Vilsack's Out

I like having a wide field of good candidates. I think an "inevitability" train will be disasterous, and not because I think Hillary is completely unelectable. I think keeping the voter's interest and making the media have to keep shifting targets is better than ending the suspense too early and giving the media a single, solid target to pour their right wing propoganda on.

Vilsack in particular I liked having in the race. He doesn't suit my tastes, but he would keep the attention of some people who would see Hillary and Obama as too "Hollywood" or something like that.

ANd yet we still have Biden, Mr. "Foot in Mouth" himself.

...what is Biden thinking? That there's this huge movement across the country slobbering for yet another Senator?

Not.

Biden was uninspiring even when Dukakis was running.

If accurate.

I think Richardson has more of a chance than Kucinich. Kucinich may have many positions I admire, but Biden has marginally a better shot than he does.

Richardson has more of a shot than Kucinich because of the strong Hispanic vote he can harness and let's not forget that Governors are the ones who almost invariably do best in the running for president business. Sure, seeing a Gov. of California or Texas win might not be surprising, but Gov. of Tennessee, Arkansas and Georgia aren't exactly what you would think would be superstars, but they won. Yes, all Southern, but I think there is an allure of a governor. They have executive experience yet can run as the outsider, a combination many find irresistable. The governor factor alone made me feel Vilsack and Richardson may be underestimated. By contrast, Congressional Reps. do not do well in this business. Perhaps even worse than Senators.

No sitting member of the House has ever been elected to the Presidency. There's little reason to suspect that Kucinich will break the mold.

BTW, Wallner was the one who predicted Suozzi would drop out under the pretext of not having enough petition signatures; that Letitia James was running for mayor, and Weiner was not; that Obama/Schumer was the most logical Dem ticket (Gatemouth called that a sitcom plotline rather than a political possibility). There has been quite more thigh-slapping inaninity, but those are some highlights.

The point being that while Wallner may be able to log on to a blog, there's little evidence to suggest he has any capacity whatsoever for analysis or prediction.

I grow increasingly offended, and already have asked politely for for it to be corrected -- and provided an engaging reference backing up that it needs correction -- by this repeated presumption that all the bias, bigotry and small-minded lack of progressive thought are solely in the red and swing states.

It could well play against him in red states and some swing states where anti-immigration fervor is out there.

All this does is make me see red. Not the way to win over the south or any population imo.

The "notion that the South is more than just 'different,' that it is distinct from the rest of the nation ... an inexplicable variant from the national norm," is a false exaggeration, wrote Zinn, that "feeds self-righteousness in the North ...
By the 2032 elections, the South is expected to control almost 40 percent of the electoral votes for President -- more than the shrinking Northeast and Midwest combined.

And yet a stubborn belief in the poor, backward, reactionary cracker South of myth still shapes and distorts American politics.

This is beginning to feel like all the blithe elitist "help" good ol' BLUE-blooded Boston gave us southern RED-necked bigots with school busing, at least a decade before noticing the "anti-immigrant fervor" segregating their own schools.

Again. Please. A little more care with the tar brush.

...that Wallner is a member of a species, native to (if increasingly endangered in) certain precincts of New York City and San Francisco: The Liberal Who Knows Better Than You. They are considered awful crashing bores even here.

As far as the south is concerned, I still maintain, and always will, that it is perfectly winnable for us. To do that, however, we need to stop deluding ourselves that liberal Northeastern Senators - cough, Hillary cough, Kerry cough - have much appeal there. With candidates who speak the language of the voters - Jim Webb, say - we win, and can win anywhere. Also, as MyDD recently laid out, the South is friendlier to Democrats than other parts of the country where we've done better.

And above all, it's party policy - cf. 50-state strategy - to compete everywhere. Wallner may not like that, or maybe he does, but that doesn't matter, because that's what we're going to do.

Face it, Wallner, your approach to 'political commentary' is pretty much uninformed by anything except the way you'd like things to be. Today, for example, you're declaring Harper's - the first magazine to call for Bush's impeachment, if memory serves - to be 'fairly conservative'. That's not a matter of opinion, that's just goddamn fucking stupid. There are no shades of gray here - that is a stupid statement to be making. Stupid. Stoo-peed.

Or your claim that SEIU was supporting Maureen O'Connell over Craig Johnson because the latter was too conservative. I got emails about that one (not for the first time), requesting explanations, and an apology, because you seemingly originated on Daily Gotham. I told people (note the plural) that I was in no way responsible for your stupidity. Steve Perez set you right on that, but all to no avail.

Or your current screed on Room Eight about how we shouldn't be following election law in the 40th - this because, presumably, that's a fantastic precedent to be setting. Let me just say that your reputation in New York blogdom is firmly established, Wallner.

So yeah, I take whatever you say with a view to your prior track record, and I'd suggest others do the same. You'd predict pretty pink ponies flying across the sky if that struck your fancy, Wallner; and while others might be constrained by what is called 'observable reality', clearly, you labor under no such fetters.

Sorry if that's personal, but I believe that your unique way of approaching things should occasionally be put into some semblance of context. The context being, of course, that you generally have no clue what you're talking about.

You're welcome.

I can't make heads or tails of that.
I shouldn't be offended because you don't stereotype but I DO stereotype, and besides I'm not a real southerner and you are, so it's okay for you to speak as offensively about the south as you please, but I must be either ignorant or pretending not to be??

And people both north and south ARE still prejudiced but my saying so, somehow means I am pretending the regions are all the same which they aren't (but not if YOU say it, in which case it's plain fact)??

Maybe it's not just me that can't make out your meaning, if even you can't understand it? You wrote:

"I am southern myself, as or more southern than you are. . ."

...if you can dish out crapola like 'Harper's is a fairly conservative magazine', then it needs to be both rebutted and placed in context. The context, in your case, is a long and almost unblemished record of being off-the-wall wrong on simple, basic tropes of discourse.

I'd also note that many, not all, people tend to examine whether their 'opinions' on 'facts' bear any resemblance to the way said 'facts' are commonly understood. I'd say that's kind of incumbent on anyone who spends any amount of time whatsoever making their 'opinions' known to others. In especially when said 'opinions' are framed with such certainty.

In the age of Google, unfortunately, such stupidity can't just be left standing. Public dumb-assedness requires public refutation. Private emails, not that I would ever consider that venue with one so disagreeable, are not enough to right the public record.

Then again, we have a new Wallner rule: all of your assertions of fact must now be backed up with links.