As I was watching MSNBC today, they were discussing Barack Obama and how he is having issues with the Muslim community because of his lack of visits and appearances with them, as well as the recent campaign mixup where two women were moved from sitting behind him at a rally because of their head scarves and possibility of the perceptions of seeing them with him.

And that’s what it’s all about. Because of the lovely memo going around about Obama being some sort of Muslim.

But, here’s where my quandry comes in…

If Obama is a Muslim, why is there such a problem with this man “Reverend Wright?” I mean, he’s only the man’s pastor who married him, presided over the church he went to, christened his children, and was a deep and dear former friend.

A Muslim with a Christian pastor… That’s a new one to me.

Continue reading the post…

The other day while reading my usual icanhascheezburger.com, they posted a link that I scoffed at originally. It was a site that supposedly was a more political version without lolcats. And then, I went over and read it and had a smile…

Yes, my friends. A site that takes the best of lolcats and superimposes it on politics. PunditKitchen.com, which I readily linked for you on the picture.

Now, while I’d like to talk more? I have a class to head to. Back on Monday to talk about campaign public finance and all of that fun stuff. Or maybe, I’ll wait till Tuesday, as it is, just because MSNBC calls every Tuesday Super Tuesday from now till the election…

The following conversation took place on the afternoon of June 7th via AIM. Screennames have been reverted to real names to not protect the individuals involved…

(4:18:08 PM) Glenn Matlin: Holy shit
(4:18:09 PM) Glenn Matlin: Dude
(4:18:25 PM) Glenn Matlin: Some RNC operative or someone just released the video of obama’s wife dropping the whitey and other racial stuff
(4:18:28 PM) Glenn Matlin: It’s pretty heavy
(4:18:31 PM) Glenn Matlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZi6U811hxE
(4:18:33 PM) Glenn Matlin: Not good
(4:18:38 PM) Adam J. Cohen: ::shakes head:: oy vey
(4:18:47 PM) Glenn Matlin: Im not looking forward to this
(4:19:24 PM) Adam J. Cohen: rick roll?
(4:19:28 PM) Glenn Matlin: :3
(4:19:33 PM) Adam J. Cohen: ass
(4:19:34 PM) Adam J. Cohen: hahaha
(4:19:35 PM) Glenn Matlin: My work is done here
(4:19:48 PM) Glenn Matlin: Best RR ever. I fell for it bad
(4:19:53 PM) Adam J. Cohen: i didn’t even listen to it
(4:19:58 PM) Glenn Matlin: wtf.
(4:20:03 PM) Adam J. Cohen: i just was about to put my headphones on
(4:20:07 PM) Glenn Matlin: Son of a bitch
(4:20:08 PM) Adam J. Cohen: and i saw the still of her
(4:20:11 PM) Glenn Matlin: Unsuccessful RR
(4:20:11 PM) Adam J. Cohen: and then the rick roll
(4:20:12 PM) Adam J. Cohen: hahaha
(4:20:21 PM) Adam J. Cohen: haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha
(4:20:22 PM) Adam J. Cohen: pwn
(4:20:24 PM) Glenn Matlin: Its not an RR w/o the singing and the opening badumpadump
(4:20:27 PM) Glenn Matlin: fine fine w/e
(4:20:29 PM) Glenn Matlin: ok studying
(4:20:30 PM) Glenn Matlin has signed off.

Little did I know, when I successfully pulled the “Rick Roll” on my friend Ben, that there really was rumors about this tape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtdc-cHFnf0

Truth of the matter is, if there really is a tape like this? Well, I’m sure that somewhere around McCain dropped a racial term or two in his past. There’s an interesting truth to the fact that just because there’s a tape out there that supposedly its real.

But what I think I find even more interesting is the more and more I hear about these Clinton supporters flocking away from Hillary to McCain? I wonder how many of them are paid bloggers for McCain. I know that there were 18 million voters and probably hundreds of thousands of more supporters, but I really wonder how many of them really were supporters or were just paid to give that illusion. The internet’s “mask of identity” sort of allows people to do that. And when you see sites like WriteHillaryIn.com or Hillaryis44.org, it really makes me think. I see the comments everywhere and because anyone could be anyone else, well, there’s no telling. And before anyone suggests, I already checked the domain registrations and they’re private by proxy, so there’s no way of really knowing (unless someone would like to delve into it further)…

The fact of the matter is this, and I said it before and I’ll use my analogy again:
This isn’t a game or a set of playoff brackets where you root for Team M because Team O beat your team, Team C.

