Union leaders fiscally irresponsible when paying for political advertizing

As a long time union member, there was always one thing large unions did that completely irritated and annoyed me. Spending my dues, that should be going to improve union health, pension, and individual training programs and benefits on political advertising for candidates that the union leadership feels compelled to support.

I was reading a CNN article on how Hillary Clinton had raised $35 million dollars for her campaign in February, when I came across this little piece at the bottom.

“The Service Employees International Union began spending $1.4 million in ads in support of Obama in Ohio and Texas. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union was spending nearly $200,000 in ads in Ohio.”

Now as far as I’m concerned there is nothing that a union should be spending the hard earned union dues of it’s membership on other than benefits and programs to support the members that pay the dues that are being spent.

If Obama can raise $32 million dollars for his campaign in January, and Clinton can raise $35 million dollars in February, they are more than capable of paying for their own advertising. If the Union leadership wants to support a particular candidate because they are pro-union then they can volunteer their time, or ask membership to volunteer their time in the myriad of things every political campaign needs bodies to help do.

But to me the spending of union funds on political advertising is tantamount to fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the union leadership. And if it could be outlawed I would fully support it.

Life of a Small State in Politics

Still no Knockout for Clinton in Debate

Another debate (that is 20 for those of you counting) in the Democratic nominee process, and as in the last one in Texas, Hillary Clinton failed to KO Barack Obama. In some respects, the KO could have come from the surging Obama who has narrowed polling gaps in Ohio, and even taken the lead in some polls in Texas. Both of the upcoming state primaries are almost do or die for Clinton.

Clinton came out swinging, and Obama came out counter punching. As was evident in the last debate Obama is getting much more comfortable with the debates, and did not let Clinton rattle him with the accusations about questionable campaign tactics and supposidly misleading mailers.

As usual Clinton was strongest on the Health Care subject, but from that point on it seemed Obama had the upper hand or stayed even. With the Texas and Ohio primaries coming up on March 4th, and Clinton needing to win both to keep her campaign viable, it appears the sands in the hour glass is starting to run out. Obama has closed to within 6 points of Clinton in Ohio after being down 19, and has even taken a small lead in the Texas polls.

March 5th we should get one of two decisions. Either Clinton is done, or we go on to Pennsylvania for round 21 :)

Nader gets on the horse again

Well it is another presidential election cycle, and what election for president would be complete without Ralph Nader (CNN) throwing his hat into the ring once more for a drive to irrelevancy. Rather than trying to prove his mettle during the normal primary season, he continued his penchant for late timing theatrics by announcing his presidency campaign last night on Meet the Press.

If Ron Paul was the symbol of non attention in the party primaries so far, Ralph Nader has decided to pick up the mantle for the general election. In his time, Nader was the consummate consumer advocate, and probably did more than anyone alive to promote safety of consumers over corporate greed. However, as he enters his fourth straight presidential campaign, almost everyone is agreed (except Nader), that his best and most influential times are well behind him.

Many in the Democratic party are still upset that they think he cost Al Gore the election in 2000 in a close race by derailing that small percentage of Democrat votes in Florida that could have made the difference between Gore and Bush being elected.

At 74, and after four miserable attempts at running before (5 if you count that write in campaign), you really have to wonder if Ralph is doing this for anything other than pure ego anymore. If you go to his website at you can get a list of what he has put “on the table”. Of course “open up the Presidential debates” would be one of his first priorities since he isn’t likely got get many invitations. And you have to like his “Impeach Bush/Cheney” position. And I’m not quite sure what “Work to end corporate personhood” even means.

If he thinks that political consultants “have really messed up Hillary Clinton’s campaign”, you have to wonder what brilliant political consultants came up with his plan to run for president once again. Obviously not the sharpest tacks in the box if you ask me.
If nothing else, it will give us political junkies something to analyze and talk about when the race between the GOP and Democrat nominees hit some slow spots

A couple days off to revive the brain cells

Been taking a few days off from posting to revive the old brain cells. Not a lot really going on as we kind of mark time before the March 4th primaries.

I'm really concentrating on what is currently going on in the Rockies spring training right now as everyone has finally reported to camp. :) The battle for 2nd base should be interesting, and the bull pen looks pretty strong again. I was really glad to see the front office step up and get some of these great young players signed to longer term contracts. This year the expectations are going to be a lot higher, and should be great to watch.

Clinton fails to knock out Obama in Debate

With Obama beginning to overtake or close the gap between himself and Clinton in both Ohio and Texas, two absolute MUST wins for Clinton, there was an expectation that she really needed to score a knockout during the debate in Texas tonight.

