I must be missing something...

So, the latest "huge" attack from the Clinton campaign is a picture from 2006 featuring Barack Obama dressed in the garb of a traditional Somali elder. When I saw the picture, I thought "Oh cool! I think it's great that Obama is willing to go outside the box and try to converse and get along with members of other faith communities, especially the Muslims who have been getting the bad rap for the last 7 years (or more)!" Apparently this is not what I am supposed to be getting from the picture. I'm supposed to look at the picture and think "Oh my god! Obama's Muslim!! He's goin to change America into an Islamist state and promote bad terrorist things to happen to all of the heathen Americans!" Since my interpretation was so totally different, could someone please tell me what I'm missing? Thanks!

Yay OBAMA.... And This American Life

Hey loyal blog readers. I'm really tired with abit of a headache so bear with me through this short post.
Take a look at the table below....

Democratic Delegate Count

Needed to nominate:	2025
Total delegate votes:	4049

Candidate	Plgd	Supr	Total*
Obama	1052	160	1212
Clinton	949	242	1191

Feb. 12, 2008 11:56 PM EST
Includes pledged delegates (plgd) plus party / elected officials (supr).
Source: AP

Data table from npr.org
_______________________________
Unless you've been living under a rock the last few days, Barack Obama has SWEPT all the primaires and caususes that have been held after Super Tuesday.

In the wake of this exciting night of three wins for Barack - DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Even more wonderful is that he has a significant lead in these three states unlike some previous primaries that ended pretty much 50-50. The numbers right now are showing over 60% in all the two states and DC. I think Zev was right when he told me that the momentum of the Obama campaign is just getting more and more exciting and getting more and more votes. This will be a very long battle, I do not doubt, with the close number in delegates on the Democratic side. Notice please when you look at delegate counts to see whether or not the total includes superdelegates which say nothing about what the voters of America are saying (for the most part - they are not required to vote according to what their state voters want.)

NPR, my best friend, has several interesting stories and articles about all that math stuff I was bitching about the other night.

What NPR also has is the wonderful show "This American Life." I subscribe the to podcast because sometimes I just get sick of listening to the political podcasts I have or I'm not in the mood to just listen to music. Today it was because I wanted something to listen to while doing laundry (which is a hard feat when almost all 10 dryers are broken and there are hundreds of people in our 22-story building wanting to do laundry but having no dryers....).

If you need a laugh-out-loud funny moment, listen to the episode "The Super." The entire episode is about stories involving building supers. For anyone who is unfamiliar with This American Life, it is a great show where the host finds stories of the most random nature in America and compiles them into hour long shows based on themes. Another one I listened to recently was about matchmaking and my favorite so far was probably the one about the 10 commandments. In "The Super" episode, the first two acts are hilarious, one featuring an alleged Brazilian hit-man who is managing a NYC highrise while the second involves a weight-lifting snowman. The last "act" is more sad though. It is about a young super (who inherited the job and building from his dad) and must learn when to draw the line with tenants. This is by far my favorite episode although the one about quiz shows I listened to yesterday was pretty hilarious and interesting as well.

Yay Maine!

So Obama's won Maine and Hillary Clinton is replacing her campaign manager. Nothing says "I'm really confident about how my campaign is going" like replacing the campaign manager. Yeah. I don't think I need to say anything more. Y'all know I'm excited (about Obama of course, not Hillary's problems!)

Three more wins!

Hooray! In case you have not heard yet, Obama has won Washington State, Nebraska, and Louisiana! It looks like he won Washington and Nebraska with leads of over 30%! His momentum is still going strong and I'm excited. The results from Louisiana are still coming in at this time but he has a definite lead there no matter what - it is no Missouri or New Mexico with the even split votes.

