Are the Democrats in Trouble??

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At least in Pennsylvania, a substantial number of supporters of both Obama and Clinton say they will vote for McCain if their candidate does not get the Democratic nomination. I expected this of Obama supporters, who tend to be younger, more likely to be registered independents, or even Republicans, than Clinton supporters. But in Pennsylvania, 19% of Clinton supporters say they will vote for McCain, while 20% of Obama supporters say they will vote for McCain. Interestingly, 13% of Clinton supporters WILL NOT VOTE if Obama gets the nomination, whereas only 3% of Obama supporters will not vote. Can somebody please explain this to me???

What the Hell: Clinton endorses McCain??

Well, that made my decision easier. If Barack Obama gets the Democratic nomination, I’ll vote for John McCain. At least that’s what Hillary Clinton would do!

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold…I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/06/clinton-mccain-and-i-hav_n_90310.html

Funny Political Videos

We could all use a laugh during this election. It’s Barack, it’s Hillary, it’s another 6 weeks until Pennsylvania. With the time, we might as well laugh. Check out these videos.

Spoof on Will.i.am’s Barack video, this one is John.He.Is

The Onion Network’s Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

The Barack Obama Song

Obama vs Clinton – Anything you can do, I can do better

Funny or Die’s Plea to Nader Not to Run

Barack Clinton, Hillary Obama

The democratic race has never seemed so intriguing or so close, with each election’s results closely watched and delegates tallied, each vote really does seem to count this time around. Numbers of those turning out to the polls have reached new highs for a primary election, and one of the main drivers is the head-to-head race between Obama and Clinton.

After Super Tuesday, Clinton was in the lead and sittin’ pretty. But since then, election after election has turned to Obama’s favor. Some big elections coming up include Texas and Ohio, both of which have Hillary is in the lead.

But how different are these two candidates? People seem passionate about their candidates, but when looking at the two side by side, they are overall very similar. In another post, I’ll try to do some research on the points that they differ on, to try to bring perspective to this.

But in the meantime, I think that there are some who hate Hillary, and would not want her to be President, but I don’t think the same is true for Obama. At the same time, if my candidate of choice wasn’t elected president, I think I wouldn’t be opposed to the other winning the nomination. Which raises the question of a joint ticket between the two.

In the recent California debate Obama and Clinton were asked if they would consider a joint ticket, and both said yes. Seems interesting. They are both strong and successful and wouldn’t back down if the other didn’t see eye-to-eye with them. That’s the kind of relationship I want between my Pres and VP, if you pick a pair who agree on everything, what good does that serve? What if no one is looking at the issue from another angle?

However, I would be worried about the two partnering together with the red states, I think together they can seem too liberal and might not be the winning ticket. I still think a middle of road white male would be the best ticket for both. Although, personally I would be all for a joint ticket.

Could a Barack/Hillary ticket, be the winning ticket?

Democracy, Now?

Is it me, or is our nominating process for the Democratic presidential candidate a giant clusterfuck? (yes, I just wanted to use the word ‘clusterfuck’).

Remember in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote but lost the election, and all of the outrage that followed? Although I have a feeling we would disagree on a lot of issues, this blogger  accurately points out the sheer hypocrisy of it all.

–  Clinton won the popular vote in N.H., but Obama and Clinton got the same number of delegates (the CNN count refered to in the blog above was premature, but is updated here)

– Clinton won the popular vote in Nevada, but Obama got more delegates

– Clinton won the popular vote in Florida, but nobody got ANY delegates.

BUT,

Despite the fact that Barack Obama has more pledged delegates than any other candidate (63 to Clinton’s 48), Hillary Clinton has the superdelegates  on her side. These mysterious super delegates (see the link for some historical context) are party operatives and elected officials who make up about 20% of all democratic delegates, and can vote for whoever they damn well please, people and primary results be dammed. In the superdelegate battle, it’s Clinton:184, Obama:95.

So what is going on here? Will the Democratic nominee win the popular vote but not win a majority of pledged delegates,  only to be saved by the preferences of an elite few. (After all, former President Bill Clinton is a super delegate himself )

I don’t think it should be winner take all (nationally as well as within each state), but a little more transparency would be nice. Certainly we can do better than the clusterfuck that exists today.

    

Edwards: future VP?

With the disappointing results in Nevada, what can Edwards do now? Edwards went to Nevada more times than any other democratic candidate (17 times, vs Barack’s 12 and Clinton’s 8 ) and still captured only 4% of the vote in Nevada.

The real test will come in Edwards’ native South Carolina on January 26th. If he doesn’t take a historic lead there, he’ll be in trouble and need to decide what to do next. So the question is – what will Edwards do next?

Although Johnny has a decent resume for the White House, is a strong speaker and has a great head of hair, he can’t seem to capture the hearts of American democrats. I think the problem is change. American democrats are craving change from Bush, and the more dramatic, the better. Edwards can same, safe. Too safe for democrats.

Edwards may have an excellent opportunity head to head against the GOP, but in the mix with Clinton and Obama, he doesn’t seem the most optimal to liberals.

The question is – what will Edwards do next?

