I Don't Want to Believe It, But It's Certainly Possible

Is "Operation Chaos" working?

For those of you who don't know (and Lord, how I wish I was one of you, but my boss loves that fat, druggie of a radio host, meaning occasionally I have to hear him) "Operation Chaos" is the name of Rush Limbaugh's project to keep the Democratic nomination process going as long as possible. He wants his listeners to cross party lines and vote for Hillary Clinton in order to keep Barack Obama from winning the nomination and the Democratic party from regrouping and focusing on John McCain.

I have no doubt that some of his listeners have responded, but I didn't think that it would have an actual effect on any of the races.

Some say that it did in Texas, where Rush has a lot of listeners, it's an open primary, and Hillary won a very close race.

I didn't start to believe it could effect a race until Indiana.

Again, it's an open primary and Hillary won a close race, a race decided by fewer then 20,000 votes. Numbers that I can believe listen to Rush and follow his Operation Chaos theory.

Add that to the fact that in exit polls up to 70% of Obama supporters say that they will vote for Clinton, but less then half of Clinton supporters say that they will vote for Obama. I wish the pollsters had asked a follow up question of those supporters. I wish they had asked if they would have vote for Clinton against McCain. I wouldn't be surprised to see that only 60% or so would say yes, the rest saying that they would vote for McCain.

It just doesn't make sense to me that a supporter of Clinton would not ultimately support the Democratic party. It actually makes more sense to me that Obama supporters would turn their back on the Clintons, because he's getting a lot of support from people who haven't voted before and aren't classical Democrats, but are people that believe in him as a change from the typical Politician. Yet 70% of his voters say they'd vote for Clinton while over half of those who voted for Clinton say they wouldn't vote for Obama.

That leads me to surmise that they probably wouldn't vote for her in the general election either.

Well, that was exciting to say the least

Today's Quote of the Day

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.
Norman Mailer

Do with that what you will.

So, onto the post, last night I didn't get to bed nearly as early as I was planning to, because I couldn't turn off CNN.

The longer I watched, the closer and closer the numbers were getting in Indiana. At one point the vote spread went from just under 40,000 to just under 20,000 in one quick swoop.

Why the sudden change? Why the drama? Lake County, Indiana.

To fully understand the drama, lets go back about 2 hours in time as Barack Obama then Hillary Clinton gave their election night speeches.

At the time, Senator Clinton had a large lead in Indiana, and while none of the networks were willing to call it in her favor, I don't think anyone seriously doubted she would win it, possibly by 10%. In Senator Obama's speach he congratulated her on what he called her "apparent victory in Indiana".

In Clinton's speech, she also claimed victory in Indiana. Meanwhile, we begin to hear from the Mayor of Gary, Indiana. He claims that when the numbers from his city come in, they will be overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, and that if an upset is to happen, it will be do to his county, Lake County.

Later, while looking at the map, it turns out that while 85% of the vote is in and Clinton is up 52% to 48% and by just under 40,000 votes, none of that vote is from Lake County.

Not only is it expected that Obama is going to do extremely well in Gary, but he is expected to do well throughout the county.

Why?

It is the most northwestern county putting it as practically a suburb of Chicago, the home of Barack Obama.

Suddenly, as they were talking about the county on CNN, the first results from there came in. 28% of the vote reported and Obama had a 75% to 35% lead there and a 20,000 vote advantage.

Now, Indiana was a virtual tie. Clinton's lead was down to under 20,000 votes with 72% of the vote still to come in Lake County and 9% of the vote still to come throughout the state, with the outstanding votes almost all coming from areas that Barack Obama was winning.

It turned out that that first 28% reported was all from Gary, Indiana, the area where Obama had the largest support in the county. Clinton had a very slight advantage throughout the rest of the county, slowly taking down that huge advantage, meaning that, as it stands right now with 99% of the vote reporting, she is up in the state by only 18,444 votes.

Whereas in North Carolina, with 99% of the precincts reporting, Obama won the popular vote by 232,775 votes.

In the delegate count, his pledged lead grew thanks to a huge victory in North Carolina and a virtual tie in Indiana, and his lead in the popular vote went up by 214,331 votes.

While Clinton vows to fight on despite barely having an argument on which to stand any longer, the belief is starting to grow that it will be impossible for the Democratic nominee to be anyone other then Barack Obama.

Despite what Clinton might be saying this morning about "tie-breakers", the truth is that yesterday was a very good day for Barack Obama.

The Eyes of the World are on Indiana and North Carolina

Who would have seen that coming at the beginning of this process?

The way things stand right now, Obama will win North Carolina (hopefully it will be by a big margin) and Clinton will win Indiana (but it's probably going to be very close).

For Clinton to realistically be able to claim victory, she would have to catch Obama in pledged delegates. To do that, Clinton would have to win the remaining states by 70%, which is extremely unlikely. There is no way that Clinton can match Obama in number of states won, although it is possible that she catches him in popular vote.

Despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to pass Obama at this stage for front runner status and that she is consistently polling as less likely to beat McCain, there is no indication that Clinton plans on stopping short of the convention.

Even if Obama sweeps tonight (which is far more possible then Clinton sweeping) I doubt that Clinton will concede.

For a time, I felt like this protracted race was good for the Democratic party, raising interest in the process, but now the future of the Country is at stake and Clinton is doing more harm then good in my opinion.

