findhilary.com | lies, evasion, spin, circumspection and cleverly veiled hype

For the past three days I'd already been marching around the house barking "we'll do it live!" to staffers and unsuspecting deliveryboys. Now comes Bill O'Reilly Flips Out — the Dance Remix. We'll do it- we'll do it- we'll do it- LIVE. (NSFW language...)

This came over the transom from a former Clinton/Gore staffer, loyalest of loyal Hillary Clinton supporters, who'd reliably bombarded me with snide comments since my own Clinton–Obama conversion last year.

I'm not in a position to analyze whether his experience can be generalized — W. Va exit polls could actually suggest the opposite, that Sen. Clinton's appeals to the hard-working white people gained, not lost, traction... — but I'm struck nonetheless. Here's what it looks like to lose a formerly impassioned supporter.



From: xxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxx <xxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx>.com>
Date: May 14, 2008, 11:39 AM
To: xxxxxxxx xxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxx xxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxxx x <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxxxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, xxxxx xxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: what it means

It's official, I am completely over Hillary Clinton. Here's why: she won West Virginia overwhelmingly, with her "rednecks like me better than the black guy" appeal. This means two things: a) the choice for Democrats is now between supporting Obama come hell or high water, or validating and approving and endorsing redneckism for another decade; and b) if Obama is the nominee, and McCain wins the general, redneckism is validated, approved, endorsed, fed, watered, and grown for another decade. Redneckism = racial violence in inner city schools, it = adventuristic wars of aggression, it = a weak dollar and more mujahaddin recruits. So, anyone who finds the continuation of redneckism repulsive needs to suck up their feelings right now and get behind Obama, and work hard to make sure he beats McCain in November. I'm frankly embarrassed by the Clintons' behavior. Unless... if you are overly charitable in interpreting their motives, they purposely played the race card like this to goad folks like me into coming to the conclusion above. But I'm not sure they're quite that clever or esoteric.

Stupid LiveJournal won't let me embed this video of Scavvers reënacting a Blues Brothers dance sequence outside the Daley Center last weekend, but it's good stuff.

Oh, you people have got to be kidding me:


our very own swimming-pool light

Roughly 3.5 million volumes will be stored on racks in a climate-controlled underground facility that digs down about 50 feet. The glass dome above it will reach 36 feet high, supported on a curving grid of steel. Ceramic patterns on the glass will block the sun, reducing heat gain.

“At least that’s what the engineers tell me,” Jahn said Friday, when I asked if the dome would turn into a sauna, as the Thompson Center infamously did....

—Jahn's library dome at the U. of C.: Elegant minimalism or self-indulgent object?, Chicago Tribune

For Item 81 [PDF] of the University of Chicago's ScavHunt 2008, the Bay Area annex of the GASH:FOGIES alumni team had about 10 hours to storyboard, shoot, and edit the following. It is what it is.

One Got Scavved, a video response to One Got Fat.

An interesting moment came when an Obama staffer was looking at the word "gap." His clue: a place where gay people shop. Before the word was accurately guessed, other reporters said they heard one staffer shout the store "H&M" and heard Obama say "Abercrombie & Fitch."

—Obama plays Taboo on long flight, CNN


Relatedly:
Three Bois and a Hebrew (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That) [Meinzer]

According to a senior Democratic aide, Clinton asked some uncommitted superdelegates if they could commit to her privately — without the political risks of a public endorsement — so that she could gauge whether she has the support she feels she needs to remain a viable candidate.

A Clinton staffer acknowledged Thursday that the campaign was in the process of “counting up” superdelegates because, “at the end of the day, we have to know where our numbers are.”

“We do have some private supporters,” the staffer said. “[But] for their own political purposes, they can’t be on record.”

—Clinton asks supers to commit in private, Politico


This is such an obvious point, I feel lame for even noting it, but:

If we have reached the point at which Clinton's campaign acknowledges that a would-be supporter might be prohibited from publicly endorsing for "political purposes," the campaign's sole remaining strategy for victory — the "electability" argument — is irretrievably conceded.

The more electable candidate is not the one whom supporters can't … you know, support because doing so would jeopardize their own political capital, or alienate their constituents, or rend this or that intraparty coalition untenable.

I would go so far as to suggest the exact opposite: the candidate whose supporters must remain closeted is probably the unelectable candidate.