Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

One Republican who is fed up with the Republican Party is long time conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish:

I’m not sure if I left the Republican Party or the party left me. All I know is that I no longer feel comfortable.

The national GOP is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn’t fit neatly within its parameters. Instead, the GOP has extended itself to its fringe while throwing under the bus long-standing members like New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a McCain-Palin supporter in 2008 who told me she voted with her Republican leadership 90 percent of the time before running for Congress last fall.

Which is not to say I feel comfortable in the Democratic Party, either. Weeks before Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh’s announcement that he will not seek reelection, I noted the centrist former governor’s words to the Wall Street Journal‘s Gerald Seib. Too many Democrats, Bayh said in that interview, are “tone-deaf” to Americans’ belief that the party had “overreached rather than looking for consensus with moderates and independents.”

Where political parties once existed to create coalitions and win elections, now they seek to advance strict ideological agendas. In today’s terms, it’s hard to imagine the GOP tent once housing such disparate figures as conservative Barry Goldwater and liberal New Yorker Jacob Javits, while John Stennis of Mississippi and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts coexisted as Democratic contemporaries.

At its annual convention held this past weekend the standard bearer of the Republican party CPAC had GLENN BECK as its keynote speaker for goodness sake!

The GOP has been on parade in its opposition to the stimulus package passed a year ago but that didn’t stop Republicans from being first in line with their hand out.  Republican Senators and House members alike has their hands out while at the same time yelling to anyone who would listen how the stimulus did not create any jobs.  They did so while using such stimulus money to do what….create jobs in their districts and states.  One of its own called out the Republicans on its blatant hypocrisy yesterday.  Yes, the Rupert Murdoch owned conservative with a capital C Wall Street Journal listed some of the most egregious Republican offenders who have been begging for stimulus money while bashing it all over the airwaves.

More than a dozen Republican lawmakers supported stimulus-funding requests submitted to the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Forest Service, in letters obtained by The Wall Street Journal through the Freedom of Information Act.

First up, Congressman Paul “wasteful spending spree” Ryan of Illinois:

Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who called the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree” that “misses the mark on all counts,” wrote to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in October in support of a grant application from a group in his district which, he said, “intends to place 1,000 workers in green jobs.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan said the congressman felt it was his job to provide “the basic constituent service of lending his assistance for federal grant requests.”

Second, Representatives Sue Myrick (NC) and Jean Schmidt (OH):

Republican Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina and Jean Schmidt of Ohio sent letters in October asking for consideration of funding requests from local organizations training workers for energy-efficiency projects.

In November, Ms. Schmidt said in a statement, “It is time to recall the stimulus funds that have not been spent before the Chinese start charging us interest.”

Aaahh Sen. Cornyn of Texas:

The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas. The letter said that the Port of Houston Authority “has informed me of the positive impact this grant will have in the region by serving as a foundation for PHA’s Clean Air Strategy Plan, creating jobs, and significantly reducing diesel emissions.” Houston received millions of dollars in diesel funding.

The agency also appeared to have received eight identical letters from Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah recommending infrastructure projects in his state, seven of which were sent before stimulus legislation was passed by Congress.

You can read the full list of GOP hypocrites here.  ThinkProgress has a much longer list here.  Where’s the tea party at?

In her latest column Kathleen Parker calls it as she sees it regardless of her political leanings.  With the craziness that has enveloped the GOP involving the “birther movement” and the “townhall terrors” Parker officially announces that “Southern Republicans, it seems, have seceded from sanity.”

The curious Republican campaign of 2008 may have galvanized a conservative Southern base — including many who were mostly concerned with the direction Democrats would take the country — but it also repelled others who simply bolted and ran the other way. Whatever legitimate concerns the GOP may historically have represented were suddenly overshadowed by a sense of a resurgent Old South and all the attendant pathologies of festering hate and fear.

What the GOP is experiencing now, one hopes, are the death throes of that 50-year spell that Johnson foretold. But before the party of the Great Emancipator can rise again, Republicans will have to face their inner Voinovich and drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie.

While Republicans like Sen. Jim (“If we can stop him on this, [Health care ]will be [Obama's] Waterloo.  It will break him“) Demint of South Carolina are attempting to use health care reform to score political points against the President. One prominent Republican is looking out for her constituents and the nation as a whole by standing up for what is right.  Sen. Olympia Snowe said this past weekend that she will support a public option that is available on day one.  This is important because Sen. Snowe is a key member of the Senate Finance Committee which is one of the committees that have jurisdiction over the proposed health care bill.  The following statement was released by Sen. Snowe this past weekend:

Congress must implement long overdue insurance market reforms such as the guaranteed issue of a policy for every American and no refusal or adverse pricing of policies on the basis of health status or gender. We also must insure that those plans include a very strong benefit package, from preventative services to comprehensive medical benefits. And offering extra assistance to families who need help in affording a plan must be part and parcel of any legislation.

I believe that the reforms we are creating will result in more competitive, affordable and innovative options for Mainers, yet we can all agree that we must not leave universal access to chance. That is why I also support a public plan which must be available from day one.

So I urge all of you here today to join me in partnership to secure for our nation that which every other developed nation already embraces, the provision of health security for all of its citizens. The time has long come, and I promise you I will continue to work to move heaven and earth to make it happen.

According to the Citizens For Tax Justice, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and advocacy organization, the budget plan proposed by House Republicans far exceeds the spend proposed by the President’s budget.  CTJ compared the two plans and the GOP didn’t fair too well.  After a week of criticising the president for the amount required under his plan, it turns out that the GOP’s plan spends significantly more, $300 billion more.  The GOP does hypocrisy so well.  Below are the highlights of the GOP plan that House Republicans will announce on the steps of the Capitol today.

• Over a fourth of taxpayers, mostly low-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the President’s plan

• The richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $100,000 less, on average, under the House GOP plan than they would under the President’s plan.

