218!

So I've been listing too much of the raucous debate in the house about health care on C-SPAN.

Politico provides the best analysis of the behind-the-scenes action in what led to where we are:

The rebirth of the reform effort is the result of a little luck, insurance company avarice, a subsiding of post-Brown panic among party incumbents and the calculation by many Hill Democrats that going small or giving up was just as politically perilous as going big.

But the main reason the bill has made it to the floor has as much to do with the complex, occasionally tense, ever-evolving partnership between the first African-American president and the first female speaker.

and

Publicly, the White House seemed to send a different signal each day.

In the space of two weeks, Obama or his top advisers suggested breaking the bill into smaller parts, keeping it together in one comprehensive package, putting it at the back of legislative line and needing to “punch it through” Congress, as Obama himself said at one point.

At a fundraiser in early February, Obama described the “next step” as sitting down with Republicans, Democrats and health care experts, describing a process that could take weeks, if not longer. He also seemed to acknowledge for the first time that Congress may well decide to scrap health care altogether — an admission that blunted his repeated and emphatic vows to finish the job.

Behind the scenes, Obama had, in fact, already settled on a strategy.

He would invite Republicans and Democrats to a summit, to give them one last chance at compromise, knowing they wouldn’t budge. And privately, he had decided that his favored approach was a comprehensive bill.

However, what I've been thinking about over the last few days is the similarity between how health care reform, Hillary, and McCain were handled by the Obama team. See my from October 08 where I mentioned an Andrew Sullivan article of how Obama's calm (and sometimes perceived weakness) lures the opponents into a false sense of victory and incites them. It was easy to doubt him during the primary (why wasn't he more aggressive against Clinton) and during the Summer of 08 (why did he take that stupid trip to Europe) but in all cases (assume this goes through) he pulls it off.

Will this really make a difference? I don't know and I really don't care. I knew enough to support it: the exclusions about pre-existing conditions (which impacted my family first hand) was good enough for me, although I know how much I paid for my plan at Cisco a decade ago, probably 1/5 in a comparable-sized company. As if the campaign of 2008 (the selection of Palin) didn't prove it enough, the GOP continues to show it's true colors and they don't match mine anymore. Even though I have elected more Republicans than Democrats over the years (not like you really have a choice in Texas) it is hard to know whether the GOP is really that ignorant or are they just that deceptive in order to go "downscale" Republican base that Bush built. As always, I'm a political reactionary. For me, just as my vote for Bush in 2004 was more a vote against Michael Moore and his kind, my support for this bill is just as much about giving Limbaugh and Beck the finger as passing needed reforms. And the former is a lot more certain than the latter.

The power of the real American network

Some patriotic Americans at Verizon was keeping tabs on our Marxist, Socialist, Terrorist, Muslim President Elect, according to CNN

Records from a cell phone used by President-elect Obama were improperly breached, apparently by employees of the cell phone company, Verizon Wireless said Thursday.
An Obama spokesman said the transition team was told Verizon Wireless workers looked through billing records.

An Obama spokesman said the transition team was told Verizon Wireless workers looked through billing records.

"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account," Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and CEO, said in a statement.

Almost makes me wish I was back in Chicago

See the slideshow from Grant Park and the live footage on MSNBC.

MSNBC: It's over

Ohio, New Mexico. And now the red states start flipping.

Yes We Can!

Ground Game Reports Start to Trickle In

Good stuff from Ben Smith

I am 60 year-old white Republican for my whole life. I am a Vietnam combat veteran who has never voted Democratic before. I will vote for Obama Tuesday.

I am tired of politics as usual and am willing to take chance a on him. I believe he is sincere and has a good heart. I also have been impressed with his steadfastness during the economic crisis. He may be one of the most intelligent people I have ever heard. I have told no one I am voting for him, instead evading the question. I believe there are many like me.

I have not had one McCain visitor at my house, but have had 15 separate visitors for Obama. I counted them with a pad on my refrigerator.

Go Obamacons! There have to be a lot more like this, that want some intelligence in the White House for a change, who see the writing on the wall.

I'm talking small-government, NRA-life member, military types.

And then there was this interesting one

Interesting anecdote and probably a testament to ground organization. I have no idea what this means. Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with "but he's a f-----g n---er!". Before I get to my wife's response I'll first have to say that I understand desperation and I also understand that this pitch may actually work for a few people. I also understand that there are people who are whack-jobs phone-banking for both sides. But here are some facts:

My wife and I are Black. Citing the fact that Obama is a f----g n---er as a way to sway our vote may not be a great idea. My wife and I live in Maryland... Baltimore, MD.... One of the most African American areas of Baltimore Maryland. How on earth did our phone numbers get on to a McCain volunteers phone bank list of potential voters to be calling at this stage in the game? We have never received a call from the Obama campaign.

