Hard News: Campaigns
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I guess "evil" is a little strong ... but I deeply disapprove of what she's doing. Her marginal chance of victory effectively relies on destroying her fellow Democrat (she really can't win by getting more pledged delegates), and for that small chance of a prize she's prepared to stand alongside McCain and hand him ammo for November.
ITA. And I think it's far comment to point to the Republican primary in 1976 when Reagan ran against Gerald Ford (a sitting president) and almost won in a very tough, and increasingly bitter nip-and-tuck race that ran all the way to the convention. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?)
But I don't think either man has really gotten the credit they deserved for deciding to bury the hatchet somewhere other than the other man's head. I know 'Ronnie Raygun' isn't exactly the role model you want to hold up to Democratic Party activists, but he sure could have done a lot more damage than he did.
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But you know something, can I not be written off as a matriphobic, child-hating bastard because I find it just a little startling when a complete stranger exposes her breast in my line of sight while I'm eating lunch in a public place.
Yes, undies or togs? I'm often surprised when I see full grown men wearing tank tops and underpants made from sheer lycra walking into my local dairy. Then I see the bike hat and all is forgiven. And I get a lot of stares and smirks from my choice of swimwear - speedos. I only wear them because I actually like swimming as opposed to wallowing.
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By contrast, I find it increasingly difficult to take anything Hillary says at face value. The latest attempt to depict herself as just a poor, rural white person at heart, not to mention more American than Obama, is risible.
Jon Stewart was all over her last night. When he interviewed her live a few weeks ago, I thought he might have been a bit pro her, but he's been clearly pro-Obama since the reverend speech. The impression she tried to convey of being a gun-toting church going redneck, followed up by her support for banning guns, and her refusal to say when she last went to church or fired a gun. That's free gold for The Daily Show.
The contrast between the actual transcript in context, and the way that the talking heads in the American media slammed it. Quite different.
I never minded people looking at my while I was feeding. I DID mind people staring. In the same way, I don't mind people looking at my breasts when I'm NOT feeding, but I do mind them staring. (Breasts are ace, and can be very distracting. I understand this.) If I'm having a conversation with someone, I'd prefer they looked at my face, whether or not I'm breast-feeding.
I don't think I felt comfortable with it until I had my own child. With no younger siblings, breasts were really only sexual things until I became a Dad (and then I had very little to do with them at all). I suspect there's a lot of young men out there whose first thought is "OMG that woman is showing me her tits!" rather than "oh, that's woman is feeding her baby, I'll look away politely, or at her face".
As Russell says, us boys will grow up, it just might take us a decade or so longer.
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I think it's probably just a modern social skill for everyone involved -- and part of that is not staring; or looking a breast-feeding woman in the eye like you would talking to anyone. Once you get that, it's no big deal
Agreed. You've just got to treat it like what it is - perfectly normal. It gets easier if you can detect that baby is getting hungry, so the breastfeeding is more expected.
If only the Hero Parade was still going. Apart from lots of other things, like a celebration of sexual diversity, it was a social inoculation against the meme that breasts had to be covered at all times.
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I guess "evil" is a little strong ... but I deeply disapprove of what she's doing.
That's your opinion. There are many who disagree and who take quite strong exception to this portrayal of her as a destroyer.
The impact on the party if she pulls it off hardly bears thinking about.
Again that's your opinion, many others think differently.
I'm a bit bewildered at how often it is those that prefer Obama feel the need to demonise Hillary.
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One of the rare points of agreement between myself and Winston Peters was related to his throw-away remark to journalists about looking to foreign ownership of New Zealand's media. I've been around long enough to see the change from the Horton family to Sir Tony O'Reilly has wrought on the NZ herald in particular.
While I generally agree with this, one of the interesting things about the New Zealand news media is how enduring these traditional biases are. The Herald has pretty much always been a right-wing paper. In the years leading up to WWI, for instance, it was edited by the eugenicist and proto-fascist William Lane. Its editorial pages endorsed Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia and Austria, and systematically opposed the first Labour Government.
The Dominion was explicitly established as an organ for the political opinions of the right-wing Reform Party (one of ancestors of the modern National Party). When Robin Hyde was writing parliamentary reports for the Dom in the '20s, she was instructed by her editor to ignore all Labour MPs:
By the way, though the Labour Party provided at least 90 per cent. of the speeches and almost all the dramatic incidents of the long night watches, one wasn't, in writing flippancies about the House, supposed to mention them, no matter how unkindly. They were to be ignored. I was finally requested, point-blank, to omit all mention of the Labour Party from my daily column ...
In the '20s, it wasn't unheard of for a prospective MP to buy the electorate's local newspaper and use its editorial pages as part of the campaign.
I think what's changed is the public's general lack of political education now, as opposed to a few decades ago. How many Herald readers even realize that their buttons are being pushed, let alone know the history of the paper? And, of course, the left-leaning papers that once competed with the Herald and the Dom no longer exist. Even that last bastion of Leftish opinion, the Listener, has gone way to the Right under Pamela Stirling.
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Curious thing about the DomPost: they have no labels on their plentiful right wing columnists, but when it comes to Chris Trotter, he is carefully labelled "From the Left".
Presumably, in case we should inadvertently mistake it for a proper opinion.
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I'm a bit bewildered at how often it is those that prefer Obama feel the need to demonise Hillary.
Not to get on this futile fairground ride again, Neil, I'm not in the least bewildered that the American primary process tips the signal to noise ratio far too far in the wrong direction.
