(For Now) Cynthia McKinney (G) For President, And For My Next Trick, I'll Need A Volunteer...

...but I'll have plenty.

[nb: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST, BUT PLEASE STAY WITH IT IF YOU CAN. I PUT SOME EFFORT INTO IT. ]

I'm just guessing here but I imagine that a guy's going to write in calling me crazy or claiming I'm joking about this because McKinney's an "anti-Semite."

Well, first of all that would be incorrect. Second of all, Cynthia McKinney has the same view of US Middle-East policy that the center of the Israeli Labour Party does. Third of all, to be "anti-Semitic" one must HATE Arabs and Jews. If there's one thing in American politics I do know, it's how the gears grind and mesh in Atlanta and there's no way in the world she holds that House seat that long without significant Jewish and Muslim support. Oh, but those are "self-hating Jews," you see. Yeah, right. I got your "self-hating Jew" right here (grabs crotch). So, "self-hating" as to live in Buckhead or even on West Cross Paces Ferry whatever street. Guy like that really, really HATES himself!

What happened was an intra-Jewish fight between those Jewish Democrats who liked her and wanted influence on one side and AIPAC on the other who didn't like her views on Bush. She lost round one to Majette, the pure-AIPAC candidate. Won round two. Lost round three to Hank Johnson, a Bush-impeachment advocate, in a normal bare-knuckles political fight.

That's the magic trick part of the post. Now, the point of it. I have my ideological and practical reasons for preferring her to the rest. There are also Game Theoretical reasons why in certain circumstances, if one is disappointed with C, Mc and O, McKinney is the best choice even though you know that she doesn't not have a ghost of a whisper of a false rumor of a chance of winning the presidency.

Simply put, on matters of importance to me, not necessarily to you or you or you or you, McKinney's voting record in the House has been excellent. The practical Kelso appreciated how she opposed every House companion measure to the Kyl anti-gambling stuff. The libertarian in me appreciates her record on privacy. Overall, she was a Democrat. Not a DLC Democrat or a New Democrat. Just a Democrat. The normal kind of Democrat whose views were common in the party I joined at 18.

It's not the same party. I know that. There are the remnants of the old party to be found in the Deans and in the CPC and CBC. There's the DLC, which Clinton is running away from but is still velcro-ed to. There's this "kinder, gentler" DLC Obama is putting together. There's moveon.org which is trying to strike a balance between Dean and Obama. And there are "Blue Dogs" who are noses to be counted in the caucus but are reliable Republican votes on all matters, not just those concerning the Middle-East. It's a coalition and a fractious one.

These have been a terrible, terrible last 10 days for both Clinton and Obama. Clinton has made an absolute ass of herself, not in pledging to continue to Denver. It would be silly for her not to because she can't ipso facto lose before at least one ballot is taken in Denver. OK, she get drunk and plow into a school-bus, I suppose. No, Clinton has made an ass out of herself by doing this insane "Commander-In-Chief" number to the point that she was willing to pretend she was in a fire-fight in Bosnia! As Fredrick Schwartz over at Hell sez "to tell a fish story, you have to at least go fishing."

Obama. Oh, man what a tits-up this has been. I really feel bad for the guy. In a way.

Up until Cllinton won Ohio easily and the primary portion of Texas, Obama had run an excellent campaign under the conditions that prevailed. He had been able to run to Clinton's right and left at the same time, sell some themes that were thin gruel indeed, and managed to get extremely lucky in the run-up to South Carolina. For some bizarre reason, Clinton never made an issue of the Reverend Donny McClurkin which left the Obama campaign poised to make ANY word out of ANYBODY into a "racist" statement. To that point, Clinton had a substantial lead with African-American voters, with Edwards running second. The selling of the "Clinton-racist" theme cost Edwards his shot and put Clinton where she is now, slightly behind. It did make her campaigning job easier, however, as she had a narrow coalition to herd.

I congratulate the Obama campaign for cleverness here. Once she signalled that Obama wasn't going to have to deal with McClurkin as a distraction, he was freed to make his move. He did and it worked a charm. This is how well it worked. For the first time in his big-league political career, Bill Clinton's approval ratings went deeply below 50%. Bill Clinton. Not Hillary. Bill.

Now, why do I feel sorry for Obama? Because Obama's campaign was always half about being a Christian. There was the mega-Church tour with Rick Warren and some "less-enlightened" Fundmenatalists. There was McClurkin. There was the whole "Jesus" bit at the tail end of the South Carolina debate. And how does anyone imagine Obama won Wyoming and Idaho? By accident? Clinton was not going to make the McClurkin mistake twice. Or, perhaps, she didn't consider it a mistake because she always felt Wright was the better card to play and maybe she didn't want to play both so as to see anti-clerical. Whatever.

Personally, I think she would have gotten more value out of making McClurkin the issue from a Machiavellian standpoint. McClurkin is a homosexual who is a rabid homophobe. Clinton makes him the issue, she'll get every White male voter, half the Black male voters and every liberal. Wright is much more of a mixed bag. He's used outrageous language at times but a lot of what he's damned for made sense to me and he's obviously a bright guy and compelling speaker. McClurkin couldn't figure out a ballpoint pen. Whatever.

