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Blood in the Water

Seven new Obama supers, along with continued media obit-writing, have made this a bloody friday for Clinton. At this rate, she won’t make it to the Sunday political talk. If she does, she can expect this Chris Matthews zinger delivered to Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson to be an indicator of the environment she and her surrogates will be entering:

“…you’re like one of these Japanese soldiers, still fighting in 1953.” 

Ouch. 

Aftermath

For a while there last night, it looked like my first ever blogdiction was going to be golden, as Hillary held that four point advantage for so long. I was happy to be slowly thrown off though as Obama slowly closed the gap. When, to quote early Atrios, “literally dozens of people are reading this on an almost monthly basis” I am committed to prediction threads with or without election results because I love predictions and this is the perfect format for them. 

As far as the state of the race, I think no bit of punditry was more revealing than media Sun-God Tim Russert saying “We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it.”  

Russert has so many sycophants throughout the media that to me this sounds like a death knell for the bullshit “neck and neck” narrative that refuses to die. I think if Obama does rack up enough superdelegates to pass Hillary in the next few days (he’s only down by 15-20) then you will see the media shift its collective focus to Obama vs. McCain regardless of whether Hillary withdraws or not. However, he’s not off to  good start as the only Super to endorse today so far was Rep Heath Schuler who endorsed Senator Clinton. I knew a felt a jinx when Georgie was mouthing off about “bunches of superdelegates” on GMA this morning. 

 

Fearless Prediction Episode I

This is the part of blogging I was looking forward to most: predictions pulled from who knows where!

 

Indiana: Clinton 46-42

NC: Obama 56-40

As you can see, I am going with my heart and not my head (or polling averages) on this one. Feel free to add your own predictions in the comments. 

Gotta Get ‘Em

Sometimes, you just sit back and let digby ether ‘em:

 

“This Germany and Japan argument is going to take hold unless Democrats begin to make the proper arguments. As much as the keyboard commandos would like to pretend they are fighting the War Of All Wars, it isn’t. It’s a colonial war like Vietnam, not WWII. And as one of the main forces behind normalizing relations with Vietnam the past decade or so, McCain must know that if we had stayed there it would be violent still.” 

 

Ouch. Will Hillary and/or Barack take McCain on over 100 years on their respective morning shows tomorrow? Seems to me Dem primary voters might want to see some aggression on one of the first pitched battles of the general election where we are on offense.

The Spectacle

Mark Halperin’s man I wish I could be like Matt Drudge site succinctly much sums up the mood of the traditional media today. Right now it screams: OBAMA CUTS WRIGHT LOOSE. The breathless euphoria that has washed over the national political media is palatable. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous are undoubtedly playing the “I told you so” card on the DC cocktail party circuit for their shameful debate performance in Philly. Disgusting.

We Are Democrats

Image from digby who has always managed to lift my spirits about the Democratic nominee’s chances in November. The numbers I really want to see is the percentage of those self-identifying young republicans who were once Rudy! supporters. 

Obligatory ‘Hello World’ Post

I’ve been a blog reader so long now that I can’t help but feel self-conscious putting my own thoughts to virtual ink so you will have to bear with me as I try to find my online voice. My content will be mostly about politics and media, which are my chief interests, but I also plan to let this take shape as it goes (I don’t think a blog named after a line in an impromptu Kanye freestyle could try anything else). In real terms this means if you don’t care what I think about the latest leaked “Carter III” track you might have to skip a few posts down the line.

For full disclosure from the start, I am an ardent supporter of Senator Obama though not one of those who believes he is The One Who Will Change America. A sustained and successful progressive movement is what will change America and Senator Obama happens to be the candidate who I believe would create the best conditions for the growth of this movement. I believe this despite the outrage often expressed at the Senator’s willingness to rhetorically distance himself from the far left of his own party most recently seen in his appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

Senator Obama’s centrist media strategy understandably frustrates many of his progressive allies but I do not believe that this positioning precludes him from being able to lead a progressive policy  agenda. To the contrary, I think Obama’s “unity” message is one that has the potential to reframe the political discourse in this country around progressive goals, instead of along wedge issue fault lines.

This disclaimer is already turning into a thesis so I will cut it off for now.