The Obama Phenomena
Feb 20, 2008 Political
Barack Obama won Wisconsin and Hawaii yesterday and extended his delegate lead by 20. The Clinton campaign is in a downward spiral after losing 10 contests in a row. Why is Obama beating the woman who would be Queen (from Drudge)?
Obama Won:
Women (51-49)
All age groups under 65
All education levels
All regions of the state — urban, suburban and rural
Voters without college degrees (50-48)
Democrats (50-49)
Whites (53-46)
White men (59-38)
Voters who decided in the last week (58-42)Won or tied voters of all income levels
Tied among white women
Tied among union members
Tied among union households
It would appear as if just about every demographic is moving toward Obama and leaving Clinton behind. Her firewall states are Texas and Ohio. She might win Texas though Obama is inching closer. The large Hispanic population gives her the edge but the Texas method of dividing delegates might favor Obama. it is based upon turn out from the last election and Hispanics did not show up in large numbers in 2004.
There are few states left with huge Hispanic populations (the only demographic Clinton seems to be able to hold) and certainly there are no populations large enough to counter the defections from the other groups. Clinton is in trouble because even though the possibility of a brokered convention exists, there are still enough outstanding delegates to give Obama the win outright. Clinton’s only hope is a brokered convention or the theft of committed delegates.
It would appear now that if Clinton ends up the nominee there will be a riot within the DNC. She either has to win it outright or the DNC risks being torn apart by infighting.
They must also be weary of awarding the nomination to Clinton and having Obama decide to run as an independent. He and Clinton would split votes and the Republican would likely win the presidency.
Howard Dean will have a huge ulcer when this is all said and done.
Tags: Clinton, convention, delegate, dnc, Obama
Teacher, Barack Cheated
Feb 19, 2008 Political
Yesterday the news was in bold letters across Drudge with follow up red letter links. Hillary Clinton’s campaign accused Barack Obama of plagiarism. There were side by side shots of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama and Obama’s words were nearly identical to those of the Massachusetts Governor. It was later revealed by Obama that he used Patrick’s words and that he should have attributed them and for his part, Patrick said that he encouraged Obama to use them. Obama is correct, he should have attributed them to the source but he did have permission to use them. There are newer allegations today by the Clinton campaign showing that Obama has used Patrick’s words at other times.
The use of the words of others without attribution is disturbing even though Obama had permission to use them because without attribution he is giving the appearance that he came up with them and they are his thoughts. Joe Biden was forced from the presidential race years ago for using someone’s words without attribution (he did not have permission either). Certainly some words and phrases are so famous they need no attribution because people know the source but for the most part, borrowed words and phrases should be attributed to the source.
While it is disturbing it also appears as an act of desperation on the part of the Clinton camp. These kinds of claims basically tell the world that you are not able to attack the substance of the candidate’s positions so you are going after these types of issues. The major problem is that someone will pour over Clinton’s words and find where she has used something without attribution. Of course, this is not uncommon in politics because many of the buzz words are used by everyone. Change is the theme of a lot of people but until Obama started parading it around the others did not make it central. Once it was working for him Hillary became the candidate of change. Then, they all became change agents of some sort. Catch phrases are just that and none of these candidates has a copyright on them even though Obama played tit for tat by saying Hillary had used his words.
This whole issue looks more like the squabbles of kids on the playground rather than the actions of people who want to have the the most important job in this country. Clinton might have been better off not addressing it (she will wish she had not if they find she did the same thing) and leaving it for the media (she certainly knows how to leak things to them) and Obama would have been better off to just say he should have attributed it and then moved on. As it stands now, they both look like children trying to play an adult’s game.
Each of their supporters will use this episode to spin things in favor of their candidate but in the end they both end up looking like immature school kids playing games where Hillary looks like a whiner (teacher, Barack said so and so) and he looks disingenuous (I am saying this from the bottom of Patrick’s heart).
I guess one cannot blame Hillary because she is dropping like a rock and she needs something to throw him off track. In the end, this will end up being more divisive for the Democrats and since the Clinton campaign is out with new allegations, it looks like this will not blow over any time soon. The only thing Obama has going for him is that words are the only thing put in his mouth unlike what happens with a certain Clinton in office…
I can only hope it puts a big enough dent in his armor to force a brokered convention. That is where the real fun will be.
Tags: brokered convention, Clinton, crying, Democrats, Obama, plagiarism, whining
Why Did they Fail to Amend FISA?
Feb 18, 2008 Political
The Democratically controlled Congress recessed (more time off) last week without providing an amendment to FISA. The sticking point was language that granted immunity to telecommunications companies that had cooperated with the government in the past. The immunity was reasonable given that the companies acted in good faith and should not be sued for providing information that they believed to be (and probably was) legal to provide.
