Early Polling News From North Carolina

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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My wife read today's strip, and after she stopped rolling on the floor laughing, she wiped away the tears and alerted me, "you are gonna get so much hate mail!"

Anyway, at my polling place here in Lewisville, NC, I had the choice of taking the unaffiliated ballot, the Republican Ballot and the Democratic ballot (I am independent). When I looked, he had only three Dem ballots left in the stack. I asked jokingly if he was going to run out. He said, "Oh no, I have more packs in the back - it's just not many people are voting Republican so far today." And yes, we had PAPER ballots that you marked with a pen - now black box voting and no chads. Paper and ink.

Afterwards, my wife and I went for breakfast and our waitress noted our "I Voted Today" stickers on our shirts and said she thought about voting, but doesn't pay any attention to politics (WTF?). She liked Obama so we gave her our Obama pitch. The table next to us had a similar conversation with her and they were talking about how much they liked Bill Clinton and hated Hillary Clinton. They too supported Obama.

Should be an interesting evening.

SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville.

I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?)

This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America.

So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter.

candorcomment@sfchronicle.com

or

David Wiegand
Executive Datebook Editor
The San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

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The Littlest Maverick

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

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Happy New Year from Dobson

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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It is amazing to me that TCD started publication in 2004, it seems just like yesterday but when you realize Bush was reelected in 2004, it seems like forever!

This year we plan two new special series, usually one would be enough, but I am particularly sick of the Bush Administration and there is not much left to say about that bunch unless there is another "wide stance" moment. Look for new characters, new locations and a new look for the website. The layout is going wider, better and SHORTER! God love my blogroll!

Anyway, tomorrow we will be back to the grind of the campaign as Iowa will lay waste to many campaigns and grace the lives of a cherished few. My Iowa picks are John Edwards for the Dems - for the Repubs, I get the feeling Huckabee will eek out a win but barely. If he comes in second, it will be a squeaker.

That is all for today - I am off to nurse my hangover.

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Ron Paul, more of an anti-war leader than Pelosi!

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Ron Paul is the new Six Million Dollar Man:

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, raised an astounding $6 million and change Sunday, his campaign said, almost certainly guaranteeing he'll outraise his rivals for the Republican nomination in the fourth quarter and likely will be able to fund a presence in many of the states that vote Feb. 5.

Paul's campaign spokesman late Sunday announced the campaign had eclipsed the $5.7 million that John Kerry raised the day after he locked up the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination – arguably the largest single-day fundraising haul in U.S. political history.

Paul's single driving position behind the fundraising, including the November 5th, $4.2 million haul is his stance on the Iraq war and his rallying against the Bush civil liberty destruction machine. His supporters see themselves as true patriots and many of them are. Paul has the highest number of active military as donors than any other candidate. Go figure. Should we be surprised others in the GOP are fed up with BushCo and the war?

For instance, he said 24,940 new donors contributed during the Dec. 16 haul.

It was timed for the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a day meant to resonant with the Libertarian sensibilities of his supporters.

What is terminally sad is he is doing more to get us out of Iraq than Nancy Pelosi. The mind boggles.

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Al Gore’s Real Risk

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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Dear Al Gore,

Americans want you to run and we can be sooo annoying at times, I know. But I doubt any of us will shut up anytime soon - you know how we can be.

The Blue States are yours already, the Purple States are yours too because they look back at what could have been if things had gone differently in 00, that and they feel bad - they feel you need your chance to pull us out of the Hell-hole we are currently in. The Red States (what there is left of them) are a toss up. Nothing you can do about the blind political rage they have.

I know another run for the Presidency may not seem like a fun thing to do right now and in a strange sort of way WINNING the election will totally suck. It will be on your shoulders to fix the multi-layer putrid mess we are in. You know what to do, global warming-wise, but it will also be up to you to fix our debacle in Iraq and what ever mess Bush starts in Iran. Oh and there is that open sore called Afghanistan we should put some compute cycles into.

