Good Post Alert: Must Read Al Giordano's "The New and Improved "Us vs. Them" Narrative"

There's a new sheriff in town!

The always prescient, always digging, Al Giordano speaking on President Obama's YouTube delivery today;

"The New and Improved "Us vs. Them" Narrative"

Here's the money quote:

"I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won't like the idea that they'll have to bid competitively to continue offer ing Medicare coverage, but that's how we'll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won't like the idea that we're ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that's how we'll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won't like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that's how we'll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:

"'So am I.'

"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people. I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November."

I could copy it here, but better you go read it, as Al lays out who Obama is aiming at, with a laser beam, red-dot, sight, and how things will play out.

The Al Giordano's "The New and Improved "Us vs. Them" Narrative"

Oh yeah ... 

Here's the President, also;

2/28/09: Your Weekly Address

Al Giordano - "Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State"

Well, to steal from Michael Corleone, "Just when I thought she was out... they pull her back in ..."

It's the Hillary Clinton Show (co-starring husband, ex-Prez, Bill) again, as we are now in about Day Six of Hillary-as-Secretary-of-State, Def Con 5-mode.

If this is abstruse, or perplexing, and you find yourself shaking your head, saying "WTF", just fire up that TIVO in your mind, go back a few months, and cue up the Hillary Clinton Show when it was Hillary-as-Vice-President, Def Con 5-mode.

Ahhh, but there are voices cutting through the din.

There were two people that had the presidential election nailed to the wall.

One, was Nate Silver, over on FiveThirtyEight.com.

The other was Al Giordano, over on The Field.

Nearly a year before the election, Giordano laid it all out, the Obama ground troops and field game, the wave the was building (and, obviously ignored or underestimated by the Clintonistas, and later, the Dead Campaign Express).

Today, Giordano offers another flare up, hoping to get the attention of President-Elect Barack Obama;

Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State

Here's a few snips, but go read the post, it's a good one.

Like so many of those here, below, at the grassroots base that refuse to believe the noise machine that seeks to demoralize us and make a lie of your own statement, if - and we say "if" because we have never believed the noise machine's spin, and that is why you are president-elect today - but if you are at all persuaded by the pressures upon you turn your foreign policy over to a media freak show, we invoke the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland in 1650 when it sought alliance with the Crown: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Few are the voices - like the brave and wise Abner Mikva - with the wisdom and courage to stand up to the sycophants being rolled at present by the Mighty Wurlitzer!

And this;

There are better uses and positions for someone of the undeniable talent of Senator Clinton in your cabinet, or even on the Supreme Court, but the discretion and diplomacy required of the next Secretary of State to undo the grave messes already created cannot, should not, must not be placed in the hands of someone who - even if it is through little or no fault of her own - is a magnet for the kind of media circus that the mere suggestion of her appointment has drawn already.

Do not wake up on January 21 - or soon after - with the words of the great Abner Mikva ringing in your ears, lamenting that you did not heed them when you could:

"It's more than a legal problem - there are ethical problems and appearance problems."

Put me in the camp that believes it will be disastrous to have Hillary running the State Department (Geez, just look at the way she ran her campaign, Amtrak doesn't have train wrecks as bad as that).

The Hillarylanders have already warmed up their throats, to start singing Hillary as TMFOITW, accompanied by the Grand Central Station Locker Creatures ("Hillary is back! The keeper of the light! All hail Hillary! All hail Hillary! Oh Hillary can you see by the dawn's early light...").

And, let's not forgot a most keen observation from James Wolcott, back in the primaries;

For them, Hillary’s time had come, she had paid her dues, she had been thoroughly vetted, she had survived hairdos that would have sunk lesser mortals, and she didn’t let a little thing like being loathed by nearly half of the country bum her out and clog her transmission. Not since Nixon had there been such a show of grinding perseverance in the teeth of adversity, and Nixon in a pantsuit was never going to be an easy sell contrasted with the powerful embroidery of Obama’s eloquence—his very emergence on the political scene seemed like a feat of levitation. Hillary’s candidacy promised to make things better; Obama’s to make us better: outward improvement versus inward transformation. With Hillary, you would earn your merit badges; with Obama, your wings. Hillary’s candidacy was warmed-over meat loaf—comfort food for those too old or fearful to Dream.

Yes We Can, President-Elect Obama, we can do better for Secretary of State.

Give us the "Change we can believe in".

Choose someone else!

(And, pray, this comes true, if need-be)

Go read Al Giordano's Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State


Bonus Hillary Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: Things About Hillary Clinton Becoming Secretary of State

Made It Ma, Top of the Campaign! ...

Al Giordano Handing Out Campaign Sheepskins ... To Hillary Supporters

Hillary's New Campaign Slogan: Keep Hopelessness Alive! ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

Ari Berman: Hillary Inc.

