Quotes

obama opted out of public campaign financing. mccain & conservatives should be happy! he's one less black man on public assistance

Wars are the clock ticking off the time of Israeli history: World War I; the "riots" of 1929 and 1936; World War II; the War of Independence, 1948; the Sinai Campaign, 1956; the Six Day War, 1967; the War of Attrition, 1969-1971; the Yom Kippur War, 1973; the Labanon War, 1982; the Gulf War, 1991. Not all these conflicts were equally significant in their cultural impact, and surely not in the same way, but together they create a ghastly rhythm in which every calm period is seen in Israel as a pause before future violence.

[Editor's Note: I would say this explains a great deal about Israel...and I would add that a similar statement could be made about Palestine]

"There are some things I keep sacred. My middle name. Who I sleep with. And what kind of hand moisturizer I use...If I was out to please 10-year-old girls and their 45-year-old mothers in Boise, Idaho, I could play the game and be nice and make my voice deeper. But I don’t see the point. I’m not alive for 10-year-old girls and their 45-year-old mothers in Boise, Idaho — or Colorado Springs, Colo."

Photo Credit : Thirty30Photography at Flickr.com

Obama sketched out a different theory of social change than the one Clinton had implied earlier in the evening. Instead of relying on a president who fights for those who feel invisible, Obama, in the climactic passage of his speech, described how change bubbles from the bottom-up: “And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world!”

For people raised on Jane Jacobs, who emphasized how a spontaneous dynamic order could emerge from thousands of individual decisions, this is a persuasive way of seeing the world. For young people who have grown up on Facebook, YouTube, open-source software and an array of decentralized networks, this is a compelling theory of how change happens.

Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.

But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.

Clinton had sounded like Old Politics, but Obama created a vision of New Politics. And the past several months have revolved around the choice he framed there that night. Some people are enthralled by the New Politics, and we see their vapors every day. Others think it is a mirage and a delusion. There’s only one politics, and, tragically, it’s the old kind, filled with conflict and bad choices.

Photo Credit : christedunn at Flickr.com

Clinton had to raise the stakes by raising the bar: It’s Tuesday or bust.

And along with victimhood, Clinton has finally found a powerful theme, the same theme that George W. Bush used at his convention and in his reelection campaign in 2004: Vote for me or die.

With her “3 a.m. phone call” ad, she is saying exactly what Bush said: I will protect you and your children, and the other guy will not.

Yes, there is irony in a Democrat trying to getting the nomination by adopting a Republican tactic, but, hey, you know what? It worked back then, and Clinton is betting it will work now.

The primaries are in a very true sense a practice run for the White House, and if you emerge with high marks, as Obama has, it's a pretty clear statement of the kind of government you would run. Obama has shown a steadiness in demeanor and message. Clinton has blown through $120 million dollars, and her persona is more confused than ever.

The most significant element of the coverage that has so rankled the Clinton campaign may be one that cannot responsibly be omitted: her recent win-loss record in nominating contests.

“My role model and mentor at The A.P. was Walter Mears, who recently retired, and he used to say that who wins is part of the story,” said Mike Glover, an Associated Press reporter, as he flew on Mrs. Clinton’s plane on Thursday from Hanging Rock, Ohio, to Houston. “We’re covering a candidate who’s lost 11 straight primaries. They’re covering a candidate who has won 11 straight primaries.”

The much vaunted Clinton campaign operation, billed as the biggest, baddest game in town, had no post-Super Tuesday strategy because its leaders apparently didn't think one was needed. Whether that's due to arrogance or ignorance, it's the campaign equivalent of what President Bush did in invading Iraq without a post-Saddam plan.

What distinguished [Mr. McCain's] posse from Mr. Obama’s throng was not just its age but its demographic monotony: all white and nearly all male.

For Mr. McCain, this albatross may be harder to shake than George W. Bush and Iraq, particularly in a faceoff with Mr. Obama. When Mr. McCain jokingly invoked the Obama slogan “I am fired up and ready to go” in his speech Tuesday night, it was as cringe-inducing as the white covers of R & B songs in the 1950s — or Mitt Romney’s stab at communing with his inner hip-hop on Martin Luther King’s birthday. Trapped in an archaic black-and-white newsreel, the G.O.P. looks more like a nostalgic relic than a national political party in contemporary America. A cultural sea change has passed it by.

The quality of being genuine is hard to convey, and deciding who should be president based solely on that basis can lead to disaster; you need brains and an ability to go with the flow as well. But voters know a phony above all and Romney came off as one from the get-go. Over the last decade he had changed his views in a rightward direction on so many issues to suit what he thought he needed to win the GOP nomination that he ended up standing for nothing but his own ambition.

[...]

It's no accident that the GOP race is down to three men who are clear about who they are: McCain, Huckabee and, yes, Ron Paul.