Every Vote Counts, Unless You Voted for Obama

(April 4, 2008) – Like I was sayin… some people will do anything to win.  Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is looking to pick up a few more votes.  The problem is these votes already belong to Obama.

As the Dem party tries to avoid a fracture, Hillary Clinton looks to push the party over the brink.  Not only does she believe that she legitimately won Michigan when she was the only candidate on the ballot, but now she believes that she is entitled to some of the delegates that Obama won in other states.

In a fund raiser the other day, Clinton indicated that she might look to persuade some Obama pledged delegates to switch to voting for her.  When Dem voters cast their ballots in the primary elections, the percentage of votes are split among the delegates.  So if Obama wins a state 60% to 40% and a state has 10 delegates, 6 delegates go to the convention to vote for Obama and 4 go to vote for Clinton.

However, the rules don’t state who the delegates must vote for.  The delegates are however, selected on their loyalty.  The way it is supposed to work is that you are basically voting for who you want to go to the convention and vote for the nominee. 

The same thing happens in the general election.  If the Dems win your state, then the Dem party selects a number of people equal to the number of electoral college delegates to officially cast their votes for president.

Clinton hinted that since the rules don’t state who they must vote for, she can go after them and get them to switch.  So if Obama won your state 60/40 getting 6 of the delegates, Hillary would like some of those 6 to vote for her at the convention overturning the will of the voters.

In her remarks, she indicated that the delegates should support who they think is the best person to win regardless of what the voters want.  Is this the type of person we want leading our country? 

Does she feel the same about the general election?  If the dems win the White House by a slim electoral margin, is it ok for some of the delegates to switch to McCain because they believe he might be able to better answer the phone at 3:00 a.m.?

For those of you that lean toward supporting democrats, is this they type of country you support?  Your party has a process in place to overturn your votes by having super delegates.  Now you have a candidate that could win that believes it doesn’t matter what the voters want, but what a select few believe is best.

This calls Clinton’s character into question as it is doubtful that she believe that if she wins the white house, it would be ok for the delegates to cast their votes for McCain and overturn the election.  However, she probably believes that it would be ok if McCain wins that the delegates switch to her or Obama putting the dems in the white house.

I do not believe that this is the kind of “experience” we want in the White House.

More calls for Hilliary to drop out

(March 29, 2008) – Like I was sayin… it ain’t over until the lady sings.  More and more prominent democrats are calling for Hillary Clinton end her campaign for the dem nomination.

In the last few days, several prominent democrats have urged Clinton to bow out clearing the way for an Obama nomination.  Senator Chris Dodd and Senator Patrick Lehey have both indicated that they believe there is no way for Clinton to secure the nomination and have called for her to end her campaign. 

This week, speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi urged the “super delegates” to back whomever has the most popular votes.  The DNC chairman, Howard Dean, has called for the “super delegates” to declare which candidate they support by July 1st in an effort to avoid a nasty convention floor battle.

Clinton has vowed to keep up the fight even to the floor of the DNC convention.  The DNC would like to avoid a nasty fight which would turn off independents as well as some dem voters.  However, Clinton will not bow out so easily.

John McCain seems to be benefiting from this the most.  As the two dem candidates continue to take shots at each other, they unwittingly provide McCain ammunition for the general election.  This week, Clinton put forth the argument that Obama has received the most cash from companies involved in the sub-prime mortgage business.  That is debatable depending upon how you slice the data, but in any case, McCain received the least cash from those companies compared to Clinton and Obama.

It will be interesting to see how far the dems are willing to drag their party down in order to secure the nomination.

Hillary, Tell us about your experience again.

(March 11, 2008) – Like I was sayin… I’ve been to the hospital, but that doesn’t make me a doctor.

I am often taken back when I hear Hillary talk about her years of experience and that she is ready on day one.  She also talks about her years of leadership experience.

I know that Bill put her in charge of his administration’s national health care effort.  That was an utter failure.  But what other things has she done that makes her qualified to be the President?

She often puts forth statements about her vast international experience.  I have read that she didn’t have a security clearance, didn’t sit in on National Security meetings, and never sat in on meetings in the white house situation room.  Just how did she get this experience?

She also talks about all these travels for international trouble spots.  Here is a great article from Greg Craig, a formal director at the State Department.  The article sort of tears holes in many of Hillary’s claims.

When it comes down to it, she doesn’t have much more experience than Obama in international affairs.  I know she flew lots of places, but I don’t want her to be a pilot either….

Obama says “No thank you”

(March 11, 2008) – Like I was sayin… sometimes you can trick them, other times you can’t.

Several times over the weekend I saw stories about Hillary Clinton hinting at having Obama be the VP should she become the nominee.  I thought this was rather odd being that she is behind in both the popular vote and in the delegate count.

I got a kick out of Obama’s response since I don’t normally agree with him on anything.  Hillary seemed to have served up a slow ball that Obama knocked out of the park.  He even asked “If I am not ready, how is it that you think I would be such a great VP?”.

Today in the WSJ I read an article that Hillary’s campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson responded to the that question.  He basically said that Obama isn’t ready to be president yet, but it is a long time between now and the convention.  Are they going to keep pitching the Obama campaign slow balls?  What they are saying is basically he isn’t ready to be president yet, but he could be by November if he agrees to be the VP.  I don’t have the ability to read the future, but I bet I know what the next few Obama campaign adds are going to say.

 I believe that the Clinton campaign was trying to reach out to those who are undecided by indicating that if you can’t make up your mind, vote for Clinton and you get both.  It will be interesting to see how they try to come back from this blunder.  She may have inadvertently pushed some independents to look more closely at McCain.