Battlestar Galactica Open?

This is hilarious, had to share.

Dave Letterman Talks About John McCain Dissing Him

John McCain was supposed to be on Letterman, but because he "suspended his campaign" he did not appear on Letterman. Above are some of Dave's thoughts on this.

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"
-Dave Letterman

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.

Some Political Stuff... Are You Surprised?

Well, always on the front curve of the news, I'm proud to announce that we here at Retrospective Reflections talked a little about the VP issue for John McCain before CNN.com. Unfortunately for us, CNN.com did it much better. Fortunately for you, however, here's the link to their story.

Pretty interesting list of names, including the four that we mentioned yesterday.

Back to the Democratic side, the race everyone is paying attention to is the upcoming vote in Pennsylvania.

Clinton had held a huge lead in the state, but as the date of the vote (April 22) gets closer, Clinton's lead has been shrinking.

In the latest polls from CNN.com, Clinton's lead is down to 4 points, 46% to 42%.

If Clinton loses Pennsylvania, it will be hard for her to justify staying in the race. Even if she wins there will be many calls for her to drop out unless she wins it significantly. A close vote that only gains her a few delegates won't help the fact that she is currently down 143 Delegates. She's behind by 171 pledged delegates, and her once large lead in the Super Delegate count is now only 28. The longer that Obama keeps a sizable delegate lead, the more Super Delegates go over to him.

I think that it is very possible that this could be decided by the end of the month, as it's beginning to look more and more inevitable that Barack Obama will win the nomination. Of course this race so far has been anything but normal.

A Little Look at Possible VPs

Sunday, Republican strategist and former Bush administration official Dan Senor claimed that Condoleezza Rice was angling for the Vice President slot on the Republican ticket, saying, "Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this."

Rice, however, claimed that there was no truth to this statement and claims that while she will be watching the election with interest as a voter, she plans on returning to Stanford after her time as Secretary of State.

I'm not sure that Condoleezza Rice would be a smart move for the Republicans, since the way that McCain can win will be by distancing himself from the Bush administration, whereas having Rice on the ticket will be something for the Democrats to point to when they call a vote for McCain a vote for Four More Years of George W. Bush Politics.

The other names that have been floated for McCain are Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, either of which might appease the Conservative base that still don't feel completely comfortable with McCain, but would also push a lot of the Independent voters (who will be very important this November) over to the Democratic side.

An interesting name I've heard a couple of times, but don't really see as possible, is that of Joe Lieberman, who was the VP on the Al Gore ticket. He is now an Independent and has moved far to the right of where he used to be, but is still probably closer to a Democrat on many issues then he is to Republican. While this ticket would appeal to the independents, it would probably cause a lot of the Conservative base to sit out the election all together.

While the Democrats continue their struggle to select a nominee, McCain's search for a Vice Presidential candidate becomes a more intriguing story to keep an eye on.

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.

Thoughts on Last Night's Debate

For Senator Clinton, last night's debate was critical. Now shown running in a statistical dead heat with Senator Obama in the critical states of Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton needed to really trip Barack Obama up, but I don't feel like she accomplished that.

For Barack Obama, all he really had to do was stay on his feet, and I think that he did.

If you asked me who I felt "won the debate", I'd probably say that Senator Clinton did slightly better overall then Senator Obama. I didn't, however, feel like Senator Clinton started out too strongly. She complained about always getting the first question and came off as whiny. She reference a Saturday Night Live skit implying that Barack Obama was getting preferential treatment from the media and it didn't come off very well either. As the debate went on, however, and Tim Russert grilled Senator Clinton on point after point, and she answered smartly and strongly, she definitely ended the night stronger then she began it.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, just needed to maintain the status quo, and he did just that. He didn't blow anyone away last night, but he didn't do anything to disappoint anyone either. The numbers now show him with a rather sizable national lead over Senator Clinton among Democrats and in a National Poll, he is shown to be leading presumptive Republican nominee John McCain by a fairly sizable margin. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is shown in a statistical tie with the Republican front runner.

