I was looking through the listing of blogs for results of the primaries held on Tuesday, and unable to find percentages for either Obama’s or McCain’s victories, I shrugged and clicked over to Drudge.  The top headline was marked with Obama, and on to a link to an ABCNews.com article.  But the first item on the left-hand sie struck me as rather…

There was a headline “Hillary Wears Thatcher Red”, and that we get a side-by-side image of Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher wearing similar red dresses.

I understand the color red in fashion denotes “Power”, thus a wise decision for a politician needing to display confidence.  Also all men should have red ties in their assembly of ties, worn when you need to impress someone.

Beyond this, I have to say that I have no clue what Drudge is driving at here.  Further, the thought pops up that a drone at Drudge saw Hillary Clinton, made a connection with Margaret Thatcher, rumbled around for a photograph of Thatcher, went into adobe and spliced the two photographs next to each other, and uploaded it ontoDrudge.

The banality and triviality of it all overwhelms me — part of which is the simple fact that this will be surely be replaced with an equally banal and trivial item of concern.

I heard a criticism of media coverage of our electoral system as “Theater Review”, personalities take over any policy concerns, and coverage is focused in on a dramatic storyline of who is up and what is down.  In terms of Personalities, you can at least make the case that this shows the way to how a politician will be governing in Office.  But somewhere beyond that we have a Costuming note, and one I cannot say I would have much noticed, and one I am overwhelmed by just how underwhelming it is.

Again: What the Hell is the matter with Drudge, and what is wrong with me that I fail to understand him?

So we see in today’s regional paper of record, lower case all the way around, from a University of Oregon associate professor, a rousing defense of Super-Delegates.  Something about the Democratic Party realizing it was not a good idea to have the decision made by the rank and file after George McGovern’s failed campaign and Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency.

I already wrote my history of our primary system, and how super-delegates came to be, and I stand largely behind it — even if it is factually spotty in places.  But the persons of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter are defendable enough: for one thing, his slight against Jimmy Carter — squeaked in past Ford off of the ghosts of Richard Nixon, boomerang back to McGovern — whose election year attacks against Richard Nixon were blasted as “shrill” and unbecoming, and whose shrill and unbecoming attacks on Nixon were completely and utterly true.  Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, while we can’t exactly say was a good president was an incredibly unlucky one, the slot that he came to was a sand-trap where the nation was facing the whirl-wind of past short-sighted policies that sent the economy spiraling and a ticking time-bomb in the Middle East.  There are murmurs that the next presintial term is similarly doomed — the dam is about to burst and the next president is going to be caught holding the bag tossed by this president in particular and the past few presidents in general, which throws up contradictory suggestions on whom the Democratic nominee ought to be.  The answer should be obvious, Obama, except for the problem of a certain toothlessness in demenor.

More to the point, the nominating process which was shut down slightly with the Super-delegates had been “freed” following the experience of Hubert Humphrey, and more to the point Richard Daley cracking skulls at the 1968 Convention.  And the first crack at the Establishmentarian bosses saving the rank and file from itself, though only as an insurance for it did not come to that, was 1984 and Walter Mondale.  Which means we have the example of one elected president and the winner of a single state versus the experience of a relatively close loser (in a three-way race) and another winner of one state.

Maybe this fits in with the “rhythm”s theory tossed in somewhat haphazardly in another newspaper editorial — published yesterday.  I say haphazardly because it provided me no good answer to its premise, pointing out the 26 (or therabouts) Republican Congressional evacuees — the guaranteer of a great Democratic year on the front — and suggesting that two party tidal waves in a row is typical.  Some examples would have  been nice.  I suppose the 1930-1932-1934-1936 cycle is the starkest exemplifier of what is supposed, but I’m in the dark after that one.  The modest Republican victroy of 1978 followed by 1980’s “Reagan Revolution”– does that qualify?  Or was he referring to 1966, at the time described as a Democratic crack-up but superceded in History by 1968 which by dent of being an election year, with Richard Daley cracking skulls, is described as a Democratic Crack-Up?