If that was the need, then from where I sat watching, Clinton failed to score. Clinton had her best moments during the discussion on healthcare where she is obviously the strongest, but seriously failed to make strong distinctions between the two in the rest of the issues. She had plenty of opportunities to speak to the substantive differences between her and Obama, but failed to take advantage of the openings, or was simply unable to exploit them.

To a large degree there was absolutely nothing new exposed in the positions of either candidate, and anyone expecting Clinton to change strategy to attempt to blunt the Obama momentum came away with nothing to hang on.

As far as how I saw Obama perform in the debate, he seemed much more relaxed, and in control of the discussions on substance and rhetoric. Remembering back to the early debates, where Clinton seemed dominant, and Obama looked like the novice, I was stricken by how much more composed Obama is now and Clinton seemed the more tentative. From my comfy chair perspective, Obama had his best debate of all of them, and it came when he could benefit from his performance the most.

The biggest plus for me in the debate was the fact that Wolf Blitzer was not moderating it.

Another flameout for Clinton and Huckabee

An interesting thing happened to Hillary Clinton on the road to the Democratic party nomination. After taking a substantial lead in delegates after Super Tuesday on February 5th, she forgot that there was still an election going on, and failed to try and win every state, as opposed to the big states. In Wisconsin, a state that should have been tailor made for Hillary Clinton to win, no major African-American block of voters to write off as voting for Obama because of race, losing even larger sections of her major constituencies in terms of demographics as well. Obama over the weeks since February 5th has consistently improved in white male voters, white female voters, age category voters (except for 65+), lower income level voters. Wisconsin was an absolute “no excuses” loss for Clinton, except that she didn’t campaign as hard as Obama, and she continued to use the same speech that has not been resonating with voters for some time now.

There is a consistent theme that Hillary Clinton has been using as her foil against Obama, and that is her experience is greater than his. What Clinton has failed to realize, and what I believe the McCain camp is also failing to realize, is that there is a growing segment of the American people that are tired of the experience in Washington D.C. continuing to be polarizing and stagnant. Another point that I think both Clinton and McCain are missing, is that there is a growing segment of the American people are tired of being told that they must be fearful of every shadow that is propagated by our politicians to get us to vote for them, and Obama’s theme of hope and broad support resonates with those who are looking for more change than just switching which party holds the White House.

There is still a ways to go in this campaign and there is a real possibility that Hillary Clinton could win the nomination in the end. But something she has been promoting is change, to win the nomination, she will have to change her message, if she can’t change her message to better resonate with the voters, she won’t ever get the chance to change things from within the White House.

On the Republican side, McCain easily defeated Mike Huckabee in Wisconsin and Washington, further extending his delegate lead and clearly establishing himself as the Republican nominee. The exit polling still shows McCain having trouble bringing core conservatives to his camp. The only reason I can imagine that Mike Huckabee is still running is that he really doesn’t have anything to do at the moment.

A time and need for change and what it means to me

I have spent a lot of time recently getting my fixes of the political landscape. With the current election progressing the way it is, how could a political junkie not get a daily fix? I get a lot of news from CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and local news channels to that I feel that I get at least a smattering of varying perspectives and coverage. I also spend a lot of time discussing politics with folks on the various political discussion forums. A lot of the discussions center around the two extreme perspectives of the political spectrum, and these discussions along with the news has given me a much different view of politics and our government from what I had when I was 20, 30, 40, or even 50. One of the things that I have become concerned about most recently, is the absolute polarization of the country between the far left and the far right. If you visit any of the large political discussion forums you continually see the folks squaring off between the ultra conservatives, and the ultra liberal factions. What I have found is that neither side willing to compromise on their perspectives essentially settling nothing, much like our current situation in the national government.

We have a tremendous number of things that need to be fixed in this country, and we have gotten nothing but continual doses of fear and doom from the conservative side, and nothing but continual finger pointing and failure to take responsibility from the liberal side. But neither extreme is willing to move toward the other to compromise to actually accomplish anything meaningful, resulting in continual grid lock and stalling, and failing to fix any of our major problems.

