EVENING POSTING:  MAY 11, 2008

Posted at 9:57 p.m. ET

DOES HE GET IT?

One of the frustrating things about Barack Obama is that he doesn't seem to get it, to connect with regular people, to understand how problems are solved.  Now we have his latest statement on energy, made at a time when gas at the pump is hovering at four dollars a gallon:

The Illinois Democrat said he would put a higher tax on companies that pollute and use the money to invest in wind, solar, geothermal and other alternatives to oil. He said he wouldn't rule out nuclear energy as a future source of power, if problems of waste storage and safety can be resolved.

Individuals, he said, must take responsibility as well.

"We can't all be driving Chevy Suburbans at eight miles per gallon," Obama said. "That's no slight against Chevys," he quickly added, "because I want us to drive American-made cars" -- but they need to be built to get better gas mileage.

Hello?  Has Senator Obama left something out?  It's called drilling. 

Oh, but wait.  Oil pollutes.  Okay, but to get some of those "alternative" energy sources to work requires a lot of energy to produce equipment, and, as we've seen with ethanol, sometimes the result is more cost and more environmental damage.  Right now we have an oil-based economy and the cost of oil is wreaking havoc with American families.  We've learned how to use oil responsibly.  We have many untapped oil reserves.  How about opening some areas to drilling to solve the problem, at least temporarily, until new forms of energy can be developed.

As to nuclear energy, Obama once again plays to the wine and tofu crowd.  France solved the problems of nuclear safety years ago, and a good part of its electricity is supplied by nuclear power plants.  Hasn't someone told told Obama?

And the United States Navy has powered ships with nuclear reactors since 1952, without a serious accident.  Will someone write a letter informing Mr. Obama?

As with everything else, there are no details in the Obama vision of "change."  Only rhetoric.

May 11, 2008.      Permalink          

EARLY EVENING POSTING:  MAY 11, 2008

Posted at 7:24 p.m. ET

THAT NUMBER

Barack Obama is being gently ribbed around the internet for saying that he wanted to be president of the 57 United States. 

Well, it was a slip.  But where did he get that number?

A good friend points out that there are 57 countries in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).  Hmm.

Okay, okay, that was unfair.  I know.  But a little mischief doesn't hurt.  Besides, it's Mother's Day, and there's very little real news. 

Or...maybe Obama had John Kerry on his mind.  He's married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, whose fortune came from her late husband, who was heir to the Heinz food empire, which has...57 varieties.   

Also, 57 has another historic meaning.  It was on September 4, 1957, that the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel - a new model that was about "change."  Except that it wasn't.  It was poorly styled and used old ideas.  Double hmm.

Back later.

May 11, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POSTING:  MAY 11,  2008

Posted at 3:56 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

New poll numbers just released show mixed results in the race for the Democratic nomination.  Rasmussen has Obama up ten points over Clinton, the largest lead he's had in some time.  However, Gallup has Obama up only four in a contest that has been relatively even since late April.  Obama did not get the knockout boost, at least in the popular vote, that some expected he'd get as a result of Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. 

The next Democratic primary is Tuesday, in West Virginia.  Clinton is expected to win in a landslide.  However, a word of caution:  All the publicity over her lead in West Virginia may depress her vote.  Some supporters, thinking she has an easy win, may neglect to vote. 

In national polls, Gallup has Obama up three over McCain, but Rasmussen has him up only one.  Again, Obama got no great boost from this week's primaries and all the publicity over his "inevitability."

Gallup has Clinton four up over McCain.  Rasmussen has her up five. 

Senator Clinton continues to show her strength, regardless of what the pundits say.  This is only informed speculation, but Americans sometimes display an ornery streak - a wish to put pundits in their place and assert their independence.  It will be fascinating to see if Clinton actually gains in national polls if she scores a blowout in West Virginia on Tuesday.

May 11, 2008.        Permalink              

SUNDAY:  MAY 11,  2008

Posted at 7:51 a.m. ET

THE REPUBLICAN DILEMMA

And yes, there is one.  No one thinks the GOP is in a great position this year.  The Politico has an analysis of the problem that is so grim that it will send you running to the nearest house of worship:

John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.

In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.

At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.

In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

Things are so bad that many people don’t even want to call themselves Republicans. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found the lowest percentage of self-described Republicans in 16 years of polling.

But we knew that already.  Look, I don't want to minimize the crisis.  But polls like this are about the past, not about the future.  I do think it's likely that the Democrats will make major gains in the House and Senate this year.  However, let's remember that in the 1942 Congressional elections, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, in the midst of a war that had overwhelming support, President Roosevelt's Democratic Party lost 45 seats in the House and eight in the Senate.  True, Democrats retained control of both houses, but by lesser majorities.  Voters can turn resentful over a number of things, including wartime casualties and restrictions.  But they may not stay resentful, and their anger can be directed at one party one year, and the other the next. 

If Democrats sweep the elections, they will have to govern.  They'll learn, as parties always do, that governing is the hard part.  Start looking ahead to the 2010 elections.  They're only two years away.

Also, John McCain is polling rather well.  The Politico's piece points out that 1976 was a Democratic year as well, the first presidential election after Watergate.  Gerald Ford was a nondescript president.  And yet, he came close to defeating Jimmy Carter.  John McCain is far more impressive than Ford, and Barack Obama has a number of liabilities.  McCain can pull this out, even if his party takes a bath in Congress.

May 11, 2008.      Permalink          

THE DEM DIVIDE

And let's not forget the deep, personal divisions within the Democratic Party.  The Washington Post reports on a group of Clinton supporters who will not give up, and who ventured to West Virginia, which holds its primary on Tuesday:

Clinton's most loyal supporters -- the ones still standing on street corners -- have adopted their candidate's motto, even as she trails Sen. Barack Obama by an insurmountable margin in pledged delegates: to fight like hell, despite dim odds and denigration, until someone officially wins the Democratic nomination.

But on this day, the intersection of Highway 480 and German Street, where they stood, divided Shepherdstown into two factions. College kids from Shepherd University approached from the north, angry that Clinton has remained in a race she appears destined to lose. Truck drivers and farmers approached from the south, their support for Clinton fortified by her perseverance.

Boy, does that tell the story.  It's almost a classic town/gown conflict.  And...

The two groups met at the intersection in a cacophony of honking horns and shouting that echoed across this town of about 1,000 near the Maryland border. After two hours, Luanne Smith had heard enough.

"It's become so personal, just one insult after another," Smith said. "These sides are starting to feel some hate for each other. Everybody is angry, but I'm going to keep at this as long as I can. I never want to look myself in the mirror and say, 'You quit. You didn't do your part.' "

No matter what the polls currently show, it's impossible to predict the future of this schism within a party.  If Obama doesn't handle it correctly, or if there's another Rev. Wright in his traveling trunk, the division can blow up in his face. 

May 11, 2008.      Permalink          

IN THE REAL WORLD

Our election campaign is mild compared to other campaigns we may have to wage in the future. London's Guardian, a leftist paper I rarely quote, has a remarkable story about a man whose distorted view of Islam led him to murder his own daughter.  It is this kind of mentality that we might have to fight all over the world, and it puts our election campaign in perspective.  Who is best to lead us in this struggle?

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

Please notice the silence of the "feminist" groups.  Please notice the lack of protest in our universities.  After all, who are we to judge another culture?

We're thoughtful, intelligent human beings.  That's who we are.  And we have a perfect right to describe the above actions in whatever terms we wish to use, obscene or not.

Be back later.  Contemplate this last story.

May 11, 2008.      Permalink