By now, everyone has heard the comparisons being used to depict the Democratic presidential nomination race. There seem to be thousands of them.

• Hillary Clinton is Dunkin’ Donuts. Barack Obama is Starbucks.
• Hillary is a PC. Obama is a Mac.
• Hillary is prose. Obama is poetry.
• Hillary is analog, Obama is digital. (Which doesn’t work because analog records still definitely sound good and have their place)

Those comparisons only tell part of the story.

A more effective comparison is that Hillary Clinton is VHS, while Barack Obama is DVD.

VHS definitely had it’s day. It beat out all its competitors (like Betamax), and stayed on top of the game for some time. It got the job done during its day. Not too long after its inception, however, we knew that bigger and better things would eventually come along. We knew someday we would outgrow the format. Someday relatively soon… at least many of us hoped.

Then DVD comes along. After a couple failed attempts (ahem, Laser Disc), people thought that the format was too good to be true. It sounded better. It looked better. Everything about it seemed to make it a vastly superior product. Despite the legitimacy of DVD, people remained skeptical. While some consumers took the DVD plunge and reaped the benefits, others stuck by the tried and true dinosaur format of VHS.

The skeptics haters said things like:

• “I’ve invested so much in tapes, and they’ve always been dependable. I think I’ll just stick with these tapes for a few more years. No need to change yet.”
• “Why should I go for change? Could VHS be better? Sure, but it’s always worked for me. I think I’ll play it safe for now.”
• “DVD looks and sounds pretty, but does it actually work? How can one little disc accomplish all that stuff? There’s no way it can do all that.”

It took some time, but after a while the entire nation realized that we had outgrown VHS and its limited abilities. We moved on to DVD and never looked back.

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Something I read today has really drawn my ire.

In Jake Trapper’s “And Obama Wept,” he offers the viewpoint that “Obama supporters’ exuberance seems to be getting a little out of hand.” He points out others — like Felix Gillette, James Wolcott, Joe Klein and Kathleen Geier — who share the same POV. Some even go as far as to blast Obama supporters for worshiping him like he’s Jesus.

Excuse me, but fuck anyone who shares that opinion and the horses they rode in on. There’s a big difference between being part of a cult and being a part of a movement. It’s not our problem that you’re a bunch of jaded political hacks.

Why does this piss me off so bad? Because every election cycle I hear older people bitch and moan about how young people aren’t active enough in politics, and suddenly we are too active. WTF? I’m still pretty young, so that deeply offends me. Do a somewhat see their point? Sure, I guess, but there actually is something messianic about him to us. Especially after we’ve faced seven-going-on-eight years of George W. Bush.

Is he God? No, of course not. He’s not going to actually break bread or walk on water. So, no, we don’t believe he’s Jesus. What we do believe, however, is that he is our future. He isn’t the redelivery of God’s only begotten son — he’s the re-delivery of hope for my generation.

What’s my generation? I was born a week before Christmas, 1979. That makes me 29, and basically in between Generation X and Y. I guess I’m both the death rattle of Gen X and a Gen Y elder statesmen. It’s with both of those generations in mind that I respond to this “cult” bullshit.

No offense to the Baby Boomers and their parents, but their days of dominating the political landscape are over. They aren’t the ones who will have to face the next half century and the challenges it brings. The under-40 crowd will; That’s why I’m so irked at getting blasted for fervently rallying around the one candidate who can boldly lead us against the challenges like no other could. We might indeed be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but we’ve also been waiting to rally around someone like Barack Obama.

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Just what in the hell was Bill Clinton doing in Kazakhstan? Not participating in Borat’s “Running of the Jew,” but he might as well have been. From Fox News:

Yet, in late 2006, as his wife was laying the ground work for a presidential race and serving in the U.S. Senate, Bill Clinton flew on a lavish private plane to the former Soviet State and met with its President, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, known best for eliminating all opposition in his country. In the short time that he was there, Clinton promoted Nazarbayev for chairman of a U.N. committee – a position that the United States government, and his own wife, had opposed. That made no difference to Clinton. Of course, he never mentioned anything at all about the rampant human rights violations.

Clinton was there as the guest of Frank Giustra, a Canadian billionaire who wanted to buy the country’s uranium rights. Although he had no experience in this area of the world, he was suddenly awarded the contract which the New York Times termed a “monster deal…. [that] suddenly transformed the company into the world’s largest uranium producers.”

Clinton made sure that the Kazahstan President understood that Giustra and Clinton were an item.

After the deal was closed, Clinton’s foundation received a $31 million contribution from Giustra and a pledge of another $100 million.

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I watched There Will Be Blood this past Sunday. Simply the best movie I’ve seen since I watched Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth over a year ago, which is definitely saying something. As a film junkie who’s watched literally thousands and thousands of flicks, it’s not often that one leaves me awestruck. Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood did just that.

The first thing TWBB reminded of was Citizen Kane. Not just the plot itself, but also Daniel Day-Lewis’ career performance. It was so reminiscent of what Orson Welles accomplished in Kane. Then I started digging deeper.

TWBB is based on a book called Oil. Obviously, that is a topic that resonates now more than ever. For me, the word oil has become synonymous with greed, with power. And it appears that was the case long before any Bushes ever called the White House home. The movie, to me, is really about greed.

