“Months ago he was carrying his own suitcase,” says Anderson Cooper about John McCain, who has just completed a storybook comeback by officially winning the Republican nomination. Meanwhile, Senator Obama has won Vermont and is leading in Texas, while Senator Clinton has captured Rhode Island and is ahead in Ohio.
The editorial staff at Politics & Funk is in the midst of nailing the political futures market. As you can see, we’ve got quite a full profile.
The word on the street is Huckabee is officially dropping out. Probably a good time for it, considering that McCain has now won the nomination. We’ll be back with more in a bit.
7:35 P.M.
Mike Huckabee has just given his last speech as a candidate for President. It began with an extended anecdote about Hall of Fame third-baseman George Brett. It ended with a lengthy quote about the Alamo. For all his peculiarities, Huckabee has been one of the most enjoyable candidates to write about. By staying in the race so long, he’s set himself up to be the frontrunner in 2012, if McCain loses this year.
However, he should be warned that it’s inappropriate for a Baptist preacher and devout moralist like himself to emulate George Brett, who clearly has a fetish for Ben-Gay and flowery aprons.
9:15 P.M.
Sweet Jesus!
It’s been a schizophrenic hour and a half. The race in Texas has been vacillating erratically for the last hour, with the economic fortunes of Politics & Funk swaying back and forth as well. Yes, for lack of a better term, we’ve been day-trading.
Mrs. Clinton has won Ohio and just spoke in Columbus. She wore a vibrant red suit, and apparently she has a new refrain to counter Mr. Obama’s inspirational “Yes, we, can.”
It’s the wildly creative, “Yes, we will.”
Now, with the fluff out of the way, let us get down to the meat of the issue.
Due to its numerous nationwide political connections, Politics & Funk has received exclusive coverage of the Texas caucus process. Yes, that’s right, Texas is holding a caucus in addition to a primary and this, in a nutshell, is what it looks like.
A perfect tableau of liberal Texans. The bearded, white-collared 30 something, crouching in front of a sleek black cowboy, adjacent to a fat, insipid man with a red checkered flannel shirt.
All three look impatient yet calm, in contrast with the woman with the dark curly hair, who is frazzled and desperate in her attempt to vote for Dennis Kucinich.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
–William Shakespeare
Some have called it Super Tuesday Two, others Super Tuesday Showdown. But regardless of your preferred nomenclature, it’s a mere twelve hours away from arriving on the ornately decorated doorstep of America’s political consciousness.
Tomorrow Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will face off once again, this time in a four-state brawl that has the potential to finally conclude a long and drawn out battle for the Democratic nomination. With Obama the winner of eleven straight primaries–and currently leading Clinton by 156 pledged delegates–many political pundits believe that Mrs. Clinton must win both delegate rich Ohio and Texas to remain in the race.
“She has a shot,” said Democratic strategist James Carville recently, adding that he’s granted Mrs. Clinton’s request to feverously rub his head during the election returns for good luck.
However, others seem much less confident in Hillary’s chances of winning big. Last week, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter suggested that Hillary should drop out before the March 4 primaries and endorse Obama.
“Hillary has only one shot—for Obama to trip up so badly that he disqualifies himself, said Alder, adding,”nothing in the last 14 months suggests he will.”
Alder may be right about Mrs. Clinton’s chances. In fact, it appears that even if she does prevail in Texas and Ohio many political pundits and Democratic luminaries will still be clamoring for her to withdraw. Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently said on CNN that “whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be, in my judgment, the nominee.”
Utilizing the nifty delegate counter provided by Slate.com, I plugged in a Hillary dream scenario for tomorrow night’s results. As you can see, even with the loftiest of estimates, Senator Clinton will pick up only 20 delegates–leaving her 136 behind Mr. Obama.
So, how can Hillary gain ground?
