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Rant #363
(published January 3, 2008)
Poor Mojo Debates the Presidential Primaries
by The Poor Mojo Staff
In our first, perhaps last, online debate, the entire Poor Mojo staff got together to discuss the Presidential primaries. If you are an Iowan, or a New Hampshirite and are blessed by God with the power to choose our next president, heed here the words of these wayward liberals:

Dave Nelson: How is everyone?

Mojo: We are live

Dave Nelson: in the future!

Alan: My shoulder hurts and I quit my job today.

Mojo: I'm 3 hours in the past

Fritz Swanson: My foot is cold.

Mojo: I'm hungry

Dave Nelson: Yeah for cold and quitting jobs and backwards time!

JIM Oliver: I just finished dinner. My whole house smells like garlic.

Mojo: Mmm, garlic

Dave Nelson: This is the best political debate EVER!

Mojo: Is someone logging this?

Alan: I can has prezidents LOL?

JIM Oliver: i think I am...

Dave Nelson: Frito, are you logging? Frito?

Mojo: I like Frito's pic. Very soulful, like a jazz album cover

Dave Nelson: F?

Fritz Swanson: I went to get a blanket.

Alan: Of course, the next step from this is the live Talkshoe PoorMojo's Talk Show.

Dave Nelson: Are you logging?

Mojo: A foot blanket?

Fritz Swanson: I am logging.

Dave Nelson: F?

Fritz Swanson: A whole lower torso blanket, like Professor X.

Mojo: Okay, ready for 5 white guys debate politics?

Fritz Swanson: Yes

Mojo: AKA The Poormojo Caucus!

Dave Nelson: yerg

Alan: Guilty white liberal says GO!

Mojo: Okay, so

Fritz Swanson: Okay, so, the STRAW POLL. Name your candidate.

Mojo: Edwards

Fritz Swanson: Obama

Alan: Kucinich, which now defaults to Obama

JIM Oliver: Obama, but only if he runs with Edwards.

Dave Nelson: um... "fucking me with switchblades"

JIM Oliver: wait, I didn't know we could pick that.

Alan: /me looks around for a broadsword

Mojo: You're voting for Warren Ellis?

Dave Nelson: It's democracy. Besides, that's what it feels like everyone is saying, anyway,

Mojo: I don't think he's running

JIM Oliver: I don't care who does it, I want to see Dave get fucked with switchblades.

Alan: Unca Warren got fired. He's a real writer, now.

Dave Nelson: Got fired from what?

Dave Nelson: Pissing around with crayons?

Alan: Suicide Girls.

Mojo: Stay on target

Alan: Sorry.

Dave Nelson: A: roger that. M: sorry.

Mojo: If you had to choose one of the candidates, Dave, who?

Dave Nelson: M: Christ, I dunno. I sorta wanna cut-and-paste reiterate what I said before:

Dave Nelson: Hold on; searching old email.Here's what I said:

Dave Nelson: I'm really tempted to say I like none of the bastards,*despite*the fact that I really like B.Obama, because I'm so terrified that he's just going to turn out to be another lying fuck. A seemingly nice and honest man running for president has outlined the very Perversity of Hope in America: I've so completely lost faith in the system we've erected and defend that I'm now tempted to actively work against making my dream come true rather than have it turn out to be a lie.  I'm sure there's a word for this, but you can only say it in German. <sigh> mein Gott in himmel

JIM Oliver: see, that's the reason I include the Edwards condition in my Obama support.

Fritz Swanson: Why?

Dave Nelson: I.e., I really wanna go with Obama, but I feel like he's Lucy holding The Football.

Dave Nelson: I second Frito's "why" to Jim

Mojo: So everyone is leaning at Obama or Edwards. What about Hillary?

10:20 PM

Dave Nelson: Hillary and Giuliani are the same candidate

Fritz Swanson: Hold on, wait for Jim

JIM Oliver: They're both as nakedly ambitious as a candidate needs to be, but Obama has the genuine hope while Edwards has the genuine principles. Together, I feel like they could get shit done.

Mojo: I like that.

JIM Oliver: Apart, their ambition is the best they got, which is the Smiler to get back to WE for a bit.

Dave Nelson: I'm too gun shy about the hope.

Alan: I need an explanation, after reading that three times, Jim.

Dave Nelson: The last fuck had genuine compassion. See where that got us?

Mojo: The Smiler is from Ellis' Transmetropolitan

Alan: OK.

Fritz Swanson: Who is "the last fuck"?

Mojo: He's a powerful but empty candidate who believes in nothing outside of power.