Take Me Out To The Electoral College

There was a good, interesting segment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Friday evening.

Baseball statistician turned political pollster Nate Silver, founder of the website FiveThirtyEight (named for the count of the Electoral College) was on and, no doubt, the Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain campaign must want to do a Juan Marichal to Silver.

Crunching the numbers, Silver prognosticates that Barack Obama will beat Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain, 294.7 to 243.3.

Essentially, a blowout.

And, least you think Olbermann was just promoting one of his Fantasy Baseball buddies, you'd be benched, for the man who has been on-the-money more than anyone during this election season, Al Giordano, weighs in;

Nate Silver - whose statistical approach to forecasting the primary results this spring hung bad pollsters out to dry and has sent good pollsters into a long overdue stampede to reexamine the technical bases of how they do their work - was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night. It's a sign of the times that the new rising star of political analysis doesn't come from inside a campaign staff (a la Pat Caddell in '76, Roger Ailes in '80, James Carville in '92 or Karl Rove in '00) but from the outside.

In a few short months Nate has gone from being one of thousands of bloggers on Daily Kos (he used the pseud Poblano there) to launching his own website, which in addition to the addictive numbers-crunching, charts and graphs, features excellent commentary (and really good writing).

"At this point there’s a pretty big margin of error. Once we have the conventions, especially the first debate, Obama will be vetted by voters… The movement comes after labor day and after the conventions…."

Here's the 411

Baseball stats star gets in the politics game

Aug. 8: Nate Silver's Web site, FiveThirtyEight.com, applies his widely admired statistical prediction technique to political polling to generate electoral map forecasts that have captured the attention of political strategists. Silver joins Keith Olbermann to explain how his process applies to both baseball and politics.

Go visit (and bookmark) FiveThirtyEight.Com

Good Post Alert: Letter to Mesopotamia

Not an unheard of situation, but rare, as Barry Crimmins has a guest writer on his site this week.

John Joslin, Unemployed American Electrician from Detroit (who is rumored to be the designated tradesman that will turn off the lights on the Motor City when it does, finally, shut down), pens a most sincere, and cleverly amusing, note to the Iraqi War Orphans.

Letter to Mesopotamia

We can't risk cutting off the money for your war and take a chance on having all hell break loose where you are. For one thing, none of our soldiers in your country has a proper round- trip ticket to get back home. They would have to stay there if the money runs out. This way, by getting the war bill passed, we will have enough money to keep all the soldiers in your country for at least another 6-months. Guaranteed.

I am looking forward to the $362 bucks per week I'll be pulling down once this war paperwork is taken care of. To put it in perspective -- that's equal to one year's worth of income for the average household in Fallujah. That's near you, right? ( Hey, don't forget, stuff is expensive here in America. It's another world, kiddo ! )

Check it out, it's a good read

And, while your over there on Barry's site...

The Garlic has been remiss in posting that Al Giordano has moved his on-the-money blog, The Field, away Rural Votes, to his own site, NarcoNews. You'll want to bookmark it and check in regularly on The Field - It is MUST READING for this election season.

Barry has two posts - Here and Here - with all the dramatic details of the relocation (and they were dramatic)

Oh yeah ... How on-the-money is Giordano?

Check this out and see for yourselves... It scary, it's so on-target ...

Three "Must Reads" From Al Giordano

This, actually, is a rewrite of something I put together yesterday morning.

The rewrite necessary after Hillary's magnificent, tremendous, gigantic gaffe.

When I awoke on Friday AM, the blogosphere was tsunami-flooded with stories and posts about "Hillary as VP" and "Camps Talking" (you can look Here, Here and Here for a sampling).

I read a bevy of these, the regular big-and-small blogs, the MSM articles and not a one referenced the scoop that Al Giordano had published - on Thursday;

“The Nightmare Ticket Is Dead”

The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.

So now, when the Clinton surrogates continue to advocate that Obama choose Senator Clinton as veep, everybody will know: It’s Bill, and not Hill, stoking the fire. When New York political insider Mark Green’s Air America sent an email blast this morning to its entire mailing list featuring the milquetoast, boring and Arbitron-ratings neglected Thom Hartmann’s plea - “Obama: Ask Hillary First” (and this Air America subscriber summarily unsubscribed from that list this morning upon receiving that piece of corporate-paid advertising), everybody knows: the ventriloquist behind these Muppets is Bill Clinton.

A lot of people took a lot of sips from the Clinton Kool-Aid, pushing and hawking this "dream ticket"

Not Al, as you can see.

Now, it is my speculation, that, even before the Hillary foot-in-mouth RFK gaffe, it was the absolute longest of possibilities that Barack Obama would select Hillary as his running mate.

