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Clinton Takes Ohio, Texas; McCain Seals The Deal
You can read it pretty much anywhere, but Clinton took Ohio and Texas meaning that the democratic primaries are far from over. Unlike the Dems, McCain has locked his nomination for the Republicans by breaking the 1,191 delegates necessary. So there it is. Talk amongst yourselves.
vote pedro....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I voted for Kodos.
It means that she won the popular vote, which is translated by the media into a win these days. Obama is set to win the caucuses. What this is really is the media finally turning on Obama. From Russert's vile line of questioning about Farrakhan, "Why won't you say that you would stab him in the face, huh?" He would never have asked Kerry about the endorsement from LaRouche, yet he feels the need to act like Farrakhan actually matters.
A blog about stuff.
Now that McCain has clinched the nod, expect all those that would have voted for McCain 'when it mattered' to now vote for Clinton when possible. Clinton is by far the easier candidate to beat and everyone knows it. It's very possible the republicans are what helped Clinton win in the Texas primary.
We will now see McCain attacking Obama, Clinton attacking Obama, and republicans voting for Clinton all at once. I hope Obama is up for the fight.
There's plenty of evidence that in both Texas and Ohio, Republicans are voting for Hillary in order to "bloody Obama" politically. Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to do that for weeks. http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/03/04/mj030408switchweb.html Similar stories are coming in about Ohio. The political machine is starting to conspire against Obama from both sides. But I still believe that Obama will win the nomination because Hillary has a math problem. http://www.newsweek.com/id/118240 But the feeling of dread comes from the notion that even if she loses the delegate count, that she'll still be able to pull out a victory via her usual shenanigans. She's going to fight to have Michigan and Florida's delegates seated even though in Michigan for instance, Barack's name wasnt even on the ballot.
Indeed, not counting the Texas caucus results (which are likely to favor Obama), Clinton's likely to come out of last night's victories net'ing less than 10 delegates, and possibly even losing ground if the caucus goes particularly well (60-40 or better) for Obama.
I'm not a registered Democrat, though I do vote for their candidates more often than not. The inconsistencies of the state party mechanisms, plus the proportional voting, does seem highly illogical. In the general, it's winner-take-all, and there's no superdelegates (unless you count the Supreme Court - 2000 election says hi). I hope the party recognizes this flaw in the system, which only stands to keep them stigmatized as the party of political procedure and not of coherent action.
That all said, if John McCain makes it through to Election Day without a single health scare, I would be very surprised. He's 72, and has a relatively poor health history. I certainly wouldn't wish ill health on him, but I do think there's a strong likelihood of at least one incident on the road.
RW
The super delegates will decide it all - the actual raw numbers don't make much difference. Winning Ohio and Texas wasn't important to Clinton due to the number of delegates she would win, but rather has very strongly reinforced the stall she is going to set out to the supers, namely "I win in the "big" states, Obama wins in the "little" states". A piece in the NYT laid it all out yesterday, pointing out that if she lost both Texas & Ohio it wouldn't make a vast difference to the numbers - due to PR - but it would leave her with virtually no storyline to present to the supers. Since she won them she has now quite a potent storyline to present - and it may end up handing her the title.
Well, Texas has a caucus. She took the primary but Obama took more in the caucus which is a smaller percentage of the delegates. As to her actually *winning* one must wonder if Rush Limbaugh may have contributed to Republicans cross-voting just to up the contention between Clinton and Obmana and further muddy the outcome for the Dems. --cally
--Cally
I agree with your assessment that the Democrats will have a real challenge, regardless of the candidate they choose. McCain does not really suffer from the huge impopularity of president Bush as much as the other republican candidates (bar Ron Paul) would have. He's got some character, everyone from left to right has to respect a guy who survived five years of torture. And the republicans can start organizing while the Democrats are in disarray. I'm really rooting for Obama but it looks like there will be no Democratic candidate until the convention.
The nifty thing for Obama, is that he is far enough ahead in pledged delegates that he still doesn't have to go sharply negative. Notice the things he hasn't talked about. Tax returns? Bill's last minute pardons (against the advice of the Justice Department, but for people who paid consulting fees to Hillary's brothers)? Kazakhstan? Clinton library donors? Lincoln bedroom guest list? Norman Hsu? Trying to win the nomination without getting these matters in the mainstream media is a kindness to the Democratic Party that the superdelegates would be blind to ignore.
The only question left is Florida and Michigan. Particularly the latter. If she manages to seat her Michigan delegates and none for Obama (since he wasn't on the ballot), I will be disappointed if Detroit doesn't take to the streets.
TFA: In the Texas primary, [Clinton] won with 51 pecent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Obama.
