Wednesday, August 20, 2008

It's 3 a.m.

(Image Credit: Random search of internets on "red telephone.")

Time to pick up the phone, Senator Obama. You may not want to and you may have to medicate your wife while you do it, but it's time to admit that the bitch you beat is the woman you'll need to help you get to the White House. If you're lucky, she'll agree to step in and do what women from time immemorial have done: Work her keister off to help a younger, less qualified guy get the job she deserved while she grabs, ahem, the booby prize of being the first woman vice president in American history. If not, well, maybe all that bluster about new voters will work out better for you in the general than it did in those big primaries you lost between March and June. Can you say, "Texas," Senator? "Ohio?" "Pennsylvania?"

Forget the bluster, Senator, and consider the current state of the race. Things aren't looking all that good for you right now, despite your fawning fans in the media and the "progressive" blogosphere. Just today, for example, we note:
  • A new Reuters/Zogby poll shows McCain with a 5-point lead over you nationally. Your support among Democrats is weakening (it's fallen by 9 points to 74%, according to this poll), while McCain's support among Republicans is solidifying (it's up to 81%). Incredibly, McCain now has a 9-point advantage 49 to 40%) on the crucial question of who would be the best manager of the economy. How boiled-over Bushanomics could have put McCain in that position is a mystery beyond the understanding of one in our lowly pay grade, but we think it might mean his ads focused on whether the world's biggest celebrity can understand the problems of ordinary folks might be hitting home with some voters.
  • You continue to lose ground in key battleground states. RCP averages have McCain leading in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, and Florida and give you thin leads in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Our blog buddy Historiann had an excellent post the other day on the importance of OH, MI, and PA to the prospects of a Dem victory in the fall. We think you might want to take a look at it.
  • The advantage you've enjoyed in analyses focused on the electoral college has also suddenly vanished, according to Electoral Vote Predictor, which attributes your slide to McCain's negative ads over the past month. Eerily, EVP hears echoes of what happened to John Kerry in the Swift Boat summer of 2004: "If you compare the 2008 electoral college graph with the 2004 one, the parallels are striking. Kerry led throughout the summer until the Swift Boat ad kicked in, and it was downhill from there. Kerry never recovered."
Not pretty, Senator, not pretty at all. Things have gotten so tight that even arch Clinton haters -- Ralph Nader, for dog's sake, and John Nichols of The Nation! -- have started saying you will or should tap the former First Lady as your veep choice. You have to admit, the trial balloons you've floated recently -- Bayh, Biden, Kaine, Sibelius, and the monster whose name will not go away, Sam Nunn -- haven't generated a whole lot of excitement or done much for your poll numbers. By contrast, "a recent New York Times/CBS News poll of convention delegates found that 28 percent preferred Mrs. Clinton for vice president — by far the largest bloc supporting a candidate," according to the NYT blog, "Political Memo."

Pick up the phone, Senator. Make your convention delegates happy. Turn at least a few snarling PUMAs into purring kitty-cats ready to curl up at your -- or her -- feet. Most importantly, earn what you and some of your disgruntled followers have long sought: the coveted endorsement of America's most famous dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball. That's right, Senator. Roxie's World stands ready to offer you a Five-Paw Salute and our unstinting support of your candidacy if you have the good sense to call the junior senator from New York and get her to accept a place on your ticket. As we promised in the strat memo we sent you in June (you still have that in your briefcase, don't you?):
Do that, sir, and we’ll have an Obama-Clinton widget up on our sidebar so fast it’ll make your halo spin. We will set aside all our reservations and do everything within our power to assure that both you and Senator Clinton get to place your hands on the Bible come January 20, 2009. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss our Old Bitches for Obama-Clinton tee shirts as you stroll by in the inaugural parade. We’ll even give you a new blog name. Perhaps, instead of “the Lesser,” you might become known in these precincts as, um, “Good Enough.”
Are we predicting Senator Clinton will actually end up on the ticket? Nope, no way, no how. We gave up prognostication after the embarrassment of Moose's wildly incorrect (if deeply moving) predictions about Texas and Ohio. Do we think choosing Clinton will make everyone, including some of her strongest supporters, happy? No, and we're sure it will infuriate a good many of Obama's strongest supporters, since foaming-at-the-mouth Clinton hatred has been a powerful unifying and motivating force among many of his followers. We don't think Obama-Clinton would be a perfect ticket, but we think it's the ticket most likely to secure a Democratic victory in November, and that is really, finally all that matters.

Don't let an imagined perfection be the enemy of an attainable good, Senator Obama. Pick up the phone. Our hunch is there's a smart, hard-working woman prepared to answer your -- and the nation's -- call.

