Letters to the Editor
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Caucus night in Texas
I went to my caucus last night here in Texas. I live in a conservative Republican area of Houston, which would normally get ten people to show up to a Democratic caucus on a good day. My precinct had about 120 people. We only had to wait until about 7:45 for the voting line to finish. At the same location there were two other precincts meeting and they had large turn outs as well. Most of the people there were African American, and of course Obama supporters. My precinct ended up about 70 for Obama and about 50 for Clinton. I was in the Clinton caucus. We were entitled to elect five delegates and five alternates to the state senatorial district conventions. The Obama caucus got to elect eight of each. In my caucus we each got five votes to cast for delegates, which we could split however we wished; we could cast all five for one delegate if we wanted.
I went to my first Democratic caucus in Texas in 1972. I was for Muskee, but he did not get enough votes, so I switched to McGovern. The other major candidate was George Wallace. The McGovernites had the majority and back then it was winner take all. However, McGovern had come out against winner take all and so the McGovern caucus argued for two hours about whether to let the racists have some delegates to support their bigot. (I guess you can figure out which side of that argument I was on.) I had not seen so much enthusiasm and participation at a caucus since; until last night.
If you think that this close race is not good for the Democratic party, I am here to tell you that you are wrong. If this were not a close race, most of those people would not have shown up last night. Many of those people got there first taste of participatory democracy last night and some of them will catch the bug and be involved for years to come. It was a good night for Democrats in Texas and for democracy.
Obama had three ads for each of Clinton’s and ran full page ads in metropolitan newspapers daily. Even so, Clinton did not give up and the result has been good for us all.
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A Clinton-Obama ticket?
I don't know. Assuming Obama will have more delegates at the end, why should he take the 2nd spot on a Hillary ticket?
And if Hillary would be persuaded to be Obama's vice president, I'd be continually worried that she would poison his soup during one of their lunchtime meetings.
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Some thoughts
I've had a couple hours of sleep and calmed down a little. So I feel like I can think about this without having my head explode. I can also congratulate Hillary and her supporters on their victories yesterday.
I am conflicted about having a redo of the primaries in FL and MI. I like the idea of a redo and I understand the frustrations of FL and MI voters. On the other hand, I think that rules are rules. FL and MI voters who went to their primaries knew that their votes would not count. There is no doubt that Hillary is pushing for these delegates because she feels she "won" both contests. There is also no doubt that she would be arguing just as forcefully for the votes not to be counted if she had lost.
I really think in this nomination process so far, Hillary has been allowed to define what is "winning." She defines victory as targets that she can reach. When it becomes clear that she can't reach those targets, she just redefines victory. I am frustrated that the press, her supporters and even Obama's campaign seems to be going along with this. Case in point: Hillary said she would have this sewn up by February 5th. Then she said she was going to win big in TX and OH. Then she said that unless Obama won TX, OH, VT and RI, she had won. Finally, this morning she claimed that her campaign has turned a corner, even though she was 20 points ahead in TX and OH three weeks ago and even though she will probably come out of these contests with an even bigger delegate deficit. I do wonder when do we start to hold her accountable for setting expectations and then not meeting them?
I also think we need to put to bed the idea that she should be the nominee because she won the "big" states. Our election system has delegates and electoral votes so that there is a balanced geographical distribution of votes. The system is designed to prevent the more populous states from controlling elections. Yet, isn't this exactly what the Clinton campaign is advocating? That a minority of voters, from a limited geographical area, should decide who is the nominee? Furthermore, in CA, MA, and NY, Obama won nearly more or more votes that McCain and Romney combined. If you add Obama's votes to the 75% of Hillary voters who are willing to also vote for Obama, doesn't that make him a shoe-in to carry those states?
Finally, and then I'll leave it, I think it is absolutely wrong to push for this primary season to continue as long as possible and for Democrats to go into the convention knowing the super delegates will choose the nominee. Clinton did threw everything she had at Obama. I think the comment about both she and McCain having "lifetimes" of experience is a perfect example. Obama's campaign has now threatened to play just as dirty. The bigger picture is that we want, no, we NEED, to put a Democrat in the White House in November. How does allowing the Republicans to sit back, raise money, and take notes from the Democrats as to which attacks worked and which didn't, help us reach that goal?
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protect me from what I want-
or it is as easy as a schoolyard fight and goes like that:
Two classmates beat each other up and when the bully from the other school arrives - there is nothing more to give.
And everyday this game will be repeated on Salon until the bully leads by twenty points. Does anyone here still remember the good old times - I think it was just a few month ago - when the lead of the Dems candidate - any candidate - against a Republican was in the double digits?
The good old times are over and even if Hillary and Obama from tomorrow on start praising each other nonstop - they good times never will come back. I always thought my Dems are much more clever than the Repugs - but as Jebldmm wrote: Don't go to Daily Kos you wouldn't believe the garbage passing for truth there right now. It used to be a good site, but most people who have the ability to rub two brain cells together to form a spark have headed for higher ground. It is a series of mudfests all aimed at either promoting Obama or trashing Clinton. And every single day these type of "mudfests" on Daily Kos AND on Salon go on - and with every day we are
losing. Obama is losing - Hillary is losing - and by november you might not find enough Americans anymore, who are willing to vote for such a bunch of sorry losers and their downgrated and castrated candidate! And please don't tell me - "this is how it works on the Internet". Go to the housinbubbleblog.com and learn what you can achieve with a common cause and common sense. Learn guys and gals - Learn - because by november your major problem will be "the economy" anyway and you might regret, that you spent days after days building up John McCain without even noticing it.