The parallels to this election are obvious as well. On one side you have the older mogul, hellbent on winning no matter the cost (Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview/Hillary Clinton). On the other side you have the young prophet, who possesses an uncanny ability to gather and rally people behind him (Paul Dano as Eli Sunday/Barack Obama). I won’t give away the end of the movie, but it was a bleaker outcome than I am hoping the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination race ends up being.

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I’m glad Barack Obama brought this up again, because people are starting to forget how bad Hillary Clinton’s judgment was back in 2002. Man, she botched that vote. Meanwhile, our main man was busy giving this speech. Talk about night and day — wow. One has gobs of foresight, the other is hurting in the department. I’ll let you guys guess who’s who. Anyways, here’s what Obama said today about Hill (via The Trail):

“I have been open about my reasons for opposing the war, but one of my opponents in this race, Senator Clinton, has tried, I believe, to rewrite history,” Obama said at a roundtable discussion on veterans issues with several military officers here. “She voted for a resolution called and I quote, ‘a resolution to authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces again Iraq,’ and now she is saying that she wasn’t really voting for war. She cast her vote after failing to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, ..which raised enough doubts for the majority of Democratic senators who read it that they voted against the war. We need accountability in our leaders. You can’t undo a vote for war just because a war stops being popular.”

He added, “This is not just about the past, it’s about the future. Voters need to judge us on the judgments we’ve made and the lessons we’ve learned. Sen. Clinton has not said her vote was a mistake, she’s simply blamed the civilian and military leader that carried out the policies she authorized. If you don’t know why Iraq met the threshold for war, how can she know what that threshold will be in the future? When I’m president, the buck will stop with the Oval Office.

Ouch. Well played, sir. This already cost Dems one election; will it cost us another one?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post has graded all the presidential candidates economic stimulus plans, and Barack Obama received the only “A” on either side. In fact, the only “B” was given to John Edwards. With the nation focused on the economy, this is key. Especially considering Republican frontrunner John McCain (”D-plus”) has admitted that he doesn’t know much about the economy. Check it out:

Barack Obama: A-minus. I criticized his previous tax plan, but Obama is at the head of the class with an intelligently designed, $120 billion stimulus plan. He would speed a $250 tax credit to most workers, followed by another $250, triggered automatically, if the economy continues on its sour path. Obama would direct a similar rebate to low- and middle-income seniors, who are also apt to spend and could get checks quickly. One demerit: Obama omits any increase in food stamp benefits, which Moody’s estimates would have the greatest bang for the buck, $1.73 for every dollar spent.

John Edwards: B-minus. Edwards gets points for handing in his paper early — in December, he issued a $25 billion stimulus proposal (plus $75 billion more if needed), including important help to states to avoid cutting Medicaid rolls. But like Hillary Clinton (see below), he would spend too much money on programs — investing in “green collar” jobs, for instance — with too long a lag time to make them an effective stimulus. Edwards’s grade goes down because he also hasn’t explained how the $75 billion would be spent.

Hillary Clinton: C-plus. Clinton, too, raised the issue early, then turned in a faulty first draft with a $70 billion stimulus plan that didn’t provide much immediate stimulation. It included a $25 billion increase in the program to help low-income Americans with heating costs — an excessive amount (the current program is under $3 billion) that probably wouldn’t kick in until next winter. Even worse was her housing plan, including a five-year freeze on subprime mortgage rates that could produce higher interest rates and reduce liquidity.

Four days later, Clinton said she would immediately implement a $40 billion tax rebate plan she had put in reserve in her first draft. Fine, but overall, the Obama plan devotes a far greater percentage to spending that is more likely to jump-start the economy.

Beliefnet — the largest spiritual website not devoted to any particular religion — and TIME magazine currently rank Barack Obama first among Dems on the God-o-Meter. He trails only Mike Huckabee, a pastor, and it looks like all the fallacious Muslim rumors are starting to be a thing of the past. It also looks like he is disproving the notion that Republicans have cornered evangelicals. Be sure to check out the God-o-meter and the brand new Beliefnet interview with Obama about his religion.

• Andrew Sullivan — who I’ve started to read quit a bit more recently — not only points out similarities between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, but also digs up a video that shows that the Bush camp actually likes HRC and trusts her with its legacy. The article even goes as far as to use words like “Rovian” and “sleaze” to describe the Clintons. In my opinion, getting compared to Karl Rove is about as bad as it gets. He’s a brilliant man, but he’s also the scum of the earth.

• A look at if Hillary’s young women supporters are old enough to truly remember what went down the last time the Clintons lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

• Slate wonders “what on earth we are doing when we make the Clinton family drama—yet again—a central part of our own politics?”

• Donklephant takes a look at the Clintons getting exposed on Meet the Press, and looks at the condescending nature of Hillary’s attack on Barack Obama over his comments about Ronald Reagan.

• Meet Obama’s speech writer, Jon Favreau, who says writing for a speaker and writer of Obama’s caliber is like being “Ted Williams’s batting coach.”

• The Huffington Post says that Obama may face “white resistance” in Southern states. This is exactly the reason why I think it is a good thing for Obama that John Edwards is staying in this race.

• House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn — “one of the most powerful African-Americans in Congress” — says that Bill Clinton needs to “chill a little bit.”

• The false Muslim e-mail attacks and rumors have spread so rampantly that Obama has been forced to put out mailers confirming his Christian faith in South Carolina. Don’t worry; Obama is still a very big believer in the separation of church and state.

More to come after the big debate…