Then again, I don't think we're really secure on the moral high horse there.
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Curious thing about the DomPost: they have no labels on their plentiful right wing columnists, but when it comes to Chris Trotter, he is carefully labelled "From the Left".
Presumably, in case we should inadvertently mistake it for a proper opinion.
Well, I don't think Matthew Hooten takes particular offense at having his column in the SST labelled 'From The Right'. Though my preference is that his double act with Trotter would be more accurately by-lined 'Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber' (order of precedence according to your own ideological leanings, I suppose).
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One of the rare points of agreement between myself and Winston Peters was related to his throw-away remark to journalists about looking to foreign ownership of New Zealand's media. I've been around long enough to see the change from the Horton family to Sir Tony O'Reilly has wrought on the NZ herald in particular.
Yeah, 'cause Winston really loved The Herald before the dirty furriners got their hooks into the media. Almost as much as his political mentor, Rob Muldoon, had a glow on for The Listener.
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I don't think we're really secure on the moral high horse there.
Humans.
Although polls aren't at present indicating any mass cut-off-my-nose behaviour with the losing side. The two tracking polls, Rassmussen and Gallop, have consistantly had Clinton and Obama doing about equal against McCain.
But that leaves the question of which states those votes come from.
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Humans.
I was thinking more of how embarrasing it is watching alleged adults use the word "diddums" unless they're ticking a baby's tummy. I'm becoming more and more convinced that a mental health break in a cave until the election is over is a good idea.
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I think the Progressives, Greens, Maori, & Act (as least Rodney) are going to try to keep things civil, wanting to play the ball rather than the 'man'.
I hope this holds and they're rewarded for it.
We known United Future would like to be seen this way but there is a little matter of someones ego to get over.
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I was thinking more of how embarrasing it is watching alleged adults use the word "diddums" unless they're ticking a baby's tummy.
I think that's the point of the word. It means 'stop being a baby'.
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I think that's the point of the word. It means 'stop being a baby'.
I think the point is that if you want to be the adult in the room, sneering baby talk just makes you look... well, in need of a feed and a clean nappy. As Russell said, its rather nice to see a presidential candidate who talks in complete, complex sentences that assume they're being heard by grown-ups.
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Curious thing about the DomPost: they have no labels on their plentiful right wing columnists, but when it comes to Chris Trotter, he is carefully labelled "From the Left".
"From the left" isn't a label, it's the title of the column, which I presume he came up with. He's not exactly shy about his political angle, indeed it's gotten him plenty of work as a commentator/media whatever/columnist etc. Just his brand.
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I think that's the point of the word. It means 'stop being a baby'.
I think the point is that if you want to be the adult in the room, sneering baby talk just makes you look... well, in need of a feed and a clean nappy. As Russell said, its rather nice to see a presidential candidate who talks in complete, complex sentences that assume they're being heard by grown-ups.
Quite right. I suggest that this is how Helen should have responded to Key's whimpering thusly:
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this is how Helen should have responded to Key's whimpering thusly
doh. you get my drift.
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Quite right. I suggest that this is how Helen should have responded to Key's whimpering thusly.
Heh... OTOH, I don't really think HARDEN UP, YOU BLEATING SOOKY-BITCHES is going to be an election-winning campaign slogan. :)
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I believe Ansell has appropriated it for Act:
This is Helen, she wants to mollycoddle the electorate. Harden the Fuck Up, Helen.
This is Rodney, he wants a tax cut. You're fucking Spot On, Rodney.
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Sometimes diddums does actually neatly convey the point. It's sneering, sure. Which is all some bleating sooky points deserve.
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RB, I was thinking I should repsond to your substantive points since I've been asking for that sort of thing.
Obama has been able to tap into the most liberal and politicised generation of twentysomethings in decade -- he's getting them to the polls. He probably promises the biggest turnout of black American voters ever.
That's definitely to his credit. On the other hand Hillary has been motivating other sections of the population - woman, hispanics etc. And looking at the popular vote (including Michigan and Florida as we're talking about hwo many are turning out) out of 28 million voters Obama has just 94,005 more. So their ability to motivate people to get involved is pretty much even.
But more than that, I like and appreciate the fact that Obama speaks in joined-up sentences, and expresses ideas.
He's a far better speaker than her and I don't mean that in a he's-just-all-talk way. But there are some relatively important policy differences on the basis of which it's quite reasonable to prefer one over the other.
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Not to get on this futile fairground ride again, Neil, I'm not in the least bewildered that the American primary process tips the signal to noise ratio far too far in the wrong direction.
I'm amazed anyone takes an interest. They're still going to elect an American...
But seriously, nothing in the primary process is anything other than convention. Why doesn't the Democratic party just hold an nationwide STV primary vote on the fourth of August and have three months to campaign against the other lot?
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Sometimes diddums does actually neatly convey the point. It's sneering, sure. Which is all some bleating sooky points deserve.
Well, sorry Ben but I won't be saying "diddums" if infantile crap like this is going to be on the agenda at the National Party conference in a few months, or we're going to have to squirm through this in the House.
Sorry if this makes me sound po faced, but I've just lost my primary source of income. And I'd like some signs that there are going to be some serious people on the campaign trail this year.
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Heh... OTOH, I don't really think HARDEN UP, YOU BLEATING SOOKY-BITCHES is going to be an election-winning campaign slogan. :)
I dunno. There's probably at least a fair few votes in "get hard or go home" and other locker room slogans.
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