CommenTerry

From a Trickle to an Avalanche

That giant sucking sound you will soon be hearing will not have anything to do with NAFTA. And no, Ross Perot, it will have nothing to do with American jobs heading to Mexico. Actually, it will be the sound of super delegates being pulled (as if by some astronomical suction process) toward Barack Obama, some of them out of Hillary Clinton's own pocket. Since Obama's big victory in North Carolina and narrow loss in Indiana, super delegates have been trickling his way. And it won't be long before that trickle turns into an avalanche.

Clinton seems to believe that her expected big win Tuesday in West Virginia will reverse this trend, or at least stem the flow. However, it could have the opposite effect. Some super delegates, worried that it might muddle and prolong the nomination battle even more, might feel the need to rush to Obama's rescue and end this thing as soon as possible. Poor Hillary Clinton. At this point she just can't win. But don't feel sorry for her. When she had her chance, she blew it.

It's Almost Over for Hillary

As of this writing, Hillary Clinton was holding on to a very tenuous lead in Indiana, with the votes in Lake County (expected to be friendly to Barack Obama) having yet to come in. But even if she holds on and squeaks out a narrow victory in the Hoosier State, her presidential campaign is almost over. The thumping she took in North Carolina means that, no matter what the outcome in Indiana, she will have lost ground to Obama in both pledged delegates and popular votes as a result of Tuesday's primaries. That was something she could not afford at this point. Now it is all but impossible for her make up her deficit in delegates, even if those from Florida and Michigan are seated at the convention.

Her only chance now is to convince the super delegates to throw the nomination to her. However, this is not going to happen. She will use the electability argument, but to no avail. There is no way the super delegates are going to disregard Obama's superior numbers in pledged delegates and popular votes just because Hillary is doing slightly better than he against John McCain in some current hypothetical polls. Hillary will fight on until the primaries are over on June 3, but her realistic chances of capturing the nomination have already come to an end.

Outlook for North Carolina and Indiana

Today's primaries could be a turning point in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. If Barack Obama wins both, the race will likely be all but over. If he and Hillary Clinton split them, the race will probably go on until the primaries are over on June 3, with Obama the eventual winner after trading a few more wins with Clinton. If Clinton wins both, her late momentum will continue, with a realistic chance that she could run the table on the remainder of the contests. If this is the ultimately case, she could convince the super delegates to side with her and hand her the nomination, despite her deficit in the race for pledged delegates -- which she would be unlikely to make up under any circumstances.

Sometimes, All the Facts Aren't Necessary

I have read some complaints about the fact that I didn't provide any details about the USA Patriot Act in my column, "Don't Trade Rights for Security." First, I am not journalist or a news reporter. My function is not to report the facts, but rather to comment on them as I see them. There are plenty of news sources that provide the details of this law. Second, and more importantly, the specific rights that are taken away by this legislation are not nearly as important as the fact that rights are being taken away. That sets a dangerous precedent.

Are Guns Good or Bad?

The only logical answer to the title question is no.  Of course, you wouldn't know that from listening to the extremists on both sides of the gun debate. The pro-gun fanatics sing the praises of guns as if they are godsends. Some even say (and might actually believe) that guns save lives. If you believe that "guns don't kill people, people do," then why the inconsistent belief that guns can save people?

Then we have those members of the anti-gun lobby who have their heads so far up their backsides that they wouldn't know if it's night or day at any given moment. If someone were to shoot me to death, he would get more time in prison than if he stabbed me to death. For what logical reason? I would be just as dead either way. But the laws are like that because lawmakers allow themselves to be brainwashed and bullied by the rabid anti-gun crusaders. The plain truth is that guns are inanimate objects; they are neither good nor evil, capable of neither saving nor taking lives on their own. I think it's high time that someone interjected a little common sense into this debate.

Tax Cuts for the Rich?

I get tired of hearing people whine about George W. Bush's tax cuts being for the rich. Yes, the rich probably got the most benefit from them, but that's because they pay the most in taxes. That only makes sense to me. Actually, I wouldn't care if the rich got a 100% cut in taxes as long as I got a nice share of the cuts myself. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I received a nice dividend from that round of tax cuts. In fact, everyone who pays taxes got a cut, as Bush cut every tax rate. That's the way tax cuts are supposed to be done. So, I hope Bush's tax cuts will soon become permanent.

They definitely beat Bill Clinton's targeted tax cuts, which never found a way to target me. That's because, instead of cutting the tax rates like Bush did, he offered cuts based on how people spend their money, which isn't any of the government's business anyway. If you spent your money in Clinton's prescibed manner, you got a tax cut. If you didn't spend your money that way, you got no cut. Funny thing though, his tax increases managed to hit everyone. Go figure!