And did you know the economy is a wreck? Remember that high-falutin' job I had under Clinton / Gore? It went extinct in 2001. The dollar also is lower than a Dick Cheney Dirty Trick™.

So I know you would rather not get sucked into the slime pit known as politics, but we need you.

Few men in American history have been called by a nation for the singular purpose of becoming President. Our founding fathers loved to hide out on their farms and wait for the worst of the hand-wringing to pass when it was their turn to sit and helm the nation that is America. Well, they didn't live in a world that included the Internet, blogs and mass email campaigns. So no matter how far out in the woods your farm may be, I am sure the Internet is available.

Few have been called and you should be warned we will keep dialing.


P.S. If you get a chance, please take my Blog Reader Survey. Thanks!

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Satan Can’t Sleep Because of GOP Nightmares

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The trolls are out in full force today trying to beat down the Al Gore movement. As shown in this troll thread on Daily Kos and throughly debunked here the neo-cons will use any and all means and measures to lie where needed.

It seems Rupert Murdoch's Sky News is twisting Al Gore's standard response of "I have no plans to run" into "I will not seek the office of the Presidency." Murdoch, for those not in the know, owns Fox News and now the Wall Street Journal, typically not known to be the bastions of truth.

But I will give props to the Murdoch camp. By lying about Gore, it puts puts the meme out there that he is not a contender and forces Gore to denounce the statement. It should be further mentioned that for what ever reason, Rupert Murdoch is backing Hillary Clinton and at this point, Al Gore is the ONLY one who can disrupt her campaign. Notice how Fox News goes after Gore repeatedly and leaves Hillary mostly unscathed? And after Gore's Current.com video releases on Monday, Murdoch may have felt the time was right to ratchet up the attack on the Goracle.

However, I am tapping my foot and I am not signaling for a Senator Craig reach-around.

P.S. If you find time today, please take my reader survey.

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The Goracle of Memphis and his stealth campaign.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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On May 20th, 2007 in the New York Times, Gore remarked...

Having spent 30 years as part of the political dialogue, I don’t know why a 600-day campaign is taken as a given, and why people who aren’t in it 600 days out for the convenience of whatever brokers want to close the door and narrow the field and say, ‘This is it, now let’s place your bets’ — If they want to do that, fine. I don’t have to play that game.

With recent Current TV video uploads, I must wonder what kind of campaign is he running?

In marketing/advertising terms, this is a stealth product release. The candidate is running, but the paperwork hasn't been filed. The Current clips are strong. In the link above, some of thecommenters suggest Gore may be trying to frame the debate. I doubt this. First of all, with the exception of Edwards and Kucinich , none of the other Dem candidates really have an environmental platform that does anything about global climate change. If they aren't listening to Gore now, they never will.

Gore has been successful in moving the issue to the front of the news, and the melting icecaps, crop failures and record drought have all backed him up with common sense observation - just ask the average family farmer.

I have no idea what the game plan is for Gore but he has been successful in keeping himself and more importantly the issues he cares about, at the forefront of the news since he stepped in front of theMoveOn.org microphone and blasted the Bush administration over Iraq.

Everything he claimed in his "In The Balance" book, his 2000 campaign and everything else since has proven to be right. Whereas everythingBushCo has said since then has turned out to be a lie.

Bush may be the guy Middle America wanted to have a beer with, but once in office, Middle America learned Bush just stiffed them for the bar tab. As I speak with people across the country, they tell me they can't help but look at Gore and wonder "what if?" Since the Clinton/Gore administration was all over AlQaeda and the Taleban before Middle America knew they existed, would 9-11 have happened at all? Would all of America have their phones bugged and emails read? Would China have eaten our lunch? Would Summer at the North Pole feel like a spring day in Myrtle Beach? Would we be bogged down in a Vietnam style war in Iraq while ogling the oil underneath Iran?