Dave Nelson: F: Bush

Mojo: Bush?

Fritz Swanson: You think his compassion was Genuine?

Mojo: Bush has no compassion.

Fritz Swanson: He's a Smiler.

Dave Nelson: F: Yes, I do.

Mojo: The last genuinely compassionate Prez was probably Carter, if not Nixon

Alan: The kind of compassion a dry-drunk born-again guy who never read the Gospels has.

JIM Oliver: Anybody can have compassion. The damage comes when the way they want to fix what's wrong is dumb.

Fritz Swanson: Here here

Dave Nelson: Bush *has* read those Gospels. Fucker quotes Acts, for christsakes.

JIM Oliver: Compassion isn't a capital-v virtue, is it?

Mojo: He's always struck me as more the punisher than the compassioner.

Dave Nelson: At any rate, I'm just tired of basically accusing the prez of being a monster and then dropping it.

Fritz Swanson: He's not a monster or an idiot, he's just listless

Dave Nelson: I believe in his compassion — his "feeling together." It doesn't make for a leader, or even a decent manager, but I believe it is genuine,

Mojo: I don't think he's a monster, just empty.

JIM Oliver: So, are you looking for another compassionate guy?

Dave Nelson: I don't even think he's empty; fuck, he seems full of passionate intensity to me. J: I don't know WHAT to look for anymore. If anyone can lie about anything at this stage and there are no repercussions ever, how the fuck do we pick a president ?

Dave Nelson: Mojo; Fucking dave with switchblades is the topic

Dave Nelson: i.e. "Politics"

Mojo: Okay, howabout we discuss the candidates in turn?

Fritz Swanson: Wait. Let's summarize what we have so far... Basically, Everyone has a candidate except Dave, who is fearful of the whole process because he believes it is irretrievably corrupt, yes?

Dave Nelson: Wow, that makes me sound like a pussy,

Dave Nelson: but is accurate

Fritz Swanson: Okay, so... everyone else is basically for Obama, except Morgan who wants Edwards. Is anyone against Edwards? (I am not).

Alan: I'm not necessarily for Obama. I'm for Kucinich. But, being a liberal democrat, I'm used to not getting what I want in this jackboot country.

Dave Nelson: I'm scared Obama will get elected and, I don't even know, attach Australia and rape a baby mule or something.

JIM Oliver: I'm not against him, and I'd probably vote for whoever named him Vice.

JIM Oliver: ... again.

Fritz Swanson: Okay, then, Why not Hillary?

Mojo: Good question

Dave Nelson: I wasn't kidding when I said she was Giuliani.

Mojo: I think she's essentially a Republican in almost all the ways that matter

Alan: Botched health care reform with a perfectly tinned political ear.

Fritz Swanson: She was a Goldwater girl first.

Mojo: She's pro-war

Mojo: She's pro-corporations

10:30 PM

Dave Nelson: She's pro gun control (like G) and pro gay rights and pro abortion

Dave Nelson: They are even from the same town.

Mojo: She's only sort of pro-abortion and pro-gay rights, like Bill Clinton

Alan: And, realistically, a black man will be president before a white woman.

JIM Oliver: She's with me on a lot of hot buttons, but I'd go with a lot of the Giuliani crits.

Dave Nelson: M: or like Giuliani

Mojo: Right.

Dave Nelson: A:

Dave Nelson: I dunno

Fritz Swanson: Secrets. That's my main issue with her. Too many secrets.

JIM Oliver: I'm probably as pro-corp as anybody on this chat, but I feel like the secrets she keeps are ones she'll use to cheat the planet.

Dave Nelson: It's like bigots challenge

Dave Nelson: Frito?

JIM Oliver: JINX

Mojo: Basically, if elected I think she'd be great for the economy, but fuck over the poor and health care way too much.

Mojo: Secrets? Can you elaborate?

Dave Nelson: There are plenty of ways to be great for the econ AND great for the poor and health care.

Fritz Swanson: She believes in the whole need-to-know compartmentalized control through knowledge thing.

Dave Nelson: Just no one wants to do them, 'cause they're hard.

Fritz Swanson: It's a governing philosophy that she and the Republicans share.

Mojo: Would she be worse with secrets than the present administration?

JIM Oliver: i totally agree with the Fbomb.

JIM Oliver: yes she would.

JIM Oliver: be worse

Fritz Swanson: She believes in keeping them and wielding them as weapons. It's a rhetorical problem that I have with her.

Dave Nelson: This better or worse thing

Mojo: Hmm, because she'd be more competent about it?

