BuggBlog

Hello, Hillary. It's me, Sean.

If you were a better candidate, you would have run a better campaign. If you were honorable in your positions, you wouldn't attempt to change the rules that you agreed to when you realized you were losing. If you were even a decent candidate at this point, I wouldn't be cringing and yelling every time a I saw you or one of your surrogates -- please, God, make Terry McAuliffe go away for a long, long time -- appear on television.

Stop it. Stop it now. Otherwise, when the Republicans snatch victory with your gracious assistance, we'll know just who is to blame.

I wish I was an ordinary person

So Howard Dean's on MSNBC telling me how superdelegates are just ordinary people with a vote. Really? The superdelegates actually have two votes, and one of those votes counts more than the other. That ain't ordinary people, and don't try 'n tell me different cuz I'm onto you, Howard.

Gas bag

I was kind of planning to write a post on why even though rising gas taxes are having a negative effect on many aspects of my elite life -- they increase the money I have to pay to distribute Metro Weekly, they increase the money I have spend on food for my catering business, they put a huge burden on my family members in Kentucky and Indiana who drive more than 50 miles to and from work each way every day -- but frankly, I can't get motivated because the Clinton campaign is simply too depressing in its willingness to ask the American voter, "How big a check do you want for your vote?"

Obviously, I'm against the gas tax holiday for similar reasons as basically every living economist. But I'm just finding myself more and more depressed about the possible outcome of this entire election cycle and the fact that Hillary Clinton seems to believe that America as a nation is all about the lowest common denominator. I'm hoping that voters -- including my Hoosier family -- who are actually hurting from the current economic situation will resist Clinton call to naked, short-term self interest and cast their vote for a needed change in the way our political system is structured. I like to think they will.

It would be nice to be proved right, for once.

Lowering the punditry limbo bar

When some bloggers began criticizing a Commentary column that criticized Barack Obama for choosing orange juice (a "childish" drink) over coffee ("bitter and bracing"), I kind of assumed that too many people were reading a joking column as a serious rant. Then I went to read it for myself.

And it really is about the stupidest thing I've read this campaign. It may even be stupider than Fox News talking about the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Scary thing? There's plenty of room to go even lower between now and November.

Oh, the shame of heritage

Via Andrew, a Kentucky Democrat voices an opinion to The New Yorker on Clinton v. Obama:

"I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people," - a Clinton supporter in Eastern Kentucky, to George Packer of the New Yorker.

I'm not sure what's sadder, the attitude represented by the thinking or the fact that my home state seems determined to be as embarrassing as possible these days. Perhaps I could take refuge in that I'm only half-Kentuckian if you look solely at my paternal lineage.

Unfortunately, my maternal lineage is in Indiana, and Hoosiers have their own problems lately.

That's MISTER Pansy to you

In a strange day of political developments, I'm struck by the reaction to the far more minor eruption in North Carolina where Gov. Mike Easley made his endorsement of Hillary Clinton more newsworthy by tossing out the loaded word "pansy."

But what strikes me more than the utterance itself is the blog posts and e-mails I've been watching that defend Hillary's defender because "pansy" isn't really an anti-gay term, or because Easley's just a humor-impaired old straight guy, or because "OMG, I didn't even know 'pansy' was a gay insult!" And, no surprise, some gay Obama supporters have been pushing the story, while some gay Clinton supporters have been pretending it's no big deal. Both of which are useless pursuits.

Anyone who votes against Clinton solely for this Easley flap probably shouldn't be voting anyway because it kind of indicates a lack of any sort of critical thought about either candidate; the same goes for anyone who votes against Obama because of Rev. Wright or some other supposed "surrogate." There are far bigger issues at stake, and far better arguments for both candidates.

But. But, but, but.

As a 40 year old gay guy with strong memories of how homosexuals were verbally degraded in my rural Kentucky hometown -- faggot, queer, pansy, homo, etc. -- and even stronger memories of those words and others being used against me in college and beyond, the dismissal by some of a pretty nasty little word strikes me as a pretty egregious case of granting an exception for political purposes. I've watched the gay community over the past few years rear itself up with righteous dudgeon over the use of the word "gay" by pre-teens. Yet the 50-something Democratic governor of a southern state gets a pass with a wink and nod? Isn't he the one who should know better? Isn't he the one we should be holding accountable?

