43 vs. 44

There has been an awful lot of talk about or 44th President recently.  Here's the thing though, that President hasn't been elected yet, and won't be until 2012 or 2016. Barack Obama is the 43rd President.  Technically, the Obama administration is the 44th administration, but there have been 43 different men to hold the office, not 44.  

Confused? Let's explore history a little bit...

In 1884 New York Governor Grover Cleavland was elected the twenty second President of the United States.  Mr. Cleavland, the first Democrat elected after the Civil War, did so with a broad coalition of bipartisan support on a platform of reform and change.  The second youngest man to hold the office was elected despite his detractors citing his lack of political experience.  Cleavland claimed the office was about judgment, and in his sweeping rhetoric pledged to do what was right and what was hard to defeat corruption, regardless of the political consequences.  Sound familiar?

In December 1887 President Cleavland called on Congress to reduce protective tariffs, due to a budget surplus. This despite advice that he would be giving Republicans an effective issue for the 1888 campaign, he famously replied, "What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?" But Cleveland was defeated in 1888; although he won a larger percentage of the popular vote, Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, received more electoral votes. 

The inherited surplus was used to grow the federal government, renewing rail, steamship and farm subsidies etc.  The Harrison budgets became the first to surpass a billion dollars during peace time.  Even with the surplus intact, Harrison opted to raise tariffs to a level higher than before Cleavland's cuts.  As a direct result, the cost of everything went up, strangled the economy and forced a deep depression. 

In 1892, Cleveland was back.  A series of retooled regulations and policies with a boot strap emphasis restored the economy.  Though they were largely unpopular.

The parallels of this time to our own are rather striking, but that's not why I tell this story.  Rather, my point is that due to President Harrison splitting the Cleavland terms,  Grover Cleavland is consistently cited as both our 22nd and 24th president, which means that only 43 different people have held the office.  Ergo, the 44th person to hold the office, will be the next administration.  

I have been told that this distinction is akin to the silly 2000 vs 2001 as the true millennium.  Maybe it is, but I don't think so, changing from 19 to 20 was the cool part, not the history of the date.  In this case we are being asked to miscount.  And with much smaller numbers.  I know I'm not the only member of the media with the ability to count to 43 accurately, so let's get it right.  Barack Hussein Obama, our forty third president. 

Monday Mendozas

A few thoughts...

I have a military commitment that will have me incommunicado in South Carolina for 9 weeks so this is my last post for a while.

Since Super Tuesday Senator Obama has picked up 69 super delegates, Senator Clinton has lost two (John Lewis switched to Obama, and Eliot Spitzer's resignation eliminated his vote)


Governor Spitzer's resignation has lowered the magic number from 2025 to 2024

Obama's total:1,629 - 395 shy
Clinton's total: 1,486 - 538 shy

There is a total of 934 delegates remaining, 338 of whom are super, which means there are 596 pledged delegates.

Mr. Obama needs 66% of the remaining pledged delegates, or 42% of all delegates

Mrs. Clinton needs 90% of the remaining pledged delegates, or 58% of all delegates.


Here's the thing about all that math, if we're being generous and including the Super Delegates, Mrs. Clinton needs 66% of all the remaining delegates just to break even with Mr. Obama. Pennsylvania has 188 delegates, or 20% of the delegates left. She isn't going to take 66% in PA. If she takes 55% that would be a huge win. Even a big win in PA will make it less likely that she can catch up.

A number of the unpledged Super Delegates have said that they will endorse whoever is ahead at the end of the primary contests, and as we have just shown Mrs. Clinton can not catchup before the convention, ergo Mr. Obama has a lock on the Democratic nomination.



The argument that Mrs. Clinton has more electoral votes than Mr. Obama is a stupid argument. I mean, it's true, but it's a totally meaningless point.