Dave Nelson: is just nit picking; fucked with a knife is fucked with a knife; no one needs to argue butcher vs. switchblade

Fritz Swanson: Yes. Better than they are at keeping secrets.

Mojo: Disgaree.

Mojo: The amount of fucking matters. Stabbed in the toe vs. stabbed in the eye.

Dave Nelson: Yeah, but I don't feel like that's what we're arguing about

Mojo: So none of us trusts Hillary to do a good job of it, is what I'm seeing here.

Dave Nelson: Seems to me that there aren't many good secrets

Dave Nelson: I don't trust her based on her record, I guess

10:35 PM

Fritz Swanson: She's brittle. She believes that everyone hates her and no one agrees with her. She will persuade through deceit rather than through open debate.

JIM Oliver: Honestly, if she wanted to keep secrets to end Rwandan genocide, she could keep all the secrets she wanted... I don't trust her to do that.

Fritz Swanson: No. I disagree.

Alan: I feel we already went through a Clinton presidency that left me feeling politically raped.

Mojo: Because she believes she can't get a fair shake in the first place. I gotcha.

Alan: Immigration reform.

Dave Nelson: But she's right: she is hated for no reason, and people disagree with her out of habit.

Alan: Welfare reform.

Alan: Communications Act of 1996.

Dave Nelson: A: CA of 96! LOLZ

Dave Nelson: Besides, what kind of fucking secret ends the genocide in Darfur?

Mojo: A: yeah. And Clinton was worse for Abortion than republicans ever were.

Fritz Swanson: No, they hate her because she started off this way. She's hollowed out. I've read letters she wrote in college. She was hollowed out then.

Dave Nelson: The same one that Roosevelt used to end the Holocaust

Alan: D.- Zing!

Mojo: Pearl Harbor?

Dave Nelson: M:

Mojo: D: Or howabout the secret that Japan was about to surrender to the Soviets when we nuked them?

Dave Nelson: Making my points for me.

Dave Nelson: There is an inherent weakness in treating the world as all mystery cults

Fritz Swanson: Yes!

Dave Nelson: it's like they live in a world lit only by fire, and I'm sick of it

Mojo: You're losing me

Fritz Swanson: "Osiris is a dark god."

Dave Nelson: and sick of choosing between the switchblade and the butcher knife.

JIM Oliver: i think the third option is the molotov, Dave.

Dave Nelson: I might as well go to the Congo, with this kinda fucking

Mojo: Okay, so why Obama over Edwards?

Fritz Swanson: Listen, Obama is for openness. He's the only one advocating a totally open government.

Dave Nelson: For me?

Dave Nelson: Frito beat me to the punch

Dave Nelson: but

Dave Nelson: I still feel like Obama is Lucy with the football

Alan: F.- Aren't you afraid he's Carter II?

Fritz Swanson: Maybe.

Dave Nelson: he's selling the words, not the actual system of change

Mojo: That's my gut feeling too

10:40 PM

Dave Nelson: This is a classic revolution vs. radical change situation, and Obama is selling as radical change, when he is only gonna deliver 15 degrees of revolution.

Fritz Swanson: Carter didn't actually know how to govern. Obama seems focused on the ground level details of organizing and directing a movement.

Mojo: He's too eager to work with the Insurance Lobby on health care reform, when the whole point is to reform the insurance companies out of it

Dave Nelson: and we'll still be rolling down a long steep hill into Hell

Dave Nelson: If Obama is so good on the ground, he can build an army.

Dave Nelson: Isn't that how we wound up with a capitol named "Washington"?

Mojo: Also, he's talking about Social Sec. reform, when everything says it isn't broken.

Dave Nelson: Because of guys who were good leaders in the fray?

Dave Nelson: Woa

Dave Nelson: I'm in my own little circle here

Dave Nelson: just spinning by myself

Dave Nelson: baby

Dave Nelson: .

JIM Oliver: that SS position is a tempering agent.

Fritz Swanson: Wait. Is comparing Obama to Washington meant as a criticism of Obama?

Dave Nelson: J?

Mojo: J: what do you mean?

Dave Nelson: F: Sorta

Dave Nelson: F: just saying that maybe Obama is wearing football gear to a tennis match

JIM Oliver: I swear he's throwing that in there to make himself look more electable. That's a "Look, old people, I'm adjusting where you want adjustment."

Mojo: Interesting

Dave Nelson: J: Isn't shit like that the problem

JIM Oliver: Not for me.

Dave Nelson: when the candidates throw in details to get elected, and not because they really are going to do those things?