On the issue of Iraq there is a great majority of the American people that believe that we were led down the terror path to war in Iraq with no understanding of what it was going to require to extricate ourselves, and were convinced of the need for war, on faulty, and to be honest, exaggerated intelligence that under more strenuous examination could have kept us from this unwarranted predicament in the first place. While 20/20 hindsight is always perfect, even in the initial discussions of the need for invasion, there were only tenuous and highly suspect links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. There was insufficient proof of WMDs even in the most cursory review of the UN inspector reports. But the Administration pushed the buttons of fear and national security for force a resolution that they obviously wanted, but drastically took our attention from where it was most required in the tracking and capture or killing of the actual 9/11 supporting terrorists in Afghanistan. Democrats not wanting to look weak followed the Administration lead and toed the line to save face rather than stand and require substantial verifiable proof before agreeing to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Both sides failed us, the Administration by jumping into a second front that was never required, and the Congress by not doing their duty to require reasonable proof before authorizing. Now we are in two wars, with no real plan to extricate ourselves other than providing occupation forces for the foreseeable future, while we continue to put the Afghanistan front on a back burner and allow the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to reinvigorate, and grow stronger in that area. And the deficit continues to grow at an alarming rate with no plan on how to pay for it other than printing more green backs. This two front war on terrorism has created a situation that is intolerable at best, and unsustainable at worst. In the mean time the conservatives dig in, and the liberals dig in, and our young military people continue to die, and spend increasingly longer tours in a place we should have never gone.

On the issue of Illegal immigration, the vast majority of American people believe that something has to be done to control and manage the inflow of illegal immigrants through our boarders. The current estimate is that there are 12 million or more illegal immigrants in the U.S. and the number is growing. The current administration tried to negotiate a comprehensive immigration reform program with congress, only to be torpedoed by the two extremes of the political spectrum. The conservatives demanded securing the borders first and then deportation of the illegal immigrants already in the country. The liberals demanded some form of realistic approach to allow the current illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and a focus on securing the borders. The conservatives pounded on the fear buttons again, blaming the immigration issue for the down turn in the economic prospects and threw the fear of terrorist infiltration through our unsecured borders for the need for a wall and a big one first. The liberals having felt fooled by the Administration on Iraq, failed to believe that the threat from terrorist infiltration was as severe as advertised, and focused more on the plight of the immigrants and wanted to make the road to citizenship as painless as possible. Consequently nothing actually got achieved, neither the securing of the border, or a realistic plan on dealing with the 12 million people in our country illegally. Again the two extremes focused on not giving in to the other side so that they could claim being “right”, and the rest of us suffer the consequences of no progress on either front simply because the two extremes can’t compromise.

Our corporate tax structure and individual tax laws are so archaic and unmanageable that no one from either side of the political spectrum can figure out how to give middle and lower level income working people a tax break without giving tax breaks to the corporate raiders, and the financial elite who continually fund campaigns to ensure that they get first crack at the “appropriate” legislation. The passing of NAFTA has been a major contributor to the current economic problems, by providing incentives for American companies to move jobs and manufacturing outside the U.S. and drive lower the incomes of those few workers that remain. We have provided a bankruptcy law that protects the financial corporations who prey on low and middle income families with “zero” interest or down payment schemes to lure people into extending themselves farther financially than both they and the financial institutions know they can afford. Both conservatives and liberals have failed the middle class of America by pandering to the corporate and financial elite at the expense of the middle class, and they wonder why the 2/3 consumer driving portion of our economy can’t keep the ever expanding deficit and budget deficit afloat. More Americans are going to lose their homes due to mortgage company greed in throwing away responsible lending practices, in order to make the quick buck sale, and garner the up front fees. And when the housing market bubble caused by the rampant speculation brought on by this race for profit at the expense of reason, the government looks to support the financial institutions rather than finding a way to help the families that are not only losing their homes, but crippling their ability to afford the now sky rocketing rental rates. The conservatives don’t want to provide any solution that doesn’t bail out the corporate sharks who created this problem, and the liberals don’t want to provide any solution that doesn’t bail out the people who knowingly over extended themselves without thought of changing circumstances. So nothing meaningful gets resolved because the two sides can’t afford to move away from the ingrained extremes of their respective political poles.

Our national health care situation is now bordering on a crisis, yet neither side is willing to move to do anything other than talk about how sad it is that families can’t afford health insurance, and large health providers having a right to make ever increasing profits. Conservatives support the HMOs, and private institutions as the way to provide adequate health care, but fail to realize that profit and providing necessary expensive care do not coexist in the corporate world. Liberals support the government intervention in the provision of health care, either by single payer (i.e. government) or mandated health insurance purchases regardless of ability to pay. While the two sides bicker and fight with each other, millions of Americans are caught in a health care vice where insurance is unaffordable, and care is metered by the profit percentage. The elderly and retired of our country are increasingly forced to choose between barely being able to feed and house themselves, and affording the health care that is a natural consequence of aging.

