by Chris September 12, 2008
Bill Clinton met with Barack Obama yesterday, the Senator is looking to President Clinton for help in fighting the Republican campaign. During their meeting Clinton made the prediction that “Senator Obama will win and win pretty handily.” Obama has been losing ground to the McCain camp, Sarah Palin has brought new life to the Republicans, and is drawing voters from the Democratic ticket.
This morning one of Politico’s editors makes a guess at what Clinton might have said. There are some good points in the post, but the best is near the end. Stop acting like you’ve already won this. I don’t know if Obama really wants any advice from the man he labeled as a racist, but at this point it probably couldn’t hurt him. The NRA has once again stepped up its opposition to the Senator, which has the potential to alienate millions of voters from the Democrat.
I do search engine optimization for a living, and yesterday I came across an article discussing the new Google Suggest tool. Martin Bowling points out that this new tool will make online reputation management more tricky for anyone controversial enough to have dissenters online. He shows what comes up when you try Obama’s name. I thought that was kind of interesting.
That article was posted a couple of days ago, and it appears to be getting some decent traffic, so I thought I’d try again this morning to see if the suggestions around Obama’s name have changed. Indeed the have!
While I was checking I thought I’d see what Google had to say about McCain. Of course they had suggestions, but none of them were as negative as the Obama suggestions.
This certainly doesn’t mean that McCain has no negative press online, that’s ridiculous. So then does this mean that people aren’t searching for dirt on McCain? Can’t be. I’m not enough of a conspiracy theorist to suggest that Google is tilting their hat toward McCain, but I will say that I don’t trust what I’m seeing here.
So Google, what’s up?
First there was Reaganomics. Now there’s Clinton Counting. After her win in Pennsylvania, Hillary announced that she’s ahead in the popular vote. Funny so did Obama. Hmmm… Surely you’ve seen or heard the stories. They’re in the major news networks: CNN, MSNBC, FOXNews. Both campaigns made sure of that. That’s all fine and dandy, but to reach her conclusion Clinton included Florida and Michigan, in spite of the fact that the Democratic Party isn’t counting the primaries in those states (back to that in a minute). Then there’s the other problem with the ‘popular vote’ count. The 4 caucus states also excluded. That includes even Washington who actually had a primary with a popular vote. But they also held a caucus to decide delegates so apparently their popular vote doesn’t ‘count’ in Clinton Counting. Check Newsweek’s story about it. They’re calling it Hillary’s new re-count. She apparently still wants to have her cake and call it caviar.
One of Hillary’s main arguments for counting the Florida and Michigan primaries, in spite of the fact that neither state followed the rules even though they knew the consequences, is that the voters’ voices must be heard. So my question is: “What about the voices of the voters in caucus states?” Especially Washington which had a primary with a popular vote that she’s intentionally choosing to ignore. Could it be because she only won one of the 4 caucus states, while Obama won 3 including Washington in which he won in both the delegates and the popular vote? Yes, I realize a popular vote doesn’t exist in the other 3 caucus states, but that doesn’t mean she should ignore them because it looks better for her. She isn’t even acknowledging them when she says “I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else”. Makes you wonder whether she’s deluded or deceptive - maybe both.
So my next question is: “What makes the Florida and Michigan voters more important than the voters in Washington in Clinton Counting?” The answer to that one is easy. They make her position look better. She won Florida and Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan. She says she won more popular votes than any other candidate in Michigan, which is technically true; but there’s no way of really knowing whether Michigan voters favor Clinton or Obama since both names weren’t on the ballot. And that also leads us back to Washington and a 3rd question: “Why aren’t the popular votes in Washington included in Hillary’s count?” One answer that I’m guessing would come from the Clinton camp is because they are a caucus state. The real answer is because Hillary lost that state.
Her claims are kind of a moot point anyway because when it comes down to it, delegates, and not popular vote that decides the candidate. But apparently that’s not enough to stop a Democrat. If I remember right, wasn’t ‘popular vote’ Gore’s argument in the 2000 general election? When will they learn? And when will Hillary learn to count?
First there was the call for a re-vote in Florida and Michigan. Then there was the statement that pledged delegates didn’t necessarily have to honor that pledge at the convention. Now there’s accusations that her opponent doesn’t want people to vote in the remaining primaries. What is Hillary smoking? Is she honestly that desperate for delegates?
