It's time. Barack Obama's campaign politely asked Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to not attend the Democratic National Convention. Kilpatrick is a superdelegate because of a position he holds with the DNC. He's also under indictment for several felony counts including perjury and assaulting a Wayne County Sheriff's deputy. Pretty much every major politician in Michigan has either called on Kilpatrick to resign or publicly stated they hope the situation would resolve itself quickly so the city can "move forward." That's a nice way of saying Kilpatrick should resign.
Technically Kilpatrick's bail restrictions prevent him from leaving metro Detroit so he can't actually attend the convention anyway but publicly stripping Kilpatrick of his superdelegate status would a significant and positive step for the DNC and Obama. I'll explain after the jump.
For me this is the moment when this primary race ended. When I guy like Tim Russert says "we now know who the Democratic nominee will be" you can put it down as the gospel truth. That's what makes guys like Russert so great. He didn't make reckless projections or pronouncements so when he made a call it was something you could trust. He will be missed.
First off let tell you how impressed I was with Hillary Clinton and her speech Sautrday. This time last year I was prepared to support Bill Richardson's campaign. That changed after Barack Obama's Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day speech. That was, in my mind, the single best speech of the campaign. Senator Clinton's speech Saturday is a close second. Come January 20, 2009, as President Barack Obama is sworn in, we will look back on Senator Clinton's endorsement speech as the practical beginning of the general election campaign.
This week in Canada, a British Columbia tribunal heard a case against Macleans magazine charging the venerable publication with violating human rights laws. The reason? Because an organization called the Canadian Islamic Congress accused Macleans of publishing xenophobic and anti-Islamic articles...most notably an excerpt from a book entitled America Alone: The End of the World as we know it.
The book’s author Mark Steyn is a Canadian neo-conservative. His writings present argue that western culture is in danger of being overrun because the west does not stand strong again Islam. It’s an odious and unimpressive argument. Except, if western societies deem themselves too frail to face Steyn’s odious viewpoints or stand up to anti-free speech pressure groups, how will such societies could stand up to bona fide threats such as al-Qaeda.
Edward R. Murrow once said (at the height of McCarthyism) that "we did not descend from fearful men." In other words, we should not fear strange or even evil ideas. Instead decent people should fight back with reason, argument, and humanity. I agree.
I'm all for unity and coming together. I'm all for winning graciously and acknowledging the well run race of a vanquished opponent. And I'm all for Obama selecting a prominent Clinton supporter (ie Ted Strickland, Mike Easley, or whomever) as his VP nominee. However Obama must draw a line in the sand regarding Clinton as VP. Obama's base needs to rise up and Clinton is not acceptable under any circumstance. ABH - Anybody But Hillary.
UPDATED REASON #1A: Her "concession" speech. What the fuck?
Senator Clinton has suggested that West Virginia is a key battleground state essential to winning the White House in November. I don't believe that argument for three reasons:
Primary elections and general elections are different animals.
West Virgnia isn't a swing state. They haven't had a close (margin of victory less than 5%) presidential election for at least a generation. I went back all the way to 1976. Bush's wins in WV suggest a significant demographic shift that has turned the state from reliably Democratic to reliably Republican. The myth of clean coal, etc, etc.
What states prove to be the battleground states can vary from election to election based upon the given candidates and national/regional circumstances. Some states are constantly close in the general but as always trends continue until they stop.
However, let's accept Clinton's argument that the battleground states are what matter. Analysis after the jump:
Hillary Clinton, as expected, has won West Virginia. Congratulation Senator Clinton. She certainly deserves credit for battling back and making this race competitive. A lesser candidate would have been done after Obama's post-Super Tuesday run.
Reporters are speculating that Hillary Clinton has been emboldened by the lack of a rush to Obama on the part of superdelegates. However the numbers suggest a relatively strong surge of superdelegate support for the presumptive nominee (by which I mean Sen. Obama). Consider these numbers from Democratic Convention Watch after the jump...
Obama has won this nomination and he won this nomination decisively. He is ahead in every conceivable metric - delegates, pledged delegates, popular vote, states won, money raised, individual donors, and on and on. It's appropriate for Obama to select a former Clinton supporter as the Vice-Presidential nominee but not Clinton. As an Obama supporter (live in Michigan so I haven't voted for him yet) and an Obama donor, I would regard an Obama-Clinton ticket as a betrayal.