Well, she may be get some unsuspected help from America’s favorite rabid, pill-popping, avuncular, right-wing radio host, Rush Limbaugh. On his show this afternoon, Limbaughurged his supporters to vote for Clinton in tomorrow’s primary, stating that “[Republicans] need Barack Obama bloodied up politically.” However, for all of Rush’s delightful charisma, it’s unlikely that many conservatives will actually be able to stomach pulling the lever for Mrs. Clinton once they’re inside the voting booth.
My prediction is that Mrs. Clinton will win narrowly in Ohio and decisively in Rhode Island, while Senator Obama will barely win Texas and easily win Vermont. In any scenario in which Mrs. Clinton wins fewer pledged delegates than Obama overall, she’ll likely drop out. But if she pulls out both Texas and Ohio and ends up on the plus side for Tuesday–even if it’s just by a modicum– I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democratic race last through April and until June.
Hillary Clinton is still speaking, but suddenly all the major networks switch over to Mr. Obama. It’s his 10th victory in a row. He’s closing in on the nomination quickly. Soon, it will be time to pay back favors to those who have so graciously assisted in his pursuit.
“Y’all know how to do it in Texas,” Obama says, speaking to a crowd of 20,000 in Houston after officially winning the Democratic primary in Wisconsin. He goes on to promise all Americans everything in the entire world. Specifically, he promises me a MoeJoe bowl from Tokyo Joe’s.
“We invest in you, you invest in America,” he tells me, adding that we’re currently spending 9 billion dollars a month in Iraq.
“How about that MoeJoe bowl,” I demand.
“Hold on you cranky bastard,” he admonishes.
“I want to end a politics based on fear. We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate,” he declares boldly, quoting JFK.
“I will close Guantanamo, end torture, and restore Habeas Corpus,” he proclaims.
“Buy me a fucking MoeJoe Bowl,” I scream.
“I’m eating my own stomach. I need the nourishment of grilled chicken, pineapple, egg, carrots, sweet onions, red peppers, and a sweet and spicy sauce. How do you expect me to blog while I’m grazing on the shavings of a two-week old king cake?”
“I know how easy it is [for politicians] to turn us on each other. To use immigrants and gays and people who aren’t like us as scapegoats for what they do,” Obama retorts.
“Oh my god! This is supposed to be a victory speech. This is not supposed to last any longer than twenty minutes. Please, just evoke “change” seventeen more times, remind people how you’re not a Washington insider, give McCain a quick jab, and get me the delectable MoJoe Bowl you promised.”
“The people in Washington want to boil the hope out of me, stew me for a bit.”
I sense that I am losing consciousness. I need serious help. Maybe, I shouldn’t have put all my desires and dreams into a candidate full of “empty rhetoric.” Maybe, my hope is false, and my MoeJoe bowl will never arrive.
Maybe, I should have called John McCain instead.
But wait, just as I’m losing all optimism there’s a knock on my door.
“Oh hell yeah dog, I knew you’d make it,” I shout, as Barry strides in smooth as ever with Tokyo Joe’s in hand.
“Thanks bro, could I ask you for one more favor,” I inquire.
“Sure, anything for you man. You know Politics & Funk is my favorite blog. That shit is hilarious. I read it all the time,” he says, handing me the MoeJoe bowl.”
“Could you have Rachael Maddow feed it to me while explaining exit polls and batting her eyelashes?” I ask.
“Nope, you have to be a super delegate to get that sort of treatment,” he laughs.
7:45 P.M- Well, here we are in, sandwiched in the midst of the Super Tuesday frenzy. If you’re like me you’re probably sprawled out on the carpet of your living room, wearing a sweaty v-neck and drinking Bud Light. The early news is as expected.
Obama has won Illinois, Alabama, and Georgia, while Hillary has triumphed in New York, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Massachusetts.
On the Republican side, McCain has taken New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Illinois, while Mike Huckabee has won West Virginia, Georgia, and Arkansas.
O.K, Keith Olberman has just compared the Republican race to an M.C. Escher painting. I’m going to jump on Intrade and buy more John McCain presidential futures. But, I’ll be back with more of the lowdown in a bit
8:10 P.M- Barack Obama has won Utah, Kansas, and Minnesota. However, the more fascinating development is the emergence of Mike Huckabee, who, in addition to already winning three states, has leads in Missouri and Tennessee. Huckabee’s strong showing is evidence that the GOP is more splintered than every before. What does this mean?
