Florida and Michigan

For people who haven't been following up on the news:

Florida and Michigan decided early on to ignore the DNC rules and hold their primaries whenever they felt like it. They moved up their primaries so that they could be in the spotlight. The DNC punished them by discounting their delegates.

210 delegates from Florida, 156 from Michigan. As you can imagine, residents of the two states are annoyed.

Some people argue that the F&M votes should count, especially Clinton supporters - Clinton won both primaries by a large margin. However, people should remember that Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan...and neither candidate campaigned a single second in Florida! So, the fact that Clinton won, means nothing. If F&M's votes were to count, the two candidates would have to campaign there, wasting time, money, and resources. Ultimately, there would most likely be a close tie, perhaps even in Clinton's favor. But the fact is, if 366 more delegates are added into the mix, and Obama can claim 183 of them...he has the nomination. Because that's how far he is from winning. Even if that doesn't happen, Obama and Clinton would both move up, the gap wouldn't get much smaller, and we'd be where we are today.

So, it wouldn't allow Clinton a chance EVEN IF F&M voted. But they won't vote. Why? Because they broke party rules, and to pardon them now for no reason other than that Clinton wants them pardoned simply makes no sense. The democrat of '08 is Obama. The only reason Clinton wants votes is to show she's almost as good as he is...maybe vice presidentially good?

Clinton's Chance is Gone; Time to Switch to Obama

Tonight, Obama won NC by 14 points, Clinton won Indiana by 2 points. And NC is worth more, too. Yet, whereas Obama's speech congratulated her and attacked McCain, hers subtly attacked Obama! And she had the audacity to claim that PA was hers, NC was Obama's, and Indiana was a tie breaker. Are you kidding? She wins PA by 10 and Indiana by 2, Obama wins NC by 14 - where's the tie breaker? And now Obama's up by about 150 delegates...and less than 200 away from the nomination. 200 Superdelegates vote for Obama, and he wins. How does Clinton have a chance?

CNN Delegate Counter Statistic: If all the remaining states are a wash, of the 277 undecided Superdelegates, Clinton would need to win 84% of them to beat Obama. 84 to 16? A 68 point lead? I don't think so. If Clinton wins the remaining states, each by 20 points (a 60/40 split), she needs 77% of the remaining Superdelegates.

Nonetheless, she keeps going. She has her fans screaming, she has people rilled up. She thinks she can win. It's NOT HAPPENING, and the sooner Democrats realize that Obama is our guy, the better. Because the B.S. about Clinton supporters who "won't vote Obama" is B.S. Come on people, McCain is the next George Bush! Everyone knows Clinton & Obama are almost identical on issues. Think of it like a movie tralier, or book review. If you liked "THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN" starring "Hillary Clinton", you'll love our new release - "OBAMA 08" with the SAME IDEAS.

So please people...get over Clinton fast, because if we're gonna beat the Republicans, it's not by siding with their oil tax move that serves NO PURPOSE other than it looks good. And it's not by being divided, when Obama is the only candidate left who can claim the nomination. It's not much of a stretch for me to say, now, Obama IS our nominee. We NEED him in the white house in '08.

A vote for...

• McCain
• Paul
  
• Nader
• No One

Is a vote for George W. Bush. We need all the votes we can get in November - vote Obama!

McCain's Bright Idea

John McCain, Republican presumptive nominee for the presidency, has come out with a plan - one designed to solve our oil crisis and stabilize the economy.

NOT. McCain wants to remove the tax on gas over the summer months. What does this actually mean? It means the oil companies won't have to pay any tax for three months! And this is supposed to drive DOWN costs? Yeah, right! I predict (and many analysis agree) that big oil will keep the price the same...even higher, perhaps...and just pocket the extra $10 billion.

But even if the oil price doesn't rise...guess what the tax on oil is? It's about 18 cents a gallon. OK, so McCain wants to save every American $0.18 per gallon. Let's say your tank fills up on 12 gallons. That's $2.16 you save for every full tank of gas! Over the three months of summer, let's assume you fill up every week. You save $26! Wow, what a break. I'm glad I voted for McCain - he bought my vote for $26.

It gets better. Any idea what this will cost the government? Let's consider for a moment that we're in trillions of dollars in debt, we still need to pay for the Iraq war, and the economy SUCKS. So, McCain's plan gives everyone $26...and costs the treasury $10 billion in tax collection. This is as bad as Bush's government hand-out...give the Americans some pocket change, and it costs the government INSANE amounts of cash.

This, coming from the guy who wants to fix our economy? Who we're supposed to trust to preserve our environment and not hand it over to the oil companies?