• The income tax proposals in the House GOP plan, which is presented as a fiscally responsible alternative to the President’s plan, would cost over $300 billion more than the Obama income tax cuts in 2011 alone

It is very easy for someone to say that a plan will not work and criticize it excessively.  It is much more difficult to offer sound alternative solutions in the light of such criticism.  Every time I hear the President speak I walk away feeling completely confident of our eventual recovery.  So I pull up my bootstraps and head out to do my part by using a small amount of purchasing power to help in the cause.  Just as I’m about to head for the door, I hear someone from the GOP screaming ‘oh my goodness…..the sky is falling….the sky is falling.’  So what do I do instead….I go out and buy an umbrella. 

The GOP has been all over the Sunday shows and the political spectrum shouting that the budget proposed by President Obama spends too much and will impose insurmountable debt on future generations.  Such an argument confuses the immediate priorities.  Who amongst us would forgo an opportunity to provide our starving child with food knowing that it will result in a larger credit card bill next month even if there was a possibility that the grocer may not accept credit and you may walk away empty handed.  In times of emergency all reasonably viable opportunities must be pursued.  Besides, give a child a fish and he/she will eat for a day. Teach a child to fish and he/she will eat for a lifetime. It is a much better proposition to sacrifice the funds now and clean up the ocean so that future generations can eat for a lifetime.

Unfortunately, the GOP have failed miserably at offering any plausible alternatives to the president’s budget that have not already been tried during the eight years of the Bush administration.  In spite of the fact that the GOP has all of a sudden got fiscal religion, lets revisit history for a moment in terms of its fiscal track record.  The budget was balanced for the first time in 30 years under President Bill Clinton.  That means that the four Republican presidents preceding Clinton (Reagan, Bush 41, Nixon, Ford) and the single democratic president (Carter) could not balance the budget.  Lets also remember that President Bush and a republican controlled Congress entered office with a 86.4 billion dollar surplus.  President Bush, with the help of a GOP controlled Congress six out of his eight years in office, left the presidency and the country with a staggering $638 billion dollar deficit.  One wonders if on the Titanic the GOP were the ones bailing water into the ship. Needless to say, the Republican party has absolutely no credibility when it comes to debt left to future generations or fiscal discipline in general.

The President proposes that the best way to bring down our deficit is to have a budget that leads to broad economic growth. It also makes sense that the president’s budget is inseparable from our economic recovery because it lays the necessary foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity.  The administration plans to create a new foundation for the economy by creating a new health care system, new energy technology, and achieving great progress in education so that it will enable us to become a much stronger competitor in the global economy.  There is an enormous need to counter the incredible drop in demand currently plaguing the nation and pull us out of this crisis.  The only sector with money to do so is the government.  That means that the government is the liquidity source of last resort right now. It must spend to stimulate demand and prevent us from sinking into a depression. As a matter of fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan body, says that the adoption of the Reinvestment and Recovery Act will help to end the recession by fall of this year. 

We must make the necessary investments in education, health care, and renewable energy infrastructure now in order to equip future generations for future and sustained prosperity.  So instead of just putting a band-aid on the broken economy this administration has opted to confront it, operate, and heal it.  The biggest drain on future funds is health care.  More specifically, Medicare and Medicaid.  Therefore, investing in an information technology system to make the health care industry more efficient will also contribute significantly to decreasing our deficit. Now that all the relevant players in the health care industry now recognize that the industry must be reformed including the majority of the GOP, twelve years later, but at least they are on board now, now in the time to do it.  We must face the fact that we as a people must make a tectonic shift in how we move throughout or day to day lives.  During this challenging time it will be inconvenient and we will have to make sacrifices now in order to secure a prosperous future.

Other obstructionist arguments offered by the GOP.

 The GOP argues that the small businesses will be hurt most by a tax increase on Americans making over $250,000 a year.

According to Politifact, a small business would have to ”make” $250,000 in net profit after deducting all his expenses (employees pay, supplies, and other legitimate business expenses) to be subject to the tax increase.  The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that only two percent of small businesses will be subject to the tax increase.  Which means that 98 percent will more than likely receive a tax cut.

Charities will lose by a decrease in the deductions allowed for charitable giving by the wealthy.  There will be a cap on such deductions for those earning $250,000 or more a year.

The best way to encourage and enable charitable giving is to have a flourishing economy. When the economy is booming people are much more charitable. In addition, a significant amount of charitable giving comes from low income people through religious institutions etc.

Requires a Cap and Trade or energy tax on all Americans.  

The cap and trade plan is designed to reduce green house emissions and address climate change in addition to investing in necessary infrastructure building. Further, building such infrastructure will enable us to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  The plan will also move toward providing us with alternative sources of energy and provide millions of green jobs in the process.  Not to mention that it will help us to become an energy producing rather than an energy consuming economy.  This part of the president’s budget is a necessary investment in our infrastructure, by way of updating the electric grid among other things, for the jobs of the future.  Our outdated electricity grid is costing the U.S. over $100 billion dollars a year.  It wastes twice as much energy as it did thirty years ago.  We need to update and modernize our energy grid.  The GOP has criticized this part of the budget by referring to it as an energy tax. Why you ask? Because the GOP is significantly dependent on oil company money and it is not in the interest of the oil industry for the U.S. to become less oil dependent.  Why you ask?  Because the cap and trade plan will result in consumers using less energy (driving less)which cuts into oil industry profits.

Repealing tax credits to the oil and gas industry that may result in putting the industry at a competitive disadvantage.

Exxon Mobil shatters U.S. records in January 2009 by reporting profits of 45.2 billion for 2008.   Nuff said.

Where is the GOP’s budget you ask? They don’t have one.

New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer has a message for GOP governors humming and hawing over whether that want to accept the funds from the Reinvestment and Recovery Act (stimulus).  Schumer, in a letter to Peter Orzag of the Office of Management and Budget, requests that that the governors of the states not be given the option to splice and dice the package because it would then diminish the stimulative effect of the package and its implementation.  Lousiana’s governor Jindal has indicated that he will accept some of the funds but will reject monies allocated for the unemployment trust fund (UTF).  Interesting position by Jindal considering that he accepted and advocated for the same federal funds allocated to the UTF for Katrina relief.  Not to mention that Lousiana has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country.  See Schumer’s letter to the Office of Management and Budget below.

