white house wiki: Bill Clinton

"ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics – and he's done a heck of a good job."

Hillary's ugly victory

At least we've approached the end of the Clinton-Obama deathmatch, with Obama emerging victorious.

Since the beginning I've rooted for Obama, for all the basic reasons- his freshness, intelligence, judgment, the inspiration factor and so on. One principle I especially believed in was that he was more electable than Hillary.

"We can't present a candidate who's already hated by half the country," I argued. "We need to go with Barack because he can reach a lot of people that Hillary can't."

Months later, I started checking out the electoral breakdowns- and pretty surprisingly, Hillary looks like she's in Much stronger position for a general election victory.

Obviously I still expect Obama to win big when it's all said and done, but it's worth asking. Why do the rubrics look so much stronger for Hillary right now?


Basically, months ago it seemed clear that the key voters were independents and repentant republicans.

So you see libertarian types in western states or traditionally conservative states say, "Bush really sucks, and I hate the Clintons- but Obama seems like a decent guy." and these states consistently gave obama huge primary victories (Idaho, NC, etc) and/or figure hugely into his November map- Virginia, Colorado.

These Obama>McCain>Clinton voters are a legitimate bloc.

The ugly victory of Hillary's campaign is her successful creation of a Clinton>McCain>Obama bloc.
Through a months-long parade of character assassination, beer swilling and race baiting, she's cultivated the oft-blogged-about "white working class" voters. And perhaps she's always had their support, but there's no doubt that her vocal and brutal campaign has furthered the alienation of these folks from Obama. Obama gets the indies, Hill gets the blue dogs.

And unfortunately, the states where the C>M>O demographic reign supreme- ohio, pennsylvania, michigan- carry a lot more electoral weight than the states of Obama's coalition.

These People Exist

There's a great video here that examines the reasons for Obama's losses in the Appalachian parts of America. The conclusion: Appalachian people are hilarious caricatures of themselves, and also cripplingly racist. It's a good report, but a few things really stood out:
-Multiple interviews with coal miners
-A man auctioning a plastic chicken and individual cans of beans, as his job
-Frequent toothlessness
-A "retired coal miner and voter" named Oakley Delong who:

• Has a flagpole outside his trailer which bears a large confederate flag, in the middle of which is a cartoon bulldog wearing a confederate soldier hat
• Has two empty 24-pack beer cartons right next to his chair, indicating that he puts his beer there for easy access before not throwing the boxes away (alternatively: he throws the boxes away daily, and they caught him after 3 pm)
• Is wearing a hat that appears to say "SkyCare" underneath a picture of a fish
• Claims that "the front people" kept black people at the back of the bus so long that now "we have to be careful they don't put us at the back of the bus.
• Basically lives in a bus

It's too bad for Clinton the primaries aren't taking place in a Snuffy Smith cartoon.

Obama is not an Asshole

Here's something I like about Obama:
I haven't seen a lot about this in the media, but I think an interesting pattern has been emerging wherein he gets hit with dirty politics and actually tries to take the high road instead of fighting fire with fire, which is a good way to continue burning things down.
For instance, people were upset that Obama chose a known black as his fake pastor, and they said dumb things about it. Obama responded with the best speech in America by any politician since Roosevelt, and it was nuanced and intelligent and didn't disown his friend. He eventually had to do that, but only after Wright turned out to be an actual crazy asshole.
And the gas tax thing. McCain comes up with a stupid plan that will sound good to stupid people. Clinton takes a look at her constituency and decides to back it as well. Obama says, "Well that sounds like a dumb idea," and explains why it is a dumb idea.
And more recently people have criticized him for being willing to talk to leaders of countries that Serious Politicians want to bomb. Instead of doing the easy thing and adopting a Republican foreign policy instead, he has basically continued to hold a sophisticated foreign policy not based on furious erratic bombings.
Sometimes his integrity has paid off (gas tax) and some times not so much (Wright), but I think it's cool that he maintains his positions and defends them even when it requires a patient, possibly complicated explanation. It's nice to be treated like a thinking adult even though I am still an American voter.

