The official Barack Out With My Cock Out Presidential Debate Drinking Game

The Nut: Are you considering watching the first debate between presidential nominee Barack Obama and senator John McCain? Don't foolishly head into such an endeavor without making use of the following rules to keep the booze flowing at the proper rate - a waterfall pace guaranteed to make your head fuzzy enough to understand what the hell they're suggesting.

Also, if you find this combination of booze and politics to be an enjoyable, time, there's an awesome event to check out on next Friday. Details about Art for Change follow after the drinking game.

The official Barack Out With My Cock Out Presidential Debate Drinking Game:

Begin the opening round roughly 20 minutes before the beginning of the debate (9 eastern):

For Your Affiliation:
- Take 3 drinks if you're a registered republican
- Take 2 drinks if you're Independent or other.
- Take 3 drinks if you're not registered to vote.
- Take 1 drink if your registration does not match your current address.
- Take 1 drink if your registration does not match your ID.
- Give 3 drinks if you're registered as a Democrat.

For Your Voting:
- Take 1 SHOT of cheap whiskey if you voted for Bush in 2004.
- Take 1 SHOT of cheap whiskey if you voted for Bush in 2000.
- Take 1 SHOT if you voted for Ralph Nudar (or other candidate) in either election.
- Give 3 drinks if you voted for John Kerry.
- Give 6 drinks if you voted for Al Gore.
- Get outta my house if you're old enough to have voted for Clinton.
- Take 2 drinks if you voted for Bush in a swing state (NM, OH, FL, PA, MI, etc.)
- Give 2 drinks if you voted for Kerry in a swing state (NM, OH, FL, PA, MI, etc.)
- Give 4 drinks if you voted for Gore in a swing state (NM, OH, FL, PA, MI, etc.)
- Give 2 drinks if you voted for Kerry in a solid red or blue state (the heartland, the west coast, New England, etc.)
- Give 4 drinks if you voted for Gore in a solid red or blue state (the heartland, the west coast, New England, etc.)
- Give 2 SHOTS (to different people) if you voted absentee or early for Kerry or Gore.
- Take 1 SHOT if you voted absentee or early for Bush.
- Take 2 SHOTS if you voted absentee or early for Nadar (take 4 if your vote was cast in a swing state)

For Your Activism:
- Take 1 SHOT if you actively campaigned for Bush by knocking on doors, making phone calls, attended a rally, etc.
- Give 5 drinks if you actively campaigned for Kerry or Gore by knocking on doors, making phone calls, attended a rally, etc. (A person that worked to support Kerry AND Gore will give 12)
- Take 1 SHOT of cheap whiskey if you donated to Bush's campaign.
- Take 5 drinks if you donated to a PAC of any type.
- Give 1 SHOT if you lied, cheated or deceived the GOP in order to attend a Republican rally.
- Give 3 drinks if you saw John Kerry live.
- Take 1 SHOT if you were paid for your work for the Bush campaign.
- Give 5 drinks if you were paid for your work for the Kerry or Gore campaign (12 if you worked on both).
- Give 3 drinks if you woke up before the sun to campaign on election day in 2004 or 2000.
- Take 3 drink if you got into an argument with a complete stranger while out campaigning in 2000 or 2004 (8 if both)
- Take 3 drinks if you had a poltical bumper sticker on your car for the election.
- Take 5 more drinks if it is still there.
- Take 3 more drinks if the bumper sticker was replaced with an anti-Bush sticker.
- Take 3 drinks if you’re mad that the local Obama HQ was out of bumperstickers the last time you went by.



During the actual debate:

Take 2 drinks every time someone has to tell you to shut up so they can hear the debate.
Take 5 drinks if that person has to ask a second time without you responding.
Take 2 drinks if you are left confused by the answer a candidate gave.
Take 2 drinks every time a candidate runs over his allotted time.
Take 1 SHOT if your vote was determined by what you heard during the debate.
Take 2 MORE SHOTS if your vote switched from Barack to McCain because of the debate.

The words of the night: Everyone takes 1 drink every time either man says any of the following words:

Any reference to President Boosh
Any reference to a foreign head of state.

Economic Hard Times:
Bailout
Bank(s)
Economy
Home-owners
Garn-St. Germain
Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Investments
Keating 5
Mortgage
Stock Market

Foreign Policy:
Al Qaeda
“The Surge” (in Iraq)
Terror(ism)

Heroes:
Any former U.S. President
Any random American a candidate names as a good example of American values

Nations:
Afghanistan
China
Georgia (take a shot of whiskey if you thought the capital of this Georgia was Atlanta)
Great Britain (or UK)
Iraq
Iran
Mexico
North Korea
Pakistan
Russia
Sudan
Vietnam

Rhetorical ideas:
Any questioning of Patriotism
Any reference to experience gained while imprisoned in Vietnam
Change
“drill for oil” (or any suggestion of such an idea),“Equal Pay for equal work”
Hardwork
Hope
Maverick
(bi)Partisan
"Rebuilding international coalitions/support"
Renewable energy development

To end the debate: everyone toasts a shot to celebrate being able to have so much fun participating in the American political process.

