Archive for May, 2008
May 15th, 2008
don’t know about you, but what’s the media obsession with Hillary still being in the presidential race? Seems she’s got almost as many delegates as Obama, won big in West Virgina on Tuesday, so she’s hardly a Demo version of Mike Huckabee, who hung around the GOP race long after he had a reason to be there.
Most of this “Should Hillary get out” chatter has been the featured story on the cable news shows. So, instead of Hillary getting out, I say that Wolf Donner & Blitzen should get out. And Comet and Cupid, too.
May 13th, 2008
Alright, it’s less than 11 months until Rockford’s mayoral election, but when I ask around about who might challenge independent Larry Morissey for mayor (I’m assuming he’s running for a second term) I don’t get much but shrugs for answers.
Let’s get the ball rolling. Here are some people who I think would make good candidates, although I have no idea whether they’d actually run:
Ald. Doug Mark, R-3rd; Ald. Nancy Johnson, D-8th, Ald. Carl Wasco, D-4th, Ald. Joe Sosnowski, R-1st.
You’d also have to put state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, on the list, although I’m not sure why he’d want to take on a “buck stops here” type of job.
According to people who do polling for both parties, Morrissey’s favorability ratings remain high, riverwalk or no riverwalk. But if we have a third “100 year flood,” or the potholes next spring are as bad as this year’s, all bets are off.
Will Doug Scott abandon the Blago ship and come home to run for mayor? Stranger things have happened, but I doubt it. It might make more sense for Scott, who was an effective state rep, run for state Senate in 2010. The 34th district, which Syverson represents, is equally balanced between Dems and Repubs; in fact Dems argue it leans their way.
Airport board chairman Mike Dunn would also be a good candidate, but under which banner would he run? A lifelong Republican and friend of former Gov. James R. “Big Jim” Thompson, , political switch-hitter Dunn is Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s biggest fan in Rockford, because Durbin, assisted by U.S. Rep. Don Manzulo, R-Egan, has been remarkably successful in bringing federal tax dollars back to Rockford. If Dunn ran as a Democrat, he’d likely have Durbin’s support. But Dunn tells me he’s not running.
I don’t see how an overt Republican spouting rhetoric from the Heritage Foundation has any chance of becoming Rockford mayor. The GOP had its last, best shot in 2001 when businessman/humanitarian Dennis Johnson nearly beat Doug Scott in a four-way race.
There’s talk from time to time that former police chief Jeff Nielsen might run for mayor, I suppose as a Democrat. But he always looks as if he’s about to blow a gasket.
Frankly, I don’ think there are enough Republicans in Rockford to elect a mayor who ran as a partisan GOP candidate. But a Republican who ran an inclusive campaign, someone like Mark, for instance, could have a chance to win.
Who are some people you’d like to see as mayoral candidates?
May 8th, 2008
How will the Republicans help John McCain win in November? Here’s what might happen. I don’t raise this to the level of prediction. Right now it’s just a hunch.
Democrats, especially if they nominate Obama, will be painted as the appeasement party, not to be trusted with the role of commander in chief of the world’s most formidable military. Obama, McCain is already saying, is the favorite candidate of Hamas, the terrorist organization. (McCain, you may remember, says he abhors negative campaigning.)
That might not do the trick, however. Americans are focused on the economy, and they’re not too concerned anymore with the war in Iraq and the “War on Terror.” The GOP can’t win unless they scare people to death.
The only way to refocus Americans on the bogeyman of danger — International Terrorism — is to do what George W. Bush may do, in an effort to help McCain win the presidency and the GOP to avoid disastrous losses in Congress:
Sometime this summer or early fall, an “incident” will occur that causes the U.S. to retaliate, probably with air-strikes, possibly escalating to sending in Marines.
Inevitably, the “incident” will be in the Middle East region, most likely Iran, or maybe Syria, or it could be an attack on Israel by Iran.
Do I think the incident will be staged? Obviously I don’t know. But my knowledge of history informs me that we’ve done it before.
LBJ had his Gulf of Tonkin attack. The story at the time said that North Vietnamese gunboats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Turned out this was a “Wag the Dog” attack because it didn’t happen. That’s not my opinion. That’s what the declassified U.S. government report concluded.
Nevertheless, it was ballyhooed in the media at the time, and it gave Johnson a reason to send 500,000 troops to Vietnam.
Or how about the explosion that blew up the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, back in 1898. The American press, led by Joseph Pulitzer (the yellow journalist they named the prize after ) and William Randolph Hearst, immediately hit on a slogan “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain” to sell papers and stoke fires of resentment against the colonial power that ruled Cuba.
That resulting hew and cry gave President McKinley the cover he needed to wage the war against Spain that kicked the colonial power out of Cuba, and out of the Phillippines, as well. Both countires became American protectorates, so that the U.S., the nation begun as a revolt against the British Empire, ended the 19th century as a colonial power.
So, who or what caused the Maine to explode and sink? To this day, the U.S. Navy says it doesn’t know.
In 1941, the American people remained isolationist despite the twin terrors of Hitler ravaging Europe and the Imperial Japanese forces marauding China and the South Pacific.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, causing the U.S. to finally enter the war that had been raging for two years in Europe and longer in Asia. Britain, undergoing severe bombing by the Luftwaffe, was begging us to join the fight to smash Hitler before he controlled the entire European continent.
