PA Thoughts

So in the end it appears that Hillary will walk away with a victory of just over 9 points, which is convenient, as that’s the number of delegates she’s gained on Obama, who will more than make up those nine delegates in NC, most likely.

Clinton’s victory was so small, in fact, that she is no longer able to catch Obama in pledge delegates, which leaves her with only the popular vote angle to rest on, and even that chance for success has gotten smaller.

Here are a few things I’ve taken away from the Keystone State:

1) I would love for just ONE of the two of them to point out that gun control and the 2nd amendment are not opposites.   In fact, the phrase “gun control” is meaningless unless there are, you know, GUNS TO CONTROL.  Personally, I’m anti-guns of all kind, but there IS a middle ground, people.

2) 15% of registered Democrats still believe that Obama is Muslim.  I point this out because I heard the “well, Obama outspent Clinton 3 to 1 in Pennsylvania and still lost” line.  The fact remains that Clinton has been in the national spotlight for 15 years.  Everyone knows her and most know what she’s about.  The fact that 15% of registered Democrats don’t know that Obama is a Christian is proof that he’s at a significant disadvantage just on familiarity alone.  So he has no choice but to spend more than Clinton; they’re not starting from even ground.

3) Only 37% of those who vote Democrat are white males, which means I’m a minority.  In fact, Bill Clinton didn’t win the white male vote in either general election.  Neither did Jimmy Carter.  So this big concern about whether or not white men will vote for Obama in the general election is silly.  He doesn’t need them to vote for him any more than they voted for Bill Clinton, and probably less, considering Obama’s ability to get people who don’t normally vote to actually turn up at the polls.

4) Obama pretty much had the worst few weeks of his political career leading up to Pennsylvania and he still cut Clinton’s lead in half.  That’s pretty amazing.

Two weeks until the North Carolina and Indiana primaries…

Genius

Click on “Genius” for a fantastic take on Bittergate from Jon Stewart.

WI/HI Primary Part One

In honor of my first primary day blog, I offer this heartwarming snippet from the good people of America, the people who will be deciding our future.

Speeches

I’ve come to the conclusion that talking about Obama and Clinton is akin to debating religion and, sadly, there’s no sign of Kirk Cameron and his Croc-a-duck (if you don’t get that reference, go to Youtube and search for it — it’s well worth it).

I won’t deny that a large part of Obama’s appeal comes from his speeches.  I’m happy to say that I had only heard his 2004 DNC speech before I bought his second book, so at the very least I had the written word to go on before I completely fell under Obama’s oratorical spell.

And that’s exactly the issue at hand, that his speeches are spells.  For a seemingly growing number of people, when Obama speaks they are transported to a place of unending possibility and boundless hope.  The right wing media often compares Obama rallies to old school revivals and, as questionable as I might find that it, the similarities are there.  This is exactly why a division exists been many Obama supporters and Clinton supporters.  Obama supporters are stunned that anyone could hear their candidate speak and not fall under his spell.  Clinton supporters are stunned that so many people are being bedazzled.

It’s strange, really, to be on the ensorcelled side.  As surely as every devout Christian I’ve ever met has been baffled by my staunch refusal that the Bible is the word of god, I find myself stunned that anyone could listen to Obama speak and not want the future he’s talking about.  At the very least, I’m stunned that they wouldn’t want to try for it.

But I understand the other side as well.  I understand the skeptism towards such unbridled enthusiasm particularly given what’s at stake.  The problem, of course, is that there’s no trial run.  There’s no test we can give either Obama or Hillary in advance to determine how they’d do on the big stage.  There’s no practice SAT for president.  So in the end it’s an educated guess.

What I’ve found particularly funny in recent weeks is the “speeches don’t solve problems” movement.  I can’t be the only one who sees the problem with saying “speeches don’t solve problems” in a speech.  Even better, Obama then responds with a speech of his own.  And while there’s no argument that speeches obviously don’t solve problems, it’s pretty clear that they can cause them, particularly for the Clinton campaign.

Speaking of which, if I hear the phrase “ready on day one” again I might shoot someone.  Then again, I might be overly sensitive; I have been drinking a lot of the Kool-Aid.

Window of Opportunity

This year’s state of the union was strange.  Aside from the fact that there was no vice-president running after a two term president, but the primaries were clearly overshadowing Bush’s last year in office.  It wasn’t just that the nomination process was getting more air time, it’s that every single one of the candidates were, at the time, distancing themselves as much as possible from the Bush administration.  W was the past and everyone, regardless of party, was trying to look forward.

It less of a state of the union than a eulogy.

That’s how far we’ve fallen.  That’s why this is the only window of opportunity we will ever get for Barrack Obama.

Our country is so dissatisfied with the state of our government that we are, more so than ever before, open to new ideas.  The old ways have failed us.  I realize that every election brings with it the mantra of change, but that word has never been thrown around like has been over the last few months.   Negatively referring to Hillary Clinton as “ambitious” in any other year would clearly be sexist.  But ambition is the worst thing anyone can have this year, because ambition translates to a desire to do anything to achieve power, and those are the kinds of people we’ve had for the last seven years.

In many ways, America wants a reluctant leader, or at least one who doesn’t enjoy rolling around in the political muck.   We want someone different.

There are a number of arguments that can be made about whether or not Obama can actually bring about any real change to a system that has been so completely compromised.  The general feeling, however, is that only someone who has lived outside that system for most of his life would be willing to flip it on its ear regardless of the outcome.  Those who have been living off the company dime for years don’t seem capable of the slash and burn many would like to see happen in Washington; just burn it all down and start from scratch.

I have no doubts that the next president, whoever he or she is, will improve our current situation.  There’s no way things can’t get better as we will no longer have the worst president in U.S. history in office (wrap your brains around that — we have lived through the worst president in United States history).  I also have no doubts that if that new president runs our government the way it’s always been run and brings us back up from the depths, then this national desire to see the system change will slowly melt away.  We will forget how upset we were, how ridiculous our government is.  We will lose sight of our indignation.

Which is why now is the only time for a candidate like Obama.  Because if he doesn’t win this year, we’ll go back to the way things have always been done, things will get better, and our outrage will subside.  And ten, twenty, maybe thirty years from now this will come around again, and we can tell our children that we had the chance to really change things and we let it pass us by.