And as promised:



See you there.

Baracking it for the ladies

The Nut: Politicians are on parade as shining examples of how to live a smarter, safer, protected life. John McCain’s sexy VP pick, warrants the revisiting of the sexist remarks he has used to court his base supporters. Meanwhile, the Tina Fey-wannabe has involuntary gone on record with a thorough demonstration of her ability to handle, sensitive, secure matters.

Progress doesn’t pile on

It took a weeklong, psilo-landen venture through the hills, but the Sarah Palin bashing urges have been buried in a deep hole under a mountain of LANL waste. It won’t come back because it can’t come back. For those that don’t like the freshman Governor from Alaska or her support of hunting wolves from a helicopter or use of state dollars to pay her mortgage or her recruitment of millions in pork for her town of 6,700 or her threats of banning books or her perversion of an otherwise gorgeous Tina Fey, heed this call: Do not attack her. Do no callously insult her. Do not mock her husband’s snowmobiling, her daughter’s abstinence-only education or her firm belief that god will save her before the floods of the rapture (better known as global warming among the school-educated crowds) come and cleanse the land of all evil. Just like Barack Obama, it only builds her support and re-doubles her disciples’ efforts.

Yahoo-gate

Before we return to the inevitable days of not knowing the names of any Alaskan politician, it does serve purpose to examine how she functions as a political figurehead (i.e.: governor, VP nominee, mayor of podunkistan, dog catcher) should her date to the prom kick the bucket before the final dance.

As soon as Gov. Palin was announced as the member of the GOP that will live on in Jeopardy! answers and political almanacs as the token offering of the GOP in a lame attempt at being progressive, reports emerged of email exchanges concerning an alleged attempt by Palin to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. Barack Out With My Cock Out is fully unconcerned with these allegations because they are still simply that: allegations. But other netizens concerned with electing only the best and the brightest to lead our nation took it upon themselves to expose what FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests have not obtained.

We will be brief in summarizing the tale of Palin’s pirated email account, but you can read all of it through that link. It didn’t even take true hacking. A person cobbled together Palin’s personal information and took advantage of the dangerously generic personal questions most email services use to send people forgotten passwords. This isn’t hacking, this is just being wiser than your average beauty queen/small town news reporter.

The person got into her account, looked around for the dirt Extra and Inside Edition dream of and was crushed to only find a few email exchanges between her and other Alaskan officials discussing official business. They tired of it and hoped leaving the log-in information on the web’s biggest forum for hackers and trolls would let the next anti-Palin netizen finish the job they had begun. Unfortunately – for the federal government that could have had their job done for them and for all of the Democrats eager to reap the political benefits of this exposed material – Palin’s e-guardian angel swooped in, emailed her advisor (either an oxymoron of a term or quite the substantial fete as Palin only takes guidance from one man and that man: god) and helped rescue the account before it could be further abused. Good night and sweet dreams!

Nightmares of implications

So what does any of this have to do with the election? Everything because it is a real example of how Gov. Palin has run the state of Alaska and how she conducts herself as a political leader. It’s not a campaign-polished, spun-dry presentation of her as the quintessential American mother. It shows her ability to guard her own privacy and conduct her own office and a substantial lack there-of. While a court of law will take forever to formally convict her of the ethical charges, it is now proven in the court of “I know my ass from a hole in the ground” that she has used a private email account to conduct official state business.

Chime in Palin apologists. “All politicians do that. That’s how they all conduct the real business.” Yep, you’re fully 100% right. But all of the others have the brains of a savvy businessman to know how to cover their own ass and do it without putting it into easily searchable records. We’ve seen the personal email addresses of seasoned, wise politicians . . . they resemble the subject line of a piece of spam with a jumble of letters that if rearranged might spell out one of their names, the year the account was set up and the office they are seeking. Why? Because gov.numbnuts@yahoo.com is too easy to find. It’s a tried and true practice of job seekers, headhunters and savvy PR gurus to guess at what the intended receiver’s email might be and to try random combinations of firstname@theirbusiness.com until one doesn’t bounce back. In addition to her illegal actions of conducting state business through private accounts, she left these accounts vulnerable and accessible to any random 8th grader that knows how to work a google search (note of clarity in her defense: Alaskan students typically do not learn how to use google until they go to college out of state). Do you want the #2 in the land to leave sensitive matters of national security and economic policy open and available to anyone with an internet connection and a proxy server?