If Barack Obama happens to win next week in either Texas or Ohio (and I certainly believe that it is possible) it will probably be time for Hillary Clinton to see the writing on the wall and get the Democratic party united behind the man who currently seems the best bet to defeat McCain and win back the White House. Will she do that, however? I have no idea. After all, both Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul are still running for the Republican nomination despite the fact that McCain losing it now would be nigh on impossible. While Barack Obama's lead is large and would be almost impossible to overcome, on the Democratic side there is still the issue of Super Delegates and Hillary Clinton could conceivably be handed the nomination by them despite the lead that Barack Obama has in pledged delegates. Such a move could fracture the Democratic party however, and I don't foresee Senator Clinton doing that, but I acknowledge that it is a possibility.

If you haven't already, take a look at yesterday's post on how exactly the Texas Primary/Caucus works as well as a list of the 32 Texas Super Delegates. And if you happen to live in Texas, get out and vote early. Early voting is going on until Friday February 29th and then the polls re-open on Tuesday March 4th. Then remember to come back to your polling place that evening for the caucus.

Finally, you should check out these two you tube videos on a young man's feelings on why he voted for Barack Obama.

Primaries Plus Democrats in TEXAS?!?!?

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
-Patrick Young

Today's quote of the day is rather appropriate, I think. But the forecasting that I'm thinking of today is political not weather.

If you think back to June of 2007, back before everyone knew that Clemens was a steroid user, political forecasters foresaw a couple of things for sure, John McCain was done, the Republican Primary would probably go to Rudy Gulianni, but if Fred Thompson entered the race, he could become a viable candidate, and on the Democratic side, Barack Obama was interesting, for sure, but the race would be over very quickly with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee.

Well, as we travel from the past back to the present, we can see that Gulianni and Thompson are both out of the race, and with the backing of Mitt Romney and former President Bush, McCain should have the nomination sown up by early next month at the latest. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, while prognosticators where correct in regards to the interest the nation has taken in Senator Obama, they handed Senator Clinton victory a little too quickly.

Sticking with the idea given us by Mr. Young in the quote of the day, we've seen many projections and polls in politics that have proved to be false. As recently as the New Hampshire Primary, polls showed Hillary Clinton trailing, and yet, she won the Primary.

As it stands right now, Senators Clinton and Obama are polling neck and neck in Wisconsin (the State of Cheese). A victory here would be huge for Clinton as just last week she was given no chance. She appeared to be following a "keep your eyes on the big states" type of strategy looking ahead towards Texas and Ohio next Tuesday and Pennsylvania on April 22nd, conceding everything in between to Obama. Her strategy shifted, however, perhaps due to the critiques her plan was recieving throughout the media, and she began to spend some time and money in Wisconsin.

At the very least, she's made things interesting again. I'm beginning to believe more and more that the Democratic nomination will not be decided until the Democratic convention in August.

Texas remains important, though. If Senator Clinton pulls out a victory in Wisconsin tonight, then getting less delegates from Texas then Senator Obama doesn't become as big of an issue as it would if she gets swept out of February after Super Tuesday.

The interesting thing about Texas is the fact that Clinton could win the overall vote in Texas, but be awarded less Texas Delegates then Obama. The reason for this is that the Democratic delegates are weighted by the amounts of Democratic voters in the county in the last election for Governer. A county in which 75% of the vote went Democratic will award more delegates then a place where only 25% of the vote went Democratic. So, if you're a Democrat in Texas, your lonely vote for Chris Bell might actually have meant something after all. What makes this important is that in that election, the areas with a strong Latino presence, Hillary Clinton's strong constituancy, are in primarily Republican counties.