Dear Director Orszag:

In recent days, a small minority of governors, mostly Republicans, have publicly weighed the possibility of foregoing certain emergency provisions provided under the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed last week by President Obama. I believe this prospect not only would undercut the stimulative effect of the recovery package, but also is inconsistent with a key provision included in the law passed by Congress. To protect the integrity of the recovery program, I urge the administration to issue implementation guidance clarifying that while any Governor may exercise his or her discretion to accept or reject the federal funds provided in the stimulus, no Governor should have the authority to arbitrarily adopt a select subset of the overall package.

As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation. It would also undermine the overall success of the bill, as the components most singled out for criticism by these governors are among the most productive measures in terms of stimulating the economy.

For instance, at least two governors have proposed rejecting a program to expand unemployment insurance for laid-off workers. Economists consistently rank unemployment insurance among the most efficient and cost-effective fiscal stimulus measures; by one frequently cited estimate, it provides an economic return of as high as $1.73 for every dollar invested. Thus, by denying this provision for their residents, these governors are not just depriving some of the neediest Americans of relief in a dire economy; they are undermining the overall stimulative impact of the package.

No one would dispute that these governors should be given the choice as to whether to accept the funds or not. But it should not be multiple choice. The composition of the package was rightly dictated by economic considerations; we should not let the implementation of the package be dictated by political considerations.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer

United States Senator

In spite of President Obama’s very public overtures towards bipartisanship the GOP is still towing the party hard line.  Not one single Republican in the House voted for President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Below is a list of all the Republican House members and a few democrats who did not vote for the plan.  If you believe that your Congressman should vote for this Act call him up and make your wishes know.  The only way to change Washington and get rid of the party bickering is to call or write to the people in Congress and tell them what you want them to do.  We as the constituents have a lot of power lets use it.  Remember it is up to us to make the change by forcing our leaders to listen and represent our interest in Washington.  Call your Congress member.  The Republican member names are all italicized.  The area code for all the numbers is #202

Sen Barack Obama is leading Sen. John McCain 49-47 in North Carolina according to latest Rasmussen polls.  Why is this significant?  Well Rasmussen is owned by Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen.  Notice how they always conduct their polls in cahoots with Fox News.  That’s why.  Not really legitimate in terms of pollsters.  So the fact that they have Sen. Obama ahead by 2 points in the traditionally red state of North Carolina is very significant.  Last week McCain was ahead by 3 points according to Rasmussen.  Rasmussen is the last of the McCain arsenal, if they can’t even distort there surveys so McCain comes out on top, it is a scary situation for Sen. McCain.   This is the first time in eight Rasmussen polls that Obama has ever had the edge over McCain in North Carolina.  Link

McCain, the voters are paying attention.

Currently, as this Republican president is about to leave office, our country is 9.7 trillion dollars in debt, the unemployment rate is 6.1%, we have a $357 billion dollar budget deficit, and gas is $4 a gallon.  We are also on our way to a fifty year high deficit.  Eight years ago, when President Bill Clinton, a democrat left the office, we had a 4.2 unemployment rate, $281 billion dollar budget surplus, we were only 5.7 trillion dollars in debt, and gas was $1.46  a gallon.  In addition, last month alone America lost 84,000 jobs.  McCain, in his attempt to re-brand himself,  claims that the Republicans have lost their way.  This is a proven falsehood, the last six Republican Presidents have been fiscal spendthrifts.

In 1981 the gross national debt, compared to the nation’s annual income, reached its lowest point since 1931. Despite his claim to hate the debt, Reagan instituted unprecedented peacetime deficit spending.  This is not partisan politics, this is straight off the White House web site.   Bush II repeated Reagan’s performance and turned the debt upward again. Bush II’s own Office of Management and Budget provides all the data.  See graphs and facts here 

As to the question….are you better off today than you were 8 years ago?  When Bill Clinton left office eight years ago, we had a budget surplus and the economy was thriving.  Things have turned abyssmal during the Bush administration.  Further objective evidence is that by every economic performance metric, except one, democratic presidents have out-performed republican presidents.  In the last fifty years, the democrats have done much better in terms of economic growth, reducing the deficit, and strengthening the middle and working class than republicans.  Therefore, logic dictates that if as a voter you are really interested in turning around this sinking economy and putting more money in your pocket, it is the democratic party that has the track record of doing just that. History further demonstrates that the republican claim that it is the party of fiscal conservatism is a myth.  No President has been more proof of such myth than George W Bush.  And, given the fact that the majority of the McCain campaign staff have made a beeline from Bush to McCain there is no CHANGE in sight if McCain has his way.  On NPR’s All Things Considered in April this year McCain claimed:

“I can eliminate $100 billion of wasteful and earmark spending immediately–35 billion in big spending bills in the last two years, and another 65 billion that has already been made a permanent part of the budget.”

The problem is that the Office of Management and Budget only identified $16.9 billion total in appropriations bills for 2008.  “The figure includes such items as $4 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which could not be eliminated without halting hundreds of construction projects around the country. Another big chunk goes to military construction, including housing for servicemen and their families, which McCain has also promised not to touch.”  Sooo…exactly how does McCain cut 35 billion dollars in spending from 16.9 billion?  Sounds like “voodoo economics.”  Just goes to further demonstrate that the Arizona senator just doesn’t get it.

