Obama '08?

I only knew her as Gore's campaign manager, then happened to see live the comments about Bill's "fairytale" speech that became a big deal. (I very rarely watch TV coverage.) All of the commentary by her that I saw was pretty platitude-less and seemed pretty brave to me.

Rush Limbaugh...mister subtle

Quote:

Limbaugh twice used word "spade" during discussion of Obama

Summary: One week after claiming that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's suggestion that Sen. Barack Obama "has not done the kind of spadework" that Clinton has done was "not coincidental," Rush Limbaugh returned to the subject on his January 14 show. While discussing Obama, Limbaugh twice used the word "spade," which can be used as a racial slur. Specifically, Limbaugh said that "Obama is holding his own against both of them [Bill and Hillary Clinton], doing more than his share of the 'spadework,' maybe even gaining ground at the moment, using not only the spade, ladies and gentlemen. But when he finishes with the spade in the garden of corruption planted by the Clintons, he turns to the hoe. And so the spadework and his expertise, using a hoe. He's faring well." "Spadework" is a common term among political figures and the media.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150021?f=h_side

Of course, if he gets much attention on this one, he'll blame it on guess who.

"I'm writing to apologize to you and your family personally for the un-called-for comments I made at a recent Clinton event," Johnson said in a statement. "In my zeal to support Senator Clinton, I made some very inappropriate remarks for which I am truly sorry. I hope that you will accept this apology. Good luck on the campaign trail."

blatham wrote:

Rush Limbaugh...mister subtle

Quote:

Limbaugh twice used word "spade" during discussion of Obama

Summary: One week after claiming that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's suggestion that Sen. Barack Obama "has not done the kind of spadework" that Clinton has done was "not coincidental," Rush Limbaugh returned to the subject on his January 14 show. While discussing Obama, Limbaugh twice used the word "spade," which can be used as a racial slur. Specifically, Limbaugh said that "Obama is holding his own against both of them [Bill and Hillary Clinton], doing more than his share of the 'spadework,' maybe even gaining ground at the moment, using not only the spade, ladies and gentlemen. But when he finishes with the spade in the garden of corruption planted by the Clintons, he turns to the hoe. And so the spadework and his expertise, using a hoe. He's faring well." "Spadework" is a common term among political figures and the media.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150021?f=h_side

Of course, if he gets much attention on this one, he'll blame it on guess who.

Well, if Obama's a "spade" and Hillary's a "hoe," does that make Edwards a "rake," and Limbaugh NOT the sharpest tool in the shed?


(Okay, potentially unfunny, but in my defense it's entirely unoriginal.)

I'm getting a lot of e-mail about the fact that Hillary used the word "spadework" on the "Today" show, something that's also popped up a bit in the blogosphere.

Sample:

"I'm wondering why nobody is bringing up the comment that Hillary made herself when she said Obama hasn't done the necessary "spadework" needed to be as experienced as she. That remark I think is one of the more "racist" of all the remarks that have been cited. I think she actually said it during her last appearance on Russert although I'm not positive. If so, it's even more curious Russert did not bring it up today. My question to you is why have you and Mike Allen ignored those comments?"

This is getting a little ridiculous. I know I'm risking attack from the paranoids ... but it's a gardening metaphor. It's in common use in such notoriously inflammatory publications as The New York Times, which has employed the term recently in reference to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, late D.C. opera figure Martin Feinstein and the producers of the Kite Runner. Devious of them.

If readers have any doubt that this belongs in the category of fake, rather than real, outrage, note that Rush Limbaugh is also shocked.

I'm obviously not averse to reporting on justified grievance and friction. But this one is absurd and deserves to be nipped in the bud.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Racial_sensitivity_selfparody_watch.html

Limbaugh's spade comments were about Hillary's bringing up the term. He simply points out examples of Hillary using veiled comments to hurt Obama. There is no love lost between these people. Simply witness the glares during the debates.

Then again, maybe he's right. Maybe she is using subliminal references to race to emphasize race and stir the latent racism in people who will then vote for her.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday allowed Nevada Democrats to hold presidential voting in casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, potentially helping Sen. Barack Obama in the next round of the campaign on Saturday.