If Bush invades Iran, the US will control everything in the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to the former Soviet Union - from Europe to China. There hasn't been a land grab like that since (yes, I am going to say it so get over it already) the Nazi's controlled everything from Paris to with 15 miles of the Kremlin.

Where Gore takes us from here is anyone's guess, except maybe Karl Rove. I think he might be sweating.

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Kucinich: A Monk On the Road From Burma

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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With all the noise on mainstream media and fake rage from the White House over the slaughter in Burma, still we have only one candidate that has declared himself the peace candidate. Even in this time of the Iraq war where most of the population wants to bring the troops home, we only have ONE peace candidate.

That is a disconnect I cannot puzzle out.

I can understand the Republicans - the reach-around party, wanting to "double Gitmo" and wage continuous war, but the top three Dem candidates are as strong as watered-down tea when it comes to peace.

Is it safe to discuss peace in Burma because it is "near that Viet-Cong place?" Or does BushCo simple want the regime to chill so his corporate junta can get back to business?

As I try to ponder this, I am just going to sit around and Text PEACE to Dennis. God knows my elected officials aren't taking my calls.

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Going Up River with Al Gore

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I cannot escape Vietnam... and I was never there.

My first memory was the assassination of JFK and the memories following dealt with adventures in the backyard, a fist fight over a teddy bear (don't ask) and Cronkite signing off every night with the dead and wounded tallies of the Vietnam War.

We all went "up river" and more than 50,000 dead came down river. This nation is still up river - the Mekong Delta is very much ingrained in our culture and our actions. It is a hinge on which our society swings - served vs. deferment is still a gold standard to many Americans, a standard in which Republicans scoff at.

Al Gore went up river, he went to Vietnam - he VOLUNTEERED to go even when his family reserved him a spot in the National Guard. Others fled service or took spots reserved for them by their families. Gore went up river.

Time is becoming short for Al Gore to run for the Presidency. From Daily Kos:

This is what so many of us have waited so many long - and I mean long! - months for. It is very likely that within three weeks, we will know whether Al Gore will enter the 2008 fold and seek the presidency again. Many of us have been trying to read the tea leaves and keep up enthusiasm and hope. If you're still waiting and hoping and haven't given up, thank you. I'm confident that I can speak for everyone within the Draft Gore movement when I say that - we have worked tirelessly for months, some of us years, to get Gore to run; that there are still thousands of people here, and millions of people nationwide that are still receptive and hoping for a Gore run means a lot to us and our work.

We are in another American misadventure in a far-off land and we can't find our way out. The Republicans want to continue the war in a direction that will not lead to a solution. The current crop of front-runners in the Democratic Party seem unable to commit to an action of quick withdrawal.

We are still under the spell of the Nine Dragons and the claws of the beasts hold us still.

Al Gore met the Dragons head-on and he came back.

This country needs someone who has gone up river. Only they can show us the way out.

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HRC - Planetary Saviour?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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From the Draft Gore Campaign:

We are entering the final stretch of this campaign, energized by a wave of enthusiasm and the hope that a Gore candidacy may be just weeks away. No, we cannot promise you that. But our candidate has left the door wide open and now it's up to us to try to persuade him to walk through it. Events over the next few weeks could affect this decision - and with it, the course of history. Some of them are out of our hands, such as the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12. But what we can do is make our voices heard to let Al Gore know that our call to service is backed by our willingness to fight for him.

The war is more or less my number one issue, however, the environment really trumps it. Regardless of the death toll in Iraq, the death toll from global warming could be exponentially greater. Not just for humans, but for other species as well. The war definitely sucks, there is no arguing it. But if the Great Conveyor stops, we are hosed on a scale that cannot be imagined.

Somehow, I doubt Hillary Clinton has the environment at the forefront of her thoughts.

Maybe she just hasn't been able to figure out how to triangulate it yet?