The differences between Hillary and McCain are so vast and deep and for folks to keep running their mouths about how they’ll support Hillary to the end and are posting wherever they can “McCain ‘08, Hillary ‘12,” really makes me wonder about the future of this country…

Even still, that’s a rant for another time…

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…

Well friends, this will be the last time that I think I post about the Democratic Primaries for 2008, mostly because this is the last one. I think its worthwhile to run down a few things. I hope that these posts have made things a bit easier to understand, and I’m going to try to continue to make them, probably after most of the presidential debates with a rundown of each side and the major arguments. But we’ll see…

So, let’s run down some of the biggies…

1) Florida and Michigan - If you missed the DNC committee meeting this weekend, here’s what happened:
All delegates from both states only get a half a vote each. Delegates were allocated as follows (with what their votes are worth in parenthesis)–
Florida: Clinton-105 (52.5), Obama-67 (33.5)
Michigan: Clinton-69 (34.5), Obama-59 (29.5)
Superdelegates in Florida and Michigan get .5 vote each. Michigan was allocated based on a formula from county returns and exit polls, which irritated the Clinton campaign. If they had gone from the popular votes and the actual returns, they would have had 73 delegates, and most statements from the campaign have referred to the delegates as being “stolen.”

2) Where we are today - I’m going to go off of the MSNBC.com counts because they’re the most conservative. This count is from the 9:14AM update of the First Read blog:
Pledged Delegates: Obama-1729, Clinton-1625
Edward’s Pledged Delegates: Obama-16.5, Clinton-0 (Delegates pledged to Edwards who have switched)
Superdelegates: Obama-335.5, Clinton-295
Total Delegates: Obama-2081, Clinton-1920
Delegates Needed for Nomination: Obama-37, Clinton-198
If I’m reading my numbers right (and referencing an older First Read post), there are a total of 194 undeclared superdelegates.

3) Montana, South Dakota, and today’s election news - First off, today in the delegate count, there’s no much happening… There are 16 delegates available in the Montana primary (which closes at 10pm EST tonight) and 15 delegates available in the South Dakota Primary (which closes at 9pm EST tonight). Most of the splits are predicting that Obama will pick up about 17 delegates in both contests combined. The thing to remember is that the delegates are not rewarded in a winner take all format, but done proportionately to the percentage of votes. The Obama campaign is looking for at least 20 superdelegates to make their endorsements today and make their votes known so that tonight they can hopefully declare themselves as the nominee. Today’s just about picking up superdelegates and slowly inching towards the nomination.

That’s pretty much all I have. I started this post around 10am, but I held it till now before posting because of hearing of a news conference coming up on Capitol Hill at 10:30 from Senator Schumer and Senator Boxer, and wanting to hear what was going on with that but to no avail, really…

But I’m glad that I did wait because there’s a new AP wire report out about Clinton acknowledging Obama’s nomination tonight if he collects the delegates. So its all about just waiting today and just letting it play out. Sort of like the other primary days…

I hope these posts have been helpful in understanding what’s going on. I’ve enjoyed writing them for sure…

EDIT 12:04pm: I don’t often edit because I like for things to be final, but what’s really interesting is that the Clinton report that I cite above has been withdrawn and “unconfirmed” now. So its all just interesting to watch. I thought its worthwhile to mention this edit, especially because the unassailable Chuck Todd has said that the only person who knows if this is true or not? Hillary herself, and that she’ll probably change this mindset over the course of the day back and forth for a bit…

For this Sunday Share, I want to share something very cool that I found the other day…

Yup, you read it right… Viva Chuck Todd! A site that celebrates the commentary of Chuck Todd, one of my favorite talking heads out there (if you hadn’t figured that out by now). A very well spoken man, its about damn time that someone recognizes how awesome he is… And speaking of how awesome he is…

Oh, and by the way, this blogger here wouldn’t mind if someone got him one of the organic shirts in XL… If you need my address, let me know… :)

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but with today’s rules and means committee? I felt it was necessary.

