Betancourt Rescue: Something Fishy?

I truly hate going into conspiracy theory territory.

Trying to find the aliens at Area 51 is fruitless when all they were doing was testing the stealth fighter. Trying to find the other shooter in the JFK assassination negates the tragedy of that day. Saying 9-11 was a controlled demolition spits on the graves of every single person who died on that day.

But I can’t help but think that there’s something fishy about an unusual visit by John McCain coinciding with the rescue of 15 hostages from the Colombian FARC rebels.

I don’t mean to downplay the truly joyous moment of seeing Ingrid Betancourt, three American prisoners and 11 other held for nearly six years enjoy their new freedom. But watching official government news agency (for now) Fox News and other right-wing media proclaim McCain as having something to do with the rescue got the wheels turning.

Then came word that the White House knew in advance about the plan to go after the hostages (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX5TF0FO-soIVFBJfsd6YRHIFHhg), possibly as early as President Bush’s own trip to Colombia in March. And we now know that McCain made the visit at the urging for both the executive branch’s state department and one his top fund-raisers: Chiquita CEO Carl H. Lindner Jr., who is so happens got in trouble recently for giving more than $1 million to another Colombia terrorist group, the AUC.

Following along? Well, just ask this: Why in the midst of the competitive 2008 presidential race was McCain making a side trip to Colombia? Not exactly a hotbed for electoral votes.

McCain claims it was under the guise of a trip to promote free trade with Colombia … and if there’s one issue that’s on the front-burner of American voters minds right now, it’s not the economy, Iraq or health care, it’s free trade with Colombia.

Might just be too much of a conspiracy theory, but when you run a secretive and manipulative administration like the one currently in power – with its secret courts, Constitutional violations and wars under false pretenses – you have to give it at least a thought.

Winning the Crazy Cat Lady Vote

As Hillary Clinton announces she is finally stepping off the stage, I was wondering how the Hillaryis44.com crowd might take it. Would they follow their leader and aid the push to make Barack Obama our 44th president?

Well, certainly this post today on the site shows that these supporters, many of whom supported Clinton simply because she was a woman, want to support the candidate who will make sure to end women’s right to choose:

I can only hope John McCain can beat him. I think McCain is going to need our help.

-- Hillaryis44.org poster

It gets worse. I was part of a group that helped discuss and formulate the Nevada Democratic party platform for the recent state convention, and our discussions have actually continued since the last gavel sounded.

Today, I got this disturbing E-mail from a person in the group:

I for one am not happy with the way the men in this party have treated a woman who has worked tirelessly in public service all her life and stood by a cheating husband regardless what people thought.

The media lost Hillary this election. Obama was on a honeymoon just wait. As for me if he does not pick her as his VP I may not vote at all this time I am so disgusted with the way this party is treating Hillary.

I am not working for Obama without Hillary on the ticket.

I just had to reply:

Simply ask yourself this.... Is it worth risking having McCain go into the Oval Office and ensure that the Supreme Court will not only take away women's right to choose, but have a majority to sustain that for a generation?

Is it worth going against everything that your candidate stood for over the past few months?

In the coming days, Clinton will endorse Barack Obama. Will you heed the call?

Guess I wasn’t convincing enough. Her reply:

My heart has been torn apart by all of this and I am tired of settling. Why are women always asked to wait you will get your turn. In my eyes this is the same thing that happened to women when they stood with the black men asking for the right to vote. Then what happened black men got the right to vote and said later for you women left us behind took us another 20 years to have the right to be able to vote. We still dont earn as much money as the men.

Why do we still have to fight this RIGHT TO CHOOSE issue over and over again. This is again an issue of a Womans Right and MEN have the audacity to use that as a wedge whenever they want women to give in to their side.

You guys need to make it understood that it is HILLARY or NO ONE ELSE for VP or women like me will not fall in line like dutiful women. NOT HAPPENING.

Now I sat near that same lady at the convention and even looked just like the crazy cat lady from “The Simpsons.” At one point, she was practically ready to attack two of my Vegas-to-Reno van mates who were doing nothing more than sitting still. They also happened to be black, which doesn’t surprise me about the racial tone her comments took.

The question becomes this: How do we convince crazy cat lady to understand the stakes of this election mean more than the cult of one personality?

Questions like this are why Obama supporters shouldn’t feel this is a foregone deal and a landslide in November awaits. The thought of an easy coronation to the White House is what did Clinton in, and we can’t fall under the same spell.

There is a lot of work ahead.

Who has Momentum in the General Election?

One only needs to contrast between these two pictures:

Barack Obama's big kick off to the general election June 3.


John McCain's "big" kickoff to the general election on June 3.

Seeya in November.

What Clinton Did Right

Excellent articles like Time’s recent piece on what Hillary Clinton did wrong are why there is still a place for in-depth news magazines like Time, but let me take a sec in the postpartum to actually praise Clinton for something she did right.

Namely, her 180-degree turn towards the outreaching of rural voters that probably kept her in the race, or at least gave her the appearance of doing so to the general public.

All you have to do is look at the difference between the January caucus here in my home state of Nevada versus the recent primaries in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

If you look at one of the John King-style maps from the Jan. 19 Nevada caucus, you’ll see that it was Obama who was winning the rural, low-population counties in this purple state that’s blue at the bottom and bloody red at the top. It was Obama who was getting the blue-collar endorsements and support.

Meanwhile, Clinton took the big population centers, including my hometown of Las Vegas, on the way to winning a slight majority of the state’s delegates overall.

What followed was the moment when Clinton who abandoned her pervious strategy of “vote for me because I’m me” into “vote for me because I’m you.” While many of us didn’t see through her $100 million account and lobbyist donations, it was still a very effective strategy -- even though it was reminiscent of a GOP campaign where they say they want to give you help, but then pick your pocket when your back is turned.

The result was what we saw in the last three months of the primary campaign where the primary cities were colored by Hillary, with small, but well-populated, specks of Barack.

For the general election, Obama needs to adopt a similar strategy of reaching out to the rural voter that would pay even bigger dividends in a general election. And perhaps, in her first moment of humility in this entire campaign, Clinton may even help.

Obama will be in no danger of losing his big city vote against McCain. One can argue that the cities have been hurt the most by the last seven years. People in big cities are paying more for gas, dealing with homeland security snafus, watching their infrastructure crumble and watching their stock portfolios dwindle. They’re not going to be as willing to keep the White House Republican for another four years.

It’s the rural voter that Obama will need to win over, and he can take a lesson from the thing that Clinton did right.

And as we mark the end of the primary campaign, we might as well give Clinton credit for something. Because for a lot of people in the Democratic Party, it may take some marriage counseling before they’re willing to get back in a relationship with the Clintons again.