We have required people to pay into a Social Security system their entire lives with the promise that the monies paid in would be there for them when they retired to provide a safety net. All the while both conservatives and liberals have without hesitation dipped into those funds to decrease spending gaps for bridges to nowhere, parks, and every other pet project of the politicians except for what it was intended for. We have provided corporate bankruptcy laws that make it cheaper to simply default on pension plans that were supposed to be the primary retirement means of middle America, and stolen from the Social Security funds so that there is no safety net remaining. Yet even something so obvious as the insolvency of Social Security and Medicaid can not stir the two sides from their implacable polarization to move to solve the problem, we remain at a bickering “they said”, “they said” war of words with no solution in sight while the elderly hope without reason that all the money they paid in during their working lives will be enough to keep a roof over their head, some food in the fridge, and some health insurance that will not force their family to have to declare bankruptcy to acquire.


We need a change in the political landscape. And the required change is not a swing from the conservative extreme to the liberal extreme. The change needed is a return to the principles of our original founding ideas of compromise for the good of the majority, rather than the myopic polarization of the radical extremes. We need a government concerned about the majority of working class Americans that provide the foundation and hard work that is the base of this great experiment in democracy. We can no longer afford the debilitating grid lock of extreme conservative, and extreme liberal bickering that provides nothing but stalemate. We can no longer afford to pander to the corporate and financial elite who take the labor of the middle class and then discard them. We can no longer afford the notion of ever increasing government expenditures without fiscal responsibility. We must have a political landscape that encourages compromise to actually solve the vast problems that we face. We must step away from the use of fear to remove individual freedoms so hard won centuries ago. It is time for our politicians to go back to work for us instead of themselves. Whether the leader of this change is a conservative, a moderate, or a liberal is of less importance than their willingness to drive compromise and movement to actually solve the problems of our country instead of encouraging stalemate due to radical ideological differences. The time to do away with the last 40 years of polarized political posturing is upon us. The time to step away from the politics as usual is painfully obvious. The question is do we have the intelligence and resolve to force such a change upon ourselves?

Obama, McCain get hat tricks on Potomac

Well the Potomac primaries are over, and it looks like Barack Obama and John McCain are going to get the hat tricks out of it all.

A number of things stick out from these wins for the two candidates. McCain now is almost assured of getting the GOP nomination and has started to seriously craft his speeches towards the Democrat nominee who he seems to be thinking will be Obama at this point. On the Democrat side Obama has started to make inroads into what has been pretty strong Clinton demographics, and for the first time in the race when even including declared super delegates, Obama has taken a lead in delegates.

Regardless of what happens from this point out, John McCain is going to be the GOP nominee, it is just a matter of time before Mike Huckabee actually takes a math class and realizes it and steps aside.

On the Democrat side, the sweep of primaries and caucuses since Super Tuesday by Barack Obama, has pushed Hillary Clinton into a mini Rudy Giuliani strategy, essentially conceding contests until March 4th and putting her eggs in Ohio and Texas to be the stopping point of the growing Obama train. One thing coming out of the Maryland and Virginia voting that has to worry the Clinton camp, is that Obama has started to make inroads into Clinton traditional demographic areas such as lower earning democrats, women, older voters, and even Hispanic voters. If the polls in Wisconsin are any indication, Clinton’s Alamo stand in Texas and Ohio could fail as well. Just 5 days ago Clinton had a 50% to 41% lead over Obama in Wisconsin, and as of yesterday looked to be trailing Obama by 11%, a swing of 20 percentage points in less than a week.

Should John Edwards come out and endorse Obama before March 4th (which I believe he will by the way), the pressure on the Clinton machine grows significantly. Many of the inroads in the Clinton demographics that Obama made in Maryland and Virginia were areas that Edwards was strongly contesting with Clinton.

The still lurking nightmare for the DNC is the distinct possibility that neither candidate will get to Denver in August with the 2,025 votes to clinch the nomination. Even if one of the candidates win every race to be decided between now and the convention by 60% to 40% margins they would not have the required delegates for a first ballot win.

Should this end up being the result, a real war at the convention over the Michigan and Florida delegates will erupt. Super delegates also look to play a huge part in the convention, much more than they had originally intended. The analysts are going to have fun trying to figure out what happens from here on out.

Potomac Primaries.. another Obama sweep?

There are three primaries today, Virginia, Maryland, and District of Columbia. All indications are that Barack Obama will win all three, continuing his sweep from the weekend over Hillary Clinton. The expectation is that after these primaries Obama will over take Clinton in the total delegate count, even with the leanings of the Super Delegates counted in.

Since Super Tuesday Clinton has replaced her campaign manager and started the spin that expectations for today are not too high, while focusing on the upcoming prmaries in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The real question will be can she stop the momentum that Obama obviously has developed and continues to build upon.

In the Republican race, it is just a matter of time and watching McCain slowly creep towards the nomination while fending off the pesky but still fighting Huckabee.