So, what’s the deal with today? Simply put, its about the whole Florida/Michigan fiasco. I don’t have much to say on this, but its all about the committee sitting down and discussing how to count the votes in both of the contested states. There are many ways to look at it, but I’ve got to default to the political voice that I always listen to: Chuck Todd. And not only has he said that, he’s also had this nice little write up.

There are multiple ways that this could play out, and when things are said and done, I’ll talk about it on Monday.

Also, on Sunday, Puerto Rico votes in the primaries. Early polls forecast a 150,000 vote win for Clinton, which sort of makes sense with her strong Hispanic base. We’ll see, though. I don’t expect it to be an Obama win, but the margin of the win will be interesting to see.

That’s that. More next week…

We’re born into the Presidential Objective.

Every child growing up is told they could be an Astronaut, Fire Fighter, Doctor, Police Officer, or even President of the United States. All capitalized like that because they’re all important. And we reenforce these values as we grow up by making sure that we provide equal opportunities for each and every person, each and every day throughout their educational experience. Before they get out into that cruel and harsh Real World (not like the MTV show, which is also cruel and harsh), we provide them with the inspirational fuel that they’re all special and beautiful and unique little butterflies, and maybe, just maybe, they can do anything they want to in this world.

And what better way to look at it than this election cycle when a son of a naval war hero born in the Panama Canal zone, who served his country and was captured as a POW, and then after being a long-time senator is running for the presidential dream; when the son of a Kenyan immigrant and an American, born in Hawaii and raised between there and Indonesia, can go to law school and run for the presidential dream; and when the daughter raised by first generation Americans can be involved in conservative politics as a youth, marry a rising political star, and then run for her own presidential dream. We have three dream stories that show us that anything can happen. Just like the team winning the Stanley Cup, the World Series, or the Superbowl, they’re going to their political Disney World: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And not just to visit, but to sit behind the Resolute desk with the pen from the Eagle’s talon in one hand and the arrows in the form of a red phone near the other.

And this dream, is one that in grade schools, we start teaching. We let children all take turns being line leader. We let children take turns cleaning the chalkboard erasers. We let children take turns being door holder. We give them this responsibility and tell them that everyone in class gets the same chance. But its that power of the title and the responsibility of the position that sets fire to that dream.

The same three individuals still in this presidential race of 2008 all had the same chances to be that door holder, eraser cleaner, or line leader. And the teachers in schools still set forth chances for those responsibilities all over again. And with this, we foster the American dream. The truth? That we hold it all self evident that everyone is created equal.

If there isn’t a better example of that anywhere, just look at the future jock, future geek, future cheerleader, and future goth all playing together in the sandbox, all taking turns being line leader, and all holding the door for each other.

So why should we care? Why should this make a difference?

Its hard to really think about politics as a whole. I know that, and we all recognize that. What makes it so hard is that you have to jump right into the thick of it. Where we hear names like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Allan Greenspan, and Henry Kissinger that are treated as giants. Its hard to imagine that in future generations, our kids will see people like Colin Powell, Karl Rove, and Howard Wolfson as great commentators for what we’re going through nowadays. But its all with the agendas that we hold.

Because even if we can’t be President, we can be unique. We can find that one thing that we’re good at and do it so well that we create what we call in business, a competitive advantage.

So, The Presidential Objective. As a whole, its about finding your own competitive advantage over every other person out ther. That we’re all equal, but that we all can find that one thing that makes us special and different and propels us to that presidential spot. To that highest of highs where we are so unique and so much greater than the other fourty something people who have currently come before us, and somehow the right person for the right time.

Because, no matter how old you are, you can be an Astronaut, Fire Fighter, Doctor, Police Officer, or even President of the United States. Its who we are, and what we are. And the second we forget that, we’re forgetting that we’re all the same. The goth, the cheerleader, the jock, and the geek.

Even a few days after the fact, I really don’t want to be thinking about this, but I prefaced myself on Sunday, and I’m ready to jump at it…

Assassination
noun
1. an attack intended to ruin someone’s reputation
2. murder of a public figure by surprise attack
Source: Dictionary.com

On May 23, 2008, Hillary Clinton was in a meeting with the Argus Editorial Board and when asked about staying in the race, she replied: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” And then after those two sentences? The shit hit the fan and the pundits went wild.

