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.

A few months ago I gave a tryout to a free inventory management tool called Spiceworks. I had always been hesitant trying out freeware but it was worth a look at and since then I haven’t looked back. While it is not perfect (I still wish it had AD integration) you can’t beat it for the price, especially in today’s dwindling IT budgets.

Well I just stumbled upon another tool (thanks 4sysops) called Spotlight on Windows. This looks like a dream tool to manage your system’s health, monitor Event Logs, etc. I hope this is as good as Spiceworks!

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)

It’s been 48 hours since the polls came in on Tuesday on Hillary RI, OH, and TX-primary victory. Before that victory there was a lot of questionable behavior coming from the Clinton team. Since then she has outright gone Republican-in-Democrat’s clothing on us. Let me explain.

NATFAgate
Just before the Tuesday vote there was a story about a Senior Advisor from the Obama camp talking to the Canadian ambassador about the debate and NAFTA. In that conversation it was reported that this Senior Advisor said “don’t worry, it’s just campaign rhetoric”. This story got some traction and the Obama camp denied the conversation took place. Then a memo was released “confirming some conversation happened” and Obama came out unaware the conversation happened but had to start backpedaling. Well it has now turned out that the call did not come from the Obama camp, but rather the Clinton camp. The Clinton camp denies this but this is a growing story. Mind you this story could have very well cost Obama votes in OH where NAFTA is a big issue.

Hillary for McCain?
So if you are running for President would you psudo-endorse your contender on the other side of the aisle? Of course not, but Hillary has done just that.

“I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

And apparently there is a Commander in Chief threshold to boot to. Who would have known?

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy.” And “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”

So apparently not only is Obama only worth a single anti-war speech he made in 2002 but McCain is better than him. And now there is this new Hillary-threshold-level that Obama can’t reach. This is beyond surprising this is flat out dirty and something you would expect from Bush/Rove. But wait it gets better…

Ken Starr == Obama!?!?!
Since Obama lost on Tuesday the Obama camp has been getting aggressive with Hillary leading like this statement

This week she made a series of arguments about why she would be a superior candidate, She made the experience argument that she’s been making repeatedly, particularly about foreign policy and her ability to handle a crisis. I think it’s important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it. Which I think has been going on for quite some time.”

For instance, “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries” as First Lady, but “it’s not clear what she had negotiated — treaties or agreements, or she was handling crises during this period of time? My sense is, the answer is no. So, I have not seen any evidence she is better equipped to handle a crisis. And if the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she’s certainly not going to beat John McCain on that.”

Later, Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was unequivocal that the Obama team had had enough.”What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. “There’s no doubt we have held ourselves to a standard of engagement. I don’t think the public is looking for the candidates to savage each other…but you can’t play by two sets of rules, and we understand that.”

“Let’s let there be a vetting, but the vetting is going to be on both candidates,” Axelrod said. “She doesn’t want to release her tax returns, okay, fine. She says she’s a master at foreign policy. She’s a master at health care. What happened? Why was it such an abysmal failure? Why did we have to wait 14 more years?”

So now that Obama is getting a aggressive the Hillary camp has now equated this to the Ken Starr investigation on Bill:

“When Sen. Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Sen. Clinton,” Wolfson said. “I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president.”

Seriously did she steal Karl Rove’s playbook? These trends I am sure are just the tip of the iceberg and we can only imagine what other things she will say to try to get the nomination. This race is going to get a lot nastier.

So it’s been nearly 24 hours since the first polls closed giving Obama a decisive victory in VT, only to see him lose TX (in the primary), RI, and OH in the later hours. While the victory for Hillary has given her new legs in the media, it is nearly impossible for her to catch up to Barack’s delegate count so now it seems that either candidate will either have to “make nice” or go through a brokered election. I can’t help but be a bit put off on her tactics as of late. Like SC, the Clinton camp went for the scorched earth technique (dubed the Kitchen Sink) and went as negative as they could go. This included a very sour commment about experience:

“I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

So for those that does not realize the impact of that statement, she considers McCain ahead of Obama, just not the best statement to make. Clinton may have won 3 states on Tuesday but as other contests have shown she fights very dirty for those votes.

I find it interesting what the base of Hillary is (except for the last Obama 12 victories ). Poor, uneducated, women of all age groups, half of white men, and older voters. It seems that Obama still has a uphil battle with these core voters given the false claims that Obama has to contest at ever juncture.

There are some rumblings now to have a “dream ticket” of Obama and Hillary and while I am sure that the DNC wants this to happen now so the infighting stops, it’s political suicide for either VP candidate. If Obama is the lead than adding Hillary to the VP spot adds the serious baggage the Clinton brand comes with. If Hillary asks Obama to be on the ticket, Obama risks becoming part of the establishment and worse he will be a lame-duck VP since Bill will be the defacto VP. While the “dream ticket” might settle some weary voters’ minds it could cost the party dearly.

So now we have many weeks till PA, and a possible revote for FL and MI. This is one long and dragged out primary season to be sure! And just to show how long it will get it seems Obama has had enough and it’s time to take it to the matress.

This week she made a series of arguments about why she would be a superior candidate,” Obama said, a whiff of frustration in his voice that he may have waited too long. “She made the experience argument that she’s been making repeatedly, particularly about foreign policy and her ability to handle a crisis. I think it’s important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it. Which I think has been going on for quite some time.”

For instance, “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries” as First Lady, but “it’s not clear what she had negotiated — treaties or agreements, or she was handling crises during this period of time? My sense is, the answer is no. So, I have not seen any evidence she is better equipped to handle a crisis. And if the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she’s certainly not going to beat John McCain on that.”

Character issues also would be explored, Obama predicted. “She’s made the argument that she’s been thoroughly vetted in contrast to me. I think it’s important to examine that argument because if the suggestion is somehow on issues of ethics or disclosure or transparency, that somehow she’s going to have the better record than I have, and will be better able to withstand Republican attacks, I think that’s an issue that should be tested,” said Obama. “So, I think that over the coming weeks, we will join her in that argument.”

Later, Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was unequivocal that the Obama team had had enough.”What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. “There’s no doubt we have held ourselves to a standard of engagement. I don’t think the public is looking for the candidates to savage each other…but you can’t play by two sets of rules, and we understand that.”

“Let’s let there be a vetting, but the vetting is going to be on both candidates,” Axelrod said. “She doesn’t want to release her tax returns, okay, fine. She says she’s a master at foreign policy. She’s a master at health care. What happened? Why was it such an abysmal failure? Why did we have to wait 14 more years?”

She asked for it, now it’s a battle. Wyoming is next on March 8th and Mississippi on March 11th then the long stretch to April 22nd and the “Keystone State”.

As I am planning out my 2009 data-center implementation at my job I learned that Dell and HP are going to be releasing their servers with VMWare ESX 3i “embedded” in early April for Dell and March 31, 2008 for HP. For those considering virtualized environments and are considering diskless servers, this might be the way to go!