The Congress chose to grill baseball players about steroid use rather than provide a tool needed to prevent terror attacks. Why would they ignore the security of our country (besides the fact that they are Democrats)? Perhaps it is because the trial lawyers who stand to make a fortune from suing the telecommunications companies have given a huge sum of money to the Democrats. Amanda Carpenter, writing for TownHall.com, reports:
Court records and campaign contribution data reveal that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against these phone companies donated at least $1.5 million to Democrats, including 44 current Democratic senators.
All of the trial lawyers combined only contributed $4,250 to Republicans in comparison. Those contributions were made to: Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.), Sen. Mel Martinez, and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.).
In order to find the truth in politics it is often necessary to follow the money. The money trail here leads to Democrats and shows that they took lots of cash from the people who would benefit from the exclusion of immunity. The Democrats have, once again, sold out this country. This list includes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, two people who claim to be qualified to run this country.
While the Congress enjoys a 13 day President’s Day holiday, the rest of us are a little less safe because they put special interests first.
Others with interesting posts:
Pirate’s Cove, Leaning Straight Up, A Newt One, DragonLady’s World, Right Truth, and Shadowscope, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
The Old White Party, Now That’s Rich
Feb 17, 2008 Political
Frank Rich, one of the idiots at the New York Times, has an opinion piece entitled The Grand Old White Party, where he discusses the GOP and John McCain. He depicts the GOP as a bunch of angry white men who exploit blacks in the south and southern racism in order to hold onto to power. With Rich, everything that happened in history is racially motivated. Rich seems to think that Barack Obama brings a fresh face to politics and that fresh face shows the GOP to be even more tied to its “racist” past than before.
Never mind that it was the Republican Party that ended slavery because even the blacks seem to have forgotten that as they have continually registered as Democrats for decades. Rich is heaping all this GOP, angry white racists, on his readers while ignoring that in this primary season it has been the whites in the Democratic Party who have been injecting race. Joe Biden and his comments, Bill Clinton and his and any number of others who question if Obama can win because he is black. Instead of focusing on the racism in the Democratic Party and the angry white men there (like Robert “sheets” Byrd, former KKK member), Rich wants to show the GOP as not being inclusive because it has no black members in the House or Senate. Rich is too stupid to understand that blacks make up about 13% of the population and 90% of that group generally (with few exceptions) votes Democrat (especially in presidential races). Therefore, there are not very many blacks available to run for office on the GOP side. What I would ask is, given the huge number of blacks who are Democrats how come their numbers are not larger among the Democrats in the House and the Senate?
I understand that Rich is a liberal and that he has drunk the liberal kool-aid. I can understand he is one who probably gets weak kneed when Obama speaks and is probably all ga ga at the prospect of voting for a woman or a black man. But what he is doing in this piece is shilling for Obama. First he shows the GOP as racists who do not include blacks and then he shows McCain as an angry white guy who has better opinions than most in the GOP because he has said things that Rich believes to be correct such as the Confederate Flag is a symbol of racism. That is patently stupid and it is obviously wrong. The Confederate Flag is NOT a symbol of racism, it is a symbol a bunch of apologists have assigned to racism. The civil war was not about racism and it was not about slavery (though without slavery there might not have been a war). But I digress, we can discuss the North’s war of aggression on the South some other time.
The entire opinion piece seems, to me at least, to be designed to build up Obama’s bonafides while casting the GOP as a group of racists so that when the general election comes anything used against Obama will be seen as a racist attack. It is designed to paint the GOP as out of touch with a country that has evolved to be so much more inclusive now that a woman and a black are fighting it out. In Rich’s world, the GOP is out of touch because it does not embrace the failed polices of liberalism (which has been called a mental disorder). The people who belong to the GOP have no problem with a black or a woman being president, just not this black (OK, half black) and that woman. We would be against these two if they were white men because we do not like the message. The vessel the message comes in is not important to the equation.
Of course, Rich thought John Edwards look presidential. It stands to reason that in Rich’s new diverse world a feminine looking and acting man would be presidential. Since Rich is big into stereotypes (but only when attacking the GOP) let me stereotype. Edwards looks like a faggot and is not presidential. Hillary looks more manly than Edwards (and many other men as well, the lesbians love that).
Before Frank Rich starts attacking the GOP for what he believes is our out of step and racist policies perhaps he should look at his own party and get them straight first. Besides the racial overtones from both camps (the Clintons and their racist remarks and the Obama supporters with the notion that not voting for Obama makes one a racist) there are plenty of party elders who are angry old white guys. Over half of the Super Delegates are old white establishment guys and they could very well decide the nomination in favor of Hillary Clinton even if Obama is leading at the time. Interestingly, the angry white guy who will lose for the GOP big time in 2008 (our demise according to Rich) is also the demographic that could be the undoing of the Democratic Party. If the party elders screw Obama, blacks might finally see what they actually mean to their party and flock to the GOP or stay home.
In either case, the Democrats would lose across the board in November. Nothing would be sweeter than to have the Democratic Party break apart in this fashion. They have used covert racism for decades to keep blacks under their thumbs. Yes, programs like affirmative action which the GOP hates, is nothing more than the left telling blacks they are not good enough to compete on their own so they need help. Just like welfare, public housing, minority business preferences, and a myriad of programs designed to help out blacks because they, according to their handlers in the Democratic Party, are not able to do anything without help. Covert racism plain and simple. It will be good to finally see the Democrats come out of the closet (to use a phrase espoused by another heavily Democratic demographic) at their national convention and show their racism right out in the open.
