Obama gives Joe the "LBJ treatment"

UPDATE: If you arrived here from a link elsewhere, click HERE to visit the home page of ConnecticutBob.com!
-----------------------------------
From My Left Nutmeg:

Earlier, Lieberman had criticized Obama's experience and judgement on Israel and Iran after he had appeared at the AIPAC conference.

Furthermore, during a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.

Afterwards, Obama smiled and pointed up at reporters peering over the edge of the press gallery for a better glimpse of their interaction.

Obama loyalists were quick to express their frustration with Lieberman's decision and warned that if he continues to take a lead role in attacking Obama it could complicate his professional relationship with the Caucus.

Who doesn't love that? LBJ was a pro at forcing people to own up to their words, and he often tested their commitment in the face of a little intimidation.

Lyndon Johnson was the farthest thing from the prototypical "wimpy" Democrat. LBJ would often use his imposing height and overwhelming personality to make his point. He was truly the "anti-Harry Reid", a master of persuasion, and we may have found someone who finally can fill his shoes.

Does anyone think any other Democratic candidates would be able to make Lieberman wet his pants like that?

Sec. Bysiewicz renews call for primary reform

In a press release from the Secretary of State's Office, Susan Bysiewicz reiterated her call for both parties to reform the current haphazard primary system.

The plan, endorsed by the National Association of Secretaries of the State (NASS), along with a crapload of other organizations, proposes four rotating "regions" which each has a month to complete all it's primaries. So, we'll have say the Western region completing it's primaries in March, the Midwestern in April, the Eastern in May, and the Southern in June. The following election will see the first region go to the end of the line and all others move up one place. That way, each region will be first every sixteen years. The regions may schedule their primaries any time within "their" month.

Iowa and New Hampshire will retain their traditional privileged status as first caucus and primary, probably sometime in late February or early March.

The national committees of each party must decide on this proposal, and I'm hoping the bipartisan support the plan has received with translate to actual progress. The Democratic Party is free to take up the issue at any time.

However, the Republican Party limits reform discussions to one short window of time every four years, at its nominating conventions. This will take place in Minnesota in early September, so they've got to act fast. The reason it's important to get both parties to agree on a plan is that presently each state is free to set it's primary schedule, and a situation similar to Florida may occur where the majority party and governor rules when the election will be held, regardless of the effect it has on the opposition party.

Hence the DNC's ruling early on to strip Florida of it's delegates when the Republican majority moved the state primaries earlier.

Now, I'm well aware that the Republicans often are tremendously short-sighted, and I'm sure some of them think the kind of chaos that occurred this year in the Democratic primaries will be a permanent feature if they don't fix the process. But you need to remember that this is the very same Republican party that agreed to the deal where whichever party held the majority in the Senate on the first day of the session would retain their majority status even if the makeup of the Senate changes.

That's why we have all the committees and the "majority", even though today the makeup of the body is 49-49-2. They thought they'd be in charge from day one and gambled to keep power in the event of potential Republican defections, which might have seemed like a good idea at the time.

But they didn't anticipate Joe Lieberman and the depth of his betrayal to the Democratic party; if they had, they NEVER would have proposed the plan. Ha-ha.

So, I'm holding out hope that we'll see a new primary system that not only benefits both parties, but by allowing candidates to spend a month in each region rather than endlessly criss-crossing the nation, it'll benefit the voters too, by letting them actually see and hear their candidates.

However, we all know that the Republicans would like nothing better than to shoot down a plan that makes sense (unless it was Dick Cheney's idea), so I'm a bit skeptical that we'll see this adopted at the frenzied Republican National Convention late this summer.

They're going to be too busy bailing out their sinking lifeboat of a presidential campaign to worry about what the menu choices are at the yacht club.

3rd term McCain

Yes We Did!

WOO-HOOOO!!! *

(* my shortest blog post ever!)

What a long, strange trip it's been

Today the primaries are FINALLY over! By 11PM tonight, we'll have a presumptive nominee, and the Democratic party can begin focusing on November.

I vividly remember walking in the slush on a chilly night outside a bar in Manchester NH nearly five months ago, waiting for Dennis Kucinich to show up as the primary results started coming in.

Today it's 80 degrees and I'm wearing shorts and no shoes, and I can't help but be astonished that it took this long for the process to work it's way through. There's no way that even one person up in Manchester that night had imagined we would have such a long and thrilling primary season. I'm already feeling nostalgia.

In early February just two days before our own primary, I attended the McCain rally in Fairfield. Small, flashy, loaded with generally OK people, except for the crowd on the stage.

Then, the next day, I was at the huge Barack Obama rally in Hartford. This was a truly historic event, and it was good to see Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsing Obama and getting a warm reaction from the crowd. It felt like a rock concert, and often I couldn't hear everything being said because of the enthusiastic crowd.

