Can we all take a deep breath please?

The nomination was not decided last night.

Nobody got crowned, or ordained, or even anointed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled at the turnout, I'm thrilled at the outcome, and I'm especially thrilled at the number of young people who participated...but it was one (small) state out of 50, and one that is not all that representative of the rest of the country.

The reality is, this thing isn't over yet - not by a long shot.

It might be over a month from now, after we go to the polls on Super Tuesday, when 24 states - including New York, California and Illinois - the Big Three - will hold primary elections or caucuses. But everyone who knows how this game is played knows that in politics, a month can be a reeeeaaalllly loooonnnngggg time.

(Blue states on the above map indicate Democratic-only caucuses,
Red means Republican-only state nominating conventions,
and Purple denotes states holding primary elections for both parties.)

A month provides a lot of opportunities for candidates to misspeak or slip up or be misconstrued by the cocktail-weenie wagging poison pens of the M$M - quite often intentionally (and I'm looking hard at you, Maureen "Harping Harridan" Dowd, you miserable twit. I would think that aWol would have given you a Medal of Freedom by now for taking down Al Gore for him. Proud of yourself, and your blood-stained hands, bitch? I know 3,908 families that would like to be able to put your feckless ass in the grave and have their son, daughter, husband, brother, sister or wife on this side of the sod.)

All I'm saying is your Grandma was right - you don't count your chickens before they are hatched, and don't count anyone out yet. The long knives are already unsheathed for Huckabee, and they will be for Obama, too - but those wielding them will be more subtle about it. The only safe group to single out for derisive vitriol these days are white, southern, evangelical, men who don't even have real college degrees. It helps when they don't believe in evolution. There is some mockable, derision-worthy willful-ignorance (spake the scientist).

Those going after the Huckster don't even have to pretend to be subtle. But Barack Obama is a different story, being the first black man with a real shot. What a difference a few decades makes! Fair or not, anyone attacking him outside very narrow and specific parameters will be subject to charges that their attacks are racially motivated, and the knives will turn on the wielders. We've come a long way, but we haven't come that far. An Obama presidency would get us a lot closer, but we aren't there yet.

The reality is, in a nation of 300 Million people, less than 300 thousand have weighed in, so take a deep breath, calm the hell down, and get your head back in the game.

They swung the sledge last night in Iowa with enough power to ring the bell - but it wasn't the closing bell, it was the opener.

First Friday Catblogging of 2007 (er, make that) 2008

Buddy Impeachment is still a bit miffed over that trip to the groomers and the trimming of the nails. I think that pisses him off worse than getting a bath. When he saw the camera came out, this look is about as close as I got to a good pose, and I'm still checking my shoes before I put them on for - *ahem* - surprises.


You try telling an 18-pound Siamese "no" when he gets on you and demands that you stop blogging and pet him! Charlie is not one to take "no" for an answer, anyway. (And yes, hubby's t-shirts are that oversized on me, and no, he isn't a huge fella. What I lack in volume, I more than make up for in explosive capacity.)


Charlie isn't the only one who likes the towel rack. Dreidel is very fond of it too - and if it's full of towels? No impediment to her! She just pulls enough towels off to give her clearance...


...and promptly turns her back on me, and goes to sleep. I am a dog person, for crying out loud! How the hell did I end up owned by three cats?

The Implosion of the Republican Party

Dammit, man! Can't you see that dog is hurt and can't run?

That's not why I called you all here today. I saw this on the Daily Kos this morning--it's from conservative money man Richard Viguerie:

Mike Huckabee's victory in the Iowa caucuses is bad news for the Republican Party.

"Mike Huckabee is a Christian socialist. He is a good man, but with a Big Government heart. He is the most liberal of all the Republican presidential candidates on economic issues.

"Huckabee's approach to every problem or perceived problem is to pass a law and launch another government program. If you like President George W. Bush, you'll love Mike Huckabee.

[snip]

"Now Huckabee wants to go back to a two-legged stool—social issues and defense. He would saw off the economic leg. That's a recipe for disaster for the Republican Party. Economic and traditional conservatives would stay home in droves, turning the country over to the Democrats.

Wow!

That's what they're saying about the winner of the Republican Iowa Caucus? That's what they're going to do to Huckabee? Unbelievable. "Traditional" conservatives are who, exactly? I thought they were the God squad crowd, and that crowd put Huckabee over the top last night. That crowd stood up and said no to a multi-million dollar effort by Mitt Romney--and they did so entirely because of the issue of religion. There is no other explanation for it. Romney outspent Huckabee at astronomical levels and poured his heart, his soul and his family into Iowa. And they took one look at his faith and turned the cold, cold cheek of rejection towards him. Somewhere, Jesus is weeping at the thought that his Republican brothers could have such hard hearts. Boo hoo, my friends. Boo hoo.

