Thought I just saw where you went on strike.  That was short! Did BooMan relent?

Welcome back.

lots of big hugs bro.

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

Thanks for shining some light on this. I'm here in MS, and I can tell you that beyond the hard numbers that are in the exit data (if you have the stomach to look), the so-called "Limbaugh Effect/Factor" isn't too "so-called". It was a very REAL animal here on Primary day. I've talked to loads of Limbaugh-lovin' Republicans (there ARE a few here, y'know), and they were VERY keen to try to trip up Obama--because they're honestly afraid of him--by crossing over temporarily to Hillary. Even among Dems, there's not a lot of love for the Clintons here (though black Dems DO regard her a bit more favorably, but Obama had pretty well negated that well before the Primary). As I've said, the Limbaugh Effect is a very real concern for me while Obama has yet to formally secure the nomination. Once he does, it's dead. But until then...

As for the Clinton "Kitchen Sink" strategy, The Field has a good little analysis up about how Hillary's hits on Obama seem to be toughening him up while at the same time turning around to bite Miss Inevitable on the butt, in case anyone wants to take a look. I don't know that Obama is quite as impervious to them as Giordano thinks, but it's interesting to consider.

I am now turning off the radio and skipping over blogs and news items regarding the McO'Billary controversy. What a boring distraction. What's to learn here? Vote Dem or get McCheney for prez; Hill/Bill are tearing apart the Dem party for their own ambition. Not much more. Pastor Astor Ass Blaster. Whatever.

Um, the US/world economy almost fell through like the crane in New York City over the weekend, due to the overleveraged Bear, Stearns. You think that's the only bank that has problems? I don't think so. As consumer spending in the US is forced into paying for only necessities, and the price of those necessities goes up, all the incredible diversity of the US economy will crash and fall like the buildings underneath the crane, or the price of Bear, Steans stock.

Take a look at Krugman's column today. This should be subjects of controversy on our blogs, not this destructive bickering over ambitious politicians.

Here's Krugman today:

"If we were actually having a string of bank failures, then we would know what to do. The government would essentially seize the banks and guarantee the deposits. But what do you do when you have a wave of failures of things like the auction-rate securities market, which was effectively a funny way of doing banking? If you look historically at other financial crises, they typically end up with big government bailouts. But how's that going to work in this case? We don't even know who to bail out. And part of the problem is we don't even know who owes what to whom."

Here's my friends' response. This within an e-mail thread amongst friends:

That sounds dire--this is the enormous fuzzy spot--not exactly a blind spot--but I don't think ANYBODY knows what a lot of these instruments are for. And the Fed can print as much dollars as it likes--but, based on nothing but a promise, not gold that's a genuine commodity--when it uses them to buy debt and mortgages that have an essentially negative value (e.g., negative equity), it looks to me like the whole thing is teetering on the brink of a remarkable disaster.

Because so much of the financial world's bullshit is smoke and mirrors. Insurance companies invested in "real estate" (mortgages, subprime included), futures, junk bonds, forex, speculations, bets, electronic ephemera with the only real commodities being tainted goods produced by slave labor. Couple that with HUGE consumer debt and fewer consumers able to purchase due to fewer jobs and stagnant wages.

Capitalism implosion, frankly.  You bet, tho, I give a YIPEE at the thought of that top 1% getting fucking SCREWED hard. But they won't. They're insulated...and if the rats are cornered, will simply grab for more in our new Global Feudalism.

Yes, I think maybe all that abstruseness in the financial markets may ultimately have less impact on "Main St." as he suggests, but that impact is already there. And a lot of 501Ks are invested in that abstruse bullshit. New York jobs in the financial sector will be whacked. States are giving up on health care I heard today. Paul wasn't thinking about the fact that Main Street has LONG been thwacked by the public policy driven by assholes that BELIEVE in this institutional "abstruseness."

And sadly, I doubt the answer on a public policy level will be good public works, socialist ideals like national healthcare. Given US history, this is the kind of time for, politically, "states of emergency" and martial law and zieg fucking heil because scaredy cat people want a strong man to take control. It is a perfect time for despotism, which may explain some of Dumbya's recent hebephrenic exuberance.

Not to mention Maliki sucking Dick.