While these tactics may work if she was running for, oh, I don’t know… Prom Queen. But do we really want a prom queen for President?
Continue reading ‘Primary Desperation’
Presidential candidate Mike Gravel has announced that he’s leaving the Democratic party. In his statement he said that the Democratic party no longer represents his hope for America, so he’s switching to the Libertarian party. He’s apparently in this for the long haul. I can’t say he’s my favorite candidate, but I’ll give him credit for staying in the fight.
Hillary is at it again – or should I say still. She’s still trying to get a revote in Michigan, and is going to what some would say is extreme measures – especially since Florida has already said they won’t hold a revote. She’s changing her schedule today to go beg Michigan lawmakers for a revote, and some of Hillary’s supporters are trying to raise funds for a privately funded revote. There are several issues the Legislators in Lansing must look at: cost, legality, logistics, and possibly some ethical issues.
According to an article in today’s NY Times, the cost of the revote would be approximately $12 million; and a proposed privately funded re-vote just adds to the legal issues. If they want it privately funded, maybe it should come out of Hillary’s personal funds – not government funds or even campaign funds. Let her use the royalties from her book, although that would just give her another reason to whine that it’s unfair even.
Of course the accusations and finger pointing continue too. Hillary’s camp says that Obama is trying to disenfranchise the Michigan voters by not urging them to support a revote, as well as trying to block a revote. They claim he’s saying he doesn’t want a primary in Michigan. I think they need a reality check. There was a primary held in Michigan. As simple as it sounds, just because there will be no delegates from Michigan counted for the nomination doesn’t mean there wasn’t a primary held. But of course Hillary doesn’t see it that way because it offers no advantage to her; and after all she won’t do anything or fight (beg, plead, whine) for anything that doesn’t provide some advantage to her or her campaign.
Continue reading ‘Some Cheese with that Whine?’
There has been a lot of Democratic action over the past two weeks, and its looking like Obama has the upper hand. The dust hasn’t even settled and already bloggers are suggesting that Hillary needs a reality check. I don’t know if its her politics or her name, but it seems likely that Hillary won’t be America’s first female President. Clinton has not yet conceded victory, in hopes that a superdelegate vote in her favor will trump Obama’s lead. I don’t claim to be the smartest guy, but that seems like a longshot. Mark Schmitt had this thought:
It’s well past time to enter the gracious winding-down stage of this long, and until recently, healthy campaign. The last candidate I can remember to keep punching like this even after the race was effectively decided was Jerry Brown in 1992. I’m sure Clinton remembers the unpleasantness of that 1992 convention. I doubt that she wants to be that guy.
Will she have the same dogged staying power that Mike Gravel has? It seems to me that Clinton staying in the race will most benefit John McCain. If she stays and she and Obama continue to publicly shred one another it’ll hurt the Democrats more than it will help either one of them. So I won’t mind if Clinton rides the clock.
By the way, I need to cry uncle. I’ve been claiming that Gravel would be the next candidate to drop since September. I’ll admit it, I was wrong.
OK, so is it me or does it seem that Hillary is grasping at straws to build her delegate count? As soon as Obama pulled ahead of her in the count, she started calling for the Michigan and Florida primaries to count. If it’s truly important to her, she should have been calling for it earlier while she was still ahead in the count. Or even better she should have tried to convince the Democratic party in those states to follow the rules so that their votes would count when the primary dates were being set. They all knew going into those primaries that the votes and delegates wouldn’t count, but she couldn’t be bothered with it until she fell behind.
Continue reading ‘Primary Fairness’
Hillary has been attacking Obama as long as the Presidential race has been in progress. I know that negative campaigning moves the meter, but honestly it has gotten pretty nasty between them. From what I’ve heard of Clinton’s plans for America, she would be better served by thinking through her platform than worrying about Barack’s perceived shortcomings. She’s relentless. Obama has had a section of his site devoted to keeping track of Hillary’s attacks. Continue reading ‘Hillary Attacks’
Hillary Is Getting Screwed
As Hillary marches on in this inevitable race, her message to the public is changing. The tide is turning in her favor (apparently), and yet she is a victim of the democratic system. Jon Stewart gives her a voice.