Listen, the leaders and big-time players of McCain’s campaign staff  were hired directly from the Bush unemployment line.  There is absolutely no chance that a McCain administration will be any different than Bush.  More fiscal irresponsibility and no accountability.  Especially if McCain gets away with dressing the emperor in new clothes and claiming he’s a different emperor.  Even Karl Rove now admits that he gives strategy advice to the McCain campaign.  Bush-McCain are exactly the same.  Please pay attention to history.  It clearly shows that the McCain and republican claim of  owning fiscal conservatism is imaginary.  History is our best guide as to which party is best equipped to get us out of this mess and history shows that that party is the democratic party.  Think about it folks, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  Don’t be distracted by the lipstick………vote your interest and your pocketbook

Larry Bartles of Princeton University

My examination of the partisan politics of economic in equality…….reveals that Democratic and Republican presidents over the past half-century have presided over dramatically different patterns of income growth. On average, the real incomes of middle- class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans. These substantial partisan differences persist even after allowing for differences in economic circumstances and historical trends beyond the control of individual presidents. They suggest that escalating in equality is not simply an inevitable economic trend— and that a great deal of economic in equality in the contemporary United States is specifically attributable to the policies and priorities of Republican presidents.

Any satisfactory account of the American political economy must therefore explain how and why Republicans have had so much success in the American electoral arena despite their startling negative impact on the economic fortunes of middle- class and poor people. Thus, in chapter 3, I examine contemporary class politics and partisan change, testing the popular belief that the white working class has been lured into the Republican ranks by hot-button social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Contrary to this familiar story, I find that low- income whites have actually become more Democratic in their presidential voting behavior over the past half-century, partially counterbalancing Republican gains among more affluent white voters. Moreover, low- income white voters continue to attach less weight to social issues than to economic issues—and they attach less weight to social issues than more affluent white voters do. The familiar image of a party system transformed by Republican gains among working- class cultural conservatives turns out to be largely mythical.

Republican, Ed Koch has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for President today.  When asked why, Koch said  “[McCain's] designation of Palin as vice president.”  Koch said that he was shocked at the report about Palin banning books at the local library.  Koch went further to say.

“Any time someone goes to the library and says, ‘I want to ban books,’ and the librarian says ‘no,’ and she threatens to fire them — that’s scary,” he said. 

In Koch’s endorsement of Sen. Obama he wrote “the issue for me is who will best protect and defend America”

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.

This is just common sense.  Who cares if Palin is a woman, are we going to jeopardize the security of our country just to elect a female as president? 

Sen. McCain said last night that he too will bring change to Washington DC.  Yet the same McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time AND laid out an economic plan last night that is almost exactly the same as the economic policy of George W. Bush.  Perhaps someone should define change to Sen. McCain.  Simply entering office with a female version of Dick Cheney does not mean that your ticket represents change.  It means that it’s Bush style politics dressed in heels and a military cloak.  Guess what….George W. Bush also was a governor of a state outside of Washington DC.  Sen. McCain has been in the senate for 26 years!  After election day, with the amount of Rove and Bush cronies that are running McCain’s campaign, the Arizona senator will owe a slew of favors to lobbyists, special interests (oil companies), etc..  McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, is already involved in her second “abuse of power” investigation in only a very short political career.  If this is not a red flag indicating a Bush-Cheney style of leadership, I don’t know what is. 

In addition, Palin was an unnecessary, reckless, and impulsive political risk by McCain in a blatant political  pander to his far right conservative base.  The choice of Palin was also an arrogant, dirisive, and gratuitous risk.  There are so many female GOP candidates that would have shook up the race in terms of making history, but McCain, without conducting a proper vet, chose someone that neither he nor his campaign knew much about.  By the way, for those who say that McCain is the safer choice, McCain’s history of taking many of these types of unnecessary risks speaks against that conclusion.  As a pilot, McCain was involved in at least three crashes that may have been avoided had he bothered to read his flight manuals.  This seems like a person that not only takes unnecessary risks with his own life but risks the lives of others in the process.  How does anyone get into an airplane and wing it knowing the devastation that crashing could bring to others on the ground and in the air?  Perhaps when I was a teenager such a candidate would  have been appealing….you know……..when most of us had no sense of our own mortality.  However, as an adult member of the electorate, I am not looking for a rebel rouser making decisions regarding peace and war in the White House.  Especially a rebel rouser who has a reputation for being a war monger.  We had that with the shadow presidency of Dick Cheney.  It really takes balls to go into the White House and take a country to war based on your own personal agenda.  After the last eight years, we need a safe and steady hand on the tiller.

So, regardless of how “maverick” McCain claims that he will shake up or bring change to Washington,  it may be more of a credible argument if his party were not the party currently in power and he had not voted with Bush 90% of the time during Bush’s tenure in office and 95% of the time in this last year.  It is McCain’s policies that will be implemented in his administration, and McCain’s policy proposals are very, very, similar to the policies of the Bush-Cheney administration, especially when it comes to the economy and foreign policy.  Unfortunately for McCain, CHANGE is much more than a banner.

Governor Sarah Palin gave a speech last night laced with sarcasm and mocking rhetoric directed at Senator Obama and his wife Michelle.  While Sen. Biden’s speech appealed to the best part of us, Gov. Palin’ speech appealed to the worst part of us.  Still keeping in mind that this race is about John McCain and his judgment because he is the person to whom the buck would stop (one 15-minute VP interview), we feel the need to devote at least one post to Gov. Palin’s speech.  Palin’s speech had the Cheney style smugness that is the hallmark of the current administration.  It wasn’t a surprise when we found out that Dubya’s speechwriter crafted the speech. One wonders how  she will do on her own without the strategists and speechwriters.  If she is the new light of the right…..then put her out there.  There are questionable reports that the teleprompter may have broken during Palin’s speech last night….okay, so Palin can actually memorize a speech after practicing for several days.  What skill!  Anyone who thinks that any part of that speech last night was not scripted is either smoking something or thinks the rest of us are smoking something.  During the day yesterday the McCain campaign portrayed Palin as a victim of sexism, yet as the camera panned the auditorium last night  we saw buttons like ” we have the hottest VP”  and “hot chick.”  The hypocrisy is palatable.  Also, Palin did a good job of not mentioning her extremist views regarding abortion (no abortions even in cases of rape or incest), global warming ( not man made), etc..  The Alaskan governor failed to mention that after being in office for less than 20 months she is already the subject of an ethics investigation.  In addition, she failed to mention that she raised taxes as governor, she coveted pork-barrel projects as mayor, she attempted to ban books at the local library, and she believes the war in Iraq is “a task from God.  Palin also told a number of lies in her speech last night but because she gave a good delivery to the GOP audience the media is spinning it as brilliant. Now it’s time to look at her speech without the beer goggles.  There were gross mischaracterizations of her own history as well as that of Sen. Obama’s.  She said that she told Congress “thanks but no thanks” to the “bridge to nowhere” when she lobbied for and received millions in earmarks ($223 million “bridge to nowhere” funds to be exact).  Also, the “bridge” led to a town of about 50 residents…….that works out to be about 4.5 million per resident…..very fiscally responsible with our tax dollars.  Not to mention that she was for the “bridge to nowhere” before it became politically unpopular in Alaska and then she was against it.  So tell me, how much do you trust someone who in their first national speech to a national audience looks straight into the camera and tells easily refutable lies.  Brazingly, unapolagetically lied in an effort to dupe the public.  That takes balls.  Do you trust that this person will do anything that she promises?  Isn’t that exactly what George Bush and Bill Cheney did when selling the war in Iraq, etc..  Palin described how she had actual responsibilities as mayor and mocked Sen. Obama’s experience as a community organizer even though as a community organizer Sen. Obama was able to get laid off steel workers jobs that had been shipped overseas among his many other accomplishments during that time.  Palin exact quote was the following:  

