Gene Kelly for Senate

Not an endorsement. The reclusive perennial candidate finally has a website:

http://www.genekellyforsenate.com

I did, however, volunteer to work on his outreach campaign. Here's a snapshot of me providing my resume':

To Beaumont to see Rick Noriega today

and a few clients. Light posting ahead to Election Day. Perhaps if the Ohio debate amounts to something besides more mud slung from Mrs. Clinton I'll have something to say, otherwise I'll leave you to play in other peoples' sandboxes for awhile.

Update (2/27) Here's video. Here's another. See if you can spot me.

Update II (2/27): Join me in calling on Senator Box Turtle to match Noriega and release his military records.

Oh yeah ... Student deferments from 1971 aren't actually "military" records. My bad.

The eventual post-mortem on the Clinton campaign

That damned New York Times, having "destroyed" one Maverick, turns its vulturous eyes toward the only other inevitable loser still standing:

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.

I know the feeling. I went through it with John Edwards, from the morning after the Iowa caucuses to the day in New Orleans when he finally pulled the plug. In between I donated hundreds as part of a fundraiser the campaign itself never acknowledged, blogged like hell, and kept attending meetings and making phone calls though it was painfully obvious that the miracle was not going to materialize.

I did all that mostly because I thought Edwards was the best progressive, populist and electable candidate running, but I also did it because the thought of a Clinton nomination weighed so heavily on my mind and heart for at least a year that it felt like a case of influenza. The sense of imminent relief I feel just knowing that a concession speech is coming some time soon must be matched by a similar feeling of dread and disillusionment in those that have supported and believed in the Clintons.

The article goes on ...

Engaging in hindsight, several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that “his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons,” in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly.

Yet even today -- well, yesterday and tomorrow -- he's out here stumping away. For her part, Hillary's tried nice, she's tried nasty, now she's trying shame and sarcasm as her flailing, thrashing presidential aspirations swirl the drain, soon to vanish out of sight.

I think the interesting part is that the Clintons looked at some polling and came to the conclusion that they were overwhelmingly popular with Democrats. They weren't. The primary reason for that is because the core of the party between presidential elections -- call them the "grassroots", or "liberal activists" or whatever you wish -- had no connection to the conservative, corporate Clintons that fleshed themselves out from the DLC model in the wake of their departure from the White House in January 2001. These progressives resented the inevitability meme that accessorized Hillary's run for the Senate and subsequent preparations for 2008. Secondly, while many of these loyal Democrats were incensed by Kenneth Starr and the impeachment proceedings (count me as one), they were even more exhausted by it. Third, hindsight doesn't make the Clintons look better, but worse; the Clintons gave us NAFTA. It was Bill Clinton that said the war in Iraq was a good idea and it was Hillary Clinton that voted for it. It was Bill who spent the Dubya years globetrotting with Poppy instead of standing up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and global peacemaking rather than war-mongering.

The Clintons should have taken it as a sign when Connecticut Democrats kicked the 2000 vice-presidential nominee clean out of the party in 2006. The forthcoming progressive years aren't going to have much nostalgia for the leaders of yesterday. (This same thing happened, of course, to Edward Kennedy in the Seventies and Eighties, and the Clintons were -- eventually, in the Nineties -- the beneficiaries.)

Hillary Clinton ran a very good campaign in many respects. She was excellent in all but one of nineteen debates. She was solid, if lacking some of her opponent's evangelical zeal, in town hall meetings. She was well-versed on the facts and detailed in the policy. The Austin debate last week was her best moment. She mixed attack dog -- that cringe-worthy "Xerox" throw-away line -- with den mother, closing on a standing-ovation-worthy emotional appeal that proved effective for her in New Hampshire. But there just isn't another electoral rabbit left to pull out of the top hat.

Hillary Clinton isn't losing because she isn't a good politician. She is losing because the party wants something else ... the country wants something else. She is also losing, as suggested by those unnamed senior advisers above, because Bill Clinton simply isn't very popular any more when it comes right down to it. Every time he showed up in this campaign Hillary took a little bit of a hit. The nostalgia for Bill has been mostly relegated to white women young and middling reliving the mid-Nineties -- or maybe the Eighties, depending on the generation -- when rock stars got undergarments thrown at them onstage. The sad truth is that very few people were comforted by the prospect of the Big Dog, as Mitt Romney put it, "running around the West Wing with nothing to do."

Yes, she also lost because Obama's campaign outsmarted and outworked hers by running a 50-state ground strategy. He was like Muhammed Ali rope-a-doping Clinton's George Foreman.

And where did all the Clintons' money go?

Regardless, I can't wait for it to be over. I'm anxious to begin a totally new and fresh era, a new age of progressivism, accompanied by a super-majority -- somewhere from thirty to sixty new Democrats in the House of Representatives -- and even perhaps, dare we dream, a Senate that will no longer capitulate to fear of conservative boogeymen.

Well, maybe that last is a stretch ...

