Sunday, April 27, 2008

More Fun in the New World

First, let me say what almost no one seems to have to guts to say publicly: Obama has long ago won the Democratic nomination and the charade that is currently playing out in these last few irrelevant states is meant for one simple reason: to make the Billary supporters feel good about themselves and Billary so that they will not keep their bitter selves at home in November instead of voting for Obama, or worse yet voting for McSame. That is what this is all about. The Democratic party is not going to steal the nomination from the rightfully elected candidate, one who just happens to be an African American. Think about it. That would be suicide for the Democratic Party, for African Americans are by far the most loyal group of voters the party can depend on: They supported Kerry--who lost--by a 91-9% margin! The idea that Clinton is somehow more popular than Obama and will procure enough independent votes to win in November is laughable. Her ceiling is well below 50% and while Obama may lose, Clinton surely will lose. That fact hasn't changed in the last few weeks, as Clinton has implemented her scorched earth, party-be-damned strategy to steal the nomination.

All this nonsense about this benchmark and that benchmark is just that--nonsense. The nomination is settled by delegates. Period. There is no changing the rules in the 4th quarter because it suits the rich white woman and her rich white husband. Is that the message the party wants to send to black people, their most loyal constituents? Come on...Obama had nothing to do with setting up the nomination rules, most of which are 25 years old. He has simply played by the rules and not complained to the refs every time he has lost a round. The fact is someone is going to win the nomination in Denver beacuse he or she has the most DELEGATES. Period. They are not suddenly going to go to each state at the convention roll call and call for their popular votes. All this talk is ridiculous and is being kept alive by the media so that they can keep people talking about the race and watching their news shows. That's the bottom line. Think about these vapid arguments about popular vote for instance: Using that to decide would be fine if it was established BEFORE the voting began so that both candidates could simply ignore small states such as Iowa and New Hampshire and spend all their time in the huge states. That would change the entire campaign strategy, obviously, so using that as a benchmark because it suits Clinton after the fact is highly corrupt. Does anyone think Obama would not have gotten even more popular votes if he put all his resources into large states only? In addition, they do not even have caucus popular vote totals so all those popular vote tallies do not even include all the states where Obama won the caucus votes by huge margins! And Clinton talks about fairness and counting votes in Florida and Michigan with a straight face? It's OK not to count ANY of the votes in caucus states she lost. OK...Think how ridiculous this is...

Obama and his supporters know all this but are trying to avoid tearing Billary apart because they know this race is over and they need those voters. Billary, however, seems to be the only one who is seeking any possible way to destroy Obama's campaign, which is puzzling because if Obama loses in November because of her--and that may very well be the case--Clinton, like Kerry, will not be welcomed back into the party nor should she be. She is a flawed candidate, and I stick to my prediction from years ago that the first woman president will be a Republican, as ironic as that may be. There are many excellent female candidates in both parties, but Hillary is the worst choice that either party could make. She is an unqualified serial liar whose judgment alone should disqualify her. She is the worst that politics has to offer, someone who has no real convictions except the ones that she tries to hide(creating a new tax on everyone to create some government healthcare disaster)Democrats, unlike Republicans, do not embrace losers, they cast them aside(Gore, by the way, is not a good example because people know he was screwed, even though he couldn't win his own state).

The Pennsylvania election simply reinforced what we already know about the divide in the Democratic Party: There are many older white people who are not ready to vote for a black man. Evidence: Clinton won 68% of whites over age 60 but lost 52% of whites under 30 and 65% of all 18-24 year-olds. Why is this? The times are changing, generational attitudes are shifting.
Clinton won Pennsylvania because it was a closed primary where 58% of voters were women and 32% were over 60. That's Hillary's base: older uneducated little old white ladies and Pennsylvania was her jackpot. Trouble is, she only won 55% even with those numbers. For those of you who haven't been paying much attention or aren't really good with math, let me give you TWENTY reasons why this race is over. Clinton has won over 60% in ONE state, her home state of Arkansas. Here is a list of some of the states Obama won, along with the percentage he won:

Idaho 79%
Alaska 75%
Hawaii 76%
D.C. 75%
Kansas 74%
Washington 68%
Minnesota 66%
Gerogia 67%
Colorado 67%
Illinois 65%
Nebraska 68%
Virginia 64%
Maryland 60%
Mississippi 61%
North Dakota 61%
Vermont 59%
Wisconsin 58%
Utah 57%
Maine 59%
South Carolina 55%

Those states represent the entire country--coast to coast, north, south, large, small. And they were nearly all blowouts of nearly 20% margins of victory and that's why Obama has put this away in the delegate total. His delegate margins in those states were devastating. Yes, Billary has won large states--by small margins and that's why she is hopelessly behind in the delegate count and that's simply all that matters when all is said and done at the convention. Those are the rules of the game and this game is pretty much over. Florida and Michigan can't even save her in the delegate count. Think about the common sense angle of this: Does she think Obama is going to somehow say, "OK, you're right, Hillary, I won the game fair and square but I'll give it to you."? There is no rational endgame for her to claim this nomination, not with Obama having 1733 delegates to her 1598, with only 400 elected and 300 superdelegates to go, of which he only needs 292 to reach 2025. That's 41% of the remaining delegates. Is Obama really going to lose 60-40 in ANY of the remaining states, let alone ALL of them? She is not going to make up that deficit and needs to be ready to drop out after the last primary on June 3rd, By all means she should play out the rest of the game, but make no mistake: She is simply running out the clock in a football game where she is down by 3 touchdowns on her own 10 yard-line with a minute to play.

