The Dead Parrot Candidate

Dana Milbank from The Washington Post describes Hillary Clinton's West Virginia victory in terms of the famous Monty Python's Flying Circus skit about the dead parrot. This, Milbank states, is an ex-candidate. From his description, Clinton may really be.

11:45 a.m., Melrose Hotel, Foggy Bottom: It's Day 7 of the Clinton Campaign Death Watch — a full week since the official arbiter of the Democratic primary, Tim Russert, declared the campaign over and Barack Obama the nominee. Hillary Clinton's advisers continue to insist that the candidate's prospects are very much alive, but the press isn't buying it. Exhibit A: There are two press buses waiting at the hotel here for Clinton's trip to her victory rally in West Virginia, but the entire press contingent doesn't quite fill one. It isn't until the entourage arrives at Dulles Airport that Clinton aides learn that the second bus is still idling, empty, at the hotel.

If there is importance in the results of the primary in West Virginia, the press corps isn't letting on. During the security sweep at Dulles, some play Hacky Sack with a cigarette carton. Awaiting the candidate on the tarmac, two guys from CNN toss a football. Aboard the plane, one member of the press corps entertains his colleagues by flopping down the aisle on his belly, like a fish.

But Clinton, wearing a salmon-colored jacket and dark sunglasses, is all smiles as she boards the jet. She hugs and kisses her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe. Still grinning, she helps herself to a cracker with spread from the snack tray as the plane taxis to the runway. And why shouldn't she be happy? Within minutes, Clinton has crossed the Blue Ridge and is over the green hills of West Virginia, home of what she calls the "hardworking Americans, white Americans." This is Clinton Country.

Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."

Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords (sic)."

I'm a little taken aback by that quote attributed to Clinton and frankly have to wonder if there is any corroboration of those words coming from the candidate. Milbank's description of a candidate going through the motions – and for virtually no audience – spells the end for Clinton.

West Virginia Exit Polls

This is more an update on my "Obama's 20% Solution" post than anything else.

From the WV exit polls we can see that the black vote came in at 4%.  This gives us a baseline of Clinton 58% – 42% Obama, as opposed to my earlier projection using 2004 general election data of Clinton 57% – 43% Obama.  Now, according to the exit polls Obama lost the white vote in West Virginia by 41 points.  If that holds we can expect results in the area of Clinton 67.5% – 32.5% Obama.

The "Obama attacked unfairly" number was 49%.

The New Volkswagen: Now With Two Trunks!

A British man and his sister got to test drive the new Volkswagen Golf – the one with two trunks. The regular one and the one the elephant added later.

Road rage is bad enough. But what worried the driver of this car was that he was about to become a victim of rogue rage.

When a six-ton elephant suddenly lumbered over to the Volkswagen Golf in a South African safari park, Rico Beltrame and his sister Angela feared it was going to reduce the vehicle to scrap metal – with them inside.

The pictures say it all. Personally, we here at the Crabitat outfit ourselves a little differently when going on safari. Oh, sure, the mileage could be better, but we certainly feel much safer.

Democrats Racist?

Gee, really? I saw this early this morning but was pressed for time and couldn't post. Now, I'm very late to the party but thought I'd still comment on the Washington Post story detailing whining from Obama workers about the racism they are encountering – from Democrats.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

While the media may be trying to get that narrative in place, it should be remembered that primary workers are hitting mostly members of their own party. This is an ugly and stupid card for the media to play. Are their people who will not vote for Obama solely because he is black? Of course. But there are other people who are voting for him solely for the same reason. Think carefully about that.

My opposition to Obama has nothing whatsoever with his physical characteristics, only with his politics, policies and breathtaking lack of experience. (I don't much care for many of his associates, either.) The media would be better off sticking to politics and policy and leaving off the narrative they are trying with stories like this. Things like this might make things worse all the way around.