I have it on good authority from staffers inside the Clinton campaign who commented on the condition of anonymity, that there are serious internal discussions about forming a third party and mounting a legitimate 3rd party candidacy. I think it may be too late in the game to call that play, but if she is able to get some big name defectors from both parties it is certainly possible that she could pickup enough votes for her party to be taken seriously. No chance she wins though.

Recent Obama Video that's Worth your Time

A more perfect Union and The Daily Show Response


3 AM girl supports Obama


Bill Richardson endoreses Obama


si se puede / No you can't


Obama Girl


Obama t-shirts

Updated Delegate Math

If you can, try to remember way back to January, back when there were eight Democratic candidates for President. Back in January the all important state of Iowa voted to determine who would be the Democratic candidate for President. Back then people complained that Iowa had to much sway, that it didn't adequately represent America, that it is as diverse as a Mayflower reunion, and that other states ought to have a say. This year the primary season has lasted longer than any other time in recent memory, and as it turns out the other states went with the same guy Iowa did anyway.

If you will also remember about that night, John Edwards came in second, and earned some delegates that night, some of whom have now been reapportioned. Also, California finally finished counting out their votes and their final totals are in. As always, the updated math is reported first here at AskHodder.com



Obama 1618 Clinton 1479

The magic number still sits at 2025

There are 603 pledged delegates remaining, 957 including super delegates

Number of remaining pledged delegates needed to clinch:

Obama 407, 68%
Clinton 546, 91%

Including Super Delegates
Obama 43%
Clinton 57%

Mrs. Clinton needs 73% of all pledged delgates to be aloted in order to pull even with Mr. Obama, 65% including Super Delegates

LEAVE GERALDINE ALONE!!

Geraldine Ferraro is one of the most respected women in the United States, and rightly so. Before being elected to the US House of Representatives in 1978, Marymount Manhattan College’s most famous alum served as a teacher, and district attorney in New York City. As a member of congress she held several leadership positions, many of which had previously only been held by men. In 1984 Democratic Presidential candidate and Senator Walter Mondale tapped Mrs. Ferraro as his running mate and got a huge boost in the polls, and though the ticket lost big in the Electoral College, the race was closer than the map would indicate. During that campaign Mrs. Ferraro became one of the first people to say publicly (and certainly the first to do so with such a large megaphone) that President Reagan’s strategy of illegally funding and selling weapons to extremist rebel splinter groups and installing monsters as world leaders would come back to haunt us.

All that being said, in 1984 was she qualified to be the vice president? Absolutely. The world would be a much better place if the Mondale Ferraro ticket had won the 1984 election. But if she were a man, would she have been on the ticket? I don’t think so, and neither does Mrs. Ferraro who has said that many times publicly.

But so what? Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg likely would not have been appointed to the Supreme Court if they were men, and they were/have been exceptional in that role. Senator Clinton, though exceedingly brilliant would never have become a serious candidate for even the Senate were she a man. General Powell and Justice Marshall were phenomenal public servants but would not have been appointed to their positions if they were white. Every semester thousands of students make Dean’s List at schools they would not have been admitted to if they were white males. In fact, it happens all the time that people end up in positions with help from their race, sex or gender and excel, even though a more “qualified” person may have been out there. Some might argue that doing so disadvantages white men, but no more so than handicap parking spaces put non-handicapped drivers at a disadvantage.

All too often we look only at past performance when we ought to also be looking at future potential. Maybe Mrs. Ferraro is right and the biggest reason that Senator Obama has made it so far in this campaign is because of the color of his skin. Is there anything wrong with someone saying that? No. Especially not Mrs. Ferraro, so Obama supporters need to get over themselves, cool it with the racial talk and well, LEAVE GERALDINE ALONE!

Post Mississippi Math

Oh my how things have changed. Mississippi is now colored in after Senator Obama's 2-1 victory last night, AskHodder.com is prepared to call the Texas caucus, and there has been some Super Delegate movment (I know I said before that I wasn't counting them, but I meant that I'm not counting the ones who have not yet declared as still up for grabs, so when they do endorse I will still factor them in, it makes them more like a bonus).

