So it appears that my visions of the California Super Tuesday race tightening up to a near tie are going to remain naught but visions, short of something really dramatic happening in the whole ultra-confusing “double bubble trouble” mishegas in Los Angeles.

In his exhaustive and somewhat exhausting piece, voting maven Brad Friedman states that perhaps hundreds of thousands of decline-to-state voters might have been disenfranchised, and takes pains to mention and indirect Diebold connection through a departed and apparently entirely incompetent election administrator. (What good is a voting debacle if you can’t at least mention Diebold?)

While I’m sure that Los Angeles Decline-to-State voters would lean heavily toward Obama, it doesn’t sound to me as if including the possibly discarded ballots would do much more than add or subtract a few delegates. Taking action is definitely worthwhile both for the sake of the principle of counting all votes and because, in this wacky election season, a few delegates could make the difference. However, it’s also pretty obvious that it won’t likely make the kind of titanic difference it would take to sway perceptions of the California results. [UPDATE: On the other hand, this mishap or malfeasance in New Mexico really could sway that state’s extremely close caucus. H/t doschi at DKos.] Still, in retrospect, it really does appear that the concerns I passed on about this whole issue in previous Boring Posts were sadly justified.

The other source of my vision was the fact that I spent the better part of a couple of days phone banking for the Obama campaign at their Santa Ana headquarters. When you’re in the bubble of a campaign, you can easily get an incorrect impression of what’s really happening. In our case, we were calling pre-screened phone lists that for good strategic reasons skewed heavily Obama and were, we noted, largely in Alameda county — true Obama country in that the area is dominated by Oakland and Berkeley, a sort of demographic wonderland for the quasi-insurgent Obama campaign, especially with both John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich having dropped out.

For those of you who care about this stuff, my impression of the campaign was a good one. It was as grass roots as you might expect, with a pretty good mix of youthful enthusiasm and professionalism, particularly from the longtime staffers, some of whom had just come from having spent more than a year in Iowa and South Carolina. Regular volunteers (including myself, though I was a johnny-come-lately) were at times a bit woolly, but on the whole substantially saner and much more diverse than other activist types I’ve worked with, one mildly annoying, hand-holding “power circle” notwithstanding.

In fact, pretty much every age, gender, and ethnic group was represented to some degree and I was encouraged by the number of Spanish-speaking callers. Still, I was doing this in Santa Ana, one of the most heavily Latino cities in all of California, so the sampling was (as results bear out), far from scientific.

But that bubble effect kicked in again after the polls were supposed to close statewide at 8:00 p.m. It was supposed to be the post campaign election-return watching party, but then word came that the polls in Alameda county had run out of ballots earlier in the night, and were staying open until 9:00, that meant we could still remind stragglers to get to the polling place — many of whom would be assuming that they missed their opportunity to vote. Phone lists were hastily generated and calling started up at about 8:25. By 8:55 most of had quit…but then word came that the polls were staying open there until 9:30 and then 10:00. Something remarkable seemed to be happening.

I’ve actually worked in telemarketing and phone fundraising a large portion of my life, and one hard and fast rule was never, never, never call after 9:00 p.m., but I was making calls until about 9:50 to people who, with one exceptions, had already voted. Perhaps it was Bay Area enthusiasm for Obama, or perhaps, I’m just a good caller, but no one complained as I hastily suggested they tell anyone they knew who might have missed their chance about the late closing. One caller got a guy, we’ll assume a Berkleyite, in mid-meditation. The meditator, we were told, took the call as a sign from the cosmos and ran out to vote.

Of course, even as the news nationwide was pretty encouraging, we all got a dose of reality on the local results. Certainly, as it turned out, Obama was anything but a big winner in our backyard — but then the real goal in California was always to see how far his campaign could narrow the Clinton victory, given Hillary’s once-prohibitive lead in the local polls. Considering her early lead, the effect of voting by mail, and the proportional nature of the Democratic primaries, 42% really wasn’t too horrible.

Now that my state’s race is over, I did have a bit of demographic fun checking out the results at the California Secretary of State’s site. It’s not news that Northern California was more pro-Obama than more heavily Latino Southern Cal.

