• Categories

  • Babbling
  • Commentary on the News
  • Duplicated on my LiveJournal
  • Guest Posters
  • Health and Exercise
  • Homelife
  • Mobile Posts
  • Music
  • Plugs
  • Political Musings
  • Quandries in Life
  • Recipes
  • Reviews
  • School
  • Sports
  • Sunday Share
  • The history of me
  • Vacations
  • Webmaster Woes
  • Work
  • Writings/Rants

• Archives

  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007

Search

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…

MSNBC.com Video: Rachel Maddow and Geraldine Ferraro on Today

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

So I open up my websites this morning and I read my news and I come across this:
Don’t discount Gore-led ticket - Source: TC Palms

Gore? I mean, seriously, Gore? Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was the man for the job in 2000, but to read this again now in 2008 after a long locked battle between Obama and Clinton? I’m not pleased at all. I’ve heard multiple talks of a brokered convention, and it seriously makes me sad as a complete usurption of the democratic process. I guess all we can really tell is whatever will happen soon enough.

Add to that this fun one:
Electoral College votes could help choose Democratic nominee, Clinton supporter asserts - Source: Herald Tribune

Just digging for a reason to stay here is all I see. I’m just waiting for April 22nd and waiting for something to happen and for there to be a change… This Democratic party in-fighting isn’t wearing well on Democrats in general.

Finally, forget national polls, it makes me even more sad that in their brackets, McCain is beating Obama: 33-15 to 32-16.

I don’t expect to be updating about March Madness every damn day. I’m not that much of a sports nut, but I did want to say that I’ve gone a very poor 9-7 on my first day and first time ever guessing… For random picks, I’m glad that I even got slightly more than half of them right so far…

But, what I’d like to share here is something for people to look at and laugh as they see fit…

Of the three folks in the presidential race, Senator Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a March Madness bracket. Senator Barack Obama has one up on his blog on his site. And Senator John McCain is a sly dog with one on his site that you have to be a registered user to see. How lame is that? I’m not going to be a liberal asshole and suggest that it means something about his view of democracy to require registration (other than the passing snipe of that suggestion here), but who am I to judge because you have to register to comment on my site here…

So, my friend Tim Firks registered under the name George W. Bush with an address at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled out McCain’s picks from his site. With a bit of Photoshop work to change his HTML into a graphical bracket using Obama’s one as the format, Tim has made it able for me to show you side-by-side brackets from the Republican candidate and the Democratic front-runner…

I don’t have any sort of commentary on this one, folks. But, hey, if you’re still undecided, you could use their brackets to decide who you want as the leader of your country. I mean, seriously, shows appropriate foresight or something like that, right?

If only politics really were as simple as basketball brackets…

This weekend amidst all of the packing and other items for our upcoming end-of-apartment-lease move, I happened across a news article that started to sicken me:

“More Election Troubles in Florida, but That Doesn’t Bother the Governor” Source: NY Times

I read through it and I got sickened at the state that I was living in. Physically sick. To see an elected official who wasn’t doing everything they could in a non-partisan way but with a definitive swipe to “cover their own bases.” Its everything that makes people hate politics.

And then, this morning…

“Florida Democrats Drop Idea of Primary Redo” Source: MSNBC.com

So that’s it. Congrats, Florida. Once again, we’re the electorial dick. We’re the laughing stock of another vote.

Well, at least there’s the general election. That’s the very least that I can be concerned about and voicing my opinion there. And I’ll keep voicing it now, because even though my vote may have not counted, I still took my own damn time and cast my opinion…

After talking to a friend and realizing that from high school to now? The only thing that’s changed is me getting more educated about the Democrats and being Liberal, it should be no surprise that I want to earmark this next article…

Found this on Drudge earlier today and it serves as an interesting note: Details of a Possible Delegate Plan Under Discussion

Quite possibly an amazingly fair answer to the Michigan and Florida dilemma. I’m open for some discussion on this one because its an amazingly simple plan and it appropriately handles the dilemma and gives both Obama and Clinton delegates, allows the states to be seated, and the 19 delegate net that Clinton gets there would probably be the only point of contention, but even still? Take it and let it be, I say. Thoughts?

