Political Frenzy

Today while defending her decision to stay in the presidential race Senator Clinton said,

“We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Nothing like a good ol’ Freudian slip!

The Clinton campaign immediately responded to the remark saying, “She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer.”

This point of reference is simply not valid.

In 1968 the nominating season was far different than today’s. On June 5, the day of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, there were primaries held in 13 states. It was their equivalent of our ‘Super Tuesday.’

Of course the candidates stayed in the race well into the summer, they had 13 primaries that day!!! By June 3rd of this year every state will have already voted.

Time has nothing to do with this debate; it’s all about numbers. We want Hillary to drop out because it is mathematically impossible for her to win, not because it’s almost June!

Not only was this an extremely insensitive thing to say, but also it is like comparing apples to oranges.

Mrs. Clinton is getting increasingly desperate and she is starting to hurt her public image. Obama is 56 delegates away from clinching the nomination. Clinton’s arguments over the votes in Michigan and Florida not counting are ridiculous and her logic about the subject hurts my brain.

Hillary…..I think it’s time.

This past Saturday I attended a voter registration drive hosted by Barack Obama’s campaign. At 10am the office was packed, with volunteers pouring out the front door. They had to announce that they had ‘too many volunteers,’ and didn’t have enough supplies or places to send everyone!

I was amazed not only by the sheer number of people willing to give up a beautiful Sacramento Saturday to register people to vote and to get out Obama’s message, but mainly by the diversity of the crowd.

Surrounding me were teenage white girls, Muslim men wearing turbans, old white men, middle aged white men, middle aged black women, young black men, old black men and women, and other white college students like myself.

I have before never seen a crowd so diverse all working towards the same goal. Senator Obama’s message is getting across to people from all walks of life, don’t let the hype from Senator Clinton fool you!

Senator McCain is going to have his hands full come November; I wonder what a gathering of McCain volunteers looks like.

Why won’t she just drop out?

There are a number of reasons why Hillary won’t just drop out of the race. Let’s explore a few of them.

First of all, and this is one nobody is talking about, Al Gore has not endorsed anyone yet. We all know that a Gore endorsement would go a long way for either of these candidates. If Al stepped out today and endorsed Hillary publicly what would be the outcome? Would it be enough to get her out of the deepening hole that she is now in?

Probably not

Al Gore is not likely to endorse a candidate who is all but sure to lose the nomination. He wants to put the weight of his name behind his party’s candidate to further boost the candidate’s visibility come general election time. Or does he? Is being friends with the Clinton’s enough to make him endorse Hillary’s sinking candidacy? (NO)

Another reason she could be waiting is to go out on top after a big win in West Virginia next Tuesday, where she has a huge lead in the polls. Clinton is actively campaigning in West Virginia, at the same time I haven’t heard of Obama making any campaign stops out there.

She will use the state of West Virginia to plead her case for the Vice Presidency. She will try to say that Obama cannot win ‘working class voters.’ Which is ludicrous…. (More about this in a future post.)

I have also heard of her campaign coming up with a deal with the Obama campaign to pay off her campaign debt of $20+ million.

The gas tax holiday proposed by opponents Senators Clinton and McCain is nothing more than a campaign gimmick.

Both candidates know that it doesn’t make fiscal sense; they also know that by proposing something like this that the American people will not look into whether or not it makes fiscal sense.

Again, this is an assault on our intelligence as voters. They think that we don’t understand that the suspension of a federal tax would cause long terms economical problems in an economy that is now in recession. The experts that have weighed in on the ‘gas tax holiday’ are even saying that it might not even lower the price of gas for consumers.

I’ll be honest when I first heard John McCain propose to cut gas prices I was happy, but then I realized that it would be a mere band-aid on a bullet wound. Suspending the gas tax for three months will only create more problems. Even if the overall price of gas was lowered by 18 cents per gallon, on a typical 13 gallon fill up that’s a whopping savings of over $2.

Big deal

McCain and Clinton also know that there is no way that the House and Senate could pass the bill in time for the ‘holiday.’ Congress just doesn’t work that fast.

Instead of taking money away from our country’s infrastructure how about we tax the oil companies (over a certain threshold of profit) who despite a ’supply problem’ still manage to make billions of dollars a month in profit ?

After last night’s ‘big’ Clinton victory in Pennsylvania it is now impossible for either her or Senator Obama to claim the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination. What does this mean? It means that your vote no longer counts.

As of today Obama has 1,719 delegates, while Clinton has managed 1,586.

The now infamous ‘Super delegates’ will now decide who the Democratic nominee will be. Isn’t that just great? These candidates raise and spend tens of millions of dollars per month, campaign up and down the country to get their message across to us voters, and it doesn’t even matter if we vote because these ‘Super delegates,’ not you, will now decide who the nominee will be.