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Hillary, I am in no mood for 2013!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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Dennis “Firewall” Kucinich

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This is Part 6 of the series "I No Longer Fear The Kucinich Revolution."
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Looking at where we are at as a nation, we are in the same place with our domestic issues as where Cleveland was in 1977 when Dennis Kucinich was elected Mayor.

When Kucinich took office, the city was out of control. The city was the leader of the newly emerging "Rust Belt." City corruption was rampant, especially with the city's police department. In essence, Kucinich took the most unwanted and thankless job in America because he had a vision of a better Cleveland, Ohio.

During his tenure as Mayor, he began the long painful process of turning the city around and he risked his political career as well as his life to do so - to build a better Cleveland. Undoing decades of neglect, abuse and corruption cannot be completed overnight or in four years, but Kucinich's contribution to the city was to play the role of firewall or intervention counselor. He did his job so well, Republicans that had the job after him, praised his work as being visionary and the city would not be where it is today without his management of they city when it was in its darkest days.

I would submit to you we need a firewall in the White House because the Virus In Chief is spreading out of control.

Those who think they are throwing there vote away who also think Kucinich is the best for the job, well, that is just malware in the system.

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Thompson auditions for lead in “Failed Democracy”

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This is not a Presidential run, but an audition. Already Fred Thompson is using prop masters - when Fred arrives at an event, he is in his red pick-up truck. Before the event, behind the scenes a prop master will off load the pick-up from a flatbed hauler a few miles away from the staged public event. Fred will arrive via chauffeured limousine and then he will drive the pick-up the rest of the way to the event.

After this nation voted in Bush TWICE, I don't have much confidence in my fellow citizen's ability to see through bullshit, but Fred Thompson, his cast and crew of Failed Democracy may be slick enough for the Bush supporters.

I can only imagine what the casting couch looks like.

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I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution.

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Most folks I know have a preferred candidate - Hillary, Obama, Edwards or Gore. But the crazy thing is, they will turn right around and say, “you know who I really want to vote for? Kucninch.”

I have those same feelings - I love Kucinich and think he would make the best President. His values most closely resemble my own. Why not vote for him?


Irrational fear. Total fear that the Republicans will lie about Kucinich and Fred Thompson will win the election. Wait, the GOP is gonna lie anyway, no matter what, so why the fear?


One thing I finally noticed about Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate was how Kucinich always made more points during his alloted time than other candidates. I have been thinking about this and found the answer when I was reading the transcript. Kucinich doesn’t equivocate. He doesn’t dance around an issue - he goes straight for the explanation and since his past is not littered with idiotic support of bad bills, HE has nothing to fear, so why do I?


Yes, why do I fear? Do I think Hillary can win? No. I think she loses the election, the second she is nominated. Isn’t THAT something to fear? Do we think Fred Thompson, Gingrich or whatever other ass-wipe the GOP nominates will give a shit about universal healthcare, the environment or peace? Nope, it will be a straight continuation of 8 years of BushCo. Isn’t my fear displaced?


Who is the strongest Democrat in Congress? Kucinich.


What Congressman never LOST their spine in the politically crushing days after 9-11? Kucinich.


Who knows how to answer a direct question asked by We The People? Kucinich.


I think something changed for Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate - I can’t put my finger on it, but something changed. Maybe it was his eagerness to address We The People with truth, honesty and integrity? Maybe it was just the other candidates equivocating on whatever nonsense answer their staff prepared for them months ago?


Maybe it was because the other candidates showed fear and Kucinich didn’t. He never flinched.


That is leadership as I see it. And from this point forward I will NOT fear to support Kucinich.


He is just like me. My values are the same as his. If I was in Congress, I would vote like he does. I no longer fear. I refuse to allow the GOP to manipulate me into supporting lesser candidates.

That just might be called courage.



SPECIAL FAVOR SECTION
Never let it be said liberals don't support the troops.

