Congratulations to Kevin Harvick for winning the Daytona 500! Harvick got a bump from Matt Kenseth to shoot past race leader Mark Martin on the final lap. Harvick also won the first Busch race of the season at Daytona, marking his first plate victories of his career. Harvick is also a winner of the Brickyard 400, and currently leads the Cup series points standings. It's sad to see Martin miss the win, but you only get what you can take in rcaing. Good luck next year.
Otherwise I'll open this with a brief sighting of John Edwards in an Iowa restaurant yesterday.
I waited on Senator John Edwards last night. He was in town (Davenport, IA) along with Senator Mcain for some sort of convention. I work at an upscale Italian restaurant in the downtown area. He was very nice and polite, even when dealing with a nearly constant stream of admirers interrupting his dinner and asking for autographs and swooning. also, he wore these trendy black framed glasses I've never seen him wear before. Funny because I was wearing almost the same glasses last night.
See the thing I like about this is that people standing in front of a microphone or a TV camera is going to act on their best behavior to give people a good impression of who they are and what they're about. Everyone running for office looks nice, but that doesn't mean they actually are. I know celebrities have to put up with a rude public all the time when they go out to eat and some handle it better than others. If a constant stream of people bugged me while I was trying to eat, I'd be pretty pissed. I mean was the general public raised in a barn or something?
Anyway, it looks like Edwards kept his cool even with people rudely interrupting his dinner, so good for him.
There's a story that ran in the Boston Globe yesterday that is rehashing the same tired accusations from the 2004 campaign that John Edwards refused to engage the Swift Boaters in partisan mud slinging, and that Edwards is apparently lying when he says he actually wanted to take the gloves off and go after them, but was held back to Kerry's retarded staffers.
The only person who knows which of these two accounts is true is Edwards himself, but one big point that needs to be made here is that there is a difference between aggressively defending the campaign, and turning into a garbage trawling dog only interested in hate and negativity, e.g. the Swift Boaters. See here's the thing, the SB's only attacked and disparaged people, they never contributed anything positive to the elections at all. People like that are of absolutely no value in life, and Edwards I think was smart enough to know that.
"Edwards refused to play the traditional role of a running mate -- being the person whose delivering the negative message on the opponents," said one former senior campaign official who was involved in the discussions between the Kerry and Edwards staffs. The official no longer works for Kerry and is not affiliated with any of the 2008 presidential candidates.
"He just wouldn't do it," the campaign official said of Edwards. "He wouldn't do it on Swift Boats, and he wouldn't do it on any other issue."
Perhaps the real problem here isn't that Edwards wasn't willing to engage their attackers, but that he wasn't interested in playing a tradtional role at all. I mean is this anonymous coward really complaining that Edwards refused to be Kerry's pit bull in a fight that already had far too many to begin with? Does this person see actual value in having someone who responds to mud slinging with more mud?
Look, if there is one thing that President Bush has ever been right about, it's that there is value in standing up and fighting for what you believe in, but that isn't a free pass to start hitting below the belt, lying, and cheating your way to a win. The axiom of winning at all costs is precisely how people end up shooting themselves in the foot and always ends up winning nothing at all.
"I wanted to fight back the day it started," Edwards said. "The decision was made not to do it, and I did not agree with that decision." In a new book, "What a Party!", Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee chairman, said Edwards made a similar statement to him. "Terry, they wouldn't let me" attack Bush, McAuliffe quotes Edwards as saying in December 2004. "I wanted to go after the Swift Boat guys. I wanted to go after Bush. They wouldn't let me."
So I really don't see a point in hashing this out right now. Kerry isn't running and if John Edwards can't respond to the coming diarrhea storm the conservative attack dogs are surely to spew at him, then he's done no matter what happened in 2004.
Edwards had prided himself on his positive campaign style during the 2004 primaries. He credited that style for his late surge in the Iowa caucuses, which enabled him to finish second to Kerry.
