So you would think that the 7+ years of dealing with Bush that the candidate and their supporters would have learned a lesson, that fear-mongering is a fad that is going out of style like a high top fade (all apologies to Kid from Kid N Play). But fear is alive and well, and it’s Hillary and the entire right side of the political aisle that is trying to run with “the fear bomb”.

What kind of fear are we talking about? Well Matt Drudge ran a story that the MSM rolled with showing Barack in a tribal elder garb consisting of a white turban and dress. Drudge said that someone in the Clinton camp circulated the photo and the Clinton camp cannot with certainty deny that it came from them and Obama has taken Hillary “on her word” that she did not authorize the photo distribution. Of course this photo was circulated to help out the false claim that came out of the Clinton camp that Obama is a muslim, a story that many educated people still believe is true and the xenophobia just runs wild! For the record Obama is a member of the Trinity Church of Christ and the smear people falsely claim that the church is radical, racist, and a secret Muslim front.

Switching to the next fear channel, the right side of the aisle is trying their best to ensure that you know Barry’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama. Now I wonder why they would do that, oh yeah that bad man Saddam Hussein. It’s just a shameful attempt to make people feel uncomfortable about the man.

Oh don’t you know that he is communist too? Apparently he father of Kenyan descent and his mother of Kansas descent was some how so radical and so socialist in nature that Obama is a commie. A number of e-mails and threads on the Internet is just pressing this angle pretty hard but at least the MSM hasn’t even picked up the story. Wow a communist muslim, who’da thunk?

Oh and by the way, Obama is not a true patriot because he does not salute the flag during the pledge and he does not wear a US flag lapel pin like so many representatives have since 9/11. Of course the picture was not of the pledge but of the national anthem (for those not in the know it’s not tradition to place a hand over year heart for the national anthem, just to stand) and this is what he feels about that:

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

Now you think that someone actually sticking up for ideas would suffice, but the right is still hammering on this story, and the audacity of a pundint that went on Dan Abrams to criticize Obama while he did not win a pin. Just too funny!

Back to Hillary and her desperation to win Ohio and Texas, these new Karl Rove-eqsue ads began popping up today trying to go for the angle of “think of the children!” is shows a mother looking at her kids at 3am, trying to tug on the emotion strings of the parent electorate. Now Obama did some politikin’-judo and reversed the ad on her today but it’s just another example that victory for Hillary comes at the cost of fear.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” was eloquently spoken by FDR on his first inaugural address as a guide to rise above the fray and not fall into the trap of fear-mongering. Well it seems that for some years fear was traded like a commodity and the sheeple ate it up. At least there is an articulate candidate that can reverse that trend, but how many voters will predicate their judgement based on lies, deciept, and fear?

So I watched the debate in it’s entirety and while it was a spirited debate i think little will change. There might be a shift of Hillary support thanks to her ill-timed quips, and polls are showing that her support is eroding in TX (some show a Obama lead) and OH (latest poll shows a 10% drop for Hillary. What are some of my observations from the debate?

• Hillary was asked right off the bat why she had such a radical change from conciliatory to enraged to sarcastic. She claimed it as “defending herself” because Obama fliers had stated opinions “about my health care plan and my position on NAFTA have been very disturbing to me”. Later it was show that she has supported NAFTA contrary to her claims in 1994, 2000, and 2004.
• The first 16 minutes was a Health Care spar between the two plans. While it was a spirited debate there was not much new ground covered although during the debate Hillary got flustered off the bat because she was asked a question first and tried to fire a zinger that fell almost as flat as the Xerox line: “maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”
• Both Hillary and Obama agreed that NAFTA would be killed if not renegotiated.
• Tim asked if Hillary’s 5M new jobs claim is lofty given that she promised Upstate NY 200k new jobs when in fact the area has lost 30k jobs. Her response is that Bush is in the whitehouse.
• Tim tried to play the fear card and asked a hypothetical “if we leave Iraq and it goes to hell, will you re-invade”.
• Tim asked Obama if he would stick to public funding as he answered on his questionnaire and some in the press is calling a waffle. Obama stated he would talk to McCain if he becomes the nominee.
• Clinton stalled about making her tax returns public.
• Tim asked if he would reject Farrakhan’s support, which Obama stated he denounced anything to do with the minister. But that wasn’t good enough and Tim pressed on. Hillary tried to find an opening to trip Obama up and said he needed to use stronger language. Obama came back and said “But if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.” which got some laughs from the crowd.
• Clinton got a huge break in the end with the question “would you ever take back a vote” which she clearly pounced on and said her Iraq vote. While it’s probably to late to help her with the anti-war crowd it was still a clear shot to let her get away from the Iraq vote a little. Obama had a interesting choice in the Terri Schiavo case and while he did not vote on the bill his inaction was just as costly as making a bad vote.

All in all it was a spirited debate but I have to give the advantage to Obama. He always looked cool under pressure and gave articulate responses. Not to take away from Hillary but her continued ill-timed quips and seemingly easy access to fluster her possibly cost her some points. It will be interesting to see what the TX, OH, RI, and VT vote brings!

A poster called “Grassroots Mom” on DailyKos had not originally supported Obama in this election but she decided to do some very graunular and eye openeing research on both Hillary and Obama and from that research is now supporting Obama.

 ”I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)”

Her conclusion…

Obama appears to have a better record last year in the Senate on getting his bills and amendments passed than does Clinton. I’ve listed everything that passed the Senate for each them at the end in boxes. But check out Thomas.loc.gov for yourself. I may have missed something.

In my eyes Obama is the superior choice in every way. He cares about more of the issues that matter to me. Kids and health care are important but so is the issue of global warming, on which Clinton introduced not a single bill last year.