Fritz Swanson: Obama is wearing Football gear to a football game, everyone else is in jetpacks.

JIM Oliver: Candidates don't govern. They catalyze.

Dave Nelson: Fuck that.

Dave Nelson: Tell a half million Iraqi women that the candidates don't govern,

JIM Oliver: Governments govern, and I'd vote for Obama/Ed to catalyze a government I want to live under.

Dave Nelson: One of them will end up governing

Dave Nelson: The Unitary Prez governs now.

Dave Nelson: war powers and etc.

Mojo: He doesn't govern, he Decides

Dave Nelson: It's hard for the dead to nitpick.

Dave Nelson: I'd prefer not to join them.

Mojo: So we're looking at the top 3 candidates

Alan: Which brings up an excellent point. Will any of these people roll back the Unitary Executive?

10:45 PM

Fritz Swanson: If anyone will, Obama will.

Dave Nelson: Dogs might sing songs about it, then,

Mojo: Is there anyone in the bottom 7 that stands out?

Fritz Swanson: Biden.

Dave Nelson: That mexican guy>

Dave Nelson: joking

Dave Nelson: I fear Biden is who they'll end up picking

Mojo: Clinton in 1992 did poorly in Iowa and surged forward to win. Is what I'm saying.

Dave Nelson: he's tall and white

Fritz Swanson: And Kucinich.

JIM Oliver: John McCain 3 years ago.

Dave Nelson: and has the jaw

Alan: Richardson hates teh ghey.

Dave Nelson: —sigh—

Dave Nelson: But chimichangas!

Mojo: Why do you fear Biden, Dave?

Dave Nelson: It's like when they picked Kerry: He seemed electable

Alan: Kucinich is a troll with a smokin' wife and Shirley Maclaine on speed-dial.

Dave Nelson: rather than seeming like someone we really want. They tried to game the game and fucked themselves off the board the pricks

Mojo: When you said "Kerry" i threw up in my mouth a little.

Fritz Swanson: Biden actually knows shit about shit. Kerry was a suit from the day he was born.

Dave Nelson: —shrugs— 4 years ago people said that about Kerry.

JIM Oliver: F's right.

Mojo: I wouldn't hate Biden, actually.

Fritz Swanson: I never said that about Kerry.

Mojo: From what I know.

Fritz Swanson: Kerry is the main character from IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS.

Alan: I knew Kerry wouldn't get elected when I found out his wife had a funny accent.

Dave Nelson: Yeah, but you still call Al Gore *your* President, dude.

Mojo: Tim Obrien?

Dave Nelson: You live in an alternate 2008

Fritz Swanson: OBrien. And yes, Al Gore still is my President.

Mojo: The thing is, I can't help but feel that this election matters more than any for a very long time.

Dave Nelson: Why won't you share him with the rest of us?

Alan: I knew Dean wouldn't get elected when I found out his wife was a Jewish doctor who allowed herself to appear in jeans and a tee-shirt on the front page of the NYT.

Mojo: I miss Dean.

Dave Nelson: I don't

JIM Oliver: I like Dean way more now.

Fritz Swanson: I knew Dean wouldn't get elected president when I found out he got into politics in order to get a Bike path around the lake where he lived.

Alan: LOL\

Mojo: Our economy is free-falling. The environment may be on the verge of collapse. We're fighting two unwinnable wars. And then there's China . . .

Dave Nelson: But Obama got into politics as the front for a bunch of Jew professors

JIM Oliver: He's so graceless and hungry... he was born to be a party creature.

Fritz Swanson: Dean got the bike path, by the way, and in the inimitable wisdom of Vermont, that earned him the lieutenant governorship.

Dave Nelson: M: So why does it matter who we get?

10:50 PM

Alan: I think 32 teeth get you Vermont's lt. Governorship.

Mojo: D: Because I believe it's not too late to turn shit around.

Dave Nelson: M: I don't believe anyone will bother to do so. Not these folks.

Mojo: But the wrong candidate will just drive us deeper into the ground.

Dave Nelson: I want to believe it, but I can't.

Fritz Swanson: Al Gore may be my president, D, but sometimes you sound like you are already in the oven.

Dave Nelson: I am already in the oven. That is true.

JIM Oliver: D sounds like me when I quit campaigning for Nader.

Alan: So the drug you're giving up is huffing stove gas, D.?

Dave Nelson: —smiles— I'm just sick of wishing and hoping that liars will be honest.

Mojo: So what about Edwards make you choose Obama instead? Is he too pretty?