3% is winning the state? Remember that Democratic state delegates are divided up by vote percentages, unlike the Republican "winner take all" delegate process. So Clinton's win in Texas is fairly thin, and frankly a poor showing after all the money and campaigning she's spent lately in a state that was always considered an automatic win for her.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
In the foot...
Obama leads in actual vote overall by 600,000. After all is said and done last night Obama leads by about 150 Delegates.
Before last night, Obama lead by more than 160 Delegates, and 1000 delegates where left to picked, about a third were picked last night. Clinton picked up about 10 possibly 15. Clinton needs =/- 150 delegates from the remaining =/- 660 delelgates available. Obama would need to be kept to about 200 for HRC to win. Meaning she would need, on average, to win roughly 70% of the vote. Although it is not a statistical absolute, I cannot imagine Obama to start getting 30%.
The race is over, Obama has won, except for the ugly fighting that is about to come. Im sure you can see what kind of tactics are about to be launched.
Politics continues to sicken me, although not more than before. I'll even go so far as to say that I'm less sickened that I was in the past, because I now place the blame on where it should be placed: on the voters.
I don't vote (actually, I anti-vote, writing my own name in where possible). Voting is an act that provides the PTB a simple request from the voter: "Lead me as you think I should be led." I don't need a leader. My life is in my hands, as are the lives of my family. Instead of spending out of control, we save. Instead of relying on insurance for regular medical visits, we pay cash on the barrel and pay a low insurance premium just for emergencies. We eat healthy, exercise, and try to stay in shape so as not to need expensive medical visits and medication that many of our friends take (and want discounts for). Rather than being angered by people that are different from ourselves, we travel the world every year and meet those that the PTB say are our enemies. Most of the time they are people not so different from ourselves.
The country demands a leader, and they'll get one. Individuals, even the most pious and charitable, generally look out for themselves first. A leader is no different. A leader generally doesn't listen to those that he/she leads. A leader may only have said position for a few years, but will always be thinking about what they will do after their leadership position is over. In some situations, the most egomaniacal leaders may be thinking about how history will support their positions and actions.
The surprise to me is that we United States citizens believe we need a leader, at least in government. The Constitution doesn't give the President power to lead, only to execute the laws which we wanted put in place; equitable laws that infringe on everyone equally, rather than giving preferential treatment to the few at the cost of the many (or vice versa). The President is not the Commander-in-Chief until Congress actively declares war. We declared war in WW2, but since then, we have not had a legal CiC. The President is not there to save the economy, or even care about the economy, because economic issues are the domain of Congress, or even more preferably the States. The President isn't supposed to take positions on what he or she will support or wants to do, because the President merely reviews signed bills and their Constitutionality, and only then making the decision to support future execution of said bills into law if the bills mass Constitutional muster. Most don't.
It is sad when people demand a leader, but are too fearful of being leaders themselves. This is why I am disgusted -- not with politics -- but with you voters who have your head so far up your rears that you think your leader can lead me. I'll be forced to follow.
Well, Ron Paul SHOULD still be in at this point. That's not trolling.
There are a lot of Republicans who just WON'T vote for McCain. Ron should and will stay in the race, and those McCain haters are going to vote for him, just like they did for Huckabee. Hopefully they'll also learn something. The current election is always about the next one for the candidates who don't win. I think that inspite of what we know here, and the best efforts of many on this board, there are about 300 million citizens in the US who don't know anything more about Ron Paul's positions than that he is completely against the Iraq war. If the nation becomes better informed about the REAL cost of lowering interest rates and devaluing the dollar, things might actually change.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
The media was playing it up as Clinton's "last chance", so naturally that will energize people who are emotionally involved with that candidate and get them out to vote... just like in New Hampshire, where women came out strong for their candidate.
Personally, I find the level of racism and sexism involved in propping up Clinton's campaign disgusting. I'd like to think of Democrats as above and beyond that. If you look at the facts, Obama is a better speaker, more motivational, more liked overseas, less divisive. Obama has more experience in public service, he's made better decisions, and he's more likely to win against McCain. He's run a more organized and effective campaign. So given that he pretty much outclasses her in every way as a candidate, you have to ask yourself why people are voting for Clinton, and is it right.
Some people say that Obama is benefiting from being half-black by winning the black vote 10:1. I don't think that's really true, I think he'd be winning the other groups that much if not for the factors working against him. For instance, the Hispanic community has historically been at odds with African Americans. And whites and women, obviously, have a bias for a white woman. It seems to me that by merit he should be winning close to that ratio among most groups.
(excuse the wording)? What the hell? This is what is wrong with America. I swear to God I am so sick of this political correct cry baby crap. He is black, call him black. I am white, why the hell is it perfectly acceptable to call me white instead of "Irish-American" or some other hypenated nonsense, but its a big deal to call a black guy black. Why the hell would you need to be excused for calling him black?