The new delegate count:

Obama 1611
Clinton 1480

The magic number still sits at 2025

There are 609 pledged delegates remaining, 960 including super delegates

Number of pledged delegates remaining needed to clinch:

Obama 414, 68%
Clinton 545, 90%

Including Super Delegates

Obama 43%
Clinton 57%

Mrs. Clinton needs 72% of all pledged delgates to be aloted in order to pull even with Mr. Obama, 64% including Super Delegates

Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi

Last night the 20th state to join the Union and the second state to join the Confederacy, a state that held436,631 men women and children in bondage in 1860, a state famous for its river, fried chicken, corn bread, breath taking views, mockingbirds, magnolias, honey bees, Grand Opera House, crawfish, folk dance, and large mouth bass, the home of John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Oprah, Morgan Freeman, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Kermit T. Frog, William Faulkner, B.B. King, James Earl Jones, Elvis Presley, Tennessee Williams and Parker Posey, a state still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the one, the only, the Great State of Mississippi, held a presidential primary.

The result? With 99% of precincts reporting, askhodder.com is comfortable calling the state for Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has taken 61% to Senator Clinton's 37%, 19 delegates to 14. Here is a county by county break down with my apologies for the coloring, I had to make the map myself, counties carried by Obama are in blue, Clinton in brown.

By its self, this is likely not that interesting, but let's look at the same map, except we'll color the counties that President Bush won by at least 70% in yellow. If you noticed, the Clinton Campaign won all of them. Now let's take the same map and color the counties that the Kerry Campaign won in green. If you noticed, Mrs. Clinton only took one county carried by Mr. Kerry. See all three of these maps on the same page

What does this tell us? I talked this morning with a couple different Clinton Campaign staffers who argue that it shows she can win over conservative Democrats, and that Republicans are showing up for Mrs. Clinton. I think they are right about the second part, but not for the same reasons they do.

There are a dozen different polls out there that preview head-to-head match ups, in every Obama v McCain, Obama wins by double digits, and in every Clinton v McCain, it's very close, a statistical tie. I've said it before, national polls tell very little about how a presidential election will turn out, I'm not going to argue the merits of those polls, but rather the perception they give people who read them, the wikiality is that if Mr. Obama is the nominee, game over, if Mrs. Clinton is the nominee, game on (this is generally more true among Republicans, Democrats who support Mrs. Clinton think that she can pull it off and ignore those polls).

It's my contention that last night Republicans in Mississippi voted for Senator Clinton to try and give Senator McCain an easier opponent come November. Possibly even taking the advice of Rush Limbaugh and trying to "bloody up Obama ", of the mindset that the longer the primary goes on the better it is for the Republicans.

I don't think it's going to work though. I think that Mr. Obama has a lock on the nomination at this point, and really the longer the primary season goes on the better it is for the Democrats, it keeps them in the news. But also I think Mrs. Clinton's initial strength is part of what has pushed Mr. Obama to be the powerhouse candidate that he has become, the longer she stays in the better for him. With no opponent the McCain campaign has been relegated irrelevant until the Democrats have a nominee, which might just make Mr. McCain irrelevant until August, while people stay excited about the Democrats.

For more on how the race is shaping up, check out my next post on post Mississippi math.

Post Wyoming Update

The Wyoming results are in and Senator Obama has won the state with 61% of the vote compared to Senator Clinton’s 38% and 1% voted uncommitted. Wyoming has twelve pledged delegates, seven of whom will go to Mr. Obama and five to Mrs. Clinton. This is using the AP numbers (CNN only apportioned four delegates to Mrs. Clinton)

New delegate math, using last week’s numbers and only making changes based on the Wyoming results:

Magic number 2,025

Remaining pledged delegates: 735

Obama total: 1567 + 7 = 1574
Clinton total: 1462 + 5 = 1467

Number of reaming pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination:

Obama 451
Clinton 558

Percentage of reaming pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination:

Obama 61% (same as last week)
Clinton 76% (a 1% increase from last week)

Mrs. Clinton needs 65% of the remaining pledged delegates to pull even with Mr. Obama

Mississippi votes tomorrow, there are 33 pledged delegates up for grabs. Mississippi also has 7

super delegates, 3 of whom are committed to Mr. Obama, and 4 are uncommitted.

