Romney to Announce VP Pick Saturday at 9:00 AM; NBC Says it's Paul Ryan

I'm not going to hazard a guess on this because I am notoriously clueless when it comes to this particular guessing game:

Four years ago, I was participating in a live streaming panel discussion on the KDKA News website the night before John McCain announced his pick of Sarah Palin. Fortunately, I was unable to get out my comment that, "Well, we know it won't be a woman or an African American."  

Four years prior to that, I was "backstage" when John Kerry announced his VP pick. I was one of the volunteers standing by to rip open the boxes and toss out the T-shirts and rally signs emblazoned with -- unbeknownst to me at the time -- "Kerry-Edwards." I had no clue until the second Kerry said the name. (I did, however, get to shake hands with both Kerry and Edwards that same day, but at two different locations in Pittsburgh as they did not appear together in public on the day of the announcement.)

 Yep, I suck at this.

What Women Have Mouths For

The answer is blow jobs according to Rush Limbaugh.

Rush's ideal companion
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See?

If anyone's listening to KDKA right now, Kevin Miller is currently mid-rant regarding, of course, John Edwards. Of course, he's doing his best to avoid the topic of John McCain's past (and similar) infidelities.

He asked (and I am paraphrasing), "What's the difference between Edwards' story and Newt Gingrich? With John McCain? Well Newt Gingrich isn't running for anything and John McCain's affairs are well documented."

He went on to ask "what sort of man" has an affair with a woman recovering from cancer?

In discussing Edwards, he's right. What sort of man does that?

It's Miller's ease at excusing McCain's infidelities that proves my point about the hypocrisy of the guardians of "our" moral fiber when they (not incorrectly) criticize John Edwards' infidelities while curiously ignoring John McCain's.

Kevin Miller, hypocrite.

UPDATE: Here's a picture of with another pillar of conservative ethics, indicted and disgraced former member of Congress, Tom Delay:

I Guess I Gotta

From ABC News:

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he loved only his wife, Elizabeth.

"Two years ago I made a very serious mistake," Edwards said, blaming the prominence of being a vice presidential candidate. "All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want," he said.

And his statement (if you want to read it).

The child, a baby girl named Frances, was born February 27 of this year (and in the spirit of full though unecessary disclosure, my brother's birthday is February 28. He was born early in the Kennedy administration and has no connection to John Edwards, Reille Hunter or her child).

Counting the months, that means conception occurred in early June, 2007. John Edwards, by the way, was in town a month or so later. Something, out of context and coincidental, stands out in from that. In discussing poverty, Senator Edwards quoted Martin Luther King:

A time comes when silence is betrayal.

Lotsa folks feel betrayed.Johnny Mac is one:

Man, he is so toast.

A little pissed too, it seems. Later he writes:

I bought into his populist message. He seemed like the real deal to me. Again, not casting aspersions on adulterers. Some of our best presidents have been adulterers. And some of our worst, including the worst ever, apparently, have not been.

But just don't start wetting your dipstick at the beginning of the process, risking EVERYTHING (like the future of the country if we don't take the White House back).
Idiot.

Agreed. Granted he never seemed to crawl out of third place in the primaries, but imagine if he did. Imagine if Obama flared out early and the race was between Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards - and Edwards won.

All else being the same, we'd now be looking at 4 more hears of Republican misrule. 4 more years of non-existent oversight on White House illegalities, 4 more years of conservative judicial activism, 4 more years of upwardly mobile republican wealth redistribution and so on. Just because John Edwards couldn't keep it in his pants.

As McIntire said, idiot.

Via Crooks and Liars, some other reactions.Atrios:

The public: Edwards was a fucking idiot for running for president, and betrayed a lot of his supporters by doing so.

Fire Dog Lake:

But Edwards did play the family card quite heavily during his campaign, and if he'd gotten the nomination, the Democrats would be sunk right now and we'd be looking at four years of John McCain. So on that count, I'm profoundly grateful that he didn't get it. He was risking a lot for all of us by doing this stuff and running at the same time. It was incredibly stupid.

What more can you say?

Go Obama.

Earlier this evening at the dailykos, Elizabeth Edwards published a statement of her own:

Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some – most recently – caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.

John made a terrible mistake in 2006. The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well. Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private.

The pain of the long journey since 2006 was about to be renewed.

John has spoken in a long on-camera interview I hope you watch. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do, and I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame. The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue. I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.