Just weird. Not sure what to make of it... but that's not a good sign of organization. If it did anything it made us want to donate more. BTW, the rest of the call went downhill from there. My wife prayed for forgiveness after the call.

Tom Peters on Obama

From Caught in the Act.

Not a lot that you haven't heard before but some reasons (or at least how he articulated them) that stand out

among other things our major problems are likely to be with us for decades—and cannot primarily be dealt with by aircraft carrier superiority, a tough thing for a true blue Navy man to admit. I believe Mr Obama meets the Churchillian standard of "jaw jaw beats war war." I am fearful of Mr McCain's bellicosity and perhaps some volatility.

and

Though I am an avowed supporter of undiluted capitalism (my faith, like Mr Greenspan's, is being sorely tested), I believe that the growing inequity in America is a clear and present danger of the first order. As Mr Buffett said, and I paraphrase, "There's a problem when my secretary has a higher marginal tax rate than I do."

and

I think the time has come to pass the torch to the next generation, and I believe Mr Obama would be an excellent symbol of a new generation of leader. (I think Mr McCain has the haggard look of yesterday, and is, like myself, advertised to be a cranky old man. Age matters—take it from me, and feel free to wish me "happy 66th" on 7 November.)

Finally Going After Palin (Sort of)

I'm actually not surprised they waited until the end.

Love the wink!

We will see

Heady stuff, we'll will know in a week about the youth vote.



Was down in DC at Children's National today for my daughter's eye surgery. Lots of Obama ads on the TV in the waiting room, a bunch of nervous parents watching his PA speech live while their kids were in surgery. Nodding heads. A couple of middle-aged white women talking about how Palin scared them. A handful of African-America. A granola-looking white woman with an African-American husband. She said she was a Christian (responding to a spot on CNN) and was voting for Obama. A handful of Spanish-speaking families and Asians.

Good to be back in Real America. Real 21st Center America where whites hardly break 50% of the population (think California and Texas or even NOVA) vs. the racist hinterlands feeling sorry for themselves. Went pheasant hunting up in Western. Once again am struck how the most beautiful plasses in the land are often the most backwards.

After a decade and half in Texas and a year in Skokie, these racist, low-class xenophobic, anti-immigrant, white f***s that seem to be everywhere here in Maryland -- talking about "Mexicans." Please.

It is difficult to take. Nobody would dare make those comments in Texas, even if they thought them. God, I'm turning into a reactionary.

Into the Mind of the Manchurian Candidate

From Dark Night of the Soul

Barack Obama is noted for his powerful intellect, but I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for the mental dexterity it takes to be simultaneously an Islamic theocrat, atheistic communist and national socialist while posing as a center left candidate. Those must be the compartmentalization skills they taught him at that Manchurian madrasah in Indonesia. The fact that Obama embodies the worst nightmares of so many on the political right says far more about them that it does him.

Conservatives for Change

Yes you can!

Valium 08

So back in late December I started to get interested in Obama particularly do to Andrew Sullivan's article: Goodbye to All That

Well Sullivan has another extend piece on him that is worth reading.

Here are the highlights:

Obama rarely directly attacks. He subtly baits. His most brilliant rope-a-dope of the entire campaign was against Bill Clinton in the spring. In a newspaper interview, Obama cited Ronald Reagan as the last transformational president. He didn’t mention Clinton. The former president was offended by being implicitly dissed, took the bait and unleashed a series of unwise public scoffs at the young Democrat, culminating in a dismissal of Obama as another Jesse Jackson. Suddenly, black Democrats abandoned Clinton’s wife, and the Clintons’ base collapsed. Obama merely stepped out of the way as the Clintons self-destructed. He didn’t just end their campaign; he helped to bury their reputation.

And that’s exactly how Obama has handled McCain. Instead of attacking him frontally, he got in his head and provoked him into error. It’s easier with McCain than with the Clintons, because McCain is more volatile and more easily provoked. And so Obama cruised through August, picking a conventional running mate and punching his foreign-policy-credentials card with trips to Iraq and Europe. McCain’s response? He put out an ad equating the son of a poor single mother who made it to become president of the Harvard Law Review, a University of Chicago professor and the first black nominee for president with . . . Paris Hilton, whose only accomplishments are being born into immense wealth and making an internet porn tape.

When that didn’t work, and an unfazed Obama ran a flawless convention, calmed the Clintons and delivered one of the best acceptance speeches in modern times, McCain blew himself up with the Palin pick. His one sure-fire advantage – experience – was thrown away. His real base – independent voters and the media – was first wowed and then woke up. And as Palin became a national and international joke, as her ratings plummeted and as she lost her debate to Joe Biden (quite hard to do, given Biden’s capacity for verbal diarrhoea), McCain got even crankier and more unstable.