JIM Oliver: then why not hope the liars will be effective and do less harm then good?

Dave Nelson: No one even pretends that this is about anything other than electability anymore.

Alan: All I wish for is for working Americans to stop voting against their own interests.

Mojo: D: That's a separate issue. That's the fucking media.

Dave Nelson: (that's a highly qualified "no one", clearly. y'all care)

Fritz Swanson: I don't care about electability. I am 100% for Obama. It's just nice that he is also electable.

Mojo: The media make it all about style and ignore substance because style is easy to talk about and substance requires effort.

Dave Nelson: When the liars are working on their own little projects, then whether they do more harm or good is just dumb luck, right?

JIM Oliver: No. it's what we vote for.

Dave Nelson: J: agreed.

Mojo: So again, why not Edwards?

Dave Nelson: We're the suckers.

JIM Oliver: I HAVE A NOT EDWARDS THING.

Fritz Swanson: Jim, explain.

Alan: Electability is about Democrats not allowing GOP secretaries of state to steal elections by organizing campaigns that get more than 3 percent more than their opponents.

Mojo: Whoa, caps

Dave Nelson: Whoa

JIM Oliver: M: I wouldn't vote for Edwards as prez because I think his ambition would run out of control once he was in charge.

JIM Oliver: I love that guy. Now.

Fritz Swanson: Defend that claim.

10:55 PM

JIM Oliver: The work he's done the last couple months to curry the favor with unions etc. makes him look more pragmatic to me.

Mojo: Defense: as long as his ambition points in a progressive direction (think: FDR) I'm cool with that.

Fritz Swanson: I disagree.

Dave Nelson: Yeah. If ambition only serves itself then whether it results in good or ill seems totally random.

Mojo: What does that even mean?

Dave Nelson: That doesn't strike me as very safe.

Dave Nelson: Was that question to me, Moj?

Mojo: D: Aye. Show me a picture of ambition serving itself. I can't grasp it.

Dave Nelson: It seems to me that ambition only serves itself; folks collecting power around themselves just in order to have more, to climb further, higher, and control more.

Fritz Swanson: Bill Clinton is the picture you are looking for, M.

Alan: Telegraph.co.uk 01/02/08: John Edwards launched a final, frantic attempt to win the Iowa caucuses, railing against corporate greed and seizing hold of the Left flank of the Democratic Party long abandoned by his two main rivals.

Mojo: Okay, I can see that.

Fritz Swanson: Nothing got done.

Alan: Suddenly.... a challenger appears!

Mojo: Stuff got done, just not stuff we wanted. He served the business community.

Dave Nelson: He served himself.

Mojo: NAFTA. Welfare reform. Abortion reform.

Dave Nelson: It's the logical conclusion to Free Market religion.

Fritz Swanson: Nibbling around the edges.

Dave Nelson: >?

Dave Nelson: ?

Fritz Swanson: That is, even Bill Clinton's big conservative achievements weren't very big. He was a caretaker president, like Fillmore.

Mojo: Essentially you think that Edwards talks a progressive game now, but once in office he'll do nothing but consolidate power?

Dave Nelson: Me? Yeah.

11:00 PM

Fritz Swanson: I suspect it.

Dave Nelson: That's what they do.

Mojo: That's my fear with Obama.

Dave Nelson: That's what's broken my heart.

JIM Oliver: That's what I think. I think as a supporter he'd kill himself making good shit happen.

Dave Nelson: My one, secondary hope for Obama is that, as a symbol he'll force the most fucked up sectors of African America to say

JIM Oliver: That's what we need more politicians to do: work themselves into early graves TRYING to be electable as president.

Dave Nelson: "What the fuck am I doing?"

Fritz Swanson: Yeah...

Dave Nelson: F: yeah to which?

Mojo: Symbols. Something to think about. What about the symbolic nature of electing a woman or black man?

Alan: Baltimore Sun today: Like Edwards, Obama now rails against companies that shift jobs overseas and says he'd rein in corporate lobbyists and the same powerful interests that Edwards is targeting: oil, insurance and drug companies.

Fritz Swanson: I don't concede the point about Obama as a caretaker president but... if we are gonna pick a caretaker president between Obama and Edwards, at least Obama would mean something.

Dave Nelson: If we're going for symbols — sinister sinister symbols — O is my man,

Fritz Swanson: Hillary would not be a caretaker president. She's Cheney.

Dave Nelson: F: yesh!

Alan: Very apt.

Dave Nelson: I think she'd kill a bunch of brown folks for no good reason.

