Ted, say it ain't so! Terrible. Fortunately, by the time we vote in May, Barack Obama will already be the nominee.

Or John Edwards.

Malach... Thanks! That's fixed. Weirdly, Jeff Mapes's picture is placed there... Jedi mind trick.

In early, 2006 political pundits were quick to write the governor's obituary. Despite the premature reports of his political death, the governor fought on, and won decisively against a strong challenger in the general election.

The same dynamic is at work in this presidential primary, only Barack Obama is the candidate that pundits were writing off as recently as a month ago. But as voters focus more intensely on the contest, it is Barack Obama who voters see as the best candidate to bring change and reform to Washington. I expect Obama to be our nominee, and the governor to be a powerful advocate when Oregon really matters: our general election next November.

given Ted's current popularity, would any candidate really want his endorsement? as an Obama supporter, Yay Ted! give your all to HRC!!

Ted inherited a state in economic recession as governor. He devoted his time, energy and strength to bringing Oregon back to economic health. Endorsemnts can be like horse trading, here's hoping Ted will get something good for the state of Oregon if Hillary goes presidential.

ewwww.

Posted by: Onlurker | Dec 13, 2007 1:48:08 PM Hmmmmmm...What does this say about Kulongoski's endorsement of Merkley?

The he thinks Merkley will be a good candidate and Senator and that Merkley can win against Smith.

That he thinks...

Preview is your friend Mitch.

yeah Trishka,

sheldon, is travelling through all fo the Tubes of the Internets flogging his latest Magnum Opus.

I'm no Hillary fan, but I ain't gonna take the advice of some guy whose last book was about how the Persian Shia terris led by the "dangerous" Ahmadinejad were gonna team up with the Sunni/Wahabi Al Qaeda guys to destroy the US and Israel.

We can get enough of this enlightened foreign policy crap from Frank Gaffney, Stephen Hadley, and Dick Cheney.

Posted by: Gullyborg | Dec 13, 2007 2:22:52 PM But I think we can ALL agree on who should NOT be President:

I agree that he absolutley should not be President, but by the same token, I do hope he is the GOP nominee because he would shatter the theocratic hold on the GOP with a massive flame-out in the General election.

Oh, and that should have been "Bill Shaheen" above.

I sense a disturbance in the force Charlie.

CGBurr, it should also be noted that Billy Shaheen was fired today from the Clinton campaign for those remarks.

Mitch, I hadn't seen that, but good for them. Shaheen was a national co-chair, so it's totally inappropriate for him to be making that type of attack. The first NH county co-chair to send the Madrasa email was let go, as was the most recent Iowa county organizer. But it's painting a picture of a pretty nasty under-the-radar effort, especially during a time when the Clinton campaign is putting out research about Obama from kindergarten and third grade. I realize that Clinton's camp says their news release was a joke, but I doubt there's a reporter in America who believes that.

About the governor: he's a tough campaigner, but he's fair and not one to take cheap shots. That's the point I was hoping to make.

Garlynn, I have not picked a horse yet in the Presidential race (still vaccilating between Edwards and Obama) but your first link to the Obama/Krugman kerfuffle I am not entirely sure what you label it as a strike, is one for me per se, since back in June 4, Krugman had this to say about Obama's plan:

Now, back in February John Edwards put his rivals for the Democratic nomination on the spot, by coming out with a full-fledged plan to cover all the uninsured. Suddenly, vague expressions of support for universal health care weren’t enough: candidates were under pressure to present their own specific plans. And the question was whether those plans would be as bold and comprehensive as the Edwards proposal. Four months have passed since then. So far, all Hillary Clinton has released are proposals to help reduce health care costs. It’s worthy stuff, but it’s hard to avoid the sense that she’s putting off dealing with the hard part. The real test is how she proposes to cover the uninsured. But last week Barack Obama, after getting considerable grief for having failed to offer policy specifics, finally delivered a comprehensive health care plan. So how is it? First, the good news. The Obama plan is smart and serious, put together by people who know what they’re doing. It also passes one basic test of courage. You can’t be serious about health care without proposing an injection of federal funds to help lower-income families pay for insurance, and that means advocating some kind of tax increase. Well, Mr. Obama is now on record calling for a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts. Also, in the Obama plan, insurance companies won’t be allowed to deny people coverage or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history. Again, points for toughness. Best of all, the Obama plan contains the same feature that makes the Edwards plan superior to, say, the Schwarzenegger proposal in California: it lets people choose between private plans and buying into a Medicare-type plan offered by the government. Since Medicare has much lower overhead costs than private insurers, this competition would force the insurance industry to cut costs — making our health-care system more efficient. And if private insurers couldn’t or wouldn’t cut costs enough, the system would evolve into Medicare for all, which is actually the best solution. So there’s a lot to commend the Obama plan. In fact, it would have been considered daring if it had been announced last year.