Maybe we should come up with a list of words that are acceptable and those that are not. "Pansy" = okay. "Faggot" = off limits. "Cocksucker" = depends on the context.

The idea that Clinton should have reacted immediately and cast Easley aside to give some soul-stirring speech denouncing the history of the word pansy is, frankly, silly. But the idea that we as a community should react with no more than a laugh and a wave of the hand is disheartening.

Bitter, better...but her?: Liveblogging the PA debate

Seize the sleaze!

When family members back home tell me how much they dislike -- even hate -- politics, I can thank amoral political hacks like Douglas E. Schoen. An adviser to Bill Clinton post 1994 -- the era of Dick Morris -- Schoen today in the Post advocates Hillary Clinton taking a scorched earth policy to somehow breath life into her lost campaign.

Although voters and the media look favorably upon a positive campaign message, and Clinton is acutely conscious that too much negativity and too many personal attacks will hurt her party in November, a positive message is simply not enough to alter the race at this point. It is too late for Clinton to wait for Obama to make another mistake. She must seize the opportunity that Obama's self-acknowledged mistakes last week presented to her campaign; it is almost certainly her last chance.

So the advice is that even though going negative and personal could cost the Democrats the race in November, Clinton should go ahead and do it anyway because this race is all about her, regardless is she's run a losing campaign from Day 1. Of course, this would all just be mildly amusing if it didn't look like she was about to do exactly this.

Leaving aside my biases in this race, I'm not some political Pollyanna who thinks that all campaigns should be conducted at a tone appropriate for serving tea. Politics is a rough business -- it should be, given the importance of the ideas, values and expectations at stake. But that's not reflected in shots of Crown Royal and endless repetitions of "I'm not bitter!" All that's doing is laying the groundwork to -- pardon the cliche, but it's appropriate -- snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

With the issues at stake in this election -- war, executive abuse of powers, suspension of basic civil liberties -- it's disappointing, sad and infuriating that Clinton would choose to run a campaign based on a solipsism.

Reasons to be bitter

Though I'm a little late to the game after this weekend's latest "gaffe," I'm up to play. Because if after eight years of Bush you're not bitter, then you're not paying attention.

My reasons to be bitter:

• The repeal of habeas corpus.
• The war in Iraq.
• The neglected war in Afghanistan.
• Unrestrained government spending that would make LBJ blush.
• The use of my life and the lives of my friends as political footballs to drum up votes.
• Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney.
• The abridgment of our civil rights in the name of the so-called Drug War.
• Hillary Clinton's nebulous relationship with the truth.
• Only one more season of Battlestar Galactica.

And the list goes on and on.

Full court press

Following up on its attention-grabbing antics of last week when it ran a blank stretch of space on its front page to emphasize the Obama campaign's decision not to do an interview with the paper, the Philadelphia Gay News continues its campaign this week with the front page with the complaint that it's been "1,529 days" since Obama interviewed with the "local gay press."

The complaint last week in a PGN editorial was  that "It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community." Now that the Advocate has snagged an interview with him, the PGN complaint has shifted, essentially, to kvetching that Barack Obama won't interview with me!

PGN publisher Mark Segal, in a press release this morning highlighted four "questions of importance to the LGBT community of Pennsylvania":

1. Why has he not spoken with local gay media in 1529 days?

2. Why has he accepted only two interviews with gay media since 2004?

3. Why interview only with gay media when in damage control now that the national LGBT press is urging you to talk to us, not at us?

4.  Finally, with all due respect Senator, you've now avoided answering the single most important question which PGN readers must ask. The LGBT community of Pennsylvania wants to know your stand on the anti gay marriage state constitutional legislation currently before the Pennsylvania Senate.

You know, when three of your four "important" questions are essentially re-phrased versions of Barack Obama won't interview with me! then there's a bit of a substance problem to the complaint. The idea that we don't know anything about Obama's positions on GLBT issues -- or, conversely, that we now have some special insight into the mind of Hillary Clinton because she interviewed with PGN or Kevin Naff at the Blade -- is a non-starter because the positions have been spelled out, they've been discussed in public events, and they've been covered in press both mainstream and niche. And if you're a reporter who wants to know a candidate's position on a particular issue -- say, a Pennsylvania anti-marriage amendment -- you call the campaign office, ask them, and report the response (or non-response).

Tempest? Meet the teapot.