JIM Oliver: F: AGREE

Dave Nelson: She's a war president, too.

Mojo: We should wrap this up soon. But here's a dark question: if one of the Republicans had to get elected, which would be best for us?

JIM Oliver: Hot lezbo daughter and everything...

Dave Nelson: M: glad we're back to fucking with switchblades

Mojo: D: I never should have shown you that comic.

Dave Nelson: It's apt, is all.

Fritz Swanson: McCain, I guess.

JIM Oliver: My favorite republican is... christ. hard.

Alan: Who's running, again?

Dave Nelson: Giuliani? At least he'll let us abort our gay guns and shit

JIM Oliver: McCain would be my man if I wasn't confident the office would kill him.

Dave Nelson: McCain is pretty fucking far right, dude.

JIM Oliver: Giuliani scares the balls off me and through the floor below.

Mojo: With the way the midterm elections went, I doubt the Republicans have much of a chance. But still, I'm leaning Romney for the other side.

Dave Nelson: Because of the dress?

Alan: Haven't I spent months pointing out on the Newswire that McCain is fucking INSANE?

Dave Nelson: Romney?

JIM Oliver: Because of why he thinks the dress is funny.

Mojo: Giuliani was a bit of a law-ignoring fascist in NY.

Dave Nelson: —-head nod to Jim—-

Dave Nelson: G. had the tipping point on his side in NYC

Fritz Swanson: Romney is also a reasonable choice.

Dave Nelson: right place, right time

Dave Nelson: I think Frito might be right

Mojo: Romney: I'm intrigued that he became a Republican governor of a Democratic state.

Dave Nelson: I think Romney is fronting conservative

Alan: I have an ugly anti-Mormon bias for which I apologize.

Dave Nelson: M: exactly

Fritz Swanson: He is totally fronting.

Dave Nelson: We all hate ugly mormons, al.

Dave Nelson: But R. has a fine rump

Dave Nelson: I know

Mojo: But Romeny is also a Smiler.

Alan: I'm still thinking how to explain away being a misogynistic brood-sow-lady hater.

Dave Nelson: they all are, Moj. Obama and Edwards, too.

Fritz Swanson: He's post ideological, in my opinion. It would be like being run by a computer. Or an accountant. Or both.

Dave Nelson: A: He ain't no Huckabee, though

Dave Nelson: F: That sounds sorta . . . Prussian

JIM Oliver: I'd take Romney over Huckabee in a heartbeat.

Mojo: A matter of degree then. Romney changes his beliefs based on the polls very transparently.

Dave Nelson: I'd take the switchblades over Huckabee

Mojo: Huckabee is a lunatic.

Dave Nelson: M: But that can work. Plenty of blacks in SC liked Strom

Alan: I was trying to figure out how to express my unending horror of Huckabee.

JIM Oliver: Speaking of republicans: can anybody tell me why people like Ron Paul?

Dave Nelson: rEVOLtion!

Dave Nelson: The LOVE is backward, baby!

Dave Nelson: He's the 5th Beatle

Fritz Swanson: Because he makes them feel okay about being totally fucked up and outcast by society.

Mojo: God, I used to like him. He's pro-gay and anti-war.

Dave Nelson: M: Yup!

Alan: Internet people like Ron Paul because Internet people are: 1) Insane gold-bugs; 2) Conspiracy theorists; 3. Stormfronters; 4. In it for the lulz.

Mojo: But he's also anti-immigrant and anti-all-forms-of-government.

Dave Nelson: M: Hell, maybe he's my man.

Fritz Swanson: Ron Paul is against the American Civil War, which gets points for awesomeness.

Mojo: He wants to do away with the 14th amendment—birthright citizenship.

Dave Nelson: How are you against History?

Mojo: Can I be against the War of 1812?

Fritz Swanson: He manages it. He thinks Abe Lincoln was a bastard.

Dave Nelson: M: He ain't perfect

Dave Nelson: Abe Lincoln WAS sort of a bastard

Dave Nelson: Posse Comitatus and etc

11:10 PM

Dave Nelson: That War was hardly supercool

Fritz Swanson: That's his argument.

Mojo: D: He's the choice of the neo-Nazis. Doesn't that, y'know, bother you?

Dave Nelson: and he basically unwrote the Declaration of Indie in the process.

Dave Nelson: M: Yeah. It does. It doesn't mean he's wrong on all points, though.

Fritz Swanson: Neo-Nazis are, as Dave and I have discovered in our research, much less scary.

Dave Nelson: Besides, most of the other candidates snuggle right up with other folks that vocally hate me, specifically.