———————

As a side note, I just tested something and I’m pleased to report that I’m really happy with WPhone as a plugin. As I’ve noted before, for the weekends, I draft ahead. This week alone? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all ready to go and I can tell you there are some interactive topics, so I’m looking forward to the discussions.

But as to drafting ahead, when the wife and I head on vacation? I can just post right from my phone and all of the formatting is saved and posts as normal as if I was writing from my computer. That is, presuming we’re vacationing within this country and I have cell phone access. I had to do a quick check with a test entry with basic formatting (italics, bold, links: you know, the usual that I use) which was written on my computer and then accessed on my cell phone and posted, and it did just fine. Very nice mobility right there…

I should get back to my homework, the wife and I have some roadtrippin’ to do when we wake up today…

I’ve been sitting here for the better part of thirty minutes working on drafts for this weekend because, in all honesty, I didn’t want to really think about he writing I’d be doing here and now. The fact of the matter is? I feel I must. I feel that because of what I saw yesterday when I originally watched this air, that I had to repost it here and I had to add in my two cents to it.

If you’d rather read it, then head over here.

Last night as I watched live as Keith Olbermann delivered that on Countdown. And as Olbermann unwound it all, I noted a few things that really were key to how I felt. I’d like to share those outtakes here, but I think the whole thing is worth watching.

Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President. In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama. You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation. But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barock [sic] Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican. As Shakespeare wrote, Senator — that way… madness… lies.
This, is the first thing that I noted. To go back to my words from March 6th–two days after the VOTR (Vermont, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island) primaries–this is no longer a presidential campaign, but a Vice Presidential War of Attrition. And its not one for her to keep her name up there to have to be nominated for him, but for her to overthrow his voters and try to tell them that a vote for her is a vote for him as a Vice President. Even as Jon Stewart showed a clip from CNN that showed all of the far-shot chances for Clinton to be able to overthrow Obama’s vote lead, the magic number is now 64%. That’s the number of contests that she must win with a decisive lead to overtake Obama’s delegate lead. That includes Michigan and Florida being re-enstated.

And when this despicable statement — ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context — when it floats outward from the Clinton Campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do? Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline… on Jackie Robinson day… about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barock Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan? Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama’s… …while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President? Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House? Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks? Or Richard Nixon… fourteen… and Calvin Coolidge 25? Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power — gone by sunrise after she used the word “monster” — and have Senator Clinton say, “this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for,” while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign? No. Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient. And she should then call, “regrettable”, words that should make any Democrat retch.
Retch is right. For the last debate for her to call upon Obama to do more than just reject Farrakhan’s support and for him to announce so amicably his rejection and denouncing? Bravo. (Watch from 3:00 through till the end, unless you care about the Clinton tax statements, which is a story for another time.)
And add to that, drawing a comparison to Samantha Power and the “monster”-incident, which I think is key. The biggest thing with that is that the comment that the two points are not equal is important, but I think that its important to note how the two campaigns did take care of these things. Obama was quick to remove her from her position, whereas Clinton left Ferraro in her position for two weeks afterwards. Its the difference in the two campaigns: Obama taking a less political road and facing more on the issues than mud-slinging, and Clinton taking the role of letting everyone say what it is she can’t say.
Another thing to point out with this is a Time magazine article on experience from a week or so back that I’ve cited before in conversation at least with friends. I wish they had part of the graphics online for this one, but they tallied up all of the experience from Washington all the way to W and showed it graphically and there were Presidents with less experience than any three of the candidates and those with more–which Olbermann briefly touched on the above.

