“Where’s that Confounded Bridge?”

… its in the upper left hand corner of Frank Luntz’s Nevada Democrat primary focus group, that's where.

While Clinton Inc. and Camp Obama were busy mending fences and primary voters were asking John Edwards how he had the nerve to still be in the race, it appears that some of Clinton’s supporters may have a ways to go in putting identity politics behind them.

YouTube video here. Luntz is pinging the focus groups on the candidates, voting locations and union bullying when at the 2:30 mark, things get really interesting.

There he is. There’s David Brooks’ glorious bridge to the 21st century stumbling all over himself when asked to explain why Latinos won’t vote for Barack.

An atta-boy to the first commenter who can correctly identify the reference to the post title.

Change the oil, change your underwear, change your mind… Change the Channel!

B-Daddy had his thoughts on the Republican New Hampshire primary debates, here. We’ve been trying to catch up on the Democrat side via You Tube and Hot Air. You know, every time we start getting a little bummed-out about our options on the Republican side, we watch the Democrats… and feel even worse.
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Click on image to hear Mr. Elizabeth Edwards kiss Obama’s rear end while making his case that he’s the real agent for change. No, he isn’t… yes, he is… No, he isn’t… yes, he is.. By our count, Johnny-boy uses the word “change” 7 times in that 68 second clip. And can we assume that Hillary is the Death Star of the "Forces of status-quo"?

Convinced? Ha! You think Edwards is the true agent for change? Please. Hillary absolutely kicks lil’ Johnny’s ass by using the term 10 times in this 67 second clip. 10 times! Poor Johnny didn’t know what hit him.

The Internet.... Still not Their Friend.

Despite all the glitz, glam and flash of the internet and particularly the internet of the hard-left netroot crowd, its influence and effectiveness is once again being called into question. After first failing to get Howard Dean more than a few feet off the launch pad back in ’04, they were unable to affect any substantive changes to the approaches to the War in Iraq and the broader War on Terror despite the Democrats taking control of Congress in the ’06 mid-terms. Now, Obama’s victory in Iowa is being viewed as yet another blow to the clout that the ‘roots wield as they view Obama as not sufficiently grounded in their whack-camp. We had some thoughts on this phenomena here from back in September. And regarding the current assessments with respect to Iowa/Obama click here for a piece from the Heritage Foundation and here to knock off a piece of the Weekly Standard.

Also, our home-cat, KT had some thoughts of his own regarding Obama and the issue of race in this country.

The Democrat Debates and.... Our Hillary Reconciliation (or Resignation)...?

We really wanted to watch the Democrat primary debate on Thursday but found ourselves delayed for a longer than expected time in a (southern) foreign country.

As we weren’t able to watch it live, we have been relegated to piecing together the debate via YouTube. The opening segment of the debate was about all we really needed to see, though. CNN, which broadcast the debate and which was moderated by Wolf Blitzer, was obviously aware of the Hillary licenses-for-illegals flip-flop and spent the entirety of the first 10 minutes or so encouraging confrontation between Clinton and Obama who was critical of her excruciating waffling.

We really enjoyed Obama’s accusation that Clinton was not doing enough to enforce enrollment in her universal health care program. My god. As any college-bound high school grad will tell you, one of the great joys of moving out of the crib is that Mom and Dad aren’t there to nag you about brushing and flossing, eating your vegetables, getting a good night’s sleep, etc. Well guess what, America? Depending on how things shake out next November, we’re all moving back home, so to speak. Mama Hill’ and/or Papa Back’ will be tending the premises, blowing taps, pulling bunk checks, announcing reveille and generally making us feel we are right back in Seminary. Golly, we can’t wait.

And we have a confession to make… We totally misread Hillary’s me-against-them-boys defense tactic that arose in the wake of the last debate. She ended the initial segment with a high decibel, shrill harangue about how she was fighting for America and was not going to put up with these attacks and something else and uhhh.. well, she was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore! We thought this tactic might have some traction among feminists and even after the applause she received afterwards we couldn’t help but feel how incredibly unlikeable the woman is.

Look…. You know and we know, we aren’t voting for any of these people so ironically enough, its easier to be objective about the Democrat candidates. As such, then, we have a message for Hillary that if we ever had the chance, we would love to pass along:

If you think its bad now, wait ‘til you have the actual misfortune of being elected President. You better get your act together and demonstrate you have the capacity to lead this nation rather than wasting our time bitching about how you are the lone woman in a man’s world.

Whether we like it or not, Hillary Clinton has a very good shot at being the next President and we want her to act like one. Above anything else, we are Americans and we are fiercely protective of our own and of our institutions. If she is elected President then that’s it… she’s this nation’s democratically elected President - she’s our girl.

Does this mean that we are going to go happily along with everything she decrees? Not at all. We will fight tooth and nail for our own governing principals of which we believe our President is running afoul. At the same time, though, we’re not going to threaten to leave the country, seek counseling because of CDS, call Sean Hannity and whine to him about how horrible it all is or participate in any other form of adolescent petulance we all saw and heard after the ’04 Presidential elections.

We love this country too much to start acting like a bunch of teenagers just because we don’t like who got elected and we’ll crack upside the head anyone we know who should know better themselves.

“Politics Make Strange….” Hey, Careful... That’s Pat Robertson You’re Talking About.

We thought there might be some more time to sort all this out but it looks like a few people want to get it out of the way so they can concentrate on Christmas shopping. We were previously on the fence over the earlier dates for some of the primaries for party nominations. We weren’t comfortable with them but couldn’t come up with a real reason why so we we’re just “playing it by ear”. Well, now we have an actual reason: Pat Robertson has come out for Rudy. Read attached AP article, here.

We’ve been told over the years that Pat Robertson is one of the 3 or 4 most influential people in this alleged monolithic entity known as the “Christian Right”. And the term “alleged” is used because its always been the conventional wisdom that the “Christian Right” moved and acted as one. But as the article notes, the leading actors in the “Christian Right” are all endorsing different GOP candidates. Of course, this isn’t described as an example of “diversity” but rather as this supposed voting bloc being “splintered”.

But back to Pat and Rudy. This shacking-up represents the folly of moving primaries to the left because it, in turn, reduces the amount of time voters have to consider candidates in a calm, rational manner before they feel the need to hit the AbH (Anybody but Hillary) button as Pat Robertson has obviously done. We can see no other motive than this for a social conservative, Robertson, endorsing a man who has supported abortion rights and gay marriage.

Robertson can say all he wants about national security trumping social issues but its crystal clear why it is that he has endorsded Giuliani. And that’s a shame because the coronation of Hillary as her Party’s standard-bearer for the Presidential election is not nearly the lock it was just 2 weeks ago so its far to early to be hitting any AbH panic button just yet.

And do you know how we know its Christmastime, already? Because Starbuck’s said it is, OK?