Get Down On It!

and there you go. Obama 55% and Hillary at 27% in South Carolina. no more insight than what i gave before. it was going his way...nuf said. the win for hillary comes from whatever she can pull out of Super - Duper Tuesday. otherwise, Welcome, President Obama.

in a side note i'll elaborate on later...I'm glad for the chance to get ALL OF THIS out of the hands of the babyboomers. the first generation to be so self entitled from craddle to grave also gives us a lot of the societal strife we've had to fight through. i'm tired of wading through your waters. thanks for getting us here, but i'm glad to get loose of your baggage.

last political gasp

Seems Obama is carrying SC. i like him better and better. this has been a BIG load off my mind. can't wait to get all this primary stuff behind us.

Let's Get This Outta the Way

I have a MEGA soft spot in my heart for Memphis. a friend of mine from HS went to U of Memphis for basketball, and i've followed them ever since. right now they are Number 1 and are playing like EXACTLY what any fan would want to see. unselfish. tough. great!

THAT BEING SAID,

Tulane is doing ok this year, beating multiple SEC teams for the first time since the 1940s(!) so i will take what i can get. MSU started out not so hot, but "HOLY MAROON AND WHITE!!"* they just beat those jerks at Ole Miss by TWENTY POINTS!! ...they are 5-0 in conference play too. best recored in the SEC. holey jamoley, creezus meezus! what goes on here!?!

either way, i like it!

*used with permission.

Can We Give this Woman A Prize?

Seriously, i feel the same about Notre Dame.

Quick Update: Glass Half Full or Empty Edition

You may recall below that I predicted Obama to carry Nevada. Well, he didn't...and he did.

see, the delegates for each caucus site was predetermined, soooo...that means if the turnout was really high or low in a particular spot, it didn't matter because the winner took the delegates assigned, regardless of the number of caucus goes there.

What this means is that Obama DID win the state, in that he got the most Delegates out of Nevada, committed to vote for him in the grand total, state by state. However, the problem here is that Hillary got more PEOPLE to vote for her. their vote just didn't count as much, it seems. What really determines the winners here is just who gets the best press out of Nevada. So far, i cannot tell. maybe it is even.

Update, Hot Off the Press!!

I just read this a minute ago:

Despite second- and third-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, John Edwards might have a shot at winning the Nevada caucus. The first Nevada poll to come out in a month suggests Edwards is still a force in the Democratic race, pulling in 27 percent of the support, essentially in a statistical tie with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

So, add that to what i said below about Nevada. Interesting. he DOES have a lot of (various) union support. maybe this is materializing into something new?? i like this guy, partly because his politics and policy read like someone that isn't looking to play it safe for a re-election down the road.

OK, Let's Run Through This

Time to update.

before Iowa the press was losing their minds over the Obama/Hillary Race. the thing was, it WASN'T an Obama/Hillary race, but they don't care. Edwards? who's he? they like the idea of the first legit female candidate and first legit black candidate (legit=has a chance. no offense, those who came before). They weren't interested in anything else and this emphasis made Iowa out to be THE (first and) FINAL word on the election. well, you can't get everything you want. the breakdown wasn't too far off as predicted. Now it IS a big deal that Hillary got 3rd after being up for so long, but those old high poll numbers were bogus. just like any other numbers that come out WAY ahead of time--they're based on name ID and are relatively meaningless. Obama had momentum and a machine working for him. Edwards had a good machine too. Hillary had a smaller machine made of the leftover parts and BARELY got third.

Now that breakdown was roughly 1/3 of the vote to each candidate, but you would have thought Obama got 75%! we roll into NH and the press is losing it. Hillary was blown out...but she wasn't the split was 1/3 each, but to hear the headlines, you would have thought she had been shot dead on election night. NH comes. a place where Edwards has minimal presence. a place where Hillary has a geographic advantage over Obama, and WHAT!?!?!?!...Obama gets 2nd place!?! this time the vote percentage breaks in the 30s for Hillary AND Obama, but Hillary loses.

the press flips out.

They had polls that showed Obama ahead. what goes on here!?!?! never mind that most barely squeaked by the margin of error. didn't you hear that Hillary was found dead in Iowa!?! it was a comeback only in the eyes of the press who created the imaginary gulf between her and Obama in the first place. sadly for Edwards, it IS a 2 person race now, as he doesn't have the money to keep going in a fashion that will survive South Carolina and Nevada and the press aren't doing any favors. Policy-wise, he's the one real 'change' candidate, if anything, because he's not an elected official now and doesn't have to worry about pissing off anyone. he can lay it all out as he likes.

RIP John Edwards.

So now hillary has the momentum again! she's surging! her numbers are growing (wow, outside of the margin of error even in some places!)...she's AHEAD! not so fast. even though Obama got 2nd place, as i counted it, he actually left with the SAME NUMBER OF DELEGATES as Hillary coming out of NH! did you know that? either way, both candidates have the money to survive the next 2 states: Nevada and South Carolina.