This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the “commander-in-chief threshold”… But — he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession. But you’d only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention. But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.
In other words, this goes back to my Vice Presidental War of Attrition remark. There have been some great statements back and forth by Clinton and Obama about who would be Vice President, and its noted to that this one is one for you to research on your own and to keep watching for on the news as it replays as a talking point.

This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name. Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late. Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.
I am not and have never been a Clinton supporter, but this statement is true beyond all words. More often than not when they’re talking about policies or talking points from one campaign or another, I feel like I hear Obama’s name more than I hear Clinton’s when they refer directly to the campaigns. I feel like they’re always mentioning Wolfson for Clinton as the person speaking, and not some direct statement from her. I know that they both have staffers that speak for them, but the difference I see are like a glove and a mitten.

A glove and a mitten–an interesting way to look at the two campaigns. Clinton is the glove: with many tentacles of statements and individuals reaching out from her, she’s a lot more effective at letting you move around and do what you’d like, but they’re all attached back to the palm, and in the end work together. They can sound off in 5 different directions, and choose to do so as they like. Obama, however, is the mitten: while it might be awkward to have to move all four fingers together, you have a unified movement and there’s no worries about any one of them doing something wrong that might hurt it or the others. Sure, there’s the thumb that shoots off from it all, but it helps the other fingers and works with it, and not in-as-much alone as a thumb works with a glove.

And to me, Obama/Clinton is like a mitten/glove difference: when we’re young, we wear the mittens and we have that warm comfortable feeling. Its a childish hope and wish. We’re tied to them and we dream for the gloves and maturity. But, when we get those gloves, we lose them or forget where we put one. And we always dream about the days when we wore mittens and had hope…

As a whole, I didn’t like Ferraro’s statements about Obama, and I did feel they were thinly veiled racism. And I really hope that Clinton can do something to repair the damage from these statements, but as a whole? I like the rest of America will have to wait… Racism and sexism are two big issues in this campaign. It’ll be a talking point that we’ll hear no matter who the Democrat candidate ends up being…

And me? I’ll just look for my other glove while I dream of childhood mittens…

Well friends, I’ve been avoiding talking about it for a while but after talking with a friend last night and after my friend Goob’s post the other day, I feel its time that I leave my footprint of my opinions on the election here on my blog.

I haven’t hid that I’m a supporter of Senator Barack Obama, but at the same time, its not because I’m some biased yuppie college student wanting change. Its because I’ve done my research. Let’s back up a bit and I’ll explain.

As I’ve said many times before, I keep up with the news fairly regularly. Now with the install of Newzie–which I’ve fully embraced and love–I get my MSNBC.com so much faster and with many articles that I think I would have missed had I not been following it regularly. With this, with all of the news that I watch and read (CNN/Reuters/AP Wire), and with the fact that I’ve taken the time to try to look over all of the candidates? Well, for me, it was about making my own independent educated decision.

First of all, I’ve always been a registered Democrat. I’m proud of that, and I believe that I’m a bit more of a moderate liberal with only a few outlying ideas. I believe a lot in social and individual freedoms and the lessened power/force/impact of big business on our world. I believe that big government is not the answer, and that a military impact against terrorism as a “first strike” as we did in Iraq was not a wise move, but that I support our troops and I want to see them well funded and brought home fast because all projections for the area show that there would be the same military collapse if we were or weren’t there. That’s an entry for another time.

Needless to say, when it came to the early run of the Democrats, I had no idea who Obama was. All I knew was that Senator Hillary Clinton was running, and I didn’t like her really. Oh sure, I thought her Soprano’s rip off advertisement was funny, but that wasn’t enough to do it for me. She always grated on me. There was something about her as a female figure who walked that line between being soft and powerful and balancing that in a very unbalanced fashion, always leaning away from the femininity and more towards a butch masculinity. And there’s nothing wrong with that because it works for her and her supporters believe in her.

