June 7th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
Well I thought I would pop over to Senator Clinton’s website today to see if anything has changed since she is suspending her campaign at her 12pm EST speech and the first screen that I was greeted to with was this:
Now I am not exactly sure why anyone would want to send Senator Clinton a message when the game is over but since I am not a Clinton supporter, I might not be seeing the whole picture. Once you skip past the splash screen, you reach the main page with a curious contribution button…
Does this mean that Senator Clinton is soliciting additional donations to make up for the almost $20 million dollars in debt? I think we can say with a reasonable certainty that this is true given that many Obama supporters would not want their contributions to go towards paying of Senator Clinton’s debt. Regardless of whatever happens to Senator Clinton’s debt, the point of today is to unite the Democratic Party to ensure a win in the general election. If you are like me, and wanted to know where to watch the speech wherever you are located, than go to the following websites or their respective television networks:
- CNN or any other major american network in the USA at 12pm EST
- RTE.ie if you are living in Ireland at 5pm GMT
- Sky News if in Ireland and anywere in the U.K at 5pm GMT
*Edit: Post Clinton Speech 132pm EST, Estimated Debt is between $20 - $30 million dollars (Donna Brazile).
** Edit: Post Clinton Speech 133pm EST, Suspension of Clintons campaign allows her to continue to accept contributions to alleviate campaign debt (CNN).
May 30th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
No, this is not some excerpt from the Highlander but rather a look at some of the comments and press surrounding the Rules and Bylaws committee meeting. Public tickets to observe the meeting have already been taken according to Stacie Paxton, a spokesman for the DNC. This is going to be good and bad for the party because whoever wins, one side is going to come out angry. I feel very sorry for the members of that committee at this moment, if they side with Senator Clinton and her “bus loads” of supporters then they risk alienating the youth, African-American and college educated voters. If they side with Senator Obama, than they risk losing Senator Clinton’s valuable base of white-working class voters, older people and Latinos. What’s that old saying again? “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” I am the worst person when it comes to remembering such colorful phrases but I am sure you can all think of something appropriate to say at this moment. I wanted to look at the impending meeting from a different perspective and look at some of the comments on the published articles online. The first article is by Christi Parsons of the Baltimore Sun entitled: Clinton camp: DNC lawyers ‘incorrect’.
Crat3 writes:
It seems that Obama and his supporters are lacking in principles.
It is a simple matter for Obama to agree to the fundamental bedrock American, democratic principle to count every vote and be done with the controversy.
Obama’s wanting to disenfranchise FL and MI voters who want their votes to count is no “change to believe.” That is more the modus operandi of Obama as a ruthless, slick, sly, devious Chicago politician.
Another commenter TL sums up what I have found out with regards to the voters of MI and FL (Not Everyone Voted):
I have lots of relatives in FL and quite a few did NOT go vote since they KNEW it didn’t count. By conting them at all, Clinton is DISENFRANCHISING all those that did not vote KNOWING it wouldn’t count……but this is no different then her DISENFRANCHISING 9 caucus states in her popular vote count or all those in MI in her popular vote that would of voted for Sen Obama…Her FAKE, popular vote count says NOONE in MI voted for Sen Obama LOL OK……..And she already disenfranchised all those Harlem voters….Remember the ones where not a single vote was cast for Sen Obama? in Harlem???? LOL….enough of this bogus crap. Sen Clinton is OVER and thank goodness….As a registered Independent I will be soooooooooo glad to say BYE BYE Clintons…..AND Sen Clinton you may want to start worrying about your Senate seat, I will be personally helping ANYONE that plans to run aginst YOU
Maya Ayazi writes:
Guys, your comments are proof that we need a woman in the White House. You sound like you’re playing slot machines at Las Vegas. What a headache. We’re not playing games here. We’re talking about people’s votes. Why aren’t you bashing the stupid idiots who made the candidates sign pledge cards in order to run for president. What do you call that? The difference between Hillary and the other candidates, is that she understands that you can’t deny people a vote. She never took her name off the ballot in either Florida or Michigan. Barack Obama, on the other hand, was interested in playing Bridge. That’s why he pulled his name off the ballot in Michigan, and tried to do the same thing in Florida without success. Let’s get it clear, Hillary is the person on the right side on this issue.
There were rebuttals to this argument but Senator Clinton is right that every vote should be counted but rules exist for a reason and it was Senator Clinton’s people who created them. Senator Clinton may be morally right but the primary process was never about the people, but who played the best game, clearly that has been Senator Obama. My prediction for tomorrow is that there is an even split of the remaining delegates of Florida and Michigan between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton.
