The Los Angeles Times has a story about Philadelphia politics, the traditions of machine politics, and the clash between that and the "New Politics."

Here is the link:  http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la- na-streetmoney11apr11,0,6553901.story

The basics, and I have first hand experience with this from working campaigns in Philadelphia, are simple. The campaign puts out massive money for Election Day (a State House candidate who wants the support of committee people, ward leaders, and election day workers can put out 17,000 or more JUST ON ELECTION DAY... and this is not including any staff they may have,) that money gets spread out by Ward Leaders, and Committee People who spread it around to guarantee that voters get pushed your way on Election Day. Now, the article says this is all completely legal, and on the surface it is; but make no mistakes this is only a couple steps from the direct buying of votes.

we would be in good shape and we would be a much more unified group here. I took a look at the recommended list this morning and saw three diaries, three(!!!), attacking Obama for the same exact thing. Ignoring, for a moment, the relevance of these attacks, don't worry I will get to that in a moment, why in the world do we need three diaries that say the same thing on the recommended list? I get it. Obama is bad. He is the worst. You'd rather have four more years of Bush. Thats fine, I get it. Did we need it three times? And three times yesterday? And four times the day before?

(I would normally take a moment here to bitch about the one diary attacking Clinton on the recommended list...but there is only one and while I don't particularly care for the tone of it it isn't filled with have as much bile as most of the anti-Obama diaries here. That being said. It sure would be nice if we could cut the crap, advocate for our chosen candidate and maybe look for a Republican to hit if we need to hit something that badly.)

Now, as to the relevance of what these diaries are saying. It goes to his statements regarding people in small town Pennsylvania being bitter and holding tight to their guns, religion, and distrust of those who are different. Guess what, I don't know how many of the diarists who are discussing this comment have been to small town PA but it might surprise them to hear that it is all true. And the people who live there know it is true. In fact, they will tell you themselves that it is true.

Now, maybe some of them are going to be insulted by it being pointed out by a Harvard Educated Black Man, but many of them are also just going to be thankful that someone is noticing and willing to talk about it. They will even be more thankful that someone might try and do something about it. Because after eight years of Clinton and seven years of Bush their situation has not gotten better. It has gotten a lot worse.

Many Clinton supporters here at MYDD, and elsewhere, have parroted two talking points that Clinton loves using against Obama.

1.) He is all rhetoric and no policy
2.) He lacks the experience necessary to lead

Read this speech, delivered today, regarding our policies and the War in Iraq.

http://thepage.time.com/full-text-of-oba mas-iraq-speech/

If, after reading this speech you can honestly say that you still buy the anti-Obama talking points than good for you. I would venture to say that anyone who can say that either hasn't read it or doesn't really care though. And that just isn't intellectually honest.

There has been a lot of talk here on MYDD about a media bias towards Obama. In light of the recent events and coming events I think it is time to put that theory to rest. Hillary appeared on SNL last night and the Daily Show will have her on Monday night.

The timing of both of these appearances (and the Tina Fey commentary last week,) are all clearly designed to help Clinton turn things around ahead of Tuesday's Primaries in Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Now, this is great strategy from Clinton's campaign (which is a bit surprising since they have appeared, on occasion, completely tone death.) If Clinton eventually wins the nomination I would say that it will be in spite of her high level advisors rather than because of them.

So, the Bush Tax Rebate is going to happen. It will be another failure in a history of failures for the biggest failure who has ever failed. My question is this: What should we, as Democrats, do with this money?

My suggestion is this. If you can, in anyway, afford to donate this money to a progressive Democratic candidate I would urge you to do so. If you can't, than I hope you will use it to pay down debt or do something otherwise useful with it. But if this is money that you and your family can spare it would be a wonderful move to donate it to the progressive candidate of your choice. It would also be wonderful if one of Bush's failed policy maneuvers helped to fund Democratic success stories all over the country.

CNN has the news that Ralph Nader, AKA The Original Giant Ego, AKA GWB's best friend, AKA a raving idiot has formed an exploratory committee to, once again, screw the Democrats. In his interview he stated that Senator's Clinton and Obama are unacceptable candidates for the Presidency and that they are "both enthralled to corporate powers."

He also sited not only the fact that Edwards has dropped out of the race but that  Kucinich has also dropped out of the race as motivations for his decision to "get serious." His intentions are that if he can raise $10 million dollars and recruit enough lawyers to insure ballot access that he will run for the Presidency.

So now with the looming possibility of a Bloomberg run, a Ron Paul run, and now another Nader run, I have to ask this; how much danger are we in of once again losing the Presidency to an idiot with a giant ego? I have respect for all three of these men (no wait, two of these men,) for certain reasons but I would never want any of them to run and I can't imagine why, at a time of such great need, any of them would seriously consider it. The only possible reason is ego- and the Greeks taught us how well hubris works out in the end.

Today on CNN.com there is an article about a Canadian training manual for Canadian Diplomats which lists the United States, along with countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, Iran, and Syria as places where inmates could face torture. The manual specifically mentions the Guantanamo Detention Center, where a Canadian citizen who fought with the Taliban has been held since he was 15 years old.

Here is the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/0 1/18/canada.torture.list.ap/index.html

I know that we are all caught up with the horse race right now,and with defending our chosen candidate (and often leveling vicious attacks at others, as well as their supporters,) but I think that it might be relevant that we remind ourselves what is really at stake here. The United States has lost much of its standing in the world as a result of its behavior over the last 7 years and it will be up to our next President to set the tone that turns that around.

I am not writing this diary in advocacy for anyone candidate. Rather I found a piece of news that I thought was both depressing and an important reminder of what we, as Democrats, are fighting for.  

I know it isn't too serious, but I thought some of you might be amused by this quiz to find out which candidate you line up with most closely. It is a bit simplistic, but still fun and amusing...
For my part, I am sad to report that I apparently line up most closely with Mike Gravel. shudders

http://www.gotoquiz.com/candidates/2008- quiz.html