Incidentally, I have no historical memory of any of this.  The next editorial I see in these papers splits apart “The New Generation” — as these things always rate, with mixed results.  I apparently am a member of No Generation — the Milenials clearly demarcated to turning 18 in the year 2000, “Generation X”‘s 18th birtday seeming to sputter in the mid-90s.  I ought to enjoy my status of being Generation-less, for it frees from these generalities — to wit, this editorial draws a clear line of succession from the Milenial’s formative experience of watching Barney the Purple Dinosaur with their current support of the candidacy of Barack Obama.  I am spared this bit of cultural wisdom.  (In terms of personality types, I apparently belong more to “Generation X” than to “The Milenials”, my cynicism passing my idealism.  I think I have a bit of both, though, which I suppose might be indicative of my sitting in the Gray Area between these two generations.)

One last suggestion in passing: the name “Ronald Reagan” is meaningless to the Youth.  It is either ahistorical or amythological a mindset.  Then again, I don’t know how far the Kennedy-worship gets us — but I think Reagan-worship gets us further nowhere than Kennedy.  Good luck with that one, John McCain.  I will say this to John McCain, though: you can earn my vote if you start to align yourself with the spirit of that Great Republican President, Chester Arthur.  I demand to see someone honor Chester Arthur’s memory and declare proudly “I am an Arthur Republican!”

Hm.  Should I tie this back to the beginning thematically somehow, or is that now an impossibility?

So, hearing the sound-tracks of Mitt Romney’s speech, we find that once again, a vote for Clinton Hilllary or Barack Hussein Obama is a vote for… um…

Cheap Trick.

Mother told me, yes, she told me I’d meet girls like you
She also told me, “Stay away, you’ll never know what you’ll catch”
Just the other day I heard a soldier falling off some Indonesian junk that’s going round

Mommy’s alright, Daddy’s alright, they just seem a little weird
Surrender, surrender, but don’t give yourself away

Well, Romney hopes to build the House that Ronald Reagan built — strengthen the House which is the same House that Clinton Hillary want to build.  In 2012.  Because he’s the natural Conservative candidate, for some unexplainable reason.  He was the Conservative Stool, after all.

Well, it makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose.  Limbaugh either observed or demanded Huckabee ought be McCain’s running mate.  Huckabee having been bashed just a little while ago by the Club for Growthers, and onto Rush — the purity is off every which way you go, and you have to pretend you didn’t say something previously.  ‘Tis the way of Electoral Politics.

I do not fully understand the animosity toward John McCain, as exemplified by conservative talk radio hosts’ animosity.  It is not so much policy differences that I can’t understand, as how it is one can guage the politicians and deem Mitt Romney more to their liking.

Moreso their former embrace of Rudy Giuliani, frequent guest to Sean Hannity

I listened yesterday to Mark Levine, and heard Levine dare you to name what Huckabee or McCain have done to battle Civil Unions against the embrace of Activist Judges… Romney having gone to the mat against that court decision.

Never mind, Romney’s campaign against Ted Kennedyand his declaration of being more gay-friendly than Kennedy.

One year ago I’m pretty sure Levine would have easily used the words “flipper” to describe Romney.

Splitting this apart, I think one can splice together priorities.  A couple months ago, I heard a James Dobsonconervative Christian type bash McCain on Campaign Finance grounds — What would Jesus Do, indeed? Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Giuliani suggests that those social issues, at bottom, aren’t even terribly important.  (And McCain has a more consistent track record for these things than Mitt Romney.)

So it boils down to what?  Torture and Water-boarding, which McCain does not glom, and apparently the 100 year old promise is not even enough to cover their difference of opinion on this matter.  (What Would Jesus Do?)  And… Immigration.  Interesting, as I suppose McCain went to bat for that more so than the others.