Privacy for the Edwards family seems in order.

We'll be happy to discuss John McCain's first wife (how that marriage ended and how quickly he remarried), the (separate) illegitimate children of J.C. Watts and Dan Burton, Rush Limbaugh's multiple marriages and addictions and so on if the topic of "Democrat values" rears its ugly head any time soon.

Edwards to Endorse Obama

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor confirms that Edwards will indeed endorse Obama today.

Edwards couldn't have picked a safer time to endorse -- he did it after it became obvious that the nomination was largely a foregone conclusion. And he did it after Obama lost big in West Virginia, among just the sort of voters Edwards is supposed to have sway among.

While it's true that his endorsement could make a difference in Kentucky, the fact that he waited this long -- and did it after dropping repeated public hints that he would stay neutral -- suggests that this was less than a profile in courage on Edwards' part.

Late Update: On the other hand, if the Obama campaign held this to roll out after the West Virginia loss, which seems probable, the timing in some ways was shrewd.

Posted without comment.

Vagina-Americans have their say

So why were the polls so wrong in New Hampshire?

We heard last night that it might have been the Bradley Effect at work ("instances in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either genuinely undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots"), but if you look at the breakdown of the vote by race and gender, you see that black women broke for Hillary and white men for Barack:


Now look at the breakout purely by gender and you see that Hillary was the clear winner among females:


This is not how it went down in Iowa. While the same percentage of the voters were women in both races (57%), in Iowa, Clinton only received 30% of the women vote there ( 35% Obama, 23% Edwards). In NH it was: 47% for Clinton, 34% for Obama, 14% for Edwards.

Now add to this that 39% of Clinton's supporters made up their minds on election day:


and it sure looks like John Edwards fucked up royally when he responded to Hillary's barely welling up for a second by playing the "Women are too emotional to be Commander in Chief card" or as Nation columnist Katha Pollitt put it:

John Edwards just lost my vote. How dare he take cheap shots at Hillary Clinton for letting her eyes mist over (not "crying" as was widely reported) at a meeting with voters in Portsmouth NH earlier today? This is a man who has used his most private tragedies--his wife's cancer, his son's fatal accident -- in his campaign in a way that had a woman done the same she would surely be accused of "oprahfying' the lofty realm of politics. This is also the man who promoted himself early on as the real women's candidate, and who has repeatedly used his likeable wife to humanize his rather slick and one-dimensional persona. Today he deployed against Hillary the oldest, dumbest canard about women: they're too emotional to hold power.

Let's go now to one of the best blog takes on last night. It's from Jeff Fecke (a man!) over at Shakesville:

And that’s why she won tonight; because women recognized that, at least for tonight, their future was inextricably bound up with Hillary’s, and that, at least for tonight, they needed to send a clear message that misogyny and sexism just won’t work anymore. Clinton may yet lose — there are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose her. But if she loses, it won’t be because she was too emotional, or because she reminds someone of their ex-wife. It will be because she loses on her merits as a candidate. That’s as it should be, and it’s why our country should be grateful to the angry women who rallied to her, angry women who were angry for a righteous reason, angry women who accomplished something grand. [Emphasis Added]

In closing: a little story.

A few years back I worked for what was at the time the Hispanic shop of a top ad agency. I was basically doing three jobs at once: Corporate Communications Director, Co-director of PR and I also wrote all the correspondence for the CEO (who was not a native English speaker). I put in 70 to 100 hours a week.

While I shared a title with my co-director of PR that was really only on paper as he was not allowed to speak to clients without my being present. At some point, I discovered that my male coworker was making ten grand more than I was. I took it up with the CEO and got a raise and the difference in the last year's salary in the form of two bonuses (one paid immediately and one to be paid a couple of months later).

However, before the second bonus was due, I was sitting in a meeting with the CEO, A VP and another department director (all males). We were all gathered at the end of a conference table. The CEO started in on a sneeze. He looked around as to where to direct it. He looked at each of us. The MFer didn't go for the handkerchief in his bespoke suit pocket. No, he finally turned back towards me and let out the sneeze. None of it really hit me, but I went back to my office after the meeting, called one of the partners in a company that I had worked at before and secured a job there. I then gave the CEO my two weeks notice.