Well, Tom Brokaw has just invoked the name Barry Goldwater. That should be enough information for the time being.
8:40 P.M- Hillary is up on the podium now. She’s wearing a mustard yellow shirt, and she’s gesticulating vigorously. And do you know why she’s so excited?
It’s because she’s won American Samoa, and according to the Columbia Journalism Review, that makes all the difference in the world.
“I won’t let anyone swiftboat this country’s future,” she proclaims.
Nice.
9:05 P.M-“John McCain and I actually believe that politics can be conducted in a gentlemanly, civil way,” Mike Huckabee says, when Chris Matthews asks him if the two are in cahoots. The only clearcut thing about the GOP race is that everyone loathes Romney. In fact, earlier today, the Huckster called Mitt a “whiner,” in response to a similar allegation.
What made Mitt so mad?
Well, apparently McCain supporters in a nominating convention in West Virginia switched their support to Huckabee on the convention’s second ballot.
An obviously dirty move, and an admirable one.
9:35 PM- Apparently, “Mac is Back,” or at least that’s what McCain’s supporters chant as he walks to the podium. Earlier referred to as Lazarus by a commentator, McCain didn’t wrap things up tonight, but he came close. He gives props to Huckabee that seem authentic, and props to Romney that don’t.
Oh, and here is Lazarus’s theme music:
9:55 P.M- Obama is on the podium now. It’s been a long night of punditry, and personally if I listen to anymore political speculation, I might lose my mind. Hillary is winning California. Obama just used the term “super duper Tuesday.” He has begun his refrain of, “Yes, we can.”
In 1999, when I was sixteen years old, I waited in line for forty-five minutes to see Kid Rock play at the UNO Lakefront Area in New Orleans, LA. I had been listening to his album Devil Without a Cause on a daily basis, and felt a particular attachment to the track, “Bullgod,” which was his first single to gain significant radio play. Once my friends and I finally proceeded into the arena, we took seats on the far right next to the two towering speakers. As fate had it, we plopped down adjacent to a group of raucous twenty-one-year-old girls.
“Ask them to buy us daiquiris,” one of my buddies urged.
“What kind should we get?” I responded.
“Get 120 Octane, it’s what my brother always drinks, he says it’s the strongest.”
It was, and by the time Kid Rock came striding out in a leopard skin frock and a top hat, I was drunk.
I don’t remember much of that show, outside of the four gold cages that were suspended from the ceiling and filled with scantily clad dancers. In fact, I’m not even sure if they played “Bullgod,” although I assume they must have. However, I do know that when I woke up the next day—besides being hung-over for geometry—I couldn’t hear anything except for an intolerable ringing in my eardrums.
My deafness didn’t subside for an entire week, during which numerous doctors told me that I might suffer from hearing impairment for life. Ever since that miserable moment, I have strictly adhered to the belief that almost nothing in life is worth waiting in line for.
However, On Tuesday, January 30th, I found myself bobbing up and down for warmth at eight-thirty in the morning along with over 15,000 others, a single speck, in a line that shouted, smiled, and snaked its way across five blocks of the Denver University campus in the hopes of getting a glimpse of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Mr. Obama was just a week off of one of the most impressive conquests of his campaign, a brutal trouncing of Senator Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, in which he defeated the former First Lady by a vote margin of more than two to one. With exactly one week left until the Super Tuesday primaries, he was picking up steam; nevertheless, he was still trailing Mrs. Clinton by eleven points in national presidential polls.
However in Denver on Tuesday, there didn’t seem to be a dour looking face in all the lot, despite the fact that it was 22 degrees and we hadn’t progressed an inch in over an hour. The soccer Mom’s in front of me were well bundled and pre-occupied with chat about the PTA, and behind me sauntered a group of college students ranting about midterms and bemoaning the fact that they hadn’t brought a “J for the line.”
