Is the lustre Palin?

The thick plottens, as they say in the classics.
Sarah Palin has been sequestered with the Bush spin team, carefully secluded from the dangerous questions of the wicked, bad, inquisitive media. They are letting her out now on carefully-supervised appearances - oh, so well managed.

Almost. She did slip up on "Bush doctrine" showing that even a know-it-all might have a bit to learn. I'd love it if she started with evolution.

She delivered a well-written speech which played skilfully on the public's current economic fears and promising that overpaid CEOs would not be grossly overpaid if she and McCain were in power. Hmm. Not many votes to lose in that economic solution - especially for one who is desperately trying to play to the working and lower middle class demographic. The idea is that she is one of them, a Down Home hick who comes from the sorta stock who never needed an educayshun to run their hard-working little businesses. Funny thing that. I thought her dad was a teacher.

The Palins love to kill things in their spare time. They eat a lot of moose and caribou. She loves killing wild animals, wolves especially. She does it from the air.

We keep reading that she is "resonating" among American women - a sort of Annie Oakley thing.

But one reads that she and her snowmobile vroom-vroom husband make four-figure incomes and that she has been claiming per diems while living at home. Tsk tsk.

I've not heard these things on Fox but I have heard Fox starting to snipe at Palin. The gushing love affair, the fawning she-can-do-no-wrong policy has lapsed and, perchance, the Republicans are just a wee bitty worried about this loose cannon killer hockeymum and anxious about what stories are yet to come out about her.

Perchance she is as clean as the blood-drenched Alaskan snow.

Sarah Seals the Hillary vote for Obama

Comparisons between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton are not just odious, they are downright dumb.
The only common factor between those two is gender.

Palin is one of those right wing wackos who is all for killing - huntin', shootin', fishin' and killin' things - but believes that termination of unwanted or mutation pregnancies is murder.
She is all for children being taught creationism and, predictably, is against same sex marriage.
If she has a gift, it would seem to be her massive ego. Before she discovered the joys of running for office, she was competing in beauty quests.

This is a vain and shallow Republican poster girl.

The Fox Republicans are creaming themselves.

Whatever they say, however, there is no comparison with Hillary - the intellect, the erudition, the political savvy, the compassion etc etc - and I am sure that she will make zip, zilch and nil impression on the potential vote of Hillary supporters of any kind.
The very idea is madness.

In fact, if anything, she will cement them into support for Obama.

Hillary - thoroughbred to the end

Hillary's speech to the Democratic Convention in Denver was so absolutely champion that I felt tearful and heavy-hearted.
There she was, giving a solid, sane, constructive, forward-thinking, genuine policy speech in the midst of all that Obama ephemera. Obama is a sophist. Hillary is a politician and presidential material.
If ever it was glaringly evident, it was as she gave that speech. Strong, brilliant woman.
I knew from the outset, I could feel in my waters, that she was the right one.
That feeling simply won't go away.

The way the cards have fallen, I just have to let go, as does and did Hillary Clinton.

But not before showing the world stage what a classy candidate she was.

Onwards, Obama.

Sidin' with Biden

Now, I know Biden has been around for decades and is a respectable Democratic senator from, uh, that corporate tax haven state of Delaware. I was keen to hear him speak when I was in New Hampshire, but his dates and whereabouts never quite worked out for me. He was on a slimmer campaign budget than some and did not tour as extensively. Not like Clinton or Obama.

So, not hearing him in the flesh, I could only join his newslist and keep an eye on him. He did not fire me up. Not like Bill Richardson.

But he seemed civilized, seasoned, intelligent enough... There is a long tradition of good Catholic men in liberal politics. I have time for them.

The main thing that impressed me about Biden and impresses me now is the silver hair and Hollywood features - he looks like someone who has come direct from Central Casting.

Perchance this makes him just right for the role.
White man for the white vote. Restrained and conventional for the middle-of-the-roaders. Photogentic for the media.
He is a fine piece of political window dressing.

Obama vividly ahead

A month back in the USA has allowed daily studying of the primary status quo as it is represented in the varied media. The first big impression has been the disappearance of Michelle Obama from the campaign spotlight. She is gone, gone, gone.
Barack Obama's profile, however, has been growing in a very positive manner. The man has groomed himself into the biggest star in this country of stars and celebrities. Obama seems to have found the zeitgeist.