Really, we're talking here the "If Barack and Hillary were the only two people left on earth, he would still pause and think very hard and long on it" kind of chances.

I have to imagine, if Hillary's name was on some kind of list in the Obama camp, long or short, there's a line running through it this morning, and, after the next print-out of it, the name "Hillary" will not even appear on it.

And the news gets grimmer for Camp Clinton.

“The Cardoza 40″: Exodus of Clinton Delegates Begins"

The Field has learned that Cardoza is the first of a group of at least 40 Clinton delegates, many of them from California, that through talking among themselves came to a joint decision that all of them would vote for Obama at the convention. They have informed Senator Clinton that it’s time to unite around Obama, and that they will be coming out, one or two at a time, and announcing their switch between now and the convention if Senator Clinton doesn’t do the same.

Ouch!

There's a breach in the dike and, on top of not winning new delegates, she's losing the one's she already had!

Finally, for a breakdown of the Superdelegates, check out Al's "Undeclared Superdelegates: The Gang of 165 (+ 32 in Limbo)"

All of the Cardoza 40 should, now, just come over to Obama, en masse.

There's no need for subtlety, no need to position it.

It's over.

Al Giordano Handing Out Campaign Sheepskins ... To Hillary Supporters

This may come to be viewed as a valuable, unselfish, public service.

Al Giordano, of his ON-THE-MONEY, TAKE-IT-TO-THE-BANK campaign blog, The Field, is announcing his "tough love" program, euphemistically titled "No Chicken Little Left Behind";

The Field is pleased to announce that our “tough love” program for the Chicken Littles among Obama supporters can now hand out virtual diplomas to so many graduates. Some may still have to enroll in our summer school program as the general election campaign - and a new set of challenges - gears up, and they’ll have some new classmates from the ranks of Clinton supporters, for whom the challenges are steeper because, well, that sky has fallen.

It is therefore my great honor to introduce The Field’s No Chicken Little Left Behind program, employing the same “tough love” techniques that turned so many worrywart Obama supporters into confident warriors, workers, commentators and Field Hands for their cause.

And, later in the post;

Look around you, evolving Clinton supporters. The sky did not fall. Rather, sometimes heaven comes down to earth and we find ourselves in it… even if by accident.

It's a good read ... In-between laying out his program, Al gives a good come-uppance to Taylor "All Hillary-All-The-Time" Marsh, who, come November, may be in need of some carpal tunnel treatment, for holding her nose so long in supporting Barack Obama

For the ride of the General Election campaign, you'll be well served, and rewarded, by bookmarking Al Giordano's The Field!

Bonus Links

Today's Must Read: Al Giordano's "Damn you, Barack Obama" ... It Lays Out What We Are Seeing Now

Barry Crimmins: Welcome Fieldhands

Al Giordano: Let Operation Anti-Chaos begin!

Probably, the one true voice writing about this years' presidential election, Al Giordano has another gem today.

Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on "White Voters" Is Fiction

Al, for one, is not getting fooled by the Clinton Machine's sniper-dodging, 3AM, and Day-One-Ready, Fool's Gold candidate.

They've swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven't an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): "But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that's Hillary Clinton!" That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot.

What, where does this man get, if he's not drinking Hillary's, this clear, untainted, Kool-Aid from?

So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning to see a New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, who did what none of these chattering lunkheads have done. He looked at the hard data of how voters, white and black, view the two Democratic candidates - favorably or negatively? - and how those views have progressed over time.

Wait. The numbers show that the cynical effort to turn the 2008 campaign into a race riot has hurt the popularity of one candidate among an important demographic, and it's not Barack Obama:

Those facts won't stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the "white voters" narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it.

Read all of Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on "White Voters" Is Fiction and get hip to Al Giordano


Bonus Link

Today's Must Read: Al Giordano's "Damn you, Barack Obama" ... It Lays Out What We Are Seeing Now

Today's Must Read: Al Giordano's "Damn you, Barack Obama" ... It Lays Out What We Are Seeing Now

If you want to get a good handle on how a ripple of hope has grown into the Obama Wave, we have a "Must Read" for you.

H/T to Barry Crimmins, long a friend (first), fan, and advocate for the journalism of Al Giordano.

In a Crimmins post yesterday;

To appreciate just how far ahead of the field, The Field's Al Giordano is, you have to go back and read his analysis of the current presidential race that he wrote for the Boston Phoenix approximately fifteen weeks ago. It's amazingly on the money, and I mean that in every sense of the word.

"On the money" is an understatement!

Read Al Giordano's Damn you, Barack Obama; Win or lose, Obama's small donors may have already brought a revolution in campaign financing

Visit (and bookmark) Al Giordano's The Field

Visit Barry Crimmins