alternative hippopotamus

Politico:

An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.

I get it that former Clinton supporters are going to have a hard time supporting Obama. Staying home, sure, I understand. But, actively campaigning against him?

Why don’t Clinton supporters start a third party? The two-party system, as far as I can see, isn’t inscribed in the Constitution. So, why not? When I was at the Netroots Nation Fundraiser a couple of weeks ago, Senator Feingold spoke eloquently about how the role of activists (and we are all activists of various stripes) is to keep the candidates honest. To keep a future Obama administration honest.

527’s are one mechanism for keeping politicians honest. Yes, I understand that Obama wants to neutralize the power of 527’s. To which I will say that it’s very interesting and relevant that he wants to do that. And, I, in all due repect say to my future president: Not Gonna Happen. If I want to start (or support) a PAC that supports his candidacy I will. If I want to start (or support) a PAC that prods his campaign on the issue of energy and the environment, then I’ll do that. This hippopotamus has never been a lock-step kind of mammal.

Top-down organizing works very well for the authoritarian mindset. It doesn’t work for the Democratic Party. And, I doubt it would work for a future party founded by current Clinton supporters.

The Great Blog War of 2008 has not been a good season for the reality-based community. And, unnecessarily so. The fight between the Clinton and Obama camps could have been over substantive issues. Instead, the tenor of the discussion was just a tad better than out-and-out name-calling.

Still, I reserve a special place in hell for those who pretend to be applying analysis to one candidate or another, but in fact are just being hacky. By hacky in this case I really mean dishonest; attempting to mess with people’s minds.

To explain what I mean, I wanted to link to two posts. The first is clearly identifiable as opinion, the second appears to be analysis, but isn’t.

Eriposte: (I’m using key sentences from the post that serve to summarize the arguments)

• Sen. Clinton appears to be staying in the race because she really believes she has a much better chance of delivering the White House to Democrats in November than Sen. Obama.
• One of the fundamental values I have sought to see in Democrats is that they not quit before the votes are counted and certainly not quit because the media asks them to quit.
• As I have said before, Sen. Clinton represents the only remaining opportunity to really get universal healthcare passed in the next 4 years.

Jerome: (again, using key sentences to summarize his points)

• For all votes cast, this means that Obama leads currently by about 80,000 votes.
• There’s clearly someting happening though, in regards of support for Obama, as he failed mightily at GOTV in WV, despite outspending Clinton, and as I noted yesterday, with voting underway in OR, SUSA has it tied among those whom have voted.
• It reminds me of the ‘76 Republican nomination, when Reagan began winning nearly all of the closing states, even though Ford remained with delegate lead at the convention.

While I disagree with both Eriposte and Jerome, at least Eriposte stays well within the framework of “here’s what I think…” as opposed to “science and history tell us that…” For instance, it’s impossible to say exactly why Clinton is staying in the race, as no one can read minds. Science and history tell us that. Yes, she could believe she has a better chance of winning. She could also believe that she just really wants to be president, so there. She could believe that Obama is secretly a Scientologist. The point is, no one knows what she really believes. Indeed, no one can.

Jerome, on the other hand, tosses around what appear to be concrete facts. Like how many votes Obama currently is ahead, and how Clinton will ultimately be the popular vote winner. Unfortunately, he omits key assumptions like using 0 votes for Michigan. Or, even that the “popular vote” is not a directly measurable quantity, but requires a degree of estimation.

As I say, there’s been a high degree of hackery in the campaign. It’s the form of hackery that Jerome uses that I object most strongly to.

One of the few perks in my small role in the vast left-wing conspiracy in Our Fair City, that of co-hosting DCDL, is that I get to meet the various authors, bloggers, etc., that I read, list to, or surf at.

So, last night at Drinking Liberally we hosted author Eric Lichtblau, discussing his new book, Bush’s Law. I explained in the introduction to the discussion that I had not yet finished “Bush’s Law.” In fact, I’m still on the first chapter. “But,” I added, “the prologue is excellent, and the table of contents is one of the best ever.”