During the first Gulf War, I began collecting books to send to my college friends serving in Saudi Arabia. I must have sent hundreds of books. When US troops got deployed to Iraq, I started doing it again but I knew the job was too big for one person to do it, so I set up Books For Soldiers, a 501 (c)(3) charity to send free books, dvds and video games to deployed US soldiers.

But I wasn't that smart since I only thought the war would last 6 weeks tops in Iraq. What was I thinking? Now, FOUR years later, we are still shipping books.

But today I need your help. There is a contest sponsored by VAJoe.com, they will contribute $2,000 to charitable military organizations next month in its Charity for Charities event. You can vote on your favorite charitable military organizations. The top four charitable organizations and a randomly selected organization will share $2,000 in donations from VAJoe. Books for Soldiers has been included in the event.

The Alexa Traffic Rank for BooksForSoldiers.com is 242,975 and you would not believe our bandwidth bills!

So these next few days, I am asking (begging actually) for your vote for Books For Soldiers. It won't take you 30 seconds to help a liberal out!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

A short, fast and easy site registration is required.

P.S. Thank-you Michael Moore for supporting BFS.

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Al Gore: Poll Teaser

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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Being an Al Gore supporter is tough The high's, the low's, the empty liquor cabinet, it all starts to take its toll.

Then yesterday Gore drops this bombshell:

"I may re-enter politics at some point in the future because I'm only 59 years old," Gore told reporters on the sidelines of a forum in Singapore.

Gore said he has "no plan" to run in the 2008 presidential election but aims to make the environment a focus of public discussion during the campaign.

"There is no single candidate that is putting forward a comprehensive argument about the environment or making climate change a priority," Gore said.

Heart be still!

Who is the environmental candidate in this race? Mitt Romney has probably said more about the environment than anyone else and that is a sad state of affairs. We all know Gore has that as an issue and it is a vitally important one. But do we think he will sit on the sidelines for this? Will he let Hillary win the nomination knowing the Presidency will then probably go to a Republican? If that happens, it is another 4 years of the climate getting the shaft. As many scientists claim, 2013 may be too late to change course.

If Gore is so passionate about the environment, will he allow his inaction lead to catastrophe? There is only ONE place for him to reenter politics and that is as President.

A friend of mine yesterday had an interesting observation. If Gore gets in, he will be the target of three strong candidates: Hillary, Edwards and Obama. He doesn't believe Gore can win the nomination after getting beat down by three other contenders. Echoes of Howard Dean here I believe.

Either way, I want Al Gore to run and by my calendar, he has about 60 days to do it.



SPECIAL FAVOR SECTION
Never let it be said liberals don't support the troops.

During the first Gulf War, I began collecting books to send to my college friends serving in Saudi Arabia. I must have sent hundreds of books. When US troops got deployed to Iraq, I started doing it again but I knew the job was too big for one person to do it, so I set up Books For Soldiers, a 501 (c)(3) charity to send free books, dvds and video games to deployed US soldiers.

But I wasn't that smart since I only thought the war would last 6 weeks tops in Iraq. What was I thinking? Now, FOUR years later, we are still shipping books.

But today I need your help. There is a contest sponsored by VAJoe.com, they will contribute $2,000 to charitable military organizations next month in its Charity for Charities event. You can vote on your favorite charitable military organizations. The top four charitable organizations and a randomly selected organization will share $2,000 in donations from VAJoe. Books for Soldiers has been included in the event.

The Alexa Traffic Rank for BooksForSoldiers.com is 242,975 and you would not believe our bandwidth bills!

So these next few days, I am asking (begging actually) for your vote for Books For Soldiers. It won't take you 30 seconds to help a liberal out!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

A short, fast and easy site registration is required.

P.S. Thank-you Michael Moore.

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Does Hillary know why Edwards is smiling?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing



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It took months but I finally found someone I know personally who supports Hillary Clinton - a military contractor. His motto is "Vote Hillary or Else!"