After waiting for an hour and half, I got a call from a friend of mine who was an Obama precinct captain, and through her influence I was allowed to bypass the horde and make it inside. I later learned that if it weren’t for her favor, I would have been consigned to a seat in the lacrosse bleachers, where Mr. Obama spoke briefly to the overflow crowd.
Instead, I waltzed inside, where the energy level was high.
Obama had just recently received the endorsement of Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, and it was Caroline who introduced him to a monsoon of applause. The support of the daughter and the brother of America’s most iconic president was a boost for the Obama campaign, accentuating Obama’s appeal as an agent of change.
During his speech, Obama hit upon on the usual spectrum of Democratic issues, from providing universal healthcare to withdrawing from Iraq. But while doing so, he chose not to make many ideological distinctions between himself and Mrs. Clinton.
Instead, Senator Obama drew contrast between his character and that of the former First Lady.
Obama furthered paralleled himself to John. F. Kennedy by relaying an exchange that occurred between Kennedy and Harry Truman, when Truman advised Kennedy to put off running for the presidency.
“Harry Truman, urged patience, “ Obama said. “And John Kennedy replied: ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do. It is time for a new generation of leadership.’”
In a nutshell, this has become Obama’s message and campaign strategy deftly tied into one. He knows he is an inspirational figure with a charismatic, public persona that Mrs. Clinton cannot match, so he flaunts his similarities to political icons of the past whenever possible.
In contrast, Mrs. Clinton’s strategy of questioning Mr. Obama’s experience seems to have lost its sway, especially since Mr. Obama has responded by embracing his lack of Washington credentials and proclaiming them as a virtue.
“Washington wants to boil me, wants to stew the hope out of me,” he often jokes, portraying himself as a crusader aimed at altering a government that has continually failed the American people, a government of greed and “cronyism” to which Mrs. Clinton belongs
Obama also suggests that a Clinton presidency will be a regression to the politics of the past.
“I know it is tempting—after another presidency by a man named George Bush—to simply turn back the clock, and to build a bridge back to the 20th century,” he said in Denver.
It is a classic battle of old guard versus new guard politics, and Obama appears to have finally grown comfortable with his role as populist crusader—and it seems the nation may be growing more comfortable with the idea of him becoming president as well.
Although he still trails Clinton nationally, Obama has made huge strides in many of the key primary states in the last week. According to a Zogby poll released on Sunday, February 3rd, he has opened up a twenty-point lead in Georgia, is neck and neck with Hillary in New Jersey and Missouri, and picked up fifteen percentage points in the last two weeks to take the lead from Mrs. Clinton in California, the biggest prize of all the Super Tuesday states.
It appears that the Clinton dam is on the verge of breaking, but with only one day remaining before the dawn of Super Tuesday, does the Illinois senator have enough time to crash through?
If Mr. Obama takes enough delegates to keep things close after this Tuesday, he may send the Clinton machine spinning into disarray. In fact, the longer the nomination stays unsettled, the more saturated and intrigued America will become with the improbable storyline of a half-black, half-white, junior Senator with a weird name toppling the matron of one of America’s most dominant political sects.
At Denver University on Tuesday, it took Barack Obama fifteen minutes to make it to the podium—the crowd screaming and chanting as he signed autographs and slapped hands. But once he began to orate, there were moments in between the chanting and the applause when all of those in attendance seemed to be gripped in jut-jawed astonishment. It was as if they felt that they were watching something, or someone, who might be on the verge of turning a corner on the American political system, and radically altering the “brand” of politics we can expect for years go come.
Throughout his candidacy, Mr. Obama has evoked comparisons with Dr. Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and JFK. Personally, after watching him in the flesh, he reminds me of someone else.