What the heck is a Super delegate? “Super-delegates are designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates. It also gives power to people who have a vested interested in party policies: elected leaders. ” (source: About.com). Super delegates were a reaction to Democratic nominee George McGovern in 1972. In the general election McGovern won only one state and a mere 37.5% of the popular vote.

This is another example of how voters are not trusted to pick their leaders. It ensures that the same brand of entrenched politics will always be around.

CHANGE we can believe in? Let’s hope so, because old school Democratic fat cats are not likely to vote for someone who wants to change anything.

Today Senator McCain attacked Senator Obama on public election financing. McCain’s camp said that last spring Obama’s campaign said Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly-financed general election.”

Campaigns that are publicly financed means that each campaign would receive around $85 million from a taxpayer financed fund. But if they accept it they are not allowed to raise money elsewhere.

McCain said that Obama should “keep his word to the American people.”

First of all, Obama isn’t the nominee yet, and neither is McCain. So let’s not count the chickens before they hatch (even though on the Republican egg I can see the beak). Secondly an attack on Obama is good news for Barack’s campaign because that shows that the Republicans are already counting on him winning the nomination.

The thing that I don’t like about this type of attack is that Obama has said nothing about using public financing during the general election. By McCain challenging something Obama has said nothing about it makes it look like Obama has already said he won’t use public financing. Ahhh classic politics.

Let’s be honest here, the only reason McCain has brought this up is because he knows he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at raising even half the money Obama would. In January Obama raised over $32 million dollars, mostly from small donations. When looking at cash each campaign has on hand, it is not surprise. Obama has over $18 million while McCain has just about $3 million.

If the candidates agreed to both use public financing it would take away a huge advantage from Obama. When his campaign made that comment last spring I’m sure they didn’t realize that they would become a money machine in 2008.

If Obama does receive the nomination he has a huge decision to make. Should he reject his proposal of using public financing and dominate McCain with his millions. Or should he stick to his word and have a level playing field with McCain?

The smart thing for him to do would be to reject the public financing and take the wrath that comes with a flip-flop. McCain won’t have much money to get the message out that Obama flip-flopped in the first place.

I am sick of hearing about how conservatives will not back John McCain. Do these “experts” not realize who votes in primaries? Only hard core conservatives vote in (Republican) primaries! They have chosen John McCain as their man, therefore they have already backed him!

A candidate in a primary wants to be as far to the right (or left if they are a Democrat) as possible to court the people who actually vote in primaries, the people who believe in the extreme values of that party. The fact that a moderate candidate like McCain has won the nomination (I told you so by the way) is amazing.

During a general election, because voters of all parties can vote for the candidates of either party (unlike most primaries where Republicans can only vote for Republicans, and Democrats can only vote for Democrats etc.) candidates tend to bring their views more toward the center to court the Independent and undecided voters, McCain will not have to do this. He is already in the center with much of his views. He took a gamble to state his actual views during the primaries and it has paid off.

A moderate candidate receiving the nod from Republican primary voters is amazing, whoever says that McCain will ruin the party is wrong and needs to read a Political Science 1 book.

After the onslaught of victories on Super Tuesday by John McCain (and the surprise…again…of Huckabee’s victories) it appears that it is mathematically impossible for Mitt Romney to catch up in the delegate race. The McCain campaign released this:

“The remaining contests account for roughly 963 delegates. For Mitt Romney to match our delegate count, he would have to win more than 50 percent of those delegates. And, he would have to win nearly every single delegate still available in order to become the nominee. And, many of these contests are proportional, so Mitt will have to win by big margins in many states to garner every last delegate. For example, in this weekend’s Louisiana primary, he would have to win the with more than 50 percent of the vote in order to win (1191 delegates to win, 963+236=1,199). ”

Even if Huckabee wasn’t in the race taking up Romney votes it would be an impossible task for Romney to catch up. So congratulations Senator McCain and good luck against the Democrats (your gonna need it)!

I have been wondering how Romney stuck around this long, he didn’t seem like a viable candidate to me a few months ago. When looking at his “fundraising” it seems that he has been buying his way to his 2nd place finish.

According to opensecrets.org Mr. Romney has “raised” over $88,000,000, twice as much as Senator McCain’s $41,000,000. We all know that Romney is wealthy beyond belief and has largely self-financing his campaign (giving himself over $35,000,000), but was this a good investment?

I find it humorous at the amount Huckabee has raised in relation to his impact, though January he raised a mere $8,900,000. Romney has spent over $80,000,000 more than Huckabee and it is still a battle between the two!

When looking at the campaign debts category Romney’s number is alarming, he has $35,000,000 in campaign debts! McCain has just over $4,500,000, and Huckabee $97,000. $35 million where does that go? When he loses does he have to pay that himself? What a horrible use of money. He probably could have cured some disease, or saved Darfur with that! The problem is that almost every candidate wishes they had that kind of money!