Lets put this stupid liberal guilt shit to rest. A black man has been tearing up the campaign trail and looking like a possible win on the Democrat side if not the whole race for the top. Can we PLEASE get over this sensitivity crap. I think having a black man with a pretty viable shot at the oval office pretty much means that the whole slavery thing is long over. It's time to quit the apologizing.
Stunningly ironic is that the party that goes on about those "poor minorities that need our help" has a black man making a damned good run. Seems kinda counter to the nonsense about the minorities need our help and handouts.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Frankly, I wish they would just go the way of the Whigs (and take the Republicans with them while they're at it). This country desperately needs a REAL party for liberals, libertarians, and progressives. And God knows neither the undisciplined, spineless Democrat party nor the bible-thumping, war-mongering Republican party are truly serving the people.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Referring to centrists like Hillary and Obama as Socialists indicates an intense and pervasive ignorance of all matters social and political. Socialism does not encourage private property or corporate participation, just for starters. You really should visit some places that embrace Socialism before you make pronouncements like that, but like most Americans staying fearfully within your own borders is as much as you can handle. With ignorance on this scale being commonplace it is amazing that we can do this well.
Both sides are fascism. As Ron Paul said : "We're not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism: Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military-industrial complex, you have the medical-industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars."
Ralph Nader put it best: Republicans and Democrats are competing to serve their corporate masters.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I grew up in Mexico, and often refer to Hispanics. My girlfriend at the time gave me crap because some group of them (I'm assuming it was The Council of the Wise) decided that Hispanic reminded them of the Spanish conquest, and they preferred Latino. Which I think is ridiculous, because when I say Hispanic, I mean a Spanish-speaker (which excludes Brazilians), and when I say Latino, I mean a Latin American (which excludes Spaniards).
Also, Iranians are caucasians, so calling white people caucasians is stupid. So hey everybody, let's just stop being insulted by things that aren't insulting, and stop bowing to unfounded, ridiculous reactionary pressure. And if you find out that one person prefers Latino over Hispanic, use the word they prefer when referring to them. It's super easy.
Close enough for the popular opnion.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?
There are places that capitalism fails. Healthcare looks like it is one of them. Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!), the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population, resulting in a population that is more prone to infectious diseases and epidemics.
PS: We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so.
The US spends more than twice as much per capita on healthcare than the UK.
one must wonder if Rush Limbaugh may have contributed
I just have to wonder if Limbaugh's advice is counterproductive.
From what I've seen in this election cycle, more than any other is that people are basically led around by the talking heads on TV. The will vote for whoever is getting the most press. With the Republican nomination cynched by McCain, the only thing that will be in the news will be Obama/Clinton. Come November, people will be saying, "McCain? Who is that?"
It isn't a matter of the media reporting badly about McCain. It is a matter of them simply overtly shutting him out of the news coverage altogether, like they did with Paul, Kucinich and later Huckabee. The talking-head, 24-hour news cycle is an extremely powerful tool that amounts to free political adds for whoever the network controllers consider a "front-runner", whether that be Giovanni or Thompson. Having Obama/Clinton being the "news of the day" for the next few months will not help McCain.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/4/162042/3056/80/468751
This assumes that Hillary somehow magically wins by 10% in every race. Which is NOT going to happen unless Barack gets caught with a dead girl or live boy. After today, there are 10 states left, plus Guam and Puerto Rico.
Number of 3 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 4 delegate districts left: 19 (including all 8 in Puerto Rico)
Number of 5 delegate districts left: 21
Number of 6 delegate districts left: 14
Number of 7 delegate districts left: 10
Number of 8 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 9 delegate districts left: 3
Number of 10 delegate districts left: 1 (Montana)
Setting aside Guam with its 4 delegates, there are 11 delegate apportionments based on statewide popular vote totals.
Wyoming - 5 statewide
South Dakota - 6 statewide
Montana - 6 statewide
West Virginia - 10 statewide
Mississippi - 11 statewide
Kentucky - 17 statewide
Oregon - 18 statewide
Puerto Rico - 19 islandwide
Indiana - 25 statewide
North Carolina - 38 statewide
Pennsylvania - 55 statewide
In order to cross all thresholds except the initial break that give you a +2 delegate swing, you need to win by an extra 200/X%, where X = the number of total delegates at stake. Let's see how this works by easy example - West Virginia and its 10 statewide delegates. 200/10 = 20%. To go from 5-5 to 6-4 there you have to win by over 10% (55-45). But to get ANOTHER +2 you need to add 20% to your win and win by 30% (65-35).
