Wednesday, March 5th - Sealing the Deal

What a night! To say that I am thrilled with how the Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island primaries went would probably be the understatement of the year. Even though I have been a Clinton true believer from the start, I was really starting to fear the oncoming tsunami of Obama inevitability, but as has been proven many times in this campaign, inevitability should not be something assumed or taken for granted.

Yes, I know Obama won big in Vermont, but let's face it, Vermont is filled with crazy socialists and Ben & Jerry. Vermont did have the best headline of the night: Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney.

Instead of focusing on narrative here, I'm going to break it down to a list of thoughts that I had last night and comment about them extemporaneously. Bear with me....

Obama Can't Seal The Deal - This is the third time this election cycle that it looked like Obama would vanquish Clinton, and it is the third time that he has not been able to do it. I'm not going to dig deep here, though I heard some of the Obamadroids talking about the 20% of people in Ohio who considered race to be a big issue. The fact is that the bigots are probably just as chauvinistic to women, too. So, I would consider that 20% to be General Election wash. Anyway, this shows a real electibility problem for Obama. If Obama cannot muster to beat Clinton when it matters, then how is he going to beat a strong Republican? Also, I am not going to accept the meme of "Well, Obama was behind 20% not too long ago." If I see that posted one more time on a message board, I may scream. Yeah, Clinton used to be trouncing Obama, but the fact that she was ahead 20% has everything to do with name recognition and nothing to do with policy. As has been the trend in every state, as Obama has gone in to campaign and people have been able to sample him, then he was able to close the gap and even get ahead. The fact of the matter is that Obama was ahead in Ohio and Texas, and he lost it. This is not some sort of Pyhrric Victory for Clinton where the real story is that he closed a 20 point gap from last month. No, the headline is he lost. That's it. Oh, don't forget that Obama outspent Clinton over 3 or 4 to 1 in both states. This really should have been a slam dunk for him.

Delgates Schmelegates - Pardon the language, but the delegate thing is fucked up. Since the Democrats have proportional delegation that awards delegates by the vote totals in a congressional district and because Obama trounced Clinton in the population centers, there is a distinct possibility that Obama could end up getting more delegates out of Texas, even though Clinton will win the popular vote by nearly 100,000 votes. That is absolutely asinine and undemocratic. I'm all for proportionally awarding, but it clearly should be based on the popular vote of the entire state, not by congressional district. We screamed after Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College in 2000, and now we, as a party, are screwing things up as well. The story out of the Obama camp is that they still have an insurmountable delegate lead, and that the math just does not add up for Hillary. Well, the real story is that NEITHER of them will get the majority of the delegates, which means the ultimate decision is going to be made by superdelegates, whether we like it or not.

Look, Up in the Sky .... - Superdelegates have been around for 30 or so years, but they really haven't been an issue until this election. You can whine all you want about them being undemocratic, but let's face it, they are pretty indicative of American Democracy. The House of Representatives is considered the "masses," and the Senate is there to slow down the exuberance of the masses. Your vote in the General Election is not direct democracy, it empowers the Electoral College to actually choose the President, which, by the way, the Electors can vote for whomever they want even if it is against the popular vote of their state (sounds like a superdelegate, huh?). So, you see, our democracy is all about slowing down the whims of the people, though I think this is eventually going to change. Anyway, the rules state that superdelegates are unencumbered by electoral mandate, and this is how they should proceed. If you want to change the rules, then you it will have to wait for 2012. The Obama campaign would like for the superdelegates to vote the will of the people, but I really don't see him telling John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy (both supers from Massachusetts) to vote for Hillary. So, it is kind of an intellectually retarded argument. Plus, if you really want to cook your noodle, then consider that the regular delegates really aren't forced to vote for the winner in their state, especially after the first ballot does not result in a nominee. So, frankly, this just points to the single most exciting convention of my lifetime. Road trip to Denver!

Does Barak Obama have a Glass Jaw? - One of the talking heads on CNN used this question last night, and I wasn't looking at the TV to jot down his name. It is a legitimate question, which basically boils down to whether Obama can take a punch without completely shattering. Between the NAFTA kerfluffle, the Rezko trial, and questions about national security credentials, this has been the toughest week for Obama in the press. Maybe it took Saturday Night Live to finally hold up the mirror to the way the press has been handling him with kid gloves, but he would have to be crazy to think it would last. What the press giveth, the press taketh away, and between his growing aloofness with answering questions to badgering of the press by his people, he was really just daring them to stick a pin in his bubble. When the postmortem is written on this campaign, I will be intrigued to see how the faux outrage by the Obama campaign and the swallowing of it hook, line, and sinker by the press will play out. From making Bill Clinton out to be a racist, complaining about people using his middle name, and the "release" of a picture of him in Somali traditional garb (that has actually been available on the net for over a year) the pattern of Obama and his surrogates to play the race and religion card and blame it on other people is pretty disingenuous and dirty. Then, when someone has the audacity to question him, he completely falls apart. This is not the actions of someone who will survive a general election against the Republican machine. Hillary has NOT thrown anything at him that is truly negative, and even knowing that, he shattered into pieces and lost Texas and Ohio.

Okay, I've talked way too much. If you're still with me, I thank you! The scary thing is that I cut out some other things that I wanted to talk about, but hey, I got the topic of another blog out of it. Expect some "puffery" today as a reward for bearing with me.