Hear it here first: Gmail’s thorough note taking WILL be the downfall of many candidacies in the near future. The first candidacy to fall because of publicized emails that aren’t fit for the public eye is that of McCain because he brought along Palin for the ride.

More important is her man

Let her go. Let’s focus on why she is on the ticket. She’s a vice presidential nominee, as even she’s wondered, the actual job of being VP doesn’t get too interesting until the senate has a tie to break or the President has a heart to defibrillate. The real job of the vice president is done from the day he or she is selected until the general election. Ideally, they will swing their home state to vote for their ticket when they were previously disposed to vote against them (like when John Edwards ran with Kerry and brought North Carolina into the D column . . . almost). The VP is a handout to the base to rally their support. Typically, they do not receive the attention the true leaders of the ticket receive and thus, their exposure is confined to the party-faithful, involved voters that want to vote for their side, but have some personal, petty beef with the Presidential nominee (i.e.: democrats that don’t support Barack because he made Hillary cry to win New Hampshire). She’s not important. She won’t be a major decision maker in our nation’s policy. She is here to pander to the Republican base that heeds their pastor’s guidance in filling out their ballots.


Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

Because Janet Reno is her father.

Whoaaaaa. Before you get upset with Barack Out With My Cock Out and its editorial board, please direct your anger to the man that can be credited as the source of this tasteless joke that was first used when Chelsea was only 18.

This joke made its national debut at a 1998 GOP fundraiser in DC. Wooing the audience and their deep pockets was maverick entertainer, John McCain. Set aside McCain’s fervent love of this country and the unending respect he holds for its leaders . . . like Attorney General Janet Reno. This is a clear, undisputed incident of John McCain insulting a defenseless 18-year-old girl just to raise money for a Republican fundraiser. That’s more Maverick than the Dallas Maverick’s then record-setting season of winning only nine games in 1994.

We’ll hear anyone’s defense of McCain and his clever joke. Was it a single occurrence? No. Google “John McCain’s seven sexist rants” and read all about his belittling of women, even the one’s he loves (the Alaskan-educated readers can click here, apologies for the taunting of using google to find something). He once mocked his current wife (not the one that he left when she was no longer the beauty queen he married) for her caked-on make up. He said it better than we can recreate it: “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a dolled-up trollop, you cunt.” In his defense, he said he had had a long day before he told his new wife the truth about her plastic face.

Is he partisan in his sexist comments? Nope. As shown, he’ll go after his own family. He does like referring to all pro-active women as “Pat Schroeders” – a former congresswoman from Colorado that is remembered for her work on women’s rights.

When Jake Tapper interviewed McCain about his selection of campaign chairmen for the state of Nevada, his perfectly timed, well-judged humor reemerged. He tried out the old line “and I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago,” looking for raucous applause. Unfortunately, the crickets stood at attention as Tapper wondered to himself if McCain was aware of the Gov. of Nevada’s messy divorce and the accusations of infidelity. In Tapper’s words: “awkward.”

Feminism is for women, not woman

So when did feminism stop being about women? Answer: the day a man started using a woman to further his political ambitions. Electing McCain to the Presidency and letting Palin tag along to the white house will do as much for woman’s rights as elevating Al Gonzalez to the office of Attorney General did to eliminate the racial disparity between white Americans and Hispanics (nothing for those curious of the answer).

Don’t kid yourself. Don’t talk about glass ceilings. John McCain is holding up Sarah as a battering ram to blast through the glass ceiling Pres. Bush (W without the H) erected over McCain in South Carolina in 2000. Attention feminists of the world: do you support McCain using a woman to achieve his political dream?

More importantly, are you content to tolerate the GOP’s relegation of women as unable to perform tasks in as productive a manner as their male counter parts; should they continue earning 77 cents for every dollar her brother makes? This is a simple matter of government policy and there are only two choices: One side, Barack Obama, that supports mandating equal pay for equal work and the other side, John McCain, that has stated on record and worked against enacting such a law because it would place an undue burden on business. John McCain does not support equality for women and he stands in the road towards a sincerely enlightened and equal America.

Are you worth 77 cents or a full dollar?

Real Action, VP Rice and the Best of the Best

The Big Nut:
Presidential candidates and part time Senators Barack Obama and John McCain will also take the campaign through their real office and grill Gen. Petreaus on the war in Iraq. Previous candidates Sen. Clinton, Dodd and Biden will be asking the truly incisive questions the candidates couldn’t touch. The GOP is testing Condo Rice’s name as a potential VP candidate for McCain. The Alibi recognized how truly superb Barack Out With My Cock Out’s coverage is and I, Ron Domino, would like to thank the voters, the readers and the editors for their kind words.