To work through one more example, Indiana and its 25. You start with someone winning 13-12. To get an additional +2 swing (ie, 14-11), you have to win by 200/25%, or 8% even. 54-46 + 1 vote is a 14-11 split. You can also calculate this way: 13.5/25 =
So, let's look at if Clinton wins every statewide total by 10%:
Wyoming +1
South Dakota 0
Montana 0
West Virginia +1, giving her the +1 vote benefit of the doubt.
Mississippi +1
Kentucky +1
Oregon +2
Puerto Rico +1
Indiana +3
North Carolina +4
Pennsylvania +5
Total +19 delegates.
Do you see how totally impossible it is, and how completely significant Obama's South Carolina and February blowouts were? Remember, Obama beat Clinton by 8% in Iowa (a huge win) and netted only 1 extra pledged delegate.
Now, let's assume, in a very unsurgical way, that this 10% is exactly the margin in all the congressional districts.
1 3-delegate district: +1
19 4-delegate districts: 0
21 5-delegate districts: +21
14 6-delegate districts: 0
10 7-delegate districts: +10
1 8-delegate district: 0
3 9-delegate districts: +3
1 10-delegate district: +1, let's give her the 1 extra vote benefit of the doubt.
Total +36 delegates
Overall total +55 delegates.
And it probably is +58, see below.
Obama currently leads by 160 pledged delegates.
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
The Obama campaign appears to be much better organized than the Clinton campaign. Clinton tried to run an "inevitability" campaign like Bush did in the Republican primaries in 2000. When that didn't work as well as expected for Clinton, it really looked like they weren't ready with any kind of backup plan. Also, Hillary Clinton is still following the strategy that allowed Bill Clinton to win the presidency twice: ignore huge parts of the country, take others for granted, and focus on a few "swing" states to get the minimum amount of votes to win. Obama's team appears to have understood the rules of the primaries and caucuses better than Clinton's, which is surprising, given how much Clinton plays up her experience as a Senator, an activist, and yes, as the wife of Bill Clinton. I can't imagine how they could not know how Texas's apportionment of delegates works, and yet they claim they didn't. While Clinton won the popular vote in three of four states (Rhode Island, Texas, and Ohio, but not Vermont), Rhode Island and Vermont basically canceled each other out (each was a blowout and both states have few delegates). Clinton won the popular vote in Texas and Ohio, but the final delegate count will be either a very small (single-digit) number of net delegates going to Clinton or even possibly Obama padding his three-digit lead by a few more delegates.
Obama's campaign ran hard and organized even in the states where he was way ahead. The result was blowout victories, which makes a difference in the primaries, because the apportionment of delegates depends on the margin of victory. Clinton scored one blowout yesterday and was blown out in another state, so the net effect is probably about 1 net delegate for Clinton. In the bigger states, Clinton scored two narrow victories, and in Texas, the combined primary-caucus may end up giving Obama a net win in delegates.
Clinton's campaign has tried to change the rules during the contest more than once, which is really lame. There's talk that the Clinton campaign will now sue over the nature of the Texas caucus-primary, but they had the same access to the rules as the Obama campaign did. They just seem not to have planned as well.
Obama appears to be more of a party-builder, like Howard Dean and his "50 State Strategy." While moron pundits like Paul Begala derided paying party workers to "pick their noses" in places like Montana and Mississippi, Dean set up the structure not only for the Democrats' retaking both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections, but also for extending their majorities and making gains in the state legislatures nationwide. Obama seems to have embraced that strategy, and it would make a difference in places like Texas, where Rick Noriega could have a chance of unseating Senator Cornyn if the presidential candidate doesn't ignore the state, and at the very least the Democrats could force the Republicans to spend money to defend what previously would have been considered a very safe seat. Clinton's campaign, as recently as last week, when it thought she might lose in Texas, was saying that "Texas does not figure into the electoral calculus of a Democratic (Presidential) candidate." That is a ridiculously narrow view, and since so many of Hillary's advisors and consultants also worked for Bill, I wonder if the Clintons' philosophy is responsible for the fact that Bill Clinton managed to win the White House, but then the Democrats almost immediately lost control of both houses of Congress, setting the stage for the Bush presidency, when White House power was basically unchecked by a Congress all too willing to let Bush and Cheney do whatever they wanted. Including taking a surplus and making it into record deficits. Oh, and a multi-trillion dollar war that destabilized the region and created more terrorists by making bin Laden and his ilk look really smart as the US government acted just as al Qaeda and others said it would.