This race has been pretty much decided for some time, but she refuses to give up, and while admire that to some extent, this is far too important a time for the Country to be damaging any Democratic chance at the White House just because you don't want to lose.

My only hope is that when the Super Delegates decide the contest in Obama's favor (which is certainly the trend, as for the last couple of months, Obama has gained hundreds of Super Delegates while Clinton has lost some), Clinton will step aside without any more fighting. Then perhaps this prolonged fight will at least have one positive outcome by virtue of helping to prepare Obama for the race with McCain.

I Was Going to Post Something Non-Political, But Then...

I felt like doing something a little different today, since this blog has been so dominated by politics lately. I decided to check and see what the trusty Quote of the Day had to say, and I got this, which shows that the world is not ready for me to stop the Political Talk as of yet.

Today's Quote Of The Day...

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."
-Professor Irwin Corey

I don't make these up, folks. I get them right here.

You can't tell me that this isn't a sign, a sign that retrospective reflections needs to continue its support of Senator Obama across the world wide web.

This weekend saw the Wyoming caucus, and another big win for Obama, who typically does better in the caucuses then Clinton has thus far. Tuesday is the Mississippi primary, and a chance for Barack Obama to fully regain the lead he had going into last Tuesday.

In other news, the Democratic party continues to look for ways to re-do the Michigan and Florida votes in a fair and affordable way. One possibility appears to be a mail-in vote, but there are problems to that as well it seems. This continues to be the most interesting story going on the Democratic side as Obama and Clinton look to try and win the nomination.

On the Republican side, McCain has won the requisite number of delegates and recieved an endorsement from President Bush (no word on whether he actually wanted it, however). Mike Huckabee who had been performing well in Republican races since Super Tuesday officially ended his campaign last Tuesday after McCain reached his magic number, apparently deciding that both math and miracles were against him now. Ron Paul, on the other hand, vowed that his campaign is never over, saying that he disagrees with McCain on many issues and is not likely to support him. Could he possibly be inclined to enter the race as a third party candidate (or maybe fourth party considering Nader has already thrown his hat into the ring)? Something else to watch, anyway.

Florida and Michigan and Super Delegates, Oh My

With the wins posted by Senator Clinton Tuesday night, an opportunity was wasted by Senator Obama to end things now and begin to focus the entire might of the Democratic Primary behind winning in November, now we still have some things to sort out first.

Let me start off by congratulating Senator Clinton on her wins in Rhode Island, Ohio, and the Texas Primary, as Senator Obama did himself in his speech that very night (something she rarely does, one of the many reasons I have lost the feelings I once had for her not very long ago). At worst, she stopped Senator Obama's momentum, at best, perhaps she gained some for herself.

But before we get too carried away with anything, Barack Obama came into last Tuesday's races with a delegate lead of well over 100 and he came out of Tuesday's races with a delegate lead of well over 100. In fact, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram believes that despite losing the popular vote in Texas (by less then 100,000 in a state where almost 3 million voted) he might come out of Texas with more delegates then his primary advisary.

So, sure, Hillary Clinton had a big night, a very important night for her if she wanted to keep her canidacy alive. But that's all she did, in my opinion, was keep her canidacy alive. She didn't become the front runner after that night. She didn't even really gain any ground on the front runner. She just kept from losing any.

What it really means is that it is going to be much harder for either of them to secure the nomination any time soon. This is shaping up to be a race to the very finish folks.

What becomes interesting are the varying factors that can help to decide it. I've spoken in this blog before about the Super Delegates, but we haven't really talked about the Strange Case of Florida and Michigan yet, so what do you say we do that now? Good.

Both Florida and Michigan signed the agreement with the National Democratic Party that they would abide by rules that stated primaries had to be held on or after Feb. 5th (aka Super Tuesday) with the exceptions being Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. However, both moved up their primaries in order to be important in the upcoming election. In punishment, both were stripped of Delegates in the nomination process causing them both to become pointless. The irony of course is that had they stayed in their normal places, both states would have been not only important, but, much like last Tuesday had the potential to be, critical. Instead they risked being a complete non-factor.

Hillary Clinton claims that since she won both of those primaries, the delegates should be counted and given to her. This is simply unfair, however, as she was the only major candidate on Michigan's ballot, and Barack Obama was given no opportunity to campaign in Florida (where Clinton is already well known, but at the time of the Florida primary, Obama was still relatively new to the nation). And with his ability to speak and the wonders he has already accomplished while campaigning, denying him that opportunity in Florida is completely unfair.

But, what it comes down to is that the delegates in Florida and Michigan might be very important in securing the nomination for one candidate or the other, and, after all, it isn't the fault of the voters that their party leaders tried to up the date against the rules. They shouldn't be penalized.

So, the answer on first glance seems obvious. Let's hold new primaries in each of the two states, with both Clinton and Obama given a chance to make their case to the voters. Oh, if only it were that simple. You see, primaries cost tax payers money. Money that tax payers have already spent on primaries in this very election season. Redoing them (while it seems logical) would require repaying for them, and let's face it, the economy ain't that great right now folks. (Thanks a lot, W. And McCain is promising more of the same, I'm just saying.) According to an article on cnn.com, Michigan's redo could cost approximently $10 million and Florida's could cost upwards of $25 million.

Everyone agrees that delegates in these states might have to count. It's the how that is the question and will bear watching as this race continues.