6 comments:

  1. Well Rox, I'm sure it will come as no surprise to hear that I agree with you. Yeah, 'cept I don't know what "imagined perfection" Obama could possibly have in mind: Sebelius (anti-choice Republican wannabe in a Democrat's costume), Bayh (ok, but YAWN. . .), Kaine (nice enough but anti-choice and, though the NYT tried to convince us he's "charismatic," we see him on tv enough around here to burst out laughing and wonder if they lost their dictionaries when they tried to affix that moniker), Biden (hair plugs 'r us and maybe his plugged contemporary Bruce Springsteen will let him join him on stage). None of those can be called "imagined perfection," nor can Michael Moore's suggestion of Caroline Kennedy. Bill Richardson evidently has a zipper problem, but even if he didn't you can't say that he's exactly inspiring; and, his tendency to say "sexual preference" makes an ugly companion for Obama's "lifestyle" gaffes, both of which are all the more unattractive because neither seems to have any notion about why such terminology insults the queer. SO. . .no imagined perfection that I can see or think of. SHE, on the other hand, would be the choice of a practical visionary.

    All this week I've been watching panicking Obamites declare everything from "maybe it's time he thought about HER" to "oh, many of us have mobile phones and we're not picked up by the polls." To that last I ask: how is it then that polls consistently overestimated Obama support throughout the primaries? Were the Hillary voters not picked up because so many of them only have mobile phones? Huh?

    So, Obama needs to act from REAL, not faux, confidence, make a hard-headed decision, and say clearly to all of those jackass Democratic leaders who implored him to run in order to beat the bitch, "she's my choice for VP; we need her." Problem is. . .I've never been persuaded that he has that level of confidence. But that decision on his part would go a long way toward beginning to put some CONTENT into his rhetoric. And unlike his propensity for stammering through let's-take-as-little-of-a-stand-as-possible answers, Hillary is very good on her feet, giving the sound bite answer first and then elaborating the complex details (rather than his meandering through "nuanced" explanations and never quite delivering a sound bite).

    He also needs someone who is tough enough, someone who will get him off of his "racism! racism!" and/or "that was a joke" VERY TIRED lines, lines, neither of which will make him a winner in November. He needs someone who will thoughtfully and helpfully remind him that the presidency is not for stars who leave fans starry-eyed: it's for hard-working, complex-thinking, problem-solving leaders, leaders who are team players. Hillary Rodham Clinton has proved herself to be a mature, brilliant team player. Let's hope that he didn't let it get too late for her to say yes.

    What's important is winning in November: none of the other VP choices being floated, not even Gore, can help the Dems get closer to that. Obama should be trouncing McCain in the polls and instead he's either statistically tied or behind. CONTENT, COURAGE, and HRC needed. (Oh, and the media need to get a grip and realize that HRC supporters are not simply a bunch of bitter middle-aged women; the demographics of her supporters are much more complex than that.)

    Always yours,
    Goose

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  2. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I like Clark and Biden for the job, but I've warmed to Clinton since the spring, and I think that she and (gasp!) Bill would be a huge asset to Obama over the next 75 days and 8 years.

    It would be an act of both pragmatism and political courage to choose her at this point, and I hope to high heaven that if Caroline Kennedy has done even the tiniest favor to Obama as his chief VP vetter, it's reminding him of what her brave and savvy father did at the convention 48 short years ago.

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  3. Anonymous7:26 PM EDT

    Right-on analysis, Rox, pretty much the way I see it too, it's yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, if it ain't HILLARY!

    AND what if — I mean, what IF, Obama picks Bayh, say, and the day after the convention McCain comes up with Susan Collins as his VP (I like her!) — and THEY WIN the whole damn thing — mainly because McCain had the guts to do (though I admit it's doubtful) what the Democrats just couldn't muster, what the Dems couldn't even begin to see was their ONLY viable choice! In my view that's why McCain waits — if Obama picks Hillary, he won't go that way, but if Hillary's not on the ticket, and he picks a centrist woman VP, he may have it made.

    hugs,
    ei

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  4. From your mouths (er, fingertips?) to Obama's (big) ears, Eitan and Eden's Innuendo. We don't know what to think at this point, but we do know what we hope: That Obama is man enough to make the bold, right move rather than the boring, wrong one.

    Fingers and paws crossed in Roxie's World.

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  5. Anonymous11:05 PM EDT

    Caroline Kennedy? Man, that really brings Michael Moore down several notches in my mind. (When he thinks "woman in politics," he thinks "Caroline Kennedy?")

    Talk about patronizing. I guess he just can't be bothered to get to know any of the actual women in congress, the Senate, or in governor's mansions across the country. (Is it because there are too many for his tiny little mind to keep track of, or too few for him to take seriously?)

    And thanks for the linky love!

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  6. Couldn't agree more with you, Historiann, as far as MM's suggestion of Caroline Kennedy. Give me a break. . . .oh no, MM doesn't do that for women, does he? And Eden's innuendo, I think you've got it right about McCain waiting and him possibly choosing someone like Susan Collins if Obama doesn't have the courage to do the smart and best thing. Eitan, I hope your guy comes through: if he chooses HRC, that would be a practical way of giving us hope by offering real change.

    We'll soon know (or we better -- this "I made up my mind but I'm not telling" is getting really, REALLY old).

    In peace,
    Goose

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