It’s been quite a while since I posted anything political on my blog, hell the last post I had Hillary was still in the race. Since then Obama became the presumptive nominee, Tim Russert suddenly passed, and some people have been getting mad that Obama has been turning a bit more “towards the middle” for the upcoming general election.

First some are up in arms that Obama is now wearing a flag pin. For the record he has never said he won’t wear one, but that for some people wearing one “became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism.” With him wearing one now he gives the GOP a little less ammunition to try to use against him.

Now FISA is in the spotlight once again, and Obama’s reluctant support for the new bill has been criticized by many as a complete reversal of his earlier stance, so much so that Obama wrote a blog post stating his position. If he is elected only time will tell if he ensures that the executive does not follow the same path that the Bush admin has done over the past 7+ years.

The latest bit is on Iraq. His recent comments that “original position” on withdrawal has always been that “we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.” And that “when I go to Iraq . . . I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies” has been taken by some as a complete reversal. On the contrary he has always said that he wants an stable Iraq but not at the cost of American lives and that we have to have a safe withdrawal of one to two brigades a month.

So we shall see what the future holds. There are plenty of Obama followers that are watching closely, including myself, that will hold his feet to the fire when necessary.

I am still following the Democratic nomination race and didn’t have much to post up since it has seemed for a while that despite Hillary’s desperate attempts to get the nomination are futile, her rhetoric had calmed down some and with the win in Oregon Obama’s path to clinch it is pretty inevitable. But Hillary has outdone herself once again and it dives into the more personal truths about her.

On May 22, she had repeated some comments that went largely unnoticed in March of 2008 about one of the reasons she is staying in the race. Nearly verbatim this is her most recent comments:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,”

Yep, she has invoked (again) the spectre of an assassination against Obama. She since says that her comments are merely saying that since her Husband won the 92 nomination in June and Bobby’s assassination in June, both being in California, are just a milestone that “campaigns last this long” is just a poorly worded smoke screen. This is all similar to the repeated attempts to discredit Obama on numerous grounds, but this one is a particularly epic blunder. Superdelegates will not look kindly to these comments as someone who is ready to lead a nation, but a person desperate to win.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Hillary Clinton has really poisoned this year’s Democratic nomination. She had this smug sense of entitlement to win the nomination, packed her election team with cronies that mimics Bushs’ cronyism, and just rode the “wave in inevitability”. But she did not anticipate the surge of Obama support and neither did her team. After Super Tuesday, and a winning streak that any professional sports team should be envious of, her chances to win by the delegate count became almost non-existent and signs of desperation began to surface. The goal posts continue to move, pledged delegates became segregated into “primary delegates” and “caucus delegates”, and we kept on getting reminded that all delegates did not have to adhere to the public will.

Now, some real reasoning has surfaced on why she is still in, a reasoning that disgusting to bring up, and even more disgusting that she has not outright apologized about it. Our sick state of politics has bread this “everything to win” mentality that Hillary has thoroughly embraced, while Obama has stayed above the fray time and time again when the mud wrestling commenced.

Hillary has proven to the world she is not fit to lead, she cannot inspire a nation to rise out of the mess that eight years of Bush, and 30+ years of dogmatic rule has brought to us. And now with the continued desperation of her comments to attempt to convince people that she is entitled to the Democratic nomination, she has essentially sealed her fate as a person ruined by politics and unable to transform herself beyond that dogma that has spoiled our political landscape.

The 21st debate in the Democratic race was bound to be a sleeper debate. After a year long bout of debates, whittling down from 8 candidates to 2, many issues had been brought to the forefront and some talked ad nasuem. But the 21st debate in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC and moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos (a former Clinton aid) treaded into new territory of yellow journalism.
The two-hour commercial laden event fell well short of even the loosest definition of a debate. Barack Obama with his front-runner status was inundated with a number of right-field questions. If you heard it on the radio you would have thought that Karl Rove penned the questions.Instead of relevant issues that face the Pennsylvania voters, we were left with questions about lapel pins, Bitter-gate, the Reverend Wright, the Weather Underground, and Capital Gains taxes.

For the first 45-50 minutes all the questions were fielded towards Obama and they were formatted in such a way that made you wonder if your cable box accidentally went to FOX News. During this moderator versus candidate format, George and Charlie constantly interrupted Obama, repeated questions over and over, and threw softballs towards Hillary. And in what appears to be even more bias, the audience camera pan hit Chelsea Clinton no less than seven times, but no Obama surrogates were focused upon.In the end it looked like a live swiftboating was in progress. While Obama did his best to fend off the onslaught, including some cheap jabs by Hillary, he was a bit taken back from the onslaught. He still stood tall and came off as unscathed as one could.
There was some relevant news from the debate. It seems that Hillary wouldn’t mind going into a full-bore war against any aggressor of Israel (or other countries). She also blew one of her Superdelegate talking points that Obama could not win against Obama as she stated “yes, yes, yes he can win”. Obama also clearly stated that he felt the 2nd amendment was an individual right.