Clinton Supporters In WV Aren’t Necessarily Racist…

…or so says Obamanation.  They might only be stupid:

I do want to write a little bit more about the notion that West Virginians are racist. The longer version will have to wait until later today or tomorrow. But the short version is: yes, there are racist voters in West Virginia, but there are racist voters in every state. The primary determinant of the extent to which racism tends to be more manifest is education levels, and so the effects may be more noticeable in West Virgnia[sic], a state with poor academic achievement. But there is no reason to believe that West Virgnians[sic] are particularly racist, relative to their education levels.

I'm sure they will be so relieved to hear this they will put that quote on their CV. 

What?  They don't have a CV?  How gauche!

(Wouldn't the guy's point have been stronger if he hadn't misspelled "Virginia" twice?)

Democrat’s “American History” Gap

First we had Barack Obama's complaint about not being able to visit all 60 states, and now we have another, shall we say, "interesting" take on American history:

The special congressional election in Mississippi today is an important one. The GOP can’t afford another defeat and morale-deflator. Republicans have poured on the money to retain the longtime, reliably conservative district.

So, what are Dems up to? You won’t be surprised. Several Mississippi readers and bloggers e-mail that the Dems have pulled out the race card to smear GOP candidate Greg Davis as a KKK supporter.

Wow!  What a coup for the Democrats to get to run against a Klan supporter!  It's perfect, except for one thing:

DCCC says "Greg Davis wanted to honor the founder of the KKK with a statue in Southaven" and also said the statue was of "the first Grand Wizard." But in reality, the statue was of Jefferson Davis who was not the founder and never in the KKK. In fact, another place that has a statue of Jefferson Davis is the United States Capitol Building. Jefferson Davis is one of the two statues representing Mississippi, along with James Z. George.

That's right.  The Democrats were laboring under the impression that Jefferson Davis founded the KKK, as opposed to Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Oops.  However, it is easy to forgive the DCCC about the confusion.  After all both Forrest and Davis were Democrats.

Could have happened to any ignorant person.

Obama’s West Virginian Debacle?

Open speculation like this can't be good for any presumptive nominee:

Doesn't look good anecdotally for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in West Virginia this Tuesday.

Party insiders say Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., might beat him in the Mountaineer State on Tuesday by 30 points.

Yikes!

You want to know why superdelegates are trickling but not stampeding to Obama's side? His electoral weaknesses with white working-class voters, as evidenced by this pending stompage.

My own simple model of this election cycle predicts a more modest 14 point win for Clinton. Let's call it a "mugging" instead of a "beat down."  Either way, the weakness inherent in the Obama strategy is becoming more and more apparent.  Despite the ever increasing whinging from the press that anyone who doesn't like Obama must be a racist, there is the very real possibility of a significant anti-Obama backlash.  Granted, West Virginia has fewer self identified "liberals" than a lot of places, but it should also be remembered that in 2004 half of West Virginians identified themselves as Democrats while only 32% called themselves Republicans.  In a normal presidential election cycle without an incumbent West Virginia should be in play for the Democrats.  A loss by Obama by 20 or more points will signal that it isn't.

Coyote Attacks On Humans

The Associated Press notes that there are rising numbers of reports of coyotes attacking humans in Southern California.

LOS ANGELES – The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park — but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl's buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.
 
Less than a week later, a coyote in a mountain resort town some 35 miles away grabbed a girl by the head and tried to drag her from a front yard until her mother scared it away.

A spate of coyote attacks in the fast-growing suburbs east of Los Angeles have left parents on edge and puzzled wildlife officials.

"Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. "They just seem to lose their fear of humans."

Coyotes normally avoid contact with humans and hunt rabbits and rodents. But scientists said some that live near suburban developments are becoming bolder, raiding garbage or even attacking pets and humans.

An increase in coyote attacks on humans in the past decade is most evident in Southern California, where bedroom communities have quickly pressed into wilderness, allowing the canine scavengers to roam backyards for food.

In recent years, coyote populations all across the country have been on the rise. This is not a good sign – when these animals begin losing fear of humans, it is only a short step to seeing humans as just another food source. We have a very large coyote pack running in the area I live in. Most nights you can hear them howling as they chase something. We have taken to watching the pets when they have to go out after dark, as a matter of fact.