Tomorrow will be interesting for two reasons. The first is that Maine will have it's Democratic Causus with 24 delegates up for grab (it may not seem like much but take into account how close Obama and Clinton were earlier today in terms of pledged delegates - it was a matter of single digits). The second is seeing how the delegates from today's caucuses and primaries are split up. Right now, CNN is saying Clinton has 1085 delegates and Obama has 1009 (this includes the imprecise count of superdelegates which is only an estimate). That is without all of the 78 delegates from Washington State and the 66 delegates from Louisiana split up! (Obama gets 17 of Nebraskas; Clinton gets 7).

Now all this math has kind of messed with my brain over the last week or so. I remember listening to NPR between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary and hearing one of their political analysts assure us that delegate counts have never really mattered and probably wouldn't matter this year. WRONG! This is an unprecedented year, as far as I know, in terms of uncertainty so late in the primaries. Guess what - delegates count this year. Hard to have missed that now... I'm giving myself a week to make a decision on who's delegate count seems the most accurate because honestly, the news network reporting the numbers influences what those number are until things are more settled in the states. As mentioned in a previous post and comments, we are still waiting for absentee ballots to be counted in many huge states like California, which could make a difference of a few delegates distributed on either side. So far I'm still liking NPR the best! They list superdelegates and pledged delegates in seperate columns before adding them up so we can see just how "firm" Clinton's lead is(n't).


As I look at the above, I am thinking to myself "wow, when did my blog posts get so boring and technical!" Probably around the time I got confused. I'm still trying to figure out who to believe and how much hope to have. One of the stories posted on NPR about 20 minutes ago (but no longer to be found) said Obama had won a "decisive" victory. I'm sorry, people, there is nothing decisive about the Democrats right now. Yes, Obama has caught up well with Clinton and has had decisive leads in three states today, but there is nothing decisive about an overall victory! We're going to have to wait probably until March at least for any decisiveness! Texas and Ohio, two of the "larger" states, get to have their say the first week in March, along with the half dozen of the "smaller" states with primaries and caucuses before March 4. I'm sure there are a lot of math people employed on all sides of the campaign and the media trying to figure out who needs what votes where. However, no one is telling me, that's for sure. I'm just as confused as I was 15 minutes ago when I started writing this post.

Well, I guess satisfaction and security must once again wait for another day (at least in terms of knowing Obama will be our next president).

For now I guess I'll celebrate the wins of today and look forward to having many more suspenseful moments to come in this election year!

Anticlimax anyone?

I'm too tired to write much tonight after being hyped up all day for the primary returns tonight just to be greeted with basically a tie between Clinton and Obama. It will be interesting to see where the rest of the delegates fall tomorrow when all the votes are in. In any case, both candidates seem to be willing to stay in the race after today, meaning people in the later primaries will get a chance to have a say in the nominee (which I guess is good). I would prefer it if Obama had a clear lead though. As a friend told me tonight, though, it is encouraging to see how far Obama came in the past month despite the expectations so if he keeps up this pattern, he can easily win the nomination over Clinton.

As this nomination process is far from over, I would like to point out two pet peeves with American voters.

1. Just because Hillary Clinton is a woman does not mean that all women must vote for her! Just because she is woman does NOT mean she will do what is best for all American woman or even the women abroad caught in the middle of military conflicts! Yes, I would like to see a woman elected. However, I REALLY do not want to see Clinton elected because I believe it will backfire on the chance of women getting elected in the future.

2. Hundreds of thousands of people voted for candidates in both parties who have already WITHDRAWN from the race! If John Edwards says he no longer wants to run for president, VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE! In New York, for example, Edwards, Richardson, and Kucinich each got 1% of the vote. I understand people want to show their support to these candidates in some way but I believe it would be more productive to channel that energy into voting for a second choice so that at least the third choice won't get elected! I know this could mean more votes for either Obama OR Clinton but I don't care! I think it is irresponsible (in terms of our civic duty) to vote for someone who has pulled out of a race instead of making considered judgments about who would be the next best person to represent the party. This does not apply to the general elections when people vote for third party candidates. Although it annoys me that sometimes third party votes means my favored candidate does not get elected, at least the third party candidates (such as the Green Party and Independent candidates) are still running for president!!!