In the early races, I actually favored Governor Bill Richardson and Representative Dennis Kucinich. Both well spoken men, they had powerful presences and good platforms. And as a matter of fact, Kucinich matched up to me on most of my political beliefs with Clinton/Obama falling next on most of the political questionaires that I took when I was early researching the candidates. I know that those questionaires get it wrong most of the time, but if you use a few of them, it lets you see different platforms and ideas, and from there it gives you a good sounding board to really delve further into researching the candidates.

So, what from there, right? The next step is to really look at voting records of the candidates and see what they’re about, you could say. And a lot of people say that Clinton and Obama are exactly the same. Well, while that can be shown to be a bit true in a lot of regards back and forth there, the easiest way is to pull up voting records. Now, you could go through congressional websites, or you could pull one of many articles already written about this one. There’s a great one on the DailyKos which if the link I just provided there doesn’t work, you can read it over on Jonah Matranga’s blog. And if that isn’t enough, there’s a nice little article from The Washington Post that details it in a bit more reader friendly terms rather than just listing bills and support. When you look at the supports side-by-side, they do agree on a lot of issues, but there are a few things where Obama stands out: health care, Iraq, and education. You can delve further into those articles, there’s no use in me beating the ground on what’s already been traveled.

After I had done so, I happened to be sitting in front of the television on January 28th and I had on MSNBC like I often do. And this was the Kennedy News Conference with Obama and their public endorsement. There was something in that moment so beautiful and serene and perfect. I will openly admit that I was crying. I was inspired and I felt that despite these past 7 years under a very bureaucratic presidency that blurred everything our founding fathers stood for, that there could be something different. The only words I have that could possible describe that feeling aren’t my own: “It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death…and yet…I think…this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” - Anne Frank, 15 July 1944

So, at this point, you’re probably thinking “Well, Adam, you haven’t mentioned Senator John McCain at all, what about the Republican candidate?” I can not and will not lie about him. I’d love to give him fair coverage here in this blog post and give you some facts about him, but to me, I could never vote for him after 2004. I felt he gave good fair straight-talking runs in 2000 and 2004, but since then I’ve heard him flip-flop on very many views and even on simple things as knowing people and what people have been or not been authorized to say. For that alone and for not sticking to being “The Straight Talk Express,” I cannot give him a fair and unbiased coverage. Maybe I’ll come back to this as it gets closer to the election, but not right now.

All in all, though, why do I choose to write about this today? Four events have lead me to this:

On Tuesday morning, I read an interesting editorial on Newsweek’s website from Jonathan Alter called “Hillary’s Math Problem.” If you don’t feel like linking over, I’ll summarize: because of the margin of votes that Obama won by in his sweeps during February, there’s no way that Clinton can catch up, even if she wins every single primary ahead–which is of course, highly unlikely. Alter goes through the Slate Delegate Calculator and shows that the chance of her being able to win everything still puts her behind in pledged delegates, not even including superdelegates, and not even including the fact that she’d still be behind in popular votes too at the same time.

Yesterday while watching Morning Joe they had on Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana, who is a superdelegate pledged to Clinton. They were discussing Clinton remaining in the race after all of her wins, and he had a comment that was–and I can’t find a transcript for an exact quote, so don’t shoot me–pretty much saying “We have a Democratic process and the folks in my state have not had a chance yet to have a say in this process, so it wouldn’t be right of her to drop out.”

This morning, Alter revisited his Tuesday article with a new one called “Hillary’s New Math Problem.” In this, he goes to detail that even after the wins on Tuesday, if she still were to sweep everything as he detailed out on Tuesday? She still would be behind with number of pledged delegates, and unless she was winning in popular vote and was able to petition for Florida and Michigan to be seated? She’d still be out of it. The math just doesn’t add up.

Also this morning, Florida and Michigan are stepping up. Florida Governor Charlie Crist has stated that he wouldn’t be opposed to running a Democratic caucus in Florida and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has also agreed that a do-over election should be held there too. Its an interesting read, in one of the news releases that I saw. And this isn’t about either campaign in particular, this is about democratic processes and the DNC.