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.

Yes Gov. Palin, as a “small-town” mayor you did have responsibilities.  You had the responsibility not to leave your town that boasted a surplus as you entered office but a $20 million deficit as you left.  This is a town with a $6 million dollar budget and 53 employees.  I guess Palin’s motto is spend, spend, spend.  Like the current Bush, Palin’s overconfidence overshadows her incompetence.

Palin also asserted:

“There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate.”

Well Gov. Palin, Sen. Obama worked with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana ”to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year.”  Sen. Obama also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.  I will not even go into Sen. Biden’s record.   Exactly what legislation have you written……you didn’t mention that last night.

Further, is the McCain/Palin ticket really taunting itself as change when it is the party currently in office and is responsible for the majority of the problems that our country is mired in. Why are you telling us how bad the opponent is without telling us what your plan is?  There was nothing about how you will be able to improve the lives of the average American.

Sarcasm is not an effective negotiating tool when you’re facing a crisis in Georgia or the Middle East.  Sarcasm is not an effective tool in a sinking economy.  In other words, lots of zingers mixed with sarcasm does not a competent leader make.  Oh…by the way….Sen. Palin….you received 1500 votes to become mayor of Wasilla, Sen Biden received almost 80,000 votes during the primary.

Well it appears that the the GOP refuses to let anything stand in the way of their need to party.  Several lobbyists threw parties that GOP politicians attended in light of the anticipated devastation that hurricane Gustav threatened to provide to an American city. One party goer pretty much said tough luck.

Senator John McCain has chosen and unknown, untested, trophy candidate as his vice presidential nominee.  Does anyone really think that Gov. Sarah Palin really is prepared to lead this county in the event of of a national security emergency.  One out of three vice presidents has had to act as president during their tenure.  For those who think that this will not happen in light of McCain’s status as a 72 year-old, four-time cancer survivor, they are deluding themselves. 

For those of you who are comparing Obama to Palin, Sen. Obama has a track record of being right on several of the most important foreign policy decision of this decade.  The Illinois senator has proven that he has the judgment and temperament to be president.  First, Sen. Obama spoke out against the Iraq War, Sen. Obama pushed for a timetable for Iraq (we now have a timetable), Sen. Obama pushed to keep Pakistan in the dark as to our strategy for taking out key members of Al Queda on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border (after doing which we took out a key member of Al Qaeda), Sen. Obama said we should talk to our enemies.  President Bush spoke with North Korea, after Obama had been saying to do so for a year, afterwards North Korea agrees to begin dismanteling its nukes. The Bush administration is now talking to Iran. Not to mention that Sen. Obama has run a 50-state campaign against a formidable candidate and won.  Lastly, Sen. Obama proved himself to the American people, and as a result, the AMERICAN people in their vote of confidence, voted him into his current position as the democratic nominee.  Sen. McCain  put Palin in her position and he hasn’t proven to the American people that we can trust his judgment on anything, let alone choosing a neophyte to become a heartbeat away from the presidency.  This is a irrational and desperate decision that was made by McCain after meeting with the Alaskan governor once….ONCE, before making her the offer to become his running mate.  

Scary Fact: Governor Palin was asked the following question in 2006 about the Pledge of Allegiance:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance

Slight problem, the Pledge of Allegience was not written until 1892, 56 years after the death of the last founding father.  Thus the founding fathers never knew of or said the Pledge of Allegiance.  The Pledge of Allegiance was not made the official Pledge until 1942, six years after Sen. John McCain was born.  Further, Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party.  The AIP has since the 1970s been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can SECEDE from the United States.  Are you kidding me?  The motto of AIP is instead of “Country First,” is “Alaskans First, Alaskans Always.”  So she does not know the history of the U.S. and was a member of a group that does not want Alaska to be part of the United States.  Do you think that the McCain campaign could have found out this information if they had bothered to properly vet Palin before choosing her as the VP candidate?  Judgment.  This is the person to whom Sen. McCain would like to entrust the safety and security of the American people. 

Apparently, McCain also does not have confidence in the abilities of his running mate because the campaign has relegated her to fund raising for down ticket candidates.  The McCain campaign said that 80% of Palin’s time will be spent fundraising for donations that the McCain campaign cannot spend after today because the Arizona senator opted for $87 million in public financing.  If Palin is such a great choice and has energized the republican base, why not put her out on the trail as much as possible in order to secure votes?  Why…because Palin is a trophy candidate.