Everyone else? They are looking at Edwards or maybe Obama. Yet for Obama they tend to sneak in the caveat of "I still don't know what he stands for. Unless he clear that up soon, I will be supporting Edwards." Also, support for those two slips away if Al Gore kicks his hat in the ring.

The other problem that continues to swirl around people I know is that of "getting out the vote." If Hillary does win the nomination, everyone I know will vote for her, but there is not a lot of volunteerism being vocalized. No where near the level that I saw in the 2006 mid-term election. The 2006 GOTV movement was huge, larger than I have seen since back in my Perot days. There is something about Hillary that just doesn't encourage folks hitting the street and getting the word out for her. And if her GOTV is weak, it will influence the GOTV for the House and Senate races that will be VITAL in 2008.

Vital.

Yes, people will vote for her, but while holding their noses. That kinda attitude does not drive people to blow all their weekends knocking on doors, enduring cold November rains to had out brochures at polls or spend hours away from the family at a phone bank begging people to "Vote Hillary or Else."

You don't see that with John Edwards.

If you look past the polls, Edwards is the leader on the issues. I would say he is dragging the rest of the field with him.

From AlterNet:

"I don't need to read a poll, I don't need to see a focus group and I don't need to see what the other candidates are saying," said Mr. Edwards, sitting next to his wife in a blue van pulling away from Kitty's Fine Foods in Charleston. "I know exactly what I would do as president and that's why I have been leading on these issues. And it is exactly the kind of leadership I will provide as president."

Mr. Edwards and his campaign are rallying around the idea that he has demonstrated leadership by getting out front early on major issues, advocating "big change" and then almost daring his rivals to follow his example.

When he challenges other candidates to raise the minimum wage, he gets thunderous applause. Other candidates get that level of applause, but only when they snark off about Bush.

Edwards all seems to be revamping his campaign. Gone are the button-down, adviser steered campaign days of 2004, Edwards has placed himself in the hands of the people.

After running a decidedly traditional race for the White House in 2004 and in the early stages of this contest, Mr. Edwards has quietly overhauled his campaign with one central goal: to harness the Internet and the political energy that liberal Democrats are sending coursing through it. In a slow but striking power shift, advisers who champion the political power of the Web have eclipsed the coterie of advisers who long dominated Mr. Edwards’s inner circle, both reflecting and intensifying his transformation into a more populist, aggressive candidate.

“They want me to shut up,” an unsmiling Mr. Edwards said to an audience in Creston, Iowa, on Thursday — remarks that were videotaped by an Edwards campaign worker and posted both on YouTube and the popular liberal Web site MyDD.com. “Let’s distract from people who don’t have health care coverage. Let’s distract from people who can’t feed their children. Let’s talk about this frivolous, nothing stuff.”

Still, he is in the shadow of Obama and Hillary and he knows it. I think it has a specific effect on Edwards that a lot of people are not noticing - it is making him smarter, more daring and, should I even say this, it has given him a spine.

Could this explain the noticeable shift in Edwards' rhetoric recently? As Democratic strategist David Sirota said in an interview, what we're hearing from Edwards these days is a "full-throated populism."

For instance, aside from the Obama-Clinton flap, the next most significant moment in the YouTube debate came when Edwards said:

"Do you believe that compromise, triangulation will bring about big change. I don't. I think the people who are powerful in Washington - big insurance companies, big drug companies, big oil companies - they are not going to negotiate. They are not going to give away their power. The only way they are going to give away their power is if we take it away from them."

Yep, that is USDA Grade "A," organic, grain-fed, free-range SPINE with no GMO's or antibiotics. That could catch on.

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Do I want John Edwards’ health care or Hillary’s war?

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I watched the YouTube debate on CNN and gave it some thought before I commented on it. First off, I am tired of Gravel, Dodd and Biden. I am almost tired of Bill Richardson, every question he answers, he delivers with such a jittery quality, it doesn't inspire confidence. Hell, Gonzales isn't that nervous when he appears before Congress (note I didn't say testify).

