The Phantom Campaign

The fragile House of Cards that was Hillary Clinton's campaign is really starting to crumble now.

I say was in such bright bold, red letters because in every aspect except the media desiring a dramatic narrative, or a civil war-inducing superdelegate coup, the Democratic race is over.

The reason her campaign is really crumbling now is because of the rash of, er, um...lies that are being uncovered lately about statements she has made, in some cases multiple times, in the past.

The obvious one is the Bosnia deal. I would think everyone would know by now, but with that overwhelming need for a narrative, this story is inexplicably getting swept under the rug. For the uninitiated, Hillary has told a story at least 4 times on record stating that back in 1996 in Bosnia, she was on a diplomatic trip, and had to land under sniper fire and "run to their vehicles for cover". She said the greeting ceremony that was supposed to be held on the runway was canceled, and they were all in mortal danger.

Problem is, that's utter bull. I could see this type of thing flying if there wasn't, say, video evidence to the contrary, which, in the YouTube age, is readily available to anyone who wants to see it. There were cameras everywhere, a CBS news team on the flight with Clinton as this all supposedly unfolded. There was a ceremony, there wasn't any sniper fire, and no one was in mortal danger.

Why she would choose to blatantly and utterly lie over something so insignificant and easily verifiable, I don't know. But the fact remains is that she did, and it is a glaring mark on her credibility.

There are other things that have come to light after the release of her schedules as well, such as, she never really seemed to play a major role in any initiative that had any legs, and actually was in favor of NAFTA, after blustering all over every manufacturing state in the country that she was against it and would try to reform it.

This would have been fine if she said something like, 'times have changed, it needs a re-do', but no, opposed from the start, even though there's really no point in staking such a claim. Pattern?

There is a great story at the link below about an initiative called 'SCHIP', that dealt with healthcare for children, that apparently was opposed by the Clinton White House, which Hillary now takes credit for on the trail. Full credit to Boston.com for the story.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/14/clinton_role_in_health_program_disputed/

All of the problems with her credibility in the past, coupled with this information, as well as Barack Obama's dominant and impossible-to-overcome delegate and popular vote lead, polls showing she will be stomped in states Obama would not, and a shortfall of cash, Hillary Clinton is simply running on fumes.

And the two entities that can stop this phantom campaign are two I mentioned up at the top of this piece.

First, the media needs to stop pretending Hillary Clinton isn't the Mike Huckabee of the left. Period. An interesting story of the battle between Hillary and Obama isn't worth ripping the Democrats in two and handing John McCain a huge advantage in the fall. Or maybe, for their owners, and their interests, it is. Not the time to go into corporate media controls here, but it is a valid argument, and McCain has been getting an easier rub from the media than either of the Democrats.

Second, the superdelegates and elders of the Democratic Party, the Al Gores, John Edwards-type figures really need to step up and call this race now, and make it clear the coup-by-delegate strategy isn't going to fly come Denver. Bill Richardson took the first step of this tier when he came out for Obama last weekend, being called a Judas in the process. It took guts to go against the Clintons, but it showed the rest of the superdelegates and everyone else involved in the process that it can, and should be done, and done quickly, before the damage she has already done becomes irrevocable.

Media Bias and Double Standards

I've noticed some things happening in the last few weeks that are a little bit off. There have been gaffes and very evident truths that the media seems unwilling to report on fully, or even at all.

In regards to gaffes, I'm speaking of course about John McCain, who said not once, not twice, not even three times, but FOUR TIMES that al-Qaeda is being brought into Iran to train up and then being shipped back to Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis.

There are a few minor problems with this statement, especially because McCain is positioning himself as the be-all and end-all candidate on foreign policy and national security credentials. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding about not only the Iraq problem, but in a larger sense, the entire cultural divide between Western and Islamic societies and countries.

The two different branches of Islam, Sunni (al-Qaeda) and Shia (Iran) see each other as heretics, almost on a level with the US, and hate each other just as much, or maybe even a little more, than the invader.

So to say that Sunni Muslim extremists are going into a Shia-dominant country to train is beyond ridiculous. How can McCain make such an error, especially after multiple corrections by his good buddy Joe Lieberman and his own staff? McCain made the mistake once in an interview before leaving for Iraq and was corrected. He then said it again while making a speech in Iraq, and was then corrected (embarrassingly) right in the middle of everything by Lieberman. He apologized right away and said he had misspoke. But then over the next two days he said the same words again, that al-Qaeda was going into Iran to train and it was a threat to US security.