That’s where we need to stop and look at everything rationally and see why this was such a big deal and an erroneous statement that was made. Or even if it WAS something to make a big deal about it.

1992 - Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. I was attempting to find the information online about this, however the only source that I can find is Wikipedia. And I honestly hate using it for final sourcing, until I found this neat little site that someone compiled. As you can see, the situation at hand was a sweep by Clinton in the majority of the primaries after what’s called “Super Tuesday” when the majority of states vote. The thing to note is that the first “Super Tuesday” of 1992 was on March 10th. In our current primary cycle? February 5th. A whole month worth of difference. That calendar shows an earlier clinch by Clinton, which him primarily campaigning to keep himself running. And also, with a primary cycle that started later than the current one, to be “going into June” meant a something a bit different.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. There’s no mistaking the fact. But with a completely different primary schedule and calendar, its hardly a comparable race. Add to that the fact that when RFK was assassinated, the person who was running in second behind him was the one who got the nomination. Just because the front runner was no longer in the race, the party wasn’t thrown into complete shambles or disarray. Of course, you could say that they were, seeing 1968’s DNC established the current system of superdelegates and 50-state primary/caucus system for selecting the candidate.

And finally, the politics of assassination aren’t to be taken lightly. Gandhi, JFK, MLK, Lincoln, and Lennon to name a few, are names that when you hear them, you think of the brutal violence associated with them. You think of the movements they stood for and the way they’re idolized for their beliefs. You think of how in the prime of their speech as they stood tall in the face of all oppression, they didn’t falter, they didn’t waver.

Here we stand in 2008 with Barack Obama–representing a living breathing ideal of hope and change–and Hillary Clinton–representing women’s rights, empowerment, and strength. If either of these candidates were to fall, if either of them were to be assassinated, it would be the same tragedy as RFK, who stood for the youth and a return to the politics of his brother. And if either of these candidates were to fall, the other one would undoubtedly take their place as the Democratic nominee, carrying the banner of the other along with their own.

Hillary Clinton’s remarks were off color and uncalled for in those three regards with different measures to be used, and for the pundits and press to jump on her for a recall of her comments?

It was justifiable.

When you’re going to make any sort of historical reference in anything you do, you need to have citations for it: be it a paper or speaking. You need to know what the basic implications behind your words and what will be interpreted from what you say and the words that are said. You need to be careful what you’re inciting, whether you mean it or not.

We live in a world where anything we say can and could be used against us in a court of law. We can be held liable for these words, and we need to ensure that what we say is understood in the way we mean for it to be understood, and we do so by watching our words, understanding what we say, how we say it, and how it might be understood.

And that is why Senator Clinton shouldn’t have said what she said. I’m not going to harangue her any more than that because its not my place to say it. Its just plain and simple: when you’re under the spotlight and a microscope of scrutiny? You need to watch what you say because its under that same spotlight and microscope of scrutiny. Its as simple as that.

Just like when you were growing up and your mother told you to think about what you were going to say instead of just running your mouth…

With today being the day that Obama will probably have reached the presumptive nominee status on the electoral vote majority, I’m going to shift from primary writing to about the race as a whole. And if you’re interested in the primary coverage, I’d recommend the First Read blog over on MSNBC.com. Very well done and indepth, and one of the best political team coverages that I’ve seen… And let’s get into this…

I kept seeing that clip on MSNBC this morning, dissecting the section about the Jay-Z gesture of “brush your shoulders off” and the Clinton “iron my shirt” sign. And in truth, I think that this race brought race and -isms to the forefront in a completely new light.

In the past, its fairly safe to say that it was old white guy versus old white guy in the nominations. Sure, Elizabeth Dole ran once, and JFK was our youngest president, and Alan Keyes and Jesse Jackson ran a time or two. The “script” has been broken in the past, but what makes it different is that its not us talking about someone who tried and dropped out after a state or two: we’re talking about two candidates that are strong choices for the Democratic party.

In some cases, anytime anything is said racially, there’s a jump to say that its racist against Obama… And now, as Clinton’s chances dwindle and the only math that works is Rove’s? The back-burner conversation has changed. No longer are we talking about racism, but about the dwindling chances of the first female president. I read more articles that sadden me daily about senior citizens that are out at rallies and are shedding solid tears because they see their chance for the first female president in their lifetime–their first honest to goodness solid chance with a strong candidate–dwindling.