Still, the countywide results defy too much easy categorization. For example, more upscale liberals are supposed to be trending toward Obama. But in the national capital of both wine and cheese, Napa, Hillary took the day much as she did in the rest of the state. I’m sure it’s possible the support of United Farm Workers in the vineyard laden region might have swayed the race toward Clinton. But in the neighboring wine capital of Sonoma, Barack managed to edge her out by a few percentage points. Does this all boil to the difference between the two counties in the numbers of Hispanics and/or farmworkers? I could tell you if knew more about the population figures of the two places, but I don’t. I do know that, driving through the counties, the demographic differences are far from obvious.

Some of it was relatively easier to stereotype: upscale, vegetarian-rich Marin, Bill O’Reily’s favorite town ofSan Francisco and, of course, Alameda went decisively for Obama. More business-centric and Latino Santa Clara County (aka Sillicon Valley), went fairly heavily for Hillary. She also nailed the cozy confines of Contra Costa County, just east of Alameda county, which I might have guessed would have leaned slightly Obamaish if I had had to make a bet.

On the other hand, neighboring Yolo and Sacramento counties went narrowly for Obama. Yolo is a little surprising when you consider the heavily agricultural nature of the area, less surprising when you remember that it includes the UC Davis campus. As for Sacramento, which also includes its share of agriculture — are the policy wonks in our state capital breaking heavily for Obama now? I could do this all day, but I’ll stop now. Time to focus on the future.

*****

Did I promise to say something about the end of Mitt Romney’s campaign? Oh yeah, it’s in the title of the post.

Well, I’m tired and I’ve got other stuff to write today and besides, what do you say about the emptiest of empty suits? I’ll just repeat what I’ve said so many before, here and elsewhere.

I’m sorry to see Mitt go because he would have been, I think, by far the easiest candidate to beat. He’s a more handsome John Kerry on whatever is the reverse of steroids; his constant re-engineering of his beliefs to meet new constituencies should have made him an easy mark. But also, by the weird chance that he got into office, I’m think Mitt would have been the least dangerous President, his perceived greater conservatism in comparison to John McCain notwithstanding.

I would have preferred the malleable Romney in many ways to Mr. “More Wars, Fewer Jobs” McCain. Intelligence and perhaps some vestigial integrity is a good thing, I guess, but I’ll take the guy who’ll do the least damage.

Forced friendliness or seething sexual tension?

Well, that was interesting…an election that four out of the five remaining candidates could claim as a victory, though clearly not all victories are created equal. For one thing, the media focus on who won or lost particular states is somewhat misleading on the Democratic side. I’m sure many voters are unaware that these are not winner-take-all primaries and that “almost” actually counts here. So, for all the dramatics, the difference between “winning” and “losing” an extremely closely divided state might be slim to none. Hillary won the Nevada caucuses in terms of votes, but in terms of delegates — which are what actually counts in the primary system — each candidate received half of the state’s 28 delegates. Conversely, Obama famously beat her by about 8 points in Iowa, but they wound up getting exactly the same number of delegates.

Weirder still, despite beating Clinton by a fairly wide 14 percent margin in Alabama, Obama is currently estimated to be gettng two fewer delegates than Clinton there, presumably because he won fewer precincts. The Democratic primary is both horseshoes and hand grenades. (My source for all this is CNN’s handy delegate/election scorecard — though keep in mind that the delegate counts are mostly estimates and there is disagreement about the math.)

As you’re no doubt aware, Hillary Clinton got attention-getting, morale-boosting majorities in the biggest states California, Massachusetts, and New York, though the margins in California may still narrow a little in my opinion because of a number of factors (more on that in the next post). She definitely did score a somewhat lopsided victory in her adopted home states of New York and obliterated Obama in Arkansas with 70 percent of the vote there. For his part, Obama trounced here to a slightly lesser degree in his adopted home of Illinois with 65 percent. However, that one might have stung a bit as Hillary is an Illinois native who grew up in the state and still has some connections there.