Dave Nelson: But are much more socially powerful

Alan: Much less scary than what?

Dave Nelson: Nazi's are the least of my problems.

Fritz Swanson: Than they used to be, or than we imagined. I don't know. They debate poetry on their forums, and are in that way kind of cute.

Dave Nelson: F: agreed.

Mojo: I dunno, I'm scared of neo-Nazis. They are the only people I've seen stomp a guy for bumping into them.

Dave Nelson: They are drifting to fringe geekhood.

Dave Nelson: Meanwhile, I've seen plenty of folks of diverse ethno-racial backgrounds stomp each other for nothing

Mojo: Maybe internet neo-Nazis != other neo-Nazis.

Dave Nelson: witness: Kenya, today

JIM Oliver: You don't go to enough punk shows, Moj.

JIM Oliver: Or VFWs.

Mojo: It was the skinheads that turned me off them, Jim.

Dave Nelson: At any rate, I'm not kissing skins. I'm just saying that, realistically, it is a lot scarrier

Fritz Swanson: Anyway, Ron Paul can't be blamed for the support he garners.

Dave Nelson: that someone electable, like Huckabee is going out of his way to make sure that Americans like me don't get the wrong idea, like that we are part of the country any more.

Mojo: Ron Paul can however be blamed for the racist statements he makes.

Fritz Swanson: True.

Dave Nelson: Yup

Alan: Ron Paul will get Democrat X elected by running a 3rd party campaign.

Fritz Swanson: here here

Dave Nelson: A: Oooh, I like that! Let's send him money!

Alan: Let those fuck eat some Nader this time.

Alan: fucks

Mojo: A: a Bloomfield/RonPaul ticket on a 3rd party?

Dave Nelson: —smile—

Fritz Swanson: Bloomberg will run alone.

Mojo: Bloomberg

11:15 PM

Dave Nelson: The cheese stands alone.

Alan: Balkanize the entire vote to the left of Hillary.

Alan: dammit, RIGHT.

Fritz Swanson: He'll bring his own constitution and everything. And it will have an awesome logo.

Mojo: With flames and bears?

Dave Nelson: And a skillet!

Dave Nelson: with eggs!

Fritz Swanson: No, sleek and professional.

Dave Nelson: No skillet?

Dave Nelson: man

Mojo: Sleek and professional bears

Mojo: with flames

Dave Nelson: Foreign at home again; story of my life.

Mojo: In like power suits!

Fritz Swanson: Bloomberg will sell an entirely new America.

Dave Nelson: To whom, Frito?

Fritz Swanson: To America.

Dave Nelson: YESH!

Dave Nelson: Po-mo!

Alan: For $24 in beads.

Mojo: I have a pocket full of beads. How much is new america?

JIM Oliver: I'm in the market for a new america, honestly.

Fritz Swanson: It will be a map exactly the same size as the country, and overlay it perfectly, but everything will by slightly better.

Dave Nelson: Hey, what is up with the Lakota secessionists?

Alan: M. I think we are the same guy, sometimes.

Mojo: I need to run now guys. Last thoughts?

Fritz Swanson: Summarize this, Mojo.

Mojo: Summary: we are cautiously pessimistic.

Alan: I will be holding my nose and voting for whomever my Democratic National Committee overlords foist upon me, a-fucking-gain.

Dave Nelson: Hey, Frito, there's a kicker from above: Gore may be your President, but we're all in this oven together. Thank Christ it's still a cold oven.

Mojo: We as a collective are for an Obama/Edwards ticket.

Alan: They heat the oven up slowly, so's you don't feel the heat.

Fritz Swanson: Because we suspect they have the key to the Oven door.

Mojo: Hillary and Giuliani and Huckabee scare the shit out of us.

Fritz Swanson: They have a match and propane.

Mojo: And blueprints for more ovens.

JIM Oliver: Is that an endorsement.

JIM Oliver: ?

Dave Nelson: There isn't anything outside the oven, fools.

Dave Nelson: It's just ovens all the way down.

Mojo: That's what they want you to think.

Fritz Swanson: Bloomberg is frantically creating a world outside of the ovens/

JIM Oliver: "I endorse Obama/Edwards as my way to end it all"

Alan: D.- LOL

Dave Nelson: Because it is accurate, Moj.

Dave Nelson: But lovely, after its own fashion.

Mojo: Romney is the least objectionable of the Republicans.

11:20 PM

Dave Nelson: I just don't want anyone to make my son go kill people for no decent reason.