ABC performed a terrible disservice to the people of Pennsylvania and America. With tactics that would make the RNC blush, they plunged into tabloid innuendo and old stories. There was very little talk on policy so for those undecided voters who cared about policy issues they will have to rely on websites and stump speeches to help them form their final opinion. One thing is for certain this debate was quite possibly the worst televised debate ever.

Since our founding fathers had declared freedom for the US, our country has had growing pains that should have caused anarchy and mayhem till the country was shattered and unrecoverable. Through civil and global wars, our country has stood the test of time for over two centuries. One of the things that have made this country great is its ability to shape laws over time to reflect social norms, unforeseen subject matter, and technology; this ability to adapt to modern times has allowed our country to thrive through the best and worst times throughout our history.

But with the great ideas that the US has been built upon, there are still great injustices, mass corruption, and lethargic participation from the majority of Americans. We do not have to continue down this path, and I feel that the time has come to re-examine our election process and rights some wrongs that have come into play over the years. I started a thread in the Soap Box of ArsTechnica to flush out some ideas and the results below are a list of some items I think we can implement in our lifetime with hard work and a strong united voice.

Registration
There are a number of conflicting state laws that defines eligibility of its citizens to vote. From purging of voters off registration rolls to barring ex-felons to vote for life, we need a set of standard laws for the states to adhere to. I would also argue that any US citizen of voting age with a valid SSN should be eligible to vote. It could also be argued that the voting age be lowered to 16 (which unfortunately would require a Constitutional Amendment) since a lot of what is happening in the world will directly affect them and they have no voice. Maybe with the lowering of the voting age schools will focus a bit more on civics and our political landscape.

Debates
Debates for the highest seat of power have been somewhat of a farce. The audience is filtered or silenced. News reporters tend to ask soft or irrelevant questions. It’s time we conduct real Town Hall debates where the candidates are asked the tough questions and answer them beyond 30 second sound bites.

Vote by mail
Our elections have become more complex over time, and as it’s been proven in the past voters can be easily confused by a hard to follow ballot. I propose that for the Presidential Election we implement a secured paper ballot (example here), and have a federal agency and independent auditor overview the process. Open source optical ballot readers can verify the initial count, and then all ballots are hand counted. If there is a 0.05% deviation from the automated count and the hand count, steps would need to be taken to ensure that the election is valid.

Popular Vote
While the Electoral College is built into the constitution, some clever legislation called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been circulating around the states and has become law in MD and NJ. The NPVIC keeps the EC intact, but they pledge their EC votes to the National Popular Vote winner.

Closed Primaries
The two-party system has stagnated ideas and has placed a stranglehold on compromise. While the two-party system can’t be banned why not force the Democrats and Republicans to choose their candidates without state interference. Other parties can do the same and they should submit their winners to the FEC no later than June 1. To get on the ballot you need more than 0.5% of eligible voters support, which should remove “Mickey Mouse” off the ballot.

Stage 1 Election
The winners of their parties are placed on a ballot with other parties that have. There should be a two week period to vote for your candidates though preferential voting (choose your top three candidates in order). My example ballot shows what that could look like.

The top two winners face off in the General Election.

Stage 2 Election - Top Two Run Off
The top two winners of the Stage 1 election face each other. The winner receives the majority National Popular Vote.

These are just some examples of solutions we can achieve to reform our election process.

So almost everyone has seen by now the 3AM ad that Hillary used to give the perception that she is ready by using fear politics. Well do you know that the girl in that ad is all grown up and is a precinct captain for the Obama campaign? Here is her “endorsement” ad for Obama:

I wonder if Hillary has pondered this equation. If she wins by some Super-delegate grab, she is likely to alienate the most dependable voting group in America, African-Americans because, let’s face it, she is now trying to win on the pillar of entitlement. She has not won in any bracket other than Super-delegates, and if the election is stolen, African-Americans will look at this moment as a coup for their support. Seriously the first serious African-American candidate to be in the lead, who has inspired millions, and if she takes that away, that is it. HRC would never win the nomination for the simple fact most African-Americans will not vote for her. Hell the repercussions could last many years, decades, or even longer.

Thinking of this makes me wonder if she cares one iota for the party. I mean hell she was a Republican before she switched. Will her friendship with McCain be great enough, and her dismay at Obama be strong enough, that she will risk the lifeblood of the party so she can lose or so she can hand the presidency to McCain?

The same thing would happen if Obama was trailing like her, many women would feel outraged and could not vote or split. No let me correct myself, if Obama was in the same position as Hillary is right now, he would be a footnote, he would be long forgotten already. But Hillary has the name brand recognition and the deep ties into many in the party, so they keep her campaign on life support when it should have been abandoned by now.

