For all of the "things would have been perfect with Gore" people responding to news of Ralph Nader's announcement, I would like to remind them that the VP candidate was Joe Lieberman. I might have voted for Gore, but there was NO WAY I could have voted for him once Lieberman became the VP candidate. That man is a wacko war-monger, and he serves as the head of John McCain's state campaign in Connecticut.

Here is a nice item from Think Progress:

On the 2/12 edition of Bill Bennett’s radio show, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) explained that he was supporting Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for president because he believes that withdrawal from Iraq would “abandon” the country “to the killers” and “empower them to come after us again.” “McCain will never let that happen,” claimed Lieberman.

“The guy has been almost always right on the big issues of foreign policy over the last twenty years,” said Lieberman. “That’s why I want him to be my president,” he added.

Also, read this post by Howie Klein on Huffington Post on Lieberman's homophobia, reporting that he "sided with Jesse Helms on removing federal money from public schools that counsel suicidal homosexual teens that it's OK (or 'an acceptable lifestyle,' in Lieberman's and Helms' disapproving parlance) to be gay."

Letting the Democratic Party know that they have your vote, no matter what kind of candidate they choose for us, is stupid.

The Democratic Party's nominating convention in Denver could get interesting.

From the Boston Globe:

Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.

The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.

But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.

"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.

Here is a nice quote from McCain in 1998 (via Attytood):

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.

-- Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

I fail to understand why some people think he is a "straight shooter" or someone more reasonable than the other crazy GOPers.

This is one reason why I'm not worrying too much about policy papers at this point:

But most of the issues that matter to me are either mainstream Democratic issues that all serious candidates for the Democratic nomination know to support or they are so out of the mainstream that all serious candidates know better than to publicly embrace. For example, I want single payer health coverage for every American. I have no ideological interest in the health care plans being put forward by Edwards, Clinton, or Obama, and I could give two shits about the minor distinctions between them. When I see someone like Paul Krugman get all worked up about mandates to make every American purchase health insurance from a giant health insurance corporation, I think Paul Krugman is a complete pinhead asshole. The idea that someone would throw a temper tantrum over someone's campaign proposal for a shitty (and bound to be profoundly unpopular) boon to the insurance corporations...a policy masquerading as progressive policy...is enough for me to put a fist through a Princeton professor's office wall. But I recognize that if you have dedicated the last decade of your life, under Republican congressional rule, desperately trying to cobble together a lukewarm pro-corporate health care plan that might pass through Tom DeLay's House, you might just get upset if people don't leap for joy at your plan to force every American, no matter how poor, to become a customer of some giant HMO provider.

Visit the Booman Tribune's post to read more on judging candidates by their "crowd."

This Tuesday when I vote in the Democratic primary, I'll be voting for Barack Obama since my only choice is either Hillary Clinton or him. I would have voted for Dennis Kucinich if he were still in the race. I will admit that I have some concerns about Obama's tendency to consort with anti-gay bigots.

My main reasons for voting against Hillary Clinton:

• She voted for the Iraq War. I think she did it cynically. If she could be fooled by the Bush administration's "intelligence" she is too stupid to be President, but I think she was actually just doing it because she thought it was somehow good politics. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of her constituents (including a million plus demonstrators in the streets of NYC) thought she should vote no.
• She voted for the PATRIOT Act.
• She supports the Defense of Marriage Act, again cynically arguing that it was good politics to ward off a constitutional amendment. Really?! Bring it on. I would like to have seen the anti-gay right try to get that passed in 3/4 of the states in this country. I would welcome that discussion of whether this is really what the USA wants for its constitution.
• She says that gay marriages / civil unions should be left to the states. Given that federal law covers Social Security, inheritance, and taxes, that is a deeply flawed position. I have not seen her argue that other anti-discrimination laws, or abortion rights, should be decided at state level. Did you know that covering your married spouse's health insurance through your employer is not taxable, but that it counts as income if it's via a domestic partnership? Tell that to your states' rights friends.