Entries for March 2008

Hillary Clinton was in Indiana this weekend, telling cheering audiences there was no way she was about to drop out of the race for her party's presidential nomination:

I didn't think we believed that in America. I thought we of all people knew how important it was to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted, and we're going to give Indiana that chance on May 6th...because, you see, I have this old-fashioned idea that the more people who get a chance to vote, the better it is for our democracy.

Although the National Review Online may have unknown motivations for saying so, a new article on the website concurs with my contention that Barack Obama, if he secures the Democratic nomination for president, may do so without the support of the most important Democratic constituency: older, white middle-class voters, including union members.

If, as current polls predict, Barack Obama loses Pennsylvania by a double-digit margin on April 22, the truly ominous omen will not be the loss itself, but his campaign's catastrophic inability to tailor its message to vital demographics.

Ah, finally, one of the presidential candidates actually offers a common-sense approach to resolving the mortgage crisis. Sen. John McCain yesterday "derided government intervention to save and reward banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly...."

McCain offered few specifics about how he'd handle the crisis, which could be over or at least wound way down by the time the next occupant of the White House is sworn into office in late January 2009. However, unlike his two Democratic opponents, McCain emphasized government help in exchange for tough controls to prevent financial industry recidivism, signaling a possible GOP return to small-government conservatism.

Contrasting mental images. Think of a blond beauty. Think of a roadside bomb in Iraq claiming the lives of four U.S. soldiers. What do they have in common?

The U.S. war effort in Iraq. As yesterday marked five years since former POW Jessica Lynch was captured in Iraq, news broke that the American death toll in Iraq passed another milestone—that of 4,000 dead.

This Easter, it's time to update your sin list.

The pope believes the modern world "is losing the notion of sin," so the Vatican has updated its sin list, which is a heckuva lot hipper than it used to be, including, for example, not fighting for social justice and contributing to environmental pollution.

How effective was Barack Obama's Tuesday speech on faith and race, in terms of putting to rest questions about his ties to controversial minister Jeremiah Wright? Polls reflecting America's reaction to the speech won't be out for days or weeks, but it appears the speech did little but preach to those already in Obama's flock.

Obama had the opportunity to lure undecided Reagan Democrats, independents, evangelical Christians, and American Jews, deeply suspicious of Wright's close relationship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. But he said renouncing the pastor would be like renouncing part of himself. In so doing, he thrilled African-American and liberal Democratic supporters but lost an opportunity to appeal to centrist voters, who will be critical to victory in November should he secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

For those of us who hate to succumb to stories of environmental doom and gloom, there's a situation brewing out west that gives doom-and-gloomers new credibility and new reason to howl. The headline:

The largest salmon run in the largest estuary on this hemisphere's Pacific Coast has collapsed.

Why should we care, as firedoglake.com's Dr. Kirk James Murphy so aptly put it, "about [the collapse of] a bunch of fish and a big marsh?"