If Hillary continues to go on, she will lose, she will divide the party further, and she will taint any good she has done. At the beginning the battle was for who has the best policy and since SC it’s been how much damage the campaign can do to Obama. Negative campaigning may work for some people, but at at terrible cost. There is a reason Obama has inspired people, a reason that crosses even into some of the Republican party, the partisan bickering and endless swift-boating needs to stop. Hillary has ignored that, and her campaign has spread lies and innuendo (NATFA and the Obama garb pic) just to name two small instances. Why? Your lies will get caught, as they were in the debate and now in your WH papers.

If this was a positive campaign I would say rock on Hillary. Even if the stakes were against you work your best. But instead you have shown the worst side of politics, the desire to win at any cost. That is a shame, I once held you in high regard. I know no politician is perfect but you have sunk to the depths I don’t know you can ever recover from.

Obama gave an amazing speech today to help qwell the controversy of Pastor Wright, and hit on some many profound points that should move anyone who sees it or reads it.

The problem is for those that do not read it or see it, they will be greeted by a headline like this on CNN a couple minutes after it was delivered, and after a few minutes was replaced with a second image:

This positive speech by Obama, that lasted quite a while, has been reduced to a snippet of it that on the face seems very negative. Just another example that the Media is an antagonist for chaos. The tone of that headline in no way reflects the profound positive message that he delivered. Shame on you CNN!

It seems the media has a love affair with reporting some erroneous claims about Domestic spying. The AP and NY times continue to say that the program started after the September 11th attacks, but in reality the NSA approached Qwest and AT&T many months prior to 9/11. So not only does this lie of “terrorism surveillance program” come from the White House, but the media is just as complicit to publish incorrect information about the program.

So when you continue to hear the debates about FISA and how the Democrats in power right now refuse to go along with retroactive immunity (even though Bush says they didn’t break the law, but yet they need retroactive immunity) let’s pause and look at the facts. They spied on Americans without a court order, they did this in lieu of the FISA law that allows them to tap people for 72 hours without a court order in the first place, and this violates our constitutional rights, PERIOD. There should be no debate. Hell we should be prosecuting Bush for not upholding the Constitution of the US, something every president swears to do.

Bush is not worried about the capture of intelligence via a revised FISA law. He is only worried about giving legal protection to telecommunication companies that have broken the law.

Apparently part of the Clinton strategy is to come up with an attempt to make her position seem close to Obama and at the same time Hillary is to try to discredit Obama’s wins… by… creating a new category of delegates.

First we of course we have pledged delegates and superdelegates. Well now, according to the world of Hillary, we have “caucus delegates”. This self-interpretation is an apparent attempt to give less value to caucus states and more value to primary states. This was augmented by Gov Rendell stating that caucuses are “undemocratic”. Of course this is a desperate plea to the Superdelegates that somehow she is still relevant but the unfortunate truth is the Superdelegates hold all the keys in this election.

So not only is she now attempting to belittle Obama at every turn but she is also deliberately devaluing potential states that could swing in the Democratic favor someday. This also exposes the fact that the only way Hillary will win in November if elected is to win with the Gore/Kerry state count +1. If Obama wins he has a greater chance to pick up the red and purple states and can win with a larger Electoral Vote count.

On the trail today Obama caught a new inroad into the hypocrisy with the Clinton’s call for him to be VP.

“I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place,” Obama said. He went on to note the apparent double standard created by Clinton’s “commander in chief” attacks and noted that former President Bill Clinton said in 1992 his only criteria for picking a running mate was selecting someone who would be immediately ready to take over in the Oval Office.”If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I would be such a great vice president. Do you understand that? … They are trying to hoodwink you,” he said. “You can’t say he’s not ready on day one, unless he’d be your vice president, then he’s ready on day one.”

The Clinton response? I’m paraphrasing… “He’s rot ready now, but he could be ready after Hillary is nominated” Just amazing! Every day brings a new topic that is more radical than the day before. By the time we get to Colorado she will be claiming that Kang and Kodos will be her Secretary of State and Labor Secretary choices.

Back on the voting trail. Today is caucus day in Wyoming and I find it very peculiar that the press is now ignoring (for the most part) WY and just focusing on PA. Something tells me that if Obama wins today (WY is a caucus state so he has an advantage out of the gate) that his win will not have any perceived “momentum killer” for Hillary as it rightfully should. Actually today’s headlines should read “Obama wins WY and TX” since he leading in the pledged delegate count there. With 12 pledged delegates at stake Obama could nearly negate any delegate win Hillary had with a big win.

Another interesting thing to consider. Right now Obama leads in the Popular Vote and Pledged Delegates and Number of States. A fourth category not mentioned is Wins by Percentage which Wikipedia now has as their top graphic on the Dem race page.

click here to view a larger image

Clinton has had 2 whole states where she has won beyond 20% of the vote, where Obama has won 19. Why isn’t the press talking about this? Ah yeah I remember they are more interested in a prolonged fight to help out their ratings now and in that they are regurgitating every Clinton “were gonna win” angle. As usual the Main Stream Media is doing a major disservice to the country. (UPDATE: I stand partially corrected, MSNBC just put on main story the Wyoming race so kudos to MSNBC)