Fritz Swanson: He wants to make the oven roomier and more comfortable.

JIM Oliver: Incorrect. Thompson is the least objectionable.

Dave Nelson: I'm voting on that single plank of platform.

Fritz Swanson: Isn't he dead?

JIM Oliver: that's only because he's like bozo running for president.

Mojo: Maybe it's a Midwest thing, but I don't feel like I'm in an oven here in San Francisco.

Dave Nelson: You're near the back, Moj.

Dave Nelson: That's all.

Dave Nelson: Get close to the door, where the light filters in, and it's a little clearer.

Alan: Say, are you guys gonna elect Al Franken?

JIM Oliver: By a landslide.

Alan: Schweet.

Mojo: If we're all in the Oven. Who is at the controls?

JIM Oliver: china.

Fritz Swanson: We are.

Dave Nelson: F: got it in one

Dave Nelson: It's that kind of oven

Mojo: I dislike this metaphor intensely.

Dave Nelson: What metaphor, baby?

Mojo: The Oven.

Fritz Swanson: I don't think you appreciate how Sardonic D's question was, M.

Alan: Who is the candidate reaching out to those with no hope?

Mojo: It's pointlessly bleak and offers no hope at all, which is not useful.

JIM Oliver: Giuliani

Mojo: F: Doh.

JIM Oliver: A^^^

Alan: There ya go, D.

Dave Nelson: —shrugs—- yeah, but I'm sick of faking like I feel otherwise.

Dave Nelson: I feel like this is another rip off game.

11:25 PM

Mojo: It wasn't always. So it doesn't have to be.

Dave Nelson: and I feel trapped.

Fritz Swanson: Obama's my last ticket. If he wins and fucks this up, I'm in Dave's camp.

Alan: Maybe we're asking a pointless question then, and should be talking about local politics instead.

JIM Oliver: Isn't it useful as a focus for other discussions though? Talking about presidents is a fun way to figure out who to vote for park board and shit. That's how it works in my town.

Dave Nelson: Finally back to Camp. Sweet.

Alan: Local organizing. Like MoveOn.

Mojo: Here in SF, the right-wing candidate is the Democrat who gets a run for his money from the Greens.

Fritz Swanson: Now that is a fantasy land.

Dave Nelson: Tells us about how the federal gov and DEA respects your laws and then I'll get hyphie for local politics, Moj

Alan: In Ann Arbor, the right-wing candidate is the Democrat who isn't invited to lunch with the chairman of the Sierra Club local.

Mojo: Fuck man, the Feds don't even respect my state's laws.

JIM Oliver: Wow. Suddenly I'm the only guy in a big right-wing town.

Dave Nelson: Exactly.

JIM Oliver: And my congressman is a fucking muslim.

Dave Nelson: I feel a tad outgunned

Alan: There's a right-wing town in Minnesota?

Fritz Swanson: In Manchester, the right wing candidate runs the coffee shop, is the mayor, and keeps taxes low.

Mojo: My congresswoman is Nancy Pelosi.

Alan: F: —-grin——

Dave Nelson: Didn't she sell us out?

Dave Nelson: Weren't we gonna get us an impeachment?

Mojo: /nod

Fritz Swanson: My Congressman is a Christian nut from Hillsdale because I am in a gerrymandered district.

Dave Nelson: I think y'all are making my points for me.

Dave Nelson: Did I win yet?

Mojo: We find out in November.

JIM Oliver: fuck that. we find out tomorrow.

Dave Nelson: How do we know if I win?

Alan: My Congressman's wife fucking destroyed the MI. Democratic party and he farts dust.

Fritz Swanson: Unless they tie.

Dave Nelson: Then they have to be CO-PRESIDENTS! LIke a sitcom!

Mojo: D: You win if we wake up in ovens.

Dave Nelson: And dress like ladies!

Mojo: I win if we get universal health care.

Dave Nelson: Point and match, dave!

11:30 PM

JIM Oliver: I win if Edwards gets elected and uses the oven to bake Lee Iaccoca's kids.

Dave Nelson: —-smile—-

Mojo: Someone had sex with Lee Iacoca?

JIM Oliver: they'll have to for me to win.

Fritz Swanson: He's very persuasive.

JIM Oliver: mine is a complicated gambit.

Mojo: F: What a victory for you look like?

Mojo: *will

Fritz Swanson: No more secrets.

Mojo: setec astronomy?

Fritz Swanson: Yes.

Dave Nelson: Fewer secrets make the oven feel a lot less scary

Mojo: Stop with the oven already

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