In the interest of full disclosure: I just gave the Hillary Clinton campaign a whopping 10 bucks. It was for the sneeze more than the $10,000. (I still don't consider myself a Hillary -- or anybody else -- supporter.)


(Voter breakdown charts courtesy of Rimjob's diary at Daily Kos.)
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Damn, Girl! You pulled it off!

Hillary gets happy.
So I'm walking in my door tonight and the TV's on and I hear cheering on it and I fully expect to see Barack Obama giving a victory speech, but instead I see Hillary Clinton and I think, well, maybe she came in second, but no, the text on the screen is proclaiming her the winner of the New Hampshire primary and for someone who isn't a big Hillary fan, I am a somewhat surprised at my happiness.

I have written numerous Hillary posts in my head, but I haven't managed to get one down on "paper." It's the result of the huge ambivalence I feel over a Hillary candidacy. On the one hand, she's way too DLC for my tastes and there's her Iraq vote. But, on the other hand, call me a sexist* (I know you will) but I got a real thrill in the early debates when she dominated and bested a stage full of men.

I was ready to write an entirely different post tonight. One on the overt sexism Hillary Clinton has faced in the last day or so. I was going to point you all to Melissa McEwan's post at Shakesville on how Obama and Edwards should have reacted to the unrelenting reports of "Hillary's emotional moment":

"The sexism being wielded against Clinton is despicable, and it needs to stop. I want to beat Clinton on the issues, not because I benefited from the favor of bigotry."

That wasn't so hard, now, was it?

I was also going to quote Gloria Steinem in today's New York Times about gender and race in this election re Hillary and Obama:

What worries me is that she is accused of "playing the gender card" when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

Steinem goes on to plead that this should not, however, be a contest for who has it worse running for president -- a black man or a woman. As she put it:

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.

Can we all** agree that it's pretty damn wonderful that, finally, after 200+ years the first two winners in the Democratic presidential primary process are an African American and a female? And, that there's a damn good chance that one of them will actually end up as President?

* Though, I've never had the chance to vote for a female president . . . or governor, or senator, or US rep., or mayor (wasn't in Pgh for Sophie), or city council person, etc.

** And, by "all" I am of course excluding our Rethuglican trolls. Oh yeah, I'm guessing that the Edwards supporters ain't exactly happy either tonight and I'm saying that they should also be less than happy with his response to Hillary's "moment."
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John & Elizabeth Edwards in Pittsburgh on Labor Day

WHAT: A Labor Day rally with John and Elizabeth Edwards
WHEN: Monday, September 3 (Labor Day) at 9:00 AM
WHERE: Mario Lemieux Place -- Mellon Arena between Centre Ave. and Bedford Ave.

"John and Elizabeth Edwards are going to be in Pittsburgh on Labor Day — Monday, September 3 — for a rally with local supporters.

This campaign is about building one America and ending a system that is rigged against hardworking families. John is running for president to restore the promise of America—and to truly change things for all of us.

So please, come join John and Elizabeth on Labor Day to celebrate with all of us as we stand-up for hardworking families."

REMINDER: The Young Dems could use your help registering voters that day. Sign up here.

Senator Edwards, This Evening

Former Senator and current Presidential candidate John Edwards was in Pittsburgh this evening. He was giving a speech at The Hill House as part of his Road to One America Tour making its way across the country.

When I arrived a little after 5, there were a few people there, more than a smattering but less than a crowd. By the time Edwards began to speak about an hour later, the place was sweaty full. The early reporting from the AP says 250 people were there.

Initially they shuttled us "press" people ("Are you with the press?" they asked. "Yes, I'm a blogger." I answered.) to a room in the next building over. On the way I saw the politically ever-present Jon Delano. I guess he was there to cover the evenings event's too.

We were moved en masse into the next building, to a daycare room. The tables unbelievably tiny and the bathroom had instructions posted on the wall (One said "Remove Pants" - remember, we're talking real little kids here). Fuzzy children's art was hung from the ceiling and the alphabet was on full display on the far wall. The press area was roped off.

Then the kids arrived. At least two dozen and none could've been more than 4 or 5 years old. The room filled quickly - filled with the bustle of children and the rustle of the quickly sweating camera crews. Fox News was there, as was Reuters. The locals (TAE, KQV, P-G and so on) were all represented. C-Span was even there. We heard the Senator was finishing an interview for Hardball in the next room.

