It’s apparently official. Unfortunately, I got the email before the text message, which was a bit disappointing…

The Obama campaign has a website called FightTheSmears.com, on which they give the truth about various smears that have been going around. The lead story currently is the non-existent “whitey” tape.

I just saw a poll linked to McCain’s campaign site that I decided I had to vote in. Once I clicked through the “give us money” page to get to the main site, I found the following. Nice worldview, huh?

Hunter over at Daily Kos analyzes the crowingcrowning mistake of the Clinton campaign.

The Clinton campaign was premised from the start on the notion that Clinton would win, and nobody else could…. It was not a narrative, but a meta-narrative. She was electable because she was electable, and anything that disproved that theory was dismissed as an exception. It was the campaign equivalent of Intelligent Design.

It was, in short, a terrible, mind-bendingly awful strategy. That is not to say that there was not substance discussed, in the debates — but the campaign was not about that substance. That is not to say that there were not good points to be made in “electability” — but her spokesmen made them shabbily. In the end, it was not an argument that could convince.

But Clinton would never have been in such a position had she not fallen behind to begin with, and that is where I think the more damning mistakes of her campaign lie. If I could wrap all critique of the Clinton campaign up into a single sentence, it would be this: her campaign did not campaign.

Edit: fixed typo above.

That was the final straw.

“I’m hanging around waiting for the nominee to get bumped off”?

Senator Clinton, I assumed that if Senator Obama did not win the nomination, I would support you over McCain in November. No longer. If I have to write in Mickey Mouse and pray that the electoral votes in Maine don’t go to McCain, I will, but you will not get my vote.

You don’t deserve it.

TeacherKen@DailyKos lists them off.

He opposed war, she was willing to support.

He opposed Kyl-Lieberman, she voted for.

He tried to ban cluster bombs, she opposed the effort.

He was unwilling to let interest rates got to 30%, she was.

His focus is affordability of health insurance, hers is to mandate, with punitive sanctions if you don’t sign up.

He is willing to protect Israel, she is willing to protect the whole Middle East.

He doesn’t think it appropriate to imply his Democratic opponent is unqualified for the office, she does.

He doesn’t want to change the rules for getting the nomination after the race has begun, she is desperate to.

He has demonstrated that he can run a nation-wide campaign, she has not.

He has proven he can expand the Democratic side of the electorate, she hasn’t - and she might well expand the Republican side.

He has proven he has the judgment to select appropriate people and run a campaign enterprise that will approach a quarter billion dollars, her campaign is in debt and in shambles.

He is trying to inspire us and appeal to the best in us, she is trying to scare us.

He thinks he hs to earn our vote and our trust, she thinks she is entitled.

The Philadelphia Daily News may have nailed the best reason.

He would be steady and calm, given neither to irrational exuberance or outbursts of anger. He would make mistakes, that’s for sure, but he could be expected to recognize them, adjust, and move forward.

He would adjust his views to reality rather than trying to adjust reality to his views.

What a refreshing vision, after 7 years of The Decider. The man who surrounds himself with people who agree with him, rather than people who challenge him.

From the first page of comments on the debate:

Read the rest of this entry »

Time has a pretty good answer to this question. The article lists various points:

• After graduation from college, he took a low-paying job working with families to improve public housing.
• He returned to school for a law degree, which he took to Illinois’ Project VOTE, which added hundreds of voting registrars, causing registration to jump 15% between the 1992 primary and general election.
• He then spent several years working as a civil rights attorney, and a constitutional law attorneylecturer.
• After running for the Illinois State Senate, he proposed hundreds of bills, most of which were spiked by the Republican leadership. One that passes was the Gift Ban Act, Illinois government’s first new ethics restriction since the Watergate days.
• He also helped set up the Kidcare program for children who didn’t qualify for Medicaid.
• He joined the State Senate in 1997 — four years before Senator Clinton entered elective office.
• In the US Senate, he teamed with Republican Richard Lugar on nuclear non-proliferation, and Republican Tom Coburn on oversight of federal spending in the wake of Katrina.
• And with John McCain on sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Note the text I bolded above: that’s pretty high on the list of why everyone should be supporting Obama after the past 7 years. (Edit: braino-ed on job, fixed)

Webcomic A Town Called Dobson has been running a series of strips about why Kucinich is the right man for the job. Check them out…