Doesn’t it seem like just a decade since the protagonists of our current national melodrama began taking the stage? John McCain announced his candidacy on David Letterman – only to discover that what Dave giveth, Dave can definitely take away. Hillary Clinton thought she’d prove herself futuristic by announcing from her sofa, via an Internet video message; little did she know how the Internet would eventually help overwhelm her once-inevitable rise. Only Barack Obama chose to do things the old-fashioned way, with a grand speech from a statehouse lawn; it was the first of many occasions when Obama, alone among his rivals, recognized that momentous times call for Big Gestures.

And so here we are, five days before the election and less than 24 hours after the last flurry of those gestures. Thirty-five thousand Floridians gathered at midnight for the Kiss-Up in Kissimmee, watching Bill Clinton — in a manic attempt to restore the bona fides he sullied during his wife’s misbegotten run – make his best full-throated argument for Obama. (I say “full-throated” because Clinton seems to have calculated that if he spoke unbelievably loudly – and in a mad dash of words – we wouldn’t notice that he could have been talking about any Democratic candidate, not just the one perched on a stool next to him.) Obama even managed the video-era feat of being two places at the same time, sitting down with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show even as he and Bubba were simultaneously bounding (if not bonding) on stage outside Orlando.

And then there was the small matter of the 30-minute infomercial with which the Obama campaign commandeered seven broadcast networks and cable channels last evening. In case you haven’t seen it, and have a half hour to kill, here it is:

Whatever else last night’s Obamapalooza accomplished, it achieved the same thing his announcement speech in January 2007 did: It made his opponent’s efforts appear small and petty by comparison. McCain spent the day, as he spends every day, on the attack, playing to the narrow-mindedness and bloodlust of his rally crowds rather than to the concerns and hopes of those couple million voters who may not have made up their minds, yet don’t view the world through a conservative ideological prism. Having turned his back on “honor” and “integrity” and all that crap that had never really worked for him anyway (see South Carolina, 2000), McCain and his Bush-leftover advisors now aim to replicate W.’s 50-plus-one strategy by getting ugly and staying ugly right through Tuesday. (more…)

Jon: Well, so much for the “civic duty” I believed would guilt the Popdose community into following the political conventions: Even my heretofore partner in blogging crime, Ted Asredagoo, abandoned our noble cause to catch a Waifs concert last night! (You know, Ted, Hootie & the Blowfish played a gig not five miles from my house on Tuesday night, but did I skip out on Hillary’s orange “traveling pantsuit” to catch them? Noooooooo! I thought to myself, Hill, I only wanna be with you…)

Before I introduce our guest analyst for the Bill & Biden show, allow me to note that, after two evenings dominated by women, the Democrats finally let the testosterone flow last night. As a result, there are no women to objectify – except MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell, about whom I always have just one thing to say (even when she’s eight months pregnant): Hubba hubba. So, without further ado, our surprise curmudgeon: Dw. Dunphy!

Dw.: These Democrats sure can talk! Don’t they know I gotta work in the morning? Anyway, it’s my turn to hang out with Jon and the ‘Bots on the Satellite of Love. Dr. Forrester’s evil show for the evening: Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. I’ll make sure I have extra hamdingers at the ready.

Jon: WTF is a hamdinger?

(Editor’s note: Jon, betraying a lack of pop-culture understanding that should get him banned from Popdose forever, apparently is unaware that hamdingers are deviled-ham patties that were sold by the block and often used for fish bait – a fact that is common knowledge to fans of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, as hamdingers played a key role in episode 512 and made a brief appearance in episode 513.)

Jon: What a bunch of dweebs I’m working with here! (Hey! I just figured out what that pretentious “Dw.” thing is all about.) Last night Ted blew 200 words on Vulcans, and now I have to deal with MST3K? (more…)

I knew I wasn’t voting Republican, that much was certain. No offense to our Republican readers, but eight years is enough. I am not better off than I was in 2000. John McCain is too busy being a war tactician. Mitt Romney personifies meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Rudolph Giuliani marginalized himself way too early as the 9/11 Mayor, insinuating a vote against him was a vote for American girls in burqas, American boys conscripted into jihad and death to the rest. Ron Paul presented some very good ideas and a visionary sense of Constitution-first governance… meaning he hadn’t a snowman’s Sunday in hell. Call that glib, but thus far he has been the poster child for un-electability.

But take heart, my friends of the Grand Old Party. Up until recently, I thought I was set on my candidate. I thought she could take us back to better days. I thought she had the experience to right political wrongs. I thought she was the solution to the problem of ‘how do we get out of this hole.’ Then I found out she was a he… Or a he/she. The point being, I was ready to pull the switch for Clinton before her name became Billary. Oh, I was moved like everyone else during her primary breakdown when, on the verge of tears, Hillary said, “It’s about our country. It’s about our kids’ futures. It’s really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not.”

I thought that the emotions were real and that she had finally come down from her ivory tower, down here to where we’re scratching to get by, and was ready to try new things, banding together and not tearing apart. (more…)

For all intents and purposes, Bill and Hillary Clinton should be my candidates. On the political spectrum I consider myself center-left, and the Clintons have been center-left politicians since, well, they became politicians. You can call it centrist, or “Blue Dog,” or what have you, but they are political dealmakers in a system designed for compromise. However, the system seems to work well when those who are forced to compromise also have a set of core values that are different from the opposition. The whole notion of compromise might be a foreign thought to our ears after enduring the reign of W. and his contingent of “no compromise” congressmen and women; however, during Bill Clinton’s tenure as President, he frustrated the hell out of many Democrats by making whatever deal he could to insure that he would survive politically — even if that meant walking and talking like a Republican.

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