Step 1: Name Kathleen Sebelius to the position of "America's Mom"(Er, Vice President)
Step 2: Start touting Obama as "a real family man" with "salt-of-the-earth Kansas values". He's the man who made certain he would not repeat the sins of his father, that he would work as hard as he could to succeed and be a strong example for his two beautifiul daughters. Barack Obama will secure your family by providing healthcare and a living wage. Will John McCain's plans do anything to secure your family? Repeat the word "family" over and over like a person with Tourettes.
Step 3: Start attacking John McCain for his "anti-family agenda". Ex: "Why does Senator McCain want to serve the anti-family agenda of the corporations? Does John McCain not support strong families? Does John McCain share the family values of most Americans? America wants to know."

Obama=family man
McCain=rich old bastard

Posted at June 26, 2008 3:32 PM in response to Can the Obama Campaign Shape the Agenda?

That strikes me as a reasonable compromise for Obama's maxxed outs to give to Hillary. I think she should eat her personal loans like Romney did, but I see no big deal raising money to pay of vendors. (Even if that does include Wolfie and Mark Penn.)

Posted at June 24, 2008 11:05 PM in response to Obama Asks Donors To Help Hillary Pay Off Her Debts

Run Frank Jr.! He's an anti-Bush countercultural libertarian misfit hippie. He'll win in a walk!

Posted at June 22, 2008 10:36 PM in response to GOP Candidate In Key New York House Race Passes Away

Look, I support Obama as much as anyone. That said: GET THAT PROVISION OUT OF THAT BILL! QUIT BEING A JACKASS!

Posted at June 20, 2008 4:12 PM in response to Obama Backing FISA "Compromise"

Wait, didn't Obama already do a rejoinder on this issue. Greg, can you find the quote where Barack said(it was something like this),

"John McCain says he will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won't follow Osama Bin Laden where he actually is, the hills between Afganistan and Pakistan. If I have actionable intelligence of high value terrorist targets and General Musharraf will not act, I will."

Sounds to me like somebody's got a "missile gap". . .

Posted at June 19, 2008 5:00 PM in response to McCain: I Will Kill Bin Laden; Obama Won't Say What He'd Do

Oh they can do this, but as soon as the DNC runs the ad based on that JedReport video. . . he's toast.

"Why does Barack Obama keep calling me George Bush's third term?"

"I have been in lockstep with the president and on the most transcendant issues I am a Bush clone all the way."

Posted at June 17, 2008 9:53 AM in response to New McCain Ad: He "Stood Up To The President"

I agree with most of this, Greg. There are a few things you said that I take issue with.

-- Reporters and pundits offered wall-to-wall coverage of the most trivial of emotions on Hillary's part -- her laugh, and her tears -- and repeatedly seized on such moments to assert that her emotions were entirely staged in order to manipulate voters into believing that Hillary is a human being.

The real problem I have with this is that so much of the time the media actually helped Hillay by distorting what exactly it was about what she said and did that was actually objectionable. What was objectionable about "the Cackle" wasn't the sexist meme that it was annoying to listen to. That wasn't the issue. Rather the issue was the fact that Hillary cackled as a way of masking the fact that she was repeatedly refusing to answer the serious questions that she was being asked, instead cackling when given a tough question and then pretending she had been asked a different question.

In a similiar way, the "tears" moment wasn't really offensive because she seemed emotional. (Indeed, castigating someone for being emotional is sexist.) What was objectionable was how she went on to say something to the effect of(I don't have the exact quote), "I'm the ONLY one who can save our party, because we can't head down the wrong path." It struck me as very Evita-esque, in which any person who isn't Hillary constitutes "the wrong path", as if the whole party was falling to the dark side of the force because they were choosing Obama over her.

-- For days, multiple news outlets repeatedly ran a truncated version of Hillary's now-infamous quote about Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King. This version of her quote that was, as Josh argued, an obvious distortion of what she actually said, and made her sound much more dismissive of King than she had been.