I want candidates who are so in tune with the needs of the country and can resonate their vision with the people so effectively that they get enough support from the voters. Financing your own campaign is like paying for a hot prom date.

Is the ‘winner take all’ electoral college unfair? The Electoral College itself is not just unfair but inherently stupid, and the fact that if a candidate receives 49% of the vote in a state and will receives zero votes for it is ridiculous.

California Representative Issa is trying to do something about it.

California Counts is an initiative collecting signatures in order to get on the June ballot in California. Under the proposal candidates will receive one Electoral College vote for every congressional district they win.

Under the current system the presidential candidate that gets the highest percentage of votes in a given states receives ALL of that states electoral votes. In some states that only have a handful of electoral votes this is not an issue, but in states such as California it is a major issue.

The winner of California will receive 55 electoral votes. The Democratic candidate ALWAYS wins California. Candidates know this and only come to California to raise money, not to ask for our votes. In the 2004 presidential election President Bush received 44% of the votes in California and received 0 electoral votes for it.

After reading this I wondered if the outcome of the 2004 election would be any different if the electoral college was not a ‘winner take all’ but based on the percentage of votes received. For example, like I said in 2004 President Bush received 44% of the California vote, Senator Kerry received about 54%. If the votes were based on that percentage President Bush would have received 44 electoral votes, and Kerry 54 electoral votes. This is a huge difference!

I broke it down state by state by percentage to see if the outcome would change. The verdict: Bush still won, and all that it did was made the election closer.

There were very few states that the two candidates were not very close in percentage of vote, the difference makers were the big states.

If the electoral votes were based on percentage of actual vote, not ‘winner take all’ President Bush would have received 278 electoral votes, while Senator Kerry would have received 260. The candidate with 270 votes wins.

The actual results were: President Bush 286, Senator Kerry 252

So does this mean that the ‘winner take all’ system is best? NO. If the percentage system was in place during the 2004 election, the candidates would have campaigned far differently than they actually did. They know which states they will win or lose automatically, and spend their time accordingly in states that they can win. If they knew that they need to appeal to all voters, we would see vastly different campaigns, and the outcome would reflect much closer to what the voters actually want.

I strongly encourage all California voters to sign the petition at www.calcounts.com.

As most people know Stephen Colbert has announced that he will run for president…in South Carolina. He is attempting to get on the ballot in South Carolina as a Democrat and a Republican.

“Man of the Year” for real? No, he is only running in one state.

While the tone of his ‘candidacy’ is humorous at best, other candidates have actually responded to it. Colbert says he is the favorite son of South Carolina, and Doritos will sponsor his candidacy.

This is a joke, but it didn’t stop the John Edwards campaign from ‘firing back.’ “What is more troubling than his quest for a status his own mother won’t grant him (favorite son) are his ties to the salty food industry,” Wells said. “As the candidate of Doritos, his hands are stained by corporate corruption and nacho cheese. John Edwards has never taken a dime from taco chip lobbyists and America deserves a President who isn’t in the pocket of the snack food special interests.”

Are they joking? It is hard to tell.

Colbert has an enormous fan base and is wildly popular with the college crowd, I watch “The Report.”

Something like this has never been done before. It will be interesting to see if his one state candidacy actually makes real candidates keep responding to things that he does.

Source: AP

President Bush feels the rumble…Wednesday in a press conference he discussed Russian President Vladamir Putin’s new friendship with Iran. President Bush went onto say that Iran would be raising the risks of “World War II.” Wait…isn’t that what I said on Tuesday??

According to the most recent Zogby Poll, President Bush’s approval rating is at an all time low, a sickening 24%. The talk of invading Iran while our troops are stuck in quagmires all over Iraq may have something to do with this number! Not to mention that fact that there are countless presidential candidates talking about how they would make the country better. When this is going on it seems to discredit the current president, even though he did the same thing when he was campaigning.

W. is not alone, in the same Zogby Poll the approval rating of Congress is at an all time low of 11%! Eleven percent? Yea, I had to spell it out. That is just stupid! Congressional approval ratings have been low since the beginning of polling, but eleven percent?

If we as voters do not trust the people we elect then why do we ALWAYS elect the same type of candidates?

Go look up the definition of insanity…exactly.

Sources:
John Whitesides, Reuters
Brian Knowlton, The New York Times

As many of you know today Al Gore won a piece of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.

Now it seems that everyone is speculating that Gore will soon announce his presidential candidacy. Could there be a better time to do so? I have heard today that he will be using this to catapult his presidential run, and I have also heard that he will not run against the Clinton political machine unless she falters.