Since day one, I’ve admitted to being an Obama supporter, but that’s not to say that I don’t respect Clinton. I have nothing but respect for her and the race she’s run at most points. I haven’t liked the attacks by either candidates against each other, and its gotten damn dirty, but that’s Obama choosing to change the rhetoric of running in this race.

The problem is, and its an interesting discussion at hand, we’re changing history. We’re living at the brink of something historic and we’re not talking about gender and race. Clinton is looking to break the highest glass ceiling in our country, and the inherent possibility that a black man will quite possibly make that move before her.

We make any vague reference, and its a race card, and we look to see who’s playing it. We dissect language for the smallest words to see any clues that might be at hand: Edwards saying “‘em” and it being interpreted as “him” about endorsing Obama on May 9th on Morning Joe; Obama brushing his shoulders off and talking about “Annie Oakley”. We look for the extraneous meaning to these, trying to point fingers at people for the “boo boos” of identity, rather than the actual messages. Why? Because we’re so used to calling people out for being racist or sexist that we feel the need to “be better” than those who we interpret as choosing to say these things. To quote an old story that Reagan told that Clinton’s told too: a young boy is shoveling manure out of a room and when asked why he’s shoveling away, he replies “with all of this horse shit, there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.”

We need to stop looking for the pony and start looking at ourselves. This is a dialogue that needs to be had. We need to be discussing race and gender and discrimination. Its a sad truth that we’re at this point in our society and we’re not ready for it. We can’t look past skin and gender with this difference… We can’t accept them for being American.

Melting pot, indeed.

Well, I feel like that. Its one of those moments that I’m sitting here, and I feel like there’s so much going on, but I don’t have the words or directions at the moment to really want to sit down and sort through it.

Although, I have been following politics in the wake of last night and all of that fun stuffs, and I found this little article fairly interesting. Its a neat little read about the other senators and if they’d be interested in the VP nomination from either candidate. There are some funny responses in there and some interesting other replies too. Edward Kennedy’s is worth a read. Good laugh right there. And some of them, well, when you know who’s saying it, there’s a lot more weight to what’s not said than to what is said.

And soon, I feel like I should talk more about delegates, because there’s an interesting change of a pledged delegate from Clinton to Obama. The whole “shift of pledged delegates” was an idea that Clinton floated a while back, but to hear the reality of it sounds so absurd.

All in all, well, I feel like today I’ve got nothing. Everything is such a blurry haze that I don’t want to sort through it.

Well that, and I don’t want to read all that I have to read for class AND sort through it. I mean, why else would I have been watching American Gladiators this morning instead of 2 hours of MSNBC…

Well, on the “fair success” that I saw on my posts last week on the democratic primaries, I thought I’d share a little insight on recent updates in the campaign.

After everything, why is Clinton still in the race is the biggest thing that I keep hearing. People think she’s hurting the presumptive Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Others say that its because she’s trying to make up the $20 million in debt that she owes to creditors and herself. And even more have the thought that she’s appealing to the Superdelegates on each state that she’s winning. She’s expected to win tonight in WV by a high margin, and some think that this is her trying to fuel things. And with that WV win, there’s talk that she’s staying in just so the presumptive nominee doesn’t lose a state after he’s the presumptive nominee. The truth of the matter is, this isn’t a question that I have an answer for. By law, Clinton’s allowed to use up to half of her personal assets if she so chooses, which means there’s still more personal money. But if this isn’t recouped by the end of the process, well, then its lost. The only person who knows why Clinton is still in, is Clinton herself. We’ll see what happens as things go on.

Next up, the big one is what’s the deal with the superdelegate counts and delegate counts. In essence, each network uses their news feeds and does the best they can with them. I prefer to use the MSNBC count myself, just because they’re a bit more conservative/hesitant to add to the count, and I like Chuck Todd and the First Read Blog staff’s take. When it comes to the actual day of a primary, I like using the CNN Election Center because of their breakdown in the county-by-county returns as they come in. But, back to the question at hand. You see the difference in counts because it depends on the official endorsement statements, the candidate’s blogs, the AP wire statements, and the casual endorsements (like Edward’s nice words to both) versus the official endorsements. Its a really thin line there. And to give you an idea too, in the span of me typing this post, there have been two new superdelegate endorsements. And I’d be damn certain that by the time you read this post, there’ll be at least another, possibly more than that too by tomorrow this time.