I am a 24 year old Canadian with a bit of college under by belt, no military or government experience, and I know this full well. I was shocked listening to his speech to hear it, and to think that I had a better understanding than one of the Presidential candidates on international relations. Wow....certainly doesn't inspire too much confidence in the man's game, now does it?

When McCain doesn't understand (or even take the time to listen to) the simplest of cultural divides and the delicacy in which they must be handled, he's showing full-out that he's not the most experienced candidate, or the most well positioned to help America rebuild its image around the world. Never mind everything he has said about 'not understanding' the economy, or the fact that his entire campaign is being infused with money and run by corporations and lobbyists.

John McCain simply doesn't get it.

I feel like we've already been introduced to a war-mongering, poll-ignoring moron....Oh, right...

Third Bush term? Sure sounds like it....

Can anyone imagine if Obama or even Clinton were to drop such a line even once? Jeez, probably couldn't turn the dial without hearing a nut job like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity blitzing them for a lack of understanding about foreign policy and general incompetence.

Where are these calls for McCain...?

I think I hear crickets........

The Very Definition of Hypocrisy

Hillary Clinton has been floating the idea of the Dream Ticket, with her and Barack Obama jointly going against John McCain in the fall, ever since she scored wins in Ohio, Rhode Island and the Texas primary last Tuesday.

And yet, at the same time, she derides him for not being prepared to be President.

The VP slot is for someone who can take the reigns of power at a moment’s notice and make quick decisions and take action if necessary. If a sitting President was, for whatever reason, removed from that seat, it would certainly be some form of a crisis situation, something to an extreme that even an elected sitting President may not have to deal with.

So she thinks Obama would be fit for that type of circumstance, but not fit to be electable to the seat itself.

This is nothing more than Hillary Clinton trying to position herself in the media as the person best suited to be the nominee, even though, as of today, over 600,000 more people, representing 150 more delegates have said they prefer Barack Obama.

It is an arrogant and conceited position to take, basically saying this would be the option she is going to push for come the convention, when she will attempt to get the party elders to nullify everything that has happened up to this point.

I hope the media and the voters can wake up to the fact that Hillary Clinton is very much like Mike Huckabee for the Democrats, as she is all but mathematically eliminated from this race, but blindly soldiers on, despite everything staring her in the face that she has already lost.

Someone in the form of a Bill Richardson, or a Nancy Pelosi, or even maybe Al Gore, needs to step in and call this thing for Obama, and eliminate the idea that Hillary has a viable shot at this nomination without using a backroom pressure deal to get it done.

We'll probably see this thing at least go on to Pennsylvania, where maybe Barack can put this all to bed without having to get messy at the convention, but I have a bad feeling Hillary is going to go so negative between now and then that Obama will have more than a few chinks in the armor once he gets to actually take on John McCain in November. When Clinton is going around saying her and McCain have the experience to do the job and Obama doesn't, that damages him much more than if McCain simply says it, and it gives the old man plenty of fodder to sling at the young reformer come the general election.

I don't know if the rumors being thrown around about Hillary sabotaging Obama so she can take another swing at the Oval Office against McCain in 2012 are true, but I sure hope they're not, because that is a horrible thing to doom hundreds of millions of people to just to be able to serve your own ego and ambition.

A Logical Plea for, well...Logic

Hillary Clinton is on a path that could lead to the Democrats actually losing what should be the easiest election they have ever fought. They are running against 7 years of disaster, and yet, can't seem to get this train rolling to knock everything back into line.

And that's because Hillary Clinton has tied the train to a post at the station, stubbornly refusing to believe the gigantic set of flashing lights in front of her, showing the impossible delegate count she must overcome.

She is looking over to that smokey room, that one at the Democratic convention, where she hopes to drag her and Barack Obama all the way to, bloodied and ready for the Republican pickings, just so she can try to score a backroom deal with party leaders, subvert a drawn out and, what's the word...ahem, democratic (!) process to choose the party leader and likely next President of the United States.

Unless Hillary Clinton can score margins of victory of about 23% over every single caucus and primary left, she has no shot of catching Barack Obama's delegate total. Especially after he won Wyoming today. It was only a two delegate gain, but its one more state out of play to gain on him, and another he has the distinction of saying he's won so far.

Let's be honest here, if Hillary Clinton really gave a damn about the Democratic Party or her country, she would gracefully step back and accept what is staring her straight in the face. Unless she causes a fissure in the Democratic Party by somehow squeezing her way into the nomination chair, she is doing nothing but giving John McCain fodder and hurting Obama’s chances in every state they are campaigning in from now until she does drop out of the race.

It's not just for the sake of the democratic process. This is important, but there are other things at stake, even if we want to throw a year and a half of campaigning out the window for a few hours of Clinton intimidation in the convention rooms in Denver.