OK - my favorite part. His plan is supported by NONE OTHER that the one - the only:

HILLARY CLINTON.

On the opposition? Barack Obama. His plan? Don't give the oil companies a BREAK. Create a tax on oil based on profit - the more they charge, the harsher the tax - one that, at current rates, would cost them $15 billion a year - that Obama would use (a small part of) to give tax breaks to working class Americans.

CNN Democratic Delegate Calculator

CNN, known for it's left-leaning news, is, of course, my ideal source of information.

I don't actually understand why they are seen as a left-leaning news corporation at all. I mean, FOX News, that's clearly right-leaning. Why? You could say it's because their interviewers always grill liberals with tough questions, interrupt their answers, and paint them in extremely negative lights. You could say it's because they run stories based on E-mail rumors, that actually turn out to be bogus. So how do they stay in business as a leading source of news? That's for another post. But as far as CNN goes; I don't get it. CNN doesn't run false or misleading stories about Republicans (only the New York Times does that). CNN doesn't falsify information to make it seem like the environment is headed down a path of doom and the economy is tanking. Though, they don't need to falsify that information; everyone already knows it.

My point: CNN has virtually no bias, they simply state facts. Facts are disconcerting to conservatives, because facts show that Bush's approval rating is the lowest of all time, that global warming is real, that evolution is real, and that gravity is real. Yes, startling.

But back to the point of this post. CNN has an interesting page in their Politics section: The CNN Democratic Delegate Calculator. The way it works is, you slide little sliders for each remaining Democratic Primary state toward Obama or Clinton, to control the percentage of the vote you think they will get in that state. Delegates are then distributed based on your predictions, and you can see how the election could turn out. There is also a section for Superdelegates.

So, I was inspired to try a little experiment. I gave Hillary Clinton (currently behind in delegates) a 56% to 44% lead in every state, and even the same 56/44 in Superdelegates. After all, she won Pennsylvania by 10 percentage points, so let's assume, best case scenario (for her), she does about as well again in every remaining contest. This is extremely unlikely; she was expected to win PA by a lot of points anyway, and she's NOT expected to win everything else, but let's assume. So I gave her a very definite 8 point lead in everything, even Superdelegates (giving her 165 and leaving only 129 for Obama).

Guess what? Total scores: Clinton, 1,986 delegates. Obama, 2,040 delegates. Wow. Obama wins the nomination; Clinton doesn't even qualify.

"But, wait!" people scream, "That's not accurate! Superdelegates could go 15, 20, 25 points toward a certain candidate! We don't know what they'll do!" OK, fair enough. So I took on a second experiment.

Let's assume Clinton wins all the states by 8 points. Now, what does she need to win Superdelegates by to win? If she wins Superdelegates 65% to 35% - an amazing 30 point victory - guess what? Obama wins the nomination - by 2 delegates. So, in order to get close to Obama, Clinton needs 30% more Superdelegates than Obama has.

In light of these statistics, I believe I can say with fair certainty that Obama will be the Democratic Nominee. Unfortunately for John McCain, who probably doesn't know how to use a computer, let alone read a Blog or go on CNN, he won't know this until the convention in August. Until then, he has to split up his efforts between Clinton and Obama - and we all know how exhausting that is for a man of his age.

So, Obama will most likely be the nominee. Does this mean that voting is as pointless for Democrats as it is for the Republicans? No. Whereas the Republicans chose a leader after just a few states, creating the momentum and pressure needed to force all competitors out of running and ensure that the remaining states' votes would not decide anyone but McCain, the Democrats are more...democratic. We count everyone's vote (unless they live in Michigan or Florida) up until the end. So please, go out and vote! Whether it's for Senator Obama, or that other person running, your vote DOES matter.

People whine about how unfair it is that the Superdelegates will decide the nomination. But that's simply not true. The Superdelegates just so happen to be voting last. The whole country had a chance to vote. If every state voted so that, come the Democratic Convention, one candidate had a clear lead, the Superdelegates wouldn't make a difference. Pretend, for a moment, that the Superdelegates vote first. Let's say they go 60/40 for Clinton, and THEN the rest of the country votes. Now, it appears as though the people decide the election. It's just how you look at it. If the Democrats can clearly come out in favor of someone, then the Superdelegates cannot override that support. In fact, they would most likely support the people's choice.

The point of the entire post: Obama will likely be the nominee, but we still all need to vote. OK, not everyone. Just people in North Carolina (115), Indiana (72), Puerto Rico (55), Oregon (52), Kentucky (51), West Virginia (28), Montana (16), South Dakota (15), and Guam (4). Wait - since when is Puerto Rico more important than 5 REAL states?