NOTE: This is a special campaign 2008 edition of our famous Around The Sphere link-fest where we offer readers links to weblogs of differing viewpoints and give you our comments on the issues raised. Links do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of TMV or its co-writers.
Hillary Clinton Donated $5 Million To Her Campaign — and will this lead to investigative journalism?
Super Tuesday And The Establishment Theory: Oxblog’s Patrick Porter sets up the issue:
For the past decade or so, I’ve had a little theory about Primary contests in the US.
It seems that the political establishment of both parties has great resilience, more than is often assumed. It can mobilise money, people, contacts, rumours, and primal fear better than even the most exciting challengers.
Of course, this ‘establishment’ concept is relative rather than absolute – most folk who become serious candidates for the presidency have serious money, influence and elite interest behind them somewhere in the background. But some are more establishment than others.
So in 2000, Bush junior crushed ‘maverick’ McCain in 2000 after a promising initial campaign, while Al Gore hammered Bill Bradley. In 2004, a patrician John Kerry overcame Howard Dean.
So what has happened in 2008? Click on the link and see…
But we’ll add this: it ain’t over till its over and it ain’t over. The lady who needs Weight Watchers hasn’t sung yet. But the problem is:
what DO the establishments in both parties want right now?
Is the GOP establishment ready to buck the hard-core right and talk show hosts that have supported it? Is the Demmie establishment ready to give their party’s nomination to someone who may not have won most of the primaries but has more Super-delegates? This is a crazy year where pollsters, blogs and talking-heads have been wrong.
Chicago Is Chicago Is Chicago: Some voters in a North Side Chicago precinct were told not to worry when the apparently non-working pens they were given to mark their ballots really contained “invisible ink” that would be read by scanners. Details HERE.
Will John McCain Make Dick Cheney Look Like Mahatma Gandhi? Pat Buchanan thinks so.
Did A Line Disappear From A Maureen Dowd Column On Obama? Apparently so.
PERSONAL NOTE: I think Dowd is one of the greatest columnists around. I was a huge fan of the late Mike Royko and still read collections of his columns. Dowd’s old columns are also required reading for anyone interested in the art of column writing. (Here at TMV we have Shaun Mullen as our official site columnist). People make the mistake of liking or hating columnists depending on their political preferences. But column writing is truly an art — and Dowd’s work is not just worth reading but studying, no matter what your political beliefs.
Did The GOP Dodge Two Bullets On Super Tuesday? Dean’s World’s Dave Price thinks so. Here’s the first bullet:
One, they didn’t nominate Mitt Romney, who was unelectable. Whether it’s fair or not, many evangelicals were never going to vote for someone from the Church of Mormon, which some regard as a step above Scientology and several steps below the Catholic Church. Considering how much flak Bush got for his very mainstream faith, it’s hard to see how Mitt could survive six months of “educational” MSM coverage of his somewhat strange and non-mainstream belief system, much of which coverage would have been a thinly veiled attempt to keep evangelicals from voting for him over the Democrat.
He’s correct. Our co-blogger Shaun Mullen took a lot of heat for noting more than a year ago that the media would eventually cover the “religion” issue — and they did. We have said it before and we will say it again: there IS bigotry out there when it comes to Mormons, one of the few “acceptable” bigotries out there where people are not shunned if they admit it. It has been an obstacle for him and, given how telegenic he is, how well he does in most debates, etc…he would have been a shoo-in otherwise.
FOOTNOTE: We’ve now gotten two emails and seen at least one report hinting Romney could drop out. If he does, it’d probably because he ask to ask himself how much of his money that would otherwise go to his kids when he is gone one day he wants to continue to invest in a campaign that at this point will not end in him being nominated. Bigotry exists but it is not PC to come out and say it. But it IS there (and yours truly is NOT a Romney supporter).
And the second bullet? Click on the link and read it for yourself.
It’s Outrageous! You Can’t Do it! We Can’t Go Along With It! And then its…”NEVER MIND!”
But As Of Today It Still Was The Bulk Of Conservative Talk Radio Against John McCain: These shows have shown more than ever that if they don’t qualify as “hate radio” they qualify as factional foam-at-the-mouth radio. And they are turning off many Republicans not because they love John McCain — he angers a lot of people. But because they are so exaggerated and inaccurate which is why many independents have given up on many of them. On the great Republican mega-blog Red State Mark Kilmer writes, in part:
We know the story by now. In a last-ditch effort to thwart the march to the nomination of the ultra-liberal John McCain, many of the nation’s top conservative radio talkers jumped on the bandwagon of that last bastion of conservatism, Mitt Romney, to save the country and the party. But the story is flawed, for as many things as one can say or think about McCain and Romney, John McCain is not a liberal and Mitt Romney is not a conservative. The premise did not work, thus the mini-movement could not have functioned to the desired end. Conservatives did not coalesce behind Romney just because he was again calling himself “full spectrum conservative.” One possible good effect of this is that John McCain has been talking at least since the Sunday Shows about uniting the party, of convincing conservatives that he is and wants to be one of us. Sure, it’s only lip service, and we will need to see some of the “hard work” to this end which he’s promised, but McCain knows that he has to do it and that all we were getting from Romney was lip service.
This is the incredible irony behind the screaming YOU ALL HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AND ELECT MITT ROMNEY TO STOP THAT LIBERAL JOHN MCCAIN! Only a month or two ago many of these same talk show hosts and their listeners were lambasting Romney for being an opportunist who jettisoned all of his old positions as Governor in what they claimed then was a futile effort to win over the Republican conservative base. But now that their hatred for John McCain (and if you listen to these shows it is clearly hatred) has bubbled over, Romney is being described as someone who saw the light and now is a true believer. He has been given a big,fat pass (I had to double check to make sure I inserted the “p” in that last word, or else I could have been sued…).
The problem: if they say that about Romney, then how can they convince their listeners that they should all ignore McCain’s insistence that he is a conservative? The answer is: they have not been able to convince their millions of listeners. The unclothed emperors still look clothed to many of their minions when they demonize moderates, independents and Democrats who don’t pass their litmus test (apparently in an America where consensus and compromise cannot ever be tolerated). But in this instance, as they claim McCain is the same as Hillary and Obama, their minons see naked emperors.
This whole episode underscores the exclusionary nature of some who have had great influence in the Republican party run by George Bush’s associates. But America — and that includes many Republicans — now seems to want to move beyond all of that. Clearly, some hard core conservatives don’t want to move beyond it, but their influence may be limited a bit since they still insist George Bush is a highly successful, efficient, inspiring and popular President. Even many Republicans no longer believe that. And if you do believe that I can sell you THIS for $200 (actually, wait a year and that might be the purchase price..)
A BELATED THIS JUST IN from investigative reporter Scott Ott:
(2008-02-04) — On the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, Republican front runner John McCain said conservative voters should “shut up, suck it up, and vote for the lesser of two evils.”
The Arizona senator refused to specify which of the remaining three GOP candidates is the “other evil,” because he said, “my inner Reagan prevents me from speaking ill of a fellow Republican. But here’s a little straight talk: Fred Thompson is gone. I’m the devil you know, and I’m asking for your vote.”
There’s a LOT more so click on the link and read the whole thing…
AND SPEAKING OF GREAT SATIRE make SURE you check out these fake blogs by famous politicians. The problem is, you read them and as silly as they are they seem REAL. True works of art. Check out John McCain’s blog, these two entries from Barack Obama’s blog, and John Edwards’ blog. NOTE: these satires are no-holds barred, sort of like what the National Lampoon used to do but more in keeping with the unfettered spirit of the Internet. Check out the other blogs on the site if you love to laugh.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.