Obama is a leader. With bigger majorities in Congress, much of his agenda should sail through. He can inspire this country to change course on so many things, from health care to global warming, where attitudes have to be changed first. I remember Bill Clinton’s endless laundry lists of small, focus group approved initiatives. For those who say Hillary will not govern like Bill did, I respond that the people who were doing the market testing of his proposed policies were Dick Morris, of course, and Mark Penn, who is now running Hillary’s campaign.

It’s Obama for me! I just sent him $100. My first donation this election.

So the proof is in the pudding. Obama not only thinks big but gets the support to get it done. This is the leadership that is needed in the country and like her this is why I support Obama.

So voters turned out in droves and gave Obama his 9th and 10th consecutive win since Super Tuesday, and a win by signifigant margins at that. Now Hillary really is in a TX/OH or bust campaign mode.

Hillary’s false stance that Obama is all style and no substance continues on, praying that if you say it enough it will become true. Well if you want a comprehensive list on what Obama wants for America look no further than his website. And his 45 minute speech last night shows that not only can he deliver a great speech but he can get to the nitty gritty details on the soap box.

So the Clinton camp decided that the best chance to stay in the game is to do a “firewall” of the remaining three big states of TX (193 del), OH (141 del), and PA (158 del). If she could win big in all three states, and Obama does not have big leads in the states proceeding she has a chance to stay in the game.

Well the Washington Post is reporting today that is seems the juggernaut of politicos on the Hillary team is worried about Texas because of the funny Texas delegate proportioning and partial caucus/partial primary rules the state has created. In their rules she could theoretically win the popular vote in the state and still lose the delegate count. In urban areas where Obama is expected to do well they have a higher proportion of delegates.

Thing is they have only figured this out now, just 2 weeks before voting? You would think they would have known about the TX rules by now and not to count on it to be a cornucopia of delegates that they were anticipating. Just goes to show that the most “seasoned” people in the game have no clue what they are doing.

• Kristol can’t understand why Democrats won’t trust Bush on FISA. Geez I wonder why, maybe because the USG was spying on US Citizens before 9/11?
• It’s been widley known that the FEMA trailers issued to Katrina victims were death traps. Now FEMA is finally relocating those occupants but without any financial assistance.
• Now that Obama has gained serious tracktion in the Democratic race, the MSM is now attacking the support of Obama as “cult-like“. I wonder if Regan was running like he did in 1980 that they would have drawn the  same conclusion?
• For those that feel McCain is still on the “straight talk express” let’s not forget he has flip-floped on tourture, Roe v. Wade, and Bush tax cuts to name a few.
• Why is it our so-called greatest democracy can’t even do a simple vote count correctly?
• Hillary has vowed to fight to the Democratic convention. Mind you she will need at least a 2:1 margin of victory to tie Obama but if she did win by 3:1 that would knock Obama out of contention.

Being a political junky I have been following the Democratic race closely. It’s refreshing that there is a battle going on for the primary instead of just having an anointed leader and it’s even more refreshing that the establishment candidate is struggling to keep up.

Obama v. Hillary, the epic struggle for the Democratic top spot has seen some of the best and worst come out of people. We see the best when energized crowds are flocking to Obama events, we see the worse when candidates are backed into the corner and they decide to mud sling to try to gain some ground. A perfect example is the time leading up to the SC primary and how negative the Clinton camp went to try to knock Obama down. I think we may have passed a threshold now where the general populace has gotten sick of the negativity and the divide that has been crippling our country for some years now.

The Clinton years in the White House were overall good years for the country. However if she were to win the primary and then the general we would have a dynasty of Bush-Clinton dating back to 1980 when Bush Sr. was the vice President. Our country is better than cycling through two powerful families for our leadership.

During this election period, people have falsely stated that Hillary and Barack are of equal agreements on all the positions. Hillary has made some significant choices as Senator to make me question if she would be a leader that would represent me, choices like:

• Support of the Iraq war before it became popular to dislike the war
• The Clinton/Liberman investigation of video games
• Her support that the Iran Revolutionary guard is a terrorist organization which is defacto support for military action against Iran

Obama has separated himself successfully as an elected official that wants to get the job done and in doing so that takes cooperation from both sites. I truly fear if Hillary is in office the great divide will continue.

Obama has been doing quite well as of late. The “Super Tuesday” primaries helped propel him to a very close race of delegates the “Chesapeake Primary” saw his victories reach 60% in MD, 64% in VA, and 75% in DC which gave Obama a nearly 100 delegates to Hillary’s 50 delegates and in doing so gained the title of front runner.

There is a still a ton of races coming up, including HI, WI, OH, RI, TX, VT, WY, MI, PA, GU, IN, NC, WV, KY, OR, MT, SD, and PR. Hillary has developed what the Main Stream Media has coined the “Giuliani Firewall” focusing her campaigns on the three big states of OH and TX and that test will come on March 4th. While Obama is enjoying leads in most of the states and territories mentioned Hillary still have leads in OH, TX, and PA. We have seen Hillary have big leads in states only to see them erode to very close wins or stunning defeats and I would not be surprised that if she does not win OH and TX by 60% margins the DNC and general public will be calling for her to step aside. If she does win then it will likely come to a battle of FL and MI unseated delegates which will bring a major set of headaches to the party.

Like I have been saying, this is one hell of an interesting race!

OK. I know I know. This site has been going through so many face lifts, so many versions, database v. static, WordPress v. Joomla!, it just never ends.

I’ve decided to resurrect as much data as I could from past versions and put them all here on my new blog and that would not be possible if it were not for the Wayback Archive.

I hope you enjoy the show!

 Xaia’s got a new toy, the Alphabet Train Station from VTech and she just loves it.