Weekly Poll & Convention Open Thread

The internet-driven canvassing tool (4.00 / 1)

that the DNC is rolling out was really the highlight for me.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about that in the press.

Between that and the 50-state voter file and Obama's online fundraising army, we are coming into the fall very strongly.

And imagine when we turn that spigot over to senate and house candidates when we need to on occasion.  Need a million for a close race?  Let's have our nominee send out an email. Eight hours later, we can fight back on the airwaves against a dishonest ad or robocall.

Wonder if Sununu's fired now.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 10:26:31 AM CDT

I, too, was really impressed by the programs Parag Mehta discussed, (0.00 / 0)

And I'm glad the media isn't reporting on them; wouldn't want The Bush League to catch on.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 14:18:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

the highlight? (4.00 / 1)

was the DNC presentation?

not a BH-er introducing Gov. Jeanne Shaheen!? lol..

nice meeting you there, next convention should have wifi for blogging.

I worked/voted for Bill Richardson. Jeanne Shaheen 08! Lynch 08! CSP 08! CDNH!

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by: sdoyle @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 20:17:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Listen Norman (0.00 / 0)

It's the Loony Left!

Beachcombings Jewelry

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by: rambler american @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 11:32:33 AM CDT

I missed Jim Webb on MTP (0.00 / 0)

I went to look for the video, but it is not yet posted.

There was this, potentially selected by Webb to convey his leanings.

An excerpt of Sen. Jim Webb's new book, "A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America"]

Across the room, amid a wall full of family pictures behind my desk, my mother's father, B. H. Hodges, stares out at me from a small picture framed in barn wood, as he has done in every office I have occupied for more than twenty years. My grandfather is just in from his patch of truck farm vegetables, wearing knee-high working boots and bib overalls. A cloth hat is pulled low over his ears to protect him from the scorching east Arkansas sun, which has already baked his face tobacco brown. The hat's brim is bent up in front, which along with his burning eyes gives him a defiant air. Defiant he was, and tragic, too. He was a fighter, a lonely champion of lost causes who himself lost everything because of the causes he championed. The picture doesn't show it, but he is lame from a busted hip, with a longtime wound that still seeps openly through breaks in his skin, and will soon die for lack of medical care.

Pictures and reminders fill my office. Samuel Cochran, B. H. Hodges, my parents, my wife, my brother and sisters, my fellow Marines from a time of brutal combat in Vietnam, my five children and one stepdaughter; those who went before me, those who were young with me and grew older by my side, and those who will be here long after I am gone. They look over my shoulder as I work. They give me balance, and also a sense of accountability. I owe those who went before me the kind of country they fought to create and wanted to perfect. I owe those who served alongside me the kind of country we tried to protect. And I owe my children the kind of country they want to see preserved and further greatened.
-snip

Financially and personally, my life has been one roll of the dice after another. I've had good years and bad years, but I've never lost my willingness to take a risk and I've never been bored. My curiosities have taken me down some pretty strange alleyways, to some of the darker, meaner corners of the world. And in that respect, when it comes to examining many of the issues of the day I have brought to the Senate a different set of experiences, and thus a different referent, from most of my colleagues. At the same time, I will admit that I acquired a certain level of cynicism along the way when it comes to the glitter-and-tinsel side of government and the trappings of power. And coming to the Senate after so many real-world, nonpolitical experiences, I will also admit that this well-honed skepticism is largely intact.

But the one connecting dot in all of my experiences has been a passion for history and a desire to learn from it. Not the enumeration of monarchs and treaties that so often passes for academic knowledge, but the surging vitality from below that so often impels change and truly defines cultures. The novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote vividly about war and peace, showing us the drawing rooms and idiosyncrasies of Russia's elite. But in reality, he was telling us that great societal changes are most often pushed along by tsunami-deep impulses that cause the elites to react far more than they inspire them to lead. And this, in my view, is the greatest lesson of political history. Entrenched aristocracies, however we may want to define them, do not want change; their desire instead is to manage dissent in a way that does not disrupt their control. But over time, under the right system of government, a free, thinking people has the energy and ultimately the power to effect change.

The giant finds its gait.

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 11:56:43 AM CDT

Sweater vests, you say? (4.00 / 2)

Why, Dean, I'd never noticed that. :-P

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by: Laura Clawson @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 12:12:54 PM CDT

Indeed(!), it was you (0.00 / 0)

who reminded me of how un-"dirty hippy" I look in person.

Wonder if Sununu's fired now.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 16:20:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm not voting in the new poll. (0.00 / 0)

I'd say "something different" if the first option was "one of the Amendments that has been proposed recently", but I'm not convinced that an Amendment of some sort on this issue would be bad.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 14:21:14 PM CDT

The Real McCain (4.00 / 1)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....


The giant finds its gait.

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 14:20:34 PM CDT