She made Wright an issue and Obama buckled. At first. Obama came out initially with some cock-and-bull story about "not having been in church" when Wright said this that or the other. Too weak a response, too late a response, too incredible a response. This is trouble for him.

So, Obama waits two days and throws the miracle touchdown pass. The best political speech I've ever heard in the moment. The most sophisticated. The most elegant. The most inclusive. The most progressive. A speech showing the greatest mastery of history and sociology I'd ever heard. A+ doesn't do it justice. For a week, I thought maybe Obama is all-that and kasha knish. I called my father that night, a man who is quite possibly the most left-wing anti-clerical person I know. And is no Obama fan at all. I asked him his opinion of the speech. He said "Great speech but it was too intellectual and went over everyone's head." Well, I thought, if the Old Man liked the speech and he is very hard to please, this truly was the moment Obama stepped forward and took command. Here's the sad part. The speech for most Americans was a brick. The Old Man was right. Even Obama's most ardent African-American supporters on TV didn't get the true brilliance of it, how it showed that the guy really is what he says he is. Hearing the speech, I thought with a little bit of focus on the details, Obama could blow McCain away and be a great president.

Obama should have taken a leaf out of McCain's book and stayed steadfast and strong. As the problems mounted and the endless Wright tape-loop superceded the speech, he should have shown the same tenacity that McCain showed vis-a-vis the war: "I don't care what you think; this is what I think." Instead, he buckled again. Another cock-and-bull story about his having told Wright that either Wright quit the church or he would. Manure. Wright was a close friend and a great help to Obama in a lot of ways poltically. So, the apex of Obama's candidacy got sandwiched between two arrant lies. And a betrayal. Watch how this campaign is panicking. It's all about how she has to get out of the race now or destroy the party.

That is not the sound of confidence. That's a man hearing Clinton, McCain and Gore's footsteps.

And all the rivalries are showing. Leahy knows he's been a weak leader and no matter what happens, Dean is gone as head of DNC and wants to be Junior U.S. Senator from Vermont and if he can't be, he can cause Leahy a world of hurt. Casey, Jr., endorses Obama. Big, big gamble by Obama. He's got to take enough Catholics away from Clinton to offset the liberals, progressives and young women he loses. And make no mistake about it, Ed Rendell is the power in PA, not Casey. If it works, Obama's a genius. If it fails, he's an idiot. Neither is the case. It's a high volatility move in state he's losing badly.

And quite apart from Clinton's GI Jane routine, she's got some goof-ball religious problems of her own. See DistributorCapNY's post on this one at Jonestown http://fairlane.wordpress.com/
"The Fellowship Of The Ring". I can't quite do it justice, but add these tidbits to GI Jane and you've got quite something there in a panicky Clinton campaign. Read D-CAPny's stuff and you'll see how it's all of a piece with her: the Iraq vote, the Iran vote, the "if-but-maybe" position on choice. I don't think she's a religious freak. Nor do I think Obama is. They are both too smart for that. But in America a big-league politician MUST have freaky Fundamentalist ties. Just like in Panama nobody wins any elections campaigning against boxing! It sucks, but it's smart politics. McCain's got them with caviar on top. The worst of the worst: Hagee and Parsley.

At least, I hope neither Clinton nor Obama are religious freaks. McCain? What difference does it make?

Yes, McCain. Old and insane. Not quite right in the brain. Gets off on giving pain. The thought President McCain makes me want some white, clean works and a fresh vein!

The press adores him but was complicit in buring Max Cleland's career. Go figga.

Quite a trio for President Of The United States: Mr Gutless, Ms Stubbornness and Herr Heartless.

Perhaps, some kind of deal like Gore gets drafted, runs with Obama and Clinton gets to cherry-pick whatever goodies are left could work. Other than that the drafting of Al Gore, who 7 years ago cast off the DLC racist crap he carried his whole career, could start a worse racial balkanization than anything the "old" Gore might have liked!

This brings us full-circle to Cynthia McKinney, Green Party nominee for President. Though I am disenfranchised as a foreign resident alien, I support her because of her ideas and personality, because unlike Cobb, she fits well into a Green Party in it's larger international understanding, and because a strategic vote for McKinney does a voter a lot of good for himself or herself even if one is a Democrat.

Make no mistake about this. I hope the Democrat beats McCain. But the electoral college so horribly favors Republicans and the realities of the electoral map give swing state votes so much more power than votes in Red or Blue States, that a vote for a legitmate Green like McKinney gives a big state Democrat the kind of power that a Red State voter or Swing State voter has, because she's not in this to win. She's in this to build a Green Party and merely needs to hit certain vote thresholds. She doesn't need 80,000,000 votes. She barely needs 1,000,000.

So, if you're a Democrat (or a Republican) who thinks a live Green Party is a good idea and has some respect for McKinney, get together with some friends and agree that a couple of you will vote for her.

Those of you who vote for McKinney will have given your vote way more oomph than your vote for Obama (or Clinton) or even McCain would have had.

The math behind all this vote value stuff is by Lloyd Shapley and goes back to 1953, actually. He's worth googling. Here are some links. The math is a pain but the ideas are worth understanding.

http://rufasto.tripod.com/a01shapley.html

http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/POWER/wtvoting.htm

http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2336586

Here's the wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index

Kelso's Nuts love you