preposterous is beginning to look plausible to some nervous Democrats looking for a way out of the deadlock between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It goes like this: We love them both, but neither is a sure bet when it comes to electability. It's not about gender and race, each has more mundane vulnerabilities. Hillary's negatives will drive white men to John McCain; Obama's inexperience will require a gut check on the part of voters. What if the super delegates decide not to decide, denying either candidate the requisite number of delegates to secure the party's nomination. Democrats want to win. The new rallying cry: Gore on the second ballot.

This is a science fiction scenario, right? Could never happen. Not really.

Could it?

Well, actually it could -- at least in theory. Clift claims that the last time a convention went to a second ballot was 1952, which is probably wrong -- it was 1956, when Adlai Stevenson left the decision of a vice-presidential nominee up to the delegates. The contenders were Al Gore (the current Al Gore's father), Estes Kefauver and a young senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. Kefauver won the nomination and the Stevenson/Kefauver ticket went down to defeat against Eisenhower and Nixon.

But Obama's going to win -- right? He's got it all locked up -- right?

Not exactly. Clift gives a surprisingly plausible scenario:

How could this unfold? Superdelegates are not bound to any candidate. They can do what they want, including changing their mind or withholding an endorsement until the balloting begins. Delegates won in the primaries go to the party's convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular candidate, but one of the biggest myths of the delegate selection process, according to a Democratic National Committee document, is that delegates are bound to follow that pledge on the first ballot. A delegate is asked to "in good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them," a provision designed in part to make the convention a deliberative body. If Hillary's attempts to secure the nomination are seen as illegitimate, and they fail, yet Obama is not seen as a clear victor, Gore's name could be introduced. All it would take is a delegate perhaps from Tennessee, his home state, to raise a point of order, and with backing from five other state delegations, Gore's name could be put in play as a prospective nominee.

Okay, it's still implausible. Unlikely to put it mildly. Odds are that Obama's going to win on the first ballot.

But you have to admit, it's fun to think about. When was the last time a political convention was worth watching? 1972, maybe?

But on a more serious note, the main reason why it's worth thinking about is that Democrats need to win in 2008. We have to take the country away from the lunatics and into the hands of people who will restore it to its rightful place in the world. Who will help to fix its ruined economy and give the middle class a break. We can't take a chance that the Republicans will steal yet another election.

Clift puts it quite nicely:

Surely [Gore] would happily take Obama as his running mate, ending the Clinton dynasty and positioning the Democrats for a potential 16-year reign at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A Gore-Obama ticket would be unstoppable, the thinking goes, matching the presumptive Republican nominee, McCain, on national security and experience, while embodying a powerful message of change.

Bring it on, baby. That's all I have to say.

Tom Moran

Elizabeth Rodham Wurtzel

Elizabeth Wurtzel, who enrolled in Yale Law School some years ago after some intemperate remarks about 9/11 and has been remarkably quiescent since, has emerged with an intriguing piece in today's Wall Street Journal about Hillary Clinton.

The piece, of course, is far more about Elizabeth Wurtzel than it is about Hillary Clinton. No matter what Ms. Wurtzel writes, it always comes down to being about Elizabeth Wurtzel. She could write an article about aborigines in Australia and find a way to make it all about her. That's what made More, Now, Again one of the best books I've read in the past few years - and what makes this article so myopically wrongheaded.

The gist of Ms. Wurtzel's argument, once you get past the "this-is-really-all-about-me" paragraphs that precede it, is that what's currently happening to Hillary Clinton is somehow emblematic of what happens to women who try to get ahead in the world -- they get put in their place by men who just plain don't deserve the credit for all the hard work that women do.

Hillary is grotesque because she has gotten to where she is, indeed, by playing it every which way -- by being a career woman when that made sense, a wife when that was advantageous; working on her husband's behalf when that seemed the way to the top, then working for herself when the coast was clear; standing by her husband despite infidelities because she loved him, while belittling Tammy Wynette for offering the very advice she was ostensibly taking; pooh-poohing the prospect of having teas and baking cookies instead of having a profession, and then becoming first lady and having teas as a profession for a full eight years. Yes, Hillary Clinton will do anything, bless her heart: That is how you amass power as a woman. We hate her, because she exposes the sordid business of having it all for the grotesque thing that it actually is.

Get the feeling that more than a little projection is going on here? Did somebody get passed over for the Yale Law Journal?

Wurtzel closes her piece with a stirring peoration:

Right now, it looks like Barack Obama will be the nominee. Hillary Clinton is unlikely to win any more primaries for a few more weeks, and at that point, it may be too late for this championship season. But pundits count her out at their own peril. That woman is a force of nature. One of these years, Hillary is going to the White House. If she has to win every single vote one by one, she'll do it. If she has to take hostages, hold a gun to the head of every voter as he enters the booth, she'll do that too. She may even cry.

Never underestimate Hillary Clinton.

Sounds a little frightening, doesn't it? It doesn't seem to occur to Ms. Wurtzel that that is precisely the point -- that Hillary Clinton's near-psychotic Will to Power (or at least that's how it's perceived by many voters) is exactly what's going to keep her out of the White House, both now and in the foreseeable future. Because people know or at least strongly suspect that politics for Hillary Clinton is not about public service or about working to make life better for the American people. It's about power. Nothing else. Power for its own sake. Wanting it, lusting after it, being willing to do or say anything to acquire it. Voters want to vote for someone who makes it about them -- for Senator Clinton, clearly, it's all about her, and nothing else.