NO We Can! NO We Can!

When I was growing up, first paying attention to the nba, there was one narrative that really defined the playoffs. Spurs vs. Lakers. Good vs. Evil.

I hated the Lakers, those smug, 3-peating assholes, and I loved the Spurs, because- even if they were boring or whatever- they were always our best chance to stop L.A.

When the Spurs beat the Lakers in 2003, the first playoffs I followed passionately, it was one of the first big sports thrills of my life. The Spurs earned my love and loyalty for years afterward.

Years later, we're facing the possibility of another Spurs-Lakers conference finals. But it's not so black and white anymore. the Lakers still suck, but, in the past year, I've come to realize that the dreary, heartlessly efficient Spurs kinda suck too. And if it comes down to those two teams, it feels like just a lesser-of-two-evils choice in my heart.

so it is with the Republicans and the Clintons.

But there's another team offering a fresh taste of Hope for all of us... the New Orleans Hornets.

A young team with extraordinary talent, with the athletic and creative intangibles necessary to bamboozle the old-school Spurs. A compelling, truly cheer-worthy alternative to Lakers-Spurs hegemony.


As of this writing, the Hornets have taken a shockingly easy 2-0 lead on the Spurs. We're approaching Super Tuesday, maybe around the corner from the February stampede- I won't feel safe until it's a 3-0 lead, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

NO We Can! NO We Can!

(PS- north carolina and indiana tonight. when are we gonna close this shit out? hillary's down 3-1 and losing game 5 by double digits in the fourth quarter. keep hitting those free throws barack!)

Things That Would Work Better Than the Gas Tax Holiday

McCain could personally offer to punch every American in the stomach.

• Pros: Would save as much on gas as gas tax holiday; would not fund Middle Eastern terror barons (like a robber baron, but less likely to cause the black lung)
  
• Cons: Even at a rate of one American-punch per second, McCain would be dead long before he could finish.

Clinton could threaten to have high gas prices personally killed.

• Pros: Would save as much on gas as gas tax holiday
  
• Cons: Would help her with crucial Bitter Dumbass demographic

McCain could threaten to wage a billion year war on every gas station that doesn't go back to the gas prices in the old good America from when he fought in WWII.

• Pros: Would save as much on gas as gas tax holiday; would allow McCain to "get it out of his system"; denying the Billion Year Local Gas Stations War option shows moral irresponsibility and reminds me of Neville Chamberlain and emboldens gas station guys
• Cons: Army would have no way to get tanks back out of suburbs when they ran out of gas
  

Some Things That Are True

We all know that Obama is an elitist, but did we also know that he isn't elitist? Here is some factual information:

According to the Associated Press, Obama and his wife made $4.2 million last year, paid $1.4 million in taxes and donated $240,370 to charity. Most of the money came from two books that he wrote. As recently as one year before that they made $991,296, total, mostly from working jobs as a senator and a University of Chicago Medical Center administrator.

The Clintons made $20.4 million last year, over half of which came from Bill talking to people in exchange for sweaty fistfuls of cash. I don't know what they made last year but they've pulled in $109 million since her time in the White House ended.

McCain won't tell anybody what he is worth but he is married to a beer heiress named Cindy who is supposedly worth about $100 million. Most of his money comes from being married to a beer heiress worth $100 million. Mostly her company distributes for Budweiser, so it's not even good (or the cheapest) beer.

So, in sum, Obama is worth probably less than %10 as much as either other candidate, and his money comes from things he wrote himself, plus working as a senator, plus his wife helping sick people. The Clintons have money mostly from yammering to people who can afford his $150,000 or so fee. McCain has money because he divorced his first wife, married someone 18 years younger (back in 1980 when he was about the same age as Obama is now), and used her money to become a senator.

Obviously Obama is rich, but he is the least rich of the three candidates, has been rich the least time, and became rich in the least elitist fashion. Granted, he is bad at bowling, but the Clintons have something like more than ten times his money earned by spending lots of time talking to very rich people. And McCain is married to a beer heiress.