Two major Democrat endorsements out there are still being courted by Obama and Clinton camps, Al Gore and John Edwards. Frankly, I don't see Gore making an endorsement until there is a clear winner, but Edwards could seriously impact the race by endorsing either one. My money right now is on Edwards endorsing Obama, especially if he sweeps all three primaries today.

Obama sweeps.. Clinton cleans house

Not even a week after splitting the delegates, with major wins on Super Tuesday, Barack Obama swept through the Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and Maine primaries and caucuses taking the lead over Hillary Clinton in “pledged” delegates. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was busy loaning her campaign $5 million dollars and replacing her campaign manager, in a sign that there are definite chinks in the Clinton campaign machine armor.

With Obama positioned to do well in Virginia, Maryland, and Potomac primaries on Tuesday, there is every possibility that after those contests, Obama could over take Clinton in not only “pledged” delegates, but in total delegates by the time they are over.

The minor facts that Clinton not only felt the need to loan her campaign $5 million dollars (wonder what the interest rate is on a thing like that), but decided to replace her campaign manager shows there are definite stress on the Clinton campaign machine. After being essentially declared the Democratic nominee long before a single caucus or primary was held, Clinton’s staff have to be wondering what the heck has gone wrong.

There is still a long ways to go now, and it is becoming ever more likely that neither of these candidates will have the 2,025 delegates to assure themselves a first ballot nomination win come August and the convention. The so called Super Delegates are going to start feeling a lot more heat as the race closes down on Denver in the summer.

Additionally, the DNC is going to get ever increasing heat from the Clinton camp to start doing something about the Michigan and Florida delegates, that were stripped, and that she won the primaries for. How the DNC decides to deal with this matter, may have a huge impact on the eventual party nominee, and could be a decision that fractures the party so bad that a John McCain win in November becomes a possibility

Huckabee throws a curve at McCain in KA and LA

Apparently Republican conservative voters aren’t quite ready to line up behind the “presumptive” nominee John McCain quite yet. In a stunning win which surprised even Mike Huckabee, he won Kansas by nearly a 3-1 margin over McCain, and looks likely to squeak out a narrow win over McCain in Louisiana (Though since neither candidate won 50% of the vote, it is essentially a beauty contest with no delegates awarded, that will happen now in caucuses later). In both of those states conservatives consistently and overwhelmingly voted for Huckabee instead of McCain. The only bright spot on the evening for McCain may be the Washington Caucuses which were still too close to call at this writing, but McCain was leading.

The Louisiana and Kansas wins by Huckabee openly points to a severe weak spot in the McCain “message” as he attempts to move from “primary” mode to “nominee” mode in his campaigning the rest of the way. He has a serious problem with the conservative constituency of the Republican party, and as long as there is any alternative on the ballot with him (i.e. Huckabee), he will be hard pressed to sway them to rally to his standard.
While it is highly unlikely that Huckabee can actually win the GOP nomination at this late stage, he still has less delegates than Romney, his continued presence is a continual thorn (much like he was for Romney), in the side of the GOP to rally around McCain and get their focus on to the Democrats in a cohesive way that they would like.

The next day of the rest of the campaign

The next leg of the Democrat and Republican nomination process starts today after the big hoopla of Super Tuesday, with the candidates trying to either solidify their positions or close narrow gaps with this weekend’s primaries and caucuses.

On the Republican side with the race down to just John McCain and Mike Huckabee, McCain will look to blunt Huckabee in Louisiana, and increase his lead with a win in Washington.

On the Democratic side, Obama will be attempting to close the delegate gap between himself and Hillary Clinton by winning in the caucuses in Nebraska, and Washington today and Maine tomorrow, formats where he has done very well, while keeping it close in Louisiana.

In additional developments new polling by CNN shows that Obama has a distinct advantage over McCain in a head to head match up 52% to 44%, and in a Time poll 48% to 41%. Clinton shows only a slight lead over McCain in a head to head match up with a 50% to 47% advantage in the CNN poll and a dead heat at 46% each in the Time poll. The main reason attributed to the poorer showing by Clinton is the always present “dislike” moniker.

Both parties are trying hard to get closure on their nominees with the GOP having a leg up with the “suspension” of Romney’s candidacy, but Huckabee vows to continue to be thorn in McCain’s side at least through this weekend.
The pace of the races slow down now after Super Duper Tuesday, but the stakes remain extremely high, and the expectation is a very close race on Democrat’s side, possibly going all the way to the convention, when some real fun would happen.