Here's the thing: I'm pushing 40, and Bill Clinton was far and away the best president of
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
I'm tired of this American crap when people who have a drop of black blood they are considered black, he's half black and half white. But that's irrelevant, he's grey... whatever... what about judging him for what he does and what he says not for his color?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
If Hillary Clinton were to win the nomination by only the super delegates vote, and have lost the popular Democratic vote, would it be fair then for the opposition (Democratic as well as Republican) to label her the "Selected" rather than "Elected" Nominee?
Will Democratic Party leaders think that the risk of ignoring the popular vote is worth the possible reward of nominating someone who the party leaders think may be the more "electable" candidate in the general election?
Regardless of the above, it looks to be an interesting Democratic Convention coming up.
Where I work I've spoken to 6 different dedicated Republicans who said they also voted for Clinton on the Democrate side. They all agreed that they did so for no other reason than that they'd rather face her than Obama in the general election.
I usually vote Republican but after the last 8 years under GWB (I confess that I voted for him the first time. Who knew he was going to turn into "Big Bubba" on us?) I am so disappointed in the right that I'm actively searching for a Democrat to support. I like Obama and I'm voting for him in the general election if he gets the nomination. If he doesn't I'm going to go ahead and throw my vote behind McCain. I know several people who feel the same way I do, in particular my wife. She's a lifetime Democrat but she swears that if Hillary gets the nomination she's voting for McCain.
I can't believe the Democrats will be stupid enough to run Hillary. She's the one candidate that the Republicans will pull together to keep out of the White House. Obama's pulling in Independents and liberal minded Republicans (yes, we exist). Hillary will send us all into McCain's camp.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
"He is black, call him black."
What the hell? I am so sick of these nebulous terms. Let's get it right. He is #935C33, I am #FEE497.
(excuse the wording)? What the hell? This is what is wrong with America. I swear to God I am so sick of this political correct cry baby crap. He is black, call him black. I am white, why the hell is it perfectly acceptable to call me white instead of "Irish-American" or some other hypenated nonsense, but its a big deal to call a black guy black. Why the hell would you need to be excused for calling him black?
Hogwash. He is white. You say Barak Obama is "black" because his father was "black". I say he is "white" because his mother was "white".
Someone who is truly cutting through the "political correct cry baby crap" would say he is "multiracial".
More of Ron Paul being hated for his (insignificant) virtues rather than his (plentiful) vices. Like many on the left, you seem to not be able to discern economic power from political power. The biggest, nastiest, most impersonal corporation can never *force* you to act against your own nature and trade with it; they can only entice. Now, I will concede, as a result of the horrific government violations of rights in the economic sector, some businessmen (who probably couldn't have put a lemonade stand in the black otherwise) are able to use pull to gain favors and bring ruin to their fellows. This pull did not originate in the businessmen, it is now and has always been the sole function of government. Achieve a proper separation of economics and state, under a proper, objective law, and the pull dries up.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Oh yeah... this is the first Convention since superdelegates were added (in 1968) where they probably will play a significant role in the matter. It also might be the first brokered nomination since 1952, which resulted in Adlai Stevenson getting the Democratic nomination, and you can see how well that went for him....
I'm betting that there are some Democratic party leaders who really wish Obama had won Texas and Ohio yesterday, just so they wouldn't have had to deal with the possibility of the scenario you lay out.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I am a Texas resident who voted in both the primary and caucus, and so I naturally had a stake in closely following the primary results. At no time did Obama ever lead when the primary results came in, nor is he the leader in some ubiquitous Texas "popular vote." Hillary won that as well. Texas was a victory for Hillary in every sense of the word.
We are still awaiting the returns on the caucus, but that only accounts for a mere 1/3rd of the delegates awarded to each candidate, and the early returns indicate that whatever meager advantage that Obama may have in caucus votes will be all but swallowed up by Hillary's more impressive win in the primary election. Really we're talking about hundreds of extra Obama caucus votes vs. Hillary's hundreds of thousands of extra primary votes.
Now for some light editorializing: The reason we're still waiting on caucus results in many counties is because Texas had roughly double the expected turnout. The antiquated system we have in place requires that everyone in a precinct vote in the primary election before the caucus can be held. And the inability of many precincts to deal with the added influx of voters made it so that, in many cases, caucus voting could not start until 11 pm that evening.
Obama will likely fare slightly better in the caucus in Texas, only because the core of the Democrat party--the baby boomers who constitute the majority of Hillary supporters--had families to get back to and jobs they had to get up for the next morning. Hillary supporters simply didn't have the ability to "two-step" all the way into the early morning hours, while it apparently is far easier for the young, first time voters who make up Obama's base to spend literally six hours of their time at their local middle school or fire station.