My previous post King Gore explains why he would easily win the presidency if he runs. Adding the Nobel Peace Prize to his resume all but solidifies the inevitable.

Every textbook on political campaigns says that a serious candidate will not run for office unless he or she knows that they can win. I can understand if Gore is apprehensive at running because of how the 2000 elections turned out, that can’t be easy on your stomach. But that is not Gore’s reason. He hasn’t announced that he is running yet because of timing. He could have been waiting for this, he could be waiting for the other candidates to rip each other apart, or he might just not want to be president.

Maybe Gore thinks that he can do more by not being president. He sure has accomplished a lot in the past 8 years.

I can’t, for one second, believe that Gore thinks he cannot defeat Hillary Clinton. In adding up the simple political positives and negatives between the two (in my mind) has Gore ahead by a million points.

But that’s just me

A column by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times today brings up some interesting points. He argues that any presidential candidate running on the 9/11 platform should not be doing so. He says we don’t need a president of 9/11, we need a president of 9/12.

Has our government been harping on 9/11 too much? Friedman says we have become the “United States of Fighting Terrorism.” He wants our next president to know who our enemies are and also who WE are.

This is a tough issue to tackle.

Since 9/11 we have all been looking in one direction, the direction of avoiding future terrorism attacks. Have we forgotten about other priorities? Have we given up freedoms? We have, and the only reason why is because we feel like we have to choose between staying alive and universal health care.

This is not true.

We need to balance our priorities as a nation. Terrorism has been around for centuries and unfortunately will most likely be around for my children’s children to deal with. An act of terrorism is so easy to carry out by cowards, and because it is, we are constantly in fear of it.

The two things that terrorists need in order to succeed are: fear and media attention. The media will continue to give terrorists media attention. But we do not have to give them our fear.

We shouldn’t be as fearful as we are in the first place. In the past few years with the majority of our resources focused on preventing terrorism, we have had zero attacks on US soil. We have made it very difficult to do so. There are so many things going on behind the scenes to protect YOU that it would bewilder you if the curtain were lifted.

I’m not saying that we don’t have to worry, but you can’t worry about everything. You never know when your time is up.

With our new found effectiveness in preventing terrorism I would like to see our government shift some focus to domestic issues. There are too many people without healthcare, too many people living in poverty, and too many school children without textbooks.

Terrorists think that we are in fear of them, we shouldn’t be, we can’t be.

I won’t let a group of cowardly smelly cave dwellers have my fear.

We are the greatest nation in the world; we need to start acting like it.

According to the morning Stratfor morning intelligence brief Cuban (do I call him president?) Fidel Castro was shown today in a recorded interview on Cuban television. To dispel rumors that he is dead he held a copy (like a hostage) of US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s new book.

Why does it matter if Castro is still clinging onto life, the government there is not legitimate. I’m surprised that the Cuban people allowed Castro to pass on power to anybody. Castro seized power of Cuba through revolution and typically the people will eventually overthrow that ‘government’ when the ‘leader’ can’t rule anymore.

Life in Cuba is not great right now. It is so bad that their people actually risk their lives daily by getting into black inner tubes and drift their way through shark infested waters to Florida. I always got a kick out of the law that says something like if they make it to our shores we can’t deport them. What a smack in Castro’s face!

In the next few years there will most likely be an overthrow in Cuba and the US will have to make some decisions. Our next president will have to decide whether to help Cuba out and have a strong relationship with the little island or to keep things the way they are.

Personally I hope the US befriends post-Castro Cuba. It would be nice to see the people there driving cars that were made after 1950. It would also be nice to go on vacation there!

Bill, sorry, Hillary Clinton has joined the ranks of candidates who are actually trying (appearing) to want to do something! She has announced her plan for “universal” healthcare. On her website you can download her plan in a pdf file.

She must have read how much I love pdf files!!

I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that I have said something positive about Hillary. I’m not agreeing with the plan, I’m just happy that she has come up with one (in a pdf). The other candidates who have no plans are a waste of time.

Fred Thompson was quick to criticize “HillaryCare” on a video on his website Fred08.com. Thompson, ever the advocate for the small government, showed his frustration in the video which was filmed in the back of a moving car. Thompson said that he does not agree with Hillary’s principles, especially the part of her plan in which employers being required to check if new applicants have healthcare.

Ehh, ok that does make sense. Employers do provide employees with healthcare, so why are they required to have it when applying for a job?

Chicken or the egg?

Universal healthcare has been the Bain of politician’s existence for years now. They mostly agree that our healthcare system needs reform, but don’t seem able to get past the dreaded drug companies and their lobbyists.

Will the BILLary plan work? I don’t know, but at least s/he has proposed one. It is mostly smoke and mirrors but how many Republicans have released a healthcare plan?