On the other hand, Obama beat her handily in a healthy number of medium and smaller states, mostly caucauses. My favorite example being his midwestern shellacking of Hillary in Minnesota to the tune of 67 percent of the vote and an estimated 51 out of 88 delegates. I like to attribute the size of this one to a late endorsement by Minnesota’s public radio superstar Garrison Keillor. I call it “the Lake Woebegon Bounce.” Clearly, something gave shy Minnesotans the strength the get up and do what needed to be done.

Regionalism aside, Obama’s strength in most of the caucuses and Hillary’s corresponding weakness speaks to a significant passion gap between the two candidates, particularly among the kind of people who volunteer and donate modest sums of money. Which brings us to the Obama campaign’s post-election surge in the so-called “money primary”.

Riding a wave of smallish donations, Obama has raised $7.2 million since the election as of the last article I checked, while Hillary Clinton was apparently forced to loan her campaign $5 million of her own money amid reports that, for the time being, many of her staffers are working without paychecks. This is obviously a bad problem for her, especially as her donors tend to be wealthier while her base is less well off than Obama’s. [UPDATE: Or, maybe not. Apparently, the bad news triggered a wave of donations for the Clinton campaign putting them on more of an even footing with Obama. No one said this was going to be simple.]

Conventional wisdom in the liberal blogosphere has it that many of her likely contributors are already legally maxed out. If this is so, where will her new supporters come from? On the other hand, John McCain had a similar problem some time back, and a similar response and he’s now considered a likely lock for the Republican nomination. It’s possible she could fare as well and be a financial comeback kid — though the ongoing war of attrition could be tough.

Still, politically, the most important thing is the popular vote. Hillary currently leads in delegates, mainly because of a strong lead in getting the support of super delegates, though the large majority remain uncommitted and will likely lean towards whoever wins the most popular votes nationwide. (Currently committed super delegates also retain the ability to change their allegiances as well — they’re basically high-end voters.) Most of the supers are congressmembers and other pols, and are therefore not likely to risk the wrath of large numbers of their most involved constituents by thwarting their will. I imagine the results nationally and among their constituents will lead their choice.

So, what was Hillary’s lead with the national popular vote on Tuesday? .4 percent. A tiny lead, but still a lead. But then consider that in California as many as 40 percent or more of the votes cast were cast by mail, and it is hardly the only state where — encouraged by convenience as well as by fraud-fearing liberal activists — absentee voting is growing in popularity.

That means that an unknown but undoubtedly large number of the ballots in many states were sent in weeks ago. As of right now, Hillary’s lead is still real. However, in a very literal sense, it is also currently a thing of the past.

NEXT: I Go Local: Madness in Santa Ana, “Double Bubble Trouble” and (less locally), “Mitty, We Hardly Knew Ye”

See, no pic, even.

Sure, I could try and sex this blog up by declaring the FtY bump, as the race in California and throughout the nation tightens within an inch of its life after my stunning, shocking, and all together earthshaking surprise endorsement of Barack Obama. (Maria Shriver? Never heard of the woman.) But all I’d be doing is stealing a joke from Stephen Colbert and, until his writers return, he needs every single one right now.

Instead, I just want to remind readers that tomorrow is probably the most important primary election in the last thirty years.

Here’s the really crucial part: If you are in California and are a “Decline to State” or “Undeclared” voter (i.e., you’re registered to vote, but not in any political party), you CAN vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary — but you have to ask for a Democratic party ballot. You can find a lot more about it here. The bottom line is, no BS, you can vote in Democratic primaries and it’s illegal for poll workers, who might not be aware of the law, to prevent you from doing so. Be firm, but polite. Speaking softly is good, carrying a big stick might get you arrested, however.

[AND ANOTHER UPDATE — IMPORTANT: Notwithstanding what I wrote below and what’s in comments, there are a large number of anecdotal reports coming in via KPCC’s Airtalk call-in program that there a number of poll workers are apparently not as clued in to the situation as John P. Garry. In particular, there is a lot of confusion over the term “independent” as it seems that both poll workers and voters are unaware that the American Independent is a very small, far-right party (which goes by another name in other states). Non-partisan/Decline to State voters need to be very vigilant that they are being escorted to the correct booth and are given the correct ballots.]