Real action! Senators set to bash Petraeus.

When was the last time you tuned in to see what the candidates were talking about and you found them actually atop capitol hill, doing their job? Tuesday and Wednesday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Armed Forces Committee will check up on the progress in Iraq as Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker stop by for a Q & A.

While little policy will be established, the contrasting rhetoric of Obama and Biden (D-Del) compared to McCain and Jim Demint (R-SC) should set the stage for a good debate on the direction of the war. Barack will need to be especially careful to demonstrate a strong command of the issue to reaffirm his readiness to hold the office of the Presidency. McCain could dig himself a deep hole if he takes too hawkish of an approach and puts himself on the record for a lot of quotes of him supporting nothing but a continuation of the war. Keep in mind: the General and Ambassador may be the honored guests, but that won’t stop the senators or congressmen from wasting most of the time listening to themselves preach their thoughts on the war.

Finally you have a reason to figure out what channel CSPAN2 is. For those of you burdened with the hassle of receiving your cable from Comcast, its number 26.


VP Rice?

After the Republican Party fielded 12 pale, white Christian men for candidates for President, they’re looking to get in on the Democrat’s progressive ways with their Vice Presidential choice. They have seen the problems one can encounter when choosing between a black man and a woman and decided to just go for it all. Enter, Condoleezza “Condo” Rice.

First, let us be clear that her nickname is not “Condi.” Where do you see an “i” in Condoleezza? If you would like to save the trouble of those last two syllables, don’t go cherry picking letters for the half of her name you decide to pronounce. Its “Condo” the gruff bulldog that has butchered our foreign policy under Bush’s watch, not “Condi” the smart, adorable (in comparison to other cabinet officials such as Ashcroft or Rumsfeld) woman that appears in interviews with Barbara Walters.

What do you think? Do you like the progress she has achieved in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis? How about her ability to assist the new Iraqi Parliament in forming a working government? Middle East isn’t your favorite place, ok, what do you think of her dealings with Hugo Chavez and her ability to keep the northern region of South America from going to war?

If you appreciate her work in these areas as well as her ability to smile longingly while looking President Bush in the eyes, then McCain-Condo is probably your dream ticket. For those that are tired of having OPEC raise the price of oil as they sight “escalating tensions in the Levant/Iraq/Columbia/Mars” you might want to encourage McCain to seek out someone with a little better experience in negotiating with people that hate you. . . maybe someone like the last major political figure to visit Columbia on a diplomatic mission. Too bad Richardson endorsed McCain’s opposition--Obama.


Journalistic Excellence

The Pulitzer prizes have been doled out, again. Barack Out With My Cock Out can settle for the local accolades for the first month of work.

Cheap Seats and Dates

The Nut:

Florida is getting very close to holding a new Presidential Primary election. It will cost between $10-12 million and will be a mail-in ballot. All likely outcomes will help Clinton, unless Obama pulls off an upset, which could be the final blow to the Clinton campaign. Obama won the Mississippi primary in a very racially divided vote. Rush Limbaugh tried to take credit for getting Republicans out to support Hillary and extend the primary fight. Racial issues and slurs are the talk of the week as a Clinton supporter denigrated Obama's success by saying its only because he is black. Eliot Spitzer resigned his office of Governor of New York and now looks to skirt any of the criminal charges in the case. Pun enjoyed, but not intended.

Florida’s $10 million mulligan

Florida Democrats are getting closer and closer to officially announcing that they will take a mulligan on their rebel pre-Feb 5 election and have their voters re-voice their opinion on their preference of candidate. To the tune of $10-12 million dollars Floridians are readying a new election to make sure their delegates are seated at the National Convention.

It is incredibly important to the Democratic Party that these delegates be seated. An embittered Florida in November is one of many things John McCain needs to pull off the unimaginable upset. Maybe ‘unimaginable’ isn’t the right word after witnessing John Kerry and Al Gore be defeated by a coke-headed, DWI-convicted party boy. Either way, the Democrats must kiss and make up with Florida and Michigan to make sure Barack Obama cruises to victory.

When Howard Dean punished the states for disobeying the DNC’s orders he did not do it to spitefully one-up the insubordinate states, he did it to show that the DNC’s rules do have teeth. We all know that he had every intention of seating the delegates once the race was decided and the convention vote was rendered worthless. But with a “no-end-in-sight” election playing on he has been forced to find a new solution to the problem.