Don't It Make My Red States Blue

There are at least two indicators that the Democratic nominee will win the presidency this fall. The first is the fact many more people have participated in the Democratic primaries and caucuses than in the corresponding nominating contests conducted by the Republicans. There just seems to be more enthusiasm for the Democrats this time. The second is the poll released last week in which Americans indicated that they are worse off now than they were eight years ago. That kind of sentiment is almost always an omen of a change of parties at the White House.

Of course, this will mean that several previously red states will turn blue this fall. Florida and Ohio, both of which voted Republican in the last two presidential elections, will likely go for the Democratic nominee this time around. If just one of them switches, the Democrats would win the White House, assuming all the other states vote as they did four years ago. Also, consistent GOP-voting states like Virginia and North Carolina might fall to the Democrats in November.

Why Are Some People Apolitical?

I believe there are two main reasons why some people are apolitical. One is that they may feel disaffected. They just don't feel that politicians ever address their concerns and/or that they don't ever keep their promises anyway. For others, their lack of interest in politics is just a part of their overall disinterest in anything larger than themselves -- they are so caught up in their own little worlds that they are not curious about the world around them.

Why Tim Kaine Won’t Be a Vice-Presidential Candidate

There has been much speculation lately about the possibility of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine being the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. He has been a strong supporter of Barack Obama. Therefore many pundits feel that Obama, should he win the Democratic presidential nomination, might select Kaine as the number two man on the ticket. To those who think this is possible, I say: Forget about it – it’s not going to happen.

How can I be so sure? Well, there’s one little problem that’s going to keep Kaine off the Democratic national ticket. His name is Bill Bolling. Bolling is Virginia’s lieutenant governor – and he is a Republican. Should Kaine be selected to run for vice president and win, Bolling would become Virginia’s governor. Both major parties are reluctant to turn governorships over to the other party. No party’s national organization wants to be blamed by any of its state organizations for handing over that state’s governor’s mansion to the other party. Therefore, while Kaine might be a tantalizing source of vice-presidential speculation, he will not ultimately be selected.

Clinton's Michigan and Florida Hypocrisy

Suppose that the Dallas Cowboys play the Houston Texans in an exhibition game next August and the Texans win. Then suppose that the Texans subsequently appeal to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to have the game counted in the regular season standings. How fair would that be? Of course, it wouldn’t be fair at all as the Cowboys would rightly argue that, had they known the game was going to count, they would have put more resources into it and tried a lot harder to win it.

As we all should know, it’s not fair to change the rules after the fact, but that’s exactly what Hillary Clinton is arguing to have done. It’s no different than what the Houston Texans would be arguing for in my supposition above. Last August, the Democratic National Committee decided to strip Michigan and Florida of all of their convention delegates because they scheduled their primaries before February 5 (a date that only Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina were allowed to precede). That reduced Michigan’s and Florida’s primaries to mere beauty contests (that’s what exhibition games in politics are called). 

When that decision was made, every contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, including Clinton, agreed to it. Not one word of dissent was heard from any of them. Clinton (or any of the rest of them) could very easily have stood up at that time and argued that it wasn’t right to deny those two states a voice in the nominating process – but none of them did. Now that she has won both of those primaries, she is arguing that they should count and that delegates from those states should be seated at the convention, based on the results of those primaries. Barack Obama, on the other hand, rightly argues that, had he known their primaries were going to count, he would have campaigned and run radio and TV ads in both of those states. As it turned out, he did none of that and didn’t even have his name on the ballot in Michigan.   

But why did Clinton wait until the last month or so to start arguing the unfairness of not giving these states a voice in the nominating process when we never heard a peep out of her last August? I think it was because, last August, she didn’t believe those states were going to matter. She believed that she was going to steamroll to the nomination in such a way that not counting those states would be totally inconsequential to the nominating process. So, at that time, she didn’t feel that it was worth rocking the boat to speak up. Why, in her mind, should she risk ruffling the feathers of the Democratic National Committee, when she could just sit back and cruise to the nomination? That’s what she thought. But, like I’ve often been told, that‘s what you get for thinking.

Once she realized that the race for Democratic presidential nomination was developing into a neck-and-neck contest between herself and Obama, she quickly got religion and began to see the unfairness of stripping Michigan and Florida of their delegates. Actually, of course, she began to realize that she had no chance of winning the nomination without them – thus the conversion. However, it’s too late the change the rules now. The best she can hope for now is the so-called “do-over” of Michigan's primary. Even that would constitute a change in the rules. Florida's Democratic Party has recently ruled out such a scenario there.