[UPDATE: My thoughts are this are just a jokey variation on what was written in the page I linked to at the Courage Campaign above, as well as the content of the commercial recorded by Bradley Whitford. There was also an incident I discuss in the comments which caused me some concern. However, thanks to FtY friend John P. Garry III below, we read that that at least one poll worker and general, all-around geniusey guy known to me in the real world, has received what sounds like excellent training and will actually offer it as a choice rather than having to be asked. Hopefully you’re mileage won’t very by too much…we shall see. Our friendly bloggingwood poll worker has also helpfully posted a link below to LAVote.net, where Los Angelenos can go to for information, etc.]

If firmness doesn’t work for some reason, then If there are any issues, you can call the California Obama Election Protection Hotline (for fairly obvious reasons having to do with the sensibilities of most Decline to State voters, Hillary Clinton’s campaign isn’t as interested in this aspect of the election — though a big turn-out helps all Democrats and all sane folks, generally)

That’s it. End of my most boring post as I run off to volunteer. Whoever you vote for tomorrow, please vote out of hope, not fear. Fear is what got us into this mess.

So, the other day I spent hours writing this mega-lengthy post trying my best to explain why I think it’s urgent that Democrats and Californian Decline-to-States should vote for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. A waste of time.

Now, through the miracle of reverse psychology and counter-example, I will, with but the click of my mouse, persuade every single liberal reader to the side of Barack Obama. A bold statement, to be sure, but I am confident.

I have, via a short clip from, forgive me, Hannity and Colmes, an irrefutable argument that will magically sway all wavering liberals to Obama. And now I cede the floor to… Lord, I can’t believe I’m doing this….

I feel dirty, yet vindicated.

(Backhanded h/t: I found this while trolling reading through the comments at the site formerly known as Blogs for Bush, now Blogs for Victory. Always good entertainment.)

2,080…that’s the number of hits you get on Google if you a very slight variation on the title of one of the better known songs by the Clash. Never think you can beat a million typewriting monkeys to a clever play on early Gen X/late baby-boom pop culture references in the face of big news. In this case, big news is also good news.

Mayor Giuliani is usually called a moderate, but on foreign policy he is probably the single major politician most in step with the war-crazed, utterly discredited yet seemingly un-killable neoconservative movement. (”You fools! Abject failure won’t stop it!”) Honestly, he’s the Republican candidate I feared the most.

Though he probably would have been easy for any Democrat to beat, I didn’t want to take the chance because a victory would have risked a complete breakdown of civilization, and I think I’m being lowkey when I say that. Sure, the others might abridge our freedoms, continue our ruinous foreign policy and all that. But Rudy was a good bet to start that clash of civilizations that neocons fear could end with Britney Spears in a burkha if we don’t start a new war every few months, but which would much more likely would end with millions of dead civilians all over the world, possibly including me, while most of these brave, brave typers, whose “will” never fails, would be cozy in some nice underground bunker with Miss Foreign Affairs, Dr. Strangelove, and Walter Matthau’s character from Fail Safe.

Do I sound extreme? Well, check out the words of the senior foreign policy adviser of the mayor’s now defunct campaign.

(H/t David Weigel.)

That’s Norman Podhoretz, author of the “The Case for Bombing Iran” and longtime grand poobah of the neoconservative movement, who has been so very right about so many things when it comes Iraq and whose support of some of Latin American best loved fascist regimes still warms the cockles of our hemispheric neighbor’s hearts — at least the ones whose relatives weren’t tortured to death.

Here, he urges war with Iran because, when it comes to wars of choice, there’s always room for one more. And, in any case, all other options for preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon (you know, the one they’re not working on) have proven “sterile.” But don’t worry, he tells us, because most likely we would have been secretly applauded by all kinds of people in the Middle East. I think they’re the same ones who were so (secretly) delighted about Iraq and who have greeted us with well concealed flowers and candies.

Still, thanks to the good offices of Rudy’s very clever strategy for nabbing the GOP nomination, Mr. Podhoretz is going to have to find a different path to causing the kind of mass destruction he prays for.

As for Rudy, since I’ve got the Clash on my mind, here’s a song dedication.

UPDATE: A departure I’m MUCH sorrier to hear about. I guess the choice is becoming more stark, or something.