In a word: shit.
george

Share. Share resources, share delight, share burdens, share the healing. Sharing will bring us back from mass suicide. www.share-international.org

The text is amazing and I have never read anything like it from a politician in my life. This guy is something special and the haters out there know it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html

"The heart of darkness is the president. Nobody knows what he thinks, even the people who work for him."

My experience as a precinct chair in Bexar County Texas is that the cross-over Republicans in my precinct were for the most part Hillary voters, and rather secretive and somewhat abashed; not proud button-wearing conventioneers. (Our precinct "caucuses" are called precinct conventions in Two-Step Texas).  The reason we know they were cross-overs was because the voter rolls indicate their last party vote.  My guess is that out of 158 conventioneers, there were about 10% or so white cross-overs.  There were about 3% African-American and Latino crossovers.

OTOH, the number of African-American voters at the convention was huge - I had never seen any at our precinct conventions in the past.  We are generally a pretty white-bread precinct that votes between 70-80% Repub in every election.  We had about 10% African-Americans conventioning.  Many of them were first-time voters as well as first time conventioneers.

So, the Limbaugh Effect was cancelled out, IMO, by new African-American voters for Obama.

I was saying this since those elections. The Wednesday morning after Ohio and Texas they were bragging on the FOX morning show about this.

I will also point out that exit polls are notoriously inaccurate when people are switching parties and playing mischief, so I don't think they had accurate numbers.

Having said all that, again, I have to admit that I'd like a little more light on the massive collapse of our economy.

Well, watching MSGOP at the moment is making me sick to my stomach. Repliscum trashing Obama BEFORE his speech. This is an uphill battle. I hope he knocks it out of the ballpark.

Obama is the one who has been running Democrat for a day campaigns, he is running one in PA and he has been running it in previous states.

For what it's worth, I know at least 5 cons who voted for Hillary and have no intention of voting for her in the general. I also know 3 who are firm Obama supporters and will probably vote Dem right down the the entire slate.

I've been looking at this subject for a while. Whereas there are logical reasons for disputing the effect, these are not particularly telling. Curiously, MSNBC is doing a report on this as I write.

The logical problem is distinguishing "sincere" voters from "party-raiders." As Stephen points out, and quite astutely, there has been a shift in the character of Republican crossover voters. Counterarguments that attempt to cite recent bad press against Obama fail to explain why this effect has only occurred within a small demographic sub-group, moreover, in the group with a clear incentive for raiding. Compounding this -- of course -- are the explicit pleas by Limbaugh and Ingraham to crossover and vote for Hillary.

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this problem is the apparent collusion by the Clinton campaign, as shown by Bill Clinton's appearance on the Limbaugh show on the day of the Texas and Ohio primaries. I'm sure the Clinton people could find some plausible sounding reason for this, but I regard it as a blatant attempt to encourage raiding rather than sincere crossovers.

Another factor that needs to be addressed, and could be a post in itself, is the nature of attitudes and responses to survey questions. The following post on Pollster by Mark Blumenthal is useful for illustrating what I mean:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/clintons_mississippi_republica.php

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/mysterypollster/2008/031208.htm

Blumenthal detects a hint of sincerity in the Republican crossovers in Mississippi over economic issues. The problem I have with Blumenthal's analysis is that it regards voters as having consistently ordered preferences. The first question we need to ask about Mississippi Republicans is whether they were casting a vote for a Democrat (a sincere vote) or against a Democrat (a raider). The 85% approval rating (58% strongly) they gave McCain and their low ratings of Clinton (such as: 72% regard her as "not honest and trustworthy") calls the sincerity of their vote 'for' Clinton into question.

What's less understood by many people is the nature of these apparent McCain voters' second choice of Clinton. It's not necessary that Republicans view their vote for Clinton in strategic terms. Voting choices can be intransitive in their ordering (see Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem), and cognitive dissonance can also lead to a polarized perception of candidates. In the first case, Republicans, who intend to vote for McCain in the general election, can be registering a sincere preference for Clinton as their second choice. In the second case, Republicans, who will eventually vote for McCain, are registering their dislike of Obama, and may have adjusted their assessments to bring them in line with with their overall opposition to the Democratic candidate.

ad bellum purificandum - Kenneth Burke