Archive for February, 2008

Hillary: Negative Campaign to the Very End

Posted on: February 29th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Hillary Clinton’s brief bout with psychosis is officially over. After debating Barack Obama last week on CNN in which she said she was “honored” to have campaigned with Obama for the nomination, she quickly turned her tune into a scolding (“shame on you Barack Obama”) last Saturday, before mocking him on Sunday and blaming the media for her woes on the MSNBC debate this week. Her negativity has been consistent this week, as highlighted at the end of the week by a new ad that they are running.

The Obama campaign immediately countered with an ad of their own:

Do scare tactics work? We’ll find out Tuesday.

Another Republican Dope Runs for Congress

Posted on: February 29th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Brock Olivo, the former Missouri and Detroit Lion’s football player, is running for Congress in Missouri. He has a “passion” for the people of the 9th district. Yet when asked, “What is the biggest issue for you?”, he responded: “I don’t know… I’ll get back to you.” He goes on to say that he’ll gladly discuss his platform “when it surfaces.” No joke. Actual quotes. Watch the video!

Inside Obama’s Chicago HQ

Posted on: February 29th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Rove Involved in Indictment of Alabama Governor

Posted on: February 25th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

John McCain Fails to Make Indiana Ballot

Posted on: February 21st, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Over at Blue Indiana, they are reporting that John McCain has more reasons to be concerned than his alleged affair with a female 40 year old lobbyist. Everyone knows that the Democrats have had huge turnout advantages over Republicans this year. In Wisconsin, Barack Obama alone had over 240,000 more votes than every Republican on the ballot. In the majority of states, Democrats have had twice (or more) of the vote than the Republicans. Now there’s news that John McCain failed to even make the Indiana primary ballot.

“To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain — the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination — was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.

Except in the 4th District.

In the 4th District, they are short.

By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.”

What does this mean? In Indiana, a candidate needs 500 signatures in each of Indiana’s 9 Congressional Districts to get his or her name on the ballot. McCain failed to do that in Indiana-4, where he apparently fell 9 signatures short. In a state that has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since 1968 (Lyndon Johnson being the last Democrat to win the state in 1964), John McCain being unable to secure enough signatures in Indiana is STUNNING. Not only does it show how weak Republicans are this year in even the reddest of red states, it also shows how inept Republicans are. Generally Republicans have been good at winning elections and God awful at governing. In this case, they failed to do the most basic campaign function: getting on the ballot.

Thomas Cook of Blue Indiana has filed a challenge to keep John McCain’s name off of the May 6 primary ballot in Indiana for failing to meet the necessary requirements. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, is a partisan Republican who endorsed John McCain just weeks ago. If he hopes for any political future in the Republican Party in the state, expect him to do whatever it takes to get McCain’s name on the ballot. E-mail Secretary of State Rokita at http://www.in.gov/sos/ask/email.html (as well as your local paper) and tell him to keep McCain’s name off the ballot.

The Michelle Obama “Lynching Party”

Posted on: February 21st, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Obama Wins 10 Straight Contests

Posted on: February 20th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Since Super Tuesday, Obama has won Washington state, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii and now Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton has won zero. 0. 10-0 for Obama. That’s every corner of the country, red, blue and purple states, large margins in all. In fact, none of them were within 10%. Her campaign strategy of ignoring all but the biggest states has proven to be fatal. Now Obama is winning white men by more than 10% and within 2% of winning white women.

Wisconsin

Obama – 58%
Hillary – 40%

This is a state where Obama was only polling ahead of her by 5% (some polls had her up), she was running tv ads and campaigned in the state. Yet she lost it by 17%. Incredible.

Hawaii

Obama – 76%
Hillary – 23%

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There are a few more points I would like to make. Obama had 645,000 votes of more than a million cast in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary. All of the Republicans combined had just over 400,000 votes. That’s Obama alone and he has a 245,000 vote advantage on every Republican combined. This is a state that went for Gore and Kerry by less than 10,000 votes. We saw a similar result last week in Virginia where Obama had more votes than every Republican combined. Clearly he is the most electable candidate and will win in places that Gore and Kerry did not.

It is nigh impossible for Hillary to win. She can stay in through Ohio and Texas so those people can have their say, but after that, she really needs to understand the math. If she does not win with margins exceeding 60% in all remaining states (MSNBC says 65%), she can not win the nomination. Given that she has only won one state with greater than 60% of the vote (Arkansas), there is no reason for us to believe that she can do that in Ohio or Texas. To give her the benefit of the doubt and say she will win both, as well as Pennsylvania, is a stretch at this point. Obama’s elected delegate lead is now in the range of 150. If she can manage a miracle in Ohio and Texas, winning over 60% of the delegates, good for her. She’s back in the ballgame.