Yes, it’s true. The press speculation has been deafening. Sure, you’ve heard about Caroline Kennedy, the almost shockingly full-throated endorsement of her Uncle Ted, and the more refined thoughts of Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison — though perhaps not L.A. congressman Xavier Beccara, the “highest ranking Latino in the House” whose district includes, among other neighborhoods, Korea Town, Little Armenia, Historic Fillipinotown, Silverlake, and Echo Park, representing more ethnic and cultural constituencies than I care to name.

Still, the question on the lips of the punditocracy is: Who will Forward to Yesterday throw it’s support behind. Which Presidential candidate is best for the cinephile American community? And what would this blogger exact from a potential _____ Administration. “Secretary of Obscure Musicals and Sword Fight Films” sounds good to me. Seriously, however, I do want to take a moment away from what has lately been the predominantly entertainment-oriented agenda around here and discuss my reasons for my support of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

Now, just about everyone who knows me knows that I was wavering for a long time between Senator Obama and John Edwards. I liked Edwards’ populism, but was perhaps even more taken with Obama’s intelligent persona and his sustained and ongoing ability to galvanize large numbers of people with an appeal to our better natures — something I haven’t seen in U.S. politics in my lifetime.

Watching Obama’s Democratic Convention speech in 2004 was not quite as powerful as seeing Nelson Mandela speak on his post-freedom U.S. tour, but it was close as I’d come since. Still, he was new on the scene, he was somehow letting Hillary Clinton successfully run to his left and I’m a regular Hamlet when it comes to even ordering off a menu sometimes, much less choosing a leader in a crisis. However, with the Edwards campaign apparently fizzling, with the choice boiling down to Senators Obama and Clinton, and with the California primary just over a week away, it is time to make a stand.

Friends and maybe even close readers of this blog know that I have been unenthusiastic regarding Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions from day 1. I feel this way in spite of the fact that I am convinced that the United States is more than “ready” for a woman president, and I have a great deal of highly qualified respect for her. I believe that Senator Clinton and her recently extra-voluble husband are, most of the time anyhow, brilliant and probably two of the brainiest people to ever occupy the White House. I also understand from an nearly endless variety of sources across the Democratic political spectrum that, in person, Hillary Clinton is apparently a very warm and likable person who seems to genuinely care about the problems of ordinary people. Nice to know, for what it’s worth.

However, I see the achievements of the Clinton Administration largely in terms of bad things that didn’t happen rather than good things that did. They talked like leaders and looked like leaders, but they didn’t lead, they followed — too often they followed us nowhere or even backwards.

On the positive side, through a combination of smarts and luck they oversaw a healthy economy — albeit on in which the gap between rich and poor begun under Reagan continued apace. Health care was abandoned, though it certainly could have been tried again in a second term, the trend of regressive tax breaks continued, a welfare reform widely seen as a sop to Reaganism and a potential disaster for the poor (though I admit it hasn’t turned out as badly as some liberals warned) was hailed as the Clinton’s primary accomplishment; and, worst of all to my turn of mind, the administration destroyed important international initiatives, including Kyoto but especially the International Criminal Court.

The Clinton Administration could not bear to antagonize the likes of Neanderthal paleocons Jesse Helms and, even worse, the sociopathic, ideologically trashed neocons. The Clintons seemed only too eager to be seen as (to use a term that has become loaded indeed) “serious,” i.e., ready to start a war without much forethought or any concern for the human toll, especially as it applies to foreign civilians. Fortunately, they mostly resisted the urge to actually do so — a major plus.

All things considered, I was hopeful back in 2001 that Senator Hilary Clinton would chart a somewhat new political course once she was in office on her own. I had this crazy idea that she might be the more genuinely progressive of the two Clintons, but over the years I was consistently disappointed. In particular, I was sometimes deeply angered by a few of her votes, with the obvious low point being her vote to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq.

Nor did her hairsplitting defense of these positions inspire confidence, then or now. Her recent statement that she was glad that a credit-industry written bankruptcy bill she voted for in 2001 eventually failed to pass calls into question even her basic political abilities, with its shades of John Kerry’s tortured self-defense of his Iraq vote. Whatever she was thinking or not thinking when she said it, it is endemic of the kind of self-defeating inner conflicts that have threatened the Democratic Party with irrelevance since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.