The McCain campaign sites as Palin’s foreign policy experience, the fact that she has a son going to Iraq and the fact that Alaska is close to Russia!  Are you kidding me!!!  McCain’s veep choice decision comes off as rash and erratic.  How else do you explain risking the security of the country in the hands of a governor of a state that boast a population of 685,000?  San Jose, California has a larger population than the whole state of Alaska.  Does that mean that the mayor of San Jose is ready to be president?  Just the city of Chicago is four times the size of the state of Alaska. As for her mayoral experience of presiding over Wasilla, population at the time, about 5000, there are high schools that have more students than Wasilla has residents.  There are a significant number of republican female governors and senators who are at least qualified and many significantly more qualified than Palin.  There are republican female political figures who would have been much more sensible and practical choices for McCain if the Arizona senator had put country first as he claims he will always do.  This is not a “maverick” decision, it is an arbitrary and erratic one, made for obvious political reasons. 

Choosing their running mate is the first presidential decision that each of these candidates had to make. We the voters were able to witness the decision making process of the candidates.  Do they take the time to think through the implications of the decision to the country?  Do they think that if something happens to me, I trust this person to lead the country? Or, do they think, I want to win regardless?  Or, I choose this person because she looks good on the ticket (shock value), regardless of whether she is capable of leading the country?  Is the vice president decision a reasoned decision or a reckless and impulsive one solely for political gains?  You decide.  Another interesting tidbit,  the McCain campain has only as recent as this week sent attorneys to Alaska to more deeply vet Governor Palin.  Shouldn’t this have been done before choosing Gov. Palin for the second most powerful job in the free world.  Judgment.   Sen. Obama took the time and effort to put all of the potential veeps through a vigorous vetting process.  Sen. McCain met with Palin once…..once for 15 minutes, and is only now, after announcing his choice, is deeply vetting the Alaskan governor.  There is a difference between maverick and reckless.  Choosing a neophyte running mate based on one 15 minute meeting leans more towards reckless than maverick. 

This is characteristic of McCain’s methodology when it comes to making decisions. In the Naval Academy, McCain has said that he came very close to flunking out and ended up barely graduating fifth from the bottom of his class, 894 out of 899.   Many of McCain’s long time friends have said of the Arizona senator “if you didn’t want to live on the edge, then don’t hang around with John McCain.”  Living on the edge is one of McCain’s trademarks, boasting actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean as his heroes.  It’s very interesting how reminiscent his current attitude is in comparison to his attitude as a young adult.  Sen. McCain has himself revealed that during his aviator training that he chose recreational reading “at the expense of learning my flight procedures which I probably should have given a higher priority to” and could not remember how to eject after his plane crashed.  Such antics resulted in a couple of near death experiences for McCain.  Okay, so instead of learning the rules and mechanics of flying a plane in flight school he decided to get in the plane and wing it?   Is this really the safe choice for America in terms of its Commander-in-Chief?  Are Americans actually comfortable with someone who is so easily willing to play chicken when it comes to life and death.  Some may define this as a maverick quality…..this writer defines it as unnecessary risk taking and reckless behavior.  So for those of you who are conned into buying the maverick meme being pandered by the McCain campaign and the main stream media,  I say that this is an erratic, impulsive, and irresponsible decision by someone who proclaims to put country first.

Whose judgment do you trust? 

First, I would like to thank Sen. John McCain for his sacrifice and service to our nation.  He deserves our utmost respect for what he endured and his defense of country.  However, the candidates for President of the United States also deserve our utmost scrutiny before receiving a single vote for the nation’s highest office.  Especially with respect to leadership style and methodology.  Recently, I published a post  listing Sen. McCain’s various approaches to difficult political and personal issues.  As previously stated, I believe that this information is vital in determining whether the Arizona senator should be the next President of the United States.  I have come across additional information profiling the McCain method of dealing with a challenging political issue he faced in his home state of Arizona.  Because McCain is not this writer’s senator, I find illuminating the opinions of the people who know him best.  His fellow Arizona republicans.  This is from the people who have a birds-eye view of how McCain leads.  The leadership of the Arizona GOP have very strong opinions about Sen. McCain and his ability, or inability, to lead.  They are also very dissatisfied with his conservatism.  According to Max Blumenthal of the Nation, Bob Haney, the Republican state committee chairman in Arizona’s 11th District, had this to say:

“People would be calling in to [state committee] headquarters every week, absolutely enraged, threatening to leave the party because of some comments McCain made,’ Haney told me. ‘The guy has no core, his only principle is winning the presidency. He likes to call his campaign the ‘straight talk express.’   Well, down here we call it the ‘forked tongue express.’”. .

Dissatisfied with McCain’s commitment to the state, Haney introduced a resolution to censure the U.S. Senator for “dereliction of his duties and responsibilities as a representative of the citizens of Arizona.”  The resolution was introduced before Arizona’s largest GOP county committee and passed by almost unanimous vote.  That was the wrong move as far as McCain was concerned.  Rather then let stand what was viewed by most as a mere symbolic gesture, McCain wanted revenge.  Target:  Bob Haney and his allies.  McCain recruited a  candidate slate to oust Haney and his allies in that November’s state committee election.  Concerned about a loss and potential rebuke by his party, the Arizona senator put himself on the ballot in effort to makeover his image and increase his odds of winning this battle.  Both McCain and his slate suffered a resounding lost.  Arizona republicans gave their take on McCain’s handling of the situation.

Per Blumenthal: “McCain’s botched revenge has solidified his reputation in Arizona’s Republican circles as a divisive, untrustworthy and even dangerous figure. Haney hopes the general public meets this side of McCain before his penchant for angry reprisals is invested with the powers of the presidency. ‘This just shows that McCain is mentally unstable and out of control and vindictive,’ Haney told me. ‘If he is determined to go through that much trouble to attack a district committee chairman, what does that say about his ability to handle real political problems?”

Yes, what does that say indeed.  Is this the way McCain will handle America’s allies and enemies if they happen to anger him?  Will diplomacy or military might be the first line of defense in a McCain administration?  There are too many instances such as this that raise questions as to his ability to handle, not to mention effectively handle, the litany of challenges facing our nation.  In the Senate, checks and balances on each Senator’s power make it difficult for an individual senator to make a catastrophic blunder.  Not so in the Executive Office.  One word…Iraq.