History swerves a bit awkwardly.  Mitt Romney is now tightly winding himself ever more with the Republican talk radio crowd, and he is welcome to it.  The interviews will add more to the list of flips and flops, by their very nature, unless he can step into the realm of platitudes — which is too his wheel-house.

All of which is meaningless except in the realm of comedic gist, as McCain is more than the Presumptive Nominee.

Apparently the Patriots were all set to trade-mark the phrase “19-0”.  Interesting, as skimming through Sports Commentary, the plight of the Patriots is being compared with the undefeated UNLV basketball team who lost to Duke in the Final Four, and I believe that means that team would have been 19 and 0 at some point.  Meaning, that team would not have been allowed to start game #20 by yelling “Your 19 – 0 UNLV” whatever their mascot is… much as you cannot shout out “Let’s Get Ready to…” at a public event.

I am tempted to suggest that the Patriots should now be forced to trademark “18-1”, but it seems that the New York Post has done so — or is goofing around with that possibility.  Ah well.

During the 2000 election, Ralph Nader ran into some legal brohauhau when Mastercard charged that they had trademarked the word “Priceless”, which was being used in his parody campaign ads.  It was a jarring declaration.  Any number of items have been patented which should not be allowed to be patented with corporations wanting to keep ott market and control technology, what turns of phrase have been trademarked we cannot quite know in full.

I suggest that the Seattle Seahawks should go ahead and trademark “8-8”, the most common record an NFL team gets.  This way, every team that finishes at 8-8 will have to pay them.  Or… something.

According to the National Journal, Barack Obama is the most liberal Senator in the United States Senate.  Quite the coincidence, as four years ago that honor went to John Kerry.

A better examination revealed that John Kerry was actually the number Eleven Liberal in the United States Senate.  Even so, George Bush got off that line about Kerry being “the Liberal Senator from Massachusetts”, as opposed to Teddy Kennedy — the, um, Conservative Senator from Massachusetts.  Hardy Har Har.

Parsing out the votes, the difference between the voting records between Hillary Clinton — Number 16 — is… two votes.  Parse these votes out on the left-right meter as you would like.  Also of some modest interest, the Paul Krugman diagnosis in examining domestic proposals — chief among them Health Care, and I note that one because it is the easiest one to get a grip on in terms of proposals — has Obama ever so slightly to the right of Clinton.  Ever so slightly key operative phrase.

I think we need some new criteria.  Perhaps what we could do is give the following Senators a 100 rating in terms of “Liberalism”, ergo defining that term as them: Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, and Ted Kennedy.  From them, you rank them by percentages.  This also allows arenas of disagreement of the word, meaning that if Sanders is against, say, the Kitten Extermination Act and Kennedy is for it — meaning who can tell which is the “Liberal” or “Conservative” position for this bi-partisan bill — no alignment comes up.

But then again, Obama ends up nowhere, what with a slew of “Present” votes and a presidential run started before he really slid into the Senate.

Anyway, words change meaning.  I should dredge up a chart I never saved which I found interesting but only flicked past me and show how bizarre these things can get — ie: everyone considered themselves a Liberal in the 1950s, and we all know how Liberal society was in the 1950s.

And, whatever you do, define yourself as one of these two groups and never allow a deviant thought to enter your cranium.

I got a bad feeling yesterday when I learned that KGW was going to take over the old Powell’s Travel books room at Pioneer Square.  The concept was that they would have in their morning show a version of NBC’s Today Rockefeller Center, where the local news cast looks out at “Portland’s Living Room”.

The problem is this means that “Portland’s Living Room” would, necessarily, have to become, during the duration of KGW’s filming, pristine.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Pioneer Square on that score as a general rule, but I am imagining stray bums being uncermeoniously shoved out of the line of vision, for the benefit of KGW.  (Also undesirable, a ranting street preacher, and the like, who would normally be standing — over a ways anyway, but won’t be allowed in front of this camera — even though he’d probably like to be in sight of the camera)…

Actually they’ll probably create their own faulty ambiance.  For example, this is a rather chilling vision of the immediate future.