I am far more interested in a candidate that will raise the level of debate in this country beyond these cock-fights than one who is willing to sling mud to win it like it's a popularity contest. It's only boils down to that when we let it.
Onward..,
Ms. Fleming had no answer to that question, but I do. On the far left, Christian bashing is totally acceptable and rarely are any consequences imposed. The only reason these two women are not working for John Edwards right now is that he didn’t want to take the heat my program was giving him.
Yes Bill'O, just like racism, anti-gay bigotry, and misogyny is a staple of the radical right, aka religious fundamentalists, aka the same people complaining about a story that's already long dead.
This entire shoddy episode has badly damaged Edwards in my opinion, but it also points out that American culture, especially in the swampy blogosphere, is extremely tolerant of Christian-haters. Again, this could never have happened to any other religious or minority group.
It happens to blacks and gays all of the time, from your side of the fence, retard. If anything O’Reilly, the only difference between you and those you accuse is that they spew their hate on the Internet, while you spew yours on television. Honestly, the damage down to Edwards is miniscule, and the saddest thing about all of this is the hypocrisy -- the real bigots calling other people bigots. Incredible.
I'm not sure about the what or why, but here is a mini-bio on John Edwards that just popped up on my radar.
As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Edwards worked tirelessly for a strong national defense and to strengthen the security of our homeland. He authored key pieces of legislation on cyber, bio, and port security.
Whoops, so much for Democrats being weak on national security. I guess we're kind of in charge of all those important intelligence oversight committees now, aren't we. We're all doomed.
The Senator hit up Sin City over the weekend looking to woo crowds in a state that will now have a hand in the early primary season next year.
Edwards was welcomed with enthusiasm at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Hall. Edwards noted his brother, an electrician, was an I.B.E.W. union member. He told members that number one on his agenda is universal healthcare.
With 47 million uninsured Americans, including 437,000 in Nevada, our health care system is broken, says Edwards. Edwards outlined a plan to get affordable health care to all Americans over the next five years. A proposal with a price tag of $90 to $120 billion dollars a year.
"The way I would say it, we're just going to get rid of George Bush's tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year, and that's the way we're paying for it," Edwards said.
I think it's plainly obvious that anyone making over $200k per year can afford to pay some higher taxes right now. Seriously. This country has people -- entire families -- living on $16,000 per year that have absolutely no health insurance at all. Think you might have something seriously wrong with your digestive system? A colonoscopy runs about $1,000 these days, which only costs you about $40 if you have health insurance. If not, you can kiss 1/16th of your yearly salary (pre-tax of course) bye-bye just to have a camera shoved up your ***.
Yeah, those $200k earners can eat a tax increase. Sorry, but that two-week vacation to the Bahamas will just have to wait until everyone else can visit a hospital when they really need it the most.
Finally, I found a pretty good piece on Edwards by Kenneth T. Walsh highlighting his coming struggle against new comer Obama and Hillary "I'm-against-the-war-but-I'm-still-glad-I-voted-for-it" Clinton.
Edwards, reflecting the growing impatience of many rank-and-file Democrats nationwide, derides the nonbinding resolution now before Congress, which opposes President Bush's "surge" of 21,500 additional troops into Iraq. "Nonbinding resolutions don't stop the escalation of this war," Edwards told U.S. News. "It's time for Congress to use its power [over spending] to stop the escalation of this war and to keep this president from making another huge ... ego-driven mistake."
That's damn right, but with the obstructionist party (Repubs) blocking debate on the nonbinding resolution in the Senate, I don't see what could possible be done right now. Repubs are scared ****less of even talking about the war right now, much less taking a firm stance on anything. I just don't know John Edwards expects Democrats in Congress to be able to do.
Whether we like it or not, the Constitution gives command of the military to the President, and ours is currently insane enough to keep them in Iraq even if Congress did stop all funding. Let's put an end to that scary possibility by electing a real leader in 2008, and even if it isn't John Edwards, anyone is better than Bush.
