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It’s funny, even by proving that he is, after all, not the first American messiah, but a politician, he has shown the uniqueness of his campaign. So many Obama supporters are furious about his stance on the recent FISA bill and the immunity it provides to telecom companies that they’ve taken to organizing themselves on Obama’s website, my.BarackObama.com.

 

The group is here, and in only the last couple of days it’s attracted several thousand members. I signed up this morning, and I’ve gotten about two dozen emails (that go out to all members of the group) already. The debate, from what I’ve seen, is passionate but measured. People are not simply ranting about how horrible Obama is for supporting the new bill -- however tepidly -- rather they are discussing their responsibility, as his supporters, to make sure he keeps his promises. They are talking about what should be done, how to organize, etc. in hopes of getting Obama to change his position.

 

This is pretty significant, I think. For one thing, as one of the emails said

Unlike the above writer, I’ve been to the McCain website, and I actually can’t find any forum like that which exists on the Obama site.

 

I think the fact that Obama has forums for his supporters is on thing, but the fact that they can unify and publicly display their discontent for one of his stances (opening him up to possible attacks on his base, or whatever it is that politicos find important) is groundbreaking. Most politicians wouldn’t risk such a public backlash from their most devoted supporters if they could stop it (i.e. deleting the group from the server), and it says a lot that Obama hasn’t done that.

 

It says even more, though, that such a large number of people are saying, they think Obama is a great candidate, and it’s their responsibility to make sure he continues to be. Thus far, every commenter I’ve seen who suggests that the FISA campaign will hurt Obama and that “we” need to do everything “we” can to win in November is met with several rebuttals to the effect that not pressuring Obama solely for political expediency would be a guarantee that the political environment we’ve gotten so used to will never change.

 

I’ve been pretty let down by Obama in the last couple of weeks, but seeing as many of his supporters feel that they have a responsibility to “keep ‘em honest” has given me some reassurance.

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

- former Republican presidential candidate, Willard Mitt Romney

Hillary = Obama = Surrender to terror?

This was the kind of stuff I was referencing yesterday when I said Romney gave a "divisive, hateful speech." The whole "vote for the liberals and die at the hands of the terrorists" card hasn't been played for a long time. I've been reassured recently by the level of maturity exhibited by the kids in the D.C. sandbox over the last year. I almost believed that the rancor had bled out to the edges of the political fabric, leaving everyone else to have a relatively civil conversation about where we go next.

For the most part, everyone believes that Iraq is a catastrophe -- the war on terror in general has had its fair share of mishaps -- and, while we all believe passionately in what we see as the necessary responses to the issues that face us with the war on terror -- staying in Iraq, diverting troops elsewhere (Afghanistan, maybe?), pulling out of the Middle East more or less completely, etc. -- we've been able to have a fairly civil conversation about it for some time.

I said fairly civil. The low blows of recent months have been nothing compared to those of the six years preceding.

Well, all that went out the window once Romney decided to take a load off. The above statement is just the beginning of the ludicrous drivel that passed for political discourse. He even pulled out the ole' they hate us for our freedoms and democracy:

And finally, let’s consider the greatest challenge facing America—and facing the entire civilized world: the threat of violent, radical Jihad. In one wing of the world of Islam, there is a conviction that all governments should be destroyed and replaced by a religious caliphate. These Jihadists will battle any form of democracy—to them, democracy is blasphemous for it says that citizens, not God shape the law. They find the idea of human equality to be offensive. They hate everything we believe about freedom just as we hate everything they believe about radical Jihad.

I was actually kind of suprised to President Bush whip this one out during his State of the Union Address:

The advance of liberty is opposed by terrorists and extremists -- evil men who despise freedom, despise America, and aim to subject millions to their violent rule.

I'm not surprised because he's never used this one before, but just because I, again, was getting the impression that no one believed it anymore. Of course, as I've mentioned before, most everyone in the field roundly rejects this, especially former chief of the CIA's bin Laden Unit Mike Scheuer:

[al-Qaeda's] goal is not to wipe out our secualr democracy, but to deter us by military means from attacking the things they love. Bin Laden et al. are not eternal warriors; there is no evidence they are fighting for fighting's sake, or that they would be lost for things to do without a war to wage. There is evidence to the contrary, in fact, showing bin Laden and other Islamist leaders would like to end the war, get back to their families, and live a less martial lifestyle. They share the attitude of the Afghan mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet war: They are weary of war, but not war weary in a way making them ready to compromise or fight less enthusiastically. In both cases, participating in a defensive jihad was a duty to God and therefore had to be pursued until victory or martyrdom.

Luckily, Jason Jones came by to clear things up, explaining that the only reason Romney got so far is thanks to the "douchebag vote."

Romney is out.

Man, it feels good to say that.