And that reference takes us up to last week’s sniping, this weekend’s surprisingly strong victory, and the heart of my support for Senator Obama. Good, thoughtful, Clinton-leaning, friends of mine that have cast me in the role of cockeyed optimist and wacky idealist for my support of the presumably inexperienced and ethnically risky Obama. Here’s part of why I disagree: Though an ability to understand policy and a certain amount of common sense seems like a requirement (but sadly and obviously isn’t), a certain amount of wisdom, principles, and courage are at least as important. So far, Senator Obama has shown that, up to a point at least, he has all of those traits — though, as I implied above, it would be nice if he had courage enough to be more specific. (At least his South Carolina speech was very encouraging on that score.)

I admit, Senator Obama remains a somewhat unknown quantity, though perhaps not nearly as much of an enigma as John F. Kennedy was in 1960. I’d put my assessment of the risk in the same category as the choice between walking off a cliff or getting into a shiny new car; it looks outstanding and seems to be well put together, but it hasn’t been tested as much as others and might eventually get you into an accident, but you know the results of walking off the cliff — though you may unsure of how far you’ll fall. Senator Obama is the car and Senator Clinton, sadly, is the cliff. (Republicans are varying sizes of vast, yawning chasms.) She has proven, time and time again, her innate timidity and, on Iraq in particular, what is either very poor judgment or a severe lack of integrity, take your pick.

Things are bad and I don’t think there is anything romantic or idealistic in my assertion that we have no time for incremental improvements and action so slow it starts to resemble inaction. Just as important, there is no need for it. After Katrina, an utterly disastrous foreign policy based on brain-dead and amoral precepts, and a war that we were told would last for a few months has lead to a violent occupation some want to continue indefinitely, people across all sorts of spectrums are not just ready for a change, they’re starving for it.

If I may put my toe in the treacherous water of judging political appeal, the reason the current congress’s popularity ratings are even lower than those of the worst President in American history are driven not because Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are doing too much, but because they appear to be doing almost nothing. “Change” is the buzz word of the day because things kind of suck, people know it, and they’re looking for leaders who will actively take them away from the sucking. Someone closely associated with an administration best known for its managerial aplomb, caution, and some bad personal decisions is not going to be seen by ordinary people as an “agent” of anything, other than a less calamitous version of what’s already happening. For most of those largely younger voters who, very wrongly, tend to believe that there is no difference at all between the parties, Hillary Clinton’s nomination will be seen as confirmation that their fears are correct. At least the appearance of a radical break is needed.

Moreover, I have heard the argument that Senator Obama needs time to mature and grow. Well, I wish there were someone with vast experience who has learned the hard way that eight years of an extremist right-wing regime requires some boldness in reframing issues and aggressively seeking solutions. Well, there is someone, but Al Gore is now officially too busy saving the world, and being happy and sane, to be President.

I honestly wish we had time to place Senator Obama back in the Senate or in the Vice President’s office to mature like a fine wine. However, there are a number of issues that demand our aggressive attention not in 2016 but now, starting with global warming, repairing our utterly broken relations with the world, and fixing our insane health care system which is slowly killing us in more ways than one. Senator Clinton will work on all of these, but I have plenty of evidence to show that she’ll likely do it much too slowly and/or give up on half of it if she faces real opposition.

To deal with these issues with the FDR-like speed that is necessary, a groundswell is needed. Whoever wins will greatly benefit if they can cobble together a sizable majority. Senator Clinton’s campaigning style so far seems to be heading very closely toward an at best 51% victory, mobilizing traditional Democratic constituencies and not daring to go beyond it. I doubt she can expand much further in the general election. I have no idea how many “Obama Republicans” and independents they’ll be exactly (there is ample evidence that there would have been quite a few “Edwards Republicans”), but I feel pretty sure that there will be very, very few “Clinton Republicans.”

Barack Obama shamelessly panders to the fanboy-American community, also Jerry Seinfeld.