Much Ado about Nothing

On Tuesday Senator Clinton won three out of five contests. Bam! She’s smack back in it, right? No. According to John Zogby, going into the Tuesday contests she needed about 62% of all the remaining pledged delegates to catch up to Senator Obama, by my math she took 53% (the actual percentage is likely a little lower because the Texas Caucus results are not in yet). She now needs 65% of the remaining delegates to catch up to her opponent by the convention, so in a way, Mrs. Clinton actually lost some ground Tuesday night, despite picking up 18 delegates. On the positive side for her, she did push back the goal posts on Mr. Obama’s hopes of clinching before the convention.

The magic number to clinch the nomination is 2,025. Including the Texas Caucus, by my math there are 747 pledged delegates left, and if we use the AP numbers, Mr. Obama has 1,567 delegates and would then need 458, or 61% to clinch, and Mrs. Clinton would need 563, or 75%. Sticking with the AP numbers there are 272 non-committed Super Delegates, if included there are then 1019 votes up for grabs and the break down becomes 45% for Mr. Obama to seal the nomination and 55% for Mrs. Clinton. The Super Delegate math is really pretty fuzzy because their support is so fluid it makes them hard to factor them in. I would guess that most of the remaining non-committed will not endorse before the convention, as Al Gore and John Edwards have pledged to do (or not do, depending on how you look at it.) So in the interest of simplicity I will not use the
Super Delegates.

There are twelve contests left (see chart). Right now it looks like Mr. Obama will win the Texas Caucus, and it is predicted that he will also carry Wyoming and Mississippi. Based on the trends that have been established Mr. Obama should also carry Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, North Carolina, Kentucky and Indiana. Because the contests are now so spaced out, I’m willing to bet that Obama runs the table. Why am I willing to make such a bold statement? Because so far, everywhere he has campaigned, his numbers have gone up, and everywhere Mrs. Clinton has campaigned, her numbers have gone down.

I was an early Clinton supporter, I went to some of her rallies, gave money to her campaign, I voted for her in the Senate, wrote and spoke favorably about her. I was excited to think about having another Clinton in the White House, and even more so at the thought of a woman finally being elected President. But the more I listened to her speak, the deeper I looked at her record, the closer I looked at her specifics, the more hollow her vanilla message rang and I became disenchanted. I am inclined to think that many other people had a somewhat similar experience.

Texas Caucus - ?? 67

Wyoming – 3/8 18

Mississippi – 3/11 40

Pennsylvania – 4/22 188

Indiana – 5/6 84

North Carolina – 5/6 134

West Virginia – 5/13 39

Kentucky – 5/20 60

Oregon – 5/20 65

Montana – 6/3 24

South Dakota – 6/3 23

Puerto Rico – 6/7 63

Florida - ??

Michigan - ??

Good for you Texas

That isn’t a phrase I have used all that often, but last night the Lone Star State made me proud.

I haven’t written about Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, but I often discuss him with friends, I frequently tell the story about meeting him at a 2006 gubernatorial debate in Agawam where an entrance census, census not survey, showed 95% of those in attendance did not know who they would vote for if the election were that night, which is not uncommon, people go to debates to learn about the candidates. Patrick blew the doors of the place. I had goose bumps. He got more standing ovations than his opponents got applause, I would liken it to the Obama buzz, except bigger. The exit census showed 97% would vote for Patrick if the election were that day, census. What does that mean? It means that of the 200 or so people there that night, six or seven people would vote for one of the other candidates, including the two other candidates themselves and their wives. Barring a massive scandal or a lack of personal ambition, I think Deval Patrick will be President someday.

