Today is a good day to be an Obama supporter.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

When I think about it, every day's been a good day to be an Obama supporter. He's been on top since the start. He took the lead in the beginning in Iowa, managed to keep his lead despite the loss in NH, actually won the delegate race in Nevada, won big in SC, and won a few delegates on Super Tuesday. Yeah, it was practically a tie, but every delegate counts in a race like this. And then he's swept everything since then, and in landslides. His DC numbers looked like he was running against Alan Keyes again.

So things are looking pretty good. He'd need huge losses in TX and PA to be in trouble. It's in the math, despite math not counting, and having a well known gender bias. His opponent's in trouble, they're going through more campaign staff faster than Darth Vader goes through admirals. They spent all their money on parking, God only knows how much they lost on tollbooths. And frankly, her speech last night sounded like she was trying to sell her campaign harder then Jack Lemmon's character circa 2/3s of the way through Glengary Glenross.

Now I'm not saying it's over, I'm not saying ir's in the bag. I'm saying I'm happy where we're at. God knows I've no reason to complain. Hell, it's entirely possible Obama will win TX and PA which means this will over in under a month. And that's just fine, since I've been sick of this god damn primary bullshit since about three months before it started. I'm more than ready to move on to McCain.



Speaking of which, did you see that shit last night? On CNN they cut to McCain's victory speech just as Obama was about to wrap his up. No offense to anybody but republicans, but it looked like a photo from an anthropology textbook discussing the effects of inbreeding and crystal methamphetamine addiction on albino appalachians. McCain was flanked by two mouthbreathers who apparently were to busy staring at the lights, I suppose they thought it was heaven at the end of the tunnel, to get out of the way of their much shorter... I don't know... wives? Looked like early model prototype Stepfords, Jean Schmidt editions, standing on their toes trying to look of their... husbands? shoulders.

And McCain. Fuck me, John fucking McCain. If you'd told me six months ago we'd be running against McCain I'd call you a liar and a damn hopemongerer. John McCain was doing the whole channeling the disembodied spirit of Ronald Reagan routine. Now I'm not the type who believes in psychic media, but last night my lack of faith was put to the test. I really, truly Believed that John McCain was a frightened, confused vegetable. If this guy was a cartoon his beady little eyes would be spirals and slowly revolving in opposite directions, one slightly faster than the other. And the speech? Jesus God, it sounded like it was written by a college republican with a pocket thesaurus, who was more interested in watching his Babylon 5 collectors DVDs that he must have had on the TV at the same time he was writing the speech. Standard 2004 rhetoric, standard 1994 rhetoric, and it was hard to get more surreal then watching John McCain describe his experience in Vietnam, as imagined by the guy whose idea of a struggle is keeping the Cheetos smears off of the index cards. McCain was so obviously reading somebody else's words that I was half expecting him to bring up the cruel abuses of Narn prisoners at the hands of the Centauri torturers.

Holy crapsacks, Obama's going to eat this guy alive. He doesn't have to even do anything, I don't think McCain's going to make it to November without calling Obama a racist slur on live TV, conceding to him, attacking him with a shoe because he thought he was Prime Minister Tojo, or dying. Whatever happens, it's sure going to be fun.

[riverwalker]

1. I like your attitude!

Fired up and ready to go. ;)

[LakeSamish706]

2. The concerns that you left out re: McCain... Does Bush already have...

Karl Rove working on stealing November for McCain? Is there a plan in place where Jeb or some other NeoCon will be McCains VP? These are two very scary situations IMO.

[cloudythescribbler]

3. As long as a Democrat (preferably Obama) and not McCain ends up in the WH, then ...

the system of electoral politics, with all its flaws, will have performed about as well as could be expected, given the balance of public opinion, sustained by the MSM. Hopefully one thing a Democrat like Obama might do or help usher in is a more open sphere of public discourse, so that people like Dennis Kucinich don't get routinely swept under the rug. An "American glasnost" is desperately needed, especially for authentic progressives, beleaguered as we are (including me) by the undertow of forces that keep the public from seeing, effectively discoursing about, and effectively reacting to the crises facing the world.

There is a complex interplay between the machinery of coercion and manipulation on one hand and public opinion on the other. The notion that magically the latter can be expected, en masse and under present conditions, to adopt whatever is necessary ("anti-imperialism", eco-industrialization, including net NEGATIVE Greenhouse emissions globally well before Norway aims to have a net carbon-neutral economy by 2030, the kind of serious effort to end absolute poverty and to cure AIDS that our society has the means to do, if not deployed in other deplorable ventures from Iraq to Star Wars to massive underground repression -- these are the parameters of civilization's minimum necessary to survive.

I do believe that under conditions of true freedom and truly open debate -- something much more closely approximated though not achieved at DU than many more progressive venues with politics more to the Left, like my own -- that opinion gravitates toward a more sensible position. This is at least often enough true incrementally that a thaw (like in the Soviets under Kruschev and even more under Gorbachev) can make a huge difference. Hopefully we will achieve a positive feedback loop of freedom before the feedback loop of global warming thawing out the tundra releasing highly warming methane, in turn thawing MORE tundra etc. sets in.

Einstein said that with the advent of the bomb, the race would be between human consciousness and technology -- but there is a DECISIVE intervening variable, which are the means of (mainly veiled) coercive suppression of authentic progressive politics and of mass media manipulation IN THE CONTEXT OF THAT SUPPRESSION. With the most urgent alternatives "ruled out", the remaining debate permitted allows a relatively narrow range of reform thinking, and, given the power structure of the US, an even much narrower range of political reform possibilities.

In the context of all this, I suppose we could get a better leader than in Barack Obama, but I am not sure of this and doubt it could realistically be better (more progressive) by much.

[cooolandrew]

4. Yeah great post...

to me. Although I will not underestimate his supporters and work hard all the same.

[Raiden]

5. That's one of the funniest things I've ever read!

:spray:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Afternoon bump

[TheDonkey]

7. I always new Obama would do well but it still impresses me. The odds were 100% against him.

This is real history. After the media tried to annoint Hillary all year long as the presumptive nominee Americans all over the country are learning about Obama and liking what they see.

Go Obama!

[Johnny__Motown]

8. Every day is a good day to be an Obama supporter, this is a GREAT DAY TO BE ONE

[XemaSab]

9. Amen.

I think McCain's going to require some WILY skills to beat, but dude, I was looking at his website last night trying to get a handle on what we're up against. The guy has videos about his policy positions that are worth watching. He looks calm and mostly rational, but DODDERING. Like, channeling the spirit of St. Ronnie DODDERING.

It may be a ruse to get us to let our guard down... but the guy may actually be coming unglued.

[IDemo]

10. McCain is winning because of the chalk white vote!

:rofl: