I remember Robert Kennedy’s death like it was just yesterday…

I do not have the time right now to dig into the following links, and maybe I will shortly and make some semi-prescent comment or other. Beyond, “Hey Look! The Larouchies are trying to get somebody elected in Texas!” And the my previously stated comment “Um. I don’t think Clinton likes having that name attached to her… anywhere.” (That item I may well go through a list of anti-Obama rumours and try to figure out which ones have some circulation bump from the Larouche universe.) (And for the dailykos item: “Your friend is long gone. Sorry.”) So, here is a link dump.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/dc-clinton-larouche-camps-nader-obama
http://www.thetexasblue.com/larouche-etc
http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5889
http://www.joeydevilla.com/2008/06/02/it-must-be-june-because-the-silly-s http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/5/105553/6954
http://www.thetexasblue.com/larouche-etc-updated

Tuesday the Larouche website machinery kicked out an item declaring that they had “Won” and succesfully gotten Obama into a stalemate such that he will not be president. Curiously, that very same url was swiftly changed to a longer item about how the British were thrusting Obama on us all, setting us up for McCain. This I found a bit curious, as the “We Win” and “We have thwarted Obama” statement was no more insane or distant than anything else. As a May memo has it:

Suppose the PPP crowd grabs the Democratic Party. Every good Democrat will become a Republican. No one in his right mind will play with PPP people—fascists like Rohatyn and Soros. If they took over the Democratic Party, then people in their right mind would destroy such a Democratic Party, just as they would destroy the Nazi Party. Under those conditions, McCain would be told to do as he is told. Patriotic forces in the U.S. would act to control him, to put diapers on him. To save the nation they would mobilize to destroy the Democratic Party under the control of the PPPs (sic). We must shape the future. This is no time for business as usual.

This is an interesting turn — and not just for the mention of “PPP” even over Royatin.  Through the past decade, the Larouchies have been bouncing about college campuses and gathering a “cadre” of niave new cult members off of anger over the Bush Administration, mostly off the cusp of the Iraq War the now meaning too many things to be a truly useful word “neocons” — “Children of Satan” I, II, and was there a III? Also social security privatization — and herein lies the Larouche version of events:

On Nov. 11, 2004, we launched a defense of Social Security. There would have been no chance for anybody in the U.S. if we had not done that. We have made it this far, due to future-oriented actions based on a dynamic study of the process underway.

Back in the real world, at least for the centrist Democratic New Republic — which ran a fluff piece on Larouche last summer, and the mainline Democratic Washington Monthly — which ran a more substantial piece on Larouche last Autumn: Nancy Pelosi is credited for that. But then again, there is some inconvenient history for Democrats, but even more inconvenient (if they particularly cared to keep their story straight, which they don’t) for Larouche buried about from back to the Clinton Administration, and contradictions anyone?

Today this odd cadre of gradually aging “youth” Larouchies are, evidentally, being turned around one more time to support that same type of neo-conservative for President whom they had been fighting against for the past seven years. The wheel turns 180 degrees. Also, may I add, a Global Warmer believer. It is an item of fascination, and I suppose Larouche (or whoever is in control of that doddering enterprise) can dust off his quasi-support statements for Gerald Ford, cross that name out and replace it with McCain. I suppose he sees that there is no more reason to rhetorically ride the Clinton machine anymore and has reached that dead end, and the next chapter of fiction writing lies elsewhere.

Well. Congratulation, Youths. Prepare your next choral assignments, and… ? It’s Raining McCain?

Yes, Hillary Clinton’s speech yesterday gave me a sinking feeling.  Electoral calculi logic are always a little odd to me – firstly, I or you or anyone can be comfortably out of step with the American public and psyche and that simply does not matter except with regards to Electoral politics.  The other thing is how much elections figure off on the fringes — the bulk of Hillary Clinton’s supporters are going to be voting for Obama, but nonetheless it is with Clinton’s support that McCain is going to drive around to try to shift out some supporters from her base of “women over 50 earning less than $50,000” believing Obama is running an “anti-woman cult”– insane as the idea of McCain getting this demographic that tends to be — for grabbing a nomination from what looked like it was rightfully Clinton’s.  What does it mean that Hillary Clinton continues her campaign?  How many of those Hillary Clinton voters does she “own” and is able to wave around and give to the other candidate?  (That last question would work the same way for Obama, or for that matter anyone else.)  Chin up, Democrats, from Harper’s Index for June 2008:

Portion of Barack Obama supporters who said in April they would not vote for Hillary Clinton if she became the nominee:  1/5.
Portion of Clinton supporters who said this about Obama:  1/4.
Percentage of John McCain supporters in March 2000 who said they would not vote for George W Bush: 51
Percentage who said this in October 2000:  39

If I could find this piece of writing on the logic of Hillary Clinton’s campaign over the past few weeks, I would lik to it.  Basically the idea was that Obama was not going to win was a rock solid factoid, and because of that even if you are hurting Obama’s chances, it does not matter because he can’t win anyway.  When he inevitibly loses, the niave Obama supporters will have learned that lesson.  And the Clintons, who have the only key the presidential election and who are sold on that election strategy and that one only, will be in the ascendary of the party again.  But this piece ended with Hillary Clinton going through the ritual at the end of the day of campaigning for Obama and gracefully stepping aside when Obama clinched the nomination.  Parcing through the electoral criticism of Barack Obama, which is that his narrow base in many ways looks like George McGovern’s base of support, Hillary Clinton’s in many ways looks like Walter Mondale’s.

Hillary Clinton cannot possibly be the vice-presidential pick.  It is easy to overthink these things, and I tend to think that thinking about vice-presidential possibilities is a pointless exercise — we are all out of the loop and have no control over the matter — but consider this :

We are at this ugly moment where Hillary Clinton is getting pillored with various sexist stereotypes and tropes, with a closed loop by her most media-sensationalistic supporters.   The problem with Hillary Clinton is — what sarcastically negative popular trope can I throw out that doesn’t play to this tendency?

Can Obama pick Kathleen Sebelius or Janet Napolitano or some woman unnamed, or has Hillary Clinton assuredly shut down any possibility for a female vice president?  Mind you, this is the surest route to having a viable female presidential possibility in this generation — otherwise, this rumor of how Hillary Clinton is brokering her power (and her power base) has just shut down that possibility.

And for all the problems Obama may or may not have with “hard working white people” of the lower-middle class, I suddenly have this thought that one of the logical picks — Jim Webb — is inoperable as well.  Something about past women in combat issues and book excerpts…

Not to come to John McCain’s defense too much and not that I want this to become a habit, but the gaffe about “electing me in January” strikes me as meaningless and understandable for any regular person and has nothing to do with age.  Actually it’s a little more understandable than the Barack Obama puzzle about visiting “57 states” (was that the number?), since I at know where McCain got the January date and I have not a clue where the number of states came from.  (Though, here I would have to defend Obama still — I want to say you run around for that long and without saying something bizarre.)

The even more meaningless tempest in a teapot was the mis-identification of “Auschwitz”, which frankly has come to be so much an archtype that mentioning Auschwitz is to Nazi Concentration Camps what Scotch is to clear adhesive tapes.

I suppose I may as well have to write down a rule sheet for what “gaffes” count as significant — it is a matter of maintaining intellectual integrity and avoiding double standards.  Basically in this contest, everything McCain has said about the Middle East is telling and worth mentioning and betrays any number of things, not least of which because the man has frequently defended himself for saying those things.

In gaffing terms, with regards to Obama’s “bitter” comment, I would like to point you to Dick Cheney’s latest joke and telling statement that he can say that because he’s not campaigning for anything anymore.  Kids say the darnedest thing?

So there’s this Ron Paul supporter someone out there might be familiar with and recall as a Hellfire Campus preacher who was once upon a time railing against mixing types of fabric threads in your clothing.  But apparently none of his preaching in the park blocks outside PSU or at Pioneer Square (or earlier tutelege in Texas under the discipleship of some weird preacher who took over his church for a while) were in and of themselves of any meaning, because as you see in one of his youtube videos:

“And Now I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this Ron Paul battle cry”.

So, shuttle aside anything you might have remembered him saying before.  That was just training for his God granted purpose in life… his historical purpose is to affect the presidential election and swing it in Ron Paul’s direction.

But, he needs money in order to make his trek to Minnesota this summer, to preach the Gospel of Ron Paul to the Republican Delegates, and ensure Ron Paul is the next president of the United States.  So, um… donations to …

… Send him to Paulville?

One of the Clintonistas has finally come around to explaining to my satisfaction some of the rationalization — satisfaction as in I at least know the logical stream beyond the simple reality of “Situational Ethics” — behind the seemingly insane position of giving Clinton ALL of the Michigan delegates, never mind Obama followed the DNC rules and stripped his name off the ballot, and never mind “Uncommitted” won a sizable chunk of the vote against Clinton.  It is the question of the motivation for Obama (and Edwards).  He took his name off the ballot not so much for the sacred respect toward the DNC rules in ordering the primary calendar, but to court favor in Iowa and New Hampshire.  It puzzles me to the question of “Assuming yes, So what?”  Perhaps his electoral strategy might have been different on this score if this vote was not declared moot and meaningless before it was held.  Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had the more duplicitous strategy which was to court Iowa and New Hampshire voters by declaring the meaninglessness of the Michigan vote while her name remained on that ballot, and while Governor Granholm came out in favor for Clinton.

Part two in arguing against the Michigan Compromise (such as it was) is the semi-sensible statement that you just cannot deign a motive in a vote, you have to count the “Uncommitted” as what it was, not just move it to Obama.  I suppose the correct answer would be to make these “Uncommitted” delegates functionally “Super-Delegates”.  Otherwise, this line would make some sense and be valid, if it weren’t for the simple fact that it follows the same logic of demanding the Following of the Rules that goes along the lines of “This vote matters not at all.”  That stripping the state of the delegates proved to be an impracticality means the search for a political solution was in bloom — hence Obama gets those Uncommitteds in this crazy half-vote scheme they had to have in penalizing Michigan.

In the end, Florida Republicans helped harm the Democrats’ chances in Florida in sowing this ill-will in bumping that primary up. (Yes, I understand, the minority Democrats were complicit in the process.)  They have a good excuse, though:  they are Republicans and want a Republican president.  What is Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm’s excuse?  Is she secretly a Canadian agent from the Conservative Canadian government?