He is definitely better recognised than his opponent, McCain, and he is surrounded by a buzz - that little buzz of those early appearances and parades has grown exponentially.

The media, even the rabid right, has found that it has to be rational when covering his activities. The fact that he is black gives him a certain degree of protection - for Americans crave political correctness at all times. So the media must tread lightly with Obama.

And the fact is that he looks good and sounds good and he has good organisation behind him. The media acknowledges this and, to some extent, applauds it.

I have been wishing I could have gone back to New Hampshire to get into some of the action which continues to be most politially vigorous up there. Town Hall meetings and assorted intimate appearances. McCain is there just now.

But I have been in McCain's own state - staying in the town where he and Cindy and based - Sedona, Arizona. He is not as well known as one may have imagined, though. I was chatting with a couple of Starbucks workers from Phoenix and they had no idea that he was the Republican candidate for president. Their conclusion, when this Australian told them so, was: "Well, if he is from Arizona, I guess it's "go McCain'."

The New Hampshire polls show Obama ahead.
The media mood shows Obama ahead.

And, as for the streets of San Francisco - he is shown as a head of a different sort. A psychedelic head!

Here are the buttons on sale on the streets.

Unification in Unity - a top PR job

Oh to have been back in New Hampshire for the extraordinary Unity unification of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I would have been there like a dart of shimmering lightning - to read the mood, the faces, the nuances of this alliance. Unity turns out to be not too far from Nashua - just up the road to Hanover, out of Concord...well placed, albeit a small place. But a canny choice. The Primary State with a primary move in the Primary. A perfect piece of PR play.

My respect for Hillary soared as I watched her there on TV, gracious, generous-spirited and positive beside Obama. Accepting defeat and standing up for the larger benefit of the country is what courage and integrity are all about.

Obama also has been gracious. Well, if the words "she rocks" are really a political plaudit.
Michelle has been conspicuous by her absence - certainly on the footage being shown here in Australia on Fox. She has not been sighted on that dais. I try to imagine her state of mind but can't seem to move past my feeling that her streak of racist bitterness is too powerful for her to be happy about this turn of events. Vindication might be nearest to her response.

The Fox commentators are going to town on what a drawback Hillary brings to the Obama campaign in the form of Bill Clinton. I am just over this American hatred for Bill. I am over the whole anti-Clinton agenda which is just so full of sureness. In fact it is old fashioned poppy-lopping.

No one is going to find the perfect politician. Everyone is flawed. No president has a perfect record. It's a tough business. We seek the best thinking-on-the-feet, best informed, best-advised person for the job. It may well have been Bill Richardson.

I think Hillary's failure lies somewhere in the realm of her strategists - and a blinkered sort of limiting paranoia I observed in NH. As much as I enjoyed my foray into the campaign, I did not like the fact that some of those Hillary team workers thought that my venturing into rival meetings was in some way disloyal - when, in fact it was plain intelligent research. What the hell is wrong with people who want to be blind to their opposition?
Then there were some Hillary workers, I was told, who thought I was dangerous to have around because I am a journalist. Yeah, a journalist offering services to them! For free! A highly experienced journalist and a political animal with a lot of knowledge to share. Not all of them, I hasten to add, were so Just a thread of them who never even bothered to speak to me. Those ambitious and territorial young people looked a gift horse in the mouth. Even when I subbed their amateurish writing on the Hillary website, they were unprepared to accept professional help - and preferring to leave their errors in place.
There is a risk in having passionate, youthful devotees with closed minds throwing their weight around behind the scenes. That worried me from the outset.


I am heading back to the US tomorrow and will be keen to immerse myself in the feelings of the people. I'll be in the Southern states - a far cry from my beloved New Hampshire.
Then again, who could not love the South, eh?

And now we move our support..

And down she goes.
With elegance, eloquence and grace.

Behind her fine speech comes an unleashing of extraordinary anti-Clinton spite in the excited masses of online feedback. I have just been reading it on site after site after site. The non-Clinton supporters have no inch to give, no grace in their spirit and, as I have always maintained, they are more a product of the right wing marketing machine than they will ever know. But they are happy. For the moment. They are milking their venom glands and feeling some relief.

My heart goes out to Hillary and my concern goes out for the US and the world - for the race is just begun and, even though McCain ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, he will prove formidable against Obama.