Like a fiend in a cloud
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
-William Blake
In the terminal moments of Tommy Boy, the 1995 comedy staring Chris Farley (Tommy Callahan), a desperate Tommy straps a batch of road flares onto his chest and marches into the office of auto-parts tycoon Ray Zalinsky (Dan Akroyd). With the aid of the news crew trailing him, Tommy forces Zalinksy to purchase a half-million Callahan brake pads, thereby saving the business of his recently deceased father and foiling the avaricious plot of his step-mother and her lover. Despite the fact that he takes a corporate boardroom hostage by threatening to detonate himself, Tommy incurs no repercussions from law enforcement for his actions. In fact, afterwards he simply returns to a prototypical Midwestern town, makes a sappy speech, and then climbs into a dingy that stagnates in the middle of a lake.
Is Leland Eisenberg a Chris Farley fan? Does he have a picture of him on his wall, a few DVD’s in his bedroom? Did he watch Tommy Boy early Friday morning before he decided to take a drastic action he’d forever regret?
Did he think that when he waltzed into Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, New Hampshire campaign office, pulled back the folds of his jacket to expose a package of road flares that he claimed were dynamite, and demanded to talk to Hillary—in order to ensure better insurance coverage for himself and others maligned with mental illnesses—that he would leave in the same manner of triumphant exaltation in which Tommy Callahan left Ray Zalinky’s office?
I guess, only Leland knows.
A man with a checkered past that the political press is in the process of rabidly unraveling, Eisenberg first made waves in Rochester in May, when he called an impromptu press conference in front of City Hall to protest a new policy of police placing fliers in unlocked vehicles to warn their owners of the risk of auto theft.
“This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles,” he said at the time.
According to Rochester authorities, Eisenberg had also recently been accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife, and was due to appear in court on such charges around the time he burst into Mrs. Clinton’s campaign office. Furthermore, he had also been previously arrested for criminal mischief and violating a protective order, and was reported by his ex-wife to regularly abuse drugs and alcohol. However, the most violent and salacious details of Mr. Eisenberg’s life come from the deep past.
In a lawsuit, which he filed against the Boston Archdiocese in 2002, Eisenberg claimed that he was previously the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a parish priest. According to the suit, Eisenberg was 21 at the time, and was homeless and living in abandoned cars in a junkyard, before he went to the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Westford to look for assistance. Upon his arrival, he confided to the senior priest details about “the loss of his mother and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his violent alcoholic father,” the lawsuit states.
Eisenberg was assigned a job as a painter in exchange for room and board, and alleges that while residing there one of the priests would regularly show him pornographic material and then molest him. The lawsuit goes on to state that on one occasion, the priest picked Eisenberg up at a club. On the ride home, a drunken Eisenberg passed out, and when he awakened he found himself being RAPED in the driveway of the church by the priest in question. He jumped off a bridge in an attempt to kill himself a week later.
The lawsuit names Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law—who resigned in 2002 after court documents revealed that he moved priests from parish to parish without disclosing sexual abuse allegations—as the defendant.
And if these allegations prove to be true it will be hard to not feel sympathy for Mr. Eisenberg, especially as he’s being rung up on a slew of kidnapping charges and packed away somewhere dark for the rest of his life. Of course, his actions are illegal, immoral, and downright shockingly delusional, but in the midst of the grandiose progressive agenda of egalitarian health care that Hillary and her counterparts are espousing, they better be damn sure they recognize the severe need for universal mental healthcare in this nation as well
Over 57 million Americans have been diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder, and by the time next November rolls around, you can be assured that number will jump significantly. In addition, up to 1/3 of the homeless population in this country suffers from severe mental problems such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, and at this moment at least eight of the ten transients huddled in the alley below my window are exhibiting signs of being totally nuts.
Slashing the budgets of mental health programs became hip under Ronald Reagan, and since then state and federal support for the mentally ill has grown increasingly miniscule. Shockingly, the discontinuation of government-funded treatment has yet to teach the mentally unstable to shape up.
In fact, America keeps getting crazier.
One out of seven of those reading this article have been diagnosed with a severe mental disorder, and that doesn’t even take into account the thousands of individuals who refuse to seek treatment despite the fact that they have the delusional belief that Fred Thompson would be a good President. The bottom line is that desperate people take desperate actions, and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is lucky that Friday’s incident didn’t prove to be more tragic than it was. The bottom line is that our government needs to start helping those too estranged from reality to help themselves.
