It looks obvious

The MSNBC coverage of the Rally for the Republic is very interesting. It starts with the usual smirking and moving to much more serious discussion about the magnitude and importance of the Ron Paul phenomena.

Ron Paul was never in a real position to win the Republican nomination, the significance of his campaign was in its ability to trigger a movement to restore the ideas of limited government and individual freedom. Ron Paul was able to built a coalition, and naturally I don’t agree with some parts of this coalition, and this together with continuation efforts to establish a real movement are the real success of the Ron Paul Campaign.

How long before someone will start to explain why it is only fair that we, the public, will bailout Clinton’s soaring campaign debt? After all, She didn’t do it for herself, it was all for us…

But the number collected is actually closer to $21 million and the release also neglected to mention that she spent $28.9 million, nearly $8 million more than she took in. She used personal loans to make up part of the difference. She also delayed payments to consultants. Including the $9.5 million in unpaid bills from April, she owes consultants and other vendors $19.5 million.

Not to mention the total $11.4 million she has loaned herself.

Ideally the election process should help voters make an informed decision. The process should expose the different candidates, their experience, values and agenda. In reality the candidates try to disguise their real agenda, and to smooth problematic issues, in order to appeal to as many voters as possible.

I was, naively, hopping that the long primaries will force the candidates to get out of their armored campaign talking points and tackle real issues. The reality is, obviously, much different. As the campaign progress and the stakes are higher candidates tend to be more populist and say things there is no way they believe, or intend to follow if elected. And since Clinton is the trailing candidates she producing the most populist gems:

This morning, George Stephanopoulos began his televised interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking if she could name a single economist who supported her plan for a gas-tax suspension.

Mrs. Clinton did not. “I’m not going to put in my lot with economists,” she said on the ABC program “This Week.” A few moments later, she added, “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”

But I guess voters prefer to be lied and making their decision based on populist slogans, other wise this kind of statements wouldn’t work:

Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Indiana J-J dinner, may have taken this white, working-class populism thing to a Cross-of-Gold rhetorical extreme (the authentic WJ Bryan is above). Speaking of the mortgage crisis, Clinton asked the crowd: “Why don’t we hold these Wall St money grubbers responsible for their role in this recession?”

It should be noted that many (presumably non-grubbing) Wall Streeters are her biggest fund raisers and she’s a big investor in a pair of hedge funds.

I don’t know what to make of this: One of Obama’s campaign spokesman denied official connection between the campaign and a hebrew blog named “The Barack Obama Blog”. One of the comments for the report, and the denial, is from no other than the editor in chief of the blog platform that host this blog and it insist that:

Sorry, that’s not true.

The blog is connected to the campaign.

While I can understand the extra outreach efforts I wonder why to do that in Israel, and more confusing is why to deny doing it. Any ideas?

Listening to the news, these days, expose the listeners to constant spin of what the voting trends actually mean and why one candidate is still viable. In this constant attempt to create the desired presumptions we are sometimes forgeting that the arguments made by the different campaigns aren’t that smart. Thanks to good satire for reminding us what stupid this kind of spins usually are. 

Not all the news from Yesterday’s primaries were bad, some were pretty good.

This should be an answer to some people wishes because apparently No, they can’t!. And it’s not only a one congressional district phenomena.

Now when it seems unavoidable that McCain will be the Republican nominee it is worth taking a closer critical look at his ideology and public record. I wrote in the past about my reservation regarding McCain authoritarianism, warmongering and the practical practice of increasing the scope of the federal government. The video embedded here take a closer look at McCain and is really worth watching.

View John McCain: The Myth of a Maverick on FORA.tv

I’ll miss Dennis and I think that the Presidential campaign is lacking without him. Although I disagree with big portion of his agenda I’ll always remember fondly his answer for why he voted against the Patriot Act: “Because I read it!”.

Bye Bye Rudy?

I said before that his electability is a legend that would be blown as the Clinton start giving him personal treatment, but apparently his rivals at the GOP didn’t want to leave her the pleasure.

Watching several elections, in more than one country, and watching closely the long primaries I tend to agree with the claim that democratic elections are a very well designed process to choose the least qualified candidate for wrong, and most of the time irrelevant, reasons. It is not that I’m advocating for a different method - I don’t know one that is better, but I’m more than convince that minimizing the power handed to these people, to effect decent people lives, is the best solution to minimize the damage they can cause.