Obama's electibility reflects his likelihood of winning. The chance of victory hinges on key states.

I've said Obama is unelectable. Yet no one can say definitively that Obama would do worse than Hillary against McCain. Polls over McCain vs. Hillary, McCain vs. Obama are brought out by one candidate's side to denounce the other. The media is blitzed with polls, predictions, and punditry. Those in one camp are receptive to information positive for their candidate and negative for the other. The same holds true for those in the opposing candidate's camp.

I do hope the majority of this nation, who do hold a set of largely progressive values in common, can overcome the squabbling of two politicians and focus on the larger issue, which is beating John McCain in the fall. Compromise is invaluable tool in politics, and the idea that progressives would abandon each other if their candidate isn't nominated is utterly childish.

Obama vs. Hillary

I've concluded the Obama can't beat McCain in the general election. I'm basing this opinion on nothing more than my personal experiences living in a very Red State, Indiana. Indiana, for the first time in years, also happens to be a vital state for any would-be Democratic Presidential candidate.

Indiana, you need to understand, is the state that people on the coasts think of as backward, and provincial. It is in many ways politically so. But that's not the point and making it the point will only exacerbate the image of elitism projected by a Democratic party which is dominated by an East Coast establishment.

Interpress Service reports the reality that the surge isn't working in its article titled "Despite Huge Media Campaign, Facts Show Massive Failure in Iraq."

The choice of title is important is separating the content from mass produced, perception-managed gunk from the MSM. The writers at Interpress are 1) honest and 2) not beholden to editorial oversight like that seen in all branches of mainstream media. Dahr Jamail, co-author of the Interpress article alongside Ali al-Fadhily, was the only unembedded American reporter in the entirety of Iraq for an extended period which included the rape of Fallujah circa 2004.

Obama is the enigma because no one knows how race will impact the race. With a multi-racial family, McCain may be less tolerant of the race card, which Clinton is accused of using versus Obama. A long primary could well doom both candidates if enough is done to smear one other.

On Tuesday, Obama gave a speech on race relations to beat back criticism of comments his former preacher made that had been running in an "endless loop" in the media. Without defending his preacher's comments, Obama's speech made race an issue, not in the sense it can act as a divisive force but rather how overcoming differences in race can unite America.

Were the New Hampshire results fraudulent? In shades of the underreported Ohio election scandal in 2004--which saw the imprisonment of two Cuyahoga County Elections officers--the '08 New Hampshire Primaries saw large unexplained discrepancies between polls and the results.

Speculation is rampant that people from outside the State could have shown up and voted. I guess the sheer variety of explanations for why Hillary was able to engineer a spontaneous turnaround is a product of suspicion. While electronic vote fraud cannot be proved, it's hardly been disproved either. I'll guess that more theories will arise to explain Hillary's statistically improbable victory as more analysis comes out concerning poll discrepancies.

Housing Issue Basics

The money supply under Bush has approximately doubled. Now the cash stays mostly in accounts where it isn't spent, usually. However, during the housing boom, much of the money worked its way into the housing market. As home values shot up, more people borrowed on their equity. Subprime lending also skyrocketed as realtors were eager to sell into a bull market, to keep prices going upward. People with weak credit got into homes they're not able to afford. Attracted to teaser rates, many home purchasers wound up with too much houses and Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs). These are expected to reset to much higher interest rates, which means people with marginal credit and lower income will be forced to pay even more of their income to housing.

I'd been wandering the blogosphere and just commented on Naomi Klein's "Outsourcing Government" on Alternet (I am "PeaceWarrior" there) when I discovered a perfect example of Klein's hollowing out of government services in the recent Southern California fires.

Klein's article, published in the Los Angeles Times, echoes arguments made in her new book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Klein's argument is persuasive. Like predators, private corporations seize on the opportunity presented by a disaster, natural or man-made. Functions formally assigned to the federal government are privatized, or have been abdicated to the point the federal response is anemic and uncoordinated.

Dangerous Precedent

I've followed the Plame case in some details, choosing to cover the political and legal ramifications of the case rather than the investigation of the outing or the trial of one participant in the outing, Scooter Libby.

The greatest damage caused by the Plame outing is not to our national security, although I'm sure the outing decimated morale among our secret agents, who must fear what their spouses or loved one might do to upset the political incumbents. This in itself would do sufficient damage. Yet far more destructive is the damage to our system of justice.

In short, the Plame outing showed that the Executive branch could do as it pleases. The system of checks and balances succumbed to the unbridled assumption of full control and zero accountability for executive actions. The White House could police itself, through a subordinate body called the Department of Justice.

The Democrats have sold out completely to the continuation of the war.

Cindy Sheehan has turned away from her leadership role within the antiwar movement. Who could blame her? She'd been labelled an "attention whore" by a poster on the website democraticunderground.com.

This from Sheehan's "resignation letter":

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

Sandwiched between coverage for custody of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter was a chunk of emotional, hard biting news: a press conference on behalf of the Rutgers' womens' college basketball team. Tuesday morning's press conference was compelling, and confronted Don Imus' comments that the team was a bunch of "ho's".

The story has been inaccurately framed as the "Imus' Story" and the media has chosen to focus on the 2 week suspension granted Imus by his employer, WNBC of New York. The focus of the coverage is on Imus, rather than the strong reaction his comments have spawned, which are a far more remarkable aspect of the story--the strength of opposition to the public use of racial terms.