Primary (And Secondary) Confusion - Part 8
This Was Supposed to Be Over
Hillary Clinton won Texas and Ohio. Great. I'm not irked just because I voted for Obama. As you'll recall, I wept when he quit. Not in a pathetic way. More sort of a, "Shane! Come back!" kind of way. *Ahem* Anyway, what's bothering me is that this was supposed to be over. Done, finito, no more in fighting, let's start beating up the Republican and give him a good thrashing come November sort of thing. But now it will be at least a month before Hillary Clinton realizes she's not going to win this.
There have been reports recently that a number of superdelegates have stated they will abandon Clinton in favor of Obama. In order to take the lead in pledged delegates, Clinton will have to win the remaining states by double digit margins. And none of this 55%-45% crap. I'm talking 60%+ and that ain't bloody likely. Even Texas and Ohio wins won't cut it. She needs to take everything like she did Rhode Island, where she won 58% to 40%.
Side Note: Texas is another one of those crazy states that has a primary and a caucus. They're held on the same day and you have to vote in the primary to participate in the caucus. 126 delegates are allocated in the primary, 67 in the caucus, 12 are superdelegates. Clinton won Texas 51%-47% giving her 4 more delegates than Obama. However, Obama won the caucus 56%-44%, meaning that 4 delegate advantage will likely become 2.
All that being said, the Republicans are at a serious disadvantage here. They have a candidate while the Democrats do not. It's hard to run a campaign against someone when you don't yet know who you're running against. As such, the Democrats should target McCain with both barrels, airing ads and making the case to voters that each of them is the person best suited to beat John McCain. Sadly, they won't because their campaigns are stupid.
Imagine a small child, sitting in the corner of a room, eating the sweet-tasting lead paint chips off the wall and hitting itself on the head with its Nerf bat. That's pretty much who's running the campaigns of either Democratic candidate. The smart thing to do would be to double-team McCain. And it wouldn't be hard. His record sucks, something I will get into momentarily. Instead, they're both blindly marching on seeking to inflict more and bigger wounds on each other. It's as if a pair of soldiers are sitting in a foxhole and rather than diving on the grenade someone just lobbed over the edge they're each trying to shove the other on to it and in the end they're going to both get themselves blown up by it.
As a public service, I will now do their job for them. From here on out, I would like to address the heads of the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The rest of you can hang around, but you don't have to.
They Call Him Walnuts for a Reason
McCain has a reputation in the press for being a straight-talker, and it is totally undeserved. All that needs to be done is to cobble together some of his assorted statements. Start around 2000-2002 and then jump ahead to about two years ago. For instance, on CNN Late Edition, McCain said of Iraq, "I believe we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." (9/29/02) This was one of many similar statements he made on how easy it was going to be when we went to war with Iraq. But in 2006 at an Ohio fund raiser he stated, "The American people were led to believe that this would be some kind of day at the beach which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be very very difficult to undertake." (8/22/06) Gosh Senator! Where would they have gotten that idea? The part that kills me is the "many of us fully understood from the beginning." It's such a boot-to-the-head statement.
Then there's that famous, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right." That was in Virginia Beach, VA (2/28/00). As we all remember, McCain later was honored to give the commencement at Falwell's Liberty University.
Hell, sometimes he'll contradict himself in the same program. One of my favorites was on Hardball where he reversed himself on gay marriage in under 15 minutes. "I think gay marriage should be allowed, if there's a ceremony kind of thing if you want to call it that I don't have any problem with that." But later stated, "I believe if people want to have private ceremonies it's fine. I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal." (10/18/07)
Even better though was on "This Week with George Stephanopolous." George asks him, flat out, "Are you against civil unions for gay couples?" McCain says, "No, I'm not. But the- that initiative [NH civil unions] I think was misinterpreted."
So George comes back, "So you're for civil unions?" and McCain responds, "No. I am for the ability of two - I do not believe gay marriage should be legal. But I do believe that people ought to be able to enter into contracts, exchange powers of attorney, other ways that people who have relationships can enter into." (11/19/06)
No, he's not against it. No, he's not for it. He likes that straddling the fence place. He digs the way the pointy bits on the fence rub against his taint. And there's a rough, splintery bit he can scratch his balls on, his gigantic balls that he must have to call himself Mr. Straight-Talk while failing to answer a DIRECT FUCKING QUESTION!
How easy do I have to make this for you, you simpering little self-destructive shits? Do you want me to splice the video together for you? Well tough. I can't. Because Robert Greenwald already did it! But you won't use it. You fucking cowards. Admit it. You're Republicans! You're not trying to win. You just want the country to be totally fucked come November. Get over here! I'm not done with you!
McCain touts himself as the friend of the veteran. He's been there. He's fought the hard fight. And I give him full marks for serving in the military, but it says something when he gets lousy marks from veterans groups. In 2006 he scored a 20 from Disabled American Veterans. In the same year, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave him a grade of D. His only mark better than 50 is a single 100 from Vietnam Veterans of America in 2003-2004. So the other guys who have been there and fought the fight think Napoleon here is no friend of theirs.
And there is no way you're going to use any of this because you're too busy chasing your own tails. Still, I suppose it beats crawling off with it tucked between your legs, which is what you will doubtless do come November. You need to stop fighting with each other and start fighting McCain or you're just going to mortally wound whoever has to go up against him in the general.
This contest is far too important for you to be screwing around like this. The next president will likely appoint one if not two more justices to the Supreme Court. Scalia and Roberts have already pushed the court a long way to the right. If McCain gets in, the judicial branch is screwed for the next thirty years minimum. You people are doing a big thing badly. Shape up or when the sky falls down I will see to it that it lands squarely on your heads.