Friday Afternoon Diversion
Jay-Z Announces 2010 Tour Dates. Chicago Not On List.
"Batman" Headline Is a Stretch, But Prison Escape Story Could Be Its Own Movie
Grates To Tear Up Schubas
Chili Cook-Off Countdown
Obama's landslide victories in the "Significant Saturday" contests - including Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands, and his Sunday win in the Maine caucuses, could break the deadlock over pledged delegates for the Democratic nomination. Obama is hoping that these wins will generate the momentum that he needs to carry Ohio and Texas on March 4. Rhode Island and Vermont hold their primaries that day, too. Obama's wins this weekend were bad news for Hillary Clinton, who tried to inject a ray of optimism by announcing that her campaign had raised $10 million from over 10,000 donors. Obama's campaign quickly announced that over 350,000 donors had already contributed this year.
In the GOP primaries, conservatives in Kansas and Louisiana demonstrated that they weren't ready to embrace McCain just yet, as Mike Huckabee crushed him in this weekend's votes. Those losses only barely cut into McCain's overwhelming delegate lead, and there is little doubt that he is the party's presumptive nominee. In fact, Tuesday's contest in Virginia will probably mark the end of Huckabee's run, as McCain is expected to win in a southern state, eliminating Huckabee's last remaining argument.
Although McCain still has a lot of work to do to win over the hard-core conservatives in the party, he has plenty of time left. With the Republican nomination likely sewn up after tomorrow's Potomac Primary, he'll have more than nine months to win over conservatives. And he'll probably be able to do that without many independents or moderates noticing. McCain also has the opportunity to take the GOP back from some of the more extreme elements of the party's fundamentalist Christian base.
The Democrats have a more difficult road to travel in the near future. Wins in upcoming votes mean more delegates, and will lure undecided and weakly committed superdelegates over to Obama at this summer's convention in Denver. If Clinton is able to knock out some significant wins in the coming primaries, the probability of a brokered convention becomes more likely.
Image via Barack Obama
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The funny part is hearing that Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and other staunch conservatives say they'd vote for Hillary rather than McCain, because if Obama doesn't get the nomination, I'll vote for McCain over Hillary!
I don't like to let comments like Slaphappy's go unchallenged.
While I support Senator Obama, and have personal doubts about how Senator Clinton would do in a general election against McCain, she should be the obvious choice, if only for the difference in Supreme Court nominees that would result from those administrations.
Do you really think those "arch-conservatives" don't know that? By doing their best to paint McCain as "not conservative enough" for them, they make him a lot more palatable to moderate voters, regardless of whether it's the truth or not, and regardless of how they'll actually vote in November.
I don't like to let comments like Slaphappy's go unchallenged.
Well, I didn't make any claims, so I'm not sure what you're challenging. I just said who I plan to vote for depending on how things shake out.
Maybe I am retarded, but I like to vote based on whose policies I most agree with, not who I consider to be "most electable" or "will appoint the best Justices to the Court".
wow, his hands are huge
The only way for McCain to win over conservatives is to get in a time machine, go back a couple of years, and take away everything he said that has been (1) anti-tax-cut-renewal, (2) pro-Amnesty, (3) anti-fence, and (4) anti-freedom-to-contribute-to-whomever-you-want.
The above are things where I disagree with him. Meanwhile, far-right conservatives have a list twice that length. There's no way McCain can change to the more conservative side of all these issues without looking like a flip-flopper. Hence the need for the time machine.
@Spav1:
You're both retarded AND right. So you got that going for you.
@Spookhates:
Shut it. I am righter than you like 98% of the time.
Um, Supreme Court justice appointments are part of the policy platform of a candidate. And because of the last eight years, those who believe in abortion rights, limiting the executive branch's power, and, oh, habeas corpus... just the fundamentals of U.S. governance, do have a dog in this race.
Having said that, Spav1, I have no idea what you're talking about since Obama and Clinton would appoint the same sort of justices anyway.
As for policy differences, I fail to see much of a difference at all. Both health care plans don't actually cover everyone (though for different reasons) and fail to address the most pressing issues. Both Iraq withdrawal plans have the same effect, if slightly different time scales. Both are fundamentally Clintonian fiscally and trade-wise (as Chelsea Clinton, who should know, pointed out about Sen. Clinton over the weekend). So... what are the effective policy differences?
McCain, Obama or Clinton. They are all pandering to illegal foregn nationals. What ever happened to citizens first?
Mexico First? McCain has embraced a Vicente Fox aide as his own
By Mark Krikorian
National Review Online, January 28, 2008
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmI4OGJhMjE2Y2ZkYzU5ODNiNGQ3ZTE1MjJiY2EwZTg=
EXCERPT: The contempt for American citizenship that McCain has shown by naming this political bigamist to a post in his campaign isn’t even the whole problem. One might also ask how McCain could even consult with a person of such extreme views, let alone name him Hispanic outreach director. McCain’s support for amnesty and accelerated mass immigration is bad enough, but you can, at least in theory, be for those things and still support firm borders and patriotic assimilation.