Romney is out.

The divisive, hateful speech he just gave makes it feel all the more better. Of the four men who were still in the republican race this morning, there was no one more divisive than Romney. Of course McCain and Huckabee had played the liberals-will-be-the-end-of-US distraction, but no one had played it more willingly than Romney. Never was this been more evident than minutes ago when Romney announced that he was "suspending" his campaign.

Before I get started, though, I want to clear some things up. While it might not be evident in all my blathering about Obama and Paul, I have for quite some time liked John McCain. He was my choice in 2000, and I still have an (albeit withering) appreciation for him as a presidential candidate. And, if I were voting just based on foreign policy towards Taiwan, he'd be my only choice. I'm happy that he will likely be the Republican nominee.

Moreover, I am not writing this as a Ron Paul supporter. I've come to believe that Barack Obama, the "Left-libertarian," is the candidate that better fits my political views. That said, I have the utmost respect for Ron Paul and his candidacy. I commend his record, and I think it's a shame the media has treated him they way they have. It's on this principle, in the recent republican primaries in South Carolina, I voted not for Obama but for Ron Paul.

I'm writing this post because I feel that an interesting, new dynamic has been created by Romney's departure concerning the media's coverage of the campaigns. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been let down by the way the media has handled their coverage of the presidential candidates' races over the last six months or so. I may, however, have been the only person who half expected it to be any different. Naively believing that it didn't matter so much that these news companies are businesses and must make money, I assumed that as it became more obvious that Ron Paul had an incredible grassroots support web, unlike that of any other candidate, that the media would start to pay attention.

You live, and you learn.

What happened instead is that the media watched and reported incessantly on its floundering golden boys.

FRED THOMPSON, ladies and gentlemen! The country, nay, THE WORLD is abuzz with the possibility of a Thompson presidency! Hear ye! Hear y--- What? He's out already? How many states did he w--- None? Damn.

Well no worries, America's Mayor! RUDY! On his way to the White H--- He's out too? No states? Who's still in? Huckabee? Is he the guy who used to be fat? Really? Him?

Well played, y'all.

All the while, this depressing spectacle of the campaigns' slow deaths was followed with morbid infatuation, like watching ants squirm under a magnifying glass. Here's Rudy doing the Macarena! Today, Fred Thompson ate a hamburger, because he loves America! Tomorrow, we'll be doing a four hour special round-table on Mike Huckabee's weight and whether he'd be able to keep off the pounds during four year in the White House, our special guest, co-host of the hit show Project Runway, Tim Gunn, will be with us discussing presidential fashion over the years. So please join us tomorrow at 8pm eastern for "Don't Huck it up: Dieting with Mike Huckabee."

Never once did I see a general update on Ron Paul's campaign (and I watch a lot of news, too much). I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I defy anyone to show me a news network that talked about Ron Paul's stumping across the country. The only times I ever saw Paul on the news was when he was defending himself about claims that he was racist or, the media's favorite by far, whether he really should really be running as a republican.

I'm sure many won't think this is important, but the truth is that most people still don't get their news from alternative media (where Paul has done well). They get it from CNN, FOX, or major newspapers. Without the daily coverage that the media's crushes garnered, Paul simply does not become a household name.

Making things worse was the fact that Paul's questions in the debates were fewer than those of his competitors, reaching a nadir in the Reagan Library debates in which Paul only got, if my memory serves me correctly, three unique questions (Huckabee only getting a couple more).

Yet, on February 28th, assuming the three candidates still remain, Paul will have an interesting opportunity. Sure, with only 16 pledged delegates, compared to McCain's 700+, I'm not holding my breath for a Paul candidacy, but there is the distinct possibility that the CNN debates at the end of this month could be the largest and most generous platform he will ever get, and he has a one clear advantage over his opponents.

If there are two things that Paul loves talking about, it's the economy and the war on terror. While I don't buy into the idea that McCain doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the economy, he's certainly not as comfortable as Paul, and Huckabee's knowledge of foreign policy is about as good as, well, Bush's. He didn't know what the NIE was, even days after the declassified report came out, and he tried to beat around the bush on a question about Pakistan, turning it into a question about immigration.

Despite his pretty dismal showing in the primaries so far, support for Paul doesn't seem to be waning. He's still bringing in money, and I don't see him throwing in the towel. If that's the case, he may be due for more exposure in the coming weeks as a result of the vacuum created by Romney's departure. However, the media, I'm sure, still sees Huckabee as a more viable candidate than Paul, so he'll have to fight for whatever exposure that he does get.

Microsoft employees have donated a total of about $130,000 to Clinton, far more than any of the other six major candidates, according to a searchable database of the political donations at Fundrace, a project of the Huffington Post.

At Google, donations favored Obama over the New York senator by $97,771 to $46,610.