Do those objections make sense to you? What do YOU think about the above issues?

In a more positive note, I loved my voting experience today! The polling place workers were really cheerful and encouraging. They were even joking with voters they knew about coming back to vote in November, saying things like "I'll have you a steak here when you come back in November!" It was a nice feeling to be part of such a friendly neighborhood.

One last (maybe) reason to vote for OBAMA tomorrow...

I have written before about my skepticism and dislike of political polls that can negatively affect the actual results, as seen with the New Hampshire Democratic 2008 primary. But after listening to Morning Edition today, I think I have a new appreciation for the fact that polls can report information instead of or in addition to speculation.

The poll that I want to point out for anyone out there who is still undivided about how to vote in tomorrow's primary (if you are one of the states with primaries tomorrow) deals with how Republican voters respond to Democrat candidates. The story is linked above for you. The results of one poll showed that out of Republican voters, Hillary Clinton has a 5% base and Barack Obama has 13% base. This is important for anyone who adamantly does not want another Republican in office. I'm sure these numbers are somewhat dependent on who is the Republican nominee. According to this story, I am not the only liberal out there who would rather vote for McCain if Clinton is the Democrat nominee... So I urge voters to look at these elections with a view towards the long term. We are not just picking who we think is the best speaker or who will "advance" women's rights (which some people think just electing a woman will do even if that woman is not the right person for president). Primaries are about picking the best candidate to run against the opposing side. We have no idea what can happen in the next few months but I think there is a lot to be learned from how people are feeling now.

So that's all I think I have to say before Super Tuesday but I may be back later.

I get to vote as an Illinois resident in less than 24 hours! Yay! This will also be my first election in an actual polling place since elections always happened while I was away in college!

Just a fluke...

I had big plans to write a post about the privilege of voting today in honor of New Hampshire but I didn't get to it. Then the results came in and I was not in the mood for doing anything, including finishing my laundry.

So, I'm sure some of you might be interested in my response to Hillary's victory in New Hampshire. I was pretty disappointed but not entirely surprised. Eva and I were watching a news story titled "The Obama Factor" on CBS last night and they probably spent 75% of the time talking about Hillary's boost in her NH campaign. Because she lost in Iowa, despite having been a favorite in this campaign for months, Hillary stepped up her campaigning and influenced a lot of people at the last minute. I'll probably include something about last minute campaigning tomorrow as well... Obama still did amazing in New Hampshire which I think the media has been kind of ignoring this evening. He only had 6000 fewer votes than Hillary which is not a lot in the scheme of the country. In addition, if NPR's cool interactive election map is correct, Obama and Hillary actually won the same number of delegates for the National Convention. In addition, only 22 delegates were at stack in NH while Iowa has 45 delegates. I'm not trying to completely discount Hillary's win since it is impressive that she received the most votes. The bottom line, however, is that Obama is still ahead in terms of number of delegates.

The other factor that I haven't really heard being considered is that after the next couple of small primaries, there will be more than one happening at a time and it will be impossible for the individual candidates to travel to the states in question and directly influence the voters as was done in Iowa and NH. The media will still be a source of "information" but I think a lot of Hillary's victory is due to some of her powerful speeches and press conferences in the last few days.

I started writing a lot more but then I realized I was segueing into the post I want to write tomorrow about voting in general. I guess we'll just treat this as a two-part post! I'd love to hear any comments any of you might have on this exciting election year so please feel free to post comments! Plus it makes me feel loved when people comment ;-)

So far I've found NPR the easiest site to navigate for primary and caucus results. I don't have cable so I can't watch all the live coverage on CNN etc. NPR has both stories and the raw numbers on their website so check out the link above. They have also designed the state by state results pages to have other major races such as governor, Congress, and Senate races when those happen.
The final word: Obama doesn't need to bounce back because he's doing a great job pushing ahead. One small loss won't necessarily mess up the whole nomination. I hope...