Wednesday, March 12, 2008

From Sekhar again

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-david/on-the-red-phone_b_90338.html
is for amusement.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cu_wCrisIJY is a remix for Obama.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-j-davis/barack-obama-the-musical_b_91150.html
gives the background to the music video.

The Clinton camp is trying to poison the electoral process big time by having one of Hillary's advisers/fundraisers (now resigned) play the race card. The rationale for all this is that the Republicans are going to do it anyway, so why not Clinton? But it is also a way to appeal to conservative white men. Of course, it may just show frustration that Obama is able to appeal to whites at all.

There is also the curious darkening and widening of Obama's image in a Clinton ad. By itself, it is a little screw-up, but along with Ferraro's "lucky to be a black man" riff, may be something more.

Then there is the new phenomenon of Republicans voting for Clinton in the Democratic primaries. She won big among Mississippi whites partly because of the cross-voting (her 80:20 white vote becomes 70:30 or less without the Republicans), and this apparently helped her quite a bit in the delegate count: Because the Democrats assign most delegates by Congressional district (or something similar in other states), if a district has 4 delegates (typical), they are split 2-2 between Clinton and Obama unless one wins more than 62.5% (half-way between 50% and
75%) and gets 3 of the 4. In quite a few districts, Obama would probably have got that without the Republican cross-over. This cross-over is quite different from earlier states where many Republicans and Independents voted in the Democratic primaries because they actually liked Obama. This time, the exit polls show that the Republicans who voted for Clinton have a low opinion of her.

There is also the Clinton experience claim, which is being debunked.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/11/obama-camp-clinton-forei_n_90894.html has a former State Department official's assessment of Clinton's involvement in foreign policy.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/30048.html has a summary of Clinton's experience claims, with debunking.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/03/sinbad_unloads_on_hillary_clin.html has Sinbad's recollection of his time in Bosnia with Clinton.

http://www.236.com/blog/w/election08/hillary_clintons_press_team_we_5056.php has a video by the "Clinton campaign" about Obama's race.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/berni_mccoy/249 is about the darkening story.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/lifeandculture/ci_8489268
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8533832
have links to Ferraro's comments. About one of them:

"Sexism is a bigger problem," Ferraro argued. "It's OK to be sexist in some people's minds. It's not OK to be racist."

This comment is factually incorrect; one just has to count the number female vs black senators, representatives, governors, etc., etc.
postscript: Ferraro has stepped down from the Clinton campaign, perhaps freeing her to play the race card even more.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=03&year=2008&base_name=what_if_1 dissects the counterfactual issue of Ferraro's claim.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/geraldine-ferraros-ugly-_b_91075.html attacks Ferraro and the Clinton campaign for her comments.
http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/kickin-tires-electoral-auto-mall is a parable about the election, with some race thrown in.
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/03/hrc-website-pus.html attacks the Clinton tactic of disparaging Obama's supporters using race and class.

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/03/republicans-now.html is about Republicans in Democratic primaries.

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