If you think it's silly to have both a primary election followed by a caucus that runs into the late hours, then you've just joined the ranks of many Texans who think it's ridiculous as well. Not only is it hard for people to get a handle on the vote once / vote again thing, but it does tend to disenfranchise hard-working Democrats who can't be out all night caucusing. A 19 year-old UT student and Obama supporter who would just be out all night anyway? Welcome to the party. A 46 year-old mother of two and Hillary supporter who has to prepare for a shift working at the hospital? Congratulations, you effectively have no say in the caucus. So that's why there is a slight disconnect between the primary and caucus results.
Since irrational Obama supporters apparently run the internets, I fully expect this post to be modded "Troll" or something, because it doesn't contain the requisite amount of Obama bias and instead offers a firsthand account of what went down in Texas last night, and posits a reasonable theory for the disparity between primary and caucus votes. How scandalous. Do your candidate of choice proud, and suppress any relatively objective post you see.
I hear child molesters and dog abusers are big fans of Tim Russert. They watch his show religiously and purchase products from his advertisers. There for, every guest who come on his show has the responsibility to ask him for his side of the story, in a similar fashion:
"Tim, we all know that a lot of people who like kicking dogs and throwing puppies off cliffs are big fans of yours. We also know that you are widely respected in the child porn industry. What do you have to say about that?"
That's not a hard question, that's a loaded question. A hard question would be:
"Our economic advisers believe that your economic policy will fail for reasons X, Y, and Z. Explain how your plan will work to avoid X, Y, and Z."
But watching a man defend an economic policy is no where near as fun as watching him defend himself from accusations of being a terrorist, a Black Panther, Muslim, corrupt, Jewish, antisemitic, etc... If you want some tough questions, get some English interviewers over here to badger the candidates on the issues. If you want BS and fluff, stay tuned to American TV for it's 'Entertainment Value'.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Ah yes, your rights to have everything you want. I take it you won't drive on any bridges, flush your toilet into any sewers, or rely on any police to keep you safe, because the government shouldn't be "clawing away" your money. And definitely you wouldn't want to put that money into a bank insured by the FDIC, or take a mortgage backed by the same federal guarantees (explicit and implicit), or participate in a stock market where liars and thieves are kept (somewhat) at bay by the SEC. Nor do you want any assurance that your medicines are not contaminated, your foodstuffs safe, and your children's teachers are not psychopaths.
The "market will solve everything if you only you set it free" meme was new (and woefully simplistic) in 1971. Now it's tired, overused and foolishly simplistic. Your whole lifestyle is made possible by a profound set of government-run or backed institutions. If they're broken, the answer is to fix them and work for fair, well-regulated markers, not scrap everything we've learned and go back to the 1860s (as appealing as them sometimes seems from within a fluorescent-lit cube). I'm all for leaner and more effective government (as, in fact, are almost all of us who think government has a key role in society), but the nonsense about greedy government taking all your tax dollars sounds increasingly petulant when bridges are falling down, tainted food and drugs are being allowed into our stores, and people are losing their homes in droves, and the top marginal tax rate is the lowest its been in decades.
Government regulation of healthcare is indeed a gigantic mess, and the Blues are a great example of that mess. And yes, government intervention in a market can indeed make a problem worse. But it takes two to tango, so let's recall Gingrich-led cuts to Medicare in the 90s, and permanent resistance to Medicaid's existence (because after all, that's just more poor - read "lazy" - people clawing your government-backed money away) and general conservative opposition to every government program that doesn't involve fat contracts for their buddies don't really to much to promote fair, orderly and efficient markets either.
Sure, comparison shopping for healthcare would improve the system and make the market for healthcare more efficient, if there were choices real humans could afford. Have you ever priced non-employer sponsored "insurance" (the quotes are because health coverage is much more a bundled service agreement that it is insurance against unlikely adverse events)? The prospect of paying $10,000-$15,000 per year sounds like great set of choices, huh? I've learned a fair bit about the dysfunction of the medical reimbursement system in my current job, and I'm not sure a government-run healthcare program is all peaches and cream, primarily because the current incarnations sidestep the hard questions we need to debate about how much care should really cost and who should pay for what. There is a cost control element to healthcare that's deeply difficult to answer once your parent gets cancer or your sibling gets a debilitating disease. But that's a debate about how to structure things well within government and the private sector, not a worn-out screed about drowning government in the bathtub.
>>This country desperately needs a REAL party for liberals, libertarians, and progressives.
It could use a party for real conservatives, too since this latest batch of Republicans is a spend-happy, big-government social-engineering disgrace. But even that would be a short-term solution as the real problem is that our Federal government is no longer bound by the limits of the Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment. The Federals are supposed to just run the Navy, print the money, and mostly stay the hell out of our lives. Instead, well, we have our current situation of Bread & Circus.