Yahoo staff also donated more money to Obama's campaign by almost two-thirds.

The only Republican presidential candidate who received a significant amount of monetary support in the tech sector was libertarian Ron Paul, who brought in over $104,000 from Silicon Valley workers.

The Hillary-Microsoft and Yahoo-Google-Obama binary also reminds me of an article form the New York Times the other day asking, Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.

That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.

“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).

It is designed, she said, even down to the playful logos that illustrate choices like, Volunteer or Register to Vote. She likened those touches to the elaborate, painstaking packaging Apple uses to woo its customers.

Of course, none of this is really that important. It is pertinent though, as people have started to notice how much she has started dropping the name of her site lately. Pitching it at awkward time, as in her response to the last question at the CNN debates before Super Tuesday, for example. As Tim Tagaris from Open Left put it:

As an internet director, there is one reason candidates drop the URL on television, and it's not because they care if people navigate through the tubes to learn more about your positions on the issues.

It's money. And sign-ups, which equal money.

Which, in turn, makes all of this so very important considering the news that Bill and Hillary are now putting their own money into "their" campaign and many of the staffers have agreed to work without pay for the month of February because the campaign is "spending money as fast as they could raise it." Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has what people are calling the "golden faucet."

No, this is not a reference to certain conservative politicians' affinity for the use of the term "Democrat Party" -- i.e. the party that is full of democrats, rather than the party that is for a more democratic system. It's more of an attempt to understand how the Democratic Party could possibly tolerate a convention that is so, well, undemocratic. I'm talking of course about the fact that forty percent of the votes in the upcoming Democratic National Convention will not be delegates allotted to the candidates through a proportion of the votes in caucuses and primaries. Instead, nearly half of the votes in the DNC will be cast by guys and gals who are just too darn important to vote with the masses in their state's primaries and caucuses.

It’s called the Democratic Party, but one aspect of the party’s nominating process is at odds with grass-roots democracy.

Voters don’t choose the 842 unpledged “super-delegates” who comprise nearly 40 percent of the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

The category includes Democratic governors and members of Congress, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former vice president Al Gore, retired congressional leaders such as Dick Gephardt, and all Democratic National Committee members, some of whom are appointed by party chairman Howard Dean.

This year, this is considerably more important than is usually the case, given that there is no clear front-runner in the Democratic race. It is scary to think of the possibility of a candidate with the most popular vote in the primary season losing to the one with the most delegates (does that bring to mind any bad memories, democrats?).

Look at where we stand right now. Barack Obama has more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton, yet Sen. Clinton has 87 more super-delegates than Sen. Obama putting her total delegate count 74 higher than his.

So, where does this system come from?

Super-delegates were supposed to supply some Establishment stability to the nominating process.

Before 1972, party elders, such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Charlie Buckley, the boss of The Bronx who helped John Kennedy clinch the 1960 nomination, wielded inordinate power.

But in early 1970’s, the party’s rules were reformed to open the process to grass-roots activists, women, and ethnic minorities.

Sen. George McGovern, the leading anti-Vietnam war liberal, won the 1972 nomination. McGovern turned out to be a disaster as a presidential candidate, winning only one state and the District of Columbia.

So without reverting to the days of party bosses like Buckley, the Democrats decided to guarantee that elected officials would have a bigger voice in the nomination.

Am I to understand that the super-delegates were put in place to protect the party from the people? I can certainly understand that political insiders may have a better, more personal understanding of the candidates and thus, using their super-delegate votes, be able to steer an election away from the kook, but doesn't that just seem to go against the very foundation of the democratic party? It would seem that it is the responsibility of those in the know to disseminate reasons for and against voting for a certain candidate and let us decide whether or not to accept it, not simply conducting the outcome.

This is significant because it works against Obama:

“One was not to get (ideologically) extreme candidates; the other was to avoid the Jimmy Carter phenomenon — where you had a guy who was not very experienced and not very well regarded by most of his fellow governors, but nevertheless managed to win the party’s nomination,” Mayer said.

Many of us know that Obama is experienced* and is well-regarded by many, but the Clinton campaign has done a very good job of painting him as neophyte, which they contrast with Hillary's "35 years" of experience -- 15 of which were at an Arkansas law firm and six on the board at Wal-Mart. In addition, imagine how long it takes to become a super-delegate. I don't imagine that many of these people are young. I don't know of any, in fact, who are under fifty. This is significant considering the voting generation gap we're seeing around the country.

* As if often the case in politics, reality is cloudier than spin. Barack Obama started as a community organizer in 1985, at the age of 23. He's 46 now. That gives him 23 years of so-called "experience," working as an organizer, president of Harvard Law School, civil rights attorney, constitutional law professor, state senator and US Senator.