Nevada.
Another caucus state. I give this to Obama. This state isn't used to Caucusing for presidents. usually the thing is decided by the time they get to Nevada. Obama gets some organization muscle from the Culinary Workers Union (read massive casino worker/white/latino influence) which, not only is huge, but they are allowing caucusing to occur at some of the resort job sites. add that onto the organization he already has and he's formidable. How formidable? more muscle than the NEA (teachers) Union seem to be offering hillary. also enough to make some people SUE to stop the caucusing at resort locations...a few of these plaintiffs actually being from the board that approved the caucus location rules (voting 'yay')! now why that sort of hardball action? because it is that close (nationally) and they can't spare a single vote. they are playing the margins because they don't have a knockout here for Hillary. I say Obama wins it. anyone giving you a spread here is guessing....and i'm not even going to hazard a guess.

South Carolina.
As you may have heard, 1/2 of the voters in the SC Democratic primary are black. perhaps more than half that number are women, SOOO....the question is, how will the black women break? I'm interested in their opposite number too. how do white democratic men break? in the beginning, Hillary had a great deal of support from establishment, black community leaders. these sorts of folks have been uneven against Obama in the past and they SURE seem awfully quiet about their support now compared to 4-5 months ago. maybe i should elaborate more, but i just don't see it for Hillary here either. Obama in SC.

if this happens, expect the press to have a meltdown. i may need to amend all this if trends change, but as of now, this is how i see it. More on the 'tears' episode for Hillary, which i find VERY interesting, in just a little bit. oh, i should add this. I've personally shifted my support to Obama. Now i don't plan to attack either one, but i will give you my take on the race as it goes by. i just figured i would fess up to how i felt.

Now, you wanna know why? with Obama, you get bigger/better coattails for other down ticket races that are out there. if it was the other way around (feel free to convince me), i'd support Hillary. it comes down to not much more than that...well, a little more, but i'll share that later.

Not Too Far Off

I'm usually terrible at getting election breakdowns, but i wasn't too far off this time. the real question is how hard the press try to throw Hillary overboard now. With just about 5 days until the New Hampshire primary, i'm unclear how much of a boost or how much damage can be done in such a short matter of time.

For the GOP, the question is where Huckabee falls after the NH primary doesn't work in his favor and how much can McCain pull up there. he's the only scary one in the GOP field.

Iowa Caucus Results

OK, here are my predictions. I'm not in Iowa. i have no contacts in Iowa. I don't pretend this is any more than my hunch.

Edwards and Obama end up on top. maybe 2-3 points separating them. i give it to edwards due to the difficulty of the caucusing process and the fact that he has a lot of old pros working the rooms for him. Obama has more steam, but the process here is different than simply voting today at some point when you get free. it may hurt him. Hillary gets 3rd. the question is how bad. she isn't a paper tiger, but may be a balsa wood tiger.

Word on the street: Richardson is directing his people to cast 2nd choice votes for Obama. Kucinich is telling his people to give votes to Edwards.

Caucus goers that support candidates with less than 15% of the total in their particular sight have the option of leaving or casting their votes elsewhere, for another candidate. Richardson is directing his people to cast 2nd choice votes for Obama. Kucinich is telling his people to give votes to Edwards. Edwards has people that are experienced at doing this. Obama's 20 year old college supporter hasn't ever done this...but there's a lot of people like her.

Man Troubles

If you are a supporter of Hillary Clinton as your first choice for President, you should read this article. I've always liked Hillary, and felt that she spent a decade or so being the punching bag of choice for Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. I always felt it was unfortunate and unfair. None-the-less, she's fallen into this roll. Often she's the target of irrational hatred. I've rarely seen someone so hated by people that cannot articulate an explanation of their hatred ("I just don't like her" isn't a reason, by-the-way). She has the experience to be President and (despite what she claims) it is little different than what Barrack Obama possesses. She claims the difference is that she's got the experience to handle the big bad Republicans, and she knows how to come out on top.

Her problem is that this is a bit of a rosy view of her history of fighting Republicans. Her history is less fighting them and more of being a lightening rod for their attack. being able to take a punch is different than connecting punches yourself (note i said CONNECTING, not throwing punches). While she may not deserve the grief she gets, it has forever made her a polarizing figure. High DIS-approval ratings don't make for big time victories. More to the point, the prevent coattails that can create a true mandate in the House and Senate (more on that in a the next post). Consider this, from the article above:

A lot of men don't like Hillary. A lot of men say they don't want to vote for Hillary--even Democratic men. The new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll, released Dec. 28, shows that only 19 percent of Democratic men favor Clinton in upcoming caucuses and primaries - less than one in five.

These are DEMOCRATS. This is why EVERY conservative commentator has spent at least a year talking up Hillary as unbeatable. they know she's the most beatable and that's exactly who they want to face. it is their best (only?) hope of winning this thing. The mock fearfulness they have is akin to Br'er Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the briar patch. It is exactly what they want. The viability of any Democrat polling at 19% among Democratic men should be seriously called into question.