If she does not do that, it is not mathematically possible for her to win, thus it is currently unlikely that she will. Hillary is relying on three or four miracles to win the nomination. She doesn’t need one. She doesn’t need two. She needs all three, possibly the fourth. There’s a law that says if you are counting on too many miracles to happen, it won’t happen. I’ll run them down:

1. Her first miracle would be winning Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania by more than 60% in each state.

2. Her second miracle would be to win a majority of delegates in the remaining states after OH, TX and PA.

3. Her third miracle would be to get super delegates to overturn the will of voters when Obama has an elected delegate lead.

I mentioned four miracles. The fourth would be for the Democratic Party to go back on the rules they set before the process started in which they penalized Florida and Michigan for moving up their primaries. Both Hillary and Obama agreed that the contests would not count and that they would not campaign there. Now the Hillary campaign wants them to count since she won both and Obama’s name wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot. The party rules were clear and for them to change the rules in the middle of the ballgame to aid Hillary Clinton would not only be wrong, it would be unthinkable.

Regarding China…

Posted on: February 18th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

The United States needs to get serious with China. For all of the talk of “securing the borders” and sending illegal immigrants home, the far more prominent and imminent threat to the American people are China and its goods. The Chinese communist government has no regard for civil liberties or human rights. They consistently rank among the worst in the world. Yet they are one of our top trading partners. Canada remains our closest partner, yet the communists are a close second.

How could this be? Decades ago the United States and the USSR never contemplated trade relations with one another. They preferred their communist economic structure and we preferred to keep them isolated from the West. It was a mutual disregard for one another. Yet post-Cold War, our country has become more and more entangled with another communist regime. Unfortunately, it is driven by corporate titans who seek cheap labor and political leaders who would rather line their pockets than protect the national interest.

The result: millions of American manufacturing jobs lost over decades, crumbling American infrastructure, a burgeoning Chinese military, a weakened U.S. military bogged down in the Middle East, a dollar rapidly declining and cheap Chinese goods infesting our homes and stores. Not only cheap, but also unsafe. Our government’s response? Live with it. This is simply not acceptable. The next president will have to confront this issue head-on. If he does not, we risk forfeiting our position in the world as the only remaining super power.

My solution is simple. We should either do one of two things:

1. Ban all trade with China. This would be the most radical move and would undoubtedly result in economic hardship. Yet given how unfair our current trade policies with China are, it might be in our interest to stop trade and force them to come back to the table.

2. Regulate their goods more thoroughly. The government say they can’t afford it, that they do not have enough inspectors. I have an idea. How about you charge the people who import these goods to pay for the inspections? After 9/11, the government asked us (forced, more accurately) to pay for the airport security with a so-called 9/11 charge. This fee is around $25 and is added to the price of every ticket. If I have to pay a surcharge for an airplane ticket, why don’t multi-billion dollar corporations have to pay a fee for extra security to insure the goods being brought in aren’t harmful? I swear there is no common sense in government these days.

Why Obama Can Beat McCain and Hillary Can’t

Posted on: February 14th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Hillary’s Wall is on Fire

Posted on: February 12th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

There were 209 national polls taken up to February 3, 2008. Hillary Clinton was ahead in all of them, except for three ties, and three that Obama had a slight lead in. In other words, according to the polling firms and the national media, Hillary was 203-3-3 vs. Obama. Pretty good record, eh? Any sports team would die for that kind of record, if only they played that many games in a season. No wonder she was the “inevitable nominee”. With numbers like those, how could she possibly lose?

Only one problem, one that the media failed to ever mention much of. National polls have historically always been wrong when taken before a single state casts its ballots. They are meaningless tests of name recognition, not popularity or strength. Put anyone with name recognition against someone without and the one who people recognize will always come out on top in national polls. Does that mean they would win a presidential contest? No, absolutely not.

So the national media, the political analysts and the candidates themselves (*ahem* Hillary) got it all very wrong. They created an artificial aura of strength and invincibility which quickly vanished after a stunning defeat. Afterall, those that are “inevitable” should not have such an early upset, right? The people of Iowa rebuked what was being reported. They stood up for change and gave the Clintons a clear message with their third place finish: your time has passed.

Now that more than 30 states have weighed in, the picture is getting clearer. Iowa, not New Hampshire, is reflecting the mood of the voters. Obama has a continent-spanning winning streak going since Super Tuesday. From Washington to Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and beyond – big, small and medium states – black, white and everything in between – America is standing with Barack Obama when months ago no one said they would.

With 20 wins under his belt, double Hillary’s, Obama is quickly nearing a majority of states won long before the voting will end. At his current rate, he should have 22 by March 4, with 2-4 more coming into his column on that day. Add Wyoming and Mississippi a few days later and he will have won a majority of states with 8 states left to go. He currently enjoys a 200,000 popular vote lead which is likely to expand and a delegate lead, including or excluding super delegates.