I still think he will be in the best position to serve as VP. As VP he can truly prove himself on a national scale (something Obama and Clinton have had more of an opportunity). But what are his possibilities to be VP for?

– Clinton: Perhaps. Clinton will need to partner with a strong male politician who has a good record, who won’t overshadow her. A fresh face might be preferred, but Edwards does have that charm factor that Hillary so desperately lacks.

– Obama: This one could be interesting. As was noted earlier articles, since 1948 every successful Democratic bid included a Southern on the ticket. And, Obama particularly would most likely do best with a Southern as his running mate. Edwards and Obama seem like they could be a good pair and complete each other nicely.

– Bloomberg: Okay, the guy still claims that he’s not running but he still seems to be leaving the great state of NY quite often. While his company is dealing with layoffs, he’ll probably wait a little longer, if he was going to throw his hat in the ring. Bloomberg has the business savvy and has helped bring that business savvy to a successful run as Mayor of New York City. Edwards’ lawyer background could couple nicely with the millionaire businessman.

– McCain: In honor of the change that both parties are looking for, might it be time to have cross parties joining together for this year’s election? Unfortunately bringing the parties together is no longer feasible in this election. Although the Unity 08 movement was making a lot of traction at the beginning of the election, they recently announced that is not able to move forward further to make the necessary changes for this year’s election. But if it was possible – McCain/Edwards just might be the ticket. Although they might seem like the odd couple, they could be rather electable.

Mitt Romney = POSER

Does anybody else see the connection (link)   ?

 

How Clinton Could Have Won Iowa (Or the Age Divide in the Democratic Party)

Lucky for us, our inside man gdancik was able to participate in the first step of this closely watched election. His experience in the Iowa caucus provides us invaluable insight into how the caucus operates and how it may have shaped the outcome of the election in Iowa, as well as how it may have shaped the outlook for the overall election. As he pointed out, the Democratic caucus took over 2 hours in a small, hot room with no option to sit for those participating.

If we keep this in mind with the statistics of Clinton supporters, the outcome of the Iowa caucuses needs to be questioned. In New Hampshire, Clinton received 57% of the votes for the 65+ age group and generally her supporters tend to be on average above 40 and female. The situation for the Iowa caucus (standing for two hours straight in a crowded, hot small room) could have caused some Hillary supporters to stay home. Obama, however, dominates in the college crowd.

One has to wonder if this played into account for the outcome. Perhaps Clinton could have taken Iowa, if only it was a standard primary and not a caucus?

UPDATE: Ok, I think I may have ran with the ball a little too fast with this one.  But it does raise an interesting question.  Some are saying that Barack lost in NH because the college kids were on break and therefore didn’t vote.  But with such a big divide between the top two for the democratic candidacy, will this party stay divided?  As Clinton’s supporters are generally older and Barack backers are generally younger, will either demographic be willing to support the other candidate?

The Iowa Caucuses

I don’t have time to make this blog sound as pretty as I’d like to, but for those who are interested, here’s an e-mail I sent to some friends about the Iowa Caucuses. This only applies to the Democratic caucus; from what I understand, the Republican caucus is a secret ballot much more similar to a typical primary.

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The process is essentially like this:

 

1) Go to the section of the room corresponding to the candidate that
you support (there was also an undecided section).

2) After 30 minutes, tally the number of supporters for each
candidate. Candidates must have the support of 15% of the caucus
goers to be viable.

3) Supporters of non-viable candidates then need to support one of
the viable candidates, or join supporters of another non-viable
candidate to make a candidate viable, or they can always leave.

4) After about 20 minutes, a new and final count for each candidate is done.

5) Each precinct has a certain number of delegates (we had 11), and
the number of delegates a candidate recieves is proportional to the
number of supporters they have. 

The process took about 2 hours overall, which included some orders of business in the beginning not related to the caucus.

Overall, it wasn’t the best of experiences (at least compared to the last time I did it) because the room was much too small to handle the 270+ caucusers plus media plus volunteers that were there. (I think the legal capacity of the room was actually 140). It was pretty hot and uncomfortable, and nowhere to sit, which I’m sure turned a lot of people off. Also, in order to count the number of supporters (and the total # of people there), you literally raise your hand and count off, which is pretty difficult when people are scattered around, it’s hard to hear, and other groups are shouting.

Last time I was in a huge room and the process was much smoother. But I guess that’s what happens when you get record turnouts, and I’m not really complaining.

Out of Obama, Edwards, and Clinton, it looked as though supporters of Obama and Edwards were by far much younger than those caucusing for Clinton. It was hard to tell where supporters of the non-viable candidates redistributed themselves. I know Kucinich told his supporters to support Obama if he wasn’t viable, and I believe that Richardson may have as well.

Giuliani’s Daughter Shows Support for Obama

This is pretty interesting. Giuliani’s daughter Caroline recently joined the “One Million Strong for Obama” Facebook group, when a reporter at The Slate noticed, she emailed to find out why the young Giuliani didn’t want her father to move into the White House but never heard back. And wouldn’t you know soon after that email Caroline mysteriously left the Barack group.

Luckily for the former Mayor, she’s only 17 and couldn’t vote against her own father.