May 25th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
According to the press, Senator Obama has started to look for a possible Vice-President, one of the top names that has been thrown around from the beginning of the Obama campaign is the current Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius. Kathleen Sebelius became the 44th Governor of Kansas in 2003 and was re-elected to a second term in 2006. She is fairly popular in Kansas and according to a SurveyUSA Poll released on April 24th, she has a 61% approval rating. That being said, many people criticize her overall impact for Obama campaign if she is chosen because she would not even be able to guarantee her home state in the general election. So who is the Governor and what can we expect if she is the VP? From the Office Of The Governor:
Kathleen Sebelius was born May 15, 1948 and was raised in a Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended the Summit Country Day School, a Roman Catholic secondary school, followed by Trinity Washington University, a Roman Catholic university in Washington, D.C., and later earned a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Kansas. She moved to Kansas in 1974 at the age of 26, where she served for eight years as a representative in the Kansas Legislature and eight years as Insurance Commissioner before being elected governor.
Governor Sebelius is married to husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge, for 33 years, they have two sons: Ned and John. Both Sebelius boys are products of the Topeka public school system, pre-kindergarten through high school. Ned is a law student, and John is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. At the heart of Governor Sebelius’ administration is a commitment to growing the Kansas economy and creating jobs; ensuring every Kansas child receives a quality education; protecting Kansas families and communities; improving access to quality, affordable health care; and taking advantage of the state’s renewable energy assets.
Governor Sebelius has not been with out her share of problems though as she recently vetoed three bills that would have allowed the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Western Kansas. Some critics cite these vetoes as detrimental to Kansas at the expense of the Governor improving herself on the national stage with the Democratic Party. I disagree with these critics because no matter how clean a Coal Power Plant professes to be, it is still damaging the environment. There are better alternative sources of energy out there which the governor fully intends to explore for the people of Kansas.
Beyond these minor issues, most Democrats see Sebelius as generally positive for Senator Obama even though according to Rasmussen Reports, she is only likely to increase Senator Obama’s chance of winning Kansas by 28% percent. Given that Kansas is a historically red state, I am willing to assume that as a VP; Sebelius would appeal to woman and older folk which is a segment of the population where Senator Obama does not have a strong base of support. This is all conjecture at this point but I think it would be reasonable to assume given that Senator Clinton could also appeal to the same segments and is more well known but given the last few months, she is not exactly on the short list.
Governor Sebelius would be a good choice beyond her being able to pull in some additional support for an Obama presidency because she agree’s with Senator Obama on most issues. The Kansas City Business Journal has a good write up on some the bills that she passed and vetoed for the states budget of 2009. Governor Sebelius and Senator Obama may see eye to eye but one of the biggest issues facing Americans as indicated by most polls is the economy which is not an area Senator Obama is short in, but maybe a potential VP would need to be strong in these areas? Do VP’s actually matter? Some people argue these points but I think it all comes down to the perception of the typical citizen. Other people argue that someone with national security experience is needed like former retired general Wesley Clarke or Senator Chuck Hagel.
These are all important factors to consider and they wll be explored in future posts of potential VP candidates for Senator Obama. Now a picture of the Governor from the State website:
May 23rd, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
They say money makes the world go around but I am not sure who is attributed to that comment however Publilius Syrus said in 100BC: “Money alone sets all the world in motion.” The same could also be said for the Democratic Nomination, supporters on both sides are still fighting it out however I mentioned earlier on this week, the nomination has pretty much gone to Senator Obama. Today I am going to use two predictive indices to prove this point (Data from the 23 May). The first is a prediction market run by InTrade.com where we can see Senator Obama running at a 92.5% probability of him winning the democratic nomination. These prediction trades are not scientific but InTrade boasts a membership of 73,000 active traders which is a lot of people giving the probability some credence as far as numbers go. Senator Clinton on the other hand has a 6.6% chance of winning the Democratic Nomination and if we we examine the InTrade data closely, we can see her decline started on the 30th of April, a week after the Pennsylvania primary.
The second set of graphs is from the better of the two operations and is run by Bet2Give where people contribute real money and give their winnings from trading to a selected charity. They have Senator Obama’s shares trading at 94 cents per share while Senator Clinton is trading at 5 cents a share.
Senator Obama Bet2Give Graph - May 23rd 2008
Senator Clinton Bet2Give Graph - May 23rd 2008
It is inevitable as the rain in Ireland, Senator Obama will be the nominee but I find it quite interesting that the Senator Clinton as a potential VP talk is back in the media. I think in part because the MSM (Mainstream Media) has been focusing on the difficulties Senator Obama would face going up against John McCain in the general election. They MSM ultimately have fallen into the pitfall of focusing on this election as tradtional like every other election for the last century but given Senator Obama’s campaign so far, we can say that is far from traditional.
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