Mail it in

The proposed solution is a mail-in election to be held by June 3. Now we must consider who this will benefit. Who are Obama voters and who are Clinton supporters? Most exit polls have shown older, slower, more “curmudgeonly” people support Clinton while Obama is bringing in votes from the more educated, less old, less traditional parts of the enfranchised electorate.

Remember all of that talk about “if it snows and ices, the old folks won’t go to the polls and Obama will win big?” Well, now the La-Z-Boy bound voters have an upper hand. While they may not run wind sprints, most are very religious about checking their mail (for many of them, it’s a highlight of their day) and they certainly know how to sit down and read through all of the directions of the mail-in ballot.

The Obama Bloc has not earned such high marks in the same categories. Thus, while Obama has many supporters eager to elect him, he will be losing many votes from people that didn’t take the time to go through all of the procedures necessary for the Secretary of State to claim that they conducted a fair, honest election with the voters’ privacy staying protected. At the same time, many Clinton supporters that may not have been physically capable to cart themselves down to a polling location will now easily be able to file their vote. Sure, there is always Absentee Voting, but how many of YOU are wise enough to have permanently signed up for it and avoided ever having to wait in a polling line again?


Should we even care?

Yes, otherwise they wouldn’t be spending $10 million on it. Wait, that’s a lie. They would spend $20 million if they thought it would be entertaining and their donors approved. It is likely that Clinton will win a close victory in Florida and nothing will be decided in the grand scheme of things. The delegate totals will stay too close for either to emerge with a definitive victory. Thus, it will still come down to the Super Delegates and they are aligning more and more in favor of Obama -- the winner of more delegates, more states and more total votes.

But worrying about that assumes you are foolish enough to expect the election to go all the way to the Convention. If Karma is watching, it should wrap up right around Memorial Day Weekend. Would that spiteful wrath of random chance be good enough for all of us in the other 48 states that heeded the DNC’s demands?


Seriously, does anybody care?

The Spinsters better have earned some overtime for the work they put in trying to find a way to make Mississippi’s Democratic Primary seem important. They point to exit polls that show that it was the most racially divided state with 92% of black voters choosing Obama.

Obama’s 61/37 trouncing of Clinton could have been much bigger. His supporters are crying foul over many white Republicans that participated in the Democratic vote to help Clinton and thereby extend the no-end-in-sight election. The racial undertones of the division of voters is sad, but we all know the sad truth that the South isn’t as integrated as other parts of our nation. . . So why worry about a state that is going to support McCain 90/10 come general election time?

Don’t get too upset. This has been done as long as there have been political parties. Earlier in this same primary election, the Daily Kos political blog organized “Democrats for Romney” in an effort to help him extend a no-end-in-sight primary battle on the Republican side. Rush Limbaugh takes credit for giving Hillary the bump by rallying Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary for her to extend the battle. Rush knows what we all know: Barack Obama will be our next President.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats: the R’s got out their tri-focals and brought their three person primary into a single person focus. Maybe the young hip Dems have a Lasic appointment scheduled.


The price of having fun

For those who thought Eliot Spitzer’s $80,000 bill for hookers was steep, his fornicating is costing him even more. The resignation Foxnews announced a day before it was, has finally come to be. Yes, that’s right. Foxnews jumped the gun and announced for New York’s Governor his resignation. But on Wednesday it became official and the state of New York readies to inaugurate its first legally blind black Governor.

If the intrigue of the $1000 an hour call girls has escaped you and you’re back to being stuck on Super Delegate totals, yes, this has a bearing. Eliot surrenders his Super Delegate status to Governor-designate David Paterson. And it just so happens that while Spitzer was carrying water for Hillary, Paterson knows that Obama is the junior Senator that we need as our next President. Go get the big board and take one from Hillary’s side over to Obama’s. I’m sure it was his campaign’s plan all along.


Four more whores! Four more whores!

Don’t think that the last pervert has been pulled out of the closet yet. Larry Flint has been threatening for years to release a long list of politicos that can’t stay faithful to their wife or beliefs. Larry Craig is still a Senator after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct charges after he tried to get a blow job in the wrong public bathroom from the wrong undercover cop. He is also up for re-election this year. We have months of time to expose every philandering hypocrite out there and Barack Out With My Cock Out is ready to report on every one of them.


Its just because he's black

I'm still too shocked at how patently racist and pathetic the Clinton campaigns comments on Obama's success were. Keith Olbermann summed it up perfectly with a 10 minute tirade on how pathetic her baseless attacks were. Hear him out.

Barack Out With My Cock Out will be back on Monday to recap all of the action from the NM Pre-Primary Convention and all of the other political fun of the weekend.