I got a laugh, which was the whole point.

Prior to the talk, Eric introduced his fellow NYT author, James Risen. I pointed out to him (James Risen) that I had his book “State of War” on my ipod, and that the audiobook was a favorite to listen to on long walks. That should tell you what degree of political geek that I am. The point is that he seemed genuinely surprised to see how immersed that this issue had become in the popular culture. How deeply felt his work was and still is.

Indeed, when I was having dinner with my mother last Sunday, I had mentioned that KCinDC and I had put together this event (along with many others, including Jane Hamsher and The Seminal crew, Josh, Jason, and Alex.) She didn’t recognize Eric’s name at first, but when I mentioned that he had written the NYT articles on warrantless wiretapping along with James Risen, her first reaction was to point out that publication had been delayed until after the 2004 election. This did not sit well with any of us.

I noticed in the discussion of the book last night that Eric Lichtblau was careful to delimit the discussion at the NYT to whether or not publication would harm national security. Of course, it did not as it was typically assumed that Al Queda knew they were being wiretapped, anyway. I just thought it interesting that the issue was framed strictly along those lines.

As a post script to the Great Blog War of 2008, this from two Clinton-supporting blogs. One of which has laid down their weapons, the other of which seems to be decamping to the hills and marshes, preparing themselves for the next skirmish. I’ll let you be the judge which one is which.

Big Trunk Democrat @ TalkLeft:

So let me get this straight — the first act of the self declared Democratic nominee Barack Obama will be to state that Michigan and Florida will not count? This is insane. Two key states in November will be dissed in the first act of the newly crowned Democratic nominee. At the least, Obama should wait until he has 2209 delegates counting the existing Florida and Michigan delegations.

Shystee @ CorrenteWire:

D. Aristophanes, in an extremely classy gesture, apologizes and asks:

…what do Obama and his supporters need to do today to get you into this car?

One answer is pretty simple: don’t be jerks about it. That and more progressive policy positions.

The worst possible downside to the thousands of hours we have all spent paying attention to this campaign is that democratic voters who supported the losing nominee will be so pissed off that they won’t show up to vote in November.

All it takes is a few percentage points in a few battleground states to lose this thing. Half of Americans don’t vote and a lot of them just because they’re too pissed off about something or other.

BTD is a tough cat to read. Is he blogging about this because he’s concerned about Florida and Michigan? Or does he just like the attention? The good news is that if BTD really feels disenfranchised, he can campaign for voting rights for our nation’s capital. It’s easy to forget after a bruising primary like this, but those of us that live in Our Fair City, DC, don’t get a vote in congress. That’s not just during the Democratic Party primary. That’s all the time.

Btw, where was BTD in 2004 when DC moved up it’s primary to vote for Howard Dean, and got the same treatment that Michigan and Florida did in this election? (Okay, the punishment was to make the vote “non-binding,” but if the issue is making every vote count, it’s hard to see how that differs from MI and FL in any practical way.) You can read about it here.

I had not planned to take time off from blogging. But, life has a funny way of intervening some times.

I have been engaged in non-internet-based activities involving other people. Upwards of 90% of which have been very positive and/or fantastic.

That said, the stupid bullshit has to stop. I really wish I had been the first to say that.

My take in a nutshell on the Democratic process is this: Hillary Clinton looked for a while like the inevitable candidate. Now, it looks like it isn’t going to happen. How her supporters deal with this is the next chapter in the saga. A suggestion if I may: patience is said to be a divine virtue. It’s not said to be a divine virtue because it comes easily to us. It’s a divine virtue because it takes some cojones. Or, if you prefer, some huevos. If you will, some huevos rancheros. Sorry, all this talk of feeding oneself on $30 ramen noodles has me pining for some solid food.

I suspect that this isn’t the first time that civilization has experienced this set of events. For the moment I’m lost on what the right historical parallel might be. I do hope it isn’t Les Miserables.