This year's primary season has been historic and unforgettable. I know that twenty years from now, I'm going to still be talking about "that amazing primary year of aught-eight" (although I probably won't have a good explanation for sounding like a gold-rush miner).

My website has gotten nearly 100,000 hits due SOLELY to the primaries, because my primary schedule page was the top search result on Google for "primary schedule" for several months. January alone saw around 50,000 visits; much higher than my usual monthly 5-10,000 hits.

It's been fun keeping track of the unique issues associated with all the weird turns and surprises that came up. I'm going to miss updating that portion of my blog with results and observations, along with my little map displaying the states that were holding their primaries.

But now we also need to concentrate on something else.

We need to FIX this broken process, and get to it immediately!

We need to eliminate "front-loading" of the primaries by getting our DNC reps to approve a workable solution to the mess, such as splitting the nation into four regions and having regional primaries on a rotating basis.

Imagine how great it would be to have 12 or 13 states each month, 3 or 4 each week, holding primaries. Plus, the candidates will have a much easier time meeting and being seen by the people by spending one month in the northeast, one in the south, etc., rather than the current wasteful criss-crossing of the nation.

We need to eliminate "super" anythings. Super delegates who aren't bound by their state's voters, and "Super Tuesday" where 22 states all have their primary on the same day. Enough with the "super" stuff. Fix it.

Oh, and one more good thing about the primaries being over:

McCain's "free ride" has run out of gas. Now the media can start hammering on him for a change!

Grandma is unrepentant

Representing the very worst contingent of our party, rabid Clinton supporter Harriet Christian appears on FoxNews with Neil Cavuto and holds fast to her stance that she'll vote for John McCain before Barack Obama in November, and she expands on her terribly uncompromising reasoning why Obama is the worst thing in the known universe; in fact, probably far worse than the New York Yankees right now.

She's obviously the soul-sister of Geraldine Ferraro.

This woman is surely an embarrassment to her grandchildren, who are probably Obama supporters and will now feel obligated to canvass extra hard for him. Kind of like how I feel about my dad; this election day I'm going to nail-gun his door shut so he won't be able to negate my vote for Barack.



Plus, Jane's video has amassed nearly a million hits so far, and it's become a punchline on The Daily Show tonight. Yay Jane!

UPDATE: Here's the video from TDS. Jane's video and Stewart's reaction are near the end.

Last day for Hill?

Maybe. We'll see.

BTW, does anyone else think that CNN.Com's pathetic attempt at popularizing their shitty corporate news service by trade-marking, printing, and selling T-shirts using random "headlines" lacks both humor and irony? This appears to be a remarkably lame effort to create some "hip" buzz about CNN, but it fails on an epic scale.

If I ever see someone wearing one of those stupid fucking shirts, I'll have to use all my restraint to stop myself from screaming "Breaking news!" and punching them in the face!

DiNardo announces her choice

Finally!

Ms. DiNardo, Chairwoman of the Connecticut Democratic Party, has announced today that she is choosing to vote for Barack Obama.

That brings the total of Connecticut's super delegates to two for Clinton and ten for Obama.

Nancy chose to announce at an especially opportune time; by doing so the day BEFORE the final primaries, her decision won't be lost in the expected flood of super delegates who will probably state their preferences on Wednesday, AFTER South Dakota and Montana. Very shrewd political maneuver, if you ask me. We'll probably see some other delegates follow suit later today.

(And now, in the spirit of party unity, I hereby announce that I take back 83% of the snarky things I've said about Nancy in the last two years; you'll have to figure out for yourselves which things are included in the non-retracted 17%)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BTW, Jane Hamsher's video of disgruntled Clinton supporter Harriet Christian from Manhattan, New York (see post from Saturday below) has gotten around 750,000 hits in less than two days; and it's even being front-paged on Drudge. We can thank Harriet for making the phrase "inadequate black male" an unfortunate addition to the popular lexicon, putting her on the same despicable level as Don Imus.

And I loved the final comment in the video you can just barely hear, about someone saying that "it's good to see mother get some exercise" and Jane's laugh.

I'm sure lots of conservatives are getting tingly feelings in their pants at the prospect of millions of Harriet Christians across the country either staying home on election day or voting for McCain. Let them delude themselves.

The fact is, after Wednesday the Democratic Party is going to come together and be stronger than ever; and once we can fully focus on John Sidney McCain III, his quest for the White House will crash and burn as spectacularly as the Hindenburg.

The Whole Truth

(Comic by J.D. Crowe, Alabama -- The Mobile Register; J.D.'s website)

A new epidemic to worry about

Um, I was talking about the REPUBLICANS...they have a LOT to worry about!

(Kick-ass video! I only wish I had the time to put together something like that)