As a voter, this writer is much more concerned that this person has a fifty percent chance of becoming the next President of the United States.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Obama gave one of the best quotes to date from a democratic presidential hopeful concerning how he will react to the swiftboat attacks of the republican right and its 527 groups.  Per the New York Times:

It was not all about pop culture. When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have “cowered” in the past, Mr. Obama replied, “Yeah, I don’t do cowering.”

Yea baby…we don’t do cowering.  That is exactly the attitude that democrats need to exhibit toward the misleading, unfounded, right wing attacks of yesteryear. 

John McCain was all for talking with Hamas two years ago before he started running for president.  Now the Arizona senator has flip flopped on the double-talk express.  A pattern is developing here.  This was written in response to McCain’s outrageous statement yesterday in support of President Bush’s outrageous and unprecedented comments regarding “appeasement” that Bush made about Sen. Obama on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence.  Bush also violated 60 years of uninterrupted american foreign policy in that you do not criticize american foreign policy on foreign soil.  See interview with James Rubin:

RUBIN: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCAIN: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

After receiving over 1000 entries and over 5 million votes from its members, Moveon.org finally decided on a winner for its contest soliciting its members to come up with an ad for Barack Obama, the presidential candidate recently endorsed by the organization.

It is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain.  Recently Sen. Clinton has said that she would “totally obliterate” Iran if they attacked Israel (sounds very Bush-like).  Clinton has also recently adopted McCain’s gas tax holiday plan despite unanimous criticism from industry experts.  The campaign strategies of the Clinton campaign are being praised by prominent republican operatives as top notch.  So my question is….why do democrats want a republican want-a-be when they can have the real mccoy with John McCain?  Clinton has been pulling an unusual amount of right wing republican support recently.  Between Rush Limbaugh and Richard Scaife backing her nomination and Limbaugh specifically urging all of those blue-collar conservatives to cross-over and vote for Clinton, Clinton has built a real partnership with the conservative right wing of the republican party.  It seems that Clinton is running on the wrong ticket.  Now for some “straight talk,”  does Clinton really believe that those blue-collar primary votes will follow her to the general election when Rush Limbaugh, Richard Scaife, Bill OReilly, Joe Scarborough, and Fox News are campaigning against her.  Because the democrats have not won the working class vote since Carter was in office, what makes Clinton think that they will be motivated to vote for her in the primary.  Sen. Clinton will not be able to exploit and prey upon the racial differences between her and McCain the way she has with Obama.  No more benefitting from and encouraging hate and racial divisiveness in order to win.  I fear a candidate who encourages the worst part of us as a people as an essential part of their political strategy.  How are such tactics any better than those of Rush Limbaugh or David Duke?  This writer predicts that those voters voting for Clinton simply because Obama is African-American will not have the passion and motivation of racism to pull them to the polls in a general election against McCain.  Clinton will then have to address the miriad of baggage related to issues involving her and her husband.  Just recently it was learned that Sen. Clinton did not report $24 million dollars of income earned by Bill Clinton on her tax returns.  There has not been any explanation from the Clinton campaign as to why.  Somehow I fear that such development is merely the tip of the iceberg.  In a general election Clinton will have lost all of those Limbaugh, OReilly, and Fox News voters who are voting for Clinton in the democratic open primaries just to cause mischief for the democratic party.  It is because of the Limbaugh voters that Clinton won the primary portion of the Texas primacaucus against Barack Obama.  Side point:  I cannot believe that these Limbaugh voters are actually risking jail time in Indiana (may be a felony) to follow through with Limbaugh’s intructions….maybe Limbaugh will be nice enough to serve their jail time if their caught.  Okay back on topic.  Most objective commentators will tell you that a Hillary Clinton general election will galvanize and unify the far right wing of the conservative party behind McCain.  So now you have the far right with significant motivation to go out and vote against Hillary Clinton in the fall.  Clinton’s coalition then becomes a mix of older democrats (if they decide to go with her over McCain), and babyboomer women.  Absent certain general election conditions, an african-american candidate, lack of a true republican candidate,  Clinton’s alleged coalition appears to be weak and fleeting in a general election.  The two groups that Clinton may be able to count on does not exactly represent the will of the majority.  Sounds like a winning Clinton ticket.

McCain allegedly told the North Carolina republican party not to run attack ads raising the Wright issue.  North Carolina Republican Party response…….not so much.  Sen. McCain, are you not the leader of the Republican Party?  If you can’t control your own party, what kind of leader are you, or more importantly, will you be?  John McCain and the Republican National Committee supposedly expressed outrage along with submitting a plea to the local GOP not to run the ad.  wink…nudge.   Flashback:  When a similar attack ad was run against Harold Ford during his U.S. Senate run in Tennessee, there was also mock outrage from the RNC and from the then republican nominee (now U.S. Senator).  Yet, the ad continued running…….now, Ford is a pundit for MSNBC.  Lucky for Obama, it does not seem that the Wright issue is hurting him like the Playboy issue hurt former Congressman Ford.  The problem that this writer has with the North Carolina situation is that McCain has played this both ways.  The Arizona Senator plays the good cop and gets credit for taking the high road by telling the local North Carolina RNC not to run the ad.  He also wins on the low road because the ad runs and possibly dings the Obama campaign after which McCain benefits.  Somehow, I think this ad will not be going away any time soon.  Even if the ad is not run in North Carolina, the main stream media has ran it 150, 000 times, accomplishing exactly what the GOP wanted to accomplish.  This is despite McCain’s continued, hmhmm…..protestations.  Something else interesting about rejecting and denouncing this ad.  When Hillary Clinton was asked to comment?…….crickets, crickets, crickets.  There has been silence from the Clinton campaign. As a matter of fact, Hillary Clinton has refused to comment on the GOP attack ad at all.  If this had come out against Clinton and Obama had refused to comment, Clinton would have been on every news outlet asking why the silence?  Word to Obama….I don’t know if a knife in a gun fight is your best weapon. 

