CHESSNOID

Most people are tired of watching this contest. I say then change the channel or just don’t read the news. I will vote for either candidate because they both have promised to withdraw troops from Iraq. If they at least keep that campaign promise, then they will have accomplished a lot in his or her first year.

Too many analysts want the contests over before it is over. Why? We have all the primaries set up for specific dates and they should all play out accordingly. Personally, I don’t give a crap about who has more delegates or not. Of course that will decide who the nominee is. I have watched the DNC chairman Howard Dean and the House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi on TV and realize they are idiots and cowards. Not only that, they are Pro-Obama but in the positions they are in they are trying to abusing their powers by trying to influence others, instead of supporting the process of the election. I don’t like the idea that they and other Democrats are pitching the idea of Clinton stepping down before it is over. It will be over when they officially announce it and not a delegate before. A few more primaries and Obama will probably win over the Super Delegates needed for the nomination. There is even a chance that Clinton may win. After all, it is the super delegates who will decide the final outcome of the nominee.

I know they wished they didn’t have to make the decision. Some of them are finally coming out of the closet. But the way they come out is kind of cheesy. After certain candidates lose, they come out to support their choice.

Another big mistake the Democratic National Committee has made is penalizing swing states we need for the big General Election win. Come on, how stupid are they to alienate Michigan and Florida. Who gives a crap if they vote a day early. Also, there were 2 other states that didn’t follow the rules but were not penalized. Why the inconsistency? I am in California which usually votes Democratic in the General Election so it doesn’t make a difference here. But Florida did make a difference in past elections. Now, Michigan may make a difference in this election. Just because the state officials messed up and executed poor judgment, why would you penalize all the voters who came out to vote and make them feel like they don’t count.

We hear the argument of the popular vote, but it isn’t clear cut about the winner of that contest. There were a good posts explaining the General Election Electoral Math by Michael Barone at US NEWS called

Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count

This was published on March 28, so we know how some of these states turned out.

Thus the Clinton campaign could argue that Obama cannot win states with most of the nation’s people even if he wins all the remaining eight primaries. Could argue—but I don’t think that’s going to persuade any superdelegates that Clinton is the real winner.

The Obama campaign has argued on occasion that its primary or caucus victories in Republican states means that Obama has a better chance to carry them in the general election than Clinton. As the Clinton people point out, that’s ridiculous in some cases: No one thinks Obama’s victories in lightly attended caucuses in Idaho or Wyoming mean that he can win them in November. Even in states like Minnesota and Colorado, Obama’s caucus wins are less persuasive evidence than current polls that he can do better there than Clinton in November. Nor are Clinton’s primary victories in states like Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Ohio very strong evidence for the proposition that she’d be stronger than Obama. General election polls are better evidence; they buttress Clinton’s case in New Jersey and Ohio, and refute it for Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. Interestingly, Clinton won primaries in only five states which went heavily for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004—Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

This has led me to ask what would have been the result of the Democratic primaries and caucuses if the party’s rules tended to allocate delegates by winner-take-all rather than proportional representation. It would be an interesting exercise to apply the Republicans’ delegate allocation formulas to the Democratic results. Interesting—but also time consuming, since those formulas tend to allocate many delegates by congressional district (or, in Texas, state Senate districts). So instead, using the realclearpolitics.com summary, I simply assigned all of a state’s Democratic delegates to the winner of the Democratic primary or caucus. The result: Hillary Clinton gets 1,430 delegates and Barack Obama 1,237. That’s almost the exact opposite of realclearpolitics.com’s count of “pledged” (i.e., selected in primaries or caucuses): Obama 1,414, Clinton 1,247. It should be noted that the winner-take-all score would have been reversed if Clinton had lost Texas, which she carried by the narrow margin of 51 percent to 47 percent and which has 193 delegates.

In my opinion, the numbers indicate that popular vote would is closer to a tie than any type of majority leaning either way. If the actual vote counts were done in the Caucus states, I believe it would show that Clinton is actually in the lead in the popular vote. All the contests being held are healthy. All the debates are good to show the candidates in a more clear light. I think the rhetoric about “Hillary hurting the party and needs to drop out sound bites” the media as well at democrat leaders in the party keep repeating are the people who actually hurt the party.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/some-post-wv-st.html

Sen. Clinton ended up netting approximately 147,410 popular votes to her national popular vote total. (She was roughly 700,000+ votes behind Obama heading into this evening, so she is currently 579,643 votes behind Obama in the national popular vote in all nominating contests thus far — not counting Michigan and Florida.)

As far as the negativity supposedly being said by the candidates, I don’t buy it. Both democrat nominees or their campaigns have consistently bent the truth. Sometimes when they say the truth, the other campaign claims it is racism or dirty politics. I say SHUT THE HELL UP. That is what campaigns are about. That is what politics are about. Neither candidate will change that process. Both these candidates have done it in their previous Senate campaigns. Let’s not pretend these people are innocent angels. They are POLITICIANS. When they go against the Republican party, they will not hold back. It is better that the stuff comes out now vs later.

We have to remember both Al Gore and John Kerry lost because they were being too nice or just wimpy! They were holding back. They didn’t fight the way they needed to win. We got Bush-whacked for 8 years. I don’t want a repeat of that with McCain but that is definitely a strong possibility.

I hope the Super Delegates make the right decision. This isn’t just a popularity contest. We need to pick the person who can actually win the General Election. The popular vote is about even. We shot ourselves in the foot by messing up with Michigan and Florida. What the heck was the DNC thinking??

I hope the Obama-Clinton dream ticket is already happening behind the scenes. Without the dream ticket, I suspect the Republican nominee McCain will win the General Election. I saw a possible VP running mate for him on a political show and was very impressed with her presence.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_8501446

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9036858