I share Kurgman's concerns about it not mandating full ceverage for all adults. But resonable people can disagree about the merit of Obama's reluctant to impose a mandate that might not be enforceable, even since some estimates point out that a combination of subsidies and outreach can get all but a tiny fraction of the population insured without such mandates.

As Kurgman himself said near the bottom of his op-ed in June:

On the whole, the Obama plan is better than I feared but not as comprehensive as I would have liked.

...which, is a fair opinion to hold position to take... if one is not a purity voter.

As for Obama on the issue of nuclear power, Obama has not ruled out nuclear because it is far cleaner than coal-fire power generation. Witness France whose entire electrical grid is nuclear and their national CO2 emission foot print as a result. compared with other OECD countires is in 4th place for lowest CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, just after Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. Almost all of their CO2 emissions are from the transportation sector (cars, trucks, etc.). Nobody is denying that there are serious downsides to nuclear, the hazards of which are of course well known, but dogmatically ruling out any discussion of nuclear as part of a comprehensive mix of energy production technologies which reduce climate change and increase energy independence is more of a strike than what Obama has done.

What's your "third strike"...?

You only talk about two, the debatable one on mandates for universal coverage and nuclear power.

Posted by: Charlie Burr | Dec 13, 2007 4:13:28 PM The first NH county co-chair to send the Madrasa email was let go, as was the most recent Iowa county organizer. But it's painting a picture of a pretty nasty under-the-radar effort,

Don't disagree. Was just pointing it out so we have a full picture.

...especially during a time when the Clinton campaign is putting out research about Obama from kindergarten and third grade. I realize that Clinton's camp says their news release was a joke, but I doubt there's a reporter in America who believes that.

Well I personally think the "joke" line was spectacularly lame way to address it, but I suspect they simply wanted to cauterize the bleeding caused from the media knives that came out over the valid counter-punching against the Obama attack, which I pointed out the media double-standard in this here.

Again, I have not picked a horse in the Presidential race and Clinton is near the middle of my list (she is solid in some areas though her hawkish posture in foreign policy such as her voting for the AUMFs in 2001 and 2002 are serious blemishes I have a hard time forgiving). That said, I do find it interesting to step back and take in the double-standard the media uses against Clinton which is dutifully eaten up and absorbed by far too many liberals, progressives and Democrats.

Guess that is what the results of being in the Fright-Wing™ cross-hairs as they spend hundreds of millions of dollars unloading everything they have on someone (for decades) are, and what it does to the generally erroneous perceptions in the general voting public.

The "attack" was noting that Obama may be vulnerable during the general election for his past drug use. Do you think it is a non-issue? Some people (who host certain blogs) thought that in the past, at least, it was a death-knell to electability.

The was it was phrased was inexcusable, and Clinton apologized personally to Obama about it and fired the advisor.

The fact remains that many people worry about how it'll play across America. If a pundit had said the same thing, it would have been allowed and people would have nodded. The messenger, however, matters, and hence he was forced to resign.

Feels like every negative note about Obama is made into a scandal.

Posted by: Evan Manvel | Dec 13, 2007 4:47:52 PM The "attack" was noting that Obama may be vulnerable during the general election for his past drug use. Do you think it is a non-issue?

Yes. Given that both Clinton and Bush have done drugs and both were elected and then reelected ...it is beyond a non-issue and bordering on the absurd.

I would rather have someone who is forthright in talking about his dabbling in drugs as a kid in his autobiography, than someone who claims he "didn't inhale" (Clinton), or pretends he never did blow as an adult (Bush) though we know he did.

But thanks for helping kick the can of such fraudulent FUD attack further down the road.

* The validity of the 2000 and 2004 results not withstanding.

