CMBatBlog

I just wanted to get out ahead of the rest of this article and say this.

John McCain is a fucking tool.

OK, we'll get to that another day. Like, after we have a nominee.

So, let's backtrack a few months. Romney and Clinton were the frontrunners. I said that I didn't think either would win.

I also said that I didn't think Clinton would step down gracefully. I also had people telling me that Clinton was going to dominate this thing, and since that point, she's been playing catch up. She's going to lose North Carolina, which will negate the gains tonight in Pennsylvania. She might tie Indiana, but I think Obama wins that. Oregon goes to Obama. South Dakota goes to Obama. She might win Kentucky, but I can honestly say that Kentucky is one of the Top Three States That I Want Nothing to Do With. I think any candidate that brags about winning Kentucky better be a Republican.

So, as a political analysis, this is actually pretty cool. Here is where we are at. As Democrats, we elect people based on delegates. This is the same as Republicans, except the Republicans make all states "winner take all" so that it doesn't matter if someone wins 51/49 most states and then loses 80/20 in another. In other words, Republicans don't care about Democracy, party interest, or just pure voting. As Democrats, we tend to like these things.

It works like this. Obama has about a 150 delegate lead if you count pledged delegates (from the various primaries and caucuses) and Superdelegates that have said who they are voting for. That's after Clinton picked up probably 11 tonight in Pennsylvania. There aren't many left. If she wins 60% of them, which, she won't based on the math, she still is behind. After that, we have some Superdelegates that haven't picked sides yet. So the idea is that Clinton can only win if she can get the bulk of the remaining Superdelegates to pick her even though she will lose the popular vote, the number of states, and the pledged delegates.

Now, there is some new weird and fun math (I didn't know math was subjective until I met the Clintons) in which they count only the primaries, not the states with caucuses (which Obama always wins), and also Florida, one of the two states that fucked up their primaries so bad (thanks to Republican legislatures) that their votes were never meant to count. Michigan is so FUBARed that even the Clintons won't count it. They want to count Florida because there was a vote with both Clinton and Obama on the ballot, although voters were told the vote wouldn't count and candidates were told not to work the state. In other words, the Clinton version of Democracy is the caucus voters don't count, and states that they won when people were told that the vote was a non-issue do count. This is how this election has gone. I was a big Bill Clinton fan. I'd take Hillary over McCain any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But all I really want is for her to SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DROP OUT because her camp is spewing the dumbest nonsense I've ever heard. And I said that they would before this mess turned into a mess.

Or is it a mess? Actually, I'm not sure it is. I know people are nervous. I have people saying "OK, Bush screwed up this country so bad, and the Democrats had a lay up, and they are going to blow it because they can't pick a candidate and move on." Well, I don't agree with that either.

Here's why.

Look at all of these States. Democrats registered an extra 500,000 voters in Pennsylvania due to the primary. Republicans have nothing new.

If Hillary wins, she's out of money. McCain doesn't have much money either. But the reality is that Obama has $42 million free and clear and plenty more to raise. We have the money edge, which is why the Republicans will try to trap Obama into not taking private funds. Ah, the irony. Bush racked up record money to basically bring Gore to a tie and have Daddy's Supreme Court decide the election. Now that Democrats have the money edge in Obama, McCain calls it unfair. Whiny fucking bitch. Shut the hell up, you don't have anything left to offer this country. Jesus. But, again, that's for another time.

Here's the reality for the Democrats to cruise to victory in November. If Obama wins the popular vote, including Caucus states (but not including ANYTHING in Michigan and Florida), wins the number of states, and wins the pledged delegate vote, he's the nominee. If the party overturns all of that, they deserve to lose. Is it possible for Hillary to win more states than Obama at this point? No. More pledged delegates? Almost certainly no. No popular votes? No, unless you try to count Florida, which is BS. And by BS I mean "Complete and total Bullshit." But, with Florida counted and without the caucus states, there is probably a 5% chance that she could win. I can't fault anyone for staying in the race when there is still a chance. It's like the guy on Deal or No Deal with $5000, $50,000, and $100,000, but also one million. If you are just there to go for it, the odds don't matter. But at some point, the better person takes what they can get. When it gets out of reach, she needs to turn this around.

Now, here is what I do believe. The Clintons are power-hungry folks. They want to be back in the Oval Office. But they will, once all options are exhausted, turn this around and be your best advocate. I hate all of the polls that say "If your candidate loses as a Democrat, will you vote for the other Democratic candidate or McCain?" And like 30% say McCain. Folks, these polls won't matter in the end. Parties come together. I don't care if it is Obama (likely) or Hillary (not so likely). The choice comes down to this:

Woman's right (Democrat)

Pro-Life (Republican)

Figure out a withdrawal for Iraq (Democrat)

Stay in Iraq until our great-great-great-grandchildren are as poor as the Soviet Untion (Republican)

Start passing legislatation that gives our businesses incentives to fix the environment while stimulating next generation jobs (Democrat)

Fuck the environment and let business do what it wants despite the obvious signs of trouble in industries like our car manufacturers (Republican)

Try to balance the budget to flatten the yield curve and strengthen the US Dollar (Democrat)

Keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich (formerly rejected by McCain but now part of his "talking points" because he needs the nomination)

Deal with Healthcare as a national issue (Democrats)

Let it eat us alive at both the insurance and drug company levels (Republicans)

Figure out a way to expand our education system to compete globally by paying teachers more, spending more on educational resources, and spending more on University scholarships and pilot programs (Democrat)

Kill public education (Republican) - and if you think that is an exaggeration, do some God damn reading

The differences are huge. I hate when the media says "Oh, all three candidates are the same, might as well pick the guy with experience that got stuck in a box for five fucking years and had his bones broken daily and was opposed to a Holiday for Martin Luther King (he was kidding, I'm sure)." It shows how biased the media is to the right when this shit happens.

Hillary or Obama is the better candidate for the country, so it sucks that I have to spend time saying "Hillary, you lost, take the power role as Senate Majority Leader, and be happy." Because she doesn't seem to care, and that hurts all of us. And by all of us, I don't mean the Democratic Party. I mean the country.

I'll give her one more chance. Hillary, you need to win North Carolina and thump Obama in Indiana, and we'll talk. After that, if you don't get the hell out of the way, you are the biggest problem this country has faced IN THE LAST EIGHT YEARS. And believe me, with George Bush in the Oval Office, that's a BIG statement.

But I think this is over soon, and Obama is the candidate, and the Democratic party will rally together, and voter turnout will be huge, and all will be good. So I expect that my next writing in two or three weeks will be about McCain and what ails him as Obama's competition.