Well here we are……Michigan and Florida as states of confusion within the Democratic Party.  The Clinton campaign, Michigan governor and Clinton supporter Jennifer Granholm, republican governor of Florida who is a staunch supporter of John McCain and serious contender for the VP spot on the McCain ticket,  Bill Crist,  and Clinton supporter Bill Nelson, are all pushing for Florida and Michigan to be seated at the convention in Denver.  As mentioned in earlier writing, a decision as to how to deal with this issue should have been released long ago.  Further, there is no way that Michigan and Florida can be seated without it being patently unfair not only to the Obama campaign but to all the voters of other states that worked within the rules of the DNC.  Regarding Michigan, Clinton’s name was the only one on the ballot and there is no way that anyone can legitimately argue that it was a fair race, end of story.  As for Florida, millions of voters did not vote and thereby will be disenfranchised because they were informed by the DNC, and the state government, that their vote will not count.  Therefore, the Florida result does not represent the will of all the citizens of Florida.  To seat Florida according to the primary that was held in January would be patently unfair to citizens who did not vote based on incorrect information.  How can anyone argue that it would be fair?  How is that the democratic process?  This is not a situation were voters made an informed decision and decided not to vote. If Florida is seated, the voters of Florida were essentially lied to, the voters relied on that lie when they did not show up at the polls and will be severely damaged as a result.  Last I heard we are suppose to trust that our government will not punish us for listening to the rules and making decisions based on such rules.  Howard Dean said yesterday that the rules will not be changed in the middle of the game.  The DNC Chairman went on to say that to change the rules in the middle of the game would not be fair to either candidate.  Further, Dean said that the candidates agreed to or were aware of the rules with respect to Michigan and Florida before each of them began their run for the presidency. Dean concluded by saying that if Michigan and Florida wants to be seated at the convention in Denver, both states will have to work within the rules that were in place at the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign.  What that means is that the states will either have to host another primary or appeal to the credentials committee at the Denver  Convention.   Dean also said that there is no way that Florida and Michigan can break the rules and then be rewarded by being given the power to decide this election.  I agree.  All the other states were aware of the rules and worked within them.  The official statement from DNC Chairman Howard Dean went as follows:

The rules, which were agreed to by the full DNC including representatives from Florida and Michigan over 18 months ago, allow for two options. First, either state can choose to resubmit a plan and run a process to select delegates to the convention [another primary or caucus]; second, they can wait until this summer and appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee, which determines and resolves any outstanding questions about the seating of delegates. We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time. The Democratic Nominee will be determined in accordance with party rules, and out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game.  “Through all the speculation, we should also remember the overwhelming enthusiasm and turnout that we have already seen, and respect the voters of the twelve states and territories who have yet to have their say. 

Most are estimating that the cost of hosting another primary will be $25 million dollars for each state.  The Florida and Michigan governors are pushing for the DNC to pay for new primaries.  So the republican governor, and John McCain supporter, Bill Crist would like the DNC to go into it’s war chest for the general election and fix a problem that such governor and the republican controlled legislature created.  I am quite sure that the Republican Party of Florida is an a back room chuckling hysterically at the pickle that they have put the democratic party in.  Whatever money the democratic party throws at the Florida and Michigan situation is money that cannot be used in the general election race against John McCain.  Because Florida and Michigan violated the rules, each state should be financially responsible for for hosting a re-do in its respective states.  I am sure that all the voters who have donated funds to the DNC from all over the “United States” are not interested in encouraging the temper-tantrum bad behavior of Michigan and Florida by financing a do-over. 

There is a question that should be answered with respect to recent results in the Ohio and Texas primaries.  Rush Limbaugh who broadcasts to a national audience urged his listeners in Ohio and Texas to influence the democratic primaries on March 4th by voting for Hillary Clinton.  Limbaugh’s motivation?  To drag out the democratic race and get Obama all “bloodied” up from Clinton attacks for the general election against John McCain.  Apparently, the Clinton campaign doesn’t care how it wins because Bill Clinton went on the Rush Limbaugh show (Bill Clinton on Rush Limbaugh?????) the day of the primaries in an effort to, what can only be interpreted as, encourage such strategy.  A little back story for those who have lived in Siberia during and since the Clinton administration.  Rush Limbaugh hates Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Limbaugh has done nothing but insult, rail, disparage, and spew vitriolic attacks against the Clintons since Bill Clinton was elected in 1992.  So the fact that Bill Clinton went on the radio show of his most vehement public enemy tells me that he endorses this republican manipulation. In Texas, it turns out that Obama did win the republican vote 53-46, however, of the conservative republicans who voted, Clinton won them 52-45 for the first time since Super Tuesday.  Republican turnout in the Texas and Ohio primaries was up overall by 3-5 points from previous open democratic primaries.  Not to mention that conservative republicans voting in the democratic primary was up by at least 7% from previous contests.  Side note: the conservative wing of the republican party sole mission is to keep the Clintons out of the White House, the Senate, and any other public office.  However, Clinton won an additional 16% of the conservative republicans voting in the Texas democratic primary who said that Obama is the most electable candidate.  Coinkydink? probably not.  One can conclude from such a contradiction that the 16% are voting for who would be the weakest candidate in the general election so that their candidate, John McCain, has the best chance of winning.  Considering that the Texas primary was won by Clinton with only a 2.8% margin, and republican turnout in the Texas primary was up from previous state contests by at least 3% and in some states as much as 5%, chances are that such tainted votes played a significant part in Clinton’s win in Texas, and to a lesser extent, Ohio.  I have said this before, the longer the democrats drag this out, the increased likelihood of mischief by the Republican Party thereby allowing the conservative right wing of that party to choose the democratic nominee rather than the choice being made by true affiliates of the party.   As mentioned in an earlier post, even republican governor and staunch John McCain supporter,  Bill Crist is trying to influence the choice of democratic nominee.  Those who think that a long drawn out fight is good for the Democratic Party should respond to the points in this post.  This is not the way to get more voters involved in the process especially if such process is ripe for and can so easily be manipulated thereby making all the voter enthusiasm, dedication, and commitment, moot.