Patrick and Obama have been friends for years, they went to school together, they worked together as community organizers in Chicago, and Gov. Patrick is one of the chief strategists on the Obama campaign. They are also very similar politicians, near identical résumés pre-politics, they speak with sincerity about bridging the blue/red divide and they both have the power to give a speech that’ll knock your socks off. That said it didn’t surprise me to read about the manufactured controversy about them making the same point in a speech (and by the way, if you can forget who said it first, it’s a dynamite speech).
It also didn’t surprise me to get a couple phone calls from Hilary staffers curious for my opinion. I pointed out the close relationship the two have, and also that Patrick had suggested Obama use the allegedly “stolen” lines. They seemed to think it was going to cripple Obama and rejuvenate the Hilary campaign, I said they were crazy, but one staffer who works very closely with Mrs. Clinton said “wait until you hear the line we came up with. She’s going to drop it on him and it’ll be the chant at every McCain rally, it’ll be all over youtube, it’s gonna be the turning point.”
I was skeptical.

The line? “That’s not change you can believe in – it’s change you can Xerox”. The audience booed. Good for you Texas. It was one of the dumbest things her campaign has done, how is she going to condemn him for using lines written by his staffers with a line written by her staffers? I called my friend after the debate to ask that question and to say that “a big part of why you’re losing so monumentally, is because you have a candidate and a campaign staff that can’t seem to tell the difference between brilliant ideas and really stupid political moves, this was dumber than when you dug up his kindergarten papers”.

Her campaign still thinks it’s going to resonate.

Jason Jones hit the nail square on the head

I actually wrote this post over a week ago, but after a certain segment on “A Daily Show” I knew I had to rewrite it. Jon Stewart asked Jason Jones why the Romney campaign never really caught fire despite limitless funding, good presidential looks, a beautiful family, economic experience etc. Jones responded that “the Mitt Romney campaign was never quite able to get over the fact that Mitt Romney, is a douche bag.” Quite possibly the best political analysis I’ve ever heard.
Romney might not wear a wool hat during the summer or t-shirts with stupid sayings, he isn’t leaching off his girlfriend until his band takes off, he isn’t a security guard with a blog or living in his parent’s basement. Romney isn’t Nick Lachey or Ryan Phillipe and as far as I know he doesn’t own a Segway scooter or wear wide leather strap bracelets, and he doesn’t even smell like a summer mist, but Mitt Romney is a douche bag in that he represents everything people hate about politicians. He is an inauthentic, super polished, over privileged, mud slinging, groveling panderer, and he treats people like they’re stupid. Granted so do most politicians, but Romney is just much more blatant about it.
Mitt Romney grew up a child of privilege, never wanting or having to work for a thing in his life, but he tucks his polo shirt into his jeans, sinches his belt, throws on a brand-new Carhartt jacket and acts like he knows what it’s like to do hard labor. When he ran for office in Massachusetts he swore up and down that he was pro-choice, a position he reversed to run for President and his answer on the flip flop was that “I said I was pro-choice, but every time I had the opportunity, I came down on the side of life” and I’m sure someone on his staff thought this was a brilliant answer. It’s not. Instead it begs the question, were you lying then or are you lying now? but the answer is one of those two.
When Hilary was doing well talking about experience, Romney talked about experience, when Obama’s message of change and the need to fix a corrupt Washington system started to take off, Romney talked about the need for change, when McCain pulled ahead in the polls as the best person to handle the wars, Mitt Romney parroted McCain’s position. He never talked about new ideas, only why other people’s plans were stupid, his campaign never even put forth an original thought. When a reporter asked him if he supported the war so much, why his sons weren’t serving, he replied that they were serving in a different fashion, that they felt the best way they could honor America was to get him elected President.
Romney did look good on paper, but in substance, he’s a douche bag and that’s why whenever he would show up in a state the other guy would start winning. He only won three primaries, and they were all states he claimed to be from (Utah, Massachusetts, and Michigan). People aren’t stupid Mitt, and they proved it by voting you out.