A chunk of me has long wished that, somehow, Bill Richardson could have stayed in the race.
Albeit he was Latino, he did not attract the media favour or the gushing cult enthusiasm of the handsome young Obama - but he was the more solid, talented, wise and able by a long shot. He was prime presidential material. He could have stood his ground against McCain.

We will have an interesting time watching how the GOP now changes its media slant on Obama. We will have an interesting time watching the ingenuous new political breed cope with it all. We will hope that, somewhere behind the sophistry, Obama has the true grit.
He certainly writes a nice book, albiet that he writes a great deal about the issue of being black. And, if he becomes president, the important factor will be that he is a black president. That fulfils his promise of "change". And, has he has just said, if perchance he wants to do something about health care, Hillary Clinton had a good policy and may be worth listening to.

As for Michelle Obama, I have yet to find hope. I can only see the most divisive woman yet to arrive in politics - protected by the racist card. The racist card says that blacks are rightful to have a hate agenda against whites but that whites are racist if they criticise blacks.
Interesting to see a book by Shelby Steele A Bound Man: Why We're Excited About Barack Obama and Why He Can't Win, rushed through to cover this issue. Noel Pearson reviewed it for Online Monthly. This is really worth a read, dealing as it does with the phenomenon of white guilt and the moral high ground African Americans perceive therein.

We have the white hate church and the white hate preacher - who has refused to step down. The Obamas say, at the 11th hour, under immense pressure, that they have left that church and its militant ideology. Huh? Who is looking at the politics of that change of, um, policy? Um, is this consistent, loyal, honest...? Didn't Obama say that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was his "mentor"?
Oh, we won't look at it now. It is not an issue in the campaign. Let it flow through to the keeper. It was always more important to dislodge Hillary.

Nonetheless, they are raving ranting religious zealots from a hate church.

My reservations about Obama are not going to go away easily. He will have a lot of proving to do for me. Michelle Obama more so.

He was the one and only Democratic candidate with whom I did not make the effort to shake hands. He was the one and only Democratic candidate from whose appearance I chose going for a coffee over staying around afterwards. I left plain disappointed with him. Hence the consistency of my stance here in the blog.

I was there in the room with him. I listened. I watched. I arrived full of hope.
At that time I had not committed to Hillary. I could just as easily have been on his team - until I sat there and listened and felt the emptiness of his rhetoric.

Now, of course, I will now do the right Democratic thing - I will support him utterly against McCain.
And pray that all my misgivings are misplaced.

A sad note

With good grace. I have dreaded the good grace.
If it were not for my reservations. If it were not for the fact that Michelle Obama's anti-white agenda worries me terribly, my good grace may be good. How ironic is it that the public has swallowed the Right's propaganda about Hillary being "divisive" and "ambitious". The Obamas are not?

The public is so malleable - which the Right knows.
It has some dirt up its sleeve about Michelle Obama. Or so the rumour mill goes.
But it needs Hillary out of the way before it destabilises the Obama camp with scuttlebut. If it came out with the dirt early, then it would throw favour back in Hillary's direction.

I don't like the Right, but I never underestimate their canny strategising. They are unpleasant but not stupid.
They have pushed Obama because, even without the dirt, he is an advantage for their McCain campaign.
And so it is all going to come to pass.

Ah, yet again, an interesting, if not cheering, time in history.

Meanwhile, my admiration for Hillary remains. She has true grit and true talent.

Shy McCain

It is a bit offputting to read that John McCain's fundraising events are closed to the press.
Why, I wonder?
What don't they want us to know?

The big thing I wish the media would "out" McCain for is his dependence on teleprompters.
I was scandalised when I saw him speak in Manchester, NH, straight from a teleprompter which had been hauled out and set up in the middle of a public park for him. Gobsmacked is probably not an understatement for my shock. I was under the impression that, especially when it came to their own stump speeches, politicians knew the script.
Hillary certainly did. Obama did. Giuliani did. Bill Richardson did...
But there was old McCain, "Mr Experience", showing that he was not au fait with his own lines.
And, I gather, not a lot has changed.
I have watched the eye movement in the crowds as he gives his addresses and, yes, they seem to be moving from specific focal points...
No spontaneity.
Indeed, spontaneity seems to be his downfall.
The YouTube clips which are the big hit of the moment prove that to be so. He does, he does not know about the economy. He does not know what he knows, it seems.
Which is why he has to read it all nicely written down.