No wonder Elizabeth Wurtzel identifies with her.

It's becoming obvious that the tipping point in the 2008 campaign was the South Carolina primary. The Clintons showed a really ugly side of themselves in that race -- and Hillary has been feeling the effects of it ever since. She won some big states on Super Tuesday for no other reason than the clock ran out on Obama -- if those primaries were to be held today, he'd win them easily. I'm done with making predictions in this race, but it does not look good for Hillary Clinton. After all, if she's going to run the country the way she's run her campaign so far, why would anyone in their right mind want to vote for her?

In retrospect, I'm starting to wonder whether or not we'll look back and say that Senator Clinton's big mistake was in sitting out the 2004 election and not challenging George W. Bush. Granted, she had only been a senator for a relatively short time, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Barack Obama at the moment. Maybe by being prudent, by not grabbing the reins of the party when they needed someone to stand up to an incumbent president and take a risk on behalf of the American people, she lost her best chance at the White House, Because if she doesn't make it now, I don't see her making it later. Assuming (and granted it's a presumptuous assumption) that Barack Obama wins in the fall and serves two terms, that would mean the next shot a Democrat would have at the White House is in 2016, when Hillary Clinton will be 69 years old.

Do we really think Hillary Clinton will improve with age?

If Hillary Clinton's campaign flames out -- as it has every appearance of doing -- she will have no one to blame but herself. No matter what Elizabeth Wurtzel might think.

Tom Moran

God's Love -- With Batteries

Stan Hegarty is a genius. Do you hear me? A genius.

Who is Stan Hegarty?

This is how he describes himself and his wife:

We are a youngish couple, who have been married for more than a decade and have been blessed with children. We are both committed Christians. We believe strongly in serving God in the various ways He has lead us, but also recognise the importance of having fun!

Stan lives with his wife in Wales and they run a little shop online that sells sex toys to devout Christians like themselves.

See what I mean about being a genius?

The website www.icWales.co.uk reports that Hegarty had "a vision from God telling him to set up the site."

And after all, who would be so churlish as to argue with a vision from God?

The report goes on to say:

Now Stan and wife Stella say that sales are soaring thanks to massive interest from frisky Welsh clergymen and women happy to buy sex aids off the net.

“We know that lots of our customers are clergy – Catholic, Anglican, all denominations – because some of them use their full title, like Reverend,” said mum-of-three Stella, 33.

“Some of them email us personally.

“And we mail a lot of our products to addresses called The Vicarage.”

So what can you get on Stan Hegarty's website?

Anything from "Female Climax Cream" to "Prolong Plus Erection Cream" to a "Triple Climaxer" vibrator. All sent in the mail to your home -- or your vicarage, as the case may be.

There's no porn on the website ("We believe that the Bible clearly teaches that images of sexual nudity are for within marriage only," they write. "We do not want to have any images of individuals with products on our site - we do not want to exploit any models in this way") so couples with Christian values can feel moral and justified going there and purchasing sex toys privately and discreetly.

This man should get the Nobel Prize. He has built a better mousetrap, and horny Welsh couples are beating a path to his website. He's the J.K Rowling of sex toys, and could conceivably get just as rich.

Genius is hard to define, but like pornography, I know it when I see it.

Tom Moran

Preview to Super Tuesday

They're saying that Super Tuesday might decide the Republican side of the electoral equation, but no one is expecting the primaries held on Tuesday to tell us who the Democratic nominee is going to be. That's going to take a little bit longer.

I'm thinking something very different. I'm wondering what happens if we don't know who the nominee is by the end of the primaries -- which is entirely possible.

Here's a scenario that I think could happen: Super Tuesday arrives, and Clinton wins a few states. Obama wins a few states as well. But in the final analysis it really doesn't matter who wins which primaries, because when he wins a state, she picks up delegates and when she wins a state, he picks up delegates. So it's entirely possible that they'll both come out of Super Tuesday within shouting distance of each other in the delegate count, with neither of them having enough delegates to win a majority on the first ballot at the convention.

In fact, the further this goes, the more I think we should be keeping an eye on what are known as the super delegates -- those 842 delegates to the convention who are not chosen by primary voters, nearly 40% of the total. I think it's likely (just how likely is anybody's guess) that if either Clinton or Obama wins on the first ballot, it'll be the super delegates who put them over the top.

In April of last year, Tom Curry of MSNBC.com considered such a possibility:

In next year's contest, could a candidate amass a stockpile of super-delegates, survive disappointing showings in early primaries, and go on to win the nomination? That seems unlikely.

“Do the super-delegates have the capacity to resist the choice of the overwhelming majority of primary voters and caucus participants? The answer, I think, is a clear ‘No,’” said [Northeastern University political scientist William] Mayer.

Nevertheless, there’s a romantic streak in some political junkies who fantasize about a scenario in which the nomination could still be in doubt at the end of the primary season.

That hasn't happened in either party in 30 years.

In that scenario, perhaps party heavyweights would line up votes at the convention to swing the nomination to one of the contenders, or to a dark horse.

Such a scenario is looking more and more likely everyday -- and could look very likely on Wednesday.

Tom Moran

This Is All We Fucking Need

You have to admit, this is pretty funny -- in a horrific sort of way. It's a little like a candidate for the Knesset being endorsed by Hitler. Keep an eye on Alan Colmes -- his reactions are priceless:



Tom Moran