Wasn't There a Non-Clinton Candidate Who Won a Non-Indiana State Last Night?

Scott believes that, in the wake of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries last night, not even the media can avoid that Clinton's chances are virtually nil, and while that certainly appears to be possible (it's a good sign when even the thick Tim Russert is acknowledging as much), I'm not so sure it's a certain thing that the media is going to be giving this "Clinton cannot statistically win" narrative. I woke up this morning to see MSN (the homepage when I open the internet), cnn.com, and the NY Times all with enormous pictures of Clinton on the front, discussing the Indiana primaries. At best, Obama's numerically way more significant win in North Carolina was secondhand news, deserving of no photos and smaller font; at worst, they didn't even mention North Carolina. And all morning (and into the afternoon), CNN's [the network] broadcasts have had three major stories: Clinton in Indiana (and later, the fact that she's loaned herself money); John McCain; and Myanmar. Um, guys? Um....how to put this delicatetly.........wasn't there another Democratic candidate? With a lead in the delegates? And a greater total vote count (excluding the non-election of Michigan)? And more states won? Across a broader swath of society? Who won a state last night? That was bigger than Indiana? And finally - shouldn't you maybe at least pretend not to be a farce and a mockery of journalism by talking about him a little, too?

I have no doubt that some media outlets and television "personalities" may finally be getting it through their heads that, statistically speaking, Clinton is done in terms of primaries. And it's one thing to focus on Clinton first and Obama second (biased? Probably. Defensible? In a way). But to do your stories on Clinton, and then McCain, and then Myanmar, with no mention whatsoever of Obama or North Carolina???? That's....I don't know. Racist? Stupid? Ridiculous? Ignorant? (Insert adjective)?

As I suspect many people do, I wish this were over - I'm just tired of it. But to even pretend to offer "real news" and "objective reporting" and all of that tripe that professional journalists on major news outlets claim to love, and then to pull this kind of garbage, is just ridiculous. You'd think Clinton had a stake in CNN or something. Sheesh....

Edwards

I don't really think that John Edwards should have to endorse Clinton or Obama before the North Carolina primary, but I'm a little disturbed that he is likely not endorsing because he is holding out for a spot in the administration.

That's a typical political move, I understand. But at some point, you have to lay your cards on the table. Bill Richardson held out for a long time but then he did what he thought was right. Whether that was right for the country or right for him may be up for debate, but he took a stand and stuck with it in the face of withering criticism from Skeletor, ur, James Carville, and other Clinton partisans.

Certainly Edwards must feel one of the candidates is better than the other. The other option here is for him to openly endorse no one and tell the people of North Carolina that they are both fine candidates.

I was an Edwards supporter. But I was always a bit perplexed as to why he was so unpopular in North Carolina was he was a senator. Was it because he was a liberal from a southern state or was there something more profound there? This kind of fence sitting for personal purposes makes me wonder.

I'm Bored

I haven't blogged much in the past few days, not because I haven't wanted to, but with the job interview and the end of the semester, I just haven't had time. I do plan on getting a bunch of stuff out soon though.

But it doesn't help that I am so sick and tired of the obsessive coverage of the Democratic primary. I think this serves to show that I am not really a political junkie. I am into politics, but I am long past feeling that bloggers' constant discussion of the issue has become tiresome. On my RSS feed, for a long time I was reading 80-90% of the posts, even if I was just skimming most at best. Now it is down to about 40% and has been for a few weeks. It's because I have almost stopped reading most liberal political blogs. True junkies are like addicts and it is unhealthy.

There are so many important issues going on in the world--Iraq, climate change, poverty, fuel prices, housing, etc., etc. But 3/4 of the posts on these blogs are dissecting the differences between Obama and Clinton and boosting the candidacy of their favorite.

Many of the same blogs reporting obsessively on the race are complaining about the lack of media coverage in Iraq. Well, you know, couldn't we be focusing on this? Didn't a significant amount of reporting about the war and all the terrible things the Bush administration has done come from the blogs. We are ignoring Iraq too now so we can parse the phrases of people who have slept 5 hours in the last month, figuring out what we can use against them.

Am I the only one who is bored out of my mind at this point? Not that I even wish the race was over necessarily. Hillary certainly has every right to stick it out, even if she really can't win. If Obama was losing, most of his supporters would be hoping he would stay in, much as Clinton's supporters are now. But I am just bored senseless.

The race is important. But not nearly as important as the general election. People should be writing about the primary of course. But they are numbing my brain at this point. It's just not interesting to write 40,000 posts about the subject at the expense of every other issue on the planet.

People can blog about whatever the heck they want to and it's not my place to tell them to stop it. But can we at least keep this race in perspective? These are two candidates who stand for almost the exact same things. 90% of their platform is the same. It's about personality, race, gender, age, etc.

I guess the questions I have to these bloggers writing obsessively about this stuff is this: Do you really think that the primary is that much more important than all the other issues going on in the world? To what extent should people be discussing this primary in such detail while ignoring the rest of the world?

I don't know, maybe I'm just bitchy. This post sucks because I don't feel that I'm articulating my thoughts well. But I'm just really frustrated and I feel that my spirit is being sucked away every time I read another post on how horrible Hillary is or how this or that state didn't matter.

A Message to Hillary Clinton: Fire Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro should be fired from her job as a leading member of the Clinton campaign. The former vice-presidential candidate has embarrassed herself almost as much in 2008 as she did in 1984. She is playing the race card in a way that is completely unacceptable within the Democratic Party.

Her quotes:

… Obama’s campaign [is] a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against…. For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign. If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position…. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Her response to the criticism she faced for that:

Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?

Eric Rauchway usefully compares this to what Rush Limbaugh said about Donovan McNabb during his brief stint as an NFL analyst on ESPN in 2003.