For the first time, Nevada Democrats planned to set up nine locations for Saturday's vote so casino shift workers, who are largely represented by a union that endorsed Obama, could attend caucuses and vote for a presidential candidate.

(I didn't, and don't, think "spadework" was anything when Hillary used it.)

The court ruled to allow voting in casinos:

The court ruled to allow voting in casinos:

FUDGING FACTS ON THE NEVADA CAUCUS

So yesterday Bill Clinton was asked by a reporter about the lawsuit filed by Clinton supporters in Nevada trying to squash the at-large caucus sites at which casino workers would be able to vote in Saturday's caucus, and he got all up in the dude's grille:

Clinton, just inches from his face, fired back. ''There were teachers who filed the lawsuit. You have asked the question in an accusatory way, so I will ask you back,'' the former president said. ''Do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give people who worked in the casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct?'' ''Did you know that? Their votes will be counted five times more powerfully, in terms of delegates to the state convention, compared to delegates to the national convention.'' Matthews noted the state party approved the set up. Clinton: ''What happened is nobody understood what happened ... they uncovered it. And now everybody's saying, ''Oh, they don't want us to vote...what they really tried to do was to set up a deal where their votes counted five times, maybe even more, as much.''

Well that sounds terribly unfair -- the casino workers' votes will count five times as much? Awful! Except it seems to be completely false. So where did Clinton arrive at this number? I can't say for sure, but it seems he just made it up.

As is often the case in the Rube Goldberg delegate allocation system used in caucuses, there is an absurdly complex formula to determine how many delegates each precinct receives. But the Las Vegas Sun crunched the numbers, and according to their calculation, if 10,000 people voted at the at-large precincts, they would make up around 6 percent of the total delegates for the state. Now, does that mean that the votes of those who vote there will count five times as much as anyone else's? Only if you assume that statewide turnout will be so large the at-large precincts will only make up 1.2 percent of the vote (6 percent divided by 5). That would mean, under this scenario, that total turnout in the Democratic caucus would have to be 833,333.

Will turnout be that high? Well, no. As the Sun recently reported, "Democratic circles are abuzz with excitement about Nevada's caucus, and people are starting to think that the state party's early estimate - recently repeated by Sen. Harry Reid - of 100,000 people might just be possible."

In order for the at-large precincts to be over-represented, the turnout there would have to be incredibly low, while turnout everywhere else in the state is incredibly high, and there is no reason to think that will happen. I don't expect some local TV reporter to go toe-to-toe with Bill Clinton when he probably didn't have all the information at his disposal anyway, but somebody should confront Clinton on why he keeps just making stuff up. [..]

-- Paul Waldman

In practice, however, I find it impossible to believe that the effect wasn't measured and debated before she ever said it in public. Being as I can see how the opportunity to encourage race division into the contest, with full deniability, is advantageous to her; I find it naive to chalk it up to coincidence.

okie wrote:

Limbaugh's spade comments were about Hillary's bringing up the term. He simply points out examples of Hillary using veiled comments to hurt Obama. There is no love lost between these people. Simply witness the glares during the debates.

Well as I said in my previous post, I don't think Hillary was even thinking of 'spadework' as anything other than a gardening metaphor. Rush did pick up on it and saw innuendo in it. But then Rush isn't likely to pass up a chance to gig Hillary when she leaves an opening that wide.

Then again, maybe he's right. Maybe she is using subliminal references to race to emphasize race and stir the latent racism in people who will then vote for her.

She is the smartest woman in the world after all, so it is said.

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.

He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Cycloptichorn, that makes sense. I have a hard enough time with that in debates. ("Are you going to let that pass without comment? Come ON!")

Tico, oy gevalt. ;-)


Meanwhile, Bob Johnson has apologized to Obama:

Quote:

"I'm writing to apologize to you and your family personally for the un-called-for comments I made at a recent Clinton event," Johnson said in a statement. "In my zeal to support Senator Clinton, I made some very inappropriate remarks for which I am truly sorry. I hope that you will accept this apology. Good luck on the campaign trail."