10th Amendment to the Constitution reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." IOW, if the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant an authority, the Federals can't do it. What a quaint notion.
I saw the effects of this in 2006 when the two candidates did their absolute best to turn voters away from the other candidate. The end result after the primary was a lot of people who were so burned by the attack ads, that they refused to aid the winning candidate against the opposition with campaign donations. (Many also refused to vote in the upcoming election, but most said that they'd hold their nose and vote for our candidate but that they intended to donate money to other members of the party in other elections.)
The net result: A landslide victory for the opposition as the candidate who won the primary was never able to reenergize the party base and unable to match the opposition's funding afterwards. Our candidate tried to run on issues and on the corruption of our opponent, and the opposition ran on personality and won hands down after the sour note left by the primary.
If voters are left saying, "Who's McCain?" then that's not necessarily a good thing if all they can remember about Clinton or Obama is months of attack ads. Brand recognition isn't a good thing when the product's tainted.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I find it fascinating that other libertarians also feel like the democratic party has become closer to libertarianism than the republican party is.
I now view the republican party as the party of corporatism (a flavor of fascism), oligarchy, lost personal freedom to live as I want, irresponsible spending (wildly more so than... say bill clinton was), and foreign intervention.
And I was a reagan republican- brought into voting by him basically.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"The biggest, nastiest, most impersonal corporation can never *force* you to act against your own nature and trade with it; they can only entice."
That's Randian sophistry. If a corporation acquires a monopoly on food distribution in my town, then while it isn't rifling through my pockets and then dumping food into my bags, I may well have no practical option other than to shop there. It real terms it is not much different from a country where the communist party owned the local store. Of course, right wing people will delight that I am free to starve to death, but I'm sure the communists would have said the same.
I love it how Randians try to blame corporate corruption on governments. "There's only corruption because of government regulation!!". It's like saying: "There's only murders because the police are trying to prevent crime!!". Of course no corporation would ever bribe officials or suppliers, or blackmail people or hire goons to beat workers or journalists, or to sabotage its competitors, or spread malicious rumours about the content of rival's products, or hire or sell a car that would blow up if you backed it into a post, or impale you on the steering column if you went in frontwise.
No... that would never happen. Like that time all those people in Eastern Europe got poisoned because the food companies were all grinding up lead paint into their products to make them look nicer.
It would result in a nation of Al Capones.
I'd love to see a Randian country come into being. It'd be like Cambodia in less than a week.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
So after hearing about Clinton winning Texas and Ohio (and Rhode Island, for that matter), the second thing I read about the crazy pre-election election that seems so popular in the US right now was this article:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/15492166/detail.html
Seems that someone "helped" seniors register to vote, and then filed absentee ballots in their names.
Thing is, every election, every vote, every ballot that happens in the US seems to be tainted by fraud of some sort. Identity theft, ballot stuffing, turning away voters, rigged machines, middle-of-the-night changes to the law, you name it--it's all going on, and seems to be going on all the time. The worst part is that it hardly ever raises an eyebrow from the voting public or the media. In this example, there is solid evidence of election fraud, and it's getting a few column-inches on a local website. Why isn't this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle?
Don't you people even CARE about the failure of your democracy anymore?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Have you actually listened to any of his speeches, or just seen 5-second clips on the evening news? Both speeches I've seen in person have been very heavy on substance, and not just empty rhetoric. It does seem to be a common misconception, perpetrated by the clinton campaign, that he doesn't actually address issues, but it's just flat-out not true. Don't just parrot what you hear, do a little of your own research.
You see, my beliefs cannot be neatly packed into labels of "conservative" and "liberal". I'm extremely conservative about some things and extremely liberal about others. In short I have "core beliefs" but they straddle the two ideologies that you appear to be capable of seeing. Your use of the term "socialist" to describe Obama tells me that you have a typical American grasp of what that word means and so I don't see any point in discussing it with you.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
"No one ever grilled Ron Paul on the support he gets from far right wing racist groups on air . . ."
:-)
No one ever gave Ron Paul much air time to begin with, and we all know it.
This whole "guilt by association" thing is one of the most ridiculously flawed arguments in political discourse, whether we're talking about specific issues, parties, or individuals. The frequency with which this propaganda technique is used however highlights the unfortunate fact that it must be an effective one.
1. Person/Group A is BAD
2. Person/Group A supports P
3. Therefor P must also be BAD
It's utterly and completely absurd.
1. Hitler was evil
2. Hitler was a vegetarian
3. Therefore vegetarianism(vegeterians) must be evil.
Right?
It's an emotional BS argument that has no place in an intelligent debate. In fact, the Nazis and Hitler are used for this purpose so often that someone coined a term "Reductio ad Hitlerum" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum) to define the phenomenon.
