It was that latter feeling that I rightfully received yesterday when I found myself reading an article by Geoff Garin decrying the Obama campaign’s “direct, personal character attacks” against a certain female Presidential hopeful. It is the Obama campaign, Garin believes, that has turned the Democratic Party into a circular firing squad. As the bottom of the article states in italics, Garin is a strategist for the Clinton campaign (more specifically, Mark Penn’s replacement), so it seems perfectly natural for him to be crying “foul!” even as the group he represents is busy devising how they can sneak a pea-shooter into a knife fight. But that’s politics, right?

Just so we’re all clear on this situation, I am in no way intending to insinuate that the Obama campaign has not, at times, sunk to the level we are so used to seeing in Presidential elections. They have, of course, tossed their share of negativity into the forum. For better or worse, I consider myself enough of a cynic to realize that regardless of the name checked on my ballot in November, I will most likely be disappointed by our future Presidential adminstration repeatedly in the coming years. Regardless, it would be nice to see the Clinton campaign move away from their attempts at playing the victim, when it could be argued that her campaign has long been more on the offense against Barack Obama than his campaign has been against her.

In the second paragraph of “Fair Is Fair”, Mr. Garin accuses Obama’s head strategist David Axelrod of “keeping with the direct, personal character attacks that the Obama campaign has leveled against Clinton from the beginning of this race…” after quoting Axelrod as saying that he did not believe Senator Clinton “would bring ‘the changes necessary’ to Washington”. To state that this is a character attack is misleading. Axelrod seems, rather, to be making an inference from a combination of facts in Hillary’s past. A look at the contributions to Clinton’s campaign shows that she has received over three times the amount of high-level ($4,600+) donations than has Barack Obama, who is the leader in smaller ($200+) donations. It is practically common sense to infer from this that a relatively large portion of Hillary’s financial base consists of those who, while quite possibly interested in having a Democrat in the White House, might not be looking to see any major shake-ups in the system that has provided so much for them. Mr. Axelrod might also be thinking of the years that Hillary spent serving Wal-Mart, which certainly does not do much to boost her claim of being a friend to those who may be interested in bargaining with their employers in some sort of collective manner. Finally, Senator Clinton has received several hundred thousand dollars more from lobbyists and political action committees than has Senator Obama. Going from these few examples, it doesn’t appear that David Axelrod was out of line in suggesting that his candidate might better represent the voice of change inside the Beltway. Of course, it seems almost absurd that an argument has even arisen over the vague idea of who is more capable of change, but Garin is incorrect in labeling David Axelrod’s opinion as an attack on Clinton’s character.

Later in the article, Garin takes offense to more remarks from the Obama camp, saying that “Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, held a conference call with reporters and called Hillary ‘one of the most secretive politicians in America today’”, which Garin acknowledges as “a striking personal charge in the era of Dick Cheney”. Shortly thereafter, Garin makes note of David Axelrod’s accusation of Hillary “having a special interest obsession”. These are strong statements from high-level people within the Obama campaign, to be sure, but Garin would find it quite difficult to counter them with numbers. According to a Los Angeles Times article about a watchdog group’s book on wasteful government spending, Senator Clinton tops the rest of Congress with “281 individual spending projects” for a cost of over $296 million. Senator Obama took second place on that list with “53 special earmarks, totaling almost $97.4 million”, but Garin’s candidate is by far the big winner. Bloomberg.com went even further, stating that “only Barack Obama has voluntarily made his earmark information publicly available”, and that “the Clinton campaign refused to respond at all to requests that she identify her earmarks”. Garin should consider that refusal at least slightly questionable, considering the amount of taxpayer money involved.

Have these accusations from the Obama campaign honestly been unwarranted? Have they been “mean-spirited” and “unfair” as Garin suggested? While there may be a bit of hyperbole involved, a quick look at Clinton’s past can only leave one answer. Sorry, Geoff, but fair is fair.

I watched Obama’s victory speech tonight in Madison where he thanked their current funny fucking governor, Jim Doyle. I think that Barack might have accidentally called him “Tim” perhaps thinking of another swing state Democratic governor and potential running mate, Tim Kaine (who is also a great friend of mine), but it was hard to tell since the names are similar.