So, those four events combined led me to this blog. I feel its time that I’m no longer silent and I step up and express my opinions and thoughts here. And what I’m going to say is going to be very slanted towards my candidate, but I feel say it with what I believe is full justification and my personal right to my opinions and free speech thereof:

Senator Clinton: You have done your country a great service and have run a phenomenal campaign against Senator Obama, but maybe it should be time to end this campaign. All of the math doesn’t add up in your favor, and this includes the “fuzzy math” that our current president has spoken about in the past too.

For one of your supporters to say that it would be unfair to a democratic process for you to drop out when all of the numbers crunched to even the most unfair bias to you show that you stand no chance? Senator that leads me to believe that instead of running a Presidential Campaign Bid in these primaries and caucuses, you’re now running a War of Attrition for a Vice Presidential Campaign Slot. While you keep running this way, you are just keeping your name and your status elevated high, doing continual and permanent damage to the front running candidate just for personal positional gain. The longer you keep this on, you will only be forcing him to choose you as a running mate, which would not be a beneficial move to force upon someone.

For the good of the Democratic party and for our possible chances of having a good run for office in 2008, I beseech you as an informed citizen to please step down and discontinue your bid. It would not be against the democratic process for all of the states that didn’t have a chance to vote yet. Look at all of the states before now that had candidates drop out before their primaries: while Richardson and Edwards and Kucinich and Biden might have been on ballots, votes for them would not have done any good to yourself or Senator Obama. They understood that for the democratic process to continue, it was time to bow out to the greater force.

Senator, I beseech you. Please do the same.

———-

Now, I know that might be a little harsh to say and to attack like that, but its the honest truth when you look at all of the facts presented. Its about time to step up and unify behind one candidate and as long as there will be in-party fighting and then the other party’s candidate there to fire opinions down against the front-runner as well? We do nothing but damage the party’s unity.

Unity, hope, change. That’s what we all want this year and every year. And sadly even though Former-President Clinton was referring to Senator John Kerry in his bid in 2004 for the presidency with the October quote I priorly posted, he was right. His wife is fear-mongering, Obama is calling for hope and change. Maybe he was on to something.

Obama doesn’t want red states, he doesn’t want blue states, he wants a single solitary United States. And as long as the Democratic party is divided and lets this drag on? Red and blue will remain easily discernable, and partisanship won’t loosen its hold.

Thanks for bearing with me through this one… I know its long. I’ll go more into this topic at another time…

Feb

29

Getting political without getting too much into it…

Filed Under Babbling, Political Musings | Leave a Comment

“If one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other’s trying to get you to think; if one is appealing to your fears, and the other is appealing to your hopes - it seems to me you ought to vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.” - Bill Clinton, 10/25/2004

You can find the original article quote came from by clicking right here. My credit, though, goes to Jonah Matranga who posted it in his blog on myspace.

Truth of the matter is, President Clinton is totally right. And with the way things are starting to play out politically, this weekend will be interesting to see.

But this is why I believe in hope and thinking. More on why I support Barack Obama another time, but with a quote like that one, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to repost it…

← Previous Page

• Twitter: AdamJCohen

  • 
  • nearly missed the bus on this clear and sunny sub-freezing morning! about 47 minutes ago from txt
  • is so hardcore that he chugsRice Nog from the carton... about 11 hours ago from web
  • stopped and watched the snow flurries outside the window at work... :) about 16 hours ago from web
  • thinks that you should head to his site and download his album "Building Up New." It turns 2 years old today! http://www.adamjcohen.com about 17 hours ago from web
  • wonders why the heck he keeps getting porn bots trying to add his work Skype account? Srsly. about 17 hours ago from web

About The Site


Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!

NaNoWriMo WordCount

Admin

• Register
• Log in
• Subscribe by Email
• Subscribe by RSS
• Wordpress
• XHTML