GOP hates Bob Barr..

And why wouldn’t they? He is a right of the center guy that seems to have more scruples than any Rethug on the ballot. Yes, I am looking at you John Weathervane McCain. According to the NYT writeup yesterday, Barr is trying to appeal to the vast majority of Ron Paul enthusiasts, of which there are many.

Third party candidates can fuck up a party’s wetdream. Nader has done it to the Dem’s and Ross Perot did it to the Rethugs. From the NYT writeup:

On the ballots in 30 states so far, Mr. Barr has the chance to be a spoiler for Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, in several states, among them Alaska, Colorado and Georgia. Mr. Barr’s campaign advisers also assert he has similar potential in other mountain states, New Hampshire, Ohio and other swing states.

The Republican Party and the McCain campaign have swatted away the Barr candidacy, but some Republicans are taking it seriously. If the early polls hold up, and Senator Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee, pours heavy resources into Georgia, that state could be up for grabs, said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia.

Nader isn’t a new face on the general election front and I personally think any damage he will do to the Democratic nominee is marginal, but Barr could embarass the Rethugs. A point to make, and the NYT does, is that no Libertarian has ever gotten more than 1% of the vote. Money isn’t flowing into this campaign yet either. From the NYT writeup:

Yet Mr. Barr faces formidable obstacles. No Libertarian candidate has ever won more than 1 percent of the vote in a presidential election, and Mr. Barr is severely lacking in money, resources and name recognition. He has yet to lease a campaign headquarters, have a fund-raiser, tape a television advertisement or hold a campaign event.

There is also the fact that the convention which nominated him wasn’t completely behind him either. It took six votes to hand Barr the nomination, and it was by a very thin margin. Before anyone gets excited about Barr, they should consider his record as a former Rethug member. His votes for the Patriot Act bill, the Iraq AUMF, impeaching Bill Clinton and sponsoring the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 shouldn’t endear him to anyone but the most right of the rightwing nutjobs.

Barr is attempting to distance himself from those votes now however, blaming them on the (R) after his name at the time. He now states he is “for a speedy and complete withdrawal of troops, with no permanent bases; on same-sex marriage, he believes that states should make their own laws; and on wiretaps without warrants, he is fiercely opposed, arguing that the bill that would legalize searches without warrants violates an individual’s constitutional rights”.

Barr is eyeballing the Ron Paulistas right now that consider themselves Libertarian. The Paul supporters aren’t flocking to Barr at this point however. Some are highly pissed off that Barr is pandering specifically to Ron Paul supporters. Ron Paul has refused to endorse Barr’s candidacy as well.

The long and short of it is how much support in November Barr and Nader will draw from the two main parties. Polls, which I hate with a passion, are showing both Nader and Barr garnering 3% of the vote in specific toss-up states. Obama’s bean counters are happy that Barr has joined the fray, saying he might make the difference in states which are important and still close between Obama and McCain.

All in all, it remains to be seen what Barr can do..money is his nemisis right now, and the same goes for Nader. This general election season looks to be all about the money and breaking records for how much you can raise and spend. Obama has the edge there and frankly I just want to get past the Democratic convention and head into the final stretch..I am so ready to get this shit over with, it ain’t even funny.

This OpEd is awesome..read it!

A big hug to Jet at Bring it On for this article. Allison Benedikt has written a wonderful OpEd for the Village Voice on Hillary, her supporters and her campaign. It tackles that pesky subject of misogyny very well m’dear reader and I encourage…yea I demand that you read it. Tell me then what you think of it. Just a small blurb of it to get you interested:

Next comes Arianna “No Fear” Huffington, suffering from a strain of short-term memory loss that seems to be going around, to declare: “The greatest triumph of Clinton’s campaign—a complete triumph—is the example she has set for the next generation.“

Currently pregnant with the next generation, let me just say this: There is no greater wish that a mother can have for her daughter than that she will exploit poor people, obliterate Iran, and win rigged class president elections, Putin-style. (Mom, I won 100 percent of the vote!)

I love her!!! Look, as a woman that has fought against sexism my entire fucking life and I might add, the first woman to hold the job as Project Manager on a NASA subcontract in the 80′s….I know how fucked up it is to be female and expect to be treated the same as males…and yet not be treated the same. I had to be better at my job than they were, work longer hours and make less money than they did. My husband divorced me because he was tired of me living at the office..I sacrificed my personal life for that fucking job..and I would probably do it all over again.

I am not bitter about any of it. I loved that job and when the spaceshuttle crashed, I knew many of us would be laid off. I opted to get laid off instead of having them dump a specific male co-worker because his son was suffering from brain cancer and I knew damn well that the health insurance was the most important part of the job for that guy at that point in time.

Besides I wanted to move back to Cali…and that is what I did when I got my walking papers. I went back to Cali, started my own business and raised my son as a single parent. If I am bitter about anything it’s that my ex-husband was a piece of batshit that never paid a buck in child support.

Being bitter never serves anyone. It eats you up inside. That is why I think Hillary and her staunchest supporters need to suck it up and deal. Instead of screaming, bitching and moaning about how she was ‘treated’ they should be proud of what she accomplished by using race, lies and bullshit to win the states she did.

Tossing rocks in a glass house ain’t a good idea..nope, it ain’t.

Hillary apologizes finally for Ferraro flap.

She did it in her own special way of course.. and it was in front of 200 African-Americans at the National Newspaper Publishers Association. From AP:

Of Ferraro’s comment, Hillary Clinton told her audience: “I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”

She also apologized for Billy’s comments in SC regarding Obama and Jesse Jackson. She was on a roll last night..apologizing her butt off for racial gaffs, saying there was nothing intentionally racist in any of the nasty..cough..racial..remarks.

It gives one pause to wonder..would she even bring up these statements if her audience was anything other than people of color. Her comments on unifying the party really made me bite a hole in my lip:

“Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee,” she said.

Sure Hillary..right..what-friggin-evah.

RS endorses Obama

I remember when Rolling Stone was the only nationally distributed magazine with the leftwing perspective. I actually read it for their political articles..I swear I did, when it was still put out in a newspaper format..ah..those were the days…

Jann Wenner, still the head cheese at RS, has written an article that endorses Obama.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, it certainly doesn’t surprise me. But if you take the time to read his piece, Wenner parrots many of the same points of view that others do about Obama. Even the title: A New Hope, gives you an indication of whats inside the writeup. But, what I took from the article is not what Jann wrote about Obama..it was what he wrote about Hillary:

All this was made clearer by the contrast with Hillary Clinton, a capable and personable senator who has run the kind of campaign that reminds us of what makes us so discouraged about our politics. Her campaign certainly proved her experience didn’t count for much: She was a bad manager and a bad strategist who naturally and easily engaged in the politics of distraction, trivialization and personal attack. She never convinced us that her vote for the war in Iraq was anything other than a strategic political calculation that placed her presidential ambitions above the horrifying consequences of a war. Her calibrated course corrections over the past three years were painful. Like John Kerry — who also voted for the war while planning a presidential run — it helped cost her that goal.

He must be a romantic like moi. Because politics is a dirty game and Hillary can play it with the best of them..which might actually get her the nomination my dear reader. Doesn’t make it right..but it does make it possible.

David Sirota on last nights debate..

David was on CNBC this morning, discussing last nights debate with a Hillary supporter. He also has a post up at HuffPo about his pov here.