Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

Yesterday I made the claim that Hillary would be ahead in the popular vote if Michigan and Florida were added to the count. Turns out that's what she's saying, but not true. Something so small as the truth isn't going to get her down over, and over.

In order to get the numbers that Sen Clinton's campaign is saying about the popular vote is only by including votes from Michigan and Florida (which don't count), and NOT including any of the caucuses (which DO include states where Obama won easily).

I admit that that I have been very harsh on Hillary in the past, but she constantly reminds me of the reasons people hate politics. When Clinton was ahead by a large margin, she was graceful, calm, and magnanimous. "Obama would make a great VP", she would imply condescendingly. She signed a pledge not to campaign in Florida and Michigan when there was no risk to do so, and so on.

As Obama slowly but surely started chipping away at her lead, she became vicious in her attacks (4am call, Rev. Wright), whiny (which is annoying), borderline racist (which is not fine),and has now resorted to full scale lying and underhanded tactics (which is just sad). The first job of a politician is to get elected, but Hillary's tactics for achieving this goal are more and more unpalatable.

If the campaign is supposed to be any indication of the way the candidates would act in office, I can see a strong comparison between the widespread criticisms of George Bush and the way she's running her campaign: Get what you want, at any cost.

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In the past two days Sen. Clinton has been doing more of what she's been doing for the past few weeks: whining a lot. On the heels of yet another irrelevant primary win in Kentucky, which of course Clinton claims as a huge victory that proves she should keep going, Clinton has begun aggressively campaigning for the votes of Michigan and Florida to be accepted into the primary election.

The reason these places weren't included to begin with, is because they went against party rules and changed their primaries to be the first in the country. They were warned that if they did so, their votes wouldn't be accepted, and the Dems followed through. All of the candidates, including Clinton, pledged not to campaign in that state.

So what has changed since then? Well, in Gallup polls done between August through September, around the dates they signed this pledge, Clinton led Obama by 47% to 25%. There was, in her mind, no risk in making this promise because she was the "inevitable" candidate. Boy was she wrong. Her new strategy, and her only hope of winning it seems, is to fiercely promote these states "right" to be represented in the primary. Now Clinton is comparing it to Bush V. Gore and calling the Florida and Michigan voters "disenfranchised". If accepted, Clinton would be ahead in the popular vote, and seems to believe she could make a stronger claim for the superdelegates to vote for her in the convention. She will of course forget to mention that Obama never campaigned in Florida or Michigan, like she did, and that Obama wasn't even on the Michigan ballot.

I for one can't get over the feeling that she's fighting dirty and it's confirming all my suspicions that she is out for power, in any way she can get it. The Democrats for those states made the decision to defy the party, and they made it knowing the consequences. The Candidates signed the pledge, and followed it. The fact that Clinton didn't ever consider the idea of losing, doesn't make it ok for her to go back on her word, and risk dividing the party even more. Her tactic now seems to be "win at any cost", and I can't imagine this will bring her any good will with the superdelegates, or in the general election.

For McCain's response to the whole thing, see this video of him on SNL.

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Sen. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, the particulars of which I'll spare you, but essentially odds are against him. It seems that most of the media outlets have started to eulogize him, focusing on his life, his legacy, and his "passing of the torch". Since Sen. Kennedy has been one of the greatest supporters of Obama, everyone with a left-of-center political bent is rushing to say that Obama is the next member of the "Kennedy Dynasty".

While I am too young to have lived through the heyday of the Kennedy years, JFK and Bobby Kennedy, I still grew up with the idea of Kennedy. I call it the 'Idea of Kennedy' because I very much doubt that it paints the whole picture of them, and for all I know is not even historically accurate.
Whether it's true or not is unimportant, but the idea of Kennedy is roughly as follows:
-A Kennedy is a racial groundbreaker, bringing together Blacks and Whites in times of extreme racial tension.
-A Kennedy is an incredibly charismatic orator, giving goosebumps to even his fiercest critics when they hear him speak.
-A Kennedy is the American Dream incarnate, the children of immigrants that went from poverty to de-facto American Royalty in just a few generations.
-A Kennedy knows how to party and relax, it's almost expected of them, so when they do you can't get mad, you just shrug and say "Oh, that's our Kennedy!" as if in a 1950's sitcom.

