Brilliant Politics

McClatchy reports that Obama will end up with more delegates than Clinton in Texas:

Barack Obama dominated Hillary Clinton over the weekend in round two of the state caucus process, leaving him poised to win more pledged national delegates from Texas despite narrowly losing the popular vote March 4.

The result won’t be official until the Democrats meet at their state party convention in June, but after Saturday’s district conventions, Obama seemed likely to come away from Texas with three to five more delegates than Clinton.

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar (D., Minnesota) endorsed Barck Obama today:

Obama “has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time,” Minnesota Senator Klobuchar said in a statement. She said that he speaks “with a different voice, bringing a new perspective and inspiring a real excitement from the American people.”

“My endorsement reflects both Barack’s strong support in my state and my own independent judgment about his abilities,” Klobuchar said.

-Doc Pierson

Overture Center, Madison, Wisconsin (Photo/Martin Saunders)

A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey.

President Bush is also the only Western leader I know of who doesn’t believe in evolution, saying “the jury is still out.” No word on whether he believes in little green men….

The dumbing-down of discourse has been particularly striking since the 1970s. Think of the devolution of the emblematic conservative voice from William Buckley to Bill O’Reilly. It’s enough to make one doubt Darwin.

-Nicholas Kristof, in his New York Times column on March 30, 2008

Although not well known, Hillary was a star on the 1994 NCAA Arkansas Razorback championship team.

Clinton says her championship illustrates a big difference between herself and her rival, Sen. Barack Obama.

“He likes to talk about how he is a basketball player, how he was a sixth man in high school, how he still plays pick-up games,” said Clinton. “But he never led a team to a national championship. I have. I have years of experience playing basketball. He has one left-hand dribble.”

The junior senator from New York says she will never forget the 1994 championship game.

“We had Corliss Williamson, Scotty Thurman – good players,” said Clinton. “But we were going up against Duke, a powerhouse. We didn’t have a chance without me bringing my A-game. But you all know I never duck from a fight.”

In psychology, we call it identifying with the aggressor, or identifying with the perpetrator.   Others might call it unmitigated lust for power.  Chistopher Orr at The New Republic highlights how Bill and Hill have joined forces with the Conservative Dark Side that relentlessly attacked them in the 1990′s:

Anyone reading this blog is presumably aware that, over the past several weeks, Hillary Clinton has gone out of her way to repeatedly compliment John McCain at Barack Obama’s expense.

But consider a few other data points:

1) Matt Drudge hyped a photo of Obama in Somali garb that he claimed (and the Clinton campaign declined to deny) Clinton staffers had been circulating.

2) Bill Clinton went on the Rush Limbaugh show on the day of the Texas primary–after Limbaugh had spent days urging GOP voters in the state to cross over and vote for Clinton in order “rig” the election and ensure that Democrats nominated the weaker of their two candidates.

3) The Clinton campaign has been circulating an article in The American Spectator alleging that an Obama adviser, former Air Force chief Merrill McPeak, is an anti-semite and a drunk.

4) When Clinton attacked Obama on Jeremiah Wright yesterday, she did it at an editorial meeting of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the vanity publication of Richard Mellon Scaife, while sitting next to Scaife himself.

Drudge. Limbaugh. The American Spectator. Richard Mellon Scaife. What exactly is it going to take before Clinton campaign staffers recognize that they are, in essence, now working for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

-Doc Pierson

Democrats’ imaginations turn to Joe Biden or John Edwards and think about how different the race might look now that Hillary Clinton has turned the nomination into a Death Match.  It was only three months ago that the prospect of a Democrat taking the White House in 2008 was very bright indeed.  Now there is a pervasive fear among Democrats that the party could self-destruct in a protracted mud wrestling brawl between Clinton and Obama.  David Brooks sets the scene in an excellent column today in the New York Times:

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

-Doc Pierson

Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination for president are slipping away. So, Bill and Hillary are going with the scorched earth policy of trying to destroy Barack Obama as a viable candidate. That way, even if Obama is the nominee and loses to McCain, she can run again in four years. Remember, there are four weeks until the Pennsylvania Primary. We are just in the early stages of the Malignant Freak Show. The first video is of Bill implying that Obama does not love his country. Former Air Force Chief of Staff, General Tony McPeak rightly accused Clinton of McCarthyism for this remark. The second video is of Hillary going after Obama on the Rev. Wright controversy.

Udaipur, India   December 12, 2007   (Photo/Martin Saunders)