Greg, here you and so many other people miss the point. What was objectionable wasn't her comments about Martin Luther King. This is pretty similiar to the thing with Robert Kennedy where she apologizes to the Kennedys when they weren't the ones being insulted. She didn't insult Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy, in both instances she was insulting Obama by way of a false analogy. In this instance, she frames Obama as Martin Luther King, an uncredentialed leader of a black-oriented religious movement. She frames herself as Johnson when her record is nothing like Lyndon Johnsons! In one crappy analogy she manages to insult MLK, LBJ, and Barack Obama.

Well hey, Greg, maybe some of these pundits saw racial comment after racial comment, decided it couldn't be a series of accidents, and decided to call a spade a spade. I'm consistently amazed when Clinton supporters complain about Obama supporters "spreading this false meme" that the Clintons were running a race-baiting campaign. Hmm, maybe because all behavioral indications out of their campaign showed they WERE running a race-baiting campaign! Maybe some of us, seeing a Democrat take after Jesse Helms, decided we weren't going to stand by and let the Clintons off the hook while they made negative connections of Obama to Jesse Jackson, MLK, plumbers, tv personalities, Sidney Poitier, and drug dealers.

We weren't "spreading this false meme". It wasn't a "meme". It was a fact, a fact borne out by the continued and incessantly offensive behavior of the Clinton campaign(particularly Mark Penn) on the campaign trail.

On all your other points, Greg, I mostly agree.

Posted at June 16, 2008 1:05 PM in response to Was The Media Unfair To Hillary? Here's Our Rundown.

Yeah, pretty bad headline. He isn't saying "screw you, you purple assholes! Torment us no longer!"

He saying that they are organizing Virginia and North Carolina and Colorado and New Mexico so that even if they lose both Ohio and Florida(which they don't plan to) they can still win by cobbling a couple other states together.

I agree. If you have a money advantage, why wouldn't you try to play offense or at least try to headfake the opposition into wasting money?

Posted at June 16, 2008 10:01 AM in response to Obama Camp Downplays Ohio and Florida As Must-Wins

Destor: John Kerry was a Catholic. Was he anti-feminist? Is every Catholic politician out there an anti-feminist?

What about Ted Kennedy? Didn't he get FMLA passed? Is he not a feminist?

Career Fed: I'm not talking about defeating John McCain. I'm talking about the fact that there are those out there in the Democratic Party who want to hold their own power. The DLC wing of the party. EMILY's List and NOW. The Blue Dogs. These are seperate power centers that Obama doesn't need as future competitors. Obama's strategy has been to consolidate power so he'll actually have an apparatus that will allow him to get things passed. That's why choosing Sebelius makes sense. She has won in a very red, very working class state. She helps Obama makes gains out West and signals that the Democratic Party will be whistling past dixie(google the book). She also helps Obama consolidate Emily's List and NOW so he never finds himself fighting against them like he has with Hillary.

Also, if people don't know you well, you can largely define yourself for a while. This was a distinct advantage for Obama. Why can't Sebelius utilize the very same advantage to define herself?

IndieX: Do you have any specific points you disagree with? Care to share?

I would point out that the vast majority of Clinton supporters are already consolidating behind Obama. I see no reason why a marriage of convenience can't be turned into a marriage of permanence, thus destroying one of Hillary's major reasons for still being relevant.

Posted at June 14, 2008 3:05 PM in response to Kathleen Sebelius: My Guilty Reasoning

What are you talking about? Not only is Kathleen Sebelius pro-choice, the Kansas City Catholic Archbishop recently told all the Kansas City Catholic clergy to deny her communion because of it. Sebelius is pro-choice, has vetoed various abortion restricting bills, and has paid a political price for it.

Posted at June 14, 2008 10:58 AM in response to Kathleen Sebelius: My Guilty Reasoning