Outdoor television monitors will also broadcast the news for passersby to watch.

Bah on KGW.

Seemingly related to this ethos, as it appears Pioneer Square is being turned over to corporate interest, I hear this bit of news regarding the weekly Friday peace marches from “Portland Peaceful Response” — weekly gatherings which tend on the very low side in terms of people, but gather moss every so often.

In recent weeks, PPRC has been approached by employees of Portland Patrol, Incorporated (PPI) objecting to our use of a battery-operated megaphone and to the use of drums. On December 21st, the City of Portland Noise Control Officer, accompanied by a representative of Pioneer Courthouse Square, Inc., and by a member of the Portland Patrol, informed us that, if we use either the megaphone or drums, individuals will be cited.

Drums?  Really?  Understand, drums are staple for this type of thing — drum-lines somewhat easily mocked and sterotyped.

The re-entrenchment for discouraging this seems uneasily tied to the presence of that there television broadcasting.  It is an essential attitude on what the heck that spot is — seen by something with the word “incorporated” at the end of its name as a bit of an unorderly nuisance.

During the Republican primary debate last night, Mitt Romney attacked John McCain’s “Conservative Credentials” by charging that nobody who gets the New York Times endorsement can really be that conservative.  The New York Times endorsement was largely a huge slap at Rudy Giuliani, with a decision to line up behind McCain due to his anti-torture stand — as opposed to Romney’s line that he would like to “Double” Guantanamo.

I do not know where a Conservative should head in choosing between Mitt Romney and John McCain, and won’t try to parse out a good position.  But I did run another slap against John Mcain’s “Conservative Credentials” in the news weekly which recently had a cover feature on John McCain.  (I cannot always tell the three apart, particularly two of them.  I think it was Newsweek.  It might have been Time.)  According to a slight aside feature on the nature of the McCain campaign bus, the television is always turned to…

either ESPN or MSNBC.

MSNBC?  Home of Chris Matthews (worked in the Carter administration, and in the right wing view of things where we have an odd “either”/”or” positioning, a big fat LIBERAL), and the down-right Communist Keith Olbermann.

Everyone knows what channel it should be turned on for the sake of the Republican primary voter, and the true-red Conservative.  Where the heck is the Fox News?

I intend to do that by making it clear what I stand for. I stand for the principles and policies that first attracted me to the Republican Party when I heard, in whispered conversations and tap codes, about the then-governor of California, who stood by me and my comrades, and who was making quite a reputation for standing by his convictions no matter the changing political winds of thought and popular culture.

It is interesting how McCain goes from an appreciation of the Sainted-amongst-the-primary-voters he needs in order to finish his Republican nomination up, Ronald Reagan — and the cultural war interceding into the real war in Vietnam nature of the appreciation — into a cultural war attack on the 1960s.  This is not the first time in this campaign that we have seen John McCain make an attack on the 1960s, and its popular cultural imprint, which suggests that it is a real strain within his person and thus candidacy.  (The political impact of “The 1960s”, mind you, is complicated — such that its greatest electoral effects — the election of Governor Reagan and President Nixon.)

It is also offers up a suggestion of why he is probably going to lose the general election, particularly interesting to another echo of the 1960s — strained perhaps, as Teddy Kennedy reworked John Kennedy’s “Torch has been passed to a new generation” line in sending up Barack Obama.  It may not be a good idea to show your age in a Cultural War no one is terribly interested in fighting.  Bob Dole was slightly caught in the trap in 1996 by dent of age, but George Bush was more so in 1992 by dent of… um… ?.

Well… not him.  You shouldn’t be kicking him.  That’d just be mean.

Disclaimer: I would like to be old someday too.