McCain starts the groveling

With Mitt Romney now officially "suspending" his campaign ( I believe you get matching funds if you suspend instead of quit), John McCain will start the inevitable wooing of that ever so vocal conservative wing of the Republican Party, (CNN article) and apparently Romney himself. (CNN article )

After snubbing CPAC last year, McCain was almost obligated to speak before the conservative political action committee in an attempt to try and blunt any more damage by the remaining GOP contender, Mick Huckabee. (I really have a problem listing Ron Paul as a contender). McCain went before the CPAC this year to as he said "make my case". This was political speak, meaning that he was really going to need the conservative wing of the GOP party if he is to have any chance to win the general election in November.

As a bone to throw to the pack of conservatives, he has modified his "immigration" position to now include sealing the boarders as a prerequisite to any other methods of dealing with the huge immigration problem. The problem for McCain is what has gotten him this far in the GOP presidential race, is his more moderate positions on issues, and he will need to lean significantly to the right in order to sway the majority of conservatives in his party. A move that takes him away from the ideas and positions that got him to the front.

There is almost no possible way for Mike Huckabee to wrest the GOP nomination from McCain now, and almost no possible way for McCain to sway the majority of conservatives to his cause without alienating a portion of the people that voted for him so far in the primaries. A serious position between a rock and a hard place comes to mind when describing McCain’s dilemma.

The main questions now for the GOP are: Can the vocal conservative wing unite behind the "maverick" McCain? and, Can McCain stay moderate enough to win a general election? Both questions should be fun to watch get answered.

The idea of listening to Rush Limbaugh saying anything nice about McCain would be almost worth listening to his show :) Of course I'm not sure how the current GOP political "reporters" feel about Bush already coming out and calling for a rally around "keep a conservative in the White House" when he spoke to CPAC

Dems starting to worry about "brokered" convention

Howard Dean the chairman of the DNC is already starting to talk about the possibility trying to avert a "brokered" convention, should neither of the two remaining candidates achieve the required 2,025 pledged delegates by August. (CNN article)

"But if we don't (have a nominee), then we're gonna have to get the candidates together and make some kind of arrangement, because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention. That would not be good news for either party."

Since Barack Obama has turned out to be a formidable challenge to Hillary Clinton, practically splitting the delegate count from Super Tuesday, the likelyhood that neither of the candidates will have the required delegates for a first ballot win has increased dramatically. Should this scenario unfold, the real decision makers on who would be the Democratic nominee falls to those oh so obscure Super Delegates, you know the big wigs, the party elite, the ones that have mostly sided with Hillary Clinton.

Should this race come down to 795 people of power within the Democratic Party deciding who the nominee is, it could spell disaster for the party in the General Election in November. One thing that has been evident in this campaign is the enthusiasm that Barack Obama has brought to the political stage, and the massive increase in voting in the Democratic Primaries and Caucuses.

If the DNC decides to do a back room deal to set up a Democratic ticket, I firmly believe that they will lose a lot of that enthusiasm that has been building and driving the two candidate campaigns thus far in the process, opening the door for a possible Republican win in November.

The DNC is pretty much in a no-win situation at the moment. They prematurely annointed Hillary Clinton as the party nominee before any primary had been held, and now they have a serious movement within the party to nominate Barack Obama. Which ever side they decide to take in this contest, they will more than likely irritate and possibly alienate the other.

I think this is why CNN (possibly at the behest of the DNC) has been so fervently pushing a Clinton/Obama ticket possibility. At almost every opportunity Wolf Blitzer, when discussing the current delegate and super delegate situation tries to infuse the "dream ticket" notion (CNN Political Ticker). It gets the DNC off the hook with their constituency, without having to make the tough decision.

One thing is certain. As this Democratic nominee process unfolds, it is going to get a lot hotter for the Super Delegates the longer it stays close. It should be fun to watch :)

Super Tuesday over.. Nothing really settled

Well the big Super Duper Tuesday "national primary" is over, and it is time to sort through what it all means.

On the Democratic Party side, it basically means we continue on, nothing is really settled. Right now with ballots still to be counted in a number of states Clinton has 825 delegates, and Obama has 732 delegates. Not siginificantly different a gap than there was before all the hoopla. The big difference between the two remains the significant number of Superdelegates and particularly the DNC that have aligned with Clinton. So the two candidates soldier on.. and on... and on... I am becoming even more convinced that the Democrats are going to come here to Denver with neither candidate having the required number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot. The one actor in all this that is still lurking on the sidelines is Edwards. His endorsement of either of the other two could very well swing the nomination.