Posted by: Garlynn -- undergroundscience.blogspot.com | Dec 13, 2007 5:02:58 PM The "third strike" was Social Security -- Krugman has been pointing out that Social Security really isn't in much trouble right now, and that most of the efforts to "fix" it are actually proposals from the right to try to eliminate it as a component of the government safety net.

This is a non-issue of rhetoric over substance. What Obama has suggested is well within the mainstream of progressive thought on the long-term balance of Social Security (i.e. things like eliminating the cap on how much of income is taxed, etc.). Krugman goes bananas because Obama used the word "crisis" which, from a Luntz or Rockridge Institute framing perspective is bad, but it has nothing to do with were Obama and the entire Democratic field actually are are on Social Security policy. Krugman's entire article is all light and no heat over using the wrong "buzzword" and not one sentence is devoted to what Obama's actual positions are (which is well within the mainstream).

Obama has apparently piled onto the "Let's fix social security" right-wing bandwagon.

Again, Krugman's hit-piece is not over actual policy or positions advocated by Obama but because Obama used a word tat Krugman then went ape-shit with. I agree that the rhetoric of "crisis" and the framing by Bush and crew was part of their failed attempt gin up the public so they would buy into eliminating Social Security through privatization, but that is nothing what Obama is advocating.

Krugman makes a very good argument as to why mandated care absolutely is necessary: the burden of paying for health care must be spread evenly across the population, otherwise people will be able to not contribute when they are healthy, only to sign up for a plan when they become unhealthy -- thus increasing the burden on the system and increasing the costs to all the users (Krugman's argument, not mine).

I don't disagree. I think it a point of policy debate worth having. But this hardly translates into Obama "attacking form the right". Even Krugman himself stated that Obama's plan is not a bad plan (certainly better than the current situation) though he clearly favors Edward's plan.

This is why Edwards and Clinton both call for mandated coverage, I believe.

I don't know enough about Clinton's plan to speak to it.

As for nuclear -- it's not a question of whether nuclear is ruled out completely as an option. Governor Swarzennegger of California, when asked for his opinion of nuclear, says something along the lines of "I believe that we should not consider nuclear power until we can figure out how to deal with the radioactive waste. It doesn't make much sense to try to solve one environmental problem, such as climate change, by creating another one, such as radioactive waste." This is pretty much the opinion that we should hope for from all candidates and politicians.

Which is basically all than Obama has actually said on the issue.

On this issue, however, Obama is coming from the right of Swarzennegger

Links and/or quotes please. I have seen nothing from Obama that puts him to the right of the above position on nuclear power. The Counterpunch article you link to has nothing at all which actually points out anything even remotely to the right of what you claim is "the opinion that we should hope for from all candidates and politicians."

For the record, I liked Krugman's book "The Great Unraveling" and bought a hard-copy of it the week it came out, but Krugman, whom I respect, I beleive is more than a little off on his characterizations of where Obama is, and his op-eds are being pushed by numerous boasters of other candidates to push FUD about Obama.

Bill, not attacking you here if those are your criterion for who to weigh candidates works for you, but your "machine" broad brush "considerations" do not hold any interest or legitimacy in my calculus.

I'm really leaning towards Obama at this point, however reasonable people can disagree. Hillary has her strong points, and she still remains a favorite among the silent Democratic majority that many extremists like to pretend don't exist. So I can certainly see that she would appeal to the Governor, especially since he also got a lot of crap from those same noisy extremists when they blamed him for successfully managing us through the 2002 recession while simultaneously having to deal with Minnis and her cabal.

I think he's making a mistake. This is one of those rare circumstances when the person the counterproductive-left hates is actually not the best candidate to win the general. But given what he's been through, I don't blame him for thinking that to be the case.

Quoth Steve M., the divisive centrist extremist. Yes, it is possible to be an extremist of the center, as many of Steve's dyspeptic fulminations illustrate. Center is an ideological position just like any other. It can be held with the same kind of rigidity, broad-brush smeary generalization and internal self-destructiveness as any other. And although Steve doesn't like lefter propensities for third party talk, we should remember that the DLC grew out of roots in Democrats for Nixon.

Leaving aside whether anyone really has been ignoring Senator Clinton's wide support, it seems to be eroding in New Hampshire, drawing various forms of nervous response on the Clinton side.