And Florida and Michigan are back in the headlines, seeing Obama is starting to visit these states (I’ve been hearing rumors of Orlando for on May 20th/21st, I’m looking into it). There’s been a plan on the table that seats the Michigan and Florida delegates that Obama has agreed to and the DNC seems to be supporting as well. The catch, however, is that Clinton’s campaign doesn’t agree with it because it seats delegates for Obama from Michigan–the uncommitted votes. The catch is, the uncommitted votes aren’t exactly Obama supporters, but at the same time, some probably were. So needless to say, we’ll just have to see what happens there. The biggest thing to this are these points to remember:

(1) All candidates agree that delegates/votes in FL/MI won’t count.

(2) Clinton starts slipping and starts fumbling for some numbers and looks to FL/MI.

(3) Clinton calls for full acknowledgement of FL/MI “at all costs.”

(4) Clinton rejects option that everyone else agrees on but her.

Yes, I know that was a biased shot. So sue me, you were warned back on my first post on the Democratic primaries that I’m an Obama supporter.

There’s really nothing else that can be said about tonight. Its expected to be a 64-36 type of victory for Clinton tonight, but it doesn’t change the math all too much. There’s still about a 200 delegate lead by Obama, with him being about 120ish from the nomination/magic number.

We’ll just let the polls happen, and remember my important dates, as I said them earlier, with some new notes:

1) May 21th: Next Wednesday I didn’t mention before, but at this point, Obama will have presumably clinched the majority of the pledged delegates and could assumedly claim the presumptive nominee status.

2) May 31st: Democratic National Committee meeting on Florida and Michigan. With the early plans being rejected by Clinton, this is starting to really get interesting.

3) June 4th: The final primaries would have been the night before. No more pledged delegates after this point, we’ll be hearing from superdelegates around then.

4) August 25th-28th: The Democratic National Convention, which will determine who the actual candidate/ticket is.

And there you have it. Enjoy!

So for anyone who might have read my post yesterday about politics, I figured I’d follow it up with another one for people who are wondering what’s what.

First of all, let’s start at the beginning there.

Indiana - Clinton wins by 2% of the popular vote, roughly 20k votes
North Carolina - Obama wins by 14% of the popular vote, roughly 260k votes

So what does this mean? The key is this comes in a few things:

Popular Vote - Clinton has used this as a key argument. If you look at yesterday alone, she is down 240k votes from last night alone. Clinton has introduced the argument of including Florida and Michigan’s popular votes. The problem comes in with the fact that the caucus delegates don’t have a popular vote tied to them, so that would have to be projected and guessed. And caucuses are a discussion for another time.
Electoral Vote - As I didn’t mention yesterday, Obama was the presumptive front-runner. Depending on which news source you go to for your counts, the superdelegates electoral count shows Clinton in the lead by about 15 or so and the pledged delegates are in Obama’s favor by about 160. When you add all of that together, Obama’s about 145ish or so in the lead and at a point where he’s just under 200 delegates from the nomination point. Clinton is under 400 back from that point.
States Won - By my rough count, Obama’s won 29 states to Clinton’s 16. If I’m off, don’t shoot me. I didn’t include Guam, Virgin Islands, Americans Abroad, and other such votes, but the key to this metric is the concept of “what are states worth.” Clinton has the argument that some of the states that Obama has won are historically not Democrat won states in the election and that she won the “important states” (Texas, NY, California, etc). Then there’s talk of swing states, small states, Florida and Michigan, and it sounds like 2000 all over again.
Florida and Michigan - Just see my comment on that yesterday.

So what does that mean today? Today, there are a lot of news items to listen for.

1) “50 State Plan” - While it might seem that because Obama has this lead in electoral delegates and popular vote and states won, it would seem that superdelegates would just start flocking to him. I heard Massachusetts Democratic Party Supervisor Deborah Kozikowski talking about this point this morning. The key to this is that most superdelegates will be waiting till after all states have cast their vote and the FL/MI ordeal has been resolved. So June 4th, as I said yesterday.