On the Republican side McCain obviously has pulled out a considerable lead with 615 delegates, to Romney's 268, and Huckabee's 169. Huckabee seems to be pretty much functioning as a split candidate for the hard core conservatives that can not make themselves vote for McCain. With Romney and Huckabee splitting the conservative vote, McCain seems to be destined to get the nomination through a long plodding process with neither of the other two having many "big" opportunities to close the gap. If the three continue in the current splits, McCain will end up with the big prize in the end.

This is still far from over on a number of fronts, so should give us plenty of entertainment at least on the Dems side up to and through the convention. For a political junkie like myself, there hasn't been anything like this in a long long time :)

Super Tuesday finally.. will it resolve anything?

About the only thing I think that will be resolved after today's Super Tuesday voting, is that Mitt Romney invested $18M in a losing cause. I think Mike Huckabee will finally get the message that he doesn't have a snow ball chance in hades of winning outside of the South with his evangelical christian conservative base.

On the Democratic side I don't think we resolve much of anything. My projections on delegates based off the polls to date, show Obama closing the gap on Clinton, but neither one of them will even be half way to the 2,045 delegates needed to gain a first ballot nomination at the convention.

California, NY, Illinois, NJ, Mass, and Georgia are the big prizes in the Democratic primaries, with California's 441 delegates the biggest of the big. However, since the Dems use proportional vote allocation in the primaries even winning a state can cause you to lose in the delegates. After all is said and done, I still expect Obama and Clinton to be within 100 delegates of each other, and the campaign needing to go a whole lot farther than just today.

Regardless of who you are voting for this year, you can't deny the interest, and enthusiasm that the Democrats have infused into the election. In nearly every primary state to date, the Democrats have had record turn out compared to moderate if not lazy turn out for the Republicans.

It should be an interesting day all around, but don't expect to get a real handle on things until California comes in, and that could be late into the night. Those paper ballots are going to be a drag. )

For political junkies, it doesn't get any better than this.

1:10 PM: West Virgina gives it's 18 Republican Delegates to Mike Huckabee, guess you could call that drawing first blood :) What I don't understand about WV is they have 18 delegates tied to today's convention, but 9 tied to another state primary on May 13th, and of course the irresistable 3 unpledged RNC member delegates or Super delegates. So why have a caucus on Feb5th and then a Primary on May 13th? What was interesting is that the McCain supporters moved to Huckabee to block Romney winning. Ah the ole back room politics we have grown to watch and love :)

5:05PM: CNN has projected Obama the winner in Georgia on the Dems side with a close race on the GOP side. I'll never understand how they can call a race decided when they haven't even gotten 1% of the actual vote calculated.. But these talking heads are determined to be first :)

6:05PM: As soon as the East Coast states closed CNN projected Obama winning Illinois (surprise) and Clinton winning Oklahoma. They projected McCain to win NJ, CON, and Illinois, with Romney winning Massachusetts.

Well that is it for the evening up to the minute reporting :).. Going to sit back with the pop corn and comfy chair now and watch the rest.

One Super day down.. One to go

Well the Super bowl is over, and the Giants pulled off an upset as big as any of the great upsets in Super bowl history. Now we move on to Super Tuesday, where two candidates will try and pull off their own super upsets.

John McCain coming back from his near death canadacy not just two months ago, will try and pull ahead from Mitt Romney, and place himself in the clear "front runner" position. Most of the signigicant polls show McCain growing his gap on Romney in major states, and this could spell the death knell for all the cash that Romney has put into his own campaign.

Barack Obama, on the Democrat side, has nearly erased all the pre primary lead that Hillary Clinton had when she was dubbed "inevitable", and has started to even out fund raise the NY Senator. While I don't think there will be any "front runner" established by Super Tuesday, Obama can clearly show that he has the pull to make a viable Democratic Nominee by staying close or pulling out a few more wins than Clinton. Neither will be any where close to the number of delegates needed to assure themselves of a first ballot win at the convention. And this race could easily work it's way to an open convention.

There will be some last minute dashes and stumps today and early tomorrow, but essentially, the minds are probably made up by the voters at this time, and all we can do is sit back and wait for the results.

Get the pop corn out and the comfy chair it should be a heck of an evening tomorrow :)

Preparing for Superbowl

Well it is time for that time honored tradition of the Super Bowl party :)

Today it is out and about town to gather the necessary ingredients for a small get together of friends and family in preparation to gathering around the ole 65" big screen to watch the Patriots and Giants go at it tomorrow. And a little time to get out of the "political junkie" mindset :)

Time to gather the soda, the beer, the chips, the dips, the brats, the hot wings, the 1' samwiches, the meat plates, the cheese plates, and the extra chairs and tv trays.