I wonder what Frank Rich will have to say then? Won’t matter because if his circulation keeps dropping the only people who will know what he thinks are the latte drinkers who hang out with him at Starbucks…
Others with interesting posts:
Faultline USA, , Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Blue Star Chronicles, Webloggin, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Adeline and Hazel, Stageleft, A NEWT ONE-Special Thursday guest!, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Tags: Clinton, frank rich, McCain, NYT, Obama, racism, stupidity
Between Barack and a Hard Place
Feb 15, 2008 Political
Hillary Clinton finds herself in deeper trouble as two more primaries loom on the horizon prior to her firewall states of Texas and Ohio. The latest polls from Texas show that Obama has now taken a lead there and only trails Hillary by 2% among Hispanic voters. That vote was Hillary’s ace in the hole and if she does not have a larger lead in the demographic the fat lady will be warming up her vocal chords.
The saving grace for Hillary is that a large number of Super Delegates are from the old Democratic establishment. They are a bunch of old white guys who have a lot of sway within the party and many of them are not elected to an office so they will not have to worry about the wrath of the electorate, at least not as far as they are personally concerned.
Hillary is basically toast as far as the primaries go. She cannot catch Obama and neither of them will earn enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Hillary stands to gain the lion’s share of delegates from Florida and Michigan should the DNC relent and allow those delegates to be seated. This is seen as unlikely since the events were not properly contested and if anyone wants to talk about disenfranchising a black guy, this would be the ultimate event to do so.
A more likely event is that the uncommitted Super Delegates will go against the will of the people and cast their vote for Hillary thus giving her the nomination over the person who received the most votes from the electorate. There are some SDs who are switching their committed vote from Hillary to Obama but there will not be enough of them to offset the old establishment should they decide that Hillary should get the nod. For all their claims of diversity the overwhelming number of SDs are old white men and they just might not like the idea of running a black guy for the top spot.
Either event is likely to throw the Democratic Party into a state of turmoil. If Hillary is selected the black voter will finally understand the betrayal that has been the Democratic Party. Blacks have been taken for granted for years but every election cycle the Democrats promise them the world only to forget about them until the next election. Trillions of dollars have been spent on the war on poverty and many are no better off than they were four decades ago when the war began. If ever there was an indication that we should pull out of a war, that would be it. The black voters finally see one of their own reach the pinnacle with a chance to make history by being elected the first black president in the history of this country. If they get screwed they might stay home or cast protest votes for the Republican nominee. In any event, maybe they will finally understand what has been happening all those years they ignored the signs that they were being used.
On the other hand, if Obama is selected the women voters, Hillary’s largest demographic, might feel betrayed by the old white men and take out their frustrations in a similar fashion. Hillary was supposed to win, it was her turn. There were a lot of women who got excited when she entered the race and they are still strongly supporting her so much so that Oprah Winfrey, one of the most successful women in the world, received a great deal of grief and talk of betrayal because she chose to back Obama. These are two very determined groups and they make up a huge portion of the electorate. Ticking them off will not be good for the Democratic Party.
Howard Dean is losing sleep at night thinking about the possibility of a brokered convention. He might be a whack job but he is not stupid. He realizes all too well that these scenarios could play out just as I described and tear his party apart. If it happens it will only lend credence to the saying that the Democrats always find ways to lose. The best he can hope for is for one of them to drop out but that does not appear likely. He can hope that one will wrap up the nomination but that appears just as unlikely so it will be down to the convention and the nightmare of negotiations. Even if they persuade Clinton and Obama to take a deal, say where she is the nominee and he is the VP (or vice versa), they run the risk of alienating the supporters of the one who gets to play second fiddle. I can hear it now “why does the black man have to be second to a white woman” or “why does she have to be second to a man, isn’t a woman good enough to be first?”
These things are all possible and no one can guarantee that either would accept the terms. Would you want to be Obama and be third in line behind Hillary and Bill? The Democrats have a long hard road ahead of them and this is not going to be easy. In addition to risking losing voters they need to worry about losing control of Congress. If they tick off enough of their base those voters might stay away or vote for Republicans for Congress. If the DNC is not careful it could lose it all.
That, of course, is a worse case scenario but it is not out of the realm of possibility. The Democrats have a way of mucking things up and they seem to have done so this time. The SDs were supposed to be helpful but now it appears as if the whole idea might have been a bad one.
Regardless of what happens this will be fun to watch. I personally hope this goes to a brokered convention. I might actually watch it just to see the comedy unfold. My party is pretty uneventful so I might as well enjoy the antics on the other side…
Others with interesting posts:
Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, third world county, 123beta, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Tags: brokered convention, Clinton, dnc, Obama, super delegates
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