The distortion must stop

[ProSense]

So Al, You Gonna Run?

Snip...

If he doesn’t have the stomach for it, well then, it was a nice speech, glad he made it, but I’m sorry he doesn’t really care enough to make a difference. But frankly, I hope he does care enough. We don’t need fence straddlers, we don’t need a Democan or Republicrat, we don’t need a more sensible Bush and a Cheney with compassion. Which is to say, we don’t need Hillary Clinton or John Kerry. We need a person of clear conviction. Who has reasons to run, besides, “I wanna be president.” Al Gore has just established himself as that man.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/so-al-you-gonna-run_b_14371.html

WTF, lumping Kerry in with Clinton? And get the Effing facts straight:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=102&session=1&vote=00002

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=64180&mesg_id=64180


And he's bashing Gore at the same time, no less.

[jenndar]

1. *headdesk headdesk headdesk*

What needs to stop is the constant speculation over 2008. This guy is not contributing anything to the universe by delivering a bunch of backhanded compliments to Al Gore.

[jillan]

2. Well WHO exaclty does he want to see run in '08?

The three top dems are not good enough, then who?

And I agree, enough about 2008 already. Let's get thru this year in one piece.
ALOT is going to happen this year. Next January the political pic for dems could look
a whole lot different. and I bet, our favorite Senator is going to be looking more
attractive than ever.

[ProSense]

5. You get the feeling

these people just hate Democrats.

[whometense]

3. Who is Larry Beinhart?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bio.php?nick=larry-beinhart&name=Larry%20Beinhart

Larry Beinhart is the author of Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. Robert McChesney called it the book on the subject "against which all others will be measured."

His novels include Wag the Dog, on which the film was based, and The Librarian which Rolling Stone described as "John Grisham meets Jon Stewart."

He was a Fulbright Fellow, he's won an Edgar, been nominated for two more, a Gold Dagger, an Emmy. He's been a political consultant, made commercials, lectured at Oxford and he's a part time ski instructor. His email is [e-mail]

Whoa! - He wrote Wag the Dog? He must be an expert on politics. Or at least Arianna would appear to think so.

This is why I no longer read HuffPo - it puts a big, loud megaphone in the hands of self-important, know-nothing, demi-celebs, who spout off as if their demi-celebrity gave them any cred whatsoever. Sometimes I really hate that website-when it demonstrates the absolute worst of Hollywood egotism.

[whometense]

4. But then again,

:blush: sometimes she does get it right...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-chinks-in-the-hillar_b_14330.html

The Chinks in the 'Hillary's an '08 Lock' CW Armor

You hear it again and again around the Beltway. Hillary sitting atop the Democratic ticket in '08 is all but a done deal. She's got too much name recognition, too much money, too much star power to be denied. In short, the Washington Conventional Wisdom is that Hillary is unbeatable for the nomination because she is unbeatable for the nomination.
QED.

But how reliable is this piece of DC CW? According to a quick survey of the facts on the ground: not very...

[TayTay]

7. That's true and good food for thought.

Remember, Kerry increased the Deomcratic vote in '04 by about 6 million. (And then there is the issue of election fraud which may have influenced the outcome by inflating the Repub vote.) It is difficult to see a figure as divisive as Hillary Clinton winning over the 'red states' that Kerry lost. (Hey, even Ohio.) Truth to tell, I see her as just as divisive a figure as Teddy Kennedy. (Except Teddy would never endorse that Flag-burning Amendment. He has more integrity than that.)

She doesn't do anything for me in terms of a Presidential run. I don't see her as a President. She lacks whatever that quality is that allows you to see someone in the Oval Office. It's very interesting to see her upstate numbers and to see that Kerry beat her here (from her 2000 race, which had a very weak opponent. Guiliani had to bow out due to his cancer and her ultimate Repub opponent was low on cash, name recognition and a good campaign staff. And still, it was fairly close, especially in Upstate.) Funny, contrary to what CW thinks, Kerry has won his MA races in the working-class cities and towns of Mass. (He is a popular guy with the traditional Dem base here.)

The pattern in the past is that some early candidate in DemWorld emerges in the first couple of years of the Pres cycle and looks unbeatable. (Hey, it was Gore last time, until he took himself out in Dec of '02.) I have a feeling this is the same thing. (Well, except for the money.)

[karynnj]

8. The upstate numbers are extremely interesting

especially as at least 100 articles have stated as truth that she is unusually popular for a Democrat upstate and that meant as the red states "got to know her"????, they would vote for her.

I think one surprise may be that Kerry will do surprisingly well when they test various Democrats vs various Republicans in just the swing states. He did very well overall in that set of states - which coincidentaly are the ones we need to win to win.

[blm]

6. Email Beinhart and tell him to do some research - he sounds like he never

did his homework on Kerry and what he has done ON HIS OWN in the Senate despite heavy obstacles and opposition from entire DC powerstructure.

Does he even KNOW that Kerry alone uncovered both IranContra and BCCI? Or CIA drugrunning?

He sure doesn't write like he knows much about Kerry other than what the media has gleaned from 30 yrs of planted opposition stories.