Now that Obama leads in states won, popular vote, pledged and overall delegates, Hillary’s campaign has reverted to their old strategy of so-called “firewall states”. Iowa was the original firewall, then New Hampshire and finally, Super Tuesday. Except for New Hampshire, all of her firewalls have failed – and to a great extent, it did fail in New Hampshire to deliver that final blow that was first expected from their campaign.

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The new firewall states are Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. After losing Super Tuesday, the Clinton campaign downplayed their chances in the rest of the February states, which account for 586 delegates. As I predicted on February 7, Obama won in Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine and Washington state (also 91% of the Virgin Islands, which I did not mention). He is poised to win in Maryland, Washington D.C., Wisconsin, Hawaii and Virginia. Post Super Tuesday, it appears that Hillary may not have a single win – nine straight state losses.

Assuming the above plays out, I find it mathematically unlikely that Hillary can win the nomination. Let me first postulate that Super Delegates will play no significant role in picking the party’s nominee. It would be against the interest of elected officials in a party that (rightfully) decried the Supreme Court’s ruling against Al Gore in 2000 as stealing the election if they overrule the will of the voters. The Super Delegates will, in all likelihood, look out for what is best for them and the party by supporting whoever has the most pledged delegates.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at delegate totals as they stand today (according to RealClearPolitics.com):

Obama – 1,004

Hillary – 925

So right now, before Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin and Hawaii, Obama holds a 79 delegate lead. It should be assumed that his lead will increase from anywhere to 25-50 by the end of tonight when Virginia, D.C. and Maryland decide. This would put him in a delegate lead range of 104 to 129. A substantial amount with what will be fewer than 17 states (and Puerto Rico) remaining. Again, as the Clinton campaign keeps emphasizing, their “firewall states” are Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Since it is impossible to make an educated guess of what delegate counts will be, let’s assume that the winner statewide wins a majority of the delegates. The second assumption is that Obama wins proportionally more delegates for each state he wins than Hillary does for the states she wins, based on the results from the states that have voted so far. While he has performed above 60% in 10 states (including an unheard of 80% in Idaho and 74% in both Kansas and Alaska), she has only reached over 60% in one state (Arkansas).

The math is simply against her in the rosiest scenario that we could give her. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say she wins her “firewall states” of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. They account for a combined 577 delegates. Obama will win a substantial amount of these, but let’s just assume Hillary wins a majority. Furthermore, we will give her wins in Rhode Island, West Virginia and Kentucky. Add that to 577 and you get 708 delegates of which she would win a majority in this scenario.

We’ll further give her a benefit of the doubt and give him a low-end delegate lead coming out of February 12 with a 104 delegate lead. Add his delegate lead to wins in Wisconsin, Hawaii, Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico. You get 725, giving him the edge in pledged delegates.

If you are wondering how I decided who wins what state, each are based on demographics, the type of contest (caucus or primary), whether independents can vote and regional results from contests thus far. Again, I gave Hillary’s campaign the benefit of the doubt. They say they are going to win Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. Including those in my total, as well as other states that seem favorable to her, she would still lose.

I am not claiming this is the way each state will break. However, giving her a best possible outcome based on conditions as they are today, Obama appears to be the clear favorite. This is imprecise, due to the nature of the proportional delegate allocation, but with past trends, Obama should win a higher proportion of delegates from the states he lost in my example than she does. In other words, a majority of the 725 delegates would go to him (104 would be from his delegate lead going into next week), a majority of the 708 would go to her, but he would get a larger majority because his support will likely be higher in the states that he wins.

Unlike the pundits and campaign people, I don’t think Hillary has as much of an edge in Texas and Ohio as she thinks. Ohio has similar demographics to Missouri (which Obama narrowly won) and Texas has fewer Latinos than California (Obama only lost by 10 points there). I think a far more likely scenario to occur than the one I just laid out above is Obama sweeping the post-Super Tuesday February states, cruising into March 4 with a burst of momentum, pulling an upset in Ohio, narrowly losing Texas, winning Vermont and losing Rhode Island.

Her campaign will lose almost the entire center of the country, from the Rocky Mountains, to the Great Plains to the Midwest and Great Lakes. With Alaska, Hawaii and Washington in Obama’s hands (and Oregon likely in May), her only Pacific Coast state will be California. The Atlantic Coast is hardly anymore hospitable to her. Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Maine, all Atlantic Coast states, are either already in Obama’s column or will be. What’s left for her? California, New York, parts of New England, and a small swath of predominately white Southern states (while Obama wins the Deep South with its large black populations).

If Hillary loses just one of her three firewall states, it is over for her. Even if she wins all three it is an uphill climb. It just goes to show that a big state strategy, which failed on Super Tuesday, will fail again. You cannot win the nomination or the presidency by concentrating on small pockets of support in reliably Democratic regions of the country (New England and California, namely). Her fourth firewall may not be on fire (yet), but Obama has found a way around it: winning every other state.