But McCain’s Hispanic outreach director is a man who has spent years opposing the very legitimacy of America’s borders and Americanization in the most public way possible. The man has been on every TV-news show in creation rejecting as passé the very idea of sovereign borders and patriotic assimilation into the American mainstream.
WRONG Yok.
It is basically the dumbest thing you can do to vote based on who would be appointed to The Court. Please see: Nixon stacking the court with "conservative" Justices who then voted to legalize abortion/outlaw the death penalty. See specifically: Justice Blackmun who famously said "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death". More recently: Souter appointed under G.H.W. Bush. The weird thing about lifetime appointments is that once on the bench, Justices can do WHATEVER they want. What's more, the Court is a very small organization where decisions are made by persuading other Justices to take your side.
I think we were talking about what sorts of Justices McCain versus Hillary would appoint.
As for Policy differences, I think it is OK to vote based on PAST votes the Senators have made. And since Hillary voted for Iraq while Senator Obama has made it clear he wouldn't have (I know, hypothetical, but still very outspoken against the war from the beginning), my support is with Obama.
I hope the weakly committed superdelegates move over to Obama's side!!
www.getfreshcut.com
McCain, Obama or Clinton. They are all pandering to illegal foregn nationals.
It seems to me that if you start arresting the criminal employers that are exploiting those workers and putting them in jail for a few years, the whole problem would cease to exist. Supply and demand, right?
Unfortunately for most of us, the immigration debate has centered on the "law-breaker" immigrant, not on the criminal employer.
I think this is the part( in the pic) where he starts to dance! Can't you see him, moving his hand higher to the beat, getting all into it?
Please don't comment on your own post. You have the ULTIMATE comment: your post. It is self-aggrandizing.
Spav1... But they do tend to vote with the judicial mindset with which (and for which) they are appointed. They don't act irrationally, as I'm sure you know.
Souter and Blackmun are the classic examples (and Ginsberg is often cited as not being as liberal as everyone thought, but that's in terms of the opinions she authors, not her likelihood of swinging her vote). But both Blackmun and Souter (and O'Connor) were being pushed to hostile Democratic Senates. Blackmun was a concession that followed two rejections... Souter was the second in a short period after Bork was, you know, borked (the first having been Kennedy).
Roberts and Alito, unlike Souter (who was barely even an Appellate court judge when confirmed for the Supreme Court), had well known philosophies and have followed them the 'T'. And that is what McCain claims he'll appoint. I think we should take him at his word.
Spav: You are right, but I won't call you retarded.
It's not just the criminal employers, Kevbo. 'Tis also the society that comes to expect cheaper crap for consumption, unions be damned (and that's what it is about for you, the unions). I don't care so much about this issue as others--I recognize the need for border security, I guess (though, terrorists seem to come from Canada, not Mexico)--but I have a hard time going against people who travel far to work their asses off, and pay sales taxes and do other types of spending that helps keep our particular form of capitalism afloat.
Citizenship is just an accident of birth anyway, but that's another issue.
I am cool on taking McCain at his word. My point is the Court is such a unique entity, that I don't trust anything the Justices say or do in order to get appointed. Opinions shift etc. And even Scalia has been the author of some decently liberal opinions (concurring opinion in Texas v. Johnson). The Court is set up systematically to remain moderate, so to vote on the general probability that a Justice will die/retire and then that the President will appoint the MOST conservative/liberal justice they can in lunacy in my opinion.
"Please don't comment on your own post. You have the ULTIMATE comment: your post. It is self-aggrandizing"
B.S there is nothing wrong with added clarity and good debate is good debate, there is enough room for all to comment.
"Please don't comment on your own post. You have the ULTIMATE comment: your post. It is self-aggrandizing"
B.S there is nothing wrong with added clarity and good debate is good debate, there is enough room for all to comment.
Spook:
Please don't double post. It is self-aggrandizing.
Oh please Spav1, you know you like gazing all up in my grill! Look closely now, cause I'm wink'n at you sugah!
Muuhha!
p.s I took my smoke patrol to the Two Way last Friday and I am happy to report "All Clear and Smoke Free"!
Kevin: I'm not convinced that stopping the employers, which is not what our legal system needs volume-wise, is the answer. I would be inclined to believe that you would then have thousands upon thousands more migrants working in the black markets making an already bad problem that much worse. (Also, wouldn't the government deport all the illegal immigrant employees anyway, so thereby targeting everyone?)
If, as matilda asserts, it's all about unions for you, then illegal employment on either end is hardly your biggest stumbling block, it's the "right-to-work" laws. If you're not working on those, then no matter what the approach to illegal employment, you're still stuck in Nowheresville.
Spook:
I smoked in no bars this weekend. Unfortch.
Please pick up Esquire and read the article about the 46 year old guy who started smoking. It was VERY poignant.
I see Spav is strong out of the blocks for commenter of the month running.
(/sarcasm)
Hey Sudo! I thought I had your vote!
Which is why you are not mentioned in my law suit until now!. Get ready to face my legal team lead by William "Bill" Dock Walls III! I know you folks decide the grand winner is decided by Chicagoist Staff members!
At least I know that I had Kevin's lone vote!
p.s I'll check the article Spav1, now that you have been contained by my Smoke Patrol!