We can all be childish once in awhile.

My ex-wife once stuck her head out of the window of an apartmen we had in Greenwich Village to yell "Humanity!!! Listen to me."

The following compendium of insights, mainly posted on Daily Kos (though some were also made here) forms as childish a post as anyone can imagine, but, despite my advanced age and the fact that I should know better than to do this, it can't be helped. (I realize I was not alone in these views, and that others, who may have shared them, felt it was impolitic or dangerous to express them).

There is another reason to post this, too, which is to show that the "meltdown" in September was a) predictable and b) hardly the "game changer" the Republicans try to claim it to have been since any fool, or at least this fool, could see what was happening well before September.


So, just for the record:

2/16:

Someone needs to come up with a graceful manner for Senator Clinton to withdraw from this race. There is no way, other than by an intra-party bloodbath, that a Republican could be elected president this year.

OK, maybe I was a bit off base there. I think now that the continued campaign was good for Senator Obama.


3/8

This is the year. You should be able to feel it in the air. Not since President Carter squandered the mandate given to the Democratic party after the unmasking of what Richard Nixon intended, and what so many Republicans enabled, has the country been so ready to announce that they had seen the light, realized what Republican leadership had brought us, and decided to change direction.

5/3:

It will be difficult for any Democrat to lose this year, but as noted above, this country has struggled with slavery and its aftermath for its entire existence. We have made enormous progress, particularly since 1964, and since the mid 1990s have even seen what appears to be a light at the end of this long tunnel.

6/9:

Ever since Governor Dukakis lost to Bush I after leading most of 1988, it has become hazardous to forecast the results of November elections from the vantage point of June. [Nonetheless, t]here is every reason to believe that the general election will be a rout. It will have no precedential value because, like 1932 and, to a lesser extent, 1976, there are aberrational forces at work which will alter normal voting patterns. (the 20% of Clinton voters who claim to be voting for McCain, will be down to 5, by September.)

I am hoping I was wrong about the precedential value. We shall see.   I am, however, quite surprised that I was wrong about the Clinton voters who apparently only went 83-16 for the President-elect. This alone is worth its own diary which I will try to post tmrw.


8/2:

Were this a competitive election (which it is not, solely because of George W. Bush, the savior of the Democratic Party), this would have been the week that Senator Obama's campaign started to unravel, not based on reason, but on inanity.

This comment from Voodoo king, posted on Sat Aug 02, 2008 at 12:41:01 PM EST is worth noting as typical of a point of view:

Please stop with the nonsense that there's [l]andslide victory in the air and everyone knows it. It's dumb talk like that and over confidence that leads to defeat. Obama is far from winning this thing, he's not even close.

I do not disagree with the concerns expressed, but Sen Obama was not "far from winning" then, and only gross craziness or really rampant racism could have cost him the election.

9/13:
I continue to think that Sen Obama will wind up with 54 to 55% of the popular vote and somewhere close to, if not more than 300 electoral votes.