Regarding the governor's endorsement, we might note that Clinton and Edwards have both gotten numbers of national union endorsements, and that Clinton's include AFSCME and the AFT. Those unions' Oregon branches are important in the state AFL-CIO.

The Oregon SEIU on the other hand, the largest union in the state, has endorsed John Edwards. Kulongoski and SEIU Local 503 (OPEU) have had tensions since the governor reneged on PERS agreements.

(You can argue the fiscal necessity until the cows come home, and even be right. That doesn't change the fact that he had to renege on agreements that had been bargained in good faith, in which OPEU gave up other things it might have negotiated for e.g. immediate wages, or health benefits).

Since Oregon is unlikely to be a player in the nomination, and the governor's endorsement would mainly be useful to the Clinton campaign in Oregon, apart perhaps from fundraising, perhaps we should look to who Ted is aligning himself with by making this choice now.

Both AFSCME and Kulongoski have previously endorsed Jeff Merkley. Now they are aligned in the presidential race as well. It seems possible that shoring up ties with sections of organized labor other than SEIU, given the trickiness of that relationship could be among the governor's motives.

(National SEIU decided not to endorse in the presidential primaries but to allow state SEIU councils to do so; most of the state SEIUs that have endorsed have gone for Edwards.)

Posted by: Chris Lowe | Dec 14, 2007 2:09:30 AM Quoth Steve M., the divisive centrist extremist.

Huh?

You are claiming Steve Maurer is a divisive extremist?

I'm actually more amused by the construct "centrist extremist". Methinks somebody is in need of a dictionary.

But of course, even "centrist" is not true. By any neutral view of the US body politic, I'm liberal. I just don't choose to remain silent in the face of either Republicans spinning and lying, or people who pretend that Democrats and Republicans are indistinguishable. So if you come here to troll and insult don't expect your logical inconsistencies and hypocrisies to go unremarked upon.

Dyspeptic? Eh... maybe I'll cop to that one. Naderites giving the U.S. George Bush as President, because he and Al Gore are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, is enough to give anyone a sour stomach.

Posted by: Gullyborg | December 14, 2007 at 12:49 PM I, on the other hand, hope that both parties put their best candidate forward, so that they will each push the other to be better. In the end, America wins, no matter which party is in charge, when they both have to earn victory rather than allow the other side to self-destruct.

Though history has proven that each time the modern GOP gets into power, they harm America. So in the theoretical your calculus might make sense, but in the real world it does matter which party wins.

Because of the makeup of the current GOP, it i impossible for the GOP to put forward candidates that are anything but criminals or whack-jobs. The GOP of sane, moderates like the Hatfield's, Rockefeller's and Packwood's (lechery aside) simply no longer exists. It hasn't for decades since the rise of the theocratic right. I honestly wish the GOP would destroy itself and reform as a competent, moderate conservative (i.e. the classical usage of that term not the term as it means now which is theocratic warmongering social darwinist radicals).

It would push the Democratic party and America to be better, but that ain't what we got. We have a GOP where if you believe in science you are unelectable in a primary. We have a party where if you don't advocate torture, you are unelectable in a primary. We have a party where if you don't view the government as the bane of society, you are unelectable in a primary. We have a GOP where if you put actual living people before a bit of human protoplasm, you are unelectable in a primary. We have a party where if you do not support war based on fabrication, lies and greed, you are unelectable in a primary.

Steve, I apologize for applying to you a label that doesn't fit. It is good to know that you forthrightly see yourself as liberal.

My vocabulary skills are just fine, thanks. Centrist does not equal moderate. Consider an example where there isn't a spectrum: fans of a sports team. There are extreme, fanatical fans, and what makes them that way is the intensity of their feelings and actions.

Some centrist or liberal politics, when pursued by extreme rhetorical and organizational means in the DP, can be divisive. Not all of the DLC do this any longer, but some e.g. Joe Lieberman still do -- they want to create a center-right orthodoxy and exclude from any real say people who don't accept the "New Democrat" policies. They regard "McGovernites" (smear-label) as the enemies.

So I see your point about lefties (and many liberals) who look for internal enemies among Democrats as destructive & divisive in potential and sometimes in actuality. But I think that runs in both directions & sometimes your rhetoric really does go looking for enemies inside the party and is gratuitously hostile & divisive. At those moments you manifest a kind of extremism, IMO.

Not that I would claim to be a paragon of consistency.