2) Clinton’s Self Loan - Apparently in April, Clinton gave herself $6.4 million for her campaign. Add this to the $5 million from the other month and that’s a total of $11.4 million (hooray basic math!). That being the case, the money trail goes to Bill’s book tours and speaking engagements. Last time this was the case that she loaned herself money, donors paid her back because of all of her victories. Howard Wolfson, a chief communication officer/strategist for Clinton, has said that she’ll loan herself more money as necessary. Watch her money and you’ll see what the future will hold for her campaign.

3) Defecting Big-Wigs - While I link specifically the McGovern unendorsement of Clinton and reendorsement of Obama, because of the results from last night, he might not be the only person with a big name you hear moving one way or another. I say it like that to be non-discriminatory, but you’ll hear more of them leaving Clinton and heading to Obama. In this case, McGovern isn’t a superdelegate, but you might hear the same with some of the superdelegates, which of course will change the electoral vote counts slightly.

4) Pundits Calling It - Last night begun this, and it’ll continue on. From the ones that I’ve heard of, Tim Russert was one of the first people to declare Obama the presumptive candidate. Others that I’ve seen on the list have included union leaders too. So just start listening to what is said by who. While the remaining states are probably pretty set in their voting ways in the way they look, well if there’s a shift in the way they’re “expected,” who knows.

5) The Convention Committees - I mentioned this yesterday, but we’re just going to have to wait. If there’s some issue with the May 31st meeting, there’s another meeting scheduled for June sometime for the FL/MI votes. This is just something to keep in mind and see what happens.

And I think that about sums up everything from last night. Its one of those things that we’re sort of “right back to where we started,” but because of the margin of victories, well, it makes it a bit clearer for Obama. The key, though, is whether its Obama or Clinton? In my mind, it just needs to be a Democrat in the White House. But my anti-McCain rant is for another time…

I’ve been talking to a friend of mine online and I explained everything succinctly to her in the span of about half an hour, and I think maybe there’s so much to this primary that people aren’t really understanding, so maybe a quick run down in my own words might help some folks understand this a little better as I half watch more pundits on MSNBC.

First of all, I’ll acknowledge a few things…

1) I’m no expert at this crap. I just watch at least an hour of MSNBC a day, sometimes more, so I’m just a bit more intelligent of a parrot.

2) I’m a liberal Democrat and I do support Obama, and I make this bias known and acknowledge it. I’m trying to be unbiased in this as I present what’s below, but understand that when I mention Clinton/Obama below? I’m not trying to slam one candidate or another.

3) This by no means is a definitive guide. I think its a good start to help explain it a little better… Or I hope…

So, let’s begin.

Delegates and superdelegates are the first big issue. Delegate numbers are assigned to the state. Then, the popular vote is figured out in the state (caucus or primary, we can explain those later). Delegates are then awarded proportionately to each person based on the popular vote. These delegates as people are then determined by the democratic parties and each candidate’s groups. These are the pledged delegates. These delegates are folks who are usually so set in their candidates that you’re not going to move them.

Now, what about the superdelegates? These are folks who are party elders, Democrats in Congress, Governors, former Presidents, and other party leaders. They don’t have to vote the way that their constituents vote or the way that their state votes as a whole (because you could have constituents in a county vote one way and the state as a whole another, of course). These folks vote the way that they want and the way that they feel best. Sometimes its for political reasons, sometimes its because they believe in the candidate. You can decide as a whole how you think it really is.

And the question this go round that Clinton has raised is how should these superdelegates vote? Clinton has said that they should vote based off of the leader of popular vote. the “must-win states,” or their conscience of who’s “electable.” Obama has said that they should consider the will of their delegates or the will of the people as a whole. And if I got that part wrong, well, the honest truth is this: the superdelegates vote as they think is best. And also to remember, just because they endorse a candidate now doesn’t mean they’ll vote for them at the final vote at the convention. It means they should, but still.