We definitely need a new term in the lexicon of U.S. politics to represent the frequent attempts to associate people and organizations with racists/racism because of such ridiculously tenuous connections.
A system of healthcare exactly like what you described existed in the developed world from antiquity up until 1930 or so. There was no insurance, no regulation, no licensure, no anything; healthcare was exactly like any other trade, and those who would provide healthcare competed solely on the basis of price and advertising. The result was nothing short of miserable. Those who could afford it had the best medical and surgical treatment they could buy, although that generally wasn't much (no training requirements, remember?) Those who couldn't relied on folk remedies (what we now call "alternative medicine") and their own physiological reserves, and if they became seriously ill or injured, too bad. Oh, and the average lifespan was about 35 years give or take, and the sick were left to rot on the public streets - or, if they were very, very lucky, they were taken in by charitable groups and largely treated with benign neglect. I sincerely hope that you can figure out why we abandoned that model of healthcare.
In public health, it has been proven hundreds of times that when you have large numbers of sick people in circulation, the general health of the population tends to decline, and the diseases they suffer tend to increase in severity. In short, sick people make the people around them sick as well. If nothing is done about the sick (i.e. they're left to die), the population's health rapidly becomes so severely compromised that any suitable crisis - a plague, a famine, a drought, whatever - can kill off the entire population in one shot. Luckily, though, the reverse is also true: when a population is maintained at a certain level of health, the illnesses suffered by each individual tend to be less severe than they would be otherwise, and the lifespan, working capacity and general health of that population tends to increase. Thus, from a pure cost-benefit standpoint, you'd actually be smarter to provide a certain, basic level of healthcare to each individual out of the common treasury, since it costs far, far less to treat the minor illnesses than the severe illnesses, and it also results in massive net gains in productivity when everyone is healthy enough to work. Everything else, of course, the individual can pay for, but providing basic care - an annual physical, immunizations, emergency care when necessary, etc - ought to be a no-brainer.
Our current system is far from perfect - anyone will tell you that. However, throwing it out the window for some mythical "free-market" solution is just as foolish and ultimately even more harmful than single-payer care could hope to be. It is true that people in good health, who can be expected not to incur any particularly egregious health expenditures in their lifetimes, would pay less for their care at first. However, people in poor health, who not only cost more to care for but generally aren't physically capable of working hard enough or long enough to earn the required amount of money to pay for their healthcare and all their other expenses, will be in even worse straits. Meanwhile, thanks to the masses of sick people in circulation, now all of a sudden the healthy people are getting sick more often and more severely, which throws your putative cost savings right out the window. You're right back to the Middle Ages - either the sick would be rotting on the streets, or you'd be asking physicians, nurses and allied health providers to shoulder those patients' costs through charity care. How is that fair to me and my colleagues, for us to subsidize a tax break for you? Are we not entitled to the fruits of our labors?
I find it amusing how you and your ilk tout the wonders of the free market, without ever realizing that what you propose is neither free nor market-driven. You're just demanding that someone else pay the bill for you, whether through taxes or charity. Funny how that's so often true - the people who yell the loudest about free markets are also the ones who demand the biggest handouts, breaks and subsidies from said markets.
I'll thank you to take your trolling elsewhere, and good day to you, sir.
(Full disclosure: The author is a healthcare professional.)
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
You know, I spent a lot of time pondering that as well. Why does this candidate rub me the wrong way so badly? I didn't mind her husband as President and so I naturally started wondering if it was because of her gender. Was I being sexist without recognizing it? Ultimately I concluded that my biggest problem with Hillary Clinton was her personality and the almost palpable ambition she seems to give off. It's like the woman is just starving for power and will step over just about anybody or anything to get it. I haven't had this kind of negative feeling about a candidate or President since Nixon. Despite his actions I don't much get it from GWB. I do get a sense of it from Cheney however.
She goes into a series of primaries with agreeing to certain terms (like Florida and Michigan not counting for instance) and then when it seems like she might not get her way she starts making noises about changing those terms. She enters a primary in Texas fully aware of how the primary works in Texas (and any protests otherwise she might make border on being insulting in my opinion) and then again you start to hear rumblings from her campaign about the possibility of filing suit to have this changed because it does not favor her. She goes into debates talking about being "co-President" and trying to leverage her husbands coat tails (which I do not fault her for doing mind you) but then denies any real involvment when failures or negatives from his administration are brought up. I see this and think "You were either the co-President or you weren't so what's it gonna be?"
This is the kind of behavior that makes me just cringe at the thought of her being President of the United States.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
John McCain has suffered multiple plane crashes, imprisonment in a Vietnamese POW camp, and several bouts of malignant cancer. My theory is, he's immoral.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks