There has been constant coverage of a few Clinton supporters who are upset that she lost – thats understandable – but if you listen to the news you get the impression that these people are eager to go out and support John McCain. McCain’s platform is so far from what Clinton stood for in the primary season that you have to question what these few, but vocal, Clinton supporters wanted out of this election.

Were they voting for an X chromosome instead of the political positions held by Clinton? I really don’t want to think that is the case, but it may well be true for a small group of people. I was keeping count on the NPR coverage that I was able to listen to during my commute and the number of women that were interviewed on this issue outnumbered the men by at least ten to one. And even then, the overwhelming of these Hillary button wearign delegates said that when push comes to shove in November, they will be supporting Obama over McCain.

Eric Alterman wrote a nice column in The Nation that really sums up the problems with the media coverage of this overblown idea of a split within the Democratic Party. He exposes the echo-chamber effect driving this phenomenon as journalists use each other as ‘sources’.

The following is a small except of Media Gone Mad. It’s worth reading the entire article if you have time.

…

The dead horse of supposed dead-end Hillary supporters is flogged into a pulp by the authors. They begin on a note that had me hopeful: “Neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has any possible sane, rational reason for wanting tensions to continue.”

How true–but then the authors take a 180-degree turn toward insanity. Take a look at whom they cite when it comes to evidence of this supposed disunity: other journalists. There’s John F. Harris of The Politico, the AP’s Scott Lindlaw, Susan Page of USA Today, Patrick Healy of the New York Times, Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post, Geoff Earle and Maggie Haberman of the New York Post. Each offers evidence that is either purely editorial and unsourced, or sourced anonymously. For example, Harris: “For the next two days, a convention that belongs to Obama will be dominated by the same two people who dominated the Democratic Party for the last generation and who have come to Denver in much different roles than they wanted”; Page: “Clinton-watching has become the mesmerizing sideshow of the Democratic National Convention that will nominate Barack Obama”; Kornblut: “Obama’s decision to pass her over [for Vice President] remains central to the ongoing story of their strained relationship. It has also contributed to what associates say has been a difficult emotional period for the former first lady in the two months since ending her bid.”

It’s all “associates say,” or “some Clinton delegates,” or “an official familiar with conversations,” or “one adviser.” Can we actually get some names and positions, so that we can judge the (dubious) veracity of a Clinton-Obama war? Mostly, all we have are the mealy-mouthed assertions from other journalists–”Clinton, if sour, is pouting passively,” write Earle and Haberman. That means, Hillary is acting normal, but we’re pretending that maybe she’s mad on the inside.

The only non-journalist voices expressing anything close to a sense of disunity belong to Mary Boergers, a Maryland delegate who wants to cast a vote for Clinton; L. Douglas Wilder, the mayor of Richmond, Virginia (“The question is, are the Clintons ready?”), and Leon Panetta (“Sometimes dealing with the Clintons is like dealing with Brett Favre”). Wilder and Panetta’s comments are somewhat obtuse, and then there’s one delegate. This is what The Note describes as “the rivalry for the ages”?

…

Read the rest at Media Gone Mad

Thats no surprise that he is surprised. He is so entrenched in a party that would do ANYTHING to keep the presidency even if it was a bad idea in the long term the way an Obama/Clinton ticket would be.

Having watched the Republican primary debates, I know that Romney, McCain, and Guilliani would all do anything and say anything that they believe would help them win in November. The idea that a politician like Obama would not take the easy path and pick a running mate just because her selection would placate a block of voters is simply foreign to them.

This whole thing – well known Republicans camping out in Denver at the DNC to grab media attention – seems really creepy to me.  I knew it was coming.  The PR Newswire for Journalists releases over the last week or two have included many press releases about RNC events in Denver and press events revolving around Republican celebrities.

I’ve been watching closely, and I haven’t seen a similar barrage of press releases from Democratic groups that plan to make appearances in Minneapolis at the Republican National Convention.

Romney exploits Democratic tensions

By Andrew Ward in Denver
Published: August 26 2008 23:14 | Last updated: August 26 2008 23:14

Mitt Romney on Tuesday sought to exploit lingering tensions between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as he entered enemy territory to launch a fierce attack on the Democrats.

The former Massachusetts governor, who is among the favourites for the Republican vice-presidential nomination, said he was surprised Mr Obama had not picked Mrs Clinton as running mate.

Speaking to reporters on the fringe of the Democratic convention in Denver, Mr Romney said an Obama-Clinton ticket would have posed the biggest threat to the Republicans and predicted her absence would alienate Clinton supporters.

Recent polls have shown up to 30 per cent of Clinton supporters plan to vote for John McCain, the Republican candidate, or stay at home.

Mr Romney said Mr Obama’s attempt to add foreign policy heft by picking Joe Biden as running mate would backfire when voters learned more about the Delaware senator’s views.

“His record of being wrong on foreign policy is as long as his number of years in foreign policy,” he said, citing Mr Biden’s opposition to the cold war arms build-up against the Soviet Union, the first Gulf war and the surge strategy in Iraq.

Mr Romney said the presence of two senators on the Democratic ticket undermined Mr Obama’s promise to change Washington, drawing a contrast with Mr McCain’s years of military service before entering politics.

He declined to comment on his own vice-presidential prospects but highlighted his experience outside Washington both as governor and in business.

He said Mr Obama miscalculated last week by attacking Mr McCain for owning several homes and dismissed suggestions that the issue could hurt his own vice-presidential chances.

Mr Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive, said he owned three homes – “one less than John Kerry” – but predicted voters would reject Democratic efforts to stoke the “politics of envy”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

By the way, ObamaForMcCain.com is also registered but it was done via a Domain Proxy service so the actual owners are hidden.  Since there is just a GoDaddy.com placeholder page there now it may have just been a whim purchase for someone.

But after RezkoJudgement.com and MeetBarackObama.com and DemocratsvsObama.com – all RNC owned sites – this new domain is just par for the course.

When exactly did it become a acceptable for a national party to ignore issues and focus instead on the kind of work normally left to special interest groups like 2004′s Swiftboat Veterans for Truth?

Well, maybe the Republican poorer half’s opposition to outsourcing jobs has really hit home.

People have often wondered where the idea that the Democrat party is somehow damaged and divided after a long primary season where more people were engaged and more people paid attention to election issues than any other time in my voting life. The idea that more people paying attention to the issues at stake in this election is only bad for one party. The Republicans cannot truly fight Obama on the issues. He is painted as a liberal by the right wing pundits but only with superficial strokes of the brush.

You can see that both the RNC and conservative commentators stick to a few simplistic ideas like the idiotic one that Obama will sit down with terrorists without ‘preconditions’. This is a vague enough thing that it allows people who are frightened to fill in all kinds of horrible ideas about what would happen at those talks. If they get into the details of exactly what Obama has in mind, when hes been given the opportunity to speak and write about his foreign policy ideas in depth, this issue disappears along with most others.

When a man’s choice of church and the business practices of one campaign donor was really a reasonable basis on which to select a person to hold the most powerful elected position in the USA are totally lost and may as well just pack it all in now.

The fact is, Democratic party voters and activists are more engaged and more excited about November 4th than was the case in 2004 – and this scares the hell out of the RNC. Can anyone else remember a time when two candidates ran neck and neck through the entire primary season? Usually the candidate has the nomination well wrapped up soon after Super Tuesday. This year primary voters were a part of the process right through the very end.

The RNC spin machine wants to take all that energy that voters displayed in the primaries and corrupt it for their own benefit. This is why they spend so much effort talking about Obama and Clinton and so little talking about McCain. They will do anything they can to drain that energy away and make people honestly believe that the majority of Clinton supporters would consider McCain a decent choice in the light of Clinton’s loss.

The sad thing is that the Senator Clinton, and her campaign, have made things easy on the Republicans. In this digital age they have access to all kinds of material to work with to use Clinton as a foil to fence against Obama. Clinton is a far better speaker than is John McCain so it only makes sense that would use her words to debate Obama instead of their own candidates.

When you don’t care about context, thats an easy scheme to implement. This RNC press release came across my desk today and I wanted to share it.

I did a full capture so you can see the whole thing. In this one they reach way way back to a Clinton appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club” in late February at the peak of the primary season when both candidates were scrambling for delegates.

Tom Shales, in the Washington Post, gives a thorough and fair critique of what ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos did wrong. Ignoring the aspects that were outside the moderator’s control such as timing and number of commercial breaks, there was still a lot to complain about.

One of Shale’s primary complaints – one in which I am whole hearted agreement – was the waste of almost an hour of the two hour debate rehashing the “controversies” that have already been beaten to death in the news media. Asking Senator Obama to once again address the “bitter” comment and his former pastor’s statements from the pulpit was a complete waste of the candidates time as well as the time devoted to the debate on the part of watchers who really want to hear from the candidates.

That hour was well summed up by Shale:

“It’s not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won’t be the last,” said Obama, with refreshing candor. But candor is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks’ trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on “the issues.”

Over at Gather.com, Samuel Gerace Sr. had more to say about the media after the debate than about the candidates.

The “debate” last night was very revealing, no not about the position of the candidates on the real issues which challenge the country today after the disastrous but the trustworthiness of the media’s objectives in the moderating the questions put to the candidates. Charlie and George were a veritable disgrace to the intelligence of any person wishing to see the candidate’s positions on a number of subjects which are hobbling our democracy. (emphasis added) For example a few of those fundamental issues are: ethics in the executive and legislative branches of government, a detailed plan to yes, regulate Wall Street’s insatiable hunger for greed and profit, changing the budgetary allocations so that education, health and economic needs are properly addressed, and finally a balanced budget amendment to collar deficit spending and mortgaging the future of the country to China, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

I know the debates are not drawing American Idol size viewing audiences, but to me that seems to indicate tha tthe networks handling the debates should focus more on the issues and less on the normal media circus surrounding the campaigns. We can get that everyday.

At least John McCain is burying his own campaign in appalling statements like the one he made recently when he essentially stated that he would, as president, hand over his Commander In Chief powers to Gen. Petraeus.

When asked whether he would divert U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to quash the resurgent Taliban and capture Osama Bin Laden he responded with “I would not do that unless Gen. Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that.”

There are several things both wrong and a bit insane about that answer, not the least of which is that Gen. Petraeus himself has begged off making that kind of call in Senate hearings that McCain himself attended earlier this month recognizing that such decisions MUST come from higher up the chain of command.

Slate.com’s Fred Kaplan has a nice analysis of this foreign policy preview from Senator McCain in an article titled I Don’t Know. Go Ask Petraeus. McCain’s appalling answer to a question about national-security policy.