You may recall the redistricting scandal a few years back when the Republican controlled State Congress redrew the voting lines primarily to break up the strong Latino voting districts (which voted primarilly Democratic) and placed them as smaller pieces into largely Republican districts, removing some seats from Democrats. This is the main reason why the areas with Latino voters will have a smaller number of delegates to give then other areas, areas with younger, more affluent, and better educated voters, and areas with a large number of African Americans, all of whom tend to vote in larger numbers for Barack Obama. Add to that the fact that polls now have Obama nearly spliting the woman's vote and the elderly vote with Clinton, the gender and age group that she used to dominate, and Clinton's one remaining strength (the Latino vote) is less of a strength then one might have originally thought it would be in Texas. So while Senator Clinton is counting on the large number of Latino voters in Texas to propell her to victory here, the delegates will be larger in the areas where Senator Obama has the edge, meaning Clinton might win the state, but Obama's delegate lead will still grow.

But, like I said at the beginning, polls and predictions can often be wrong, at least often enough for us to be stupid to put our faith in them completely, but they also are right often enough for them to be worth paying attention to.

Either way, the fact that today in the city of Houston, Barack Obama will be giving his post primary speech in the Toyata Center excites me. Last week, Hillary Clinton was in El Paso. Thursday they will be debating in Austin. How crazy is this, Democrats who are running for President are campaining in Texas? W.'s state?

Enjoy it while it lasts Texas Democrats, because things like this don't happen too often around here.

Thoughts on Politics

This is always a fascinating time for me, when the world pays attention to our (as in these United States of America) process of electing our officials, and specifically, the race to elect the next "Most Powerful Man in the World". The reason that this election in particular is so fascinating is that there is the possibility that the next "Most Powerful Man in the World" won't actually be a man.

Yes, we are witnessing history in the making, as the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States will for the first time ever on either side of the political aisle, either be a woman (Hillary Clinton) or a black man (Barack Obama).

Would anyone have believed this possible just a few short years ago?

Meanwhile, John McCain appears to be the presumptive Republican nominee, but many Republicans who consider themselves especially "Conservative" aren't very fond of him, propelling Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister, into a few big primary wins and a few other surprisingly close races.

Therefore, the Republican race is staying interesting as well. Sure it doesn't have history backing it the way that the Democratic race does, but it certainly has its fair share of drama.

McCain is going to win the nomination on the Republican side, it would take a miracle for him not to. (Although I did enjoy the Huckabee quote, "I didn't major in math in college, I majored in miracles.") The question becomes, when he does win the nomination does he add on a very conservative running mate to appease the Republican base, change his stance on the issues that bother the conservatives the most, or decide that he doesn't need the conservatives at all (which would either fracture the Republican party or cause them to run a super conservative third party canidate)? These questions make the Republican situation fun to watch.

Besides history on the Democratic side, there is the question of Super Delegates. In order to win the Democratic nomination, you need a total of 2,025 delagates, won primarily by the votes cast in Caucases and Primaries. However, there are also 796 Super Delegates (generally Democratic members of Congress, Governers, National Comittee Members, and Party Leaders) who are free to back whomever they choose. Due to how close the race is (at this posting, Obama leads Clinton 1,096 to 977 not counting the Super Delegates) it is unlikely that either canidate will win the requisite number of delagates through the primary process, meaning that ultimately it will be the Super Delagates that decide this election. If Obama continues to hold on to his lead based on the voting public, but the Super Delagates propell Clinton to victory, the Democrats could be faced with a party fracturing possibility as well.

I'll especially be watching the results March 4th in Ohio and Texas (where I am a registered voter and will be exercising my political right). If Hillary Clinton doesn't win both of those states, it will be very hard for her to continue her campaign. If she does win them both, we very likely could be looking at a situation where the Super Delagates decide the election.

Whether you normally follow politics or not, whether you think that they are all a bunch of overpayed publicity hounds or whether you think that they actually care about the people they represent, you can't deny that this is some high drama, much better then the reality shows that are so prevalent across the television landscape. At least it is in my opinion.