Hedging and Hugging

Enter the Hedge Maze

Hillary Clinton’s media and political departments deserve a day off. The research and polling shops should pay for it. Going in to Tuesday’s primaries, every Clinton spokesperson was spreading the word that it would still be a victory if she were to only lose by a close margin. All of the efforts to lower the bar for her to continue the campaign proved unnecessary as she claimed victory in Ohio, Rhode Island and the Texas primaries. Her campaign had been spreading the word that she would continue on if it were a close race. The added padding has allowed her to continue forward unquestioned. This suggests that it could be an ugly denouement to the foregone conclusion: Barack Obama will win the nomination.

Voters in Vermont’s primary agreed with this and gave him their nod as did Caucus-Goers in Texas’ Second Act. Yes, Texans get to vote twice. If Iowa used the most-least democratic system for awarding its delegates, Texas utilizes the most-least-most democratic system. Moderately interested politickers are able to mail in an absentee ballot or vote in traditional fashion for their preference. Those worried that their vote will not go far enough can return at 7pm and stand in a caucus to demonstrate their support.

Obama’s campaign has enjoyed the grassroots organization that the popular “new” campaign normally receives. He has new voters not just showing up to cast a ballot, but attending rallies and getting truly involved with the election. Thus, he had the sincere supporters to win the more involved election -- the caucuses. This is an important factor to consider for general election time when he looks across the nation to people to do the ground work of winning an election.



Are we there yet?

Not hardly. Tuesday’s elections have provided Clinton with enough momentum to continue her campaign. If she had barely met the expectations of a “close defeat,” she would have felt heavy pressure to bow out and yield to the media darling that has brought out new support across the nation. With wins in two major states, she will demand that the Pennsylvania voters voice their opinion before she makes any move. Dreams of the primary being finished have been crushed.

Many statisticians point to the numbers as her biggest burden. Superdelegates aside, the 100 delegate lead Obama currently has is going to be insurmountable with the Democratic Party’s practice of apportioning delegates. Just as Huckabee was eliminated as he looked forward to winning many upcoming elections, Clinton sits in the same position. She will still win states across the nation, but she cannot cut into Obama’s overall lead.

How this plays for the three remaining contenders will be interesting. Will McCain be forgotten as the media hounds over the confrontation between Obama and Hillary? Will Obama and Clinton tear each other down as they secure the nomination? Will it really go all the way to the convention floor before the nomination is secured? Ok, we can shoot that ridiculous idea down. One of the two will emerge victorious with at least one state still waiting to vote.



McCain Embracing Defeat

Upon being formally crowned the representative of the Grand Ol’ Party, John McCain did what every savvy politician does -- he went to DC and embraced our popular President. Before he could even step out of the limo, Bush was at the door pulling him out to steal the big warm embrace that so many other candidates for public office have dodged. Remember when Bush came to help Sen. Domenici raise money for his legal defense at the Mayor of Los Ranchos’ home? Finished career or not, Pete still kept a few arm lengths between himself and the grim reaper of political careers and kept the cameras at the property’s edge (and then Bush’s motorcade killed a cop). But what does McCain have to lose. "I'd rather lose an election than a war," was McCain's way of rephrasing Huckabee's parting words as he ended his campaign: "I'd rather lose an election than abandon my moral values." I'd rather sit quietly than rip off a day-old phrase.

McCain supported Bush’s unpopular immigration reform. He has been singularly the staunchest supporter of the Iraq War and has no problem seeing troops stay in the region for another century. Maybe he cozied up to Bush to establish his conservative credentials. Maybe at 71, his eyesight couldn’t differentiate the Bush from a bush. When a reporter asked, “who could you benefit most by campaigning for them in the upcoming election” the lame duck squawked “If he wants me there, I’ll be there.” . . . will his phone ever ring?



Who else is coming with me?

Now that he has officially eclipsed the number of delegates needed to earn the nomination, his campaign turns to find some help. Yes, they want your money and will eagerly accept any major or minor credit cards, cash and checks, but they need another person to bring in the money. Running for president is a two man job at the very least and he now gets to survey the party that has, at times, tried to ostracize him and select someone to run along with him.

Names have been floating for months of who will be nominated as the GOP Vice Presidential nominee and shore up worries that McCain is too old, too liberal, too hawkish or too bald. Former Presidential Candidate and Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee’s name has been a popular pick to engender the support of people that vote as their pastor instructs. However, ‘popular’ doesn’t translate to ‘likely.’ Don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize the name of the VP choice. Did you know who Dick Cheney was in 1999?

