February 24: VwV was launched in February of 2008 and one of our first posts was titled, “After Fidel, Cuban bloggers discuss US candidates.” The post compiled Cuban bloggers thoughts on what the new U.S. president would do with the new leader of Cuba and so Obama’s infamous “without pre-conditions” line began, which haunted him throughout the campaign.

March 21: After videos of Obama’s reverend were brought to the public, the now President-elect delivered, arguably, one of the most memorable speeches in history on racism. VwV’s post, “World moved by Obama’s speech on race,” highlights what bloggers throughout the world had to say after hearing Obama’s thoughts on race.

April 17: As the first African-American president of the U.S., it was crucial for VwV to get the thoughts of African bloggers on Obama. In the post titled, “A letter from Africa,” bloggers throughout the large continent shared their opinions on the then, Democratic contender for nomination.

June 9: As America’s summer heated up, so did the presidential campaign but throughout the world. In the post, “Global: The world has a say!” VwV’s editor compiled a list of Web sites that allowed non-Americans to vote who they think is best for the states.

June 19: The rapid growth of technology played a major role in the 21st century presidential campaign. In the post, “Global: I’m voting Republican” covers what world bloggers thought about a controversial film by Charlie Steak.

August 29: This was the day the world was introduced to Sarah Palin – the governor of the U.S. state closest to Russia and John McCain’s Republican running mate. Without much information about the Republican VP pick, bloggers simply commented about McCain’s pick being a woman as compiled in the post, “The world reacts to Sarah Palin’s VP nomination.”

October 10: Race was not only prevalent on the Democratic campaign trail but also on the Republican, as rallies became heated. The post, “Racism on the Republican Trail?” includes just a few of the comments that were fluttering through the blogosphere about remarks made during Republican rallies.

October 24: The rise of technology returns with the post, “Dear American Voter: an international persepective.” The post covers Link TV’s project that allowed non-Americans to send letters to American voters via videos. The post includes just some of the prevalent thoughts of the voices without votes.

November 4: Mainstream media outlets weren't the only ones covering “breaking news.” As soon as word got out that Dixville, New Hampshire, was the first county to close their polls and count their votes, the blogosphere was on it. This post, “Dixville notch makes global blogosphere history” quotes the excitement of some bloggers and skepticism of others.

November 9: And, after it was all said and done…bloggers began to look back and analyze how Obama ran a successful campaign. In the post, “Social media and the making of the president,” analyses were offered by bloggers in three different countries of how social media played such a major factor in the campaign.

On the lighter side of the campaign, our silliest moments include: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin; Sarah Palin’s conversation with “Sarkozy;” And, Joe the unlicensed plumber.

You know, little things like that.

Bob Cesca spells out what’s going on here - contrasting Obama’s clean record with Bush’s.

And Keith Olbermann and Richard Wolffe discussed (the latter rather disingenuously) the Obama camp’s response to the story last night:

See, Sarah Palin: this is ‘gotcha’ media.

The Senate alone — to say nothing of the House — is literally filled with people whose fathers or other close relatives previously held their seat or similar high office (those links identify at least 15 current U.S. Senators — 15 — with immediate family members who previously occupied high elected office).  And, of course, the current President on his way out was the son of a former President and grandson of a former U.S. Senator.

I think Greenwald brings up a good point, and he’s not the only one.

Greenwald points out other recent examples:

In Illinois, a leading contender to replace Barack Obama in the Senate is Jesse Jackson’s son (Jesse, Jr.).  In Delaware, it was widely speculated that Joe Biden would be replaced by his son, Beau, and after Beau took his name out of the running because he’s now serving in Iraq, the naming of the actual replacement — lone-time (Joe) Biden aide Ted Kaufmann — “upset local Democrats who believe the move was a ham-handed attempt to engineer the election of Biden’s son, Beau, to the Senate in 2010.”

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed by her father to take his seat in the U.S. Senate when he became Governor, yesterday warned Sarah Palin not to challenge her in a 2010 primary, a by-product of tension between those two as a result of Palin’s defeat of Lisa’s dad for Governor.  In Florida, Mel Martinez’s announcement that he won’t seek re-election in 2010 immediately led to reports that the current President’s brother, Jeb, might run for that seat.  And all of that’s just from the last couple of weeks.

Like I said, it’s not just Greenwald seeing the problem.  Andrew Sullivan:

From a distance, it’s more obviously corrupt than up close. I mean: what are the odds that of all the people who could edit Commentary, the son of the former editor ends up in charge? It’s not entirely a function of the right, of course. The Kennedys were as bad.

Jane Hamsher @ FireDogLake:

She’s proven she can kill an unflattering story and pull strings to get Rupert Murdoch’s kid into private kindergarten, so she’s no stranger to exercising power.  But I’ll feel a bit better about the idea of another Senator Kennedy when she hits the road in upstate New York, presses the flesh with voters, listens to their concerns, answers their questions and proves she can stand up to the rigors of the campaign trail.