The Weekly Wrangle

This week's Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up comes exactly one week and one day before the all-important Texas prima-caucus. Have you voted yet? Did you get your voter registration card stamped if you have, or a "receipt" so that you can attend the caucus on the evening of Election Day? Avoid the long lines on March 4 and vote early this week. The round-up is compiled, as it nearly always is, by Vince from Capitol Annex.

TXsharon has a broken modem so Bluedaze is suffering, but she managed to post about the RRC's approval of Atmos Energy's extravagant spending -- bend over Texans. Also read about how Phil King meets karma in Wise County and hear the horrendous sounds of the Barnett Shale.

Off the Kuff offers his incomplete list of endorsements for the Democratic primaries, and for his birthday rounds up his complete list of candidate interviews.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News has blogged an eventful week or two climaxing with Paul Burka becoming a believer in the Obama Borg -- Democrats can take back Texas. Wow.

Over at McBlogger Mayor McSleaze commemorates Kirk Watson's deer-in-the-headlights moment while McBlogger, beverage in hand, watches the debate and puts the smackdown on wingnuts still drinking the school voucher Kool-Aid.

The Texas Cloverleaf makes it back safely from Oklahoma City and discusses the national Stonewall Democrats meeting there, as well as the upcoming LGBT Presidential Town Hall in Dallas on Monday night.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had a report on Obama's visit to Houston last Tuesday, and also noted the end of the Fidel Castro era in Cuba. Open Source Dem had part three of his "Texas in Play" series, entitled "Jim Crow Lives".

Hal, who writes Half Empty, went to early vote last Wednesday and has some poll observations and some Fort Bend County stats.

Bill Howell of StoutDemBlog reminds us of some Texas election history that is relevant for this year's Democratic Primary, in Don't Be Confused By Names.

Muse was at the Bill Clinton fundraiser in Houston this week where she fulfilled a lifelong dream to touch him –- handshake! She notes that not all college students are for Obama –- witness the Daily Texan endorsement for Hillary. And she receives an email where Obama encourages Republicans to crash the Democratic primary, to vote against the bad, scary Hillary. More Hillary stuff coming this week on musings!

WhosPlayin tries to explain the Obama movement, and has a rundown of which Texas blogs are endorsing Clinton or Obama.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the Texas Democratic Party has instructed county and precinct officials not to interpret election results for the media or political campaigns, and asks if national Democrats will still respect us (or call or visit) after March 4.

More Funnies (no cartoons)

Spike Lee at the Oscars, LHAO at Jon Stewart, who said: "Usually when we have a woman and a black man as the two leading candidates for President of the United States, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

"The band Abba wants John McCain to stop using their songs at his campaign rallies. Yeah. When asked about it, McCain said, 'Who cares about Abba? Kids today are into the Bee Gees.'" -- Conan O'Brien

"Experts believe that now that Fidel has resigned, he will either be succeeded by his brother, Raul, or by his idiot son, Fidel W. Castro." -- David Letterman

"And President Bush is now pushing Congress to expand the government's ability to spy on Americans now that the current phone tap bill has expired. In fact, to gain support for a new spying bill, they're bringing in coach Bill Belichick. Yeah. They are going to rename it the New England Patriot Act." -- Jay Leno

"The founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream are endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton, which makes sense because Baracky Road is a catchier name for an ice cream than Pantsuits and Cream." --Conan O'Brien

"Have you been watching the Roger Clemens congressional hearings? He denies being injected by his trainer. But what I thought was interesting was every time they mentioned 'buttocks,' Sen. Larry Craig swooned." -- David Letterman

Sunday Evening Funnies

Aaron Peña is a putz.

Unbelievable, even for a duplicitous weasel like him:

One of Hillary Clinton’s top supporters in the Rio Grande Valley appeared at a Barack Obama rally Friday and said the presidential primary was the Illinois senator’s race to lose.

State Rep. Aaron Peña, who, in print and on TV has been a leading outreach activist in the Valley for Clinton, shocked many Friday morning when he sat down with his family in the stands behind the stage at an Obama rally at the University of Texas-Pan American.

Guardian video-journalists were sitting opposite in the press riser. Contacted by phone while he waited for Obama to arrive, Peña told the Guardian he was at the event to see history being made.

“First of all my son, Aaron Peña III, is working for the Obama campaign. Second, I am here with my family to see history being made,” Peña said. ...

Asked if he had now flipped over to Obama, Peña said: “I will maintain my commitment but it appears to me that the decision will be made by the public on March 4. I made a commitment to Hillary Clinton and I must maintain it. I gave my word. However, as an observer, it appears to be increasingly evident who is going to win.”

A switch by Peña to the Obama camp will come as a major disappointment to Clinton and her campaign in Texas. Clinton introduced Peña at a rally in McAllen last week.

I'm obviously no supporter of Senator Clinton's but this is just ridiculously sorry of Peña. He's shown more lasting support for Tom Craddick. He could have just switched his endorsement, or let his family go to the Obama rally without him, or re-declare himself "undecided" and any of those would've looked less stupid than sitting in the stands behind Barack Obama after standing in a crowd of Hillary supporters in the same week.

Aaron Peña is in a contested primary for the HD-40 seat with Eddie Saenz, who would be a much more effective representative in the Texas House.