Other possible names include Condo Rice (there is no “i” in Condoleezza), Rudy Giuliani and Steve Forbes. Safe money is on a pick that hasn’t muddied his name in a yearlong presidential primary race so scratch Rudy and Huckabee from that list. Steven Colbert was at the front of the line of celebrities volunteering their service. Roger Clemens and Chuck Norris have also been offered as suitable good ol’ boys that could round up younger voters that don’t appreciate the 71 years of experience John McCain brings to the table. How about Joe Liberman? The fellow Senators have collaborated on many pieces of legislation and the war support has to give Joe at least a semi.



Fighting Elves

If it wasn’t devastating enough to dash the dreams of Presidential Hopeful Dennis Kucinich before his presidential campaign got off the ground, Ohio Democrats made it more difficult than ever for Kuci to reassume his post in the House. Like our own Governor, he was attacked by his competition for neglecting the home while he trotted the globe pursuing the White House. Most confusing is the campaign of wannabe Congresswoman Rosemary Palmer who ran on an anti-war platform. Wasn’t Kuci the peacenik of all peaceniks?

Hooray for his 50-35 victory and for one more reason to tune in to CSPAN!

Rough riding through Dodd Country and the Southwest

Free Home Remodeling

Barack Obama’s campaign says they are receiving “the whole kitchen sink” attack from Clinton’s camp. The lull before the next round of primaries has turned into a free-for-all against the leading presidential candidates. Major “scandals and charges” are being levied against Obama and Sen. McCain as they try to wrap up their respective party’s nominations.

McCain is accused of accepting more than dinner and a round of golf from a female lobbyist. Obama is being slammed for his poor voting records in the Illinois and U.S. Senates. Emails are circulating with pictures of Obama sporting ethnic Somali attire. And amature voters everywhere are spinning in circles as they try to figure out what to think. Here’s what to think: the same thing you thought before these heartless attacks came out. Think less of the opposition making the accusations and enjoy brushing off most of what you hear in the next week. Tuesday night’s news might actually have something important to say, but lets not rush the vote counters, if they need an extra day to make sure they get it right, that’s fine.

Welcome to Dodd Country

Add another percentage point to Sen. Obama’s total. Barack Obama has conquered the presidential territory dubbed by Jon Stewart as Dodd Country. If all of Sen. Dodd’s green necktie lovers follow his endorsement and move in to the Obama Nation he can count on a solid 0-1% boost.

The nod from the former presidential candidate and long time senator is another punch for Obama’s campaign to throw, but they don’t expect to hurt Hillary with it. It is important for him to be able to point to “yet another high profile Democratic leader” that has endorsed him over the former first lady. It is doubtful that Texans or Ohioans are hinging their decision on this, but it could give a small nudge in the two smaller states that vote next Tuesday – Rhode Island and Vermont.

The Renaissance Governor

Obama tried to keep the ball rolling with former presidential candidates’ endorsements but Governor Richardson wasn’t having any of it. Big Bill has worked the national media circuit in the last week as he played hard to get. Semi-daily personal calls from Obama and watching the Super Bowl with Bill Clinton can’t sway him. He says if he’s going to pick a side during the primary it will happen within the next week and if you would like to host him on your Sunday morning news show to please contact Gilbert Gallegos.

He knows where he stands. Yes, he owes Clinton his endorsement. She won New Mexico’s Caucus and her husband made his career appointing him Ambassador and then Secretary of Energy. Simply endorsing Obama would be spun as a stab in the back to the family that enabled him to run for President in the first place. But he also sees where this election is headed. He knows there is no hurry and that Obama can still forgive him later. And if Clinton regains control of the race, he can still cozy back up to them. In the meantime the self-proclaimed Renaissance Man is going to focus on growing out the beard and signing legislation. Maybe we’ll see him atop his throne at the Lobo game tonight.

Two More Primaries; Records; and a New DPNM E.D.

Winner of another chicken dinner!

While the pollsters hedged their bets on Wisconsin, they were still proven correct as yesterday’s primaries fell as predicted. Huckabee was sent two more requests that he amend the office he seeks to Vice President and Obama kept building his momentum. While the results were fairly inconsequential, Obama’s campaign will enjoy touting their 9th and 10th consecutive wins and McCain can continue to turn the screws on Huckabee to face the music and allow the GOP to train all of the cannons on the Dems. The decisions do not help Clinton or Huckabee, but both can spin these contests as unimportant in the grand scheme of the election. They have set the stage for the two weeks of ennui as we wait for the historic Super Tuesday on March 4th.

What have you done for me lately?

And during the wait, you can expect the attacks to become as shallow as ever. As Sen. Barack Obama has risen in the polls and eclipsed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the most important measurements of a campaign’s status, the guns have been turned against the new leader and are still firing ruthlessly. For the last year Hillary was the “candidate of inevitability,” unable to be beaten, sure to continue to ride the Clinton political machine to another eight years in the White House. The media figures that feared her nomination launched countless assaults attacking her leadership, her Senate record, her marital woes and anything else that they thought could make people pause and reconsider supporting her.