The problem is not so much the children of former politicians following in their parents/uncles/aunts/significant other’s/grandparents (because eventually they’d have to run on their own merits), but getting into a position just because they’re the son/niece/nephew/grandchild/significant other of a former Senator/Representative/Governor.  Which is what would happen if Caroline Kennedy would be appointed to the Senate.  Or if Beau Biden took his father’s seat.  Or if Jesse Jackson, Jr. took Obama’s seat.

There’s of course an argument that being a relation of a former politican makes it easier to get into office due to name recognition.  There is some merit to that point.  It was one that’s been leveled against Clinton at times over the past eight years.  After all, if her husband hadn’t been president, could she have gotten into office so quickly?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

The idea of another Clinton presidency eight years after the last was one of my arguments against her winning the primary.  If it were the case that she’d have won, I’d rather have seen McCain as president, bringing in a fresh face to the office, rather than a potential 28 years of a Bush-Clinton duopoly.  Not the only reason, of course, but it was quite a weighty one for me.

The idea of so many political dynasties being established (apart from the ones already in existance) may underline a problem in American politics.  We may not have a nobility in this country.  No House of Lords here.  But the idea that someone could get into office at least partially based on name recognition is a problem.  The fact we keep seeing many of the same names in politics is another, though it’s the weaker issue of the two.

If they can in on their own merits, then fine.  That is, after all, the American dream.  Working your way up to success.  But if someone is trying to use the position their relative had in order to attain power of their own, do they have any place ascending to an elected position?

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Following in the foot-in-mouth-steps of Sarah Palin, Virginian GOP chairman Jeff Frederick is saying he shouldn’t have been reported in any way when he said something very stupid and very, very wrong about Barack Obama. That’s right: it’s our fault for reporting it, not his fault for saying it.

Via The Jed Report:

‘Virginia’s Republican chairman said Tuesday that his remark tying Democrat Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden during the presidential campaign was stupid, but he refused to apologize…

…Frederick was asked about the remark Tuesday during a discussion of the 2008 Virginia presidential campaign with a group of newspaper editors. Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia in 44 years.

“It was a stupid joke I gave to somebody in a small crowd of people and that’s what happens,” Frederick said. “But you know, it’s really unfortunate. We live in a ‘gotcha’ society.”

Frederick said he got hate mail, angry phone calls and vicious e-mails for weeks.

Even so, he stood by the comment Tuesday, defending it as true and saying he was taking cues from Republican John McCain’s campaign after running mate Sarah Palin said Obama had been “palling around with terrorists.”‘

Oh, and as Jed Lewison points out, Frederick’s original remarks weren’t a joke. Just as the “lame jokes” Sarah Palin referred to in her debate with Joe Biden weren’t jokes, either. Perhaps saying it was a joke is the new ‘blaming the gotcha media’?

There are of course those who would like to see Christian voters marginalized as a voting force. 

Democrats like the idea because it helps them win elections.  Fiscally conservative Republicans wish the religious right didn’t have so much say in the Republican party.  And many liberals reject Christianity and resent its influence in the country. 

That’s a lot of opposition.  The marginalizing of Christian voters may happen in the course of time if the decades-old trend of it’s-all-about-me social philosophy continues to erode traditional national beliefs away.  Dreher says that doesn’t have to be so:

Today, the greatest threats to conservative interests come not from the Soviet Union or high taxes, but from too much individual freedom. Look around you: Americans have been poor stewards of our economic liberty, owing to cultural values that celebrate unfettered materialism. Our families and communities have fragmented, in part because we have embraced an ethic of extreme individualism. Climate change and a peak in oil production threaten our future because we have been irresponsible caretakers of the natural world and its resources. At best, the religious right stood ineffectively against these trends. At worst, we preached them, mistaking consumerism for conservatism.

All political problems, traditional conservatism teaches, are ultimately religious problems because they result from disordered souls. In the era now dawning, Americans will learn again to live within limits — and together. Religious conservatives are philosophically positioned to lead the way, but we can’t do it by pouring new wine into old skins.

It’s worth noting that the extreme individualism that Dreher decries is the problem not because of the fact of individual freedom itself but rather because of the choices that individuals make with that freedom.  This contrary to the view of many religious fundamentalists of the Islamic and Christian faiths.

We have the God-given right to make our own decisions, in life and in the voting booth.  On this point, Dreher notes a truth that many conservative candidates don’t always consider when banking on Christians’ votes:

…we mustn’t err as our elders did, assuming that the culture will improve if we elect more Republicans.

Americans of all political and religious backgrounds have been ill-served by the current batch of Republicans, something social conservatives should bear in mind when choosing the next Republican party lineup. 

Like it or not, Christian voters will have a loud voice in the Republican coalition for years to come and deservedly so.  Both the origins of the United States and current demographics indicate that their views deserve to be be heavily represented in our republican government.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

For instance, 24.4% Republican voters want Governor Sarah Palin to be the Republican candidate for president in 2012. Only 13.4% of all voters agree. 

At the same time, Governor Mitt Romney ranks second among all voters, six points behind Palin, but leads among all voters (be it barely).