So it is off to the stores to seek those ingredients that make just the right kind of group party :)

The behavior tax mentality comes back for more

In probably one of the most bizarre modes of thinking I have seen yet for one of the many "behavior" taxes (cigarettes, alcohol, etc), New Mexico's idea to tax TVs and Video games probably ranks right up there with the weirdest. In this twist on the "if you aren't behaving in a manner that is healthy for you according to us" theme, New Mexico wants to nudge kids off the couch and out the door by taxing TVs and video games sold in New Mexico.

So when did the Sierra Club and State governments get the idea that video games were bad for us? When New Mexico started running out of funding for their outdoor programs. Of course the solution is to tax a group of people that are not apparently using the parks and recreation facilities rather than just raising fees. The continuing trend of taxing groups of people doing something completely different to fund some other group's pet project is beginning to get out of hand.

The video gaming industry, and those "couch potatoes" have driven much of the computer technology advancements of the recent decades. To suggest that video games is "the" major contributor to low test scores and obesity, just rings with moral and typically arrogant "we know what is good for you" mentalities.

I like and support many of the Sierra Club activities, but this is just going off the edge. If there isn't funding to support parks and recreation areas. Raise the fees till they are funded, leave the kids (and adults) quietly being couch potatoes, and not bothering anyone else alone. I can only imagine that soon we will start to see a movement to double the taxes on Twinkies and Ding Dongs to force obese people to reduce sweet intake.

Apparently, smokers were not the "last" of the behavior taxing targets... maybe your ox will be next to be gored by the behavior tax police.

The Dems debate, and we finally hear substance

Tonight the Democrats held their last presidential primary debate prior to the Super Tuesday sweepstakes. For the first time, we got serious substantial discussion on the specifics of each of Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's plans for Health Care, Immigration, and Iraq. Whether you agree or disagree with them individually or together in their position on the issues, you at least got to hear them explain what it was they mean when they talk about them.

Overall, I thought the debate finally highlighted the substantive differences between these two candidates, rather than focusing on their gender, race, or spouses. And I as an Independent, welcomed the chance to view the two in that light.

I thought Hillary Clinton was at her strongest during the segment dealing with Health Care. It is obvious that she is passionate about Universal Healthcare, and her plan is detailed and presented in detail. Barack Obama, I thought suffered slightly arguing in an area that is obviously Clinton's strongest suit. Though he still was able to articulate not only what his plan meant, which is not too dissimilar to Clinton's but distinguish where he differed in the tactical implementation of the two plans. Where Clinton would mandate individual coverage, Obama would not mandate it. Does that mean that one plan is "Universal", and the other isn't? I think to a degree it is a matter of semantics.

When they talked about immigration, I thought both struggled on how to deal with it, and what impacts it has on the country's economy. This was obviously not the strongest position for Clinton, and something that was just as weak a subject for Obama. The issue of immigration reform, or enforcement is a complicated matter, and has ramifications across the economic and political landscape. And they both seemed hard pressed to define a position that clearly delineated themselves from each other.

When the discussion turned to Iraq, I felt that this was Obama's strongest area. While Clinton has consistently denounced the invasion of Iraq, she did vote for the joint resolution to provide Bush with the authority to go to war. Obama on the other hand played his strength by being one of the few that from the beginning declared that a war with Iraq was a strategic mistake, and one that should have never been undertaken. His ability to stand on his position against the war from the beginning continues to place Clinton in the position to defend her vote, a situation that she struggles with.

From a who won and who lost perspective, I thought that each got the opportunity, and quite clearly outlined their positions, and detailed their specific plans for implementation. I would say Clinton was the stronger on the Healthcare issues, they both were weak, but even on Immigration, and Obama was the stronger on the issue of Iraq.

Overall I would assess it a tie with both getting "A" grades for presenting and staying on subject of issues and specifics. The question is what does this do going into Super Tuesday? Frankly, I don't think anyone who had already made up their minds as to which one of the candidates they would vote for will change their minds based off of the debate. Both candidates made overt and calculated attempts to persuade John Edwards’s supporters to move to their camps, I don't think anyone knows, failing Edwards specifically endorsing one or the other, which way those voters will go. I don't think there were any telling "knock out" blows, but simply a clarification of what many of us already knew about each candidate.

The voting on Super Tuesday will tell us a lot about what position these two will be in as they drive to the convention, but it will be far from settled as to who will win the nomination, even after Tuesday. There is a long way to go yet, and the race continues to narrow between these two the longer it goes.

The two main areas of the exit polls on Tuesday I will particularly be examining is, where did the former Edwards voters go, and where in the country each candidate has staked out particular strength.

On to Tuesday.. it should be an interesting evening, and a political junkies dream :)