Much has been discussed about the potential candidates for VP on the Democratic ticket. Many quality names have been mentioned, but I have come to the conclusion that Governor Kathleen Sebelius would be the best choice for the Job. I offer several key factors to support this conclusion:

Governor Sebelius has successful electoral and legislative experience in the state of Kansas.

As a Democrat, from 1986 to 1994 Governor Sebelius served honorably in the Kansas House of Representatives. She then became the first Democrat in 100 years to be elected state insurance commissioner of Kansas. While the commissioner of insurance, Sebelius refused to take campaign contributions from insurance lobbyist and she also prevented a monopoly in the health insurance industry in the state when she blocked a merger attempted by Blue Cross

Frank Rich's Sunday column is, as usual, a worthy read.  It offers an interesting application of the new movie "Wall-E" to our contemporary political situation.  Its most relevant portion, however, comes near the end, where he addresses the malaise that currently appears to be infecting the Obama campaign.  

Gabe's 2nd Birthday $5 Obama Fundraiser Link

My son Gabe (Gabro) turns 2 years old on July 18, less than two weeks away. In the last two years, his mother and I have been blessed with the fact that he has been healthy, playful, social, and loving. For those who have had the chance to spend even a small amount of time with him, I think they can agree that those are just a few of his overall characteristics. We are also blessed to know that he loves NPR in the car, has his own "Daddy's lil Democrat" tshirt, has had "Lefty" the beanie baby donkey in his crib/bed since he was born, and understands the necessity to severely limit Fox News in the household he tends to spit up when watching it) :)

So far, we have $71 raised, 14% of our goal.

This week's Parade Magazine has essays from Barack Obama and John McCain on patriotism.

One can read the essays and then go online and vote in the poll which asks:  which essay is more in line with your views?

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Obama needs to "understand that his words matter." This is in response to Barack Obama:  "I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement," he said. "I am absolutely committed to ending the war."  

Bounds' words were without apparent irony.

Some words that do matter:

"Mission Accomplished."  (5/1/03)
"Bring 'em on"  (7/2/03)
"The Army we have"  (12/9/04)
"Last throes"  (5/31/05)
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran"  (4/19/07)
"I don't care if we're there 100 years."  (1/4/08)

Last week, I observed with incredulous disbelief as the mainstream American media asserted that Obama had flipped on Iraq and essentially created an opening to manoeuvre on his numerously stated position that upon being sworn in, he will stipulate to his Joint Chiefs of Staff that they have a new mission in Iraq – which is ending the war and bringing American forces home. Apparently, this confusion was created by the statement that Obama made in an interview in which he stated that he would continue to "refine" his position on Iraq as dictated by the facts on the ground when he eventually travels to Iraq sometime this month. It wasn’t long after he made this statement that the depraved hyenas pounced, like a herd of starving carnivores in an African Serengeti.

This is the technology age and a technology election.
Youtube is not John McCain's friend.
Nor is the actual record of McCain.

I want to float something so obvious that it is probably already in place.
Even the existence of the remotest possibility that this isn't in place makes me want to put the thought out here.

CNN has some new polling that should make the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, a little queasy. Obama's numbers are dropping among Clinton supporters and to top it off 43% of Democrats asked say they still want Senator Hillary Clinton to be their nominee.

some new polling

From Atrios today:

So Predictable

This past week gave us a look at how things will be going forward. The McCain campaign will inject a narrative, and the donut & BBQ loving press will dutifully type it up, completely making up facts to do so if necessary.

And we're going to have to start creating 360 degree shitstorms around them when they do.

The problem is that so many on this progressive/left/democratic blog have been so distracted helping the media do this, or heck, even inventing controversies, that we're missing the reason why we're here -- to help elect democrats.

(crossposted from Docudharma)

This is an essay grounded in simple reality, and intended for the perusal of those who are mentally and emotionally equipped to deal in such terms.
As to those who are not, it is my hope that you will herein acquire such tools.
But I'm not holding my breath.
The schoolin' begins on the jump.

