Republican Death Trip: "What’s still missing...is a sense of passion and outrage" by Obama

By GottaLaff

Paul Krugman:

“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.

BUT... well, you all know the "but". We've seen it all over the Tee Vee Machine for weeks. We've seen it at town hall meetings, in speeches, on FaceBook, and nasty, vile gatherings of corporate astroturfy TeaDeathers.

So much, then, for Mr. Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.

The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.

So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.

[...] It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

So can Mr. Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message of uplift, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition?

GObama... right now. Please. We can't afford to wait a minute longer.

H/t: David Shuster

538 on Rev. Rick Warren: The left is learning to focus and take action

By GottaLaff

Nate the Great at Five Thirty Eight makes an observation about Rev. Rick:

One reason that cultural issues like abortion have been successful rallying points for Republicans is because such issues tend to beget an asymmetry of passion. [...]

[W]hat I think the Warren dust-up reveals is that the left is now willing to raise at least as much ruckus about the issue as the right. The left, of course, has always had its own moral compass, but it's now beginning to convert that into more focused, overtly political action. If John Kerry had won four years ago, and invited Warren or some analogous pastor to give his invocation, would there have been this much debate about it? It's hard to say for sure, but I don't think we would have heard very much about it at all. This all feels very recent, stemming from a renewed self-confidence on the part of the left, coupled in this particular instance with the aftermath of Proposition 8.

I say this as someone, by the way, who buys into the "Can't we all just get along?" side of the argument. There's a difference between feeling as though you have superior morals and feeling morally superior, and some of the discussion has veered toward the wrong side of that equation. Nevertheless, I think the passion aroused among the left on the issue has been fairly impressive, and is potentially fairly consequential.

We lefties have always raised ruckuses (protests, sit-ins, etc.), but per Nate, difficulty in focusing as a party, plus a lack of confidence, have often impeded us from accomplishing our goals. I might add, so has infighting.

Maybe it took eight years of unrelenting Republican oppression and injustice to jump start a more unified, much delayed response. BushCo's extremes begat passions that had been either hibernating and/or percolating for way too long.

That said, Obama's exquisite message of hope and unity was inspiring, but it also raised unrealistic expectations. So ironically, it was Obama's (overzealous) overture to Rev. Rick, as well as Bush's maltreatment of America, that served as the catalyst for the transformation to which Nate refers.

IMHO, Bush lit the fire (more like TNT), but our president-elect's good intentions may have just given us the other stimulus package we needed.

Democrats Get Go-Ahead to Raise McCain Associations To Keating, Others

By GottaLaff

Our wish is granted:

Democratic surrogates say they've been given the go-ahead from the Obama campaign to mention John McCain's associations with S&L kingpin Charles Keating and other historically tarnished creatures when asked about Obama's connection to ex-Weatherman William Ayers.
A senior Democrat who has had contact with Obama's high command points to Democratic strategist Paul Begala's comments on this morning's Meet the Press.

We had a strong inkling that Begala got the okay from above and wasn't acting independently.

Begala noted that McCain once "sat on the board of a very right wing organization," the U.S. Council for World Freedom, led by a retired Army Maj. General named John Singlaub. The Anti-Defamation League allegedly called the CWF's parent organization a gathering place for racists and anti-Semites.

Said Begala: "Now, that's not John McCain. I don't think he is that. But, but, you know, the problem is that a lot of people know John McCain's record better than Governor Palin, and he does not want to play guilt by association or this thing could blow up in his face."

Now what else could we have up our sleeves?

Other potential negative associations for McCain are his long-time South Carolina consultant, Richard Quinn, a publisher of a Southern heritage magazine, and John Hagee, a pastor whose endorsement McCain solicited and later rejected.

They wanted to play dirty. Fine. Make our day.

UPDATE:

Responding to reports that Sen. McCain's associations are considered fair game by Democrats, Republican strategists affiliated with the McCain campaign say they plan to highlight Obama's alleged contacts with individuals who've been linked to terrorist organizations, including Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesperson and Ali Abunimah, a member of the Arab American Action Network who received a grant from the Woods Fund approved by Wm. Ayers, Obama and Khalidi.

One strategist said: "Obama needs to understand he will own his friendships with individuals that are in some cases anti-American, anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist. The American people can decide whether Obama's buddies reflect their values."

Hockey Mom in Chief? Not so much

By GottaLaff

Food for thought:

Palin: "I'm just an average hockey mom."

The Democratic response: "Hey think people want an average hockey mom from Alaska taking over in the event of John McCain's death?"

More food for thought:

McCain advisors say meetings have been underway to consider options for the RNC program due to Hurricane Gustav.

Advisors say no decisions have been made. [...]

For the purposes of getting McCain's name and Palin's name on the ballot, the convention must take place this week; lots of ballot deadlines hit very soon.

Wouldn't it just be the ironic-est if they missed the deadline? Okay, back to reality.