Conventional wisdom has been wrong before, I'll acknowledge that up front. However betting against the conventional wisdom is a little like betting against the house in Vegas. More times than not you'll lose. Right now the conventional wisdom for tonight's primaries suggests a 3-5 point win for Clinton in Indiana and a 8-10 point win for Obama in North Carolina. Depending on the breaks (and assuming the results stay true to the conventional wisdom) that means Obama increase his lead by as few as 2 to as many as 12 delegates tonight. Frankly, I think the candidates are too familiar and the voters are too entrenched for any game changing surprises as this point. This isn't a campaign, it's a slog. So what does tonight really matter?
According to Democratic Convention Watch, Obama has picked up over 130 superdelegate endorsements since Super Tuesday in February. Clinton has increased her superdelegate total by 62 since that same date. In short, Obama will get two supers for every super that Clinton picks up. Her superdelegate lead is down to just 16 and shrinking.
Gas prices are rising and the politicians are worked up into a tizzy. John McCain and Hillary Clinton want to defund the Highway Trust Fund to create a temporary gas tax cuts. Barack Obama wants to invest in alternative fuel. Everyone is wagging their fingers at the evil oil companies for the rising prices.
I won’t defend oil companies anymore than I will defend the New York Yankees but I have no patience for hang-wringing over gas prices. Frankly they need to go higher. I don’t give a good God damn about the single mothers or college student the politicians will drag up on stage in a pathetic attempt to humanize a problem that is our own fault and no politician dares to offer a real solution.
Lyndon LaRouche, the man who killed Jeremiah Duggan, says less than a million people died in the Holocaust, denies global warming, accuses Queen Elizabeth of running the worldwide drug trade, and believes MI5 "created" the Beatles to promote the use of LSD says Obama is a racist monkey. LaRouche also says Obama's dad was an MI5 spy and that Obama's mother was a whore. Is it any wonder Ramsey Clark and Gene McCarthy love this guy?
For the record, I have never been a Jacksonian or William Jennings Bryan democrat. I've always been one of those Old Whig types that believe unchecked democracy would be the despotism of the many. The American southern experience during Jim Crow certainly validates that viewpoint.
With that prejudice stated up front, I also democratic institutions have been a valuable asset to our republic. We the people elect our leaders to run the country under the rule of law. It is a wonderful system but it requires the people to elect competent leaders. Far too many American's bought into George W. Bush's regular guy shtick and look what we have. The world is a complicated place and I feel much safer with an intelligent, educated President rather than Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel. Common people (and I count myself among them) are all too often common. I want a President (and Governor and Mayor and legislators) that know what the hell they are doing.
Helter Skelter? Really? I guess Gravel doesn't know the song was about taking an amusement park ride while high on acid. McCartney wrote for cripes sake. It wasn't political until Charles Manson tried to make it political. And by political I mean used it was to convince a few dim-wits to kill Sharon Tate et al.
Wayne County (MI) Prosecutor Kym Worthy just announced an 8 count indictment against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that includes charges of official misconduct, multiple counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The scandal that has engulfed Mayor Kilpatrick is without question the most unbelievable political scandal maybe ever. Kwame Kilpatrick's mother is Representative Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Kym Worthy deserves serious praise for her handling of this case. She spent the last 2 months quietly investigating these charges. When I say quiet I mean quiet, there were literally no leaks from the prosecutors office. Now with an investigation complete she brought down the hammer. Ms. Worthy was also the assistant prosecutor responsible for the successful case against three police officers in the death of Malice Green in 1993. She is the real deal and a rare bright star among metro Detroit Democrats. Props to you Kym Worthy.
About 15 years ago, Jack Kevorkian began a national debate on physician assisted suicide. Good for him. In the time since then he's demonstrated himself to be an irresponsible narcissist and exactly the kind of nut-job the anti-right to die crowd have been warning us about.
The tragedy is that we need a serious discussion about the ethics of end-of-life care. I can't help but think if Kevorkian was capable of behaving like a responsible, sober-minded advocate the Terry Schivio case would never have happened.
With the exception of Pennsylvania and Oregon, the remaining state to hold delegate contests are all basically red states. They are also states that benefited from the 50-state strategy in 2006. Barack Obama needs to make the remainder of this campaign a referendum on the 50-state strategy. This is the ultimate inner-party wedge issue. Clearly, Clinton is not a supporter of 50-state. Her campaign strategy reads like a rejection of 50-state never mind comments from her campaign about boutique caucuses and red states that don't matter. Hell James Carville wanted Dean fired after the 2006 landslide.