Fairly or not, Senator Clinton’s “negatives” are relatively high even among liberals, with a large number of people like me in the “she’s way better than any Republican” camp — which is not the amount of enthusiasm you might want in a crucial Presidential campaign. Conversely, most of the people I know who say they’re leaning toward Senator Clinton seem to have plenty of nice to things to say about Obama — so nice, in fact, that I wish I could return the compliment about Hillary Clinton. In fact, the arguments of my Clinton-backing friends are in favor of her as the pragmatic choice, not the inspiring choice.

My reply is this: In the world of modern day, media-driven politics, inspiration and pragmatism go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. I’m not talking about electability, I’m not talking about the day after the inauguration.

The new President’s job is not merely assembling policy, it’s enacting it. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were both able administrators and to varying degrees and for varying reasons were largely ineffective one-term Presidents because, while devoting themselves assiduously to the fine points, they were unable to inspire the country. Jimmy Carter, who I greatly admire almost to the point of hero worship, has basically admitted that micromanagement was a major flaw in his administration.

Bill Clinton did better because, perhaps uniquely, he was equally adept at talking to the public as he was at administering policy. This is a media world we live in and it seems to me that, in the modern context, the President’s first job is selling the public on his plans. If he’s unable to do that, nothing else will follow, no matter how knowledgeable and downright smart she or he might be. While I feel Bill Clinton’s plans were inadequate, in his prime he was a sublimely skilled salesman, and that is no backhanded compliment. Being a great salesman for the right product is a crucial public service. If he is going to perform such a role again in a new administration, however, he’ll be hamstrung in a number of ways. The strain is already showing.

There are no true certainties in anything, especially politics. Barack Obama is a politician and, therefore, I can tell you right now he will disappoint, especially considering the hopes he’ll likely be raising. But merely avoiding disappointment is not any kind of a goal. On any number of levels, John F. Kennedy was, in retrospect, a very disappointing president. His achievements in his too-short time office weren’t all that many, his unduly war-like proclivities created and continued problems and atrocities around the world, and his reckless personal life directly threatened U.S. security. However, all of that was largely counteracted by the sense that he stood for certain principles which I think actually meant more to him than his office.

While JFK was very much a moderate in the political terms of his day, he was never perceived as simply splitting the difference with the sometimes insanely foolhardy pronouncements of Barry Goldwater. He resisted Goldwater and others, but made compromises when he deemed them acceptable. He also had the courage to undertake bold initiatives, including the Apollo program — which I only wish we had continued longer and more ambitiously.

Certainly JFK had the right formula when it comes to dealing with adversaries: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate” applies as much to internal politics as it does world affairs. For twenty-eight years the Democratic party not only been negotiating out of fear, but doing pretty much everything out of fear. It is time for politicians to stop acting out of fear, and it is time for the rest of us to stop voting out of fear.

****

One more comment on a more down-’n-dirty tack in regards to the political hijinks of the last week or so. Without cogitating and/or grousing on morality, and whether it’s good for the country or the party (I’ll leave that to others), I’m actually glad from the perspective of an Obama supporter that things have been getting just a little vicious, though we may see a reduction in hostilities over the next week.

Why? I think the “experience” issue is overplayed — it’s not like Senator Clinton was a sitting governor of New York or California for the last twenty years and it’s also not like Senator Obama spent the last two decades drinking Jager shots and watching Petticoat Junction reruns. However, it is true that the youngish Senator has been unduly lucky in his electoral campaigns up to now. Except for his losing race for the U.S. Congress against Bobby Rush, most of his opponents have had the disadvantage of being embroiled in horrific scandals or, much worse, of being Alan Keyes. Now he’s playing with the big girls and boys and undergoing a fairly nasty hazing to boot. It’s good practice for bigger, nastier hazings to come.

A 28 point win that went across racial and gender lines — in an election in which, I understand, Democratic votes outnumbered Republican votes in one of the most conservative states in the union. A big win for Obama, a very hopeful sign for the Democratic party. More to come.

Yeah, I know I haven’t been posting. Blame it on distraction, laziness, other work that needs to be done, etc. I plan to be laying some more on you folks shortly, but this bit of political cross-promotion got my attention in a big way.