I am an enthusiastic Huckabee supporter. I really, really, really want him to win the Republican nomination. He is the best hope for electing a Democrat this year. In fact, Republicans will stay away in droves if he is their candidate--a redux of 1996 and the disaster that was Dole-Kemp.

Now, don't get me wrong--Vice President Chuck Norris would be a kickass improvement. Chuck would personally go to Iran and kill everyone, probably within the confines of a 1 hour show. Chuck still has some touch up work to do in the Nam, you know. Plus, no matter what anyone says, that's a beard that could be Presidential, if need be.

Did you know there are literally thousands of bad pictures of Mike Huckabee out there? I simply did not know that...

Primary Importance

This is it, Missouri. Super Tuesday is February 5. That day we join 23 other states to cast our primary ballots or attend caucuses to decide who will be the nominees for our respective parties for the presidency.

If you are not registered to vote, or you have moved since you last voted, you have until January 9th to get registered to participate in the primary. You can register to vote at your county election board headquarters, or, in Kansas City, you can register at any branch of the Kansas City Public Library. In outlying areas, you should call your county elections board, or check the Secretary of State's website for information on registering to vote.

This is the most important presidential election of our generation. The next president has a huge mess to clean up, and we must choose wisely. We start by choosing wisely in the primary.

In 2006, I remember opening up the Kansas City Star a few days before the midterm primary and seeing in the sidebar a sampling of "person on the street" interviews. When asked if they were going to vote in the primary, all but one of the people interviewed dismissed the primary as "unimportant." They were all too busy, the primaries don't matter, blah, blah, blah.

I read that, and had to be sedated.

The fact that four of five people couldn't be bothered to vote in the primary set me off. I believe saying at the time that they all needed to be "bitch-slapped" or something along those lines. It's fuzzy now, that's about the time the tranquilizer dart kicked in. My husband is a smart man - he keeps a supply on hand during election season and presidential administrations headed up by Republicans named "Bush."

Now, let me give a bit of background. I grew up in a family that preached the gospel of the electoral process, and intoned the mantra of the importance of the local election. Not very many people spent their tenth summer campaigning for Jerry Litton and Kit Bond (on alternate evenings) in 1972 - my yellow-dog Democrat Grandmother and belt-and-suspenders Republican Grandfather had a mixed marriage, and a passel of grandkids that got shipped to them them every summer, where we learned to put up hay early in the morning; and then learned the nuts and bolts of localized, retail politics in the evening.

I grew up in that politically charged environment, and it took. It took so well that I am a missionary for the cause, intent on spreading that word, until I am convinced that somebody besides me gets it!

That is why I was so ecstatic to see the turnout in Iowa on Thursday night. Maybe my Grandma's message of "Primary Importance" is catching on? I'm going to go ahead and optimistically hope so, and try to make the case that the primary is the most important election, not the least, as those misguided souls interviewed by the Star seemed to believe.

Before anyone gets to face us in the general, they have to walk neighborhoods and attend rallies and ice-cream socials and box suppers and let their potential constituents get to know them, at least those of us who live in "important" states - meaning swing states like Missouri and states that vote on or before Super Tuesday, which pretty much decides the whole shooting match, especially now that New York and California have joined the Super Tuesday festivities.

If we are lucky, something like 20 percent of registered voters will come out to vote in the primary on February 5 to select our respective parties presidential candidates.

It makes me absolutely livid when a voter dismisses the primaries as "too minor" to waste his or her precious time on.

Five will get you ten, when the general heats up, at least half of those who were "too busy" to help select their parties candidate, will complain that the General election is a regular "Sophie's Choice." Then they will proceed to whine endlessly about how much they hate being "forced to select between the lesser of two evils...just to exercise his god-damned constitutionally guaranteed right to vote!"

On many occasions, I have asked such people, ever so sweetly (this is how I reel 'em in) "who did you vote for in the primary?"

This is almost always met with a blank stare.

Followed by a tap-dance about the General election being the important one.

I disagree.

Before we decide between us, we have to decide amongst ourselves who we want to bear our standard. At it's best, at it's finest, at it's core, populist roots; this is the way politics is supposed to happen in a representative democracy.

The place to winnow out the reckless and the feckless is in the primary, not the General. And if you don't participate in the primary, I would strongly advise that you not complain about your choices come November. Not in close proximity to me, anyway.