Debate continues to this day over whether President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance that the Japanese were planning to attack, but did nothing to prevent it in order to change public opinion in favor of war against the Axis powers.
(I must add that I agree with Winston Churchill, who, when asked if he thought the Americans would join the war, said, “The Americans will always do the right thing — after they`ve exhausted all the alternatives”)
In more recent history, we have the Bush administration’s “weapons of mass destruction” argument for invading Iraq. Turns out there were no such weapons; the administration embellished — fictionalized — parts of the intel reports.
No, I don’t believe we staged the 9-11 attacks, and I believe our invasion of Afghanistan was fully justified. We should have stopped there, however. The Bush spin machine, unfortunately, used 9-11 to gin up war fever to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11.
Betcha didn’t learn any of that in high school histroy class.
May 8th, 2008
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after interviewing Clinton campaign manager Howard Wolfson: “he’s like one of those Japanese soldiers still fighting in 1953.”
May 7th, 2008
As for my predictions Monday on NC and Indy, I wasn’t far off.
I said Obama would win NC, 57 to 43 percent; he actually won 56 to 42.
I said Clinton would win Indiana, 52 to 48 percent; she actually won 50.9 percent to 41.1 percent.
May 6th, 2008
As votes begin to be counted in Lake County, Indiana, Barack Obama is closing the gap between him and Hillary Clinton. At the moment, it’s a 51-49 contest, with 25 percent of the vote counted in Lake County. In that corner of northwest Indiana, which is really part of Chicagoland, Obama was leading with 75 percent of the vote.
May 6th, 2008
Barack Obama did better than I expected in North Carolina, winning a decisive victory on the strength of a coalition of blacks, young voters and college-educated voters. In Indiana, all counties have been counted save one — Lake County in northwest Indiana, where Obama is supposed to be strong. Whether it’s strong enough to surmount Hillary Clinton’s statewide lead of about 43,000 votes is questionable, but if Clinton gets a win here, it will be close.
Overall, a good night for Obama at the end of a very bad two weeks of his campaign. Still, the media pundits are seeing the contest in terms of the “white working class voters,” who are for Clinton. So, the commentators’ template is, “Obama would be in trouble in November because he can’t win the white working class vote.” Rarely did I hear “Clinton would be in trouble in November because she can’t win the black vote,” which is going 92 percent for Obama.
The way the pundits have it figured, if Clinton is the nominee, she’ll get the black vote because almost all blacks vote Democratic and have nowhere else to go, while white, working class voters would bolt their party if Obama is the nominee and vote for McCain.
I’m not so sure. The myopic talking heads on TV ihave been so miserably wrong this year that it just could be that the opposite of what they say may indeed be true!
May 6th, 2008
U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, went to the Oval Office in the White House today, May 6 to observe President Bush sign a House-Senate resolution awarding a congressional gold medal to Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyiay 6, 2008, in the Oval Office. The democracy crusader is being held under house arrest by the miltary dictators who run Burma, which they call Myanmar.She received the medal for her courageous and unwavering commitment to peace, nonviolence, human rights, and democracy in Burma, Manzullo’s office says.
Joining Bush and Manzullo for the signing were Laura Bush, Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA.); Congressman Joe Crowley of New York; Senator Mitch McConnell, (R-KY).
May 6th, 2008
Alright, I might as well get in on the elections prediction racket. Indiana and North Carolina are having Democratic primaries today. Here’s what I think will happen:
North Carolina: Barack Obama had been far ahead in the polls, but they’ve been closing as Hillary Clinton took a page from her husband’s Arkansas past and began campaigning as a redneck , standing on the back of a red pick ‘em up truck and vowing to smash both Iran and OPEC. Shezaaaam!
Obama will win the state 57-43.
In Indiana, Obama picked up on the state’s obsession with basketball (rent the classic movie “Hoosiers” starring Gene Hackman and you’ll understand) and did a lot of parking lot pick up photo ops.
However, the Billary machine has hit him hard with negative ads and her support for a federal gas tax holiday could help her.
Hillary will win Indiana, 52 to 48.
I’m curious about who will take “Mayberry,” which as Andy Griffith Show fans know, is the real NC town of Mount Airy, Andy’s home town.
I’m thinking Hillary, but I’m not sure. I’ll go down the fillin’ station and ask Goob what he thinks will happen today.
May 5th, 2008
The country in southeast Asia that was devastated by the cyclone is called BURMA. Latest reports say 50,000 are feared dead.
The country is NOT “Myanmar,” which many newspapers insist on calling it. That name was foisted on the country in 1989 by a brutal military junta that, among other things, holds Nobel laureate and democratic reformer Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and refuses to allow democracy to return.
The rulers also failed to notify coastal residents that the cyclone was coming, which caused many deaths. Mrs. Bush appealed Monday for the country to allow U.S. aid workers into Burma to provide disaster relief.
By using the word “Myanmar,” we are legitimizing the junta. So, it’s Burma to me.
Congratulations to The Washington Post and to The Guardian for using the correct name for the country.
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