Oh, deary me.

Michelle Obama in cottonwool

Michelle Obama should be "off limits"?
There should be no comment about her comments? That tough, outspoken, high-agenda woman out on the campaign trail beside him should attract no comment?
The fact that only once has she ever felt proud of her country should not be mentioned?

Come on Barack Obama.

You are running for the position of president of the United States.
You are playing in the big school.
Nothing is "off limits".

Unless it be puerile demands that the wife is off limits.

Obama, the un-sweetie

And another little sign emerges from Obama.
Another danger sign.

In the latest incident he called a woman journalist "sweetie" - when also refusing to answer her question. He told her that "sweetie", he would answer questions later at what he calls a "media avail". In fact he did not answer the question at all. He did no "media avail" and, apparently, he shirks them whenever he can. I will not be surprised to hear somewhere along the line from Barack and Michelle that they deem the media one of the great white evils.

Meanwhile, clearly Obama has scant respect for journalists when he can disrespect a female journalist asking a legitimate question with the patronising term of "sweetie".

Thirty years ago, men would use such demeaning familiarities to keep the little inferior women in their place. Honey, dear, love...
After the feminist revolution, only the most crass of sexist men dares to diminish women with these words.

In 2008, a man aspiring to be a world leader should know better.

He has dismissed this insult with a light-hearted response that, well, he has a bit of a bad habit with these little endearments.

No, Obama, that is not a "habit", it is an "attitude".

Beneath Barack's lovely prose...

"...another of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as your were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfie; they were relieved such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.''
This extract from Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father which I have just re-read, now finding things more significant than I did at the first reading when, frankly, I was simply seduced by the beautiful prose and the man's impressive eloquence.
This time round, it is a frightening story of racial anger.

I think my biggest cringe was at mention of a girl who took a job nannying for a family in Hawaii. Apparently the girl was black and the family was not. Hence, for the girl, the job was deeply degrading.
When her employers dared to love her and think of her as part of the family, apparently the insult was all the worse. Oh, my.

I don't want to, but I find myself harking on about racial anger.

Why does being black make a job more degrading than it does for a white or hispanic or Asian? Is a job not a job?


I tell ya, a man bringing these views to the Whitehouse is quite a worry.
What a bloody mess,
This is the last thing I expected when the primaries got up and running last year.

Divide and rule? No, rule and divide.

She's not going to give up until someone "puts a stake through her heart", the pundits declare.
Well, there may be a snide Republican inference in this turn of phrase, but to hell with it, in a way they are right.
Hillary is not a quitter.
She knows the game too well.
Everything is stacked against her and the anti-Clinton school has done its work well, to fill an otherwise rational voting public with associations such as "ambitious", "divisive" and "Bill will be running things".
Speak to the people echoing these sentiments and they have no further reasoning. They are just parroting what their media long has parroted to them.
All of these are bits of marketed bigotry wich are not too far removed from the sort of hatred preached by Obama's terrible Reverend Wright.
It all works very well. The public is malleable and does not think too deeply. People love to hate.

Ironically, and nicely controlled by the spin doctors, is the hate agenda of the Obamas. Not Barack, perhaps. It is hard to tell, since he speaks many words but manages artfully to say almost nothing. But Michelle Obama has had orders to keep her mouth shut - which she has been doing. Michelle Obama is the scary one with the hate agenda. She, too, goes to Reverend Wright's church of racial hatred.

Racism is not a white phenomenon. Guilt and the compulsion for political correctness, not to mention some finger-pointing from non-whites, has whites thinking it is their own sin. Not so. It comes both ways.

Now check out the Michelle Obama bios. Here's a Wikipedia extract:

Michelle graduated from Whitney Young High School in 1981[5] and went on to major in sociology and minor in African American studies at Princeton University, where she graduated cum laude with an Artium Baccalaureus in 1985.[2] As part of her requirements for graduation, she wrote a thesis entitled, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community."[6] She obtained her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988.[7] While at Harvard, she participated in political demonstrations advocating the hiring of professors who are minorities. [8]


I find this worrying.
I am afraid that, once in a position of power, Michelle Obama will show America what "divisiveness" really is.

Hooray for Hills

Pennsylvania! Oh, blessed relief.
The 10 per cent margin between Hillary and Barack keeps Hillary in the race and allows America the time it needs to clue up.