As he was leaving the stadium to the sounds of that Signed, Sealed, Delivered song (the victory speech ending song never changes for Barack, but that’s ok with me) I reclined back with drowsy satisfaction and watched him work the rope line. But then I noticed how closely the secret service guards were pressed up around him obviously agitated at his lingering to shake hands. Fear overtook me as I became more and more convinced that soon I would see someone lunge out of the crowd and shoot him and everything on the screen would become a chaotic mess of screams and people falling. I don’t know why I got so worked up about it, but I eventually just had to turn it off. It was like playing that scary maze game if you already know what’s going to happen - just too tense (if you haven’t played the scary maze game and don’t know what happens, then please go play it! Nothing shocking or scary will happen, I promise. Then watch this video because nothing is funnier than a shocked and scared child).

Thankfully, given a lack of headlines on the subject on the news websites, it appears that he was not assassinated tonight.

At the other end, Clinton failed to congratulate Obama on his victories during her election night speech for the second time in a row. I guess she’s taking a page from Giuliani by sitting out and downplaying every contest until the next big state where she has a chance votes - Texas and Ohio are to Clinton as Florida was to Giuliani. It might work out better for her than it did for him, but it’s still risky. I’m not really sure why she’s pursuing this strategy, but a tight budget is probably the main reason. After all, she did put in a fair amount of time campaigning in Washington, Maine, and Virginia this last week, but concentrating most of her resources in the March 4th elections.

Another possibility is that she’s applying the same calculating bullshit that always hands defeat to the Democrats in the general to the primaries, if this is any indication:

“It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska,” she said, naming several of Obama’s red state wins. “But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan … And we’ve got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma.”

Now, I know that the 50-state strategy isn’t the smartest and greatest electoral strategy ever. Certainly, if it’s clear you aren’t going to win a state there’s little point in draining your resources in it. But there’s something to be said for at least attempting to make every state a competition rather than focusing on Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio while the other side starts fucking with your margins in Minnesota of all liberal holy places. And while the states Obama won that Clinton cites as being unplayable are indeed very red, her inclusion of Texas into the list of states that we need to be competitive in really diminishes her point.

If we should try to make Texas and Oklahoma real contests, then why not Alaska or North Dakota? They may not be as rich in electoral votes, but they’d be worlds cheaper to play in and no more Republican than Texas. Obviously, Clinton’s choice of mentioned states is calculated for the specific primary battles at hand, but it’s still stuck in the old fearful thinking of Democrats since the 80s. The same thinking that leads robocandidates like Kerry or Gore circa ‘00 to take conservative positions that don’t suit them in a cynical attempt to appeal to independents.

On the other side McCain had a good night. I think Huckabee really needed to pull of a surprise victory in Virginia to keep himself in it, and while he did reasonably well, he was way short. Maybe he would have done better tonight if the Washington state Republican Party hadn’t called the election prematurely for McCain on Saturday. I couldn’t agree with Huckabee more on that point - he was fucking robbed.

Our favorite huckaback claimed tonight that he was going to stay in and keep at it, but at this point he’s probably just trying to beat Mitt Romney at the delegate count just in case old man McCain kicks the bucket between now and the convention - not to appear overly fixated on the hypothetical deaths of major presidential candidates. Good luck, Mike! Someday in heaven, we will all take turns at kicking Mitt Romney’s ass at various games, sports, and competitions. It’ll be fun.

Well, your worries are over. You can stop the campaigning right now, because I, Benji Hardy, have at last stood up, gazed stoically across the political landscape, and cast my decisive hand upon the election. I have voted. And moreover, I spent not one, not two, but THREE, or around 2.75 at least, hours laconically dialing sheets of Pine Bluff phone numbers from the Obama headquarters in Little Rock, a full five or six of which actually answered their phones. I felt that it was time to make a stand; I felt that it was time for action. Action has been taken. I also grabbed an Obama bumper sticker, which is sitting on my dashboard right now because I’m still not sure if I want to put it on my car (I don’t like bumper stickers very much). But there it is, ON THE DASH, for all the world to see, provided my car is stationary and they’re looking very closely. Sorry, other candidates. The election is over. Go home to your spouses and children

It’s good to be a citizen.