These are the images conjured in my mind when I think of what it means to be 'a Kennedy'. This is also why every left-leaning pundit in the country will be rushing forward in the next few days to say that Ted Kennedy, the last of the REAL Kennedys, has "Passed the Torch" to Barrack Obama. They want to make sure that when you think of Barrack Obama, you think of the Idea of Kennedy, and get that same warm and fuzzy feeling everyone gets while talking about JFK. They also seem to be quick to point out, that Ted never chose to pass that torch to Bill Clinton, who has been the only Democrat in the Whitehouse in 25 years. Obama is the next Kennedy, not Hillary.

However, it's also important to remember the other than the Idea of Kennedy, there's much to be said about the reality of Ted Kennedy. He's been in the Senate for nearly 50 years, which clearly doesn't speak to the idea of groundbreaking change in Washington that Obamaniacs chant. He's about as left-wing as a Democrat Senator can be, consistently voting for bigger government projects, increasing the minimum wage, strong supporter of gay rights and immigrant rights, and all other things left-of-center. While no one can doubt his Charisma, the Chappaquiddick incident, might be cause for questioning his integrity.

While it's difficult to lump everything he's done into possitive or negative, I think the Obama campaign might be a bit too hasty in accepting the torch its being passed. For many of the undecided voters who lean towards the Republicans but are considering Obama, or the white, poor, uneducated people that Clinton is so vocal in claiming would never vote for him, an endorsement from Ted Kennedy, if presented in the right light, could be the kiss of death for the Illinois Senator. I don't think it would take much more than listing the most controversial of Kennedy's votes and implying Obama would do the same as president to turn many voters away.

But for now, at least the Obama campaign is taking a gamble that the Idea of Kennedy will be more powerful than the reality of Ted.

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It seems I can't go anywhere on the internet recently without hearing about Bob Barr, who is running for the Libertarian Party nomination. Everywhere you look, from left to right, everyone has something to say about Bob Barr.

While Barr himself has done very little since his announcement, mostly some nagging at now-irrelevant Gov. Huckabee, everyone is scrambling to figure out what effect he will have on the general election. The Weekly Standard's bloggers think he "seems likely to siphon votes from Obama, not McCain". Over at the Daily Kos, blogger Steven R. makes a strong case for "Obamaniacs" to donate to Barr's campaign, in order to defeat McCain, after all, it's what some Republicans did with Nader.

So who's right? Well polls seem to agree with the Barr-for-Obama camp. The Rasmussen Reports, which has daily poll results on the Presidential election, finds that if the election were held today with only Obama and McCain on the ballot, McCain would win by 45% to 44%. However, when you toss in Bob Barr (and Ralph Nader, since he's become inevitable it seems), the results look much different:

In a four-way race, Obama earns 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Given those options, 11% were undecided.

While this is all likely to change, and I'd be surprised if any third party got more than 3% of the vote or so, it does show an interesting trend. Obama voters will probably vote for Obama regardless of what the other options are, where McCain loses quite a few votes to Bob Barr.

The effect of Bob Barr is likely to diminish in the coming months as more people get to know him and the specifics of what a vote for Bob Barr stands for. Rasmussen Reports states that "Most voters don’t know enough about Barr to have an opinion of him", and I feel this is more likely to benefit Barr than hurt him. What I think it does show is that the Republicans have alienated a lot of voters that would usually not even consider voting for any other party, either through their dislike of the Bush Presidency, or because, as in my case, it seems difficult to see any evidence that they're actually the same organization that gave us Reagan, Goldwater, and even Newt Gingrich. The question is, will McCain be willing to make concessions to this voting bloc in an effort to stop Barr from being a spoiler, or will he continue with the de-facto policy of dismissing "third-party voters" as lunatics that should be ignored?

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