Clinton Vs Obama =/= Women Vs Black People

For every African American that supports Senator Barack Obama there are almost two that support Senator Hilary Clinton, and for every woman that supports Mrs. Clinton, there are three that support Mr. Obama. This seems to be cause for much head-scratching and confusion for people, especially political pundits, writers and commentators. Everyone is asking “why?”

I’m going to explain it to you, sure, it may seem arrogant that one kid can explain something that many serious people don’t understand, but it’s actually pretty simple, are you ready? Here it is: WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T STUPID! So stop acting like it. It is embarrassing to think that women would be so closed minded as to support a candidate just because she is a woman. It is even more mortifying, degrading and shameful for white people to assume that a race that has fought for hundreds of years, generation after generation for people to “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” would be so hypocritical that they would turn around and do the same thing.

If the Democratic Presidential bid is a three way race (it’s not by any means, but it is certainly being framed that way) and the assumption is that women will support the woman, blacks will support the black, are we to also assume that the white men support the white guy? No. This is not the case because people assume that white men have enough brain power to makeup their minds based sound reasoning and personal ideology. Stop acting like women and blacks are stupid, they aren’t, and neither is the populace as a whole, we just get treated like we are every four years.

The Iowa caucus

Senator Obama has opened an impressive lead in the state wide Iowa polls, and though the Clinton campaign is sinking quickly she has somehow managed to hold onto second place with Mr. Edwards consistently showing up in third, just ahead of Governor Richardson. Don’t believe the hype. Former Senator John Edwards will win the Iowa caucus on Thursday. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

In order to understand what I’m saying you have to first understand what a caucus is and how it differs from a primary. In a primary the states votes like in any election and the candidates are ranked from first to last by virtue of the number of votes received. In an Iowa Democratic caucus, the candidates are still ranked from first to last, but each county gets one list, and each list is waited equally. Confused? You should be, it’s a stupid system. Let’s look at some mach Results:

New Hampshire primary
1 Sen. Edwards 32%
2 Gov. Richardson 30%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 5%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%

Nevada Primary
1 Gov. Richardson 40%
2 Sen. Edwards 25%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 4%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%
Vs

Polk County Iowa (population 408,888)
1 Obama
2 Richardson
3 Edwards
4 Clinton
5 Biden
6 Dodd
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



Adams Iowa (population 4,482)
1 Edwards
2 Richardson
3 Obama
4 Biden
5 Dodd
6 Clinton
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



In primaries the rankings are done by percentage of the vote from the whole state, but in the Iowa caucus it is the percentage of the vote with in the county, then all the county scores are added together, regardless of the number of votes cast, or the county’s population. Think of it like this, eight points for finishing first in a county, seven for second and so on. Using the example above it would be a three way tie for first place if Iowa had only two counties.

Why does this matter? because in the small rural counties like Adams, with 1% the population of Polk county, the individual votes count much more. John Edwards is much more popular than his rivals in the smaller more rural counties so he is likely to clean up there where votes count more, as we see sometimes as much as 100:1, this little quirk in the system skews polling done on a statewide, rather than on a county by county basis. In fact if we look at the example above, it would be entirely possible for Obama and Richardson to have staggeringly higher vote totals than Edwards but still come out tied.