Advantage Obama

Noam Scheiber has one of most cogent wrapups of last night's debate:

By contrast, Obama really benefitted from his years as a law professor. He was fluent and very much at ease walking and talking at the same time. He had a professor's knack for making eye contact and maintaining it while he walked a questioner through a multi-step response. And his answers were much more concrete and intuitive than I'd ever heard them. It's as though it took fielding questions from ordinary people to remind him of this latent professorial talents.

And Sullivan's Liveblog capture the view of the carnage.

This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this.

I missed the first few minutes. Was getting back from a trip from CVS paying for $50 for name brand meds for my son (so Obama's words on rising co-pay's rang true and how small companies get screwed in terms of health care premiums) so I missed the initial presentation of McCain's "Hail Mary" to bailout homeowners.

McCain's performance was limp and pathetic and strained, sort of an aging Beavis. More of the "I know"/"I understand" language that hurt him in the first debate and the gleeful creepiness of the "That One" remark. Oh to see McCain speak without the influence of nueroleptics dampening his emotion. I guess this is about as un-glued as we will see him.

Historic Days, Historic Times

Sure there is a lot of the same old stump speech here, and yes there are way too many promises, but in the rain yesterday that has drifted in and out of the Mid-Atlantic states, in the darkness, with his sleeves rolled up, you get glimpses of of Big-H History is happening. Something is going on here.

Twenty years ago I went down to Texas to college, but now I'm full circle. And what stands out over the past two decades.

The collapse of the Soviet Union. The Fall of the Berlin Wall. The night the first bombs fell over Baghdad. The loaded railcars from Fort Hood going through College Station, some vehicles painted brown, others still the woodland camo for the Fulda.

The long superficial years of Clinton interrupted by Waco and Oklahoma City. Watching the TV's in JFK (en route to Moscow where we'd adopt me oldest son) about the DDOS. The Dot Com crash. And 9/11 and shell's of half-completed office parks in Austin when the money ran out.

And now.

Vetrans for Obama: Action not Rhetoric

Who has their game face on?

Piss off the press and they print wimpy pictures of you. From NY Times and WaPo

I don't want a nation just for me

What is different from four years ago when (I'm not ashamed at all) to admit I voted Republican? 

In 2008, I know how much health care costs and how easy you can be denied coverage. I paid COBRA (from Cisco) for over year (over $1300/month)  when I worked for a small company and how individual plans drop (or won't even cover) you.

Now I have a multicultural family. I traveled to China and have a Chinese daughter. Seen curious the stares from "hard working white Americans."  I lived in Skokie, Illinois for over a year and saw the benefits of living in a diverse community for myself and for my daughter.

I have fought with Behavioral Health Care providers over benefits for serious mental health issues for a family member. Have you ever heard McCain talk about parity for mental health care?

I was a strong supporter of the invasion of Iraq (and "the surge,") but there was been no accountability, no realistic assessment, no reckoning. 

Denial and delusion is what McCain-Palin will bring.

We need less Rumsfeld and more Gates. More strategy less tactics. 

I certainly don't agree with much of the Democratic platform, but a party dominated by social and cultural conservatives with ignorance fueling their certainty.

We need more gray. Less black and white.

And most of all I don't have the energy to be cynical anymore. 

A Gamechanger All Right

Obama breaks 50% for the first time and Bush will talk about 9/11 again in his speech again tonight. That is a fastball ready to be hit out of the park.

"To protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain," Bush will say, according to the excerpts.

And Republican's will go after the media tonight. Yeah. Tell me where the the panic is. How did attacks against the "biased" media work for Hillary. I thought so.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

Even Pat Buchanan liked the speech

I always liked Pat Buchanan, even when I didn't agree with him. And he nails what I also thought was one of the most effective moments last night.



What all this change and hope stuff is about (in case you don't get it yet and which Obama explained aound "it is about you" lines in his speech) is the shedding of your cynical beliefs. It is abandoning the urge to tear things down.

The reason why people liked Reagan is because he inspired people. Words matter. Words inspire. Words bring people into action.

McCain Ad Parody Roundup

and



and (although not a parody but or good as the Hillary one) still amusing

Punch, Counterpunch

leads to...



Regardless of what you believe on the "issues" (which are hard to distill into 30 second sound bites) tell me how doing a press conference on an oil rig (let alone a German sausage shop) makes sense. Or juxtaposing Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears? Or using 20th century cliches like "American Ingenuity" (McCain was throwing that around in his town hall this week) and talking about manufacturing jobs being the basis of the American economy. Obama will raise my Taxes? Oooh, that scares me.

Where is the John McCain that called a spade a spade and said those jobs aren't coming back?