This talk of trying to steal Obama's delegates between June 3rd and the convention in August needs to be put to rest so that the Dems can start focusing their attention on McCain, a hapless candidate who needs to be torn apart with the millions Obama has raised. Remember, McCain didn't do so well in Pennsylvania himself. He ran unopposed as the party's choice and still lost 27% of the vote. Yes, 220,000(more than Obama lost by) voted for other candidates in the Republican primary rather than vote for McCain. McCain needs to receive the same treatment Obama has endured, and those of you who are unfamiliar with McCain's past will be enlightened very quickly. He's as dirty as anyone has ever been in a presidential race. Why do you think McCain says he wants to have a civil campaign? He learned in a small way in 2000 what it's like to have his personal life and past torn apart, as Obama is experiencing, so while all the Obama attacks have hurt him and will surely come back and intensify in the general election, McCain's free ride is about to end in a big way, as he will come crashing to earth once those millions are put to work defining him. That's why all these polls showing him doing so well do not mean all that much. He has no opponent at this point, and while there may well be enough racists left to put him over the top, that's not entirely clear simply because the country is in such dire straits. For all you fools who say it's not about race, you really need to wake up: Over 400,000 people(20%) who voted in the Pennsylvania primary said race was a factor in their vote and 75% of them voted for Clinton. And that's on the Democratic side...It's all a numbers game. Also, if race is not a factor then how does one explain that the Dems lead by a large margin on every issue and in a generic match-up, but when Obama's name is mentioned the margin drops. Of course, that has nothing to do with race...Come on. Obvioulsy, there are many blacks voting for Obama because he is black, but with blacks making up around 12% of the U.S. population they don't have the effect of bitter whites who won't vote for a black man even if they agree with him on all the major issues. That is the dilemma Obama faces and the only real reason he could lose an election to a pathetic fossil such as McCain. I mean, I haven't met a single person who has expressed any excitement about McCain. I live in Orange County, CA, hardly a bastion of liberals, yet even people I know who are going to vote for him are simply voting against Obama and Clinton. No one is sporting the McCain t-shirts or stickers, talking about his great proposals to move the country forward; there is absolutely no passion for his candidacy, even here in conservative OC. Sure, he will win the vote here but voters are holding their noses wishing they could vote for someone else, someone who is a more traditional Republican, not a war hawk. McCain was born in the 1930s and wants to keep our country in perpetual war, not really what most people are clamoring for as the U.S. economy is sinking to levels not seen since the 1930s...

It's clear that short of felonious activities by Obama he is clearly going to win the nomination, in spite of these media created "issues" such as Wright and Obama's astute observations about the white working class. Before you waste your time telling me how happy working class whites are, I, unlike most whites, grew up in a working class lumber town in Southern Oregon, the type of place where many people are very bitter because the $12 an hour they make in 2008, which is what they made 20 years ago when I worked a summer at Boise Cascade Lumber while in college, doesn't provide the type of living it did when houses cost $20K and gas was $1. These people do indeed "cling" to their guns, for hunting is something that has not been ruined by government policies; moreover, it is a necessity for many families. My own family hunted deer and elk every fall and winter, as it provided a cheap source of high quality meat as well as a chance for family bonding time. However, Obama's point is well taken, for many families in these areas don't have much else to "cling" to because of the irresponsible economic policies that have sent their jobs to countries that are happy to have a permanent working class that is so poor that they have to accept ten cents an hour: That is where incessant American greed is leading this country: It's a place whose soul has been sold to shareholders and large companies, where people "cling" to what little they have because that's all they can do. The economic despair in places like Pennsylvania is incredible. Median household income in the $47K range? That's poverty level in the real world. See what that will pay for where I live. There is a real war about to emerge in this country if we continue down this road and most people are oblivious, but we'll see what happens when people literally cannot afford to feed their kids(or even buy rice or bread at the store) or drive their cars. I don't think any politicians are prepared or have the will to confront the deep flaws in our current system that are leading to impending disaster, but I am fairly confident that Obama is at least up to the task of trying to respond rather than being locked in some 1950s childhood vision of America. All I know for sure is that "it was better before we voted for what's-his-name...This must be the New World..."(John Doe)