Next up, what happened with Florida and Michigan? There’s a long answer that you could read into, but here’s a good simplified version of it all. Iowa and New Hampshire always have the first two primaries and the early ones. There’s a lot of money for any state that moves their primaries up. The schedule was set for all states and they were told that if they moved up their primaries, they would face penalties from the Democratic National Committee. This was something agreed on by both parties and signed upon by all of the candidates. All of the candidates signed a “no-campaign” sheet, acknowledging that these two states would not be seated at the convention. At the same time too, Obama was not on the Michigan ballot. So, when the folks did vote in Florida and Michigan, Clinton won both states. Now, in the aftermath of everything, Clinton is trying to move for these two states to be seated to boost her numbers. Please understand that this is an argument for completely later…

Now, moving on… why are North Carolina and Indiana so important? After today, the majority of the delegates to be awarded come from that superdelegate number. Also, today the largest number of delegates for any one day remaining are divided out: 187 (72 for Indiana and 115 for North Carolina). There are three outcomes of tonight and here’s how they all read politically:

1) Obama wins both: If this happens, the appeal could be made that he’s won the most contests, the most delegates, and is ready for the nomination. It almost completely seals the delegate math against Clinton and makes it hard for her to really claim to have much of a continued stake in the race. This would probably have more superdelegates would declaring their support for Obama within the next week or two.

2) Clinton wins both: If this happens, Clinton has struck back strong and it shows that the electorate is wavering. It shows that people aren’t set fully behind Obama and that they might be having second thoughts, and that Pennsylvania strengthened her campaign. With this result, superdelegates might start coming out for Clinton, but more than likely might be quiet through till about June 4th.

3) Each candidate wins one: This is probably the most likely result from tonight with Clinton winning Indiana and Obama winning North Carolina. If this happens, the Democratic race remains the way its sitting and noone really advances in the superdelegates’ eyes. And then we just have to see.

Two things to remember with that: (1) Even in winning a state, if Obama or Clinton wins by a 55%-45% on the popular vote, they’ll only get that 55% of the delegates; (2) After today there are more superdelegates that are undeclared than pledged delegates that could be awarded to either campaign in the upcoming states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota). That means that in those states coming up, there won’t be as much “concern” as we’ve seen in the past. We’ll still see it, but most of the campaigning will be calls to superdelegates. Just keep both of those in mind, and I hope I didn’t lose you on it.

And if you’re still with me? Okay, the last really big thing comes with the important Democratic Primary dates ahead:

1) May 31st: On this day, the Democratic National Committee meets to see how to deal with Florida and Michigan. The outcomes on this day will be interesting. There probably will not be a solution that both candidates will be happy with, but we will just have to see.

2) June 4th: On this day, we would have had the last primaries the day before and there’ll be no more pledged delegates to be awarded (pending the DNC decision on Florida and Michigan). There should be a lot more superdelegates endorsing then and as a whole, there should be a presumptive candidate. That presumes, of course, that there was resolution on May 31st to Michigan and Florida.

3) August 25th-28th: The Democratic National Convention, which will determine who the actual candidate/ticket is.

And I hope that clears things up. When you turn on the news and you hear dates, candidates, delegates, superdelegates, Rev. Wright, gas tax holidays, Florida, Michigan, “elite,” and tons of other of the buzzwords, its sort of hard to sort things out for one side or the other.

Anyways, let me know if that helps, and if it does, please feel free to pass it along to others. It’ll help you read the paper and understand a little more for the water cooler in the morning, I’d imagine. And if not? Feel free to ask…

This morning, I’ve been finishing off some of my lovely lectures for my International Business class and waiting on my latest ad-adventure to go through so I can maybe make a few more bucks from these random entries that you folks seem to enjoy so much.

And while I’m waiting with my Gmail Inbox open? I see I get a new e-mail. Its from my wife about carriage tours for our upcoming vacation. Soooo, I open it to see if there’s anything else important in it. Its just a link. Cool.

But then when I reload the Inbox? The ad up top changes to baby carriages. Why? Because it saw the word “carriage” in my latest e-mail.

You know, I sometimes laugh at the ads that Google pulls for my site. I mean, right now, I’m seeing this: College Music Degree, Score Songs, Score Music CD, Music Player, Seriously? The keywords that its pulling are amusing.

Ah well, money is money is money and if a few extra words on my site will earn me a few bucks, well, why wouldn’t I do it.

But my e-mail relating a horse and carriage as a baby carriage? Yeah. I don’t think so.

Oh, and for my friends looking for a comment from me about Obama’s last night upset? All I can say is that Fark said it best: Hillary sees her shadow in Pennsylvania. We can expect six more weeks of tired, pathetic campaigning