Got all that? I hope so, because it gets more complicated. To this point in our discussion the rules for the Democrats and the Republicans are the same. The major difference between the two is the 15% “legitimacy threshold”. In the Republican caucuses the voters vote by secret ballot and the rankings are done from there. For the Democrats the process is much more open, because, if a candidate fails to get 15% of the vote, their county is considered illegitimate and its votes are not counted. In this likely event, the voters discuss and revote until someone is able to break 15%. Supporters of the bottom tier candidates are wooed by the contenders to switch their votes. Since the voters are intimately familiar with all eight candidates, and their peers are not in a position to offer rewards, those changing their votes will instead vote for their “second favorite”. Statewide, John Edwards consistently rates as Iowa’s second favorite, followed by Bill Richardson and Joe Biden, this will give all three candidates a large boost that is not noted in the polls. It should be noted that John Kerry was in 6th place in some polls going into the caucus four years ago, but was the number one second choice.

You know what the bitch of the whole thing is, only about 120,000 people in each party will actually show up and vote. That’s it, and less if it snows. Less than ¼ of million people, less than 1/100th of the population of LA will take the most important step in determining the 2008 contenders. Mitt Romney figures to finish second or third, he’ll be lucky if he is able to get 15,000 votes, even though he has spent in the neighborhood of 30 million dollars, or about $2000 per vote.

Really?! Really?!

Is she for real? Hilary is really trying to use something Obama wrote in kindergarten against him. Kindergarten. As in five year olds, milk money and magic circle time. Kindergarten. Really Hilary?! Really?! I honestly thought that political tactics couldn’t get any dumber this season than when Mitt Romney tried to make it a race about experience, but here we go!

In Iowa the other day Barack Obama made a comment about how unlike some people he hasn’t wanted to be President his whole life, pretty innocuous, but a jab at Hilary. Rather than let it slide the Clinton camp fired back by producing a note written by five year old Barack Obama saying that when he grows up he wants to be president. Bam! In your face Barack! What’s that Barrack? I can’t hear you from underneath your web of lies! Somebody in Iowa must think they are really clever to come up with something like this, it shows the opponent as a liar, while giving the impression that Hilary has done her homework, a slam dunk ad all over youtube.

Anyone who actually believes that must have their heads further up their own ass than Mitt Romney. It doesn’t make you look thorough, it makes you look sleazy and slimy, and it begs the question how deep did you dig to do your opposition research? How low are you willing to sink to win this? It doesn’t even burn Obama because every five year old wants to be President.

The best thing to do would have been not to respond, but she is starting to lose, so she has to push back. This is problematic because Hilary is running her campaign with smoke and mirrors, which means that when attacked she can’t fire back with substance, because she doesn’t have any to begin with. As a Senator she steadfastly derelict her duties to New York, showing no interest in doing anything other than padding her résumé, and as first lady she fumbled everything that came her way.

She can’t reject the claim either, because everyone knows it’s true, but what she could have done is embrace it. She could have come out, not addressing it directly, but talked about how she has wanted to be President for a long time, but the deck was always stacked against her, and talk about how she had to work twice as hard to get into a great college and seek scholarships to pay for it, juggled family and career to make it when everyone told her she couldn’t. She could have said that she worked too damn hard to get to where she is to be ridiculed for her life’s ambition. Then after that she could even finished it off with a punch line by telling the crowd that when she was in kindergarten she wanted to be a ballerina and tell the laughing audience “I did want to do something else, once”.

A Mile Wide but an Inch Deep

A Mile Wide but an Inch Deep

Why Hilary Clinton will not and should not be the Democratic nominee for President

We’ve all heard the national polls, seen the news reports, read the blogs – it’s a forgone conclusion: Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President. In a crowded field she polls at commanding lead of over 40% nationally, compared to distant second Senator Obama in the high 20’s, and with all the money she is raising she shows no signs of letting anyone catch her. It’s all bogus.

First let me just address the money. Yes, candidates need to raise lots of it to win, and yes, typically the candidate who has raised the most money wins the race, leading to the conventional wisdom that money wins an election. Post hoc ergo promter hoc. It’s not that the candidate who raises the most money will win; it’s that the candidate with the best shot at winning will raise the most money. People, PACs, bundlers and corporations donate money to candidates in an effort to make people of power beholden to them, they simply want to bet on the winning horse.