Not that Michael Moore has clued up.
What a shock to receive his newsletter urging his fans to vote against Hillary Clinton.
But Moore, while a brave agitator and man of causes, is no political Einstein. He is a big on the naive side, I think. And in this case, he is holding a grudge against Hillary's error of judgement in voting for Iraq. He is joining the Fox-revved mindless mob who refuse to hear Hillary's oft-reiterated words "if I knew then what I know now".
Moore has never failed in prescience?
Guess what?
He is lacking prescience right now!

The man is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So fie upon him.

Of course, Barack Obama is a fine candidate. The Democratic Party threw up a lineup of stunning candidates - Richardson, Biden, Edwards et al. Each of these men had outstanding merit. Obama does, too, although I am not so sure about his wife.

Hillary has an edge on all of the other candidates - and she has proved, with this long campaign, that she has guts and stamina on an Olympian scale.
One watches the relentlessness of the campaign and just boggles at how long and hard it is - a marathon to end all marathons. She has impressive self-discipine - which is the hard edge that the Right Wing pundits forever decry. Pity they don't have a bit more of it. Self-discipline involves self-sacrifice.

I continue to believe in Hillary Clinton and am delighted at this strong win.
I think the Democratic race needs to claw its way on simply so that the American public can overcome the Right Wing mantras about Clintons - and see this strong, courageous, well-informed and experienced woman is what the country really needs.

Fingers and toes crossed as the game moves on.

Get Hillary - its the only choice.

It is all getting rather silly - and very worrying.
I watched what we were able to see on TV of the ABC Hillary/Barack debate, topping up content with online clips. Unless one is there, it is very hard these days to get any report which is not skewed with opinion.
The big loser of the debate according to all and sundry was the ABC for its pussyfooting and puny questioning.

Now, some of the commentators are saying that the ABC's biggest fault was that it was anti-Obama and therefore pro Clinton.

We have reached a stage of this nightmarish primary in which almost anything at all is deemed anti-Obama. While Hillary is a prime target for all the bile of the right with its entrenched Clinton hate agenda, Obama is protected by that exquisite American prerequisite for political correctness.

Since all criticism of Obama can be seen as racist, there can be no criticism. It backfoots Hillary badly - and puts a compromise on the open blather of the political pundits. So, if one is going to snipe and carp and criticise and keep that old media ball rolling with beat-up controversy, the middle class white woman with her sinful husband is the only way to go.

Oh, what a Catch 22.

Staying the course

People keep asking me, in sombre tones, how I think Hillary is going. Does she still have a chance?

Heavens, yes!

Take nothing for granted in politics - or football or horseracing or, for that matter, ice skating. Let us not forget the Aussie ice skater who won gold because of the fact that he was coming last. When the whole pack of racers fell over, our boy at the back was the only one left standing and he glided in triumphant.

My thoughts on Hillary are that so long as Hillary believes in Hillary, I believe in Hillary.

From the outset, I have had an absolute certainty that she is the best possible candidate for America's next president. This strong feeling has not left me.

But, of course, one has to watch the white-anting, the endless Clinton-bashing from Fox and the virulent right wing.
There would seem to be a school for Clinton-bashing and the demeaning of liberals in the USA, so well-honed and consistent is it. I have described it as a "culture" and I see it growing in a petrie dish of snipes and sneers.
Someone should do a PhD on it - since it is a phenomenon as fascinating as it is repulsive. I goes hand-in-hand with the dumbing down of the people, I suspect.

Certainly, there is no more popular target than intelligent people - which bring Clinton and Obama right into the sightlines.

So here we are, with Fox as the only constant news source from the USA - having to endure the sneers from a clone pile of awful anchors. What a wonderful weapon they are for McCain - who can just sit back and let them do the dirty work, and even choose his Vice Presidential candidate for him. If they can make it Huckabee, they will.

As for Hillary - she has the grit, the spine, the wisdom and the sense of history to know that persistence is an essential key to achievement. Women have had to fight long and hard to get where they are today - and to get further, well, it was never going to be easy.

Hillary has said she is in there for the long haul.
Hillary has the goods. Sooner or later the delegates in all their power, will notice that tenacity, power and knowledge are highly desirable qualities in a president.

Perchance the voters will, too.

I wait in positive spirit.