In case you didn’t know, today marks an international day of protest (and why can’t I find my single orange shirt, a very styling guayabera, today of all days??!!) against the ongoing travesty of Guantanamo Bay. What’s funny is that, I think, there’s a subtle movie-tie happening via the release of the trailer for Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Or, maybe it was just a coincidence that I happened across this link to the trailer on Yahoo! Movies today, but I’m hoping not. What it lacks in taste in more than makes up for in chutzpah. (Did they just announce the title officially today? Anyone know?)

Could this film be the next Duck Soup combining the silliest comedy and the sharpest satire? It’s too much to hope for, but who knows? I applaud the tie-in and the trailer made me guffaw a few times, and maybe that’s enough.

Ironically, though it has a few extra great jokes and a attractive naked rear-end, the red-band trailer available at the official H&K web site was less funny probably because it was allowed to be more raunchy and scatological. (I dislike poop humor unless, and I know this sounds weird to some of you, there’s a larger purpose to it — but that’s another blog post.) Also, a casting issue: what’s with the guy playing W? He looks nothing like him and Jon Stewart does a better impression. On the other hand, Rob Cordry and Ed Helms look perfectly at home.

Aw, who cares, this stuff makes me laugh — and clearly the intention is to put, if not a sharp stick, then at least a q-tip in the eye of the Bush Administration’s war on the rule of law. And, maybe, there’s a note of a cautionary tale in their someplace…maybe.

I think that this means that a war with Iran is pretty unlikely now. Of course, whenever one says of Pres. Bush, “he can’t be that stupid”….well, let’s just say that continued vigilance is definitely in order.

Still, it’s time to celebrate yet another nail in the coffin of the braindead, kill crazy neoconservative movement. Please enjoy this fine moment from one of that movement’s best known cheerleaders, as interpreted by composer Igor Keller and baritone Charles Robert Stephens.

Now, I don’t want to hear anyone complaining that I don’t bring you folks the refined cultured.

H/t Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly, Intl. And this is great too. Lord, how I miss Larry Wilmore (and Jon Stewart). Pure genius.

I haven’t written a strictly political post in some time — and this is too short and too borrowed to really count as one. But I had to pass this nice broadside by Kos which, while not containing anything particularly new, encapsulates the entire problem with most elected Democrats and a lot of the more powerful pundits, particularly those categorized by the their fellow mainstreamers as “liberal.” In particular….

Democrats and “liberal” pundits like Joe Klein live in perpetual fear of Republican criticism. They have been so beaten down after a generation of right-wing noise machine attacks, that their entire existence is predicated on avoiding being whipped by Rush and his right-wing colleagues.

Have you ever seen or read a Republican say, “Republicans shouldn’t do X because Daily Kos will attack us!” And in case that sounds too self-aggrandizing, replace “Daily Kos” with “Alan Colmes” or “Joe Klein” or “Air America” or whatever. Have you ever seen that happen? Once?

Of course not. Republicans don’t live in fear of what the other side will say. They focus on what they think is right or in their self-interest. The reaction of the opposition never enters their calculations.

As to the particulars in this case — Joe Klein’s seemingly inexplicable attack on Democrats/parroting of a rightwing talking point for standing on their hind legs in regards FISA, I don’t want to repeat Joe Klein’s mistake and get too specific about something I haven’t researched sufficiently (no one’s paying me to read the full text of the law in questions). However, I never, ever miss an opportunity to remind the world that Joe Klein is the man who said this movie would cause riots in theaters.

Yes, of course, the great Spike Lee riots of ‘89, how soon we forget. (And let’s not even discuss the Paul Thomas Anderson uprising of ‘99.)

You can reread an altered version of Klein’s original piece here. He uses a lot of reasonable sounding, nicely punditized rhetoric, but it all boils down to this: “Don’t make Republicans angry.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: With friends like Joe Klein, who needs enemies?

UPDATE: Comandante Kos has more on this. Worth reading for sure. And, if there are any Time subscribers out there, now would be as good a time as any to cancel and to write them a letter explaining why. It’s been pretty much a mouthpiece for those who see themselves as the ruling class since it’s inception.