Consider that independently wealthy people often try to win elections by grossly outspending their opponents with funds from their personal bank accounts; Steve Forbes and Ross Perot come to mind. Despite virtually unlimited spending power up against a comparatively measly war chest, they both, and countless like them, got their teeth soundly kicked in. Get over the money; yes it’s important, just not nearly as much as everyone seems to think. Now for the polls.

National polls are 100% irrelevant until after the primary season ends because we don’t choose our nominee nationally, we do so in as state-by-state system. The only polls that matter right now are the ones in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Iowa matters about 10 times more.

Since 2000 there has been a palpable fervor among the Democratic base for a new leader, the future, for a human face ready to put them back in power, the 04 election, the 06 midterms and the disappointment from mediocre results, have combined with continued frustration from the Bush administration to further seep blood into the water. Right now that face is Hilary. Four years ago it was Howard Dean. Dean, like Clinton was out to a commanding lead in the national polls, he raised record amounts of money and seemed a sure-fire lock for the nomination, but in Iowa, the race was much closer; John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Wesley Clark and John Kerry were all polling close to Dean. He finished a distant third. Since most people had no real attachments to Howard Dean, they simply switched loyalties to the new face of hope, John Kerry, and his Iowa victory served to sling shot his seemingly struggling campaign to a cake walk as he become the eventual nominee. (This is not to say that whoever wins Iowa will sweep to the general. The combined momentum of Iowa and New Hampshire really locked it for Kerry. Being from Massachusetts he had a notable advantage in New Hampshire that no Democrat has this time around. Also, Dean was the leading money raiser and spender to that point, John Kerry quickly overtook him once he became the party favorite)

Four years later, Iowa is a virtual three way tie between John Edwards, Barrack Obama and of course Hilary Clinton, with Bill Richardson polling respectably close. What does that mean? It means that if Iowa were to caucus tomorrow anyone of those four could end up in first, second, third or fourth place making New Hampshire and the nomination up for grabs. In most polls Obama is first and John Edwards is second in Iowa, and with all the hype and the bar set so high for Hilary, anything less than first, even a second place finish, will knock her off her pedestal.

The conventional wisdom on Hilary is that people either love her or hate her, but this is not true. Most people either hate her or are fairly ambivalent toward her. This may sound crazy, but how do you feel about her? Not her husband, not her sex, but Hilary Clinton, the substance? How many people do you know that have read and loved her books? Did you? She has been able to maintain the numbers she has with smoke and mirrors, because of peoples desire for hope and she is a brilliant political mind, but she flounders so much in genuine appeal because she is a terrible political presence.

Prior to her term as Senator her only political position had been as first lady. Her major ambition in that role was healthcare, a piece of legislation her husband gift wrapped for her, a major cornerstone of his campaign, somewhere around 75% of the country supported it, with a blue congress and seven years to get it done. The result? A train wreck of historic proportions.

As Senator she has consistently enjoyed very large approval ratings, and in 2006 was reelected in a landslide. Every vote she has cast, every speech has given has been focus grouped and taste tested to the minutest detail. Not to make sure it’s popular enough to win support, but to make sure it is bland enough to not lose anyone, or force her to take an actual stance on anything. She has been a major political player in the spot light for fifteen years; tell me, where does she stand on the issues? Campaigns are supposed to be about ideas, what are Hilary’s ideas? I know she’s for winning, and against other people winning, but beyond that is anyone’s guess.

She is always championing her experience and leadership, but she has no legislative victories, only failures. She is a major player in the Senate and spent eight years as first lady and has nothing to show for it but a couple electoral victories. It is a terrible résumé, one of unwavering utter failure and demonstrated demonstrable inept incompetence. Her style of politics is exactly why people hate the political process, and exactly why she does not deserve and will not get my vote.