Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State

Big whoop! Looks like Hilldog's joining the Obama cabinet.

Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State?

Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Do Palin/Clinton

Tina Fey as a spot-on Sarah Palin, and Amy Poehler as a righteously bitter Hillary Clinton, in a joint appearance last night on Saturday Night Live. HILARIOUS:

[via HuffPo]

We Interrupt Reading Week to Bring You:

News from the outside: Obama won North Carolina by a lot, Clinton just barely won Indiana, meaning Tenacious Hillary's options for staying in the race are getting seriously low - these were the last two big primaries left before it comes to a head in June and there's not much room left for her to pick it up.

Neverending Story

Clinton gains a significant win in Pennsylvania; is still a contender.

You Vote What You Eat

According to micro-targeting pollsters with questionable methods, Joanna Dicke '10's food, beverage, and liquor preferences make her an Obama-supporting stereotype:

If there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama too. And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza...

Apparently Obama supporters go for Bear Naked cereal, Clinton supporters prefer GoLean. and McCain supporters like FiberOne.

Republican drinks are Dr Pepper, brown liquors like bourbon or scotch, red wine and Fiji water. Democratic drinks are Pepsi-Cola, Sprite, clear liquors like gin and vodka, white wine and Evian water.

When it comes to fried chicken, he said, Democrats prefer Popeyes and Republicans Chick-fil-A.

“Anything organic or more Whole Foods-y skews more Democratic,” Mr. Dowd said. [Wow, who could've guessed]

So what now, campaign events at liquor stores and fried chicken joints? Is Colonel Sanders voting Nader?

Full NYTimes article: What's For Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know

Obama/Pitt, Clinton/Jolie, All in the Family

By now you might have heard the questionably newsworthy news that leading Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are distantly related, respectively, to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, members of Hollywood's leading couple . The New England Historic Genealogical Society found that Obama and Pitt had a common ancestor 11 generations ago, and Clinton and Jolie are 9th cousins twice removed through their shared French Canadian roots.

I only bring this up because these ridiculous hybrid photos came to my attention:












HOT!

A break from all of the Obama coverage

Disappointed with the large amount of Obama coverage on Wesleying, Anna Pachner '09 sends us a video, hoping to grab some face-time for the other major candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton:

... It is up to me just as much as any of the [Wesleying] writers to make sure Hillary's good points are well known also. An important analytical and somewhat non-propagandistic video is this one, where Sanjay Gupta points out the intricate differences between Hillary and Obama's seemingly very similar health care plans.

I'm abroad in Greece right now, but I can only hope that my Wesleyan peers are educating themselves properly about all of the candidates and not relying solely on the Obama-dominated youth media.

Experience and the presidency

Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln. Your pick disagrees with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second worst ever, better only than Warren "Teapot Dome" Harding.

from here.

Lots of interesting data and tables and graphs: looks like experience means very, very little when looking at presidential success.

Democratic Showdown Tonight

Probama? Fo'Clinton? Tonight might decide it all for the Democrats, with extremely contentious primaries being held in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island. If you've been following the race lately you know how intense it's been, and in light of Barack's 11 straight wins in the past month's primaries, the pressure is on Hillary to quit if she doesn't do significantly well in tonight's contests. Texas and Ohio are treasure troves of delegates but have complicated primary rules, so it might not be resolved so easily.

Here's Clinton making time to appear on the Daily Show last night:

And Obama Girl, Barack's biggest fan, explaining her success and actual political leanings on Fox News with Geraldo Rivera:

Hillary4UandMe

Ohmygod. 'Nuff said.

College was awkward for everyone running for president

Presidential candidates have to deal with the fact that pretty much everything they've ever said, done, or looked like will eventually become common knowledge. Here are somewhat hilariously dated pictures of our leading contenders this year:

Claire Kaplan sends us grainy hippies Bill and Hil:The New York Times dredged up Obama's heady youth (read all about how Obama - get ready for this - smoked pot a few times in college):
John McCain is apparently the only one who came out of the '70s looking good (I challenge anyone to find awkward pictures of the guy before old age set in, the Internet is apparently on his side*):
*Not counting pics of him as a POW or in a hospital bed, we don't wanna be all Karl Rove about this and I like to think Wesleying's got standards

Democratic Primary Debates Tonight at 8

If you're interested in something significantly more relevant and newsworthy than Lost, the last Democratic Presidential primary debate before Super Tuesday (Feb. 5th) is tonight at 8 PM, live from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. This might be a really good time to get some knowledge about the leading Democratic candidates if you're still unsure, especially now that John Edwards has withdrawn his campaign and it's solely between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the big nomination.

Experience vs. Change? Baby-Boomers vs. Gen Y? 60's Revolution vs. Post-racial Politics? Head of the Class vs. Funky Fresh? Tiptoeing Around vs. Clawing Each Other to Pieces? Alright I'm done, check it out yourself.

This Just In: the cutest picture of Bill and Hillary ever.

Start. Gushing. Now. 

Oh Bother, Politics.

So political compass-wise, how does your dream candidate stack up?

Well, that's certainly a buzzkill, huh?

You can take your own compass test here.

Generational Politics

Today, there was an interesting article in the New York Times about the generational divide between Obama and the other democrats (namely Clinton) who are putting themselves up for election in 2008. It's one of the few times I've heard someone talking about the necessary shift in paradigms required to engage our generation in politics rather than, well, you know, yelling at us about being lazy and disengaged.

Mr. Obama says he recognizes that the flashpoints of the 60s — war, racism, inequality, the relations between the sexes — still animate American politics and society and remain largely unresolved. And he acknowledges, as a child of a white Kansan mother and black Kenyan father, that his own prominence and prospects would have been impossible without the struggles of those who marched in Selma and Washington. But he argues that America faces new challenges that require a new political paradigm.

...

Modern presidential campaigns are essentially character tests, and for 20 years or longer the cultural and political divides of the 60s served as presumed signposts to a candidate’s character. Did he protest the war, trip to Hendrix, march in solidarity with women? Or enroll in R.O.T.C., rush a fraternity, join a church? As a young man, Mr. Obama did not have to make many of those choices, and he now has an opportunity to define himself on his own terms and not be instantly caricatured based on personal decisions he made four decades ago. (He has, of course, acknowledged some marijuana and cocaine use in his youth; that does not seem to have dimmed his prospects.)

“Where you were on these issues really told people who you were,” said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House official who is now a political consultant in California. “But 2008 will represent a hinge moment in generational politics, not just because of the prominence of a post-boomer candidate but because this will be the first cycle when a whole new range of issues as big, if not bigger, than the big issues that defined the boomers will be front and center: Iraq, the war on terror, global warming, energy, technology and globalization.”