For those who watched last night around 10pm when Obama took the stage in St. Paul, Minnesota, he had crossed the “magic number” that we kept referring to. Beautifully done speech, I watched it and felt just as inspired as I’ve always been. I sat in class, refreshing an article on MSNBC.com on my cell phone, just to watch as the superdelegates rolled in and the delegate margin to 2118 got smaller and smaller. I know that the AP reported around 4 or 5pm that Obama clinched the nomination, but I like waiting for the MSNBC/NBC count, just for the sole reason that they wait for official confirmation and public announcements before making any calls at all as to what way anyone is supporting. And with that? A more conservative and accurate count, I believe.

As of today, we are starting the official McCain versus Obama for the 2008 general election. So honestly, what’s next? What’s on the horizon? Here’s a brief rundown…

1) What’s the deal with Clinton? - She still hasn’t suspended or conceded. She’s skirted around acknowledgment of Obama’s goal and has said she’s going to “make a decision but not [Tuesday night].” At any rate, the question will be when she concedes, what will happen? Will she be the VP candidate? Will she turn it down? If I had any sort of answer, I’d say it here. Only she, Bill, and Chelsea know.
2) What’s going on with the veepstakes? - The “veepstakes,” or the race for the vice presidential nomination, is one that is a carefully crafted one. I’ll get into it a bit more, but it has to be done right to balance out the candidate with qualities that they’re missing. For example: McCain needs someone who’ll reach more to the Republican evangelical conservative base who’s younger; Obama needs someone who has the policy experience and is a trusted face that can bring in the white working-class voters he’s had problems with. I’ll devote an entry to a few of the names when I see short-lists come out from each candidate. Oh, and before you ask “what’s a short-list,” its just as it sounds: a short list of names of possible candidates.
3) What’s going to go on now? - Well, both McCain and Obama have reached the required number of delegates as per each of their committee’s rules for the primary system used to select candidates. From there, we just wait till the conventions (DNC in Denver end of August; RNC in St. Paul, Minnesota in September) and for the candidates to be officially vetted and then the tickets solidified and started to run a full campaign. While both candidates will establish stronger positions–like Obama with the AIPAC and McCain stumping in a town hall format, both happening today–they’ll just mostly be running around and watching each other and starting basic attacks.
4) What are these “formats?” - This is the final thing I’ll cover for the time being, anything else would be nit-picking… These are my rough definitions, so don’t count them as definitive:
Appearance: Just a “show up and leave” type of thing. Maybe an opening speech, but nothing much at all.
Ceremony: Awards something to someone. Pompous. More just for the sake of being there.
Debate: Candidates facing off against each other in a moderated forum, attempting to one-on-one attack on varied issues.
Forum: A goal based meeting usually on a certain topic or agenda.
Fundraiser: Entry cost to get in. Usually centers around paying per seat or paying per plate.
House Party: Closed private events to give more of a one-on-one with the candidate.
Meeting: Usually means a gathering of the party minds to discuss issues. Usually closed doors events.
Party Event: Sponsored by the political party, but can be any of the above. Usually some sort of rally or fundraiser.
Rally: Think of this as a combination of an appearance and a speech and a party event. Its a massive gathering to boost campaign morals with big name lead-ins before launching into a “current events” style recap.
Speech: Usually policy based. Against a plain background or a presidential setting (blue curtain & flags on stands), its a 20+ minute delivery with few to no questions at the end to state serious points or ideas.
Town Hall: Styled after the old town hall meetings with one speaker and 200-400 people in the audience able to ask anything of the speaker, this is a fairly common-stance situation nowadays.
Whiste-stop: Mentioned mostly by the press, this is just when a candidate is blowing through a good number of cities for appearances left and right. So its just an appearance on steroids. Comes from the old happenstance of trains just stopping at the stations and the candidates giving speeches from the back before the train continues along the tracks.

For now, though, I’ll probably return to my fairly mundane average posts till I have more to say. So to everyone who found me and added me expecting more of the same? Please stick around, it might be a while, but I’ll make it worthwhile when I do come back to more of these politics posts.

But as a whole? I’m going to say something that I said last night on my MySpace as a bulletin.

As I’ve said in the past, I fully support and endorse Barack Obama myself and I will campaign and promote him as much as I can because he is my support to be the fourty fourth President of the United States. While I write these posts, I will read into McCain and try to present him and his views as I can, seeing a lot of my upcoming posts will be policy/position based for each of them.

But last night when Obama clinched the nomination, I heard a lot of friends of mine say immediately “Well, if Obama’s the nominee, I feel sorry for Hillary. Fuck it, I’m voting for McCain.” Right here and right now, I will say this and I mean this dearly: Hillary Clinton is a phenomenal woman and an amazing politician. She holds an uncontested position of power within our government in the Senate and whatever role she has in government as a cabinet or elsewhere.

But I’d like to simply state this, and I’d like for people to be clear on this: just because she’s not the nominee doesn’t mean you should immediately vote against the nominee because they won. Its not like a playoff bracket where you root for Team M because Team O beat your team, Team C. This isn’t a game.

This year, we have a chance to change the face of America as we know it for all of history. I highly encourage each and everyone who stumbles across this blog to sit down and think about what’s going on in your life and what issues concern you and then to see what each candidate has to say about these issues. Really think this through and don’t go with the visceral urge to vote with a playoff rooting mentality. Please, please, please read about what’s going on and take an interest because we’re picking someone who’ll be controlling the direction of this company at least the next four years. We’ll be picking someone who’ll be in charge while myself and many of my peers are finishing school, finding their first job, buying their first house, and starting a family. Look at each of these candidates and read through their policies and their records and their histories. Make sure that the person that you choose supports your interests. Make sure that your views are represented in what they’re running for. Most of all, make sure that you’re picking someone whose records go with what they say and how they say it and not just someone who’s pandering to a group of voters to draw attention. I know that this takes a bit of research and a bit of time, but you’re making an important decision here.

This, is all I ask. That you be educated and from that, you vote.

Thanks folks, enjoy your Wednesdays…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm by Adam and is filed under Babbling, Political Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.