Comments on July 2007 Meet July 2003

It's troubling to me that most of the attention about this premature presidential campaign seems to be over:

• Polls.
• Fundraising.
• Campaign strategy.
• The implications of a woman or a Mormon or a Hispanic or a man of African heritage running for president.
• Little gotcha incidents like Giuliani's South Carolina campaign manager getting caught dealing coke or Obama's staff getting caught leaking Hillary dirt.
• Which Democrat will take on the Republicans.

Take on the Republicans over what? Who knows? There's so little about real issues, concrete proposals, what any of these indivuduals might actually do in the job they're auditioning for.

Please post something about Smith, Cafe Press, and/or Pony, and their unprecedented, unbelievable, mind-blowing awesomeness? It's been at least 12 hours since the last one.

Josh, don't you mean February 2004: Splat? in reference to Dean's campaign and not "February 2008: Splat" as a reference to Obama's?

@3,
Yes, I did mean Dean/Feb. '04. Thanks. Fixed it.

Don't worry, I'm used to constantly repeating that Obama won't go down like Dean did.

@5: Is that an oral sex joke? :P

Seriously, I'm much more pumped about Obama than I was about Dean. Obama's much more charismatic, and his values are more in line with mine.

As much as I like Obama the idealist candidate never wins. He's running against Hillary and Edwards both have seasoned fund raising experience and deeper ties within the party than Obama does.

Hillary's going to take the nomination and we'll all be paying for it come November with President Giuliani.

After all $32. 5 from 150,000 crushes Dean’s $7.5 from 59,000

The argument assumes a 1:1 dollar to political capital raised ratio. Obama strikes me as a decent law maker (not mine, but his state constituents seem ok with him), but the president which follows the Bush mess/administration really has to be someone with experience with “putting their feet to the fire”. Obama doesn’t have the real experience, and this is not a race for the inexperienced, even if they are good fund raisers. Obama’s political capital will, ultimately, be exchanged for a vice-presidential slot on the HRC national ticket.

Unless, of course, a surprise Clinton/Gore ticket comes out of the national convention… now stop laughing and harrumphing, it could happen. Cheney never ran in the primaries, which puts the two on equal stance as far as that point is concerned. Gore is very popular and has more clout nationally and internationally then Obama can fund raise for.

Should the SCOTUS decides that the Vice President’s Office is really not part of the executive branch (which at this point in history, I will believe it is possible) (the Bush political base seems to forget their power grab and power flaunting will bite them on the ass, next administration. It is pretty much an axiom of America politcs) then the VP after Cheney will need to be someone with experience and wisdom in the position… and willing to fight to put the VP’s office back into the executive branch.

Obama will be a very good HRC cabinet member… something in finance should suit him.

#1: Thank you. I am very bored of these "who has raised more money" stories. Like when #6 says that Obama's values are more in line with his than Dean's values, that's interesting to me. What are those values? Aside from gender and color and Iraq, what is the difference between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton? Can someone do a story on that?

This is a dumb analysis: of course there isn't any big showmanship about online fundraising because it is standard now. Also, the comparison of $$ doesn't make any sense because all the candidates are getting much more contributions. I'd also like to see how many contributers gave to HRC. And what happened Josh? I thought you were an HRC guy?

I'm in Illinois and the first day I arrived, Obama was on the front page of the Sun-Times. Now I'm in a cafe and Obama is staring at me from the cover of Vanity Fair on the adjacent table. I know I'm not talking issues here, albeit the weird super-star status of this guy. Ick.

Josh, you missed the chance at a good headline referring to The Decemberists' wonderful song "July, July," or has it already been used; I've been offline for 4 days.

@2 to tide you over with some twee mind-blowing awesomeness, check out my blog. How DO you solve a problem like Garrietta?

PS: Clinton/Richardson ticket FTW

The old Democratic bait & switch method going back decades continues: Eugene McCarthy puts Nam on the political map, taking down LBJ and even getting RFK to enter the race, but end up getting Humphrey (albeit thanks to a bullet). Threaten Nixon with a very threatening Muskie; then make old Musk cry and end up with McGovern. Dangle Hart, destroy him and serve up Mondale. Use Jackson to excite the base, then offer Dukakis. Dean comes out of nowhere, fires up the base AND independents, but POOF, kill him with a scream and offer up... Kerry?

So who's the New Exciting Candidate this time around? Who's the Annointed Mainstream Candidate we'll end up stuck with instead?

Those who do not learn the political lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them. The party machinery needs a few monkey-wrenches...

@9: What I meant to type was "positions"; for some reason my brain typed out "values". That said, gun control is a big thing for me, for example. Obama's notably stricter on gun control than Dean was.

I'm not sure about HRC's position on gun control, but I am not planning on supporting her anyway.

I paid $25 to hear Obama speak at Qwest center a few weeks ago. This was the only opportunity to hear him speak when he was in town, as he had no free public speaking engagements. Also, the only way you could pay was over the Internet. More on this below.
At the event, he was an hour late and said very little to impress me. His speech lacked substance and was far too cautious in tone.
Now, Obama is counting me as a "supporter" and "donor". All I wanted to do was hear the guy speak. This is happening all over the country. I like Barrack, but I don't think he is my guy. I wonder how many of these donors will repeat with a donation in the next quarter?