The latest controversy over Obama's statements about the Iraq War confuse him. He says that if President, he will simply instruct his Chiefs of Staff to end the Iraq war. He says that he will do what it takes to safely withdraw the troops. He adds that what makes his policy different from GW Bush and McCain is that they are for this open ended commitment that can leave troops indefinitely in Iraq. Obama's politics has the Left mad because he won't announce an immediate withdrawal of troops regardless of conditions on the ground and the right who say he is vacillating somehow on his promises and previous statements.

Yeah I know Obama sold us out on FISA, the Fourth Amendment and the opportunity to hold Bush and the telecoms accountable for the most criminal abuse of the Constitution in American history, and that he appears ready to sign on to a bill giving presidents vast new powers to spy on citizens without any court oversight, but that’s just one issue.

Here's one where we're #1: Prevalence of mental illness in the population. "One-quarter of all Americans met the criteria for having a mental illness within the past year, and fully a quarter of those had a 'serious' disorder that significantly disrupted their ability to function day to day, according to the largest and most detailed survey of the nation's mental health.

http://bartdz.blogspot.com/...

From the same study: "The United States is the wealthiest, mightiest country in all of human history, and yet it has a higher proportion of poor or, worse, hungry citizens than almost every other industrialized nation

On the Fourth, Steven R wrote a diary about John McCain's essay on patriotism which appears in PARADE magazine today.

In the diary, Steven R pointed out McCain's subtle digs against his opponent in the presidential election, most egregious of which was the quote:

Political opinions, election decisions, and other decisions, are often made by groupthink. Obama and McCain both rely on groupthink to haul in large portions of their bases. However, for Republicans, groupthink works. For Democrats, it doesn't. What is groupthink, what are its problems and symptoms, what can be done about it, and why does it help Republicans but hurt Democrats?

There has been quite a bit of work in the area of groupthink, but I do not know if anyone has examined it with regard to political parties and political opinions. I'm not a communications researcher, so my opinions are derived mostly from reading political blogs and newspapers, and watching televised news (mainly CNN) and this diary is rather simplistic. The purpose of this diary is to see what we, as Democrats, can do about our unsuccessful tendency towards groupthink, in order to help elect a more liberal President of the United States.

Prepare yourself as the groundwork is being laid now for the coming racial onslaught from GOP smear artists.... and the worst part, they're going to cue up passages from the Audio version of "Dreams of my Father".  On the specific passages likely to see advertising rotation, Politico explains:

1- Drug Use

In a passage describing his high school experience in Hawaii, for example, Obama explains the allure of drugs: “I kept playing basketball, attended classes sparingly, drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically. … If the high didn’t solve whatever it was that was getting you down,” Obama intones, “it could at least help you laugh at the world’s ongoing folly.”  While many voters know that Obama used drugs as a young man, they haven’t heard the senator describe his drug use in those terms, or in his own voice.

This diary has been updated to include the latest news regarding the petition to get Al his credential back & Debra Kozikowski's actions.
We have over 1350 signatures on the petition that will be delivered to Howard Dean & Nancy Pelosi in Austin at Netroots Nation. A small group in CensorDebs state have written a letter to her and her bosses in MA. Since that news was published on the "Fieldhands" site, a signer to that letter has recieved a threatening phone call from Debra Kowzikowski. I post this here because it needs to be exposed.
http://fieldhands.ning.com/...

If you read Al Giordano over at "The Field", you know by now he has moved from Rural Votes to narconews.com  http://narcosphere.narconews.com/... If you do not read Al you should start right now.

In this week's Meriwether Vindicator, a weekly local paper serving Meriwether County, Georgia (the home of FDR's Little White House in Warm Springs), the sole published letter to the editor contains the following (as well as other)outrageous lines:

"Where Obama, the spy for the terrorists, says that would take 10 years or more.  By that time the Muslims and other foreigners will be using it, if we are stupid enough to elect Obama.  His spiritual God Jeremiah Wright will live on cloud nine.  It's really amusing and disastrous to even think a misfit like Obama might be elected.  If we should be so foolish as to make that mistake, get ready to meet your maker."

I know this is a letter to the editor, and not the position of the newspaper or its editorial board.  But, to allow such venom to go unanswered with a decisive response seems an abdication of our responsibility to answer bad speech with more speech.  Addresses (e-mail, hard copy, fax) for responding after the jump, along with the text of the entire letter.