Although I don't think Kucinich has a chance to win, odder things have happened. I think Dennis needs to stay for no other reason than to lob common sense into the debates. They, so far, are in need of that.

Hillary I think did well, but I am still not feeling it. Her remarks to Obama about being naive about diplomacy was off the mark and petty.

Obama did very well and had an aura of confidence and intelligence that we haven't seen in the White House since, oh, you know when. His response to the diplomacy question was right on target. To paraphrase, "Get in there and get it done. We are not so afraid as to not talk to dictators."

Which brings me to Edwards. He had two powerful moments. One was the hair video - it was a genius piece. Do we want to discuss his hair or the utter democratic wasteland known as the United States? The other moment was his rant about the gentleman with the cleft palate.

After his rant, he said, asked really, the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF THE NIGHT!

Why?

Indeed. Why in the world does someone with a cleft palate need to wait fifty years for corrective surgery? The GOPers claim you need to wait weeks to see a specialist in Canada (which is the same as it is here). But FIFTY FUCKING YEARS? Isn't that kinda wait time a bit on the long side?

I think a lot of us need to start bellowing that question. "Why?"

Now if we can just get Edwards to get real on the Gay rights issue, I think his ratings would improve.

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If you are a Gore Fan, Soprano fans feel your pain.

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There is a whole groundswell of people who lean into the TV when Al Gore is on. Endless blog entries are made over the tiniest nuance of Gore's expression, body language and SWEET GOD ALMIGHTY - his actual words.

But at the end of every show, every clip, every soundbite, every video on the Gore-strained YouTube server farm, we never hear "I am running."

The bandwidth used on the nuanced "I have not ruled it out" is utterly amazing. There are only so many ways you can put it, yet the wordsmiths over at the Gore compound have written that phrase in such a way that it means more and more that he will run. At first it was the "I have no plans to run" and that has morphed into "I don't need a 500 day campaign."

And that brings us to today's question, what, Al, do you need? What is Al Gore's decision tree?

Is there a Hillary element? Of all the books I have read, there is not a lot of love shared between the Clinton and Gore household. Yes, Al and Bill had a kumbaya moment after 9-11, but that was Al and Bill, not Al and Hillary or Tipper and Hillary or Tipper and Bill. If Hillary looks to be poised to win the nomination, will Gore jump in to save We The People?

Is there a GOP metric? Would Al be watching the contenders to see what he would face? Would sleepy-headed Fred Thompson (also from Tennessee) raise the ire of Al to push him to Iowa?

Is there a "the world is cooking on high and no one is in the damn kitchen" meme that Al watches? No one else seems to be able to do anything about global warming in our current government and frankly, the current crop of 2008 candidates doesn't seem that worried about it. Yes, they all mostly have somewhat passionate position papers on the environment, with, IMO, Edwards on top, but no one that I have seen has Al's presence on the issue and it is a WEIGHTY issue.

Is there a war switch? By the looks of our current Defeatocrat Congress, the troops aren't coming home until we get a new President. Will Gore get fed up with the sorry state of international affairs compared to the condition he and Bill left the world in 2000? Could it be as simple "screw this, I'm in?"

There are probably a great many factors that would go into this. But my bet, our Larry King Moment won't come until October.


Special Note: Today's strip has two new characters; Larry King and Al Gore.

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Things We Wish Hillary Would Say

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing



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The thing that bugs me about Hillary is her inability to say something straight. In this respect she reminds me a lot of McCain but without the nutty Planter's aftertaste. One example is her weaseling around her excuse for her war vote. She was the last Dem to say the Iraq war was a bad idea - she still embraced it up until six months before the 06 elections!

However, I still think she has it in her to be forthright. That kind of bluntness is what Americans really want to hear right about now.

Note: Congrats to Daily Kos user, Ming Vase, for planting the idea for today's strip in my head!

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John McCain - Contents Under Pressure

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing



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