As for Mr. Farley, unfortunately his cinematic immunity didn’t transfer over into real life. Insecure about his weight, and unable to find affection from the opposite sex because of it, the comedian dabbled heavily in escorts, alcohol, and hard drugs—checking in and out of rehab centers a total of 31 times. On December 18, 1997, he was found dead in his apartment at the top of the John Hancock building in Chicago. He was the victim of a massive drug overdose.
“How many ways to get what you want
I use the best
I use the rest
I use the N.M.E
I use Anarchy”
-The Sex Pistols, “Anarchy in the U.K”
Clad in a feathery tunic resembling a jail smock, Johnny Rotten joined The Sex Pistols on the stage of The Tonight Show last Tuesday and dutifully screamed his lungs out during “Anarchy in the U.K.” Afterwards, he exchanged a genial handshake with Leno, and his guest, Presidential candidate Ron Paul. The idea that Paul, who spent the early stages of the campaign fending off vehement attacks from Republicans and the conservative media for his anti-war views, has recently taken on the role of cult hero and potential spoiler is wild on its own. But, the fact that the 72-year-old physician and free-market champion ended a prime time interview by smacking palms with the self-proclaimed king of vitriol anarchy is enough to make any seasoned political junkie quiver. Ron Paul and The Sex Pistols? Why not, stranger things have happened and will, in a political primary season that becomes more bizarre by the moment.
In Tuesday’s Presidential debate at Drexel College in Philadelphia, the Democratic brethren seemed willing to try anything up to lawless anarchy in the hopes of taming the virtually unstoppable ascent of frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Who could blame them? Mrs. Clinton’s campaign appears to grow more awe-inspiring by the moment, and has shown itself to be invincible to attack. The weak spots in the Clinton armor have been clear-cut from the beginning, but how to exploit them is a mystery to the host of Presidential hopefuls trailing the former First Lady in the polls.
The ineptness has been led by Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Despite his foresight in condemning the Iraq War, his reputation as an honest and non-partisan leader, and his glorified public persona as a hip, charismatic intellectual—who purportedly spends his nights listening to Miles Davis on a scratchy record player while reading a dog-eared copy of Emerson’s “Self Reliance”—Obama has been unable to gain ground. In recent national polls, he still trails Hillary by between 25 and 30 points. Even more damning, he is losing the African-American voting block to Hillary by 10%, a demographic that is absolutely crucial to his success.
Ironically, it is his image as a reform candidate that has crippled him the most. Obama’s “Politics of Hope” have handcuffed him in his efforts to draw a real distinction between himself and Clinton. In fact, any attempt by Obama at harshly criticizing Clinton draws an immediate and predictable tongue lashing from her handlers, who love nothing more than accusing Mr. Obama of engaging in ‘attack politics.’ For this reason, Obama has been forced to resort to gently stressing his policy differences with Hillary instead of deriding her character, which is where she is the most vulnerable.
But one can only be gun-shy in politics for so long before ending up on the wrong end of the bullet, and on Tuesday it appeared that the other Democratic hopefuls had endured just about enough of Mrs. Clinton cakewalking her way towards the nomination. In addition, debate co-moderator and Meet the Press host Tim Russert was publicly known to have an unquenchable lust for tripping up the Hillary Clinton machine. In the last debate, he had viciously sandbagged her with one of the last questions of the night.
So, how can Hillary gain ground?
In 1999, when I was sixteen years old, I waited in line for forty-five minutes to see Kid Rock play at the UNO Lakefront Area in New Orleans, LA. I had been listening to his album Devil Without a Cause on a daily basis, and felt a particular attachment to the track, “Bullgod,” which was his first single to gain significant radio play. Once my friends and I finally proceeded into the arena, we took seats on the far right next to the two towering speakers. As fate had it, we plopped down adjacent to a group of raucous twenty-one-year-old girls.