Among conservatives, both represent an entirely different faction: Palin is the Christian conservative while Romney is the darling of (elite and well educated) fiscal conservatives. These two battled it out earlier this year with fiscal conservatives favoring Romney, Christian conservatives supporting Governor Mike Huckabee, and the party ending up with Senator John McCain as the compromise candidate.

A compromise figure not able to make life truly difficult for now president-elect Barack Obama.

Most remarkable about the figures, however, is that there is a third candidate who does relatively better (meaning: smaller gap) among all voters than among Republicans: Governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal has quite a low profile nationally, yet he already ranks third in both categories. When all voters are included, the gap between him and Romney is only 1.2%, which is remarkable. 

Huckabee fares less well; he is fourth with only 9.7% among Republicans and 8.0% among all voters.

This while Huckabee was the favorite of the Christian conservative base.

So what happened to Huckabee? Palin. Although Huckabee could count on the support of Christian conservatives during the primaries, they all flocked to Palin during the general election campaign. Palin became their candidate, their darling even. The defeat made her more not less popular among this group of conservative voters for they consider her a martyr. 

The above means that the Republican Party could very well nominate a person who is deemed anti-intellectual, simple, naive and overly socially conservative in 2012 or that the war between the fiscal conservative and social conservative base will continue with at least one side staying home on election day, thereby ensuring Obama a second term.

That is, unless Palin can improve her image, studies hard and convince libertarian and fiscal conservatives that she is more than just a socon (unlikely). Or if Romney will succeed in courting Evangelicals and convincing them that either his Mormon faith should not be a problem to them (unlikely) or that his faith and their faith teach the same basic principles and values (less unlikely, but not altogether likely). 

Of course there is a third option, an option I consider most likely and, especially, most in the interest of the Republican Party: that conservative voters will agree on a compromise candidate who endorses conservative views in most ways. In other words, a person who is a convinced social conservative (yet not overly so, for it would make it easy to destroy a candidate who is as socially conservative and as vocal about it as Palin and Huckabee are), who also has a track record of fiscal conservatism and who sympathizes with many libertarian policies. 

At this moment, it seems to me that neither Huckabee nor Palin nor Romney fit the bill (although Romney would certainly be a better choice than the other two). Jindal, however, does.

For Jindal, 2008 and especially 2009 offer a tremendous opportunity to raise his profile nationally, to court conservatives of all stripes and to implement policies rooted in conservatism. He will have to use his time in Louisiana in order to show voters that conservative policies work and improve their daily lives. He he has already done so to a tremendous degree, but the most difficult times are ahead of him. The recession is likely to worsen in the coming months with Americans in all states suffering financially. Jindal will have to control the damage and improve his state at the same time. 

If he does, and if he reaches out to conservative aaries in 2012. ctivists, think tankers, academics and journalists, he could very well be the Republican to beat in late 2011, early 2012.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

So who do right of center voters want to have in the 2012 race?  Read on to find out…

Per Gallup, the three leading Republican candidates are Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee, all of whom openly confess having strong religious faith.  In fact, so strong is the preference for socially conservative candidates that no other candidate was desired by more than 50% of those polled.

Sounds like Ms. Parker is the one out of step with real Republican voters, not the social conservatives she mocks for their age, traditions, and Christian faith.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Blithering idiot Sarah Palin pardons turkey and then gives an interview while turkeys are being slaughtered right behind her.

Viewer discretion advised.

One of the things the Democratic party keeps telling us is that it champions good education.  Harvard certainly is a good education, but it is not where most of us go.  Palin’s experience is one that many of the under 40 age group can relate to.  And, while it was under reported, it is worth noting that she participated in school sports and maintained a good GPA.  Then there was the question of the Chicago schools.  No one seems to have asked William Ayers any pointed questions about educational policy.  But one more set of questions might be worth examining, if there ar actually nay investigative journalists left.  Have any in the media heard of Marva Collins?

Marva Collins began making a name for her self in the 1970s.  She found the Chicago public schools to be failed institutions, which were not educating black and poor children, and claimed that they were not educable.  Miss Collins started inner city schooling that provided a good solid education based on classics and excellence.  The pupils in her classes excelled, often reading well above grade level.  Her classes stressed standard English, math, logic, literature - a good solid curriculum.

A question for the so-called journalists - Why is it that academics in Chicago are seeking out an educational failure like William Ayers, instead of an educational success like Marva Collins?  Another question:  Is is true that Miss Collins was able to get good results at a cost per pupil of approximately half the per pupil cost of the failing Chicago public schools?  Why?  Why is no one interested?  Do you suppose the underlying lack of interest has something to do with the fact that both Marva Collins and Sarah Palin placed performance ahead of everything else in their educations?

Something to ponder.  Yes, Harvard is good.  But it isn’t the only way to get a good education.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a pillar of the U.S. Senate and Alaska icon who apparently couldn’t survive his conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats closer to a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

I am sure this news does not make Sarah Palin too happy. She will now have to stay in Alaska until 2012 or the Rapture - whichever comes first.