The pause has passed and now reconsiderations have been made. True or false, ethical or pathetic, the attack has succeeded in knocking her down. Now the archers have turned to the other remaining man that stands in the way of continuing down the road of reckless spending and pre-emptive wars – Barack Obama. As the new leader in national polls, delegates earned and total number of delegates, as well as a dramatic lead in fundraising, Obama is in the dreamed of, but un-enviable position of right between the cross-hairs.

Whether they be thoroughly opposed to electing a Democratic Nominee (Sean Hannity) or only consider themselves to be serving their duty as a journalist (Chris Matthews), Obama is now taking the pies in the face that buried Hillary. The biggest allegation waged against him is that he has done nothing and has no record to run on. Yes, Hannity still spells out Hussein every time he writes Barack and Obama. Yes, people still raise the worn-out questions of whether the nation is ready to elect a black man or a woman. But the record turnouts in every state thus far have proven that if anything, the Democratic Party is very tired of electing white men.

Would you like to keep the money or go for what’s behind door #2?

So what record does Obama run on? He runs on what the majority of voters in the first 34 states and DC have supported – beginning a new path forward in how we run our nation. Voters had plenty of choices with laundry lists of accomplishments and they chose to throw out the old clothing and go buy some new gear. Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson could show you five examples of how they legislated or executed policies to help any constituency. They all had amazing foreign policy experience and already have on-going dialogues with the nations that pose a threat to our’s. The voters stood in unison and told them “thanks for the good work, we’ll take it from here.” It was a choice of going back to the favorite restaurant that knows your order and always cooks up a great dish versus the new hip place in town that everyone must try out – people are looking to take a chance and expand their horizons.

The record Obama runs on is not the traditional list of footnotes directing you to the bills he carried to alleviate the tax burden on impoverished Americans or create incentives for companies to utilize clean energy. He does not have 30 years of votes that inevitably can be cherry-picked to cast him in a hypocritical, flip-flopping light. It is a record of being free of the traditional ties that bind a leader’s hands and inhibit him or her from addressing the issues that brought thunderous applause when they were mentioned on the campaign trail. Expect him to be attacked for his “inexperience” repeatedly in the next 10 months. Without the traditional record to run on, he will also be attacked with baseless accusations such as a lack of patriotism, an Islamic heritage or less.

Capitalizing

What is most important is if he carries the Political Capital needed to achieve the goals he has laid out. When Bush was re-elected in 2004, he carried Political Capital and all of the talk was about what program he would attempt to achieve. Since he carried such a great amount of Capital after the sweeping win, he tried to pass one of his most controversial and unsupported ideas – privatization of Social Security. Without the sweeping victory, he would not have been able to approach such legislation.

Look at the numbers of new votes that come out to vote in Obama in comparison to the total number of voters in the Republican Primaries. Obama has won more votes in single states than McCain and Huckabee won across the nation in aggregate. Does that suggest a possible sweeping win in November?

Look at the accusations that Obama’s campaign is filled with former Clinton Administration staffers. Do you think they don’t know how the system works? More importantly, he doesn’t have the slick, perfected political prowess that Biden or McCain or Richardson would have brought to the office and, to repeat, this is exactly what voters have asked to have in the White House. Don’t be foolish enough to think that this will slow anything down. If anything, I would expect his administration to be smart enough to keep the public involved and informed about the progress on ending the war, restoring our constitution, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and all of the other issues we demand to be addressed.

So if you are walking down the street this week and some gorgeous intern with a microphone (go to any successful radio station and find me one that doesn’t hire cute girls for their interns) asks you if you’d like to answer some questions from Sean Hannity, grab that mic and tell Sean where to stick it. Barack doesn’t have the laundry list of accomplishments and that is precisely why he must be our next President.

Bring Out Your Dead

To bring it back home to finish, a head has rolled in reaction to the “disastrous” New Mexico Caucus. More accurately, a leg has been chopped off and the head spared. Party Chairman Brian Colon offer up DPNM Executive Director Laura Sanchez in an attempt to save his own job. She was relieved of her duties by politico Josh Geise. Restoring the public’s faith in the dominant party of the state will be no easy task. Voters in the state have high expectations and do not accept excuses of “we tried our best.” But his experience with Richardson’s machine as well as other campaigns across the nation has provided him the leadership and ideas to carry the party forward and restore the state’s faith. As a Cubs fan, Josh knows how to persevere through adversity and fight to the very end and I would expect no less of him in such an historic political year.

See, I told you, you’d hear that term again! Did I screw up, not go far enough? Email or leave your comments.