I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well…. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve.

Limbaugh got fired. What Ferraro said is no better. Maybe even worse because Ferraro is using race to destroy a member of her own party. Disgusting.

ADDENDUM: Kos discovers that Ferraro used almost the exact same racist language against Jesse Jackson in 1988. So she's just a flat out racist. Her reputation will never recover. A total disgrace. Clinton must rid herself of Ferraro NOW.

Primary Fight

Boy, was last night a huge win for Clinton. The race is still on. Some are bemoaning this fact. I don't think it's a bad thing. I have a few general thoughts about all of this:

1. Negative advertising seems to have worked against Obama. I don't necessarily have a huge problem with Hillary going negative. Nothing she says is going to help the Republicans create a campaign against Obama. They are smart enough to come up with extremely negative narratives of their own. It also shows that Obama is vulnerable to this kind of attack. Can he respond effectively? He didn't in Ohio and Texas.

2. Obama is still the presumptive nominee given the delegate counts. One has to wonder what happens if she has the momentum going into the convention but he has a slight delegate lead.

3. The Wyoming and Mississippi contests in the next week are very important. Obama needs to win both to reestablish his momentum going into Pennsylvania. I'm sure he'll win MS in a landslide. He should win WY too. But if he doesn't, this actually hurts him a lot, at least in the overall narrative of the campaign if not the delegate count.

4. It's still pretty simple. If Obama wins PA, this thing is over. If Clinton wins, it's not over. If she wins, then she has to continue winning in states like Oregon, Indiana, and North Carolina, as well as Puerto Rico, which has 55 delegates for some reason. Then, it all comes down to likely do-overs in Michigan and Florida. Am I the only person less than ecstatic that a questionable Florida vote could again decide an election? Can we just give the state to Cuba?

5. The continued battle for the nomination doesn't really hurt the Democrats. Rather, it keeps media attention focused squarely on health care, the economy, and Iraq. This is a really great thing. McCain is in the background, almost forgotten about. Plus, isn't it a great thing that Democrats across the nation are playing a role in choosing the party's nominee? This can only help build infrastructure for state races in the fall. If Rick Noriega beats John Cornyn for the Texas Senate seat, one might look to the huge mobilization of Democrats here as the reason.

6. Can Obama actually win big primaries? This has long been a Clinton talking point. Is it true? I am beginning to wonder. Of course, Clinton came into these races with big leads. But after making Ohio tight and taking a lead in Texas, there was a swing back to Clinton in the last five days. Why? I don't know, but this is becoming an increasingly powerful theme within the Clinton campaign, maybe for good reason.

7. One interesting solution to this fight could be a co-presidency scheme. This was proposed in 1980 with a possible Reagan-Ford ticket that would share power. Ford demanded control over State and Treasury, specifically naming Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan to those posts. Reagan rejected this and asked George Bush to be his VP instead. Today, Clinton discussed the idea of a co-presidency but of course claimed that she would have to be on top because voters are choosing her, a dubious assertion. There are two reasons why I don't think this will happen. First, it's really hard to see Hillary sharing power with Obama. Second, if she was the presidential nominee, what exactly would Obama's profile be? This speaks to his lack of experience, but I'm not sure what particular policy areas is his explicitly more qualified to work in. I'd like to say he would have a huge role in foreign policy, but with Hillary, Bill, and Dick Holbrook as an almost certain Secretary of State, I don't see this happening. Of course, he would be the logical VP pick if she wins the nomination outright.

8. Also, how much plastic surgery has Cindy McCain had? Yikes!

The New Mexico Disaster

The most underreported story of Super Tuesday is the New Mexico disaster. Basically, the Democrats didn't print nearly enough ballots for their caucus that Bill Richardson created. One friend of mine in Albuquerque was given a photocopied ballot and was told that they had no idea if it would count. There were huge delays and people left the polls because the lines were so long Rio Rancho, the third largest city in the state, had one precinct open. Three boxes in Rio Arriba County were held overnight in people's homes. The party claims they had no idea so many people would turn out and vote. All they had to do is look around at turnout throughout the country to know that they would face the same thing. It's this laughable: they were expecting 40,000 voters. They got 131,573 voters. Whoops!

Bill Richardson is distancing himself from this, but that's not acceptable. First of all, moving the caucus up was his idea. The entire thing was his baby. But he didn't prepare the state for it at all and didn't fund the process. It's another example of Richardson's pretty poor governing style that makes me happy he did not win the nomination. Richardson is blaming Brian Colón, the new Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman. I don't know much about Colón, but people I respect think highly of him. Within the nepotistic and corrupt politics of New Mexico, breaths of fresh air are not welcomed. This doesn't look good for him, but certainly Richardson and other leading Democrats deserve plenty of blame as well. It also seems that Richardson's presidential campaign took priority and the state party is suffering as a result, leading to the underfunding and understaffing of the caucus. This is the second big screw-up with national implications Richardson has had as governor. The first was his poor campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 which led to small turnouts in the Hispanic population in northern New Mexico and Bush winning the state.

The caucus is not the ultimate issue here. The problem is that this incompetency is going to carry over to the election this fall. I love New Mexico, but it's a disaster. If New Mexico is tight this fall, as it was in 2000 and 2004, very careful oversight is going to be needed. The Republicans stole the election in Florida. It is hardly inconceivable that the election could be stolen in New Mexico this time around.

Maggie has some great thoughts (here and here) about this disaster as well.

Does Anybody Give a Speech Like Obama?

In my opinion, no. I'm pulling for Obama for a number of reasons, both ideologically and practically. But in the wake of his Iowa speech and now his South Carolina speech, a new part of me is pulling for him just to look forward to at least 4 years of speeches from him. Whatever his detractors may say, the man sure can give a great speech.