In short order, the kids were read a story ("If You Give a Pig a Pancake") and then another ("Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs"). Songs about little teapots short and stout were sung. Songs about little stars twinkling above in the sky so high and the itsy-bitsy spider crawling up the water spout. Cute doesn't begin to describe it all.

O'Toole of the P-G asked about the room. He was told that the room was for the 2 yr olds. But the kids in the room at that point were any where between toddlers and 5 yrs old. On a regular day, most of the kids would've been home by that time of day.

Then The Senator arrived. He was greeted by the children singing a rousing rendition of "You're a Grand Old Flag" (please no Ann Coulter jokes - there's little kids in the room.).

There were handshakes all around, he spoke to some of the mothers present and got a "Get Well" card for his wife, Elizabeth. Cameras whirring incessantly, capturing every nanosecond.

And then the photo op was over.

The Main Event

As quickly as everything was set up, it was broken down and we were on our way to the main hall at Hill House. For the press, it was up in the balcony. Bram was there, as was Mark Rauterkus. After some introductory speeches by three people enormously helped by the programs at The Hill House, Edwards came to the podium. He began by saying he'd been on that stage before, at this Wake-up Walmart tour. The OPJ blogged on that evening, here.

Senator Edwards spoke very eloquently about poverty, the damage that it does and some steps to eradicate it. Such an important issue facing society, he called it the "great moral cause of our time."

He began by mentioning the other cities he's visited on the tour, beginning with New Orleans. In one of the few times the speech got obviously political, he called the national response to what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina a "national disgrace" and a "complete failure of presidential leadership."

He mentioned this speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, where the Rev, though speaking about the war in Vietnam said:

A time comes when silence is betrayal.

For Edwards, the idea applies just as well to povery. It's wrong, he said, in a nation as wealthy as ours to have 15 million people living in deep intractable poverty. Where people can be working full time and still live in poverty.

In Cleveland, he said, he came across a middle class neighborhood being sucked dry by predatory lenders. In a one block radius, there were 38 homes in foreclosure. Lost to predatory lending practices.

The racial and economic segregation in the society are not good for our democracy, he said. In the nation's schools, there are two systems; one for the wealthy and the other for everyone else. As a solution, he's proposing a few ideas; bonuses to wealthier schools who take in poorer students, the establishment of magnet schools in the inner cities, "2nd chance High Schools for people who dropped out of High School, raising teacher salary and bonuses for teachers who opt to work in poorer neighborhoods.

He began to wrap things up with a few tough rhetorical questions about what we really believe as a society. Do we really believe in equality? In opportunity? That all children deserve the same chance? The answers should all be yes. Then he turned to the crowd:

The power is with you.

The Civil Rights Movement didn't start in the Oval Office, he said. It started in places like The Hill House. Same thing with the protests against the war in Vietnam. It was a movement.

And now we need, he said, a movement to end poverty.

The After Speech Press

After the speech, Senator Edwards took a few questions from some local reporters (Delano went first - OF COURSE). He answered questions that fleshed out some of the details of his speech (refunding the currently defunded programs for mental health care and so on).

There was a mini-interview with C-Span, ranging from Edwards third place in the current polls to Ann Coulter. Of Coulter, Edwards said, there's nothing wrong with disagreement, but hate mongering should not be included in the national discussion. It's demeaning to the process.

I gotta admit, I was impressed. The cynic in me, however, pointed out to the rest of me that although very little of the evening's words were political in nature (there was no "Edwards for President" material to be found anywhere, for instance. No banners, no buttons, nothing.), it still felt like a political speech, but with all the obvious political stuff carefully and surgically removed - a parallel speech of sorts with all the rhetorical arrows that would have pointed to "Vote for Me" remaining in the quiver.

Not that it wasn't important for The Senator to say what he said, but he is running for President. And perhaps this was a smart way to do it in the short run, campaigning without any messy polticial cliches attached.

See John Edwards in Pittsburgh on Tuesday

From the John Edwards Campaign:

On Tuesday, July 17th, you can help make history. John Edwards is traveling to 11 cities and towns in 3 days to shine a light on the continuing injustice of poverty in America. And on Tuesday evening, the Road to One America Tour is coming to Pittsburgh.

You're invited to join John Edwards at this historic event. To learn more and RSVP click here: http://johnedwards.com/r/22510/848331/

Here are the details: What: John Edwards discusses his plan to end poverty in America When: Tuesday, July 17th, 5:45 PM Where: The Hill House, 1835 Centre Ave., Pgh, PA 15219 RSVP: Here

This is not about politics. This is about taking a stand -- about saying that 37 million Americans living in poverty is a national disgrace, and it is time we do something about it.

By joining John in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, we can show the nation that we care, and that we have the will to end poverty in America.

We hope to see you on Tuesday evening:
http://johnedwards.com/r/22514/848331/

This event is free and open to the public.

This will not be Edwards' first visit to The Hill House. You can click here to see 2pj's coverage of Edwards visit back in August of '06 at the Pittsburgh stop on the Wakeup Wal-Mart Tour.

Personally, I really wish some of the other Democratic candidates would start having some free and public events here in the Burgh.

Post-Veto - What Now?

Over at TPMCafe, Greg Sargent has a posting looking at the plans the Democrats have post-veto. He points out that the Democrats are looking at two different plans:

(1) Sending Bush a short-term funding bill and forcing him to keep asking for more war funding -- the option favored by John Murtha.

(2) Sending him a full funding bill without withdrawal timetables but with benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet and with troop readiness standards. This is the option that Dem leadership aides are reportedly beginning to coalesce around, though one Hill staffer I spoke with said he wasn't sure that there was much momentum behind it just yet.

Each has pros and cons. For instance Sargent has a Democratic aid saying of the first option:

"The pros are that you keep your Democratic caucus more or less where it is. In essence, you're saying, `Fine, you're getting your money, but you're on a short leash.' You're not getting a blank check. You're forcing GOP members to go on record funding the war. You're forcing the GOP members to stand with the President."

"One of the cons is that some of the people who will also be taking heat for the vote would be moderate Blue Dog Dems, who would vote for it. Also, it would be pretty close to a `clean' bill. It certainly wouldn't have any sort of timeline or limitations on the President."

And on the second option:

"The pros are that you avoid being perceived as withholding money from the troops. So you deprive the President of that platform to stand on. Because GOP members are now making noise about supporting this benchmarks approach, you'd have the first kind of wedge between the White House and Congressional Republicans."

"The cons are that you're gonna alienate liberal members and the antiwar Democratic base. Democratic leaders would also be undermining their own language about giving the President a blank check. And potentially, you'd be giving a fig leaf to vulnerable Republicans who otherwise would be vulnerable in the Fall elections by allowing them to say that they're doing something to hold the administration and the Iraqi government accountable."

Here's Senator Feingold on what to do post-Veto:

The next step to ending the war isn't to give in, but to step up the pressure on the President. I'm pleased to be working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a bill to end our open-ended military commitment in Iraq. Now that the President has rejected the will of the American people with this veto, our bill, or some other proposal to end funding for a failed policy, should be the next step to end the war.

We are in the middle of a real test for the new Democratic Congress. No matter what Washington insiders say about cutting a deal or scoring political points, we need to hang tough to get our troops out of Iraq. The President has refused to budge on his Iraq policy from the beginning -- he has repeatedly gotten his way, and our country has paid a terrible price for that. Today, 150,000 U.S. troops are in the middle of a civil war that is straining our military, and hurting our ability to go after al Qaeda worldwide. Too much is at stake for us to back down -- the new Congress has got to stand firm. It's a time to listen to the American people and finally start to bring our troops out of Iraq. Their lives and our national security depend on it.

And this from Presidential Candidate John Edwards:

Somehow the message needs to register across the smoggy consciousness of our obstinate Commander Guy that he's not the King, he's only the President. The Founding Fathers planned out a government of checks and balances and by design the Congress is a check on the President's power. They gave the power of the purse strings to Congress for precisely this situation - to stop a stubborn President from sending troops into a war that the People don't want.

He's got to learn that that since he's no longer dealing with a rubber stamp Republican legislature that put party above country and let him have whatever he wanted, he's just going to have to start dealing with a Congress that was elected, in no small part, to end his bloody war. It's what the people want.

I'm all for anything that teaches dubya that lesson. Put him on a tight leash, send him the same budget over and over again, whatever. Just keep up the pressure - and for God's sakes don't back down.

Dubya's approval ratings are in the toilet, why treat him as if he has any political capital left? He's a failure, his administration is a failure, and the Republicans who still cling to him, hoping his long-gone coat-tails will somehow return are doing so at their own electoral peril (remember Rick Santorum?).