Kyle Bell

I haven’t posted a blog in a little while, so time to update things. Since I last posted about John Kerry’s endorsement, a number of other people have come out in support of Obama. Below are just a few of the endorsements he has picked up, most of them from important February 5th primary states (bolded):

Senator John Kerry (Mass.)
Senator Conrad (North Dakota)
Senator Johnson (South Dakota)
Senator Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Senator Dick Durbin (Illinois)
Senator McCaskill (Missouri)
Governor Tim Kaine (Virginia)
Governor Napolitano (Arizona)
Governor Deval Patrick (Mass.)

That’s four Senators and two governors from five different February 5 states. Other than in New York, find me a prominent Senator or Governor of a February 5 state backing Hillary. You can’t. More importantly, each of those Senators or Governors come from a state that George Bush won in 2000 and 2004, except for Illinois and Massachusetts. I don’t know if John Kerry and Deval Patrick can help Obama carry Massachusetts, she still has to be favored in most of New England, but it should help quite a bit organizationally.

Now let’s pivot away from endorsements to election results. First thing’s first: Nevada. I was personally shocked this week by the Clinton tactics in that state. Nevada never played a very important role and their slim win there doesn’t mean much. So why did they use arm twisting to win there? Charges of voter suppression were rampant with reports that the doors were closed a half hour early at 11:30 a.m. instead of 12:00 noon at the request of Clinton campaign people. Furthermore, her teacher union backers tried to prevent workers in Las Vegas from voting by going to court.

Bill Clinton went further into wacko land when he denied any involvement in the lawsuit and turned around and said he supported preventing the workers from voting. His argument was one of the oddest I’ve heard. Basically, allowing workers on the Las Vegas strip to caucus by putting caucus locations in casinos somehow gave them an advantage that no one else had. Um… you’ve lost it, Bill. Last I checked, we’ve always used schools and churches as polling places. Doesn’t that give an “unfair” advantage to teachers and ministers? Why are you complaining about shift workers getting a place to vote? Give me a break!

Last point. Hillary won Nevada with 51% of the vote to 45% for Obama. Two good things came out of Nevada:

1. Obama only lost by 6%, despite Nevada being a closed caucus. That means independents could not vote in the Democratic caucus. Independents were largely responsible for Obama’s win in Iowa, besting Hillary by more than 3-to-1 among independents. Also, Bill Clinton carried Nevada twice as president. Other than Bill Clinton, no Democrat had won Nevada since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

2. Obama left the state with more delegates. It is starting to look like this race may continue for many months to come. If that happens, the delegate count could factor in for the first time in decades. Right now Obama has a 2 delegate lead nationally over Hillary.