Barack Obama is simply more electable than Hillary Clinton, especially in areas Democrats haven't been popular in for decades, sometimes even, well, ever. The states he have won have generally been Republican strongholds, and Hillary has racked the big states, like Ohio, the Texas primary (but not caucus), California and New York, but lets be honest, states like the latter two, are not going to suddenly turn red because Barack Obama is the nominee. They were both very narrow losses, and both would be more than expected to continue their blue ways for some time to come. Same goes for the entire northeast. But there are places that Obama is making breakthroughs in, that Hillary Clinton has no chance in doing.

I was reading an interesting piece over at Daily Kos earlier today, and I want to give them all the credit in the world for the statistics below, as they came directly from the piece, I just wanted to share them here. Please visit the original as well, as Daily Kos is a fantastic website for politics, and you can find the link to it over on the right side.

These stats deal in hypothetical polls of an Obama-McCain match up and a Clinton-McCain match up.

Idaho, it's the difference between overcoming a 13-point Obama deficit and a 36-point Clinton deficit.

In Colorado, it's the difference between overcoming a 6-point Clinton loss, and riding a 9-point Obama victory.

In Alaska, it's the difference between overcoming a 5-point Obama loss, and a 22-point Clinton loss.

In Nebraska, it's the difference between a 3-point Obama loss, and a 27-point Clinton loss.

In New Hampshire, it's the difference between an 8-point Clinton loss and 2-point Obama victory.

In Oregon it's the difference between a 5-point Clinton loss, and an 8-point Obama victory.

In Texas it's the difference between a seven-point Clinton loss, and a 1-point Obama loss.

In Wyoming, it's the difference between a 33-point Clinton loss and a 19-point Obama loss, and same thing in Montana, it's the difference between a 20-point Clinton loss and an 8-point Obama loss.

These are extremely important statistics, as it shows Obama does have national, 50 state appeal, and Hillary Clinton is as polarizing and unpopular with Independents and Republicans as was predicted before this campaign started. It also shows that Obama is on a quick path to whooping John McCain come November, with his millions of new voters, excitement and hope on his side, and McCain with nothing more than a bill for an endless Iraq war, and no idea in hell of how to stop us from slipping into a 30s era depression.

Hillary Clinton has labeled Obama's victories in the states he has won as basically completely unimportant, as he did not carry any large states outside of Illinois, his home state. As I said above, Obama would carry the large states without a doubt, and may lose so-called swing states like Ohio, and possibly Texas, but where he makes in-roads will more than off-set those losses, and I think after this election, there won't be, as Barack has said on many an occasion, red states or blue states, but just united states.

But just look at those numbers...Obama is down by 1% in Texas...TEXAS! A black Democrat is well within the statistical margin of error, with a real chance of carrying Texas.........TEXAS...unbelievable.

All conventional wisdom goes out the window this cycle. There are no more strongholds for Republicans if Obama is the nominee, but they become even stronger if Clinton is.

Obama has a chance of running an actual 50 state campaign and giving the Democratic Party the infrastructure, ground game, and credibility to compete in these states for years to come. Should we really give up such a chance of a generation, even a lifetime, simply to fulfill Hillary Clinton's ego driven march towards a nomination that is already realistically filled by another?

People must force Hillary Clinton to halt her damaging and spiteful campaign against Barack Obama, because clearly she doesn't have the shame, or sensibility, to do so herself.

False Hopes, False Promises, and Distorted Numbers

There is much false hope and bravado being thrown around right now in the Democratic race. After last night, where Hillary Clinton scored big comeback victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and the Texas primary (although they are still counting the caucus votes, which account for 1/3 of the delegate total for the state, so counting Hillary as the 'Winner of Texas' might be a bit premature...CNN!). Barack Obama carried the smaller Vermont, leaving him not completely outpaced on the night.

Now the false hope I spoke of is coming directly from Clinton and her crack team of advisers, calling this the victory to end all victories and saying basically that we might as well call the election now, because Hillary managed to score 2 1/2 primaries after Obama rolled up 12 in a row.

The reality of the situation is that Clinton, last night, didn't resurrect her campaign, she merely got a stay of execution. Obama is still ahead by roughly the same amount of delegates as before the day began, and after the Texas caucuses are actually finished counting their ballots...28 hours and going now, argh...he may even come out with a net gain in delegates.

At best, Hillary only picked up ground by no more than a dozen. And when the one leading the way is up by about 150...that's just not math that's going to work in your favor. Especially when these two states, Ohio and Texas, held the biggest chunk of delegates for the rest of the string.

Clinton will need to pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of 65% - 70% of every single contest left, and then she make squeak out a narrow delegate victory, but unless we find out Obama has a coke and hooker fetish, that in no way is going to happen, even in the rosiest of circumstances.

What the political heads are talking about now is Hillary going for a momentum type victory at the convention and getting the superdelegates to overturn the will of the primary and caucus voters and make her the nominee because, I guess, they know better than a plurality of the general public...? I can't even begin to imagine the cries of subversion of democracy if that were to happen.

So basically, it comes down to this. Hillary in no way can become the Democratic nominee unless the will of the people is suppressed for a candidate that has more connections within the Democratic Party than the other one on the ballot. this can't happen, and the heavyweights of the Democratic Party hopefully recognize this as well, because it will lead to nothing more than a divided party, and a disenfranchised electorate, who will feel, rightly, that the last year and half we have spent on this marathon, rollercoaster of a campaign will be for absolutely nothing.

Powerful members of the Democratic Party, such as Bill Richardson, have said whoever is ahead in the delegate count come the convention should be the nominee, because it was the will of the voters of their party. Obama is also rumored to have more than 50 superdelegates he is waiting to unveil at the right time, although the results yesterday may temper that a bit, if not for more than a week or two.

I think this campaign is really set to get dirty now, as Obama has come out swinging today, questioning why Clinton has not disclosed her tax returns, as he has, questioning what she has to hide. I think he is set to go on the offensive like he has not done this campaign, and I think it is time to do so. I don't like that this campaign is going into the gutter, but honestly, Hillary Clinton took this thing there in the first place, and he needs to sling some mud back at her.

Obama took a beating going into Ohio and Texas, and it cost him big time. It cost him the chance to wrap this thing up once and for all. It won't happen again. Obama has shown the ability to grow, change, toughen and adapt during this campaign, at an amazing rate, and I expect him to do so now as well. This race is only still on because Hillary Clinton thinks she can pull off a miracle and grab more than 2/3 of the vote the rest of the way. Well, all I have to say about that, is that Mike Huckabee thought the same thing...

There is one more thing, a growing controversy about the Clinton campaign darkening Obama's skin and widening his nose in a recent television ad. There is blatant proof, that I will post up here shortly, and its work that could not have been done accidentally, or relatively quickly. It would have been a concerted effort, by the Clinton campaign, as it was an official ad, to make Obama appear 'blacker' to the American public. That, my friends, is not change, that's Karl Rove style bullshit.

John McCain Wins GOP Presidential Nomination

John McCain has secured the Republican nomination for President, officially.

He reached the magic number of 1191 today, mainly via the Republican delegates in Texas. They propelled him over the top and into the seat, knocking Mike Huckabee, possibly the most lovable Republican ever, out of the race.

I'll take this opportunity to congratulate McCain as well, as he has overcome tremendous odds to get to where he is today. Even six months ago, he was broke, running fourth and fifth in the polls, and on his last legs. Until he opted into the matching funds campaign that he is now violating, blatantly, and was able to secure a loan with it as collateral and get himself back into it. He's turned his back on his principles and his stances to get to where he is as well, as most of the positions he took during his time in the Senate have been reversed in the last 2 years or so.

Most notably, Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy. Voted against it twice, said he couldn't in good conscience vote for something that harmed the middle class so much. Now supports these cuts as a permanent part of the Tax Code.

He has ties to lobbyists, not just monetarily either, who basically run his campaign nowadays, he has violated the campaign finance law that he was a CO-SPONSOR for, the controversial acceptance of the endorsement of John Hagee, certified nutjob and hater of the Catholic Church. He has had numerous scandals just in the last few months, leaving aside things like the Keating 5 (Look it up, insider trading, five Senators involved, everyone went down but McCain).

McCain is going to be a tough candidate in a national election, as he is a street fighter, but I really think with everything he supports, plus the big elephant in the room I didn't even mention, the Iraq War, he is going to go down in flames this November, and whomever wins the Democratic nomination after what looks like a protracted fight, will be able to coast to the White House.

He is traveling to Washington tomorrow to get the blessing of George W. Bush at the White House, have some pictures taken and a nice press conference. Apparently it slips past the logic of McCain and his organizers that Bush has an approval rating hovering around 20% right now, so he might not be the man you want shaking your hand, agreeing with your policies and giving you his blessing to continue on with his legacy. But hey, a sitting President is a sitting President right, no matter that 80% of the country thinks he’s doing a terrible job.
I'm going to do another post on the Democratic races tonight, which are as tight as can be, but for now, John McCain gets his moment in the sun, before he is eclipsed by the tidal wave of crap gathering behind him.