A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

According to MSNBC, Hillary Clinton “won” Nevada. But, it looks like she “won” the Nevada primary in about the same way that Al Gore “won” the U.S. election in 2000 (momentarily putting aside the “unpleasantness” in Florida.) According to MSNBC’s election data (at least as I’m viewing it at (9:10 EST on 1/19/08), Clinton won the popular vote for the state, but under the rules for selecting delegates, Obama won 13 delegates while Clinton won 12.

I suppose you have to be clear on the object of the exercise to know who won or lost. (And, for what it’s worthy, the candidate I favor — John Edwards — clearly lost, with 4% of the vote (the caucus system makes it look worse than it actually was, though it wasn’t good by any measure) and 0 delegates.)

Daily Kos references a question posed to Hillary Clinton with respect to which Presidential portraits you’d hang up in your office if you were President. So, basically, which Presidents do you find the most inspiring.

An easy starter – Lincoln. I had a buddy in college who said that, if he was lost in a literature class, his fall back was to say that one of the characters represented the Christ figure. In American politics, Lincoln truly is the Christ figure. There is a real sense that he died for our sins and saved the Union. And, let’s face it, he put the boot to the treasonous Confederates, about whom I obviously still have a bug up my ass.

Also, I’d put Teddy Roosevelt up there. Oh, sure, he was an imperialist and a pretentious moralizer, but his energy was boundless and his love for this country undeniable. And, he did some trust busting and loved the West.

Beyond that, it’s a little up in the air. I’d give serious consideration to James Madison, less for his Presidency and more for his role as the architect of our Constitution. James K. Polk, because, even though he was an imperialist and a slaver, he mostly kept his campaign promises and he acquired some really cool territory for the United States. Perhaps Dwight Eisenhower, because he’s a very distant relative.

Looking back at my list, I guess limited government and respect for civil rights don’t make for very memorable Presidencies. All of the above (except for maybe Madison) tended toward the authoritarian or expansionist. Oh well. They make for good reading.

South Carolina: First in Treason, First in political smear campaigns. South Carolina, the state that first committed treason against the United States to defend the sacred right of some of its citizens to own other people, is also developing quite a reputation for smear politics. The Evansville Courier Press manages to comment on several smear campaigns conducted by Bush supporters without ever mentioning the name “Bush.”

In 2000, South Carolina is where Bush effectively put an end to John “Weathervane” McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. Among the highlights of that primary contest – false push polls alleging that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock — the speck of fact to which this apparently alludes was the adoption by McCain and his wife of a Bangladeshi child. Another charming “fact” used to attack the McCain campaign were allegations of drug use by his ex-wife. This year, a group of veterans opposed to McCain is apparently pushing the idea that McCain sold out his fellow soldiers when he was a POW in Viet Nam. I have lost quite a bit of respect for McCain between 2000 when I first became aware of him and today. His flip-flopping on the role of religious demagogues in his party and the wisdom of the Bush tax cuts as well as his refusal to do anything about Bush and Rumsfeld’s mishandling of Iraq have seriously diminished McCain in my eyes. Be that as it may, he deserves a lot better than he’s been getting in the cesspool of South Carolinian politics. During this campaign season, we are treated to the factoid that, since 1980, the Republican winner of South Carolina’s primary has gone on to get the GOP nomination. That explains quite a bit, I suppose.

As for the Evansville Courier Press, they manage to bring up the Swiftboat lies against John Kerry on behalf of Bush without mentioning Bush. They never mention Bush when discussing the attacks against McCain in 2000. And when they discuss Lee Atwater, they don’t mention his most infamous campaign — the Willie Horton attack of Dukakis on behalf of Bush the Elder. No one party or political dynasty has a